Pushing The Limits

Geoffrey started off as a computer scientist after graduating from Stanford but after creating a successful start-up that sold to Groupon, a public company he decided to change the trajectory of career and used his incredible intellect to learn more about optimising human performance at first concentrating on enhancing cognitive performance through Nootropic stacks and then delving deep into the science behind the keto diet, intermittent fasting, metabolism, ketone esters and supplements.

He is the founder of the company H.V.N.M (Health via modern nutrition) that licenses the world's most advanced keto ester developed in conjunction Professor Kieran Clarke of the University of Oxford to develop H.V.M.N. Ketone Ester, the world's first ketone ester drink, based on Prof. Clarke and Dr. Richard Veech's (NIH) seminal work on ketone esters and exogenous ketones. Geoffrey is a serial entrepreneur. He previously was CEO and co-founder of Glassmap Inc., a software technology company backed by YCombinator, a top venture capital group In this conversation, Lisa and Geoffrey discuss the power of intermittent fasting, the keto diet, exogenous ketones, the future of biotech and the development of biomarker tracking devices along with a host of other biohacking topics of discussion. Learn more about living longer, healthier lives. You can find out more about Geoffrey Woo at https://hvmn.com/team/geoffrey-woo and his supplement line at https://hvmn.com/ He is also active on instagram @Geoffreywoo You can also subscribe to Geoffreys podcast "HVNM" which Lisa highly recommends. We would like to thank our sponsors for this show: www.vielight.com Makers of Photobiomodulation devices that stimulate the brains mitocondria, the power houses of your brains energy, through infrared light to optimise your brain function. To get 10% off your order use the code: TAMATI at www.vielight.com For more information on Lisa Tamati's programs, books and documentaries please visit www.lisatamati.com For Lisa's online run training coaching go to https://www.lisatamati.com/page/runningpage/ Join hundreds of athletes from all over the world and all levels smashing their running goals while staying healthy in mind and body. 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For Lisa's free weekly Podcast "Pushing the Limits" subscribe on iTunes or your favorite podcast app or visit the website https://www.lisatamati.com/page/podcast/ Transcript of the Podcast: Speaker 1: (00:01) Welcome to pushing the limits, the show that helps you reach your full potential with your host, Lisa Tamati, brought to you by Lisatamati.com Speaker 2: (00:12) Hi Everybody Lisa Tmati here and welcome back to this week's edition of pushing the limits, elevating human performance and helping you optimize your health and sporting performance. This week I have a very interesting man on the show by the name of Geoffrey woo. Now Jeffrey is in San Francisco and Silicon Valley. He was a computer scientist who graduated out of Stanford who then made a startup company that he sold to a public company way back when he was just 23 years old. And then he decided to change tech after having such so much success in that area. He turned his considerable intelligence towards bio hacking and approving and optimizing cognitive performance and now physical performance as well. He has a company now that is called HV him in and he concentrates in the area of keto, the keto diet ketosis ketone esters which is a really interesting area to be involved in. Speaker 2: (01:20) He's also very interested in biomarkers and continuous tracking of biomarkers and net technology. And he's really at the cutting edge of what is happening out there in the biohacking world and optimizing performance. So our conversation goes in all sorts of directions. It's a really, really interesting deep dive into what's coming around the corner. What's happening now. We also dive deep into the subject of the keto diet and ketone esters versus keto salts exogenous ketosis versus doing the keto diet it's uses for changing your metabolism and becoming a fed adapted and you know, real deep dive into all those good top topics. So I hope you enjoy the show. And before we get underway, just a reminder, hop on over to our website at lisatamati.com check out our flagship programs. We've got our online run training Academy running hot where you can optimize your running, get faster, get stronger without burnout and injuries and have my 25 years of knowledge to help you get there. Speaker 2: (02:30) Along with my business partner, Neil Wagstaff, who's been my coach for over a decade and who absolutely saved my bacon. So check that out. If you want to improve your running, whether you're doing your very first five fiveK or whether you're doing your hundreds 100 miler,uwe can help you. And we also have our epigenetics testing program, which we are super excited about. This is a program that we've been running now for the last two years with our clients and it is absolutely next level and giving you personalized about your health and uhow to optimize your abilities,uinsights that we've never before head. The last program we have is the mindset you, which is our mental toughness and mindset Academy,uwhich is an online course and how to develop all the resilience and mental toughness skulls that we'll see you right in life and help you in all aspects. Speaker 2: (03:22) Now I also have my book relentless coming out in March the 11th. It's available now for preorder. This is my third book and it's been one hell of a mission to get it out. So I'm very glad that this baby is nearly born. This is the story of bringing my mum back after her major aneurysm four years ago, and all the protocols, the, the therapies that I use, but most importantly, the mindset and the approach that I talked to this huge, huge challenge of bringing her back from the brink of death. So make sure you head on over to Lisatamati.com Hit the shop button and preorder that now, right over to the show with Jeffrey. Woo. Speaker 3: (04:01) Well, how everybody needs to tell me the here now. I am sitting with Jeffrey. Woo Jeffrey. Good morning. How are you? Speaker 4: (04:09) Good morning. I know you're dialing from New Zealand and it's still morning in San Francisco, California. So a proper good morning. Speaker 3: (04:16) It does, but you are living in the past. So you're a vet. We need something else behind us or anyone else behind us. So I always find that quite weird, but very, very cool that technology allows us to connect Cindy. Now Jeffrey is an amazing man. Oh, you listeners out there who don't know Jeffrey, you assume. Well do. Mmm. He's a, I'd love you to go into a little bit of your background. You're free. You've had an incredible stat life. You were a Stanford computer scientists, but he's gone in a completely different direction, but you've also had a startup company that you've sold on to a public company. I believe ahm what really interested me, I'd love to know a little bit about your background and how the heck you go from computer science to doing what you threw out because that's really a big leap fish, shall we say. Tell us a little bit about yourself. Yeah, Speaker 4: (05:11) Thank you for the very kind introduction there. I think it may look like a large leap from a academic perspective, but really the way I think about my career and my, you know, my life's work at this point is really looking at systems thinking and engineering thinking and applying that approach towards different domains. So obviously you can use engineering techniques to look at computing as a way to solve competing problems. And about five, six years ago I started becoming more and more interested in how do you apply some of that same systems thinking that systems training towards the human system. Right. And I think that in one way you can look at health and wellness and the performance medical sports physiology space as obviously quite quantitative. But I wouldn't say that it's relatively bottoms or maybe like tops down in terms of trying to find an approach. Speaker 4: (06:19) And I think from an engineering perspective, how do we really develop a first principles approach to really understand the quantitative approach, how to optimize, optimize these, these outcomes. So to me, Mmm, a little bit about like the sort of the personal insurances that I realized that a lot of my smartest friends in Silicon Valley where we're applying their big brains to making robots better, making AI better, essentially. That might be a nice way to put it. But most people in Silicon Valley are helping people click, right? Like they are essentially optimizing and targeting people based on their previous experiences. How do I drive traffic and $5 and I was in that industry. And how to mobile app companies so that coming into Groupon, Mmm. And that gave me a little bit of a perhaps a luxury to just think about what I really want to think about and work on. And I thought that human performance was just the next frontier. And that got me down the rabbit hole of being very plugged into the biohacking community. So very much self experimenting and learning just glucose ladders but measures two now starting and running a company called HVM N which stands for health BMR nutrition. Where are we create products and technologies that support a human performance. And you probably have heard of our ketone Ester drink, which a very interesting piece of technology. Speaker 3: (07:45) Yeah, I was really excited to hear about that and we'll get into that later because you are a very big expert on ketosis and Keto and everything. Can you tell me basically and I just found it really fascinating. Was there a personal health process or someone in the family or anything that you decided you wanted to go into the spice? So it was just purely I want to optimize my moments in the performance of people. In general. Speaker 4: (08:10) Yeah. Actually the ladder. And I know that many people in the community of what I've talked to, literally thousands of people in the broader community. I feel like most people make very drastic life changes when there is a crisis. There's a health, and I have to admit, I was just fortunately in a very different space where I was just healthy and I was wondering can I even be any better? So is very much very focused on the optimization perspective. But now in retrospect, I think it's very much the same problem. Yeah. We're all on the spectrum of being sick or being a deficient state and we all want to move into other directions to be better. And our starting location on this section can be a little bit different, right? We can some healthier than others. Some are more deficient than others, but we all want to move in that same factor of being better. Speaker 4: (09:01) Mmm. So to me, my initial interests started off in cognitive performance. And now it's just essentially based on this notion that humanity has become more and more focused on cognitive output as a way to create our likelihood. It's whereas 2000 years ago our physical output was our primary mode to play to Libby. And my interest there was that especially in this new economy, there's a very much interesting sort of winner take all dynamic. If you can pick out a few more percent of cognitive performance kid creativity that has a disproportionate leverage in terms of the outcome that you get well economically as well as amongst competition. So my initial interest was focused on cognitive performance and as I started more and more new tropics, Mmm. It became kind of this rabbit hole diving deeply into metabolism. Mmm. The entry point of nootropics led to fasting and I was, I would say one of the, you know, early are people on the wave of fasting about four or five years ago or started experiment fasting. Speaker 4: (10:17) And then that really became a trend in Silicon Valley in the larger work. Now, intermittent fasting is like a very common parlance term that of people talk about. It was very interesting that you know, four or five years ago, if you Google fast people that I live in, maybe not drastically, but it was just like, Oh, [inaudible] for few days, that seems kind of insane. Is that even possible? Intermittent fasting led to kitchen diets and w it was became like, because as you look at the mechanism of why fasting works, fasting basically the pleats are glycogen into glucose reserves and it forces your body to convert fat into ketosis in the kitchen. That was a very interesting way to also in Dutch produce ketosis. And there was a very interesting, again, relatively early in the phase of I would say the influx of publication research going on in the QJ today at the time, you know, more of a nascent field. Speaker 4: (11:22) And then as I'm looking at the ketogenic diet, like, I mean, interested in things like ketone masters or any of the other enzymes just keeps on how can you [inaudible] induce a very rapid details ketosis in some sense. It was just like a very crazy journey from being a Stanford computer scientist and a software entrepreneur to now being the human performance space. But if you just look at the five, six year journey of looking at the problems of that I was interested in, and then just pursuing and digging and researching and going deeper and deeper down the rabbit hole, it kind of all makes sense in retrospect. And I think that's kind of the fun journey of life. I don't know if you thought that you would have a podcast five years ago. Right. And just like, same with me, I didn't know no conversations with people around the world about health, you know, world champion athletes. But that's really, you know, when I have a bit of time to reflect and just really the beauty of life, enjoy the journey. Speaker 3: (12:20) Oh absolutely. And I think, I mean I'm the same. I've gone from being an athlete to now, you know, specializing in brain rehabilitation and writing books and doing podcasts. And I don't think we should limit ourselves to, because we learned something at university or at school and it set for us for life. I think that's the beauty of the time that we live on that we can go like this for richer, you know experience, you know, and, and and you bring a completely different lanes too. The health side of it. That, and I don't have, you know, that you're [inaudible] amazing brain that you've bought too, you know, from being in computer science and then applying that sort of modeling [inaudible] to the human body. And and I've heard a few people obviously along these lines site. There's so much similarities and I think there are, it's exciting to think of it in that, in that way. Speaker 3: (13:16) So you go into the ketosis in the, in the keto diet because this is that's something that's very, very interesting for many of my lessons for sure. So I come from, you know, an extreme endurance background where you're doing like mega long races. And when I started out, it was all you had to be having calories and carbs all the time. And you know, the high points of my career are you eating up to 10,000 calories a day? Two, yeah. Move, got fuel yourself. And if you didn't get those calories and you've hit the wall and now, you know, there were quite a few Phanatic for the athletes. What's your take on, you know, like with extreme endurance, like doing ultra marathons and so on? What are the, what are those bandages and disadvantages that you would say? I mean, I know that you, you've done a half marathon yourself or, or a couple I think. Yup. You get Running sort of analogy. What is your take on, on, okay. The use of oxygen per year per unit. I, I, and the stain is much, much higher when you're on keto, but I've never actually tried it when I was competing. So I'm really interested to see what you want. Well, it's our own map. Speaker 4: (14:29) Yeah. I think it's nuance and I would say I don't think it needs to be overly complicated. So the way I think about it is that there's perhaps I would say two categories of athletes. There's, I would say the category athletes are looking to the world championship caliber level and looking to optimize performance perhaps at the detriment of longevity and lifespan and health. And there's a second category of athletes that are more lifestyle. They want to, let me just, let me just put, excuse me. Yeah. And the second category of athletes that are more lifestyle and amateur, right? So I think even at that level there's different recommendations and I would even slice up the categorization in another way. There are training periods and the competition periods. Right? And I think for endurance athletes, that's, and again, athletes are more serious. That's like a very, it's a known a practice, right? You guys are training your psych, your training towards, no, even with that there's like literally before different subsets of talking about the same thing. Right. And I think within the broader common discussion, it's very easy to say, Oh, you should have carbo. And it's like, well, are you voting for training? Are you trying to win the marathon? Are you trying to like have a good day? Speaker 4: (16:04) I think simplification, you already missed my little subtleties in those four quadrants that we already subsets segmenting out. Mmm. And then if we just know specifically for ultra endurance or highly anaerobic activities that is a very different performance profile or it's power lifting, etc. Yeah. Mmm. So a traditional best practices is the assumption of art, bloating and there is good reason why one wants to have a lot of carbohydrate reserves and then you constantly supplement sugar or gurus or, yeah. Let me think as you, as you compete. Mmm. Now the ketogenic diets and being more fat adapted is becoming theoretically and the research perspective has always been interesting and I think within the last few years there are now a world champion ship world record breaking results that are being created using fat adapted athletes. Again, there's like the randomized controlled trial world which are done on serious athletes, not necessarily like you are the best person in the world, right? Speaker 4: (17:17) Like there's a difference there and Zach bitter is an interesting case study of work. He just recently the world record for the a hundred mile Ryan, very, very ultra endurance. I think he also broke the world record for the 24 hour distance cupboard and Mmm. The whole notion [inaudible] and he's a sort of a fat adapted athlete. So what, what so, so I think like, so even so, so the basically would say that the study research is based on serious athletes and there is good results or decent evidence that being fully keto adapted is comparable to being a carb driven athlete. Now the question is if you want a world record and performing performance, how would you protocol against that? And if you actually talked to Zach better, he will take carbs for the actual performance. But in the training blocks you will train fat, adaptive or fasted. That's an interesting subtlety that I don't think it's covered really well. So when we talk to athletes and when we work with athletes people really understand that you guys, your training blocks your physical activity alters over time. And I think what will be the emerging trend is that you will cycle, you knew your nutrition along with the training blocks to optimize the peak for a certain performance. I think that is implement at the very, very top levels and I think that will be translate at two lower. Yeah. Speaker 3: (18:58) The next one very interesting point. That cyclical nature of ketosis or you know, I like to be in ketosis constantly can be, can present its own issues. Context. Speaker 4: (19:08) Okay. Yeah. I mean there's no reason to think that it is necessarily bad, but there has been an interesting research coming out of the buck Institute showing that a cyclical ketogenic diet has similar health span impact then on permanent kitchen and dining on an animal, on a mouse model and a rat or rodent model. So this is really, I was at the cusp of cutting edge science. I think some of these answers are still going to be unpacked. And I think just from a public perspective, if I were to Kim like guidance and I just want to make it like a punchy resolution. So like just kind of like just mentioned one of the nuances that if I were looking at endurance performance, I would consider doing fat adapted training fasted or using fat as a fuel in early parts of my aerobic training block. Speaker 4: (20:07) And then as you get closer and closer to performance day, I will start reintroducing carbohydrate and then on performance day I would have a blend of both. Like he's like exotic, just keep telling me like ketone Ester and on race day itself. So basically on race that you want to fuel as much substrate as possible and in the preparation to that performance day, you train and maximize the metabolic flexibility of your body. You want your ketone metabolism to be high, you want your fat oxidation to be high and you also want to be able to use carbohydrates. Speaker 3: (20:41) Okay, so you need a ball flexibility. Can you explain to the listeners a little bit, what is that like so how hard is it become fat adapted and what is the power with your ketone? Is that your company producers compete to an MCT oil Im sorry as a two part question, but or you know, your normal sort of exogenous ketosis, you know, compete to the level of the ketone ISTA yeah, yeah, Speaker 4: (21:09) Yeah. So I'll answer the first part around metabolic flexibly. I think that's definitely one of the buzz words being thrown around in the community at this point. And it's really a simple concept in the sense that it's your body's ability to metabolize, which means like use as energy the different macronutrients or substrates that exist. So what are, what are macronutrients? There's simply just food stuffs that have calories, right? Like carbs have some calorie count that has some calorie value and putting out some calorie value. Something like or caffeine there like micronutrients. They don't have calorie sources, but they support metabolism or, you know, caffeine is not really my patients. It's, you know, blocks and things that you feel less tired. Right. But it's like, you know, people talk about that as like an energy. It's not necessarily an actual calorie substance. It's just like, yeah. Tricks your brain into feeling less tired. Speaker 3: (22:06) Yeah. Speaker 4: (22:07) Mmm. Speaker 4: (22:08) So what is it about flexibility? Well, when, especially in a standard Western diet context, we eat a lot of carbs. So that essentially trains your body to be really good at carbs as a feel substrate. So all the enzymes that relate to glucose metabolism are upregulated and your body isn't really using the metabolic pathways to process fat or ketosis. And it's dotted. Those pathways are done regulated. So if you actually look at like fat oxidation Bates, you can actually measure this in people. Mmm. People that are less metabolically flexible will burn less fat as thesis versus someone that is more math, metabolically flexible. Speaker 3: (22:54) Wow. Another reason too, you know, trial, the cycling that links into ketosis, Speaker 4: (23:00) Right? So you can, you know, so you can do what's called like respiratory quotient test, so you can breathe. Mmm. You know, you breathe in and out and then you measure the ratio of CO2 and OTU as you ramp up intensity. And people that are quite metabolically efficient can inflect quite fit and burn fat to a very, very high level. Whereas people that are less Mmm. Metabolically flexible and not very fit, they instantly turn into using anaerobic or glucose as energy as opposed to being able to use that. Yeah. So so when we say metabolic flexibility, it's the ability for your body to use and burn all these substrates at the same time. Mmm. And and I think I think that touches upon like so much other sort of cascading into like in talk about insulin resistance. Yeah. It's really just touches this whole span of how metabolism works. I think just in the cons of this specific topic, it's just essentially the notion that you can switch fuel sources relatively efficiently. Speaker 3: (24:11) So if, if you know, I'm going to go on a keto diet, a lot of people have, you know, the keto flu and then they give up because it's pretty hard. Horrible. Mmm Hmm. Does something like keto Ester that the product you have or even exogenous ketosis of any form speed you up to get you into ketosis? And does it help you avoid the KIDO flow or not? Speaker 4: (24:34) Yeah, so this is actually a good bridge. I didn't answer your question. It's like what is the difference between other and goddess ketosis? I think that's like a nice segue or transition. So when people go through the keto flu, that's essentially a sign of metabolic flexibility. So why is that? Well, when you suddenly cut off your carbohydrates, again, your body is used to using carbohydrates as a fuel substrate. So when your body runs out of carbs, it's like it's in an energy deficit. It's like, Oh, I'm really hungry. Like we're not getting enough fuel. What's happening there is that your body isn't as efficient at converting fats and oxides and fat and mobilizing fat and mobilizing and turning that find the ketosis. So there's this deficit period for it. You have low carbohydrate, low glucose, Speaker 3: (25:24) Okay, Speaker 4: (25:25) Any of low ketosis at the same time, you have low energy substrate available in your system so you feel tight. Thank you. Mmm. So the idea is if you are metabolically flexible, so like you know, I've done a lot of fascinate. I eat fairly low carb and I'll do cyclical blocks of Hito aye can generate ketosis relatively quickly, so I don't really get it. Yeah, I like the adaptation for period for me it's like quite quick. And now the question is, can you use exotic as ketosis to help bridge that energy gap? Well, essentially that's been one of the popular use cases of his audience. Ketosis, right? Mmm. I would say the nuances that it doesn't increase the ability for your body to produce its own ketones. Actually nice gap where you have low glucose, your body is still trying to ramp up ketone production. Speaker 4: (26:27) Let me just give you some support of having like a source of energy. It's not carbohydrate in the interim that makes that transition period a little bit smoother. That would be the application of massages. ketosis. Now let's answer the initial question. What are ketosis? What are the types? What's interesting about ketone Ester? Mmm, let's define what ketosis are in the first place. Well, ketosis or what I consider a fourth micronutrient interesting thesis there is that, well, you have fat putting carbohydrate. They have calories and their metabolic substrate, well, ketosis have the same exact both fallen, they match the definition, it has calories and it is a fuel for metabolism. Mmm. But you can't really, it's not fun and really in huddle, almost a normal food. So people have been trying to synthesize Exxon, just ketosis that you can consume each directly. So you can kind of really get new food group here. Speaker 4: (27:32) You actually MCT oils, what are they? MCT, medium chain triglycerides are fatty acids that readily convert into ketosis. So the fact, but it's a relatively efficient fat that converts into through your liver, through ketogenesis into ketosis. Caprylic acid or ch is the most efficient a fatty acids that converts that into beta. Hydroxybutyrate. you can, it's eight carbon eight carbon linked chain. And then if you look at PHP, it's four carbon. So it's like a very nice size fatty acid that readily converts with a pH. D ahm so what does the HV well, what does ketosis will? He, one's a scribe. This fourth macronutrient and the main form of a key talent is this specific molecule called BHB or beta hydroxybutyrate. I just think they may be HP. So it's not quite a mouthful. Mmm. Now if you can take a BHB is the end ketone that you want, can you deliver that in the food form? Speaker 4: (28:40) And that's where you have things like you don't ask sitters or ketone salts that you might've seen. So these are just different formulations or different ways that liver beta hydroxy be [inaudible] in a consumable form. The very cool thing about ketone esters, however, is that it's a very highly efficient way to deliver a lot of ketones without any GI issues typically associate with ketones salts. So if you actually look at, Mmm. The space, I would say like, there's like things like MCT oils. Okay. You know, that has its place. It's valuable, right? It's like a nice form of fat that can refer in the ketones, but it's not an, it's just keep telling, right. It's not eating beta hydroxybutyrate directly. And then we look at Exondys ketones. There's primarily, he don't insults and then ketone esters. And what he consults are essentially hydroxybutyrate bound to minerals like sodium, potassium. I'll see the, so we oftentimes Speaker 5: (29:42) You look at a label of a ketone salt, it's like a ton of minerals. It's like a hundred percent of your life recommend daily allowance salt. Yeah. Small drink. You know, so you know, there's arguments whether it, you know, people need more salt anyways, I think that's a different rabbit hole. But regardless, I think from a performance perspective, there's often GI issues. We have so much salts and that is a real concern from a performance perspective. A ketone esters its bound to ketone precursors. So it's just a lot more sure way to deliver ketones and yeah, without the salts [inaudible] I can imagine if you've got a lot of salts and minerals and the ketone salt as an athlete, for example. Good. Cool. It's traveling and endurance. Yeah. example Okay. Okay. So that's that six dodginess keto. And so can you tie, so the one that you have at your company that's been developed over like I think 20 years from a time of all the basement money going into this, that the race H money is this much more powerful than, so, you know, just for the lay person then then buying an MCT oil, it's your rate pay times rather than a precarious or or having to go through the liver to be turn that into hopefully ketones. Speaker 5: (31:13) Yes. Yeah. So yeah, this is measurable and you can like do this like with your own finger and if you actually measure ketones, do a finger stick, typically like an MCT oil will bump your beta hydroxy Peter your D levels to maybe 0.5 bump. And with the [inaudible] or we can, you'll typically see up to 5.0 millimoles. So literally 10 times wow. More ketones delivered. That's in a consumable form. Mmm. Does that negate the need to be on a keto diet when you have ketosis? Can you get away with eating carbs? That would be the optimal. Yeah. So that's like an interesting area of discussion. And research some people. So some would say yes, I think it's nuance. So basically it's like what do you want on a kitchen? I think there is some value of carbohydrate restriction, carbohydrate restriction, but a lot of the benefits of a kitchen dining is having ketones present to be metabolized both as a metabolic substrate and as well as a signaling molecule. [inaudible]. So the question is how much of the benefit of a kid doing diet is from the carbohydrate restriction alone and how much of a benefit is from the ketones and both of substrate and a signaling molecule. And that's really an area of research. Speaker 4: (32:40) My you know none I have no data to support either direction. Is that Mmm. There's some subset of the value that's delivered by fastener kitchen guys that comes to record themselves. Yeah. So can you get some, most of the benefit of a kitchen guide or facet? It's not just ketone. I think so. Speaker 3: (33:05) That would be the. Speaker 3: (33:07) So that will be interesting to see how that research unfolds in the next year. You were telling me right. That would be, you know, cause obviously the keto diet is quite a difficult diet for many people to adhere to. Especially the all team. And what about the whole triglycerides problem? When people are on a keto diet, what's your take on, on the negative sides of, of keto? Speaker 4: (33:33) Mmm, usually you, yeah, so the lipid like the basically is your blood lipid panels is something that people tend to look at when you're looking at, you know, high fat diets, right. So you know, people look at triglycerides as you mentioned, but also LDL, low density lipoprotein cholesterol and HDL high density. Mmm. So the typical concern is that if you eat such a high fat diet and audio thats well lot and that could be a reasonable concern. So there's some interesting data that that perhaps suggests that if you look at LDL alone, it's not really a great predictor of cardiovascular disease risk. You should really look at the trial of LDL, HDL, triglycerides all together. So typically in a well formulated huge diet, you may see an elevation of LDL, but you see high HDL have low triglycerides. And then the question is, and again, I don't want to be giving medical advice, I'm not a medical doctor, but there is an interesting stream of research going on now where if you look at a cohort of people with high LDL, which maybe bad, you know, high HDL and low triglycerides the association with cardiovascular disease risk disappears. Speaker 3: (34:58) Yup. Speaker 4: (35:00) The question is then, is LDL alone a great predictor of cardiovascular disease risks? I think that's again, an open area of research. I think again, just again from a systems thinking perspective you need to look at the whole system. It's kind of arbitrary to just choose one thing and be like, okay, you have one thing that's going to give you a disease. So it's like, yes, that might be correlated but me to understand the full system. Yep. And that's where I think there's a lot of interesting research. Speaker 3: (35:32) Yeah. And it would make sense to me that, you know, you do need to look at the ratios of things. Like I, it's, it's looking at Speaker 5: (35:38) The whole system of things and you know the old way of thinking that cholesterol was bad for you, period as, as really not, not correct. I think, you know, now we've moved on from that sort of idea that that isn't the way. Yeah. They just like complicated and like very nuanced I think. I think people want that headline. I mean, how many times have you seen eggs are good? Yeah. It seems like it's literally like it flip flops every single day. Yes. And I think that just shows you that nutrition is very complicated. People have different genetic baselines. People respond to food differently. Yes. Yeah. To me, I don't want to be overly prescriptive on everyone should eat like, again for me, engineer and meet us. Okay. Like self-experimentation you should really measure the response is yourself. When I see my own glucose numbers and I see my own blood lipid profile, when I do these different types of diets, I know what works for me. Supply. And that ultimately is what matters. Like it doesn't matter what the randomized controlled trial says for a population of like men that are age 25 through 30 in a U S college, the people that are being studied, right? Like there's a reasonable critique on the selection sample [inaudible] what all the science is done on, right? Most clinical trials are not unwomen no, no. Well done. Speaker 5: (37:16) Okay. It's really hard to run science. I understand why people want to like reduce the very variables. I think it's like [inaudible] the, again, the mechanisms that you can derive from the literature and then confirm it with yourself. That's ultimately, I think the general literature. And then how does it actually apply to you as N equals one. And this is, this guy's nice segue into your stance as an advocate for smart regulation, for human enhancements and in our ability to take control of our own. You know, like a lot of biohackers now around the planet. And I include myself in this, that we believe that we have the right to control their own bodies and we, Oh, I'm not prepared to give up my control what I have in my own house. [inaudible] The local doctor. [inaudible] No, and I think it's, it's important that we start to take some responsibility because we've also had, you know, in our culture, in an SSO, I'd say the opinion, the doctor knows everything and I don't have it. Speaker 5: (38:26) Right. Question to experiments to understand. And you know, I, I mentioned to you before the journey I've been on with my mum and I've, you know, peer shape. Did we say from those experiences, I, I now want to be [inaudible] in control as I possibly can be. Obviously I don't have access to everything. I would love to have access to. Mmm. But I want to, I want to have the right to be able to try things on my own body and to be able to experiment and to understand, set people, understand that it's the responsibility, their own health into their own to do your own research. We live in a time that we differ with we, we've got access to two minds like yours and experiences like yours and the cutting edge science and the latest, we don't have the sizzle one person's opinion from a local who tried to 25 years ago. Yeah. [inaudible] Speaker 5: (39:37) Aye. 100% agree with everything you just stated there. I think you put it quite nicely. But do you want to just, I guess make Cognits I don't think healthcare system or the specific, the individual clinician is the enemy that they're trying to do their best. And those are, I would say like, I don't think anyone is excited about the healthcare system. Well, I think the underlying point. And so I think I've talked a lot of doctors and I think there's, I think everyone is trying to do their best. I don't think anyone is individually. No, but I think the point that it really is an underlying point is that people should be self-empowered take agency of their own health and happiness. I think that's a really the most important point because you care about your own health more than anyone else. Yeah. I mean it's just like, yeah, you're a doctor like cares about you, but he has his own problem. Speaker 5: (40:38) She might have a, you know, family issues with her husband and a hundred other patients to worry about. Yeah, that's fine. But you, you are living with your body. You are living with your own health and just like you wouldn't absolutely do business deal or buy a house or buy a car without research. How, why would you not take that same level of research? Important medical procedures or lifestyle choices, spiritual and health. So to me it's just not even like challenging that healthcare system. Just like hello. You care about your health the most. You have the biggest stake in your own health. Yeah. Oftentimes we're just asked to just be passive in our own health. And that seems so backwards given that you spent like 20 hours online searching the latest launch of a computer and gadget. Yeah. Change your change or nutrition change, take medication and you're just like, Mmm. Speaker 5: (41:38) Hiking up. Yeah. Just pass it again, I think, and I think basically my sense of the future is that information is being more and more decentralized. I think successful doctors will have a much more collaborative relationship. Mmm. And ultimately we are the buyer. We are the customer in this relationship. I think there will be a world where it becomes much more collaborative. Like these are my specific concerns. Can you address, these are my goals, this my science position. I want to understand and take a little bit of a self-responsibility here. Rather than do annual checkup, he'd see me for 15 minutes and I'm on my way with a couple little pills. Right? Like I don't think that's going to work anymore. No, it can't work anymore. Speaker 5: (42:33) Well, you're also on the cutting edge. You're in Silicon Valley. You see a lot of the biotech stuff that's coming in the future. I listened to a speech that you did on [inaudible] the feature of five tickets and where you see this going, expanding Cuban capabilities. And I was just like, wow, really? Mmm. [inaudible] What is coming down the road? Can you give us a little bit of a sense of what you think is coming as far as what and the size? What else? Yeah, it does some exciting and some scary things in the future. Yeah, I think my framework here is that again, just sort of the engineering hat on. If you can't measure it, you can't optimize it. I think that we will get much more are available biomarker data on our overall system. So I think as I mentioned, if you have a continuous glucose monitor, no, there is a very nice device too. Speaker 5: (43:38) Again, track your blood sugar continuously over time. No, I know there's, you know, I love to attract much more biomarkers, right? I need a big companies looking at it, looking at the space. So I think phase one or step one is that we'll have Oh, passive data stream across all the important ball markers readily at our fingertips. Like what could you have, not just a continuous glucose level? Well, why not have continuous ketone levels but not have confused insulin levels? Want to track your LDL HDL and triglycerides over time. I think this is one thing, you know, with a strong quantitative mathematics background, I think biology is the built on snapshots, one blue draw, and that's what we base everything on. But we're literally dynamic systems with flux with flow. Speaker 4: (44:32) These things change a lot. And I think Speaker 3: (44:36) [Inaudible] Speaker 4: (44:36) Literally, if I eat a ton of fat that day before a blood draw or I fast the day before a blood trail, Speaker 3: (44:44) Yeah, you've got to be completely different. Speaker 4: (44:47) We need to understand the actual flux and slopes of all these changes rather than just like do science on snapshots. Right? So I think it's like physics. It's like you're taking, you're doing physics with looking at a planet move every year versus, okay, what if we can attract telescopes, the movement of the plants, we can actually model this much better. So I think from step one, like we're going to have much more available real street, real time streams of data. Mmm. I think once we have that real time passive data stream, we'll be able to have a much more personalized recommendations and protocols for people. Speaker 3: (45:26) Mmm. I think we all do. We notice. Yeah. Yep. Speaker 4: (45:30) I like you like certain things differently than other people and you respond to things differently. Other people, there was a big metabolism paper publish it. Probably not true three years ago. Banana to me, my response. But you might be able to tolerate it. Yeah. And it totally makes sense, right? If like my ancestors ate bananas and your answer says made apples, like there's going to be an verbalize world and we're just eating a bunch of like fake bananas and fig apples. It sends a reason. It will have different responses to that kind of input. Mmm. So, given that we have the data streams, we can actually now and build time instantly adjust our diet or nutrition or protocol or exercise or sleep to match actually. Speaker 3: (46:18) Okay. Is optimal for our four ad thing. Yeah. I mean we, we do an ad company AP genetic testing and we look at the genetics. Yeah. Mike half of people and have the personalized recommendations. Oh. Based on the work of a Dr. Albert, you're rolling from Italy. I'm looking at for being different on different science disciplines and distilling it into some Mmm. Reports that we can take and then have an insight as coaches and as health coaches to be able to personalize to, to at agree at this stage. It'll get better and better as time goes on. What times of the day, you know, you chronobiology what your genetic, your ancestry is to how you going to, how you develop them in the womb, you know. Mmm. And there are all these different layers that is giving us as coaches an insight into our athletes and our clients that we knew made before forehead. And this is only going to grow, you know, and I'm excited about that. Firstly is that is a coach because we're seeing much better results now. Yeah. You know, you're trying to, two athletes are the same. No, I had in the same training and one will get massive Speaker 5: (47:30) Results and the other one doesn't. And you're like, why you lying to us? You're not doing the stuff, you know, that's actually, no, they just, I'm really excited about all the tracking stuff. I'd love to get a constant glucose monitor. I think you're exactly right. I feel like oftentimes we talk to doctors, they'd like don't believe their patients. Yes. Like literally trying to pull up. That's right. Establish the doctor patient relationship a little bit. I mean, again, it's not to say doctors are not trying to do their best. I think it's like, I would say I would say let's just empower ourselves and learn more so we can have a productive conversation with primary practitioner. And then they're just like, kind of like, you know, I see coming around the corner is that like, you'll have more and more interesting technologies that are drive inputs into human performance. Speaker 5: (48:35) She don't ask her other, other exonerees ketones are very interesting. It's a new way to deliver soap fit into our bodies and signal different things. Mmm. Interesting. Compounds tap into longevity pathways. Right? And I think we're understanding the systems biology of humans much, much better. No, it gives us an ability to, maybe we can push certain inputs in a way that maps to a performance profile that we want. And again, like, and that can be different for different people, right? Like maybe if I'm obsessed with health span, I could be different from, I want to win an Olympic gold medal next year. Definitely coming from an F, you know, lytic background where, you know, push my mind to the limits. It wasn't about longevity at that stage, you know you can do a lot of damages and ask that you can be fit and unhealthy. Speaker 5: (49:32) Which is which is also a [inaudible]. But if you're an athlete, you've got to be healthy. Well, actually, no, you can be quite unhealthy, but yeah. And now as an, you know, getting, getting older and getting a little bit wiser and looking at longevity and wanting to have health span over a longer period of time, I've changed my whole approach to the way I try and in the way. And I think that that's a healthy progression too, to move in. So you said that, know I'm looking at being able to do what I want to at 19. Oh, I've [inaudible] 105 I believe. Yeah. Be completely broken and burnt out. Yeah. Which I've down in the past and which I see a lot of athletes [inaudible] okay. And, and having this information provides, gosh, when I started doing ultra marathons 25 something years ago, we didn't even about electrolytes for crying out loud, you know. Speaker 5: (50:30) And, and now of course, we bought whole lot more things at our fingertips and we can, we can see the improvements in performance over the last few years with extreme endurance athletes. Like, thanks. Mmm. It's only gonna [inaudible] yeah. The limits of human performance aren't even breached. Yes. You know, and that's without tapping into the whole mind side of it. Yeah. Oh, so another fascinating side. Mmm. I just wanted to pivot and then I know we're going to wrap up, but Mmm. You've also gone a pretty deep dive into Nutro nootropics. Hi Brian. Enhancing supplements in a smart drugs and things like that. Having some of the family with a massive brain, Brian and Dre, I'm very interested, eight year old take on what some of the great nootropics for people who Mmm. Maybe him brain injuries, maybe hitting towards dementia, Alzheimer's that sort of thing. Speaker 5: (51:30) I know you're not a medical doctor, but what is your title and some of the exciting compounds or even the ketones for, for things like to meet turnouts farmers. What is your take on that? Yeah, I think it's a very based in the sense that there's a lot of things that are preferred to have any Tropin benefits, but you really need to look and drill down into specific compounds and then judge the evidence of each specific compound on your specific use case. Right. So you know, when we developed our nootropic supplements, we looked at specific compounds that have randomized controlled trials on healthy humans and showing no benefits cause it's going to get benefit for those use cases. But oftentimes things that can improve on performance in healthy human, this monkeys are an improved performance. People that are efficient. So when you extend the scope a little bit evidence pool, it gets a little bit even better. Speaker 5: (52:34) And when you're looking at eventually, hopefully hoping people that have my own cognitive impairment and trying to prevent decline and move that more towards awesome. The direction. So obviously, you know, you know, the products that we sell, you know, we think are very, very high quality and how the robust evidence, so we have rise with the Copa which has, you know, solid book amount of evidence around randomized controlled trials on specific doses, boosting longterm memory, et cetera. So that's pretty exciting. If you actually talk to the principal investigator who's actually a professor concert, I believe he's at the university of Swinburne. No excited about that class of compounds and I believe it's still do not research in that area. Mmm. No, I think ketones are also like an interesting area of research in terms of driving cognitive a benefit. Mmm. The mechanism of action there is that glucose costs the blood brain barrier, but also the ketones. Speaker 5: (53:43) And you might've heard of Alzheimer's nickname type three diabetes. Yeah. And the thesis there is that part of the problem with Alzheimer's is that there's a glucose uptake disfunction where it's for whatever reason, well, it's insulin resistance efficiency. All right. The brain cells aren't able to process glucose. Well, ketones are uptake and metabolism, a completely different pathway. Can you rescued energy deficit that, that defect substrate. So it's been pretty early data around ketogenic diets being helpful as well as exotic as being helpful for those use cases as well. So I just had a Dr. Kabran Chapek on the show last week. He's written about concussion rescue. You're looking at a traumatic brain injury, Al Thomas. And there's a, when you have a brain injury for example, there's a metabolic no problem. What's that glucose getting in it? Where The good coach is not getting put in. Speaker 5: (54:53) And they did a at trial where they put and IB glucose and people with brain injuries and they suppressed the ketones. The body was producing this morning. It was actually feeding the brain and actually made them work. Yeah. And this is like, Oh my God, that's what they did. My mum when she was in ICU, they put in, you know, and I'm like, I had no idea at the time glucose was not, it would be logical to think cause you Brian needs you a lot of glucose. Well, when there's a metabolic disruption caused by the brain injury, it would have been far better to give her pay times and, and you know, ketone Ester or something or even fish oils so on to feed the brain then then glucose and suppressing what little ketones you would have had, you know. No, that's exactly right. Speaker 5: (55:42) The mechanism that you're describing is exactly right. This kind of Columbian released a blood glucose uptake. Yes. Yeah. It's again, that's where you have to understand the mechanisms too. Have a solution. Yeah. Again, I don't want to like, I think, you know, we don't want to over-hype anything. I think that's another area of interesting research. I think it's an interesting and hopefully we'll be able to see published results. Yeah. From that hypothesis. That's exactly right. You know, the mechanism of action we would be targeting looking ketones or concussion and TBI. That's absolutely, yeah. Yeah, definitely. You should click with or listen to my last episode cause that was a really, you he'd be great to get on your show. So I know we have to wrap up. You Mmm. Some of your products, you've got your new tropics, you've got your, the one, you've got a sleep aid, you've got a focus, memory aid the other two, you hit another two there. Speaker 5: (56:51) Omega-3 DHA focused like a brain DHA supplements called keto. And then we have chronic longterm cognitive performance will rise. And then we have sprint, which is but cute a caffeine off. He needs that. All right. So if anyone wants to check them out. So you have a podcast. Yeah, the ice, we mean podcasts. So everybody go and check out different words on the podcast. HB in him. Yep. I always get the name. I must be slightly dyslexic around their own way. When people reach out to you and connect with you and the work that you doing. Mmm. Can I get the ketone esters by your website? So I understand you're out of stock at the moment. Yeah, I was checking on the website and that will be the most up to date place to get updates at hvmn.com. Yeah, it's always interesting in the beginning of the year because a lot of the institutional sports teams kind of stock up for the season so I can add on the shelves. Yes. Speaker 5: (58:04) You know, it's sort of like first come first serve, right. It's, you know, I guess there's been a lot of media coverage on tour de France teams for example, using our product. So that's coming up later this summer. Right. Awesome. A lot of the salient volume goes, goes there. Yeah. I mean you find us on each PMN very easily searchable, but also personally at Geoffrey Woo, G E O F F R E R Y W O O primarily on Twitter and Instagram. Happy to engage there as well. Awesome. I will put all those links Geoffrey in the, in the show notes and thank you so much. We appreciate your time today. I really appreciate the work you're doing. I love listening to your podcast. I, I do feel at the end of it quite challenged intellectually often. But it's at the cutting edge of what's happening out there. So it's really, really exciting. So thanks very much for your time today. I really much enjoyed the conversation. It's super fun. Thanks for having me. Speaker 6: (59:05) If your brain is not functioning, edit space and check out what the team at the light dotcom do now being like producers, photo biomodulation devices, your brain function depends largely on the health of the energy sources of the brain cells. In other words, the mitochondria and research has shown that stimulating your brain with near infrared light revitalizes mitochondria. I use these devices daily for both my own optimal brain function and also for other age-related decline issues and also for my mom's brain rehabilitation after her aneurism and stroke. So check out what the team do at vielight.com. That's V I E L I G H T.com and use the code T A M A T I it chick out to get 10% off any of the devices. Speaker 1: (59:55) That's it this week for pushing the limits. Be sure to write, review, and share with your friends and head over and visit Lisa and her team at lisatamati.com. The information contained in this show is not medical advice it is for educational purposes only and the opinions of guests are not the views of the show. Please seed your own medical advice from a registered medical professional.

World-leading Brain Injury Physician Dr. Kabran Chapek, author of the new book "Concussion Rescue" shares his insights, experience and comprehensive guide to reclaiming your brain function after a brain injury. But this is also an episode on brain health in general and everyone alive on this planet needs to think about the future of their brain health, from traumatic brain injury to Alzheimer's to dementia, you will have the privilege of learning from on the best physicians out there. Dr. Chapek has been a staff physician at Amen Clinics since 2013. As a graduate of Bastyr University in the Seattle area, he is an expert in the use of functional and integrative treatments and collaborates extensively with many of the Amen Clinics physicians. He has a special interest in the assessment and treatment of Alzheimer's and dementia, traumatic brain injuries, PTSD, and anxiety disorders. Dr. Chapek is the founding president of the Psychiatric Association of Naturopathic Physicians, an affiliate group of the American Association of Naturopathic Physicians. You can find Dr. Chapeks book "Concussion Rescue" on amazon https://www.amazon.com/Concussion-Rescue-Comprehensive-Program-Traumatic/dp/0806540230 You can do the brain health assessment at www.brainhealthassessment.com and follow Dr Kabran Chapek on instagram at @drkabran_chapek You can reach out to Dr Amen at www.amenclinics.com We would like to thank our sponsors for this show: www.vielight.com Makers of Photobiomodulation devices that stimulate the brains mitocondria, the power houses of your brains energy, through infrared light to optimise your brain function. To get 10% off your order use the code: TAMATI at www.vielight.com For more information on Lisa Tamati's programs, books and documentaries please visit www.lisatamati.com For Lisa's online run training coaching go to https://www.lisatamati.com/page/runningpage/ Join hundreds of athletes from all over the world and all levels smashing their running goals while staying healthy in mind and body. Lisa's Epigenetics Testing Program https://www.lisatamati.com/page/epigenetics/ Get The User Manual For Your Specific Genes Which foods should you eat, and which ones should you avoid? When, and how often should you be eating? What type of exercise does your body respond best to, and when is it best to exercise? Discover the social interactions that will energize you and uncover your natural gifts and talents. These are just some of the questions you'll uncover the answers to in the Lisa Tamati Epigenetics Testing Program along with many others. There's a good reason why epigenetics is being hailed as the "future of personalized health", as it unlocks the user manual you'll wish you'd been born with! No more guesswork. The program, developed by an international team of independent doctors, researchers, and technology programmers for over 15 years, uses a powerful epigenetics analysis platform informed by 100% evidenced-based medical research. The platform uses over 500 algorithms and 10,000 data points per user, to analyze body measurement and lifestyle stress data, that can all be captured from the comfort of your own home For Lisa's Mental Toughness online course visit: https://www.lisatamati.com/page/mindsetuniversity/ Develop mental strength, emotional resilience, leadership skills and a never quit mentality - Helping you to reach your full potential and break free of those limiting beliefs. For Lisa's free weekly Podcast "Pushing the Limits" subscribe on iTunes or your favorite podcast app or visit the website https://www.lisatamati.com/page/podcast/ Transcript of the Podcast: Speaker 1: (00:00) Welcome to pushing the limits, the show that helps you reach your full potential with your host, Lisa Tamati, brought to you by Lisatamati.com Speaker 2: (00:12) [Inaudible] Speaker 3: (00:13) If your brain is not functioning at its best then checkout what the team at vielight.com do now being like producers, photo biomodulation devices, your brain function, the pain's largely on the health of the energy sources of the brain cells. In other words, the mitochondria and research has shown that stimulating your brain with near infrared light revitalizes mitochondria. And I use these devices daily for both my own optimal brain function and also for other age-related decline issues and also for my mom's brain rehabilitation after her aneurism and stroke. So check out what the team do at vielight.com. That's V I E L I G H T . Com and use the code TAMATI at checkout to get 10% of any of their devices. Speaker 2: (01:05) [Inaudible] Speaker 3: (01:05) Oh my gosh, you guys are in for the biggest, most amazing interview ever. I have Dr. Kabran Chapek to guest in a moment now. He is a staff physician at the amen clinics in America, in Seattle. And this interview is about his book, a concussion rescue, which just came out in January. Absolutely fascinating man with amazing information. If you have any problem with your brain, if you've ever had a traumatic brain injury, a concussion, if any one of your loved ones have, if you're worried about dementia, if you're worried about Alzheimer's or the future of your brain health and who shouldn't be, everybody should be interested in that. Then you must, must listen to this amazing interview. I got so much out of this and it ratified a lot of the things that I'd been doing with my mum and her journey and gave me some new ideas too. So really excited for this interview. I hope you enjoy it now over to dr Chapek. Speaker 3: (02:09) Well, hello everyone. Lisa Tamati here at pushing the limits. It's fantastic to have you all, Back again, I really appreciate your loyalty. And this week I have a very special guest all the way from Seattle and America adopted Cameron chopping up the chocolate. Welcome to the show. It's an honor to be here with you. Lisa. It's fantastic. When one of the one of your assistants reached out to me to see if you had come on my show. And so I was just so excited when I read the outline of your new book concussion rescue, which we're going to dive into today because it was like, Oh, finally, finally someone's put this together, put this all together in a book that the light person can understand. So dr Chapek, can you tell us a little bit about who you are and where you and this amazing new book concussion risks. Speaker 4: (03:02) Okay, so I'm a naturopathic physician and which if, if your listeners are not sure what that is, it's looking at treating the whole person, looking at treating the cause versus symptoms. It's, that's the philosophy of naturopathic medicine and the training. In some ways it's similar, some ways different do conventional MDs are medical doctors where we have the basic sciences, but then we have the ologies oncology, gastroenterology, nutrition, exercise, all of that. So that's kind of my background in training. I work at amen clinics, which is based on dr Hayman's work. And he's a psychiatrist. Been doing this for 30 years and 30 years ago he said, instead of just talking to people, I need to look at their brains. This is what, who they are. And so he started imaging people's brains with the type of scan called SPECT, S, P, E, C, T, single photon emission computed tomography. Speaker 4: (03:58) It's kind of like a CT scan, but it's looking at functional aspects. So how is the brain working? And so we have this huge database of scans, 150,000 scans. When patients come in, we can compare their scans to the database, we can do research. And so part of our evaluation is looking at the brain versus just talking. And I love doing labs. I love doing a really comprehensive workup and then individualizing people's treatment plans. That's what gets me excited every day coming to work. And I work in Seattle, as you mentioned live here with my wife and three kids. And I love running and being outdoors and, and and then doing this work. And I, and I wrote the book concussion rescue because Lisa, there's a silent epidemic. And you know, I say that because there are 3 million people, at least in the U S would go to the ER every single year who have had a brain injury concussion, which is a form of mild traumatic brain injury. And they, there's not a lot of solutions and options for them. And so in, in my 12 years working in mental health, I'd say that brain injury is a major cause of mental illness. Yeah, no one's talking about it. It's minimized. And this sort of, we think that there's nothing you can do. Speaker 3: (05:29) Absolutely. So Assad an epidemic. So what I find interesting is that if you talk to a lot of people, and you asked me now, have you had a brain injury? They come, you know I get to talk to a lot of people because of my background with the story with mum. And a lot of people will go, no, no, no, I haven't, I haven't had a brain injury. And then you go, are you sure you haven't hit a brain? Most of us have had something along the way and it could be a long back, even in their childhood when we, you know, got knocked out on the jungle gyms or we, you know, took the hits he had in some, some way shape or form and most people have had some sort of brain injury that has left a lasting effect and people aren't aware of the solid generalists. Speaker 4: (06:16) No, it's, it's a myth that you know, you have to lose consciousness to have had a brain injury or that you have to have gone to the ER to have a brain injury or because I had my helmet on, I couldn't have had a brain injury. Helmet just protects the skull, you know even whiplash not hitting your head can cause a brain injury. And so a brain injury or concussion is defined as like a, a hit to the head or an acceleration. Deceleration meaning like a really fast jolt to the head, like with flash is enough to shake the brain inside the skull and cause injury. If you have any change in mental status, like feeling seen stars, that's enough to damage the brain. The brain is soft like butter and the skull is hard, like a rock with many bony ridges and it's easy for the brain to be damaged because of that. Speaker 4: (07:17) It's like we're not designed to hit our heads at all. Yeah, we do. And it's cumulative. So we try and ask people who come to the clinics at least 10 times, like you said, it's perfect. It's like, are you sure you ever fallen out of a tree? You ever dove into a shallow pool? ahm Have you ever had a car accident? Have ever played context sports? You had a patient, we can call him Jeremy who when he was 21, he came to see me and he had been suicidally depressed since he was 14. Wow. And he was a scrawny kid. He was a jazz drummer. Really neat kid. But he was smoking pot every day too. Feel better. He had a girlfriend who was very, very poor relationships. She was mean to him. He needed to and the relationship just couldn't do it, didn't feel strong. Speaker 4: (08:08) And when he came to see us, we scanned his brain and it was clear he had had an injury. Yeah. On his history, his intake, there was no evidence of brain injury. He had never said that he had had a brain injury. And so I asked him, have you ever fallen out of a tree? Have you ever dove into a shallow pool, fallen off a horse, off a bike? No, no, no. I said, have you ever play contact sports? And his mother who was with him said, Oh yeah, you did start playing football when you were age 13 ish. And he was matched against the coach's son who is six feet tall. And he was like this funny little kid. He just kept getting hit really hard and had headaches. And he and that's when his depression and suicidal started. He was also diagnosed with add and he had tried every class of medication and tried to all kinds of therapy, hypnosis, EMDR, CBT, all these really great therapies and been referred by a great therapist that I knew And so when we put them on a program to heal his brain after a couple of months, his symptoms of depression lifted. Speaker 3: (09:17) Yup. Speaker 4: (09:18) And two, two years later, now fast forward, he's, this spring he's going to be graduating from the Berkeley school of music for jazz, drumming, stop smoking pot. So he's doing it. So some people have concussions and brain injuries. It's clear they're not healing. Then there's people who have some other issue in the, if you think back it may be actually due to a brain injury you didn't realize. Speaker 3: (09:40) Yeah, it is. You know I just had a question that popped up in my head when you're telling that story is even things like having low blood pressure or adrenal fatigue, you know, where you stand up too quickly and you in the, you get stars in your eyes for a few seconds or you know, is, is even vet doing any damage to our heads, to our brains. Speaker 4: (10:04) It can do a little bit. You mean like that, that low blood pressure thing? Cause you can, Speaker 3: (10:08) No, you've seen it where you have a bit of a dream of a taste. It doesn't come up when you stand up. Yeah. Sorry. Speaker 4: (10:17) Z that transient decrease in blood flow to the brain can be damaging. I mean you'll even pass out eventually we'll do because it's so, it's such a shock to the brain. But it's transient. So hopefully, you know, you put your head down, you S you get blood flow again, it's short enough that it's not going to do anything permanent. But repeat low blood pressure is a problem. You know, the brain needs blood flow. Speaker 3: (10:47) Well, I'm asking selfishly. Yeah, yeah. Very low blood pressure and have that problem. Often when I stand up, especially in the evenings and we have been a bit stressed out and tired, I noticed that I get up and I'm like, well you know, I wondered if that, you know, that temporary lack of blood flow could be damaging as well. Speaker 4: (11:09) Yeah. I don't think it's good, but I don't think it's causing permanent damage. As long as you address it, put your head down, sit down, relax, lay down. Speaker 3: (11:18) Yeah. Now dr Kabran, I wanted to actually dive into the book a little bit and actually couple of the things now with the modernist is nine. My story with my mum. Well hopefully they do. Most of them would know and I've got a book coming out too. Next months are a meatless, you know, what's really exciting when I looked through your book, a lot of the things that you've written in this book I've done to my beloved and being in New Zealand and I didn't have access to things like spics games in, in, in a lot of the fancy stuff. But I'd do what I could. One of the biggest pieces of the puzzle for me was hyperbaric oxygen therapy. And I've had a couple of experts on the show, Dr. Scott Cher was one of those on hyperbaric and how powerful this can be for people with brain injuries. So let's start with hyperbaric. What is, Speaker 4: (12:20) If I had one magic bullet, I can only do one thing to heal someone's brain. It would be hyperbaric. Okay, Speaker 3: (12:26) Wow. Yup. Totally agree. Yeah. Speaker 4: (12:30) It's a, and your listeners probably know, but it's hyperbaric oxygen is a chamber well under pressure and it pushes oxygen to the deeper structures that haven't been able to heal. And just like a diver has the bins, they go up too fast. They go in this chamber at higher pressures. This is low pressure, low pressure over time. So like 40 hours, 80 hours, 120 hours. And I actually was able to participate in a quick study a pilot study with Zachary light stead and he's, he was a high school athlete who had second impact syndrome. So he was put in, was about 14 or so. He was playing football. Got hit, went out, went back in and said, I'm fine. Coach put me back in, got hit again. Massive brain bleed afterwards in a coma for months, unable to walk and talk. And he had to relearn that. And so his parents were huge advocates of that. And that's why we have the Zachary lifestyle law or some version of it in every state in the U S where if someone, if an athlete is suspected of having a concussion, they have to be taken out and assessed by a medical professional before they can be put back in. Again, not every state has a seat belt law yet, surprisingly. Speaker 4: (13:48) So I was able to do a high prepare costs and study with this motivated kid who is recovered a lot but not fully. And we did 40 sessions of hyperbaric before and after. And of course, it's not a 180 degree with just that, but it improved his, you could see improvements in blood flow in his frontal lobe and it's parietal lobe, even five years after this massive, massive Speaker 3: (14:13) Wow, that's important 0.5 years after because a lot of people ask me, well, do I have to have had it in the past few months? And then I say, no, no. Who know, you can, it came to even Speaker 4: (14:24) Not too late. And there's another evidence of that. We did a study with 30 retired NFL football players. So now fast forward, these guys are in their fifties and sixties, and it's been like 10 20 years since they played football, but terrible looking brains. I mean, really severe damage. And they're starting to have depression. They're starting to have memory problems. They're headed towards dementia. And what we did for them was we gave them supplements, we gave them a healthier diet treated HYP treated sleep apnea if needed. And then hyperbaric oxygen for some of them as well. And after six months we were able to rescan their brains, significant improvement. Their quality of life was better, less depression, less anxiety, less depression or less anger. That's anger and better processing speed. So it's not, it's not too late. Speaker 3: (15:20) Awesome. This is really exciting. I've got a brother who was a professional rugby player and he had a number of brain injuries and I've been trying to get him in the hyperbaric cause I have a chamber podcast because he wants me to know, you know what, what really frustrates me is this is a very simple, so you know, there, there, there's a, the medical grade hyperbaric facilities, which you have a lot of in America and then there are mild hyperbaric chamber and you know, and you feel that it's very hard to get access to the medical grade ones. We hit them in Oakland ring, cross street hospital, but they won't, they do not believe they are off benefit for brain injury, which is just absolute training. Same here. Speaker 3: (16:14) So studies. And there was one clinic here in the South on end of New Zealand, adopted Tim UA, who has had a a proper chamber, you know, a medical brake chamber and he's just shut his doors after 15 years because he's sick of all of the regulations and the problems associated with secondhand. And this is the most powerful. Like if I had not had this from mom, I do not think I would have got him back 250 sessions with him and I ended up opening a mild hyperbaric clinic here. So you get to, you know, get local people access to it. And I'm a really big advocate for it. I've, I've since sold the clinic, but it's now available for other people. It's awesome, but it's not, it's using mod hyperbaric. So which, which are Brian and Brie, you know, at 1.5 atmospheres is, is, you know according to Dr. Hart who you probably know sees his ideal, obviously for, for other injuries, a little bit high pressure would be, would be better. But it's so, it's so important to share this message that this is a very powerful X is to it. Then you're like, when you're meeting up just the brain injury. Is it that his brother? Speaker 4: (17:39) No, no, it's especially for strokes. I'm so glad you did that and I'm kind of curious when she noticed, started noticing improvement along that 250 sessions, if it was early and it continued to prove or later on Speaker 3: (17:52) We had the first 33 sessions at a commercial dive company. Con allowed me to use the facility. Also I had to sign legal waivers and so on. I, I as soon as I got around to the hospital that day, I got her out of the hospital and she was like, you know, 24, seven key issue was completely bombed. Fill down to the factory, put her on a forklift in the middle of the spectrum and stuff or in the chamber. Much thought I was nuts. Right? There's nobody you can with walls. We did three treatments at that place. And in the month following the, the chamber thing got taken off overseas at a contract and I lost the access to it. And so for a month I had no chamber while I was ordering one from the S from China. And in that month is where I saw a huge gains, is her body caught up and she said yes, you started to have more speech wanting to move her and trying to communicate. And it wasn't like up and up and walking or, or anything like that. But she was starting to have a little bit of intention to what she wanted and was trying to communicate and so on. Let's see that this awesome. And then she came back. They, I had more to work with other things and unfortunately I didn't have a spec scans. I wish, I wish I could have Headspace scans all the way through this too to prove, you know, this was what, what was happening. Yeah, so Speaker 4: (19:39) The hyperbarics, you know, mostly we have the same problem in the U S as far as access. So there are a lot of clinics with the mild hyperbaric and I think it works great and I recommend people we can, they can rent chambers for a couple of months and try and get in those 40 to 80 hours in the chamber. And I see it work all the time. I, I would, I tend to layer it in as kind of a clinical Pearl is like if you have the finances and resources and it have access to it, there's no reason not to do it anywhere along the process. But because it is time intensive and costly at least make sure you have the other elements in first. Nutrition, supplements, physical alignment, sleep, start to rehabilitate with brain exercises and, and add in hyperbaric if there's any plateauing along the way. And maybe after a couple of months after starting that nutrients. That's what I reckon. Speaker 3: (20:38) Yeah. Let's go into this, the methodology here a little bit and dig deeper into we don't always do my research. I tried to get her on, you know, the good fats, MCT oil on special oils, that sort of thing. At the beginning, she could have the eight, 10, she couldn't sugar. So most of her nutrition was green smoothies, whatever I could get down here. And so your nutrition wise, what are some of the supplements that we can, because whatever you do before you go into hyperbaric will be intensified. Run it like of you know, things like vitamin C infusions or anything like that. Is that a good, is that a, for example, a good thing to be doing? And you know, Speaker 4: (21:29) Prior to hyperbaric and MCT, prior to hyperbaric and essentially a ketogenic diet with hyperbaric is I think enhances the whole a, they're synergistic. They both have antioxidant and antiinflammatory effects and they both increase healing of the mitochondria turning on genes. So the whole reason I think that ketogenic diet is worth looking at, it's not right for everyone and you just want to check with your doctor before starting it. But it's, it's not just for weight loss. It's kind of a fad right now. And us, is it in New Zealand across the world? Pretty much. And it's a, it's a low fat or it's a low carbohydrate diet, less than 30 grams of carbs a day, which isn't much until that forces the body to burn fats for fuel. Your brain is very hungry using 20 to 30% of calories in your diet, which is like a quarter of your plate. Speaker 4: (22:27) Think about it, 2% of your body weight brain using 20 to 30% of calories in your diet, so hungry, but yet when there's injury or there's some neurological problem, typically there's a metabolic deficit. The brain is not able to use as much fuel. As mitochondria are damaged, the brain is damaged and so the ketone bodies which are produced from Makita, genic diet don't take as many steps to get into the brain to be used as fuel. Whereas some of the times the glucose transporters are damaged. I can dementia and brain injury. There's a lot of correlates between the two. There's difficulty in utilizing and accessing glucose for this hungry Oregon. You know, right after brain injury, there's this metabolic deficit, this drop in glucose metabolism after about 10 to 30 minutes, which continues to stay low for weeks. And so this hungry organ, nowK doesn't have enough glucose. That's part of the problem. It's Speaker 3: (23:24) The bites, the whole problem. I mean that is part of what causes to meet. Sure. Isn't it? When you if we don't have into like insulin resistance cause you know, by bad diet for many years leading to or contributing to Alzheimer's and dementia did this as a, as a similar effect happening with a brain. But that a bit quicker. Yeah, exactly. So we can get the glucose in. So it's really, really crucial. If you are not on a keto diet and you just add an exogenous ketones, is that enough? Is that going to benefit? Speaker 4: (24:04) That's a great question. I think it's worth trying. The research doesn't, it's unclear in my mind because they've tried giving. So there's a study because they had patients in comas and they gave them, because they know about this metabolic deficit they gave them IVA glucose thinking, Oh, let's just give them glucose. And what happened was it suppressed their little bit of ketone production. They had like 16% ketones, which were fueling the brain a little bit. And that totally squashed that. And so a little bit, so it's not the answer we need to shift towards burning fats for fuel, burning ketones for fuel. So adding exogenous ketones, there's various studies where they've I think added lactate and different sort of fuel sources and so far haven't been that successful. I think was probably the best. I mean, if I had a brain injury myself for my loved ones, my family members, I'm giving them exhaustion, ketones right away, you know, keto OOS or some sort of product. And, and just in the hopes that they're getting some more fuel for their brain with all of the nutrients that they should be receiving. But it's, if you're on a ketogenic diet, MCTs and anxieties, ketones absolutely enhance the process. If you're eating a crap diet, lots of sugar processed foods, I don't think it's going to help much Speaker 3: (25:33) Standard hospital fear and you know, things like that. We hit those door and I'm like, you know, I didn't find that out unfortunately during the initial, but what I did do is at least I brought in my own smoothies and made my own options while she was awesome. They allowed you to do that. Yeah. Yeah. Well I didn't always ask permission. Don't you have to do the H DHA and you know, and official oils and things like that. I'm awesome as well. And I I wish I'd known more earlier. Some of these things, you know, I did later on as I, as I, as I got more and more research. But I think so if you can't get the patient to, to do a ketogenic diet at least try with the exhausted, those would be the minimum. Speaker 4: (26:27) Right. And do a lower carb diet. No sugar, just, you know, it can be in a stepwise process. First cut out all extra sugar, no cookies, cakes, candy, sweets, especially right after an injury or at any point. Then second step would be protein at each meal, meat, eggs, grass fed, beef, chicken, whatever. Then adding more vegetables and then more healthy fats, avocados, coconut oil. And so even doing that, like is there studies showing that if someone, excuse me, these are actually animals who are on a high sugar diet compared to those who are on a normal rat chow diet and then given a brain injury, those on a high sugar diet, those rats had a lot more concussive symptoms and took longer to recover. Speaker 3: (27:16) And this is, I think, you know, I'm translating a little bit into dementia and Alzheimer's. So a huge epidemic. And the thing that we can see this coming 10 years down the track, you know, this is also a very important point for, and you know, I have the broken brain series by dr Hyman and a lot of the experts in that area the mature in Alzheimer's is known as the top three diabetes in understanding the influence of sugar and insulin resistance and not giving enough glucose as we mentioned before. It's something that people can do to protect the brain health. Now, you know, years out from actually developing the disease, which is really, you know, late in the pace people especially, you know, trying to keep your brain function going. If you're noticing memory changes and this sort of thing, at least cut the sugar out. Even a tie we can obviously it didn't so much, you know, and this is the insidious problem and, and a lot of with them, older people know they've eaten meat and three veggies and the white breathe in the ligament. It's not sugar. You know, Speaker 4: (28:39) I had a patient who I think she was about 75 when she came in. Her son brought her in and she had moved to the area from I think Indiana or Chicago, somewhere in the Midwest. And she had been diagnosed with Alzheimer's and was prescribed Aricept medications or get your things in order and see you later. I was kind of, it, it's very sad that current approach to dementia and understanding me, the doctors may not have a lot of options that they've got their meds, but we do have more options actually. And so she came in, we assessed her. Yep. You've got mild cognitive impairment, may be early stages of Alzheimer's. She was living in a retirement home and just near a little downtown. Couldn't remember how to get down a few blocks to the downtown to do her shopping. And she had to draw maps and she couldn't remember her list even if she was just like three things, had to write lists and cause I have a lot of difficulties. So when she came in, we put her on this program, great programs, supplements, nutrition, exercise and let's see back in a month. So Oh and cut out your sugar because she, she wasn't overweight, so she thought, ah, I'm, I can, I deserve to have my retirement home, my treats. You know, she had a frappuccino at breakfast. She's having ice cream and cookies because it's free. It's just like at the retirement home. Speaker 3: (30:08) Oh yes. Speaker 4: (30:09) Serve ice cream. I said, you got to cut off the shirt. Just cut out the sugar. Let's do that first. Try and eat more protein and less carbs, which is like you mentioned, take the bun off the burger just even if it's not like the best quality meat, just that's fine. Just cut out the carbs first. And so she came back a month later and she was now able to, even just a month, she's able to find her way downtown. Wow. And she could remember that at least three things on her list. She couldn't remember everything, but three things she could remember. And I said, I'm patting myself on the back. Oh my God, you, you did everything. My pro, my protocol is like perfect. And she's like, I didn't take any of the supplements that you recommended. Oh boy. And I didn't do the exercise. But I did cut out the sugar. Speaker 3: (31:01) It just cut it just in one in one month you saw a change. Did she subsequently do the wrist? Speaker 4: (31:10) So then she was willing to do more and so each thing she added, like we added curcumin, we added a brain supplement. It had Gingko and Huperzine each thing she added, she got a little bit more improvement over the subsequent months. And that's what I found folks, you know, they may be a little mistrustful and so they want to try just one thing at a time. And luckily that was the thing that was really slowing her progress down. Speaker 3: (31:36) Oh man. It's so exciting. You know, like to see, you know, and you get people that have been on drugs and they've tried things and they have just, and these are not dangerous things to come out sugar and take a few supplements. You know, like we're not asking these mob America, but the side effect is better health overall and that is always going to benefit your brain anytime that you are. You mentioned Kirkman, which is your tumeric, which is another thing that I still hadn't come on and I'm on. What are some of the other sub supplements that could, is there a list of supplements that you give at as a standard or do you tailor them to each particular patient? Who, one, that's everyone's tailored, but there are some that I keep coming back to because they will compose. So the app, you know, I listens to them eat them now. Speaker 4: (32:32) Yes. Well NAC is probably available. There is a supplement. Inositol cystine. Yup. Precursor to glutathione, anti-inflammatory and just a little piece of information too. They did this double blind placebo controlled trial in 2013 where they had active service members who had a concussion like in the field. So they had an IED blast or something and then were carried or taken to the medic and they gave them NAC. Was this a double blind trial? So NAC or placebo and they were given a lot of it. And I'll tell you the dose in a second, after a week, 86% of them imp like recovered from their and concussive symptoms, whereas 42% recovered, you weren't given any. Wow. And so they were given four grams immediately days one through four. And they were given two grams twice a day. And there's five through seven. They were given 1.5 grams twice a day. So that's like an acute protocol. But NAC is important even after the fact, because many of, even though the research is mostly on acute brain injury, we know the mechanisms, many of them are exactly the same and chronic brain injury and concussion and so they apply. So NAC applies. Curcumin definitely. Speaker 3: (33:59) C is inositol a sustain for anybody who doesn't know what that means? Okay. And Q command, which is your, in your tumeric, what sorts of vitamins for that one? Speaker 4: (34:11) I would do about a thousand milligrams a day of a high quality one. And it needs to be, you can use that acutely. And also chronically, it helps to open up aquaporins. So these are water channels in the brain and you can do decrease swelling, which is especially important acutely for brain injury. Like there's this pastor who was in a car accident. I always remember. And two weeks later he thought he was fine. We went to the ER, checked out, you're fine, no brain bleed. Good. Then he went home. He was, seemed to be okay, but two weeks later he couldn't write a sermon. And I think what happened is the swelling was very gradual and slow. Not enough to be life threatening, but eventually it pushed on some of the brain regions that temporal lobes, frontal lobes, and he started having cognitive problems. So it can be this delayed. Speaker 3: (35:04) It's a light smoke, which is logical. When you cut yourself, you don't see the swelling straight away, you see it as it goes into the healing process. Speaker 4: (35:14) Exactly. Vitamin vitamin D is important. So as a fat soluble vitamin, almost more like a hormone, it turns on many different genes and helps modulate inflammation in the brain. Vitamin C I used 5,000. I use vitamin D. Vitamin C is as a buffered antioxidant water-soluble, the brain actually does well with more vitamin C, even though it's just a simple thing, everyone knows about it. It really does help decrease inflammation, that oxidative stress in the brain thousand milligrams at least a day. And they get three fatty acids. And I like using ones that are higher, a little higher EPA to DHA, which most are EPA for inflammation D to help rebuild the neuron and the cell membrane. And we try to use three grams a day of EPA DHA total. And that's what we use in that football player studying MCT oil of course you mentioned and other things, Speaker 3: (36:27) Especially oil, it's, it's important that you look for a very good quality one. W what do you type on the opposite side of problem, you know, with, with the some of the lower price fish oils [inaudible] a lot of oxidation going on. That is a problem. Speaker 4: (36:45) Oh, absolutely. Yeah. And quality is really key, especially for fish oil, like vitamin D, vitamin a, some of these nutrients, there's only a few manufacturers. Like in the, in the U S there's only three places that actually make vitamin E and every other supplement company just packages it up and charges different amounts. Vitamin E and they get three is not like that. It's really individualized per company and you need to check quality and there can be heavy metals in the fish. It can be oxidized like you said, if it's not processed properly. So that's when I wouldn't go for the cheap stuff. Speaker 3: (37:23) Okay. Very, very, very good. I'm talking on healing middle toxicity. Sorry, going a little bit off of track and we'll come back. I've done here tissue mineral analysis with mum. She's got like a moot Cori. What would be your humane mandation for getting rid of, you know, chelating these high pinning middles out of, out, out of your body. Is there anything new we want to supplement level for that type of thing? Speaker 4: (37:55) Well, yes. So one I'll just, there's a lot there. First making sure your organs of elimination are working, you know, which are organs of elimination are sweating. So the skin breathing out, toxins pooping out toxins. Having good bowel movements and not being constipated, and then urinating them out, st hydrated and peeing them out. So once all of those are open, then you can start sort of facilitating removal of metals or all toxins. And the fact that she has mercury, she probably has other things too. So solvents, mold should be always assessed for. And so I do love saunas and sweating because dr Jenny is from Canada did a really interesting study where he looked at, so what is Sana do? Like, what is it actually eliminating? And they measured in the sweat of people doing sauna. It eliminates mold metals and just chemicals, solvents. Speaker 4: (39:00) So it does all three. Wow. So that's why I love Sana because it's gonna remove all of them. And it's also been shown study out of Finland. If you're doing sauna more frequently, lower chances of dementia, in fact, that was it 2000 Finnish men or 20,000? There was a lot of them in any case. And after they followed them over many years and they found that the more saunas that they did, like five to seven days a week, they had 30% less risk of Alzheimer's versus those that just did it one day a week. So it's multiple reasons to do saunas and sweating and actually in the same study through exercise, sweat, also cleansing and detoxifying. So the fact that you're a runner and running all that gets you have been is cleansing. Speaker 3: (39:49) Yeah. As you know, is a, is a, is a huge piece of this puzzle for brain injury. As well as the most detoxifying and, and I totally eh, and someone who's sweeped every single day pretty much of their life. And I, I even even compete just to my, my siblings I can see lots of things happening in the body, so that isn't happening in mind yet. And I believe a lot of it is the, the daily sweeping, the daily mudflow, the oxygenation of the tissues. Hugely important for and also for, you know, cognitive stuff as well. Like mum, I have her doing at least two hours of aerobic activity. Very low level. We're talking on a stationary bicycle and morphing. That's all she can manage. Obviously it's CBAs but you know, two hours a day and awesome. Yeah. You know, sometimes she doesn't want to crack the whip differently. The drug Sajan that oxygen, that movement then is very, very, very important. I believe in airing her, her brain Speaker 4: (41:10) exercise is so important. Increasing blood flow, it increases especially intense aerobic exercise increases BDNF, brain derived neurotrophic factor, which is like miracle growth for the neurons and the more intense the more you produce. And there's supplements that increase BDNF a little bit, medications a little bit, but exercise trumps them all Speaker 3: (41:33) Does. Yep. Speaker 4: (41:34) Absolutely. Much more. What about new for fact or is it also influenced by nerve growth factor? Yeah. Yes. Also same influenced by exercise interval training will increase nerve growth factor. And like you said, increasing blood flow in general is, is needed and this is a real big exercise versus anaerobic or strength training. And then, you know, just going to say about this cleansing or effective exercise and endurance athlete, like you probably does sweat, you know, for 45 minutes or so, but folks like your average person like myself, I may go for it. 15 minute run, I'm not going to sweat as much as I would in a sauna. So just keep that in mind. So people listening just cause you're doing a little bit of sweating, it's probably not enough. If you really have a problem with toxicity, you'd want to actually do some sauna and sweat for really good sweat for 20 to 40 minutes several times a week. Speaker 3: (42:39) Yeah. And that's something, a problem I have with mum. Like I couldn't put her in a sauna. I don't know why, but she has temperature regulation problems that are brain steam, hypothalamus, brainstem bleed damaged thermostat. Yeah. Well she seems to have no tolerance to heat. She's good as soon as the hate. Like we're in the middle of summer here and it's a struggle that your cognitive abilities do decline and she over hates. Is there anything you can do for them? Speaker 4: (43:16) I'm not sure. How does she do with cold? Speaker 3: (43:19) She's much better with cold cuts, very well with cold. But Hey, you know, like her ability to walk inside of this is, is impaired. Speaker 4: (43:31) Yeah. I would say may just may not be able to do this sweating. But it's interesting that she does well with cold and maybe even pushing that further and considering cold therapy Speaker 3: (43:42) you cry, cry. Yup. You know, ice man training love that is really interesting. So, and I think these extremes and change is, is a key factor here too. It's, yeah. And, and because if you think about it, we, we came from, you know, an F caveman days. We were exposed to the elements. We were exposed to coal, we weren't comfortable all day in a company. And I think having exposure to what was natural is often a benefit and being convenient. Stress, yup. Speaker 4: (44:23) Helps us to be, become more resilient and stronger. I totally couldn't agree more. Exercise cold and hot. I'm challenging the brain brain training. You know, all of these are really important. Speaker 3: (44:37) Absolutely. So, going back to the supplement regime, is there anything that we, because we sort of waned on agent, was there anything else that you'd say, Hey, you've got a brain injury. Speaker 4: (44:51) So alpha GPC really important for acetylcholine. And after stroke 1200 milligrams got to do that. So I don't know if she's taking off of GPC, but that's worth a try. Speaker 3: (45:04) Heavier on acetylcholine is that different? Alpha GPC phosphatidylcholine. Now as Seadrill calling, Speaker 4: (45:13) I see the coin. So the casino coin is that actual neurotransmitter that you're trying to make. So I see the little carnitine. Speaker 3: (45:21) Yes, I have in the past header on there. Is it good? Speaker 4: (45:25) Yeah, that is also good. Helps the mitochondria. Yeah. Alpha GPC will help you her make more acetylcholine and also help the neuron. Phosphatidyl searing is another really good one for memory. There's not as much research on that for brain injury, but I, I still think it's really helpful for memory and cognition because 10% of your brain is made out of this fossa title steering. It's in the cell membranes and Speaker 3: (45:57) Okay. Speaker 4: (45:58) Counter as a supplement. It's very, I'd give it to kids. I mean it's so safe this stuff, but it really is helpful. Alpha GPC potentially. So Gingko 120 milligrams to 240 of Gingko biloba extract. Really good for blood flow. Who present a Chinese club. Moss is a natural acetylcholine esterase inhibitor, so it's sort of increases your body's own CDOT. Coleen I wouldn't give that for acute brain injury, but chronic brain injury, dementia, any other, Speaker 3: (46:32) How do you spell that one? Lou Lou cuisine Speaker 4: (46:35) Prison. H. U. P. E. R. Z. I. N. E. a. It's M Chinese club Moss. It's from Chinese club Moss. And it's, it's a [inaudible] Speaker 3: (46:47) But you have to go out and actually buy concussion rescued because this is all that's sort of level of information in one single seating sitting is, is there's a lot, I mean I spent months and months researching to come up with the bits and pieces that I came up with. And you've written a book that actually gives people a first aid kit for Brian and a protocol to follow and in this is just so exciting. You know I'd love to, if you were down the road, I'd love to go on a speaking tour with you and give like that Rachel side of it and then the side of it, wouldn't it be just Speaker 4: (47:31) Let's do it. I'll come down to New Zealand. I've been wanting to need an excuse so, Speaker 3: (47:36) Well I use that word a lot. They're all come to America and because, because we, we talking millions of people being affected by brain injury every year in, in most people are not given anything except you know, the, well not even the diet recommendations like it's, it's frustrating said and there are just so many people suffering in silence and, and it's an insidious thing because with Brian injuries as with dementia, you don't see on the outside the stuff going on. So a lot of the people that come through our hyperbaric clinic would be so in tears that people don't, when I understood the pain that I was going through because people could not see an injury, that's a young man and he looks healthy and he can't stay in the light and he can't stand the noise. And he counts, he's fatigued all the time and people are just thinking, you're being a woman, you're not. Speaker 4: (48:40) And he starts to wonder, what's wrong with me? Maybe I am a wimp. Maybe I'm, I don't know what's going on. Speaker 3: (48:47) It's more sad. And then things like depression and personality changes where we think someone's just become a horrible person. Dealing with really cognitive problems. So having an, having understanding for people who have Dimitrio who have personality changes, we have like going on that it may be not be fault, you know? Speaker 4: (49:15) Yeah. I have to say that's one benefit of having the ability to do imaging or at least some kind of cognitive tool or test. The imaging is just so powerful because when you show someone their brain and it showed their family members their brain, that's when the tears come because it's like, Oh my God, it's not only diagnostic, but it's therapeutic. They understand. It's just, it is, there is, there is a, there's an injury, Speaker 3: (49:41) Yes. And injury and I can see it and I feel, Oh my gosh, it's not all my fault and I'm not being a neurotic or, or you know, being old. There's nothing wrong with you. You know, I'm with them and they know that there's something wrong but nobody's believing them. And that is very, very painful. And I wish we hit spec scans. He, we don't have access to them. And I wish that had been through the journey to be able to Speaker 4: (50:12) I'm just thinking what else is available? You know, there's cognitive testing that can be done just to document difficulty in memory and focus and things. Speaker 3: (50:22) Can you just ask a, you know, a clinician or do you, Speaker 4: (50:25) Yeah. You can do on our website, brain health assessment.com. I can't remember if there's a fee or it's not, it doesn't cost very much to do. And you can measure where you're at as far as, you know, focus memory in different aspects. In the clinic we use something called web neuro and that's a web-based cognitive tests that people do is computerize and manage the tension memory. Also emotion. And this brain health assessment is the exact same test. So it's, it's, it's high quality. And there's pencil, paper tests and there's also labs that can be done to measure if there's damage to the pituitary gland. It's a whole other issue cause 25 to 50% of people with a history of brain injury have damage to the pituitary glands, your master hormone gland. Oh, and maybe a little more accessible. Speaker 3: (51:19) Let's dive into this. So hormone just came from. So all of the labs that you could do this with, you have, and how do you doctor into doing them? Speaker 4: (51:30) That's half the battle, isn't it? I would, I would just say, you know, bring in the research, there's plenty of studies showing that, you know this is very, some studies say 25, some say 50%, some say even more. If there's, you know, I've had a brain injury, this is what happens. And you can document that by measuring pituitary function and you know, it's, you can actually measure in a bloodwork pituitary hormones like for testosterone, the precursor or the stimulus is LH. And FSH. This is on the book too. It's in all the labs and stuff. For thyroid instead of having what normally is a high TSH and a low T three T four is actually low TSH and low T three T four, which means that the pituitary is not sending the signal to the thyroid gland. Speaker 3: (52:23) Oh wow. Is that, so is that causing the in the like more reverse T three and I'm not talking on the receptor or is it, Oh, you're very sophisticated knowledge. That's great. I'm impressed. I'm work out forward because this is part of month's problem and reverse T three. Yes. I've, I've been arguing with a doctor and, and again, I want a full panel and I cannot get a full panel three free T for me that's too bad. Do antibodies and TSH and T four and that's all I can get out of the law at the moment. So, Speaker 4: (53:01) Right. So if, if you do, if you just do a TSH, which is the standard for screening, that's not going to tell us really what's going on because you know, if it's low TSH they may say, Oh, you're fine. It's not too, you know, it's the kind of kiss is reverse where if it's low, you're hyperthyroid. If it's high, you're hyperthyroid typically. But if you're low plus your T three and T four low, it's pituitary issue actually. So that's important to know. Any case looking at act H and cortisol is for adrenal. And then of course testosterone for men, estrogen, pedestrian for women and LH, FSH. Those would probably be the main ones. And just say, Hey doctor, please, please test these labs. You may have to cut a pocket or whatever. I don't know if you have labs where you can just, Speaker 3: (53:56) We, yeah, we do have bicycle labs, but if you want anything, you know, it's things like cortisol I do regularly and that you have to pay for. So someone like, like mom was obviously got adrenal issues. So like things like estrogen, LH, GC, if it, if it's age in an older female, that would be, it's going to be high. You know, it's, it's different than, than I would I read. That's a very deep clinical question. Speaker 4: (54:29) I guess if it's low, then, then there's pituitary issues. It should be high in menopause after you're going to have high altitude. What happens is the S that the ovaries stop producing estrogen, but the brain thinks it's still, they still should be. So the brain sends a lot of LH and FSH down to the ovaries. And so it, that's how you know you're in menopause if you have high LH and FSH. So then if you measured those after menopause and it's really low, that would be very unusual. It would be, Oh, the pituitary is not working. Speaker 3: (55:07) And, and if it's the pituitary, it's not working. Is there anything you can do about that? Speaker 4: (55:13) Oh, great question. All of these things should help peel the pituitary. I'm actually balancing the hormones. So adding an estrogen, progesterone, testosterone looking at growth hormone. That's the other one I forgot to mention. If growth hormone is low, that's very common in pituitary damage. And can really, if you can increase growth hormone that helps with healing of the whole brain in the body. Best done through exercise again. And so, and then taking the supplements, putting the brain in a healing environment will help the pituitary to also heal. So that's the supplements diet, exercise, hyperbaric. So the hyperbaric is very helpful for pituitary damage as well. Speaker 3: (56:01) It's really good growth hormone. I'm actually taking a supplement. Is it, is there any danger with that in regards to cancer? Speaker 4: (56:09) I always talk with people about that. Like if you had a tumor and you have lots of growth hormone, you might potentially growth of the tumor. So that's like balancing the two. It's like, do we want lots of growth factors or do we want to keep, like there's this whole thing about low calorie diet and low IGF one, which is a marker for growth hormone. There's this field or you know, so it's really a balance of the two. It's not one or the other. I don't actually recommend people do growth hormone because you can become dependent on it and it's expensive. It's like over a thousand dollars a month, something like that. But you can again, exercise, there's supplements or nothing are Janine this product called tri amino. There's various companies that make it and there's three amino acids that are helpful in making growth hormone, taking it bedtime. Speaker 3: (57:04) Yup. [inaudible] Voicing that type of thing or, Speaker 4: (57:07) Yeah. I think it's arginine ornithine and there's one other, but it's three amino acids in particular without other amino acids. You just want those three and on an empty stomach. And if you're really going for it and talk about this in the book, but prior to exercise or empty stomach at night, cause you grow, produce most of your growth hormone at night when you're in deep sleep. That's why deep sleep is so, it's one of the reasons why it's so important. Speaker 3: (57:35) Wow. This is how people are listening. So I've just done a couple of podcasts, episodes on sleep and the importance of sleep and when you won't have enough sleep and growth hormone is one of those things. And your hormone regulation in general. I was going to go, Oh, sleep apnea. You mentioned the briefly or sleep disruption. Sleep apnea wasn't one of the big key mumps I worked at when I was in hospital when she, she's still in hospital. She'd been on oxygen Wellington and when they transplant her to new Plymouth, she was taking off the supplemental oxygen and I noticed a decline in who w what was already terrible but was even worse. And I tried to get him to put this up and legal bank box option back on and they wouldn't. And Avi headed with altitudes ricing and altitude. Speaker 3: (58:35) And I'd been in a hot code hypoxic tent at night with the oxygen. And I had like giving myself a hypoxic brain concussion a few years ago. Growing up too high too fast because I was impatient. I slept in a half thousand meters every night, all night, knocked off. A lot of brain cells have hypoxic rag pressure. And during that time when I did this, I had a whole lot of infections because the bacteria in the body oxygen deficit. And so I was recognizing some of these when she was in the hospital, still my brain went tick, tick, tick apnea, sleep apnea. Cause she was sleeping of course, 20, 21 hours a day. And the doc said, no, she don't, you don't need the sleep apnea test. And I went and got an outside consultant for him and I got in big trouble. I didn't really care resolving. He'd done a taste and it came, make some via sleep apnea. And, and from my research and the thesis there are a lot of people who are suffering from sleep apnea who are not aware that are suffering sleep apnea. Do you think this is a massive contributor to brain injury? Speaker 4: (59:49) Oh, absolutely. Brain problems in general. I think luckily people are recognizing it more and screening more and needs to be done. If your sleep, if you're sleeping a lot like your mom was, or not feeling rested or waking up at night a lot. In fact, my father who has had chronic sleep problems, I've tried to give him every supplement under the sun, can't seem to get his sleep under control. He just did a sleep study. It turns out he has mild sleep apnea and that was causing him to wake up frequently throughout the night. Speaker 3: (01:00:20) Wow, that's interesting, isn't it? And things like even like adrenal exhaustion, you know, your cortisol levels going up in the middle of the night, like that type of thing. I mean we w I'm very much into, you know, breathing exercises and front of the peat, the parasympathetic nervous system, blue blocking at night or what are those things that contribute to good health? And very important again, a tangent. We in our company we do epigenetic testing. And this looks like a genetics and how they're experiencing lightened. Well and one of the key things there is to understand what time of the day [inaudible] biology is very very important. So if your hormones are icing between five and six in the morning and you're getting up at 5:00 AM to do a CrossFit workout, that can be very detrimental to your health and smell. Look, dr [inaudible], I know that you've got to go shortly. I just want to wait. Can people reach out to you and I definitely want to talk to you further because this is isolating conversation. I think I've ever head in so exciting. I can't wait for the book to arrive in the post. We can people reach you. We can they get the book. And what are the next steps for people who are suffering from brain injury? Speaker 4: (01:01:53) Well, great. I've really enjoyed talking with you too. I can feel your passion and excitement to help others and that's where my heart's about to because your brain is like, that's everything. It's who we are. It's our personality. That's why I do this work is to help people recover and optimize their brain function. Because I want you to be able to share your gifts with the world and just be yourself and it's never too late like end with that. It's never too late to at least try and help heal your brain for brain injury. You and your mother are proof of that. I'm so excited to read your book as it comes out next month. Congratulations. You can find my book concussion rescue. It's out. Just released a January 28th on Amazon. There's an audible version for people and a listen to it. We recorded a a video series. It's available beginning of February on the book at Ayman university. It's available there. And I'm at amen clinics Northwest and Seattle. You can just Google that. Amen. Clinics, Northwest and Seattle location. There's clinics all around the country and Speaker 3: (01:03:00) Well I personally as well with people who have my own website. Yeah, I don't, I tried to and I'm not that tech savvy, so. Okay. You must, you must get you your age. I'm on Instagram and Facebook too. Excellent. So people can reach you. Doctor, dr Kabran Chapek, Chapek sorry. Concussion rescue. I will put, I'll get all those links from you, Dr. Cameron 16 with the audience. If I can help with any way, shape or form with getting this book out there. We've got to make this a best seller right around the world because this is, this is absolute crucial work that you're doing and I'm really, really, really sorry that I paid you all this. Thank you so much for your time today, dr Kevin. My pleasure. Great to be with you. Speaker 3: (01:03:55) You really enjoyed that interview with dr Chapek, make sure you go and get their book concussion rescue a must read for anyone with a brain really. And I also wanted to remind you my book relentless is coming out on the 11th of March and is available now for preorder. If you want to grab it, you're also going to get at the moment for the next couple of weeks excess to my mental toughness and mindset Academy if you buy the book and the next couple of weeks. So that's a value of $275 that course. So please go and check that out at least at lisatamati.com and hit on the shop button if you want to help with your health. With epigenetics, we have an eerie genetics testing program, which I mentioned briefly in the show. If you want to find out what that is all about, please head over to our programs page. We've got three flagship programs, we've got the mindset, you've got the epigenetics, and we've got the run training Academy, so please chicken all that out, head over to Lisatamati.com And don't forget to give them a show, a rating and review and share it with your friends. Thanks guys. Speaker 1: (01:05:01) That's it this week for pushing the limits. Be sure to write, review, and share with your friends and head over and visit Lisa and her team at lisatamati.com.

In this episode, Lisa discusses how the cards are stacked against us in our modern society when it comes to making healthy decisions. She talks about the disconnect between our prefrontal cortex and higher executive functions and the amygdala and why inflammation in the body can lower our ability to make logical good decisions. How sugar affects both our body, the inflammation process and how it shuts down or lessens the ability of our higher executive function. She talks about the effects of exercise and the effects of modern technology on our brain. Knowledge is power when we understand some of the processes hijacking our ability to make good decisions we can take steps to correct those and create an upward leading spiral that goes to more good decisions being made on a regular basis so you can reach your long term health and fitness and weight loss goals and wellbeing goals not to mention your productivity goals. She also talks about the importance of sleep and what a lack thereof will do your brain. Lisa also references the work of Dr's David and Austin Perlmutter and their new book "Brainwash" https://www.drperlmutter.com/brain-wash/ and the work of Dr. Bruce Lipton and his book "The Biology Of Belief" https://www.drperlmutter.com/brain-wash/ We would like to thank our sponsors for this show: www.vielight.com Makers of Photobiomodulation devices that stimulate the brains mitocondria, the power houses of your brains energy, through infrared light to optimise your brain function. To get 10% off your order use the code: TAMATI at www.vielight.com For more information on Lisa Tamati's programs, books and documentaries please visit www.lisatamati.com For Lisa's online run training coaching go to https://www.lisatamati.com/page/runningpage/ Join hundreds of athletes from all over the world and all levels smashing their running goals while staying healthy in mind and body. Lisa's Epigenetics Testing Program https://www.lisatamati.com/page/epigenetics/ Get The User Manual For Your Specific Genes Which foods should you eat, and which ones should you avoid? When, and how often should you be eating? What type of exercise does your body respond best to, and when is it best to exercise? Discover the social interactions that will energize you and uncover your natural gifts and talents. These are just some of the questions you'll uncover the answers to in the Lisa Tamati Epigenetics Testing Program along with many others. There's a good reason why epigenetics is being hailed as the "future of personalized health", as it unlocks the user manual you'll wish you'd been born with! No more guesswork. The program, developed by an international team of independent doctors, researchers, and technology programmers for over 15 years, uses a powerful epigenetics analysis platform informed by 100% evidenced-based medical research. The platform uses over 500 algorithms and 10,000 data points per user, to analyze body measurement and lifestyle stress data, that can all be captured from the comfort of your own home For Lisa's Mental Toughness online course visit: https://www.lisatamati.com/page/mindsetuniversity/ Develop mental strength, emotional resilience, leadership skills and a never quit mentality - Helping you to reach your full potential and break free of those limiting beliefs. For Lisa's free weekly Podcast "Pushing the Limits" subscribe on iTunes or your favorite podcast app or visit the website https://www.lisatamati.com/page/podcast/ Transcript of the Podcast: Speaker 1: (00:00) Welcome to pushing the limits, the show that helps you reach your full potential with your host Lisa Tamati, brought to you by Lisatamati.com Speaker 2: (00:13) If your brain is not functioning at its best. Then check out the team at www.vielight.com do. Now being like producers, photo biomodulation devices, your brain function depends largely on the health of the energy sources of the brain cells. In other words, the mitochondria and research has shown that stimulating your brain with near infrared light, revitalizes mitochondria. I use these devices daily for both my own optimal brain function and also for other age related decline issues and also for my mom's brain rehabilitation after her aneurysm and stroke. So check out what the team do www.vielight.com that's V I E L I G H T .com and use the code T A M A T I and checkout to get 10% of any of their devices. Well hi everybody. Lisa Tamati here at pushing the limits today. I have a solo cast, so no guests, but I wanted to do a short sort of episode around decision making processes and why sometimes we don't make the decisions that we want to make and why we're not always in control of the things that we want to do. Speaker 2: (01:24) So this time of the year, a lot of us have been sitting new year's goals and resolutions and we often find ourselves failing when it comes to actually doing those goals and doing what we sit out to do. And we come across some stumbling block blocks. And I've talked on previous podcasts about the work of Dr. Bruce Lipton and the biology of belief has Bach about the subconscious and how that can sometimes sabotage us in our ability to follow through with decisions that we make. But I wanted to go on a bit of a different tangent today and look at the work of Dr. David and Dr. Austin pill mortar who've just bought out a book called brainwash, which is also really worth a read. And these are, you know, when you start to, you know, I've been studying a lot obviously in the last four years about brain rehabilitation, controlling the brain and understanding the brain. Speaker 2: (02:20) And you get snippets of information from all of these great sources and starting to connect the dots with a lot of things. So why is it that we can, you know, set out to do things and then we don't do them. We set out to go to the gym, we sit out to get fit, we set out to lose weight and eat more healthily. And, and then on the first time that chocolate bar appears where we're gone and we're back to doing things we don't want to do. And this is a problem of, of, of the human condition I think. But if we understand that we stand to look into the decision making process and how we're those decisions, we can actually see how the cards are stacked against us in their modern society. Especially we'll start with, for example, our food supply. Speaker 2: (03:11) So our food supply is not what our grandparents had. It is full of processed foods. It is full of sugar apparently over about, and this isn't America or a statistic out of America that 68% of the foods and the supermarket, this is millions of products have added sugar. So even when we decide we're not going to have sugar, it's very, very hard to avoid some of the hidden sugars that are in things like you know, tomato sauces and things where you wouldn't actually expect to find sugar. And these are all forms of sugar. It's not just when you read sugar on the label, these are your corn syrups, these are your, you know, coconut sugars. This could be part of sugar. This is what you might consider even healthy options, but they are sugar, even fruit, dos and fruit. And so what does sugar do in the brain? Speaker 2: (04:02) Well, sugar, from an evolutionary point of view, our brains are wired to search out for sugar because when, when food is scarce as it was in the past and we are wanting to chase foods that are high in sugar because it gives us the energy and so on. The problem is we have so much sugar in our society and it's very addictive and they say it's as addictive as cocaine. But so one of the problems that we have when we, when we eat sugar, then a number of things are happening. We spiking our blood sugar levels and causing an insulin release and then we are liable to put on more weight as it gets stored in our fat stores. But there's a whole lot of other things going on. There's inflammation happening in the body when we take on way too much sugar and this is affecting our ability to make good decisions. Speaker 2: (04:58) Now, why is that? Well, in the brain we have something called the prefrontal cortex, which is where you are your executive function, your, your logical brain sets. And then we have what they call the limbic brain. And in particular, the amygdala, which is your, it's an older part of the brain and it's much more impulsive. It's the, it's the, it's like the alarm system. It's always looking for threats and it's always impetuous and it's always, it's the one that will hijack you. For example, you get angry in traffic and it's the one that has you swearing before you even know and what you're doing. It's the one that reacts faster than your prefrontal cortex. Now, when you have a lot of sugar, there is a disconnect between the prefrontal cortex and the limbic brain and the amygdala. And the amygdala comes to the fore in the prefrontal cortex. Speaker 2: (05:50) And its decision making and its executive function is lowered. So what does means for us is that we then become more prone to making very short term, short viewed decisions. So this becomes in a spiral. So we start to make unhealthy choices. So the more sugar we consume, the more likely we are to consume more and to do things that are not good for us. In tunes off or lowers the executive function. And that amygdala and this way sort of hijacks us from what we want to be doing with our logical brain. We've decided we don't want as much sugar, we want to have a healthy for foods, we want to be healthier. But along comes to the amygdala and it overpowers us and the inflammation that's caused by sugar will cause us to make more of those decisions. Now, there are lots of other things that are influencing our decision making ability. Speaker 2: (06:46) Hormones for example. An interesting fact with the contraceptive pill that woman, so many women are on been doing a lot of research into that lately too. And that can have a very big effect on your decision making ability. All our hormones were very, very, you know, chemical based beings that a lot of what we do is influenced by these sorts of things. We all know what happens when we have alcohol or turns off our, our logical thinking brain and we do dumb things. And that's another example of the amygdala being stronger in that case in taking over. And it's like having, if you like, it's like the parents being away on holiday while the kids at home running the ship. And of course the kids are going to make decisions that are bad because they're not looking at it with a longterm view or with a maturity. Speaker 2: (07:39) And with intelligence and longterm thinking, a child just looks at the next 30 seconds of pleasure and makes that decision. And that's what's happening in the brain. And when we have a lot of sugar in our diet, that's one of the things that's happening. So this becomes then a spiral, not only a physiological spiral are the, you know, you're raising your blood sugar levels, you are causing an insulin release, you are dropping your blood sugar levels and then next causing cravings. But also this part of the brain is being turned off as the prefrontal cortex or its function as being lowered. And so we're less likely to make more good decisions. Now, by the same token, this sort of process is going along with exercise as well. So we all know exercise is good for us. We, we all know that and we don't necessarily all do enough exercise. Speaker 2: (08:32) And again, this becomes a spiral. So the more exercise we do, the more connection we have with our prefrontal cortex and the more ability we have to make good decisions. Once again, once again, the parents are at home. When we're have been doing more exercise, we have an ability to control ourselves better and to make better decisions. So that's one of the thousands of it reasons why we should be exercising. When we exercise, we produce more brain derived neurotrophic factor. Another really important reason we are detoxifying as we swear to and as we pump the blood around, there's so many reasons why we should be exercising. But of course it all comes down to the fact that we don't always feel like it. And if we've been eating better than we, we're even less likely to feel like it. And that amygdala is again going to override our decision making process. Speaker 2: (09:27) They actually go out and do the exercise that we said we're going to do today. And then in regards to exercise, sometimes we set ourselves up for failure. We like, right, I'm going to go to the gym five days a week for the rest of the year. Or, you know, I'm going to run a marathon and I'm going to train really, really hard and I'm going to do this right. And then we sit the bar so high that if we are unable to actually attain the required training a day, say I've decided I'm going to spend an hour a day in the gym and today I've been so busy that I've only got half an hour. And so I decided not to go at all. Now as it is always better to have that incremental amount of exercise even if it's not the full amount. So even if my day is gone totally to custard and I'm really, really busy, which happens quite often in my life, a 10 minute walk in the park is better than none. Speaker 2: (10:20) It's better than doing no exercise. And so sometimes having a ah, it's not worth me going cause I've only got half an hour. There is actually a detrimental attitude. You know what you can get in, okay, you didn't reach what was on the list today, but you got 10 minutes out of that hour and that 10 minutes is better than nothing. Another thing that I wanted to discuss is our modern technologies and our screen time. And we all know that technology is all pervasive in our lives and it has wonderful, wonderful implications for us and empowers us and has changed the way we live our lives. But it's also very insidious in that a lot of the apps and a lot of the things that we do online are made to be addictive. And so often, you know, I find myself doing this myself, you know, I have a job to do. Speaker 2: (11:11) I go online to answer an email or to go to messenger and answer somebody's inquiry. And then I find myself off somewhere looking at somebody's social media feed and end up in places I don't want to. And that time has been lost and it's so easy to be distracted and just led down this path. And then that takes up time and energy from our brains. And we are also spending just so many hours in front of a computer screens, TV screens every which way. And this is causing structural changes in our brains. And of course this is very much so, you know, affecting children. And I don't really think we've even scratched the surface of what this is going to have in the long term. We really don't know, but it's going to be major, that's for sure. The changes that our children's brains going to have in comparison to how we grow up. Speaker 2: (12:08) So some putting some parameters around your technology use of possible, if this is an area that is becoming a problem for you, they say that over 70% of the world's population has got a smartphone now and over 6% of the entire population has an addiction to the internet in some way, shape or form. And this is a problem that's growing and you will all know, you know, Instagram, Facebook ENCO made to pull you in. They want you to spend as much time as possible on the reps. That's how they make the money. And we need to be aware of this and be very intentional with our use of it and just observe our behavior on screens and how much is it actually bringing us? Is it bringing us a knit good effect as puts it? Is it actually bringing us the desired results that we are wanting? Speaker 2: (13:01) Or when you say, you know, I'm going to get fitter and then you say, but I haven't got the time to train. And then you look at the screen time, if you recorded your whole day, how much of that screen time was actually work-related and actually bringing you something and how much was actually just lost in the chaos of the social media world or the YouTube or whatever. And when we start to look at the amounts of time that we are spending on those sorts of things instead of doing the other things and not prioritizing. So putting some time constraints, certainly around your children's time in front of screens, but also around yourself some time, some intentionality when it comes to what am I here to do? And staying on target and not ending up somewhere completely different, which you know, is a battle. Speaker 2: (13:50) I bet all with us every day when I've got a hundred windows open and I don't feel like doing the thing that I'm meant to do, I often find myself off somewhere just staring at some newsfeed or some Instagram feed or whatever. So it's being aware that this is happening to our brains and this is making us wasting a lot of our time, a lot of our energy and causing action with structural changes in the way our brains function. The last point I wanted to bring up is, is around, or the second the last actually is around a connection to nature. I think it's super important. It's a proven fact that when we're out in nature or say in the, in the forest and the Bush somewhere up on a mountain down by the sea that has a calming effect on our body and turns our parasympathetic nervous system on and slows down the response of stress hormones like cortisol and adrenaline. Speaker 2: (14:49) And so having time in nature, even if you're not doing the exercise, you're just hanging out in nature, staring at the trees, the beautiful flowers, whatever it is that you really connect to and having that time every day and having that prioritized in your schedule. You know, I started to, you know like I have a very heavy heavy workload and I feel guilty every time I go to just sit at the beach or go to go for a run in the pack because I could be doing a thousand other jobs. I could work 24, seven and the jobs would still be piling up. And I have to know that I have to prioritize and that it's okay for me to prioritize those other things because they will make me more productive in the long run. And I'll have our, we have much more used to everybody if I've had my time in nature and just being as a human being was meant to be connected to nature, outside moving in nature, exercising in nature, having some sunshine on my skin, getting my vitamin D three, all of those things are starting to become more and more scarce in our life as we are in artificial environments all day with our jobs behind screens. Speaker 2: (16:01) And then all night. And then we are often turning to, you know, self-medicating at night with, with things like alcohol, sugar, food and all. This is a spiral that leads us down. And so the odds can be stacked against us, but it's up to us to understand the brain and to start to use the information to give us a hand up out of the spiral downwards. And once you start taking little steps. I know, you know like I worked with a lot of clients. We were working through different health issues with our epigenetics program and often they want the big effect, they want to have it all perfect and that's really important to come back and actually just tackle one or two things at a time. It might be getting out in nature more. It might be a little less time on the screen. There might be doing those things before you even consider an exercise or a diet change and you can't do it all at once. Speaker 2: (16:56) You can't. It's too much. It's overwhelming. But when you start to make one or two steps that are healthier for you, that are getting you more on track, that are helping you strengthen your prefrontal cortex and your executive function and your ability to make good decisions, then it becomes easier to instigate the other changes that come after that, the food choices that are better, the exercise choices there to be there. And that leads me onto my last topic for the day. And that is the lack of sleep, a lack of sleep. We sometimes Palm off as just being, you know, one of the ills of our world and we have busy lives. Maybe you're a shift worker and your circadian rhythms are all up the watch. Now this has massive implications for our health, our brain health for S for sure. And also all of our hormone production, our circadian rhythms as beings, we have a rhythm, we have a clock. Speaker 2: (17:52) Every cell in their body is on a clock and we have an internal clock that has the times we meet to be asleep. The times we meant to be awake, the times we should be exercising, the times when we are most alert and understanding your chronobiology. And this is where epigenetics and the program that we do helps define for us what you, your right chronobiology is and then working out what time of the day should I be doing what and getting enough sleep is a huge priority. We need as human beings, seven to eight hours. And a lot of people say that, Oh, I get by on, I get by on five to six or four to five, which is, yeah, you'll get away with it for a little while, but I can guarantee you you're going to start losing brain cells. You're going to start your, you're increasing your risk of dementia later in life for Alzheimer's. Speaker 2: (18:45) You are by sleep deprivation. Anyone who's only getting four to six hours sleep a night on Everage a statistic and I can't, I can't tell you where the statistics from. So I hope I'm getting it right. But on average, a, you'll be eating more calories if you are not having enough sleep. And there's a couple of reasons for this. You're not producing enough grelin, which is sort of like your hunger that controls your hunger. So you're more likely to have those cravings. You're more likely to eat more and 350 calories a day extra onto your normal diet will mean weight gain. That's little loan from the fact that you're not getting the rest and repair and recovery that you need in order to function properly. To have the right hormones and all of these things will affect your metabolism and your, your your thyroid and all your hormone production. Speaker 2: (19:39) So getting enough sleep. If there was one thing that you changed in your life at the moment, if you don't want to take your food, you don't know to take your exercise regime, you don't want to do anything else getting out in nature or anything. If you prioritized and made it a priority for your whole family to get more sleep. And if you're struggling with insomnia, then go back over my old past podcast, I've had a number of podcasts on sleep and insomnia and how to work on, on those sorts of things. And I can do another one on that. But if you can get more sleep, if you can get to bed half an hour earlier, turn off the damnit flux. And this is something I struggle with too, when I'm relaxing in the evening and I want to binge watch something instead of going to bed. Speaker 2: (20:26) Just understanding that having an extra half hour of sleep, an extra hour of sleep will make a massive difference to your health, to your ability to function for your product. Tivity for your hormonal health, for your metabolism, for your immune system. All of these repair processes are when you're a sleeping. So if you're exercising hard and you're training for something big, but you're not getting enough sleep, then you're not going to be getting the effect that you could be getting out of that training. Same goes for if you're eating perfectly, but you're not getting enough sleep, you're not going to have the benefit of that food to its full effect. So prioritizing sleep is really, really, really crucial. Okay? Can't emphasize that enough. So we've covered off sleep, we've covered off exercise, we've covered off your executive fund, front function and your brain, your prefrontal cortex, your amygdala, how that can hijacked your, your logical thinking brain, how sugar affects us, how modern technologies affect this. Speaker 2: (21:32) So I hope that this has given you some insights and some things to consider as you go throughout your day. Now just pick one or two of these aspects. Go back over, listen to this again cause there's a lot that I've just covered in a very short period of time. Pick one or two that you want to work on this week. Even one, even just if it's one might be slightly more exercise, it might be, I'm trying to cut down on the sugar intake and the processed food and take, even if you haven't got the perfect diet and even if you haven't got the perfect exercise, work, edit an incremental stages, don't go for perfection. Do all that. All those perfectionists out there. Perfectionism is the enemy, a pro progress because you'll be waiting to, everything's perfect and that is never going to happen. Just make a start with some very small steps. Speaker 2: (22:24) I hope this information has been fantastic for you. I hope it's given you something to think about. Go and check out that book, brainwashed by Dr. David and Dr. Austin Perlmutter. And go and check out the biology of belief by Dr. Bruce Lipton. They'll give you incredibly good insights. My book of course, is coming out relentless. On the 11th of March and is available now for preorder. So if you want to hit over and grab a copy of that, I've got a real special going on at the moment to get the ball rolling to kickstart and get some momentum. I have given people access to my mindset, mental toughness Academy mindset. You for free. If you preorder the book it won't ship until the limits of March, but if you preorder it now you get a few dollars off the price, $29 instead of 35 and you get my mental toughness course, which is valued at $275. Speaker 2: (23:19) It's a grab that while you can just in the next couple of weeks and help me get relentless out the door and spread the word about that, which is all about my mum's journey back from massive brain injury and her brain rehabilitation. But it's also a book about mindset and overcoming obstacles and mental toughness and resilience and the, you know, elevating our potential as humans to, to adapt and perform. So if you want to check that out, head on over to Lisatamati.com At the shop button go to my book section and you can preorder that now. Thanks guys for listening again today. If you enjoy the content, please share this with a friend. It helps us get exposure and give us a rating and review on iTunes. That would be really, really appreciated and we'll see you again next week. Speaker 1: (24:10) That's it this week for pushing the limits. Be sure to write, review, and share with your friends and head over and visit Lisa and her team At lisatamati.com.

Boomer Anderson hails from the USA but has lived and worked in many countries and cities from Wall St to Singapore to Amsterdam among others.

After graduating from the University of Minnesota, Boomer pursued his first love (finance) through a successful career in investment banking in New York and Singapore. Always desiring to learn more and pursue his second love (health), Boomer left finance to found a successful clinical practice leveraging data to help entrepreneurs and executives achieve better performance through health.

He continues to pursue his joint loves of health and finance through early-stage startup investments, advisory roles, and public speaking. In his free time, Boomer enjoys experimenting with the latest in performance technologies, travel, adventure, and spending time with his girlfriend.

He had a fast-paced career in investment banking and venture capital. Helping countries and companies raise funding. He lived life in the extreme both in the high flying career world and in his sporting endeavors, doing an extreme amount of traveling and long days and living on very little sleep thinking he was bulletproof until a serious heart condition stopped him in his tracks at age 30. Since then he pivoted and in his quest to heal himself has become over the years an expert in health optimization, biohacking, data tracking in relation to health and much more. He shares his deep insights into the exciting world of the quantified self, the power of data and testing for health and the change in paradigm that is happening in the world on biotech. Boomer is also a podcaster and has a top 100 rated show many countries. His show is Decoding Superhuman and you can reach out to Boomer at www.decodingsuperhuman.com and follow him on instagram and facebook. He is also partner in Dr Ted Achacoso's www.homehope.org which is a complete new system looking at the holobiont and metbolome for health optimisation. We would like to thank our sponsors for this show: www.vielight.com Makers of Photobiomodulation devices that stimulate the brains mitocondria, the power houses of your brains energy, through infrared light to optimise your brain function. To get 10% off your order use the code: TAMATI at www.vielight.com For more information on Lisa Tamati's programs, books and documentaries please visit www.lisatamati.com For Lisa's online run training coaching go to https://www.lisatamati.com/page/runningpage/ Join hundreds of athletes from all over the world and all levels smashing their running goals while staying healthy in mind and body. Lisa's Epigenetics Testing Program https://www.lisatamati.com/page/epigenetics/ Get The User Manual For Your Specific Genes Which foods should you eat, and which ones should you avoid? When, and how often should you be eating? What type of exercise does your body respond best to, and when is it best to exercise? Discover the social interactions that will energize you and uncover your natural gifts and talents. These are just some of the questions you'll uncover the answers to in the Lisa Tamati Epigenetics Testing Program along with many others. There's a good reason why epigenetics is being hailed as the "future of personalized health", as it unlocks the user manual you'll wish you'd been born with! No more guesswork. The program, developed by an international team of independent doctors, researchers, and technology programmers for over 15 years, uses a powerful epigenetics analysis platform informed by 100% evidenced-based medical research. The platform uses over 500 algorithms and 10,000 data points per user, to analyze body measurement and lifestyle stress data, that can all be captured from the comfort of your own home For Lisa's Mental Toughness online course visit: https://www.lisatamati.com/page/mindsetuniversity/ Develop mental strength, emotional resilience, leadership skills and a never quit mentality - Helping you to reach your full potential and break free of those limiting beliefs. For Lisa's free weekly Podcast "Pushing the Limits" subscribe on iTunes or your favorite podcast app or visit the website https://www.lisatamati.com/page/podcast/ Transcript of the Podcast: Speaker 1: (00:01) Welcome to pushing the limits, the show that helps you reach your full potential with your host, Lisa [inaudible], brought to you by Lisatamati.com Speaker 2: (00:13) Once again to pushing the limits before we get underway with this week's very special guests. Just like to remind you, if you don't mind doing me a big favor and giving this podcast or writing a review on iTunes, that would be hugely, hugely helpful and helps us show where the ratings and exposure so we get exposed to more people and more listeners so we can get our message out there. So really, really appreciate your help. If you want help also with your running or with your health optimization or you want help with mental toughness coaching, check out all our flagship programs over at Lisatamati.com. Hit the programs button and you'll be able to find out all about our running hot coaching, our epigenetics in the mental toughness mindset you e-course right now. Today's guest is sitting in Amsterdam and he is an incredible person who has a background actually in investment banking and finance. But has now done a completely one 80 pivot into health optimization. Someone who has a, she has a lot of interests with what I do, and I know you're going to get a huge amount of value out of this interview. So without further ado, over to boomer Anderson. Speaker 3: (01:25) Well, everybody needs to tell me to here and welcome back once again to pushing the limits. It's fantastic to have you with us again. I'm super excited for today's interview. I have a very, very special guest who is the host of something called a podcast called decoding superhuman. And you guys have to check this out. This gentleman is sitting in Amsterdam, which is a first for me. I haven't had anyone from my son's name. He's actually so welcome to the show boomer Anderson. Welcome. I'd really Speaker 4: (01:54) Release a thank you for having me. This is an absolute pleasure. Speaker 3: (01:58) Oh, it's so cool to have you. So boomer and I have connected other, the love for podcasting really and through an audio engineer of all things, Roy Roy, Roy helped me and taught me. And Burma is, it does stuff that's right up my alley. So very much a expert on human performance and in many seats is other word. And his, a podcast as a seed called decoding superhuman and has a very interesting backstory as well. So boomer, let's start with a little bit about we from who you are and your you know, your, your career before you got into this. Speaker 4: (02:40) Oh, how long did we actually have here? So let's start with the beginning, right. And then, because you mentioned that I love all things performance just like you do. And that's absolutely the truth. And it started from a very young age, you know, growing up I had the benefits of the son of a yoga teacher on one side and then a finance professional on the other. So I had this kind of eats me at East meets West growing up experience. And you know, I was been obsessed with performance from a young age, whether it was academics or athletics, it was always, how do you push it to that next level. We can talk about it later, but sometimes that hurts when you push it to the next level. Speaker 4: (03:25) And you know, that next level led me to go to college in Minnesota and then eventually work on wall street after two years in New York and I, I was in New York at times that people don't want to be in New York. Right? Like my first day on wall street was the day that Lehman brothers filed for bankruptcy and AIG gets nationalized. Oh my gosh. Hell of a first day. Right. And so my career path kind of changed forever. And after two years I've moved to Singapore where at a very young age I became the head of a, a deck capital market stuff covering South Asia. And so my responsibility was 14 different countries helping companies and governments raise money across the world. Yeah. That all sounds amazing and glamorous. And I had the pleasure of traveling to 40 countries over the course of four years, basically living on a plane. Speaker 4: (04:19) And that entire time I thought I was healthy. Right. Because if you read men's health, have you read whatever it is, whatever those fitness magazines are, they tell you that diet and exercise are all that really matters. And you know, I was one of these guys who not following whatever the diet your was, I've probably tried them all with the exception of maybe being vegan. And then I was also very into a sport called CrossFit. And I pushed, I know there's a very, there's a very strong theme that I think reverberates in both of our lives is that I pushed everything to the extreme, whether that be work, whether that be play, whether that be exercise. And so, you know, I was the guy who was like, I'm going to work this investment banking career, get you know, from the age of 18 to 30 is getting four to six hours of sleep per night. Speaker 4: (05:10) And I'm going to try and work out like rich Froning because I had a goal of beating rich Froning and the CrossFit games delusional goal, but it was a goal. And so, you know, go bigger, go home. Right? And so this eventually has a wall that I hit, but I've had, and we can talk about that wall here in a second, but there's this constant reverberating theme of trying to elevate performance. I now consider it my mission in life to elevate the human experience through health. And I look at that through a number of different lenses and a result of the learnings on the journey, so to speak come up with a fairly elegant system in order to help others do this. Wow, Speaker 3: (05:58) That's a, that's a nutshell. A pretty amazing life. So investment banker in the finance world, I mean, that's a dream for many young people to get into that, that world was, is just idea for us. A short second. Did that burn the hell out of you? You know, physically, obviously traveling all the time, but also the meeting side and the pressure in that game. Speaker 4: (06:23) Sure. So let's talk about that because most of the rumors you hear about investment banking or Kennedy true. When I started in investment banking, I lived mainly in the office. And frankly that changed over time. But it was more, I lived with a cell phone instead of in the office. And you know, I've spent many a night where it was okay, you worked the entire night, go home, change your clothes and come back into work the next morning. I've slept in a desk. I've done many times where I've gone into this is actually embarrassing Lisa, and I can't believe I'm telling you this story. But like I went into, I went into the bathroom, put my legs up and fell asleep to get 20 minutes of sleep. Right? And so just like in those kind of extremes produce extreme results. And so you know, you, he pushed your body to the limits. Speaker 4: (07:19) And of course as you get more and more senior, there's the stress of you have to meet a budget, you have to worry about a coworker stabbing you in the back. All of these things. But the experience itself of, and I was helping companies and governments raise money and experience of itself, of being able to look at how a country funds itself and saying like, Hey, I had an impact on that. And there's one or two countries that I can point to and say I had a significant impact on how they fund themselves even till today is pretty rewarding. But yeah, the stress is ridiculous. And so let's talk about some of the warning signs, so to speak. Right. And so one of those warning signs I collapsed in my shower just from exhaustion. I've been to the hospital more than once for exhaustion. Speaker 4: (08:11) I've had parasites. I was traveling to places like India, Bangladesh, all these things, parasites. I was vomiting. I was, you know, falling asleep at my desk. All of this stuff. I was doing three, four and a half hour red eyes from DACA and going into the office the next day. All of these things you can add, you can look at it and say like, Hey, any, any person with any reasonable level of intelligence could have looked at this from afar and said, at some point this kid is going to go head first into a wall. But that kid wasn't willing to admit it. Yeah. Speaker 3: (08:48) Well you live in, you live in that world where it's expected, this hard performance is, you know, 24, seven, the labels of your anxiety must've terrific. Speaker 4: (09:00) Terrific. Yeah. And I've you know, it's something that I talk about openly now and it took me awhile to talk about it openly, but I've had issues with panic attacks you know, getting in front of people and you know, starting to sweat for no apparent reason. Just extreme nerves at an occasion. And then when you start breaking your circadian rhythm, cause I was traveling time zones all the time, right? Like I was doing, I went to Europe one year, 18 times from Singapore. So that's that's already a six to seven hour time change. I went to from Asia to the U S six to seven times in one year as well. And so you're talking about like my circadian rhythm was not existing. And so like I developed social anxiety, I developed anxiety around people and it just became this one big ball of anxiety. Speaker 4: (09:52) And you just kind of look at different ways to deal with it. You know, at that point I was self-medicating mainly through alcohol, but it's so medicated through alcohol and CrossFit, you know, I was just looking for anything to escape. Right. And, and so like, I had this brilliant job and I, I don't think I appreciated it at the time, but I got this brilliant job and I was like just stressed. And you know, there were times when I was younger in New York where I just walked down on the street and pray that like a taxi cab would hit me because I would get some sleep in a hospital. Right. And it's just, yeah, I guess to answer your question, yes, Speaker 3: (10:34) It's a little bit stressful. It's a little bit stressful and to show up and, you know approach you for being open about this because this is the, this is what my podcast is known for and we tell the real shit here and we died and I've had panic attacks, I've had anxiety, I've had depression, I've, you know, been in shitty relationships. I've lost all my money and revoke myself. I've, you know, I've been there and the people know that the dramas that I've gone through, and I think the power lies when you share those shitty moments and you share the difficulties that you went through because the learning is in the air for the people that are listening that we have really can shortcut the people, you know, not repeating the same problems to go. That is the whole point. And to, to be able to you know, withstand that huge amount of pressure and to, to live at that high performance level. And I totally get your mentality of, you know, go hard and go home and extreme and and when you're young, you're Bulletproof, you're Bulletproof and nothing can break me. But I know in your story that came to a crushing sort of how to, at some stage it's go into that story a little bit. Speaker 4: (11:47) Yeah. So the silver bullet, so to speak, came shortly after my 30th birthday and I was one of these people. So for a very long time we were talking about how I grew up kind of East meets West and realize that health had a, an input in this idea of performance, particularly workplace performance. And I'm pretty nerdy when it comes to data. And so I actually calculated what was my return on health investment. So I would invest X amount in health per year and would get X amount growth in my bonus, so to speak. It wasn't a direct correlation, but it was just a way to justify what I was spending on these things. And I, you know, I'll caveat this by saying I wasn't necessarily spending it in the right way. I was spending on things that like Tim Ferris recommended or whoever, Dave Asprey in those days, actually it was the early days of day out. Speaker 4: (12:38) And Dave asked for even before them and as a part of this little esoteric forum on the internet called quantified self. And so I became very interested in the idea of if I monitor this data point about myself and it can be subjective or it could be something like my aura ring that I'm wearing now, you know, how do I take that information and apply it to perform better in my life? And again, for a long time I wasn't doing this in the right way. And so, you know, I was spending all this money and for my 30th birthday I was on the verge of resigning at this point from my job because you know, I done already gotten so much in investment banking and at that point everybody is quitting to build apps. And I was just like, I'm going to build an app. Speaker 4: (13:25) I didn't really have a good idea, but like I'm going to build an app. And so in the process of resigning, I went in and got all of these tests and one of those tests was actually calcium score and the calcium came back as positive. Now, as a 30 year old having calcium in your heart, I was at a 95% risk of a cardiac event. And so I had a blockage of my left anterior descending artery. Like any person who gets diagnosed with heart disease, what do they do? They give you a Staton? Well, the Staten induced chest pain so much so that I could barely walk down. If you're familiar with Singapore, there's this area called call your key and it's basically you go from Tanjong pagar over to my office and I was walking down that street and like gripping my chest in pain. Speaker 4: (14:15) And I said to the cardiologist at the time, you know, Hey, I think this has something to do with this stat. And he said, no, and you know, I don't fault him at this point because the education wasn't necessarily there, but now there are genetics that are associated with stat and the do chest pain. So I'd take, I stopped taking this, the Staton because it wasn't really a cholesterol issue in the first place. And really the pain went away. And so that was kind of the aha moment. Like, Hey, there's this data out there and I had it from my 23 and me test. That's not an advertisement for 23 meters. It was just like the easiest just to give them time. And I realized like, Hey, what else can I do with this stuff? And that was kind of how I went from, well there's a whole journey there on how do I make sure I don't die. But also as I was making sure I don't die, people were like, Hey, this is interesting. Can you do it for me? And that was really what became my, my transition. Speaker 3: (15:22) Wow. And now this is so interesting cause isn't it funny when you have either a personal evangelism, not my case with my, my family and my mum. That it just totally changes your, the lens that you're looking through. And as in you have a huge intimate thank you. That's very kind of listen to your podcast, but you have to have a huge intellect, you know, and I'm struggling half the time to keep up. But anyway. So you've taken that huge intellect that you applied, excuse me, to the finance world and you've gone, even though you're not a doctor or anything like that, you've gone into plot all that data and that ability to analyze data across into a new world now, which is what I find fascinating that you've made this transition and I've seen a number of other professionals through this as well who have suddenly gone into the world of health and understanding that the knowledge is now, you know, coming and out there and the, you've, you've gone across from the investment side now into the health side and quantifying it all and using data and using genetics and using all the other tools to now actually helping people with their health, then there'd be a good summary of what you're doing now. Speaker 4: (16:37) Yeah, absolutely. I think the underlying theme there, and actually before I get into the underlying theme it's just funny, a story came to mind, Lisa, the other day I was talking to a friend and the friend said, you know, the best psychologists all have some sort of underlying psychological issue that they've worked on. And that's why they became psychologists, right? I never intended to be in this world at all. I was going, like I said, I was going to build an app because everybody built apps, right? And I got into this world because I had to fix myself. And as I was fixing myself, I did it in something that made sense to me, which was data. So very strict measurement, very much defining objective strategies and tactics and executing with a certain level of discipline. Cause like we talked about earlier, you and I take things to extreme, right? So you know, just taking it to a certain level of extreme with the discipline side of things. So I see things a lot better. Speaker 3: (17:37) Yeah. Amazing. So you've now actually made a new empower, if you like, around helping people with high-performance, helping people with their health issues using the lightest. And this is what I find fascinating and we're, I think the future is turning to the old model of you had to go to medical school to become a doctor, to become an expert in health. And that was pretty much it. You were a nurse, a doctor or a you ma. Maybe there was a chiropractor or a naturopath in your town or something like that, but they were, you know, re era. And there was this, this linear thing thinking to the medical model and that is dying. Thank God is changing. We made the allopathic medicine model, but we also need it to change and we need the what would you call them? Accelerate viewpoints because, and you don't necessarily have to have gone to medical school and to have some really amazing insights. Speaker 3: (18:43) I mean you just mentioned Dave Asprey, the who, you know, some of the things I agree with and some of them I don't, but like he has certainly blazed the path for someone who's not himself, a medical doctor who's also come from, can walk computer science and his case into the, to the world of health and applied that, that brain and that, that ability and so a new area and you see this happening again and again. So what are you passionate about now? So you have the podcast decoding, superhuman, you have some incredible guests on there. What is it all about for you now? Speaker 4: (19:22) Sure. I guess before I outline what I'm involved in, what I'm doing, let's construct the theme to have it all makes sense, right? If you look at my personal mission, at least to what it's become over the past couple of years, it's to elevate the human experience through health. Now what do I mean by that? Elevating the human experience making, are enjoying our personal lives, enjoying our work lives, operating a certain level of energy, being compassionate being in, in shape, in the sense that, you know, extending health span, all of that is elevating the human experience. And the best way I know how to do that is through health. And so when I say that, that's the, the underlying theme of everything that I do. Now, you just mentioned one thing that I do, which is the podcast and the decoding super even podcast is top 100 business and careers podcast on iTunes and several different countries occasionally the U S as well, but also it let's go kind of from left to right. Speaker 4: (20:34) I do have the one to one consulting business where I work with predominantly entrepreneurs and executives through a process called health optimization. I'll come back to that in a moment. I work with an organization called health optimization medicine and practice. And that's a nonprofit foundation founded by my mentor, Dr Ted Achacoso's, which is basically U S and now I'm opening up the European arm here and there'll be an Australia, there'll be an an that arm as well. And it's kind of going global now in 2020 and then I, I do have some involvements and a, a nootropic which is going to be launched later this month. And I can talk about that too. So there's, there's a lot going on and there's more projects in the waiting, but you know, people look at me and say like, Hey, are you doing too much? Well, I view it all as complimentary. Speaker 4: (21:28) I'm just sort of solving my problems along the journey. Right? And so if I look at the one-to-one business, I only work with executives and entrepreneur types whether that be in digital marketing or whatever industry it is, because I know that lifestyle and I came from that lifestyle. And so I can speak a lot to that lifestyle. There's certain lifestyles that I just can't speak to, I can't work with, but we apply a rigorous amount of data. And perhaps Lisa says, okay, if I go down the health optimization realm right now cause I'm interested in more than anything and this wraps. Sure. So let's, let's talk about health optimization. And so as I mentioned this is all something that I'm spreading the word on through an organization called health optimization medicine and practice homehope.org. And so and so that organization is designed to teach doctors and health practitioners on how to optimize for health. Speaker 4: (22:29) If we think about why we go to a doctor currently, and I have nothing against doctors, right? I have zero qualms with the medical industry at all. It's people go to the doctor because they're sick because they want to get better from some disease. They want to discover what diseases, et cetera. But who are you going to for your maintenance? Right? Who are you going to for the tuneup if you're that car, we don't have anybody that just does the oil change and sends you on your way. Well, health optimization, medicine and practice is that oil change. And so what do I do now with my entrepreneurs? My executives is, look, I, I still have and gather a lot of data. I'm very comfortable with data, but I also think because we now have the ability to test for a number of different things, it's the best way out there because not only can we just assign probability, which is what we can do with genetics, we can actually see where your cells are right now. Speaker 4: (23:31) And that's through the metabolome. So when we start working with a client, what we're doing is we're measuring the levels of metabolites. We're looking at things like nutrients and hormones, we're comparing those to optimal ranges. And I'll define what optimal ranges is in a second. And then we're balancing really through the idea of a network. So rather than just taking one esoteric biomarker and focusing on it, I'm looking to upgrade an entire network. Because if you take one esoteric biomarker, all you're going to do is just Jack the thing out of balance again. And so what we want to do, you don't kind of ad hoc overhauling network, you balance networks. And so what we're actually doing is we're measuring those metabolite levels and looking at nutrients and hormones and then we're balancing that by looking at really what your optimal formo levels as well as nutrient levels should be through a 21 to 30 year old. Speaker 4: (24:30) Now I'm not a doctor so I can't prescribe hormones and so what do I do is I focus on the nutrient side of things. There are certain things I can do on the hormone side and there's oftentimes where I pair up with physicians and do focus on optimizing in that way, but that is where we're looking at is how do we upgrade your network so that your nutrients are balanced and so that you're able to perform at your absolute best. Now there's no claims there. I'm not saying that this anything here is treating disease. We're not doing that. All we're doing is giving your body maintenance and that allows you to perform at your best for longer and with a longer degree of health span Speaker 3: (25:11) In longevity, and this is absolutely Misa below mix. This is a new term that since listening to your podcast and coming across dr [inaudible] in, in starting to delve into his world, which is sine amazing. And this is providing a new lens to look through and looking. So this is even an hour practice with our company. We do epigenetic testing and if we, we have certain limitations, we can't go outside of our scope of practice and we have to bring in sometimes physicians and other experience in areas and that can be quite difficult. Certainly lock in more streamlined way of doing that and could be the people to work with. A little bit limited here where we are. But this is a, another lens to look through and I'm, I'm really wanting to layer on, you know, you have the expertise in like you've done with the genetics tasting and things like aura ring and using different data points and now your board and dr Ted's whole way of looking at it. Speaker 3: (26:26) And I, I, I have to talk to you privately afterwards about what it to, to become involved with that because I'm quite excited. I'm hoping I'd have the intellect to do it, to be honest on listening. Like, Oh my gosh, that guy is intelligent. He's a, he's a ball. He's statistically one of the smartest people in the world. So yeah, the Turlock, he is literally one of the top people in the planet. So that's what I'm saying. Everyone can keep up with it. But so what are the, you're working mostly in these cases still on the one on one system or are you sort of doing this for, can people contact you to get help or how does they work? Speaker 4: (27:10) I generally work with the, and the website hasn't been updated in a while and it will hopefully be up to it very soon. But I generally work one-to-one with people and it's almost strictly referral. But on occasion I do take in new clients. And so what we do is we do measure that metabolome and that. So let's just define those terms. Right? And so if you think about genetics, genetics is really popular, really sexy right now as is that the genetics and genetics is really the blueprint of where you should be, right? If you think about putting together a building, a, it's the blueprint of where you should be. It's that architect has drawn something fancy up. And I had the pleasure of doing one of these presentations to a group here in Amsterdam and there's actually a construction person in the audience. And I asked him, how many times does the blueprint actually end up as the actual house? Speaker 4: (28:02) And much to my amazement, I thought it would be somewhere in the range of like 10 to 30%. So zero. And you think about that, what actually influences the building? It was environmental factors. It was the soil, it was material. They'll ability. Now if you passport that over into our lives. Environmental factors are certainly something that we face every day. Material availability in terms of the nutrients that we need the weather outside, whether or not you gain enough sun and that's really your epigenome, right? And so we can keep going further and further down. The Omix line is, Oh, mix is very trendy right now too. And we can eventually get to this thing called the metabolome. And so the metabolome is really looking at yourselves and seeing what is happening right now and what has happened. And so what do I mean by that? Speaker 4: (28:57) We look at metabolites again across nutrients and hormones and we can determine things like vitamin deficiencies but also looking at anything from neuro-transmitters, although that's a little bit less reliable to heavy metal toxicities. And so, and then once we have all that information, what we can do is very much quite clot, a precise roadmap. And each one of my clients gets with is basically like a 10 to 15 page, a nutrient and lifestyle plan. And what they do is we're able to come very close and become very precise as to what nutrients you need to balance that network. Because after all, we're coming back to balancing the network. I can give another analogy if you want. Sure. So if you think about humans as as a whole, we're actually a collection of organisms. And what is interesting about the term super organism is the term superorganism really just means your collection of the same organism. Speaker 4: (30:03) The actual term that I prefer to use and was taught to me of course by dr Ted and Dr. Scott, who I know you had on the podcast before, is called Hola biomes. And the whole of Vajente is really just acknowledging that humans are actually a collection of organisms and we can measure those organisms through things like metabolomics and the health of those organisms and allow that to be a balancing mechanism. And so let's just run some examples here, right? And if you look at our current cell, our current cell is constructed of a symbiotic relationship between mitochondria and a, an ancient cell, right? And so that symbiotic relationship came together. And so we are actually fundamentally a collection of organisms. Now add on top of that, you have things like microbes, you have gut bacteria, you have viruses, you have all of these things, and you have this external environmental influence. Speaker 4: (31:02) And there's this book in 1992 and I'll get you a link in 1981 or Nigeria to that came out that turned this, the whole of biome. And so you as a human are actually a whole lot beyond. And so we can assess this whole of ion to actually measure. And again, I am very much into data measure the health of you and sir use it as like a term of benchmarking, right? So you come in every, I like my clients to see me, you know, once every three to six months for testing. And then eventually we want to get them to once a year, but usually starts at once every three to six months. And then when they come in, we benchmark how your whole Obiang is doing, you know, how are, how's your gut bacteria? Do we have good bacteria balances there? Do you have any sign of parasites there? Are there any sort of factors that we need to look at on the nutrient side? And once we benchmarked it, we then start to optimize, right? And so it's what I find, I consider it to be the most elegant equation to human optimization author. Speaker 3: (32:09) Wow. So this is the nix label from just what you've been doing along with the genetic testing and coming out with data that, that producers and actually looking at. So how is the hollow buoyant and the metabolome actually tasted? Is it through blood? Is it through a combination of, you know, saliva, blood, urine, you know, how was it actually the data collected? Speaker 4: (32:35) Well, that's a very good question. And so fundamentally with any clients, I run three tests now. Those three tests are a blood draw, a urine sample, and a stool test. And those three are allow us to assess metabolites as well as bacteria in balances. And so we're able to gather the picture in a very simple manner. Speaker 3: (32:58) Wow. And then [inaudible] and this is now international, the home hardcore Donald. So you don't need specialist labs to chase that. Can you use your name? Speaker 4: (33:09) Yeah. You can't get in exactly. Walk down to your local doctor and say like, Hey doc, I want to test. You know, I want my I w yeah, first off, you know, you may get some pretty weird looks if you mentioned the word hold by aunt, but it's pretty hard to go down and say like, Hey, I want to go test eight. Oh, HDG. Right. Which is oxidative stress or DNA damage. Even that's pretty difficult to test at most local labs. What we, what we do is we use a specialist's lab around their global little bit less of a presence. They have a presence in Australia called Genova diagnostics. They're based in Asheville, North Carolina, which is where my parents live. So I get to go make the pilgrimage every so often down to their labs. But yeah, Genova diagnostics provides those tests. You can get a metabolome analysis from other labs. And of course we're looking at those labs. But this one we use current. Speaker 3: (34:08) Wow, that's amazing. Okay. So they knew you'd get these tests done and then you can, you can analyze them for these things and give them specific recommendations, both lifestyle nutrients in other interventions, I imagine. Absolutely. And this is, so this is all, you know, like we both agree that, you know, the ambulance at the bottom of the cliff approach is not where we want to be. In for our own health and for the health of our loved ones and the people that we work with. We want to be the, at the top of the class before the stuff happens. And this is the key difference in the approaches. And then a second difference is that our allopathic models are very pharmacological based. And you know, don't you believe that that money doesn't talk, you know, the money that pharma companies have at talks and, and that is influencing the decisions fate that your doctors are making. Speaker 3: (35:09) And it's also the way it's set up. And so this has been a very one sided, you know, and, and farmer pharmical logical intervention certainly has the place, but they have a way to bigger space in the world, I think at the moment and comparison. And I think , you know, like looking at hyperbaric and Dr. Scott shows, who's now involved with you guys is a, is a classic example of a therapy that works that doesn't have a pharmaceutical backing or no way to make tests because there's no way to make money out of it. They can't patient account, patient oxygen cause it's already there. You know, you've got situations, same with hormones, you know, by bioidentical hormones. You know, they haven't been able to paint it them. So they made some physical Mons for women and hormone replacement therapy and, and you know, that caused a whole lot of headache. So there's this, this is systematic problems in a boom boom, top of a, of a generations within the system. And a lot of it is, is very much a stick a bandaid on the, on the wound and not look at, well, where did the wound come from and why is it there and what's causing it, you know. And that's what we have more about and learning. Speaker 4: (36:23) Yeah. And, and I think, you know, even taking it one step further, because you know, looking at the wound and seeing where it comes from, that's a lot of what functional medicine is doing and they're doing well. What a health optimization does and health optimization, really medicine and practice is what we're doing is as you know, functional medicine, we'll look at that quote unquote root cause and what health optimization medicine practices doing it is seeking to just balance and perform that maintenance so that, you know, going down the line rather than having to basically take all of the life's maintenance and put it, you know, I, I come from finance, so like let's feature value all of life's maintenance into this one big event down the line, which in my case probably would have been a heart attack. Why don't we do little bits of maintenance over time so that health span happens. Speaker 4: (37:25) Right? And so I think going back to the finance analogy, it's like an annuity every year or every six months or even three months. You come in, you get your Tufts, you benchmark, you figure out where you are, and then you seek to optimize and balance or balancing networks here. And what we find is, is that people tend to perform very, very well, and you can start to measure these things, right? There's a, there's really cool clocks out there. I'm a big fan of the Horvath clock. I just enjoy it. And I know that these clocks are evolving every single minute. You know, people like chronometer my DNA age, a few others that are looking at methylation marks on the Nissan and the on DNA and determining biological age. There's also something out there called the grim age, which I'm super excited about because that one is, Speaker 3: (38:13) Oh, that's a new one on me. What's interesting, right? And this is Speaker 4: (38:17) Not for everybody, I'll admit this, but for people that are somewhat sadistic like me, this is apparently an a way to extrapolate a distance between now and first potentially more tality event, right? And so it's like now in between now and the time you die, but you can do stuff about it, right? And so I'm the type of person that if I have an issue, I want to be confronted with it. And so that, you know, I wasn't the kid who basically when I found out I had heart disease, I broke out a spreadsheet and figured out, okay, what's the average is a person dies and I put that day's number in my spreadsheet and that motivates me to, that motivates me to do stuff every day. Now that's not for everybody, right? And I recognize that I'm a little weird in that sense, but these are types of things that are out there that allow us to get not only not only just more, more data points, but also allows us to benchmark the success of our modifications, right? Because all we're doing is nutrients and lifestyle modifications, but nutrient, lifestyle modifications can be very, very powerful. Speaker 3: (39:35) Underestimated it, you know, like the basics and sometimes underestimated. We get into all this fancy stuff, but sometimes it comes down to are you drinking, are you sleeping? Are you getting sunlight? Right? Like, are you connected to nature? Are they saying those clocks? Or I'll have to get the links to that because I'm very sort of beach marking, biological age or, and, and you know, they, my age one, it sounds very interesting because that's something that's missing in our regime right now is being able to, is actually getting that macro for people and benchmarking and all these things cost. So it's always a cost way up. But it gives you something to aim for when you've got a line drawn in the scenes. I think Speaker 4: (40:17) I think absolutely. And I think a grim age is not yet commercially available. So the biological age is there are two companies that I know of that are producing them at various price points. The other thing that is really interesting and it's something that, yeah, the other one that I like for benchmarking is the promise 10 global. There's promise tents for everything, but it's just a simple survey and the statistics behind it are quite promising. So that's something, it's cost-free, but it's a great way to benchmark clients and their success rates. Speaker 3: (40:55) Okay. Okay. I'll, I'll be definitely get paid to get those links off here because a, a beach mapping system is what's missing and now, yeah, right. Speaker 4: (41:03) And what we, what we do, and it, sorry, I know I cut you off, is I gather a lot of data, right? It's like hell, I've said the word data. How many times? Speaker 3: (41:12) Yeah, you're right. Speaker 4: (41:15) So anybody that works with me has to be on board with that. And so whether that's from your wearable, whether that's from whatever survey that we send you anywhere from every day to every week you're, we're gathering data on you to make sure that everything that we're doing is working. Cause after all, like humans are complex adaptive systems to say we're not, is just categorically wrong. Right? And so when we look at a human as a complex adaptive system, we need to build in feedback loops. And so how do I get a person to, to sleep more than four hours a night? Well, I can't tell them to get eight hours a night just because the book says, right. What is actually physically happening there is, okay, let me show you your aura score every day. And you know, or whatever. It doesn't have to be aura. Let me show you that score every day. And that when that score goes up, how you feel and if you feel better than you subjectively just want to get more sleep. And so what we're doing is using the technology and leveraging the powers of technology and data to help assist in those behavior modifications. Speaker 3: (42:20) Brilliant. Because people need to have and some people to move that data-driven than others. Some you recommendations. And that's, you know, working with your epigenetic type if you'd like, as to how much science you need behind the information. I like you. I like to know the why and the Watson dig 10 layers deep down, stand up. Other people, maybe not so much, but having these beach max does give you a line in the, and it's like having, it's like if I say to you by my, you know, we're going to try a new up for a hundred K, you've suddenly got a line in the same and you've got a timeline and you've got a goal that you're going towards and therefore your teen Tom's likely more likely to get the us than if we don't benchmark that. And if we don't have that goal in place to help them in knowing where you started from and where you finished and then you can actually see, I came all that way and that's a really powerful thing I'd been on. Speaker 3: (43:13) I'm really aware of, of the time you've, you've been super, super generous with your time today. And I am super excited to find out more. I think that dr Ted stuff is definitely on my horizon once I've gotten through some other qualifications that I'm doing at the moment. They might be the next one. Yeah, that would be, it'd be super awesome. And I'd love to stay super connected to you and what you're doing because I love, I love just being around people that have the, the, the knowledge that you have, the breadth of experience that you have and the dips that you go. You fascinating. Your, your show is amazing. So everybody must go and subscribe not only to this podcast, obviously pushing the limits but to, to decoding superhuman, decoding, superhuman. And in there any last words that you'd like to share, boomer to people out there what's your most important mission in life and what is, you know, a thing that's really important for you to get across and people like that you would, Speaker 4: (44:17) Yeah, sure. So let, let's start with that mission. So I mentioned it a couple of times, but it is elevating the human experience through health. And I look at the world and look, I don't need to go back and go into any sort of politics or anything like that. If I look at the world and just kind of the problems that we face or the Speaker 5: (44:49) Okay, Speaker 4: (44:49) You know, where we need to go in order to, I get in a lot of discussions about the future of work, right? Just because that's what I get hired as a keynote speaker to do a lot. Let's talk about the future of work. And so when I look at the world and sort of elevating the human experience through health, there's a lot we can still do as humans before we all of a sudden get taken over by Skynet and go into this matrix type scenario. Right? And so I think people, you know, in terms of the mission, elevating the human experience through health in terms of the point I want to get across to people, start measuring if you are, no matter where you are, you don't have to be super human. You don't have to be, you can be like on the other end of the continuum, right? Speaker 4: (45:39) And just start measuring where you are. Start associating behaviors with a certain type of measure and get out a spreadsheet, get out a piece of paper, whatever it is. Assuming you're listening to this podcast, I assume you have some sort of modicum of technology you know, getting out a spreadsheet and start tracking this stuff and just started associating what you're doing with a feeling. And that's just a great way to start tracking. You can eventually get into all this really cool high level tracking that I've been talking about today, but really start measuring. That's something that will help you achieve your goals faster. And will really just make the whole journey a lot more, lot more fun. Speaker 3: (46:22) Yeah, a lot more fun and move a lot more little goals to aim for when you know what you're dealing with. And this is something, you know, that doesn't have any come naturally to me, but I'm definitely moving more and more in that way. We met, you've been super, super generous with your time. I really appreciate the work that you're doing in the world. I'm excited to see where it takes you and however we meet working with you more. So people can go to decoding superhuman.com which be your website and you can around, they can reach out to them. Speaker 4: (46:53) Sure. so www.decodingsuperhuman.com is the website. That's where you can find all the podcast episodes again, iTunes, Spotify, SoundCloud, every podcast destination there is. We released six episodes a month. And I will also, you know, you can find me on Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn. I've basically gone through my new year's rerock of how I want to address social media. So you'll see me more in posting there as well. So I look in and please say hi like I am, I respond to every message is everybody knows so please say hi and let me know what you think of the opposite. Speaker 3: (47:32) Definitely reach out, check out the podcast, absolutely Speaker 2: (47:36) As a, as a master's, a minimum and ask the questions cause that's where conversations start and where you learn. So thank you very much, much. I really appreciate your time today. Speaker 3: (47:46) Awesome. Thank you so much. And one more plug. I guess if you want to check out the stuff that we talked about, Speaker 4: (47:51) About on the home hope side of things, just go to home hope.org yup. Speaker 3: (47:56) Yeah. Home hope.org. It's the website or Speaker 4: (48:00) We're working on launching the education foundation. It's part of, it's already launched. But it's something that you guys can check out and let let us know what you think. Can you can just drop me a message on social media? Speaker 2: (48:10) Yeah, it's definitely on my horizon. I want to, I want to get there. So thanks for doing that and thanks for spreading that word cause it's a completely new lens to look through. Thank you very much glioma and we'll talk again. Speaker 3: (48:21) No doubt. Absolutely. Thank you. Lisa. Speaker 2: (48:24) If your brain is not functioning at its best in, check out what the www.vielight.com do now. Be like producers, photo biomodulation devices. Your brain function depends largely on the health of the energy sources of the brain cells. In other words, the mitochondria and research has shown that stimulating your brain with near infrared light. Revitalizes mitochondria. And I use these devices daily for both my own optimal brain function and also for other age related to client issues and also for my mom's brain rehabilitation after her aneurism and stroke. So kick out what the team www.vielight.com that's V I E L I G H T.com and use the code T A M A T I at checkout to get 10% of any of the devices. Speaker 1: (49:15) That's it this week for pushing the limits. Be sure to write, review, and share with your friends and head over and visit Lisa and her team at lisatamati.com.

8 years ago a 22 year old Chloe Hogan was on her way to work at 5.30am one morning. She was gearing up for her second marathon a few weeks out and heading to the gym where she was a PT but disaster struck. An accident, a major one and Chloe was left with a massive brain injury. She lay in a coma for weeks, the Doctors after 19 days telling the family to turn off life support, that there was no hope. 4 days later she awoke and proved them all wrong. But the damage was massive and there wasn't much left of their beautiful daughter. But Brian is a fighter and a feisty Dad who wasn't willing to give up on his beautiful girl so he started researching and working. He ignored all the negative naysayers and powered through years of hard grind, always believing, always looking for the next level and slowly inch by hard won inch they bought Chloe back. After 4 years they discovered Hyperbaric oxygen therapy, Chloe was still completely wheelchair bound, could only speak very slowly, and was incontinent. After 20 treatments the incontinence was gone, Brian did more sessions with her, another 165 to be exact and slowly combined with thousands of hours of physio, a change in diet and a never say die attitude Chloe got better and better. Now 8 years into their journey Chloe surprised her parents for Xmas with the greatest gift on earth, she took her first steps completely unaided. Chloes story is outlined in my new book "Relentless" due out on the 11th of March. This book is about bringing my Mother Isobel back after a major aneurysm and stroke left her like a baby and she, like Chloe has clawed her way back. Against all odds and against all the medical professionals prognoses. You can pre order "Relentless" right now at https://shop.lisatamati.com/collections/books/products/relentless and if you grab it right now (before the 1st of February 2020) you will get free access to my MINDSETu online mental toughness ecourse. Valued at $275. So hurry over and pre order your copy right now. To Watch Chloes feature story on TVNZ's 7 Sharp program go here: https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=10162529755070114&id=552205113&sfnsn=mo and reach out to Chloe on Facebook at Chloe M S Hogan. We would like to thank the sponsors for this show www.vielight.com Makers of Photobiomodulation devices that stimulate the brains mitocondria, the power houses of your brains energy, through infrared light to optimise your brain function. To get 10% off your order use the code: TAMATI at www.vielight.com We would like to thank our sponsors: For more information on Lisa Tamati's programs, books and documentaries please visit www.lisatamati.com For Lisa's online run training coaching go to https://www.lisatamati.com/page/runningpage/ Join hundreds of athletes from all over the world and all levels smashing their running goals while staying healthy in mind and body. Lisa's Epigenetics Testing Program https://www.lisatamati.com/page/epigenetics/ Get The User Manual For Your Specific Genes Which foods should you eat, and which ones should you avoid? When, and how often should you be eating? What type of exercise does your body respond best to, and when is it best to exercise? Discover the social interactions that will energize you and uncover your natural gifts and talents. These are just some of the questions you'll uncover the answers to in the Lisa Tamati Epigenetics Testing Program along with many others. 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For Lisa's free weekly Podcast "Pushing the Limits" subscribe on iTunes or your favorite podcast app or visit the website https://www.lisatamati.com/page/podcast/ Transcript of the Podcast: Speaker 1: (00:01) Welcome to pushing the limits, the show that helps you reach your full potential with your host, Lisa [inaudible], brought to you by Lisatamati.com Speaker 2: (00:13) If your brain is not function at its best, then check out the team at vielight.com. Vielight producers photo biomodulation devices. Your brain function depends largely on the health of the energy sources of the brain cells, the mitochondria. Now research has shown that stimulating your brain with near infrared light revitalizes mitochondria. I use these devices daily for both my own optimal brain function and to slow age-related decline and also for my mom's brain rehabilitation after her aneurysm in stroke. So check out what the team at Vielight like, do it and use the code Tamati. That's T A M A T I at checkout to get a 10% discount on any of the devices. Speaker 3: (00:59) Hi everybody, Lisa Thomas to hear it pushing the limits. And today I have a very special couple of guests with me, Brian Hogan and Chloe Hogan all way from Oakland. Hi guys. How you doing? Good. Thanks. Good morning Lisa. We've had a little bit of technical troubles trying to get you on here, but we've worked it out. So now I have, this is a very special story guys that I wanted to share with you, the audience because Conway's had an incredible difficult journey and who did in a family. And I wanted to shoot a little bit of the story because it sort of parallels a little bit. And so I'm going to start with you. Brian, we what actually happened to Chloe? Can you take us back eight years ago. Speaker 4: (01:49) Okay. Well in the morning of the 22nd her birthday, like she left to go to work at around five 30 in the morning and when about full bath rate case down the road, she for some unknown reason the stage well, what we want you to get or not chase way up to miss something on the road. There was a funny morning. Speaker 3: (02:10) Yup. Speaker 4: (02:11) Yeah, she lost control of the car and slammed passenger side on a heavy concrete pap on. She sustained a traumatic brain injury. Fortunately, there was a, a chromo theater nurse. Well, living within steady. Yeah. 30 meters of the crash. Yeah. It has been, came out sort of situation called the called his wife came out and she stabilized Slatery way stabilized, got a breathing soon after that. Somebody had run a very one of my mum and the ACE arrived and then the ambulance arrived and she was taken to Middlemore hospital. Yeah, no, we were there and it's seven o'clock in the morning, we're gonna knock on our door and our street placements, standing here and of course you get to wonder what this is all about. You think the worst and it was the worst or most and they say cloud and being involved in an accident and that she was very serious. Speaker 4: (03:08) Accident was Neha terminology. A great 9. And right team is a fatality, so like currently offers to drive us through the middle more, which they did at great speed. And we arrived to fund how he had been stabilized in the hospital and that she was totally unconscious. Of course it was hooked up to all sorts of houses and gadgets. And then they then we were told that they didn't have the, the equipment to continue the treatment there she needed through the engine and eventually medical intervention. So put it in an ambulance. And again, we following her, rushed through to walk hospital where she went into intensive care and wow. Yeah. So it was quite a day I had a morning. Speaker 3: (03:56) Yes. Yeah. So it was, and so Chloe was only 22 years old. Major brain injury. So she's hanging on for dear life. She's in the hospital. Of course. Clara, you won't remember any of this. Nothing. Thank goodness. That's a really good thing. So Brian, I know that then it was touch and go for a fairly long time. Chloe was in a coma and the ICU unit what was that time in your life like? Speaker 4: (04:27) Well, I guess that first two or three days you are just a sideline, I observed that really, you couldn't do anything. We were totally numb, totally numb, or it was like an out of body experience. You know, the way we can tell the truth is going to poke through and tell that she was going to die really new. So it was a time of great concern and she was blissfully sleeping. Thank goodness. Yes, I was sick. Mmm. But anyway, I think on the third day Dr. Stevens straight cold us coordinating with the family and set the stage, there was a a high likelihood that she wouldn't die. It's a big paper, a long journey and go with it right at the store. Speaker 3: (05:18) So I know that she was in coma for I think 23 days, but a day like 19 or something, they said to you, you might have to turn off the life support. Speaker 4: (05:27) That's correct. That's correct. She was transferred to high to begin and see after, okay. A week out of 'em [inaudible] and after, I think it was the 19th day or the 20th day, real cold to a meeting with them seeking you register on a high dependency ward, Hey saved to S there is no chance Chi [inaudible] out of her coma. Injuries are too severe and you probably the family to consider the alternatives, which was withdrawal of life support. And I pushed a document or pamphlet across the [inaudible] devastated. Speaker 3: (06:08) You were devastated and you actually refused and you're Brian, we've thought about it. Of course you're has five runs. So yeah, you, you basically you, you know, it came to be that you lifted the life support on and thank God you did. Is that what happened? Speaker 4: (06:35) Well, in it to the little no document on the wall that says they can't, that's where they are intervention. You know, I'm on the ward. You lost it all as your rights. Yes. Brilliant. And so that was it. And everyone went away pretty safe. But anyway, just normal for Kali on the . Speaker 3: (06:58) 22 days she woke up, she woke up just four days later and I were expecting her to, you know, not, not wake up even at all. This is pretty frightening though, Brian. If you think about it, like how many times has life support been tuned off when it didn't need to be tuned off? Yeah, yeah. Certainly not three weeks on and to the drama. I remember with my mom, I was, you know, given non resuscitation orders to sign and I wasn't as polite as you just saying. No, I use some stronger language. It wasn't that way. Always still going there. And you know, so after Callie woke up, of course she had massive brain damage. And Chloe, what is the very first memories that you have? How many months passed or you know, your dad will be able to help you here, but how many months before you can actually remember anything? The first thing I remember was the patient. Okay. So you have actual little bits of memory of actually in the, in the hospital, so okay. No, and their rehab. The rehab. Okay. So after hospital. Speaker 4: (08:25) Yeah. Especially as an open book or hospital for two months to Kevin IBI, which was out in route around Nelly and yeah, so that was probably four months after accident before she has that numeric. Speaker 3: (08:41) Wow. And that was the very first one. Now the cloud we have any any movement, any, any speech, any memory of you at all when she, you know, after a couple of months or was she pretty much you know, non functioning Speaker 4: (08:59) Well at open hospital once well she had an issue with biting her tone. Yeah. We all them. So they had to end up vein was gadgets to stop it tongue movement, which was very divisive and terrible. So she had shaved an amount, the must gadgets stuck in the mouth and she had a trunk. Yeah. And she has had a pig on to tell me to be fade. Sorry. She goes, Oh, what up. So even though she had woken up, she had no real response. We couldn't, she couldn't talk. She could say us. And she made, she'd made eye contact. Yeah. The the left side of her body wasn't functioning, so she couldn't see out the left side. And so that will took probably six months to come back slowly. Speaker 3: (09:57) Then we came back. Okay, Speaker 4: (10:00) Well forget, say what, say you on a high rot side, but hang on. Oh God, that ran the wrong way. My left and right. She could say, say on her right side and left side wasn't functioning. So she couldn't say, Hey, we'll stop. Stop. But then anyway, they, it's but now we're getting after the two months when it was obviously she was stabilized and she was reactive. And little by little like pulled some of these troops and things out. But you're so stuck with us math thing. But once the truck and that came out and I was there on the, not a senior nurse sick, well I think she can cope what ourselves and we're going to remove. So she moved there and they pulled them out, I think to me, his daddy. Speaker 3: (10:59) Oh, then it might give so she remember Jude, she had obviously some functions and some memory still there. No really good sign because I'm early on in the pace, you know, it's pretty hard not, you know, you don't know. I know with mum I didn't know whether she knew who I was and what I was or anything. And Tony, you've got a very, very special mum and dad, haven't you? Yep. So you've been now in this journey for eight years and from that time that you woke up from the injury and then that whole time you've been working really, really hard and your heart and your appearance and your family been working really, really hard to bring you back. How hard is this journey been for you and what, what does it mean? Like terrible. Yeah. So hard. Tell me some of the worst things that you've been through. Like at the very beginning you obviously couldn't control anything in your body at all. Speaker 4: (12:04) No. I don't think so. Well she had 'em up a little reasonable. Not reasonable, but okay. Up. I've I've actually, but she had, you know, we had to help feed her every meal, months, probably six months. Like to go back to one thing and it might, your audience might be interested that and for others going through this, you know, I did as much research as possible. Everything. Dr Google is probably really wonderful. Yeah. And one of the other things on that that I found out was stimulation was important no matter what. So while she goes and well while she was in and and not and high dependency, she I used to sing to her. Speaker 3: (13:08) Okay. Speaker 4: (13:09) And I also used the read to this, I agree to a book laugh out loud so she could hear it, but every time I did that end, even my staying here hat right wig down. So she was selling it for around 90 to a hundred beats per minute hot. Right. Well it had dropped her 70 almost every time. So she was getting it. She was, she was [inaudible] and stimulating and that suddenly, you know, for folks that are in the same situation, they might like to try that. There was a young guy at IBO who was a boxer and he sustained a traumatic brain injury in the prefab and his training and he was almost totally climatized. So his mother was, they regulate but wouldn't, she wasn't nice gun sit with him. And I talked to him about boxing and gosh, you just, yeah. You could say he'd smile and he'd give me . Mmm. Your responsible. Sorry. Can I just, as I said, never give up and try it. I was like this possible, but know simulation on happiness. Is it great? Mmm. Speaker 3: (14:23) And I think it's really important that people treat them as if they are the or O'Brian. Don't talk to them as a fan, not reasons or over them. That's what I found very, very frustrating. In the early days, did you find that like they would talk with a car? We didn't exist. Speaker 4: (14:41) Yeah. Do you let the medical staff talk to, talk over her as like when you're in hospital? But I might've pissed no, and I made them talk to her and address that. Ava, she was our sponsor. We just, we just stuck with it. We're not gonna give out. Speaker 3: (15:04) Yeah. And, and giving people that respect, even though they can't respond, is very, very important for anybody who has disabilities or anybody who can't communicate or has had a stroke or brain injury, you know, always give them the full respect that you'd give anybody else and talk to them about this situation. You know, I find that really, really offensive when people don't do that, even though they can't respond. Yeah, you, you went to dr Google. That's exactly what I did. I went like hardcore researching every thing in the universe on brain injury. And I know like for the listeners, Brian and I connected a few years down the track with Curry and actually I was probably half a year in or a year and with mom's rehab when we connected, I think, and you rang me one day about hyperbaric oxygen therapy and see what I, what I thought about that. I think you'd, yeah. Tell us a little bit about that journey cause that happened already. That was already four years in or so to two colleagues rehab, is that right? Speaker 4: (16:07) Yeah, it was it. Well, almost daily diary, as I said to medical staff, you know, how bout hyperbaric oxygen treatment. And so every single person, every single metal comparison I spoke to gave him no joy at all. Don't know anything about that. That's not proven. It's a hurry. But I, you know, I played, I played in the open rugby up hydrocod color dry for seniors and we played Navy and I took the bait fuck shelf it before it was no blood. Speaker 3: (16:40) Was almost an old black. I'm sure he was glowing Speaker 4: (16:47) That vaccines may or the boys go and you know, we're talking after the guy and mother boys go into the, into the decompression chamber, which I had on the night device, but the next day after the game, and I said, you could watch bruises disappear now that was when I was about 19 or 20. So it was a hell of a year long, long time ago. But that sort of stuck with me. So one of the early things I thought about or have have hyperbaric Novia with it and I, I sort of gave up on it because we got so much negativity from it. Speaker 4: (17:24) But anyway we, she hadn't had an operation, a middle matter hospital to correct her foot. So while we're sitting on the there for bed awakened and I was reading books like really got stuck into this hyperbaric and I found this chamber that's private chamber in, the seven mountain Nelson. And so that was approximately four years. Oh, on this journey. Did we rent them out to her? And Jose, actually, if there's someone who's down the call, I was going through hopper. Greg did, I rang you or she had 2020 treatments of MACRA the first time. And within a week of coming away she'd be, she'd be, she got control of about, so she was before years there was incontinent, a nappy for four years. And and so that, that was just a huge step. Now there was nothing else different than we did the fixed date. Speaker 3: (18:27) So this is 4 years. I want people to listen. Keep it. This is four years into the rehabilitation cause a lot of people have said to me, it's too late. I had a stroke five years ago or 10 years ago. It's now used to be doing that for years after the event. 20 sessions. And you've already got a major, major breakthrough. This might not sound major, but as it is, as both of us and all of us have gone through, being in consonants is major and it's not fun. It's not fun as it Chloe and after 20 treatments to get control, that means that part of the brain is coming back online. That's what that is. And then you, you had to go all the way to map or, so there's a, there's a a medical hyperbaric facility down in map or a Nelson, which I think is unfortunately closing if it hasn't already close his it, Brian. Speaker 4: (19:20) Ah, yeah, it's on the, in the process of closing down, but the much, Oh, absolute tragedy, you know, saying there's so much pressure from people who know about it. So it starts trickling along, but it'll eventually closed. I imagine by the end of this year, Speaker 3: (19:40) If we had, if we had lots of money, we'd go and buy it and get it up and running again. And no. So dr Tim are, is the, is the, is the doctor down there? He was in charge of the costume, a hyperbaric facility before he went in private. Now hyperbaric is a hugely beneficial, and then if you're listening to this guys, he was a, one of the world's leading experts on this podcast over two years ago now, Dr. Scott Scheer, who she has insights and go back and look up and I'll put it in the show notes, the link to that episode because this is really powerful. You did that 20 sessions and then you went back again and this, each time you're taking Kali right down to Nelson, you're staying, living down DHEA, which is a hell of a sacrifice day, isn't it? Speaker 4: (20:24) Oh yeah, I see it. You want to have a holiday? I got him out. Poets. Speaker 3: (20:29) It's a lovely place. But in karma you had to go in this chamber every day pretty much every day. Apart from weekends, weekends I got to go shopping. She's an expensive daughter, isn't she? So how many sessions did you end up having a map or Brian? Speaker 4: (20:52) 195, I think. Speaker 3: (20:54) 95 of the medical grade hyperbaric treatments in as she progressed. What were the things that you saw come back online? Cause when I met she was fully in a wheelchair, unable to stand or anything like that. What happened over there? 185 sessions. There's a lot of sessions, but that's, it's nothing when you compared to a lifetime. Speaker 4: (21:18) Oh yeah. Like it was well it just changed everything. She, she gained weight gain control of her alum. So her feet, you know, the walking out of it, she doesn't and I, I'm a high Walker. Speaker 3: (21:39) Yep. Yep, yep. Speaker 4: (21:40) And she has to have somebody in front of it pulling in somebody behind my conception 40th and the tray. That's as good as she had got. After half the Brack, she was able to walk to the gutter frame and assisted, you know, over a period of talking to them while we were down there. So her fake placement there was a first thing I noticed was probably after 40 stations she could manage her feet and place them in the right place instead of getting them 10 without. So then she was stable on like other friends. So it didn't make a person in front of the person to be healthy. And from that she's going on, she entering the Walker and now she's four, she's walking through and we'll link to basketball court. Speaker 3: (22:27) Wow. Probably tell you you were on television recently. We'd show because it was a Christmas miracle that you gave to your dad. What did, what did you do? May and Jane organized, did they own seven shop? Oh, I wanted to be on TV. Hey, curious, why not? And you showed them and this buddy you showed your dad and your mom, you for the first time taking some steps, is that right? Yeah. And I caught it on camera. I'll put the link to that guy, that video. Guys, these are copies for your steps. Now this is after 195 hyperbaric sessions, thousands of hours of physio therapy. Goodness knows what else you've done as well, Brian, for everything you've done, everything under the sun, pretty much. If someone sees this weird musical therapy, have you stuck? I've got lasers that I stick up mom's nose. I've done everything possible. Speaker 3: (23:33) Yeah, I've still got that. I actually think it's great. You know, in other words, we didn't just, both of us approach this with try everything. If it's risky, try it. And if it's risky, we'll weigh up the risks and we'll have a go at it and research like how, and take responsibility. Don't wait for the medical professionals to give you the go ahead. Don't wait for the green light for hyperbaric therapy. You know, this isn't an advert for five very clear free, but it is a very powerful therapy if you have enough sessions. And it's just an absolute travesty that Maffra is perhaps closing because the regulations around the just terrific. That made it very, very difficult from what I hear for dr terms to function and you leave are these stories. My mum has had 250, half of Barrick sessions. I ended up buying a, what they called a mild hyperbaric chamber, which is not as good as the one in Maffra, but it was the best that we could do. I had the first 53 sessions with you in a, in a proper, if you want to call it then a proper chamber. But it was through a dive company and it was, you know, taken off and we couldn't use it anymore. And I created that would giving me enough brain back of mom's brain that I could then teach you to walk and to do the things. And the same would have been with you I Brian with the, with the, with the policies coming back. Speaker 4: (25:05) Oh yeah, absolutely. And I like fake placements, quite important now with ums and she's got control of them. And I put that down to hyperbaric because nothing else is, well, she's had lots and lots and lots, lots and stuff. But I suppose that's been one of the pickiest parts of the puzzle and putting it back together. Speaker 3: (25:32) It's the key of it because it ha so what hyper hyperbaric does people is it hyper oxygenates your your body. So you're getting about seven times the amount of oxygen into the body and it's compressing the oxygen molecules so that it can actually pass through the blood brain barrier to the parts of the brain that are damaged but not deed. So the deed pats were unable to bring back. But typically around the deep parts of tissue there is what they call way ischemic penumbra and these are cells that are alive but they're not functioning. And these are the ones that we can hopefully target with hyperbaric and bring back. It also hits the inflammation pathways in the brain and in the body. And it also helps produce more STEM cells and all of these things help the body to repair it. So it's not a quick fix. Speaker 3: (26:18) It's something that you need to have a lot of sessions in. But as you can see with probably after four years of not getting very far at all and then having these 185 sessions over the period of, I don't know, a year and a half, two years, she's now walking that is massive. She now has control over her bowels and 40 in control over a hell of a lot more. Whose features also improved greatly, hasn't it? Karma. You're talking pretty now? Cause when I, when I meet slow, yeah. I think when I met you it was quite slow. It was. It was, and that's a huge difference. So it's a hugely powerful and you've got your whole life ahead. You're a super young lady and I know that you've got your 30th birthday coming up. Is that right? You're invited. Oh, I'm invited. It's fantastic. Speaker 3: (27:09) I'll try and get to that point. And so Chloe's dad and I have had sort of exchanged notes along the road, however we, Brian and given each other tips, some trucks of what we've learned along the way. And this has been really a multipronged approach. It's not just the one thing, a huge part of it has been hyperbaric, but it's also thousands of hours and the therapists and training and retraining the mind. It's having the guts and the determination like if Brian wasn't such a feisty, don't take any shirts person who is going to push through every barrier and if I wasn't the same then I don't think mum or Chloe would we be with AR. And by the same token, Chloe and mum are also identical and that they are fighters. They are people that persist that resilient. The positivity that Callie brings to this really difficult journey is nothing short of mind blowing. I've been absolutely astounded to watch you over the last few years on how you've just fought your, your differently. A chip off the old block, aren't you daughter? Speaker 3: (28:23) I have lots of grit. Exactly. So call me. You are just a couple of weeks away from running your first marathon when the accident happened. Day one. So I forgot. I forgot. You'd already need the one. Sorry. I was going to do it and then you want to smash that toe. I'll tell you what though, that dream is still alive in you, isn't it? To athlete again, get out there and race and be in a, in a, in a racing, you've actually done a fiveK , is that right? Yeah. Fun run. And you did it on your, your frame at that time. Zimmer frame funding. Yeah. Speaker 4: (29:14) She doesn't, well, yeah, I guess because it, but yeah, she doesn't walk. Oh by Southwest. We have lots of people around helping her. Oh, and encourage her, right. Very steep that she needed. Speaker 3: (29:30) Yeah. That's insane. That is so amazing. Chloe, you've got mum, I'm up to two Ks with mum. The five K's yet. And story in Brian's story is in my new book, which is coming out in match called relentless. And it's, it's another example of an incredible comeback story. And that's why I was really keen to share this. And Brian is hopefully gonna write the book one day and Brian and chloe, you're gonna get the bums into here and share this insight as well. Even though writing a book is a mission. I hope so because this is an incredible story, Callie and it's not finished yet and she's still got a week wise to go on on. Definitely to get full independence. Ron, do you think Chloe will ever reach full, full independence again and be able to no flat on her own or, or live in a house with, with flatmates and they talked to them. Speaker 4: (30:28) Oh, without a doubt. But they have a death. Speaker 3: (30:30) Really? That's amazing. So at the moment you with mum and dad? Yeah. Yeah. And yet are you sick and mum and dad, do you want your own independence? He goes away sometimes. So it's okay. It's just you and ma and then you girls go shopping, but more on spend. Spend some more money there. Yeah. Yeah. Doesn't really like shopping. They keep a grip on it. They'll say, Oh, hype site. So I call it. What are the next steps in your journey? What are you working on at the moment? Because you're always working on something. Hey. Yeah. To be able to walk without the Walker. Oh, like a long period of time. Yep. Yep. And what are the things that she's struggling with Brian in that respects as a balance or spatial awareness or con coordinating your face and things. Don't Speaker 4: (31:28) A balance really chase get, you know, like every day she gets better at it. You're like, we, we have been away to Tyro since Christmas or so before Christmas. And even I notice even though we're here all the time with it, even I know she can climb the stairs and stairs now with minimal assistance, whereas at Christmas it was, you know, you have to keep a class on I, but she can do it all by herself. Now just with my mind, Speaker 3: (32:00) Are you using functional neurology? That's something that I'd highly recommend you go out and start looking into if you haven't to Willy, which is using a, so doing things like with your eyes balancing, you know, different eye exercises that really helped me with non, with your facial awareness and who balance stuff. So if you, if you, are you doing that at all with, with PI? Speaker 4: (32:20) Yeah. maybe they're not that I'm aware of. Exactly. If you could save me that. Speaker 3: (32:26) Yeah, I'll send you a couple of videos. I'm in links to doctors who, who teach this online. I'd also recommend you go to a good car, Frank, cause it knows about functional neurology or I'm not sure if there's up in Oakland or not, but and just get things looked at it from that perspective because adjusting the bet can also help with I've got mum at the chiropractor at the moment, we're trying to straighten out. It's fine. Of course things are going a little bit skew with after four years of being, you know, leaned over on one side and that can help with neurological function as well. So it's just say people like it's really important to share these insights and information with each other cause we're still learning, we're still growing, we're moving forward. And each time you come, you take a step forward, you actually come up against a new obstacle. I've found a Braun, there's something that, some new place that you haven't thought about. A new, a new level, a new deal sort of thing. Speaker 4: (33:19) Yeah. You know, like the other thing that I think is important is as I'm assessing the notes that you know, the right to make a significant difference as well. I think Speaker 3: (33:33) The right food for our brain is really, really important. And having good high fats, good Omega threes, really important. I have a whole regime of different supplements that I also have mum on. And we also do something called epigenetic testing. And I got into this Brian, it looks because it looks at your gene genetic makeup and how they're expressing now and gives the exact right diet for that person's genes. So it'd be something that we Speaker 4: (34:02) Yeah, for sure. I like look at them. Speaker 3: (34:07) Yeah. Cause I think what, what, what the key takeaway from this guys is obviously hyperbarics really important. Second is resilience in fight in persistence and not giving up in certainly having the support of a wonderful family or friends or people that can help anyone going through a drama like this and being resilient and then also the right diet and taking a really multipronged approach. Not just relying on drugs, not relying on just physio. It's not enough. It's not enough. It's a part of the puzzle, but it's, it's not, it's not enough for brain injury, but there is a way back and there is quality of life. You know, Chloe, you're pretty happy lighting it nowadays that you, you always seem to be jetting around the place and having all travel. You love travel, you've got a wonderful family. You're moving again, you're walking in, you're going somewhere, you've got your job, sort of sit for the next couple of years. What do you get yourself back to? More independence and, but near as quality of life and nearest happiness. Fear and it sounds, yeah, it's an amazing story guys. Brian, are there any last words or closing any last words that you want to encourage people who might be going through hardships? It doesn't even need to be brain injury, but just hard times. Speaker 4: (35:23) Well, I, you know, I, my bag disappointment through or laser as a, a number of the professionals just don't get it. And you know, like a lot, probably more than 50% of the you know, they use psychologists if you like. Have said in front of Chloe, you'll never walk again. You've got unrealistic expectations to hit face. And some of them say, you know, you'll never have you know, never have a pattern in your life and you got any issue and you're going to get [inaudible] don't get used to it. That's, that's how it's going to be. The phone a lot. And I've got so angry and in front of people, I never quite lose it, but I felt like Speaker 3: (36:21) A few times and my big brother have lost it toe a few times. Speaker 4: (36:27) Yeah. And it's just stupid. They put themselves up as so called experts and they, yeah, I know nothing for those facts. We just kept them. You don't want to know anything about them. I've tried them in the door. That's it. We're not coming back. We keep looking and, and we've had some absolutely wonderful caregivers or professionals that are help Chi and, and an event like I, we keep changing providers cause he goes to speech therapists almost every two or three years until we find the right one. But they run out of ideas. They run out of experience and colleagues continue to improve. So therefore some of them you get to a stage where they've topped out, I don't know any more and can't take it to the next stage. Or the challenge is to find the next person who can take it to the next day. And we've been relentless at that nonsense and we look constantly for people that can help. And we just kept the negative ones there immediately. Non-Native might, I don't know. And I just really totally surprises me how how these people lie and I still operate and I just wonder how many people get discouraged by that and just accept it. We're, you know, we document, Speaker 3: (37:52) No, we don't. And, and, and we've, you know, like the thing is like, we're feisty fighters. We, we not people that give up and how many people go under the bus who don't have feisty daughters or fathers or people that will help them. I had times at the hospital where, like in front of my mum, I remember vividly, we had a, we were finally got into a physio program and of course she wasn't ICC like you guys. So we didn't get a lot of support. And I finally got her into a physio program after a year and we did this training with him, which was excellent. And he preceded, I could have done more in my, you know, when lunch break than they did. And at the end of the six weeks, they'd done all these tests with here and they'd talk to her like she was an idiot. Speaker 3: (38:35) And we were in this panel that we had to present the senior, that we were allowed to stay in the program. And we were taken into this room and I said to her, look, Isabel is below the level of the worst dementia patient we've seen. There is excellently no hope. She will never do anything again. We not going to continue in the program and this is in front of my mum. Right. And, and I just turned around to my mum and I said how does it make you feel mum? And she said, well, I was feeling quite empowered until I heard that, that I'm below the level of dementia patient now I'm absolutely depressed and I don't know what to think. And the mouths dropped open. They have never heard her speak a full sentence because that talked down to her, realized she had an intelligence via that they, they had ignored. And these are the professionals, the doctors, they send the fuzzier therapists and you know, I'm not saying that all like that from pig. God, they're not complete idiots. We told them to stop the program. Speaker 3: (39:42) I bet you've seen hates cause I've seen hates and in people who had told me, even, you know, good physios who would come to the end of their abilities, who told me you won't get any more rubbish. Yeah. And you can imagine when you've got a 78 year old how they're even more so, because they're like, she's 78. What do you want? You know, made it go, no, she's my mum and I'm going to fight and I wanted to live to 120, you know, then my attitude and I'm not, I'm not, I'm not happy with where we're at it, I'm very, I'm glad we're here but I want more and Callie wants more. We keep looking for the next layer of people that can help us and that's why we keep exchanging ideas and I've got a couple for Chloe to look into. So Speaker 4: (40:36) Yeah, I guess that that was really my point. I think just don't give up and when you get a divorce that you don't think is right, seek a second opinion or just go elsewhere and I just tell them out. They're not talking to our my niece has just qualified as a medical doctor and I said to her, she was here just over Christmas period. Said to her, what you know, what did they teach your bed? Hyperbaric oxygen treatment. And she said nothing. Nothing, absolutely nothing. Absolutely stupid as that I've been back works for almost, even though I dislocated my shoulder playing rugby years and years ago. And when they told me what I need a shoulder reconstruction thought and I was functioning okay. But I couldn't wash my hair with my left. Well wash it with my right. But so I put up with that for years and years and after that first 20 treatments, Speaker 3: (41:35) Yeah. Wow. What's flowing? No question. That there's no growth like crazy me. It does. We don't ask Dr. Scott share who was on this you know, earlier this, this podcast he said to me, if we can get three treatments, if anybody who's had a heart attack or stroke within a few days we can have the mortality. Right. And I see, why the hell is this not an every single ICU in the world. And you see, because there's no money to be made in it. He said that I'm a doctor, this is not from [inaudible] the company behind it, the clinical trials, they won't do anything cause you can't patient oxygen and they can't make money out of it. And unfortunately that is the general state of our health system. It's very pharmacological based and it's very surgery based. And while that brilliant surgery and the brilliant at those parts of the puzzle, they're not good when it comes to chronic health management and they're no good when it comes to a situation like this. And that's why, you know, I know this is controversial, unnoticeable piss some people off, but this is our experience and it needs to be shared because there's a hundred other people that will back up what we're saying a thousand other people. Yeah. Interesting enough. Was the next a customer in the door, was that an American lady? And we're talking about, she said, well, funnily enough, almost every new mall would you go on until you are in the States nowadays as a wellness clinic. Speaker 3: (43:33) There you go. Yeah, it's growing and, and, and the popping up. We'll have New Zealand. I opened the clinic here with a, what they call a mild hyperbaric facility with, so we can't afford the big ones with the big medical grade, but they are justice just about as good, not quite as good, but it just about as good, they don't have a hundred percent oxygen and these are popping up all over the country. So you guys, if you want to find out about it, this is not just for people with brain injuries. This is for people who want an anti aging. Good for you, for athletes. This is good for healing wounds. This is absolutely proven stuff. And there is clinical trials. I have a season. It is a powerful and by the same token, there's a hundred other Sierra pays or biohacking or whatever you want to call it, stuff out there that is worth looking into. Speaker 3: (44:21) We can't give recommendations for everything there is, but there's a hell of a lot that I've tried. And all combined together. Nope. Do the restaurant, do the risk assessment yourself. And if you think it's for you, go for it. And don't be told what you can and you can't do. And you know, just keep powering on clothing. Brian, you've been fantastic today. Thank you so much for sharing your story. It's really awesome. It's so important Chloe, that you get out there and you tell people this journey that you've been on, there's a reason why you've been through this. We've got to tune it into a positive, even though it's been health, you and your family. This is why the book for me is important to get it out there, to share these insights so that other people don't have to have it as hard as we did. Speaker 3: (45:11) And if we can help people then it's great. So if anybody wants to reach out to calling weaker, they find you guys your famous snare Chloe. Yeah, my Danny that drew runnings, my Facebook page, my journey back to running Facebook. So clubby Hogan on Facebook and I can find you the year under Chloe Hogan. That be right. Chloe is Hogan. Okay. Chloe, Ms. Hogan, what a complicated name you've got. Wow. That is very fancy. So fire was my granddad. Oh wow. That's a pretty cool name. So Chloe, Amy's Hogan, if anyone wants to reach out to Corey, I'm sure she'd love to hear from you. If anyone wants to reach out to me or to Brian, please let us know. You can email me and I can pass any messages on. If you've got any questions. Thank you very much guys for sharing your story. We've got to get it out there more. It's an absolutely amazing story and you and mum, Chloe are both rock stars, so thanks though. Thanks Lisa! Speaker 2: (46:20) We're pushing the limits this week. I hope that that was really interesting for you and you took some really strong takeaways from that interview with Brian and Chloe. It's been a, an amazing to watch her journey over the last few years parallel to my mums and some of the insights that we've both gained a really along the same path. So I hope you'll take heat of some of the notes that we talk. I just wanted to remind you to hop on over to our website. If you want to check out our programs. We've got three flagship programs. We've got our online run training Academy running hot. We you can learn everything you need to know about running with you are doing your first five K or 10 K or maybe you're gone for an a half marathon. Or if you're doing a hundredth hundredth miler, we would love to help you. Speaker 2: (47:04) We have a holistic run training system that is based around our five pillars. So these are your run training sessions, you mobility work, your strength work, your nutrition and your mindset and all those pieces of the puzzle. Really, really important. It's not just about putting one foot in front of the other and winging it and seeing how you go. Certainly not when once you start getting into the longer distances or once you start running sort of any injury issues. So please check that out. We also have mindset U, which is our mental toughness Academy. And this is all about developing a stronger mindset. You know, all the stuff you just heard about. And the interview with colleague, that sort of stuff. It's about resilience, it's about persistence. It's about overcoming that negative voice in your heads, those limiting beliefs that were programmed into you perhaps as a young person. Speaker 2: (47:53) All of that sort of good stuff. So cheek out mindset you're in. The third program that we have is our epigenetics testing program. Now this is just really next level. Now this is a program that's been put together by hundreds of scientists working from 15 different science disciplines to look specifically at your genes and how they are expressing right now. And so this is the next step in personalized health. Never before in the history of mankind. Have we ever had an insight into our bodies like we do now. And then information can help us really nail down our health problems, our optimizing our house, tuning the clock back on time and reaching high-performance. It give you information right from like having Google for your, for your own body basically. You know, it'll tell you exactly the right foods to eat, the right times of the day, your chronobiology all about the different times of the day, your hormones, when they're replacing what your dominant hormones are. Speaker 2: (48:54) It'll give you information on your mindset, how your mind works, which parts of your brain you use the most are just absolutely next level of information. So if you want to check out our epigenetics program, hop on over to my website, Lisa Thomas E. Dot com and hit the programs button and you'll see all three of our programs. I've also got our new book relentless coming out on the 11th of March, 2020 then this is a story of bringing my bump mum back from a mess of aneurysm. And you can preorder that book. Now, if you do preorder it, you'll get free access for the next three weeks only to mindset you. So you'll get your free X's to mindset you, you also get a discount on the book if you preorder it. The book does not ship until the 11th of March. But if you support me in getting this underway, I'm actually going to give you access to mindset. You now, that's a value of $275 and that program has been running for a few years and has helped countless people. So if you want to get this as a onetime only offer only to promote the book, please head on over to the shop at lisatamati.com Under the books button and you'll find relentless the preorders available there. So thanks very much for your time everyone, and we'll see you again next week. Speaker 1: (50:12) That's it this week for pushing the limits. Be sure to write, review, and share with your friends and head over and visit Lisa and her team at Lisatamati.com.

Sanjay Rawal worked in the human rights and international development sectors for 15 years in over 40 countries before focusing his love for photography and storytelling onto filmmaking.

His first feature, Food Chains (2014), premiered at the 2014 Berlinale and screened at Tribeca before securing domestic distribution from Screen Media. The film was produced by Eva Longoria and Eric Schlosser and narrated by Forest Whitaker. It went on to screen in 1,100 more theaters during its theatrical, semi-theatrical & community screening tour.

A lifelong runner, Sanjay was happy to lose the pounds he gained eating Mexican food in farmworker towns and take on a project about running. His latest film, 3100: Run and Become, opened in theaters in fall 2018 and comes to New Zealand in February 2020.

Sanjay learned under spiritual teacher Sri Chinmoy and studies in this film the power of running to connect humans to powers beyond themselves.

The film follows the incredibly long and brutal 3100-mile race held every year in New York City as well as diving into the long human history of long-distance running visiting The Mt Heiei Monks in Japan to the Navajo Indians to the Kalahari Bushmen.

A film not to be missed and an interview to open the mind to new possibilities.

We would like to thank our sponsors:

Running Hot - By Lisa Tamati & Neil Wagstaff

If you want to run faster, longer and be stronger without burnout and injuries then check out and TRY our Running Club for FREE on a 7-day FREE TRIAL Complete holistic running programmes for distances from 5km to ultramarathon and for beginners to advanced runners. All include Run training sessions, mobility workouts daily, strength workouts specific for runners, nutrition guidance and mindset help Plus injury prevention series, foundational plans, running drill series and a huge library of videos, articles, podcasts, clean eating recipes and more. www.runninghotcoaching.com/info and don't forget to subscribe to our youtube channel at Lisa's Youtube channel www.yotube.com/user/lisatamat and come visit us on our facebook group www.facebook.com/groups/lisatamati

Epigenetics Testing Program by Lisa Tamati & Neil Wagstaff.

Wouldn't it be great if your body came with a user manual? Which foods should you eat, and which ones should you avoid? When, and how often should you be eating? What type of exercise does your body respond best to, and when is it best to exercise?

These are just some of the questions you'll uncover the answers to in the Epigenetics Testing Program along with many others. There's a good reason why epigenetics is being hailed as the "future of personalized health", as it unlocks the user manual you'll wish you'd been born with!

No more guesswork. The program, developed by an international team of independent doctors, researchers, and technology programmers for over 15 years, uses a powerful epigenetics analysis platform informed by 100% evidenced-based medical research.

The platform uses over 500 algorithms and 10,000 data points per user, to analyze body measurement and lifestyle stress data, that can all be captured from the comfort of your own home

Find out more about our Epigenetics Program and how it can change your life and help you reach optimal health, happiness, and potential at https://runninghotcoaching.com/epigenetics

You can find all our programs, courses, live seminars and more at www.lisatamati.com

Transcript of the Podcast:

Speaker 1: (00:01) Welcome to pushing the limits, the show that helps you reach your full potential with your host, Lisa [inaudible], brought to you by Lisatamati.com Speaker 2: (00:13) You're listening to pushing the limits with Lisa Tamati. Welcome back everybody. Today I have a very, very special podcast, but before we get underway, I just want to remind you, if you want to reach out to me, you can do that at lisatamati.com Find me on Instagram. I'm very active on Instagram at least to [inaudible] the same on Facebook. And I'd love you to come and check out our website and our flagship programs. We have three programs. We mainly do our work and we have the epigenetic program, we have the run online run trading system running hot, and we also have mindset you, which is all about mental toughness, resilience, and being the best version of yourself that you can be. So make sure you go and check those lisatamati.com Right now. Today we have a very special guest all the way from New York city. Speaker 2: (01:05) His name is Sanjay revile. Have you haven't heard of? Sanjay? He is an internationally renowned filmmaker. He was in the human rights and international development sector for 15 years and worked in over 15 so over 40 countries before he tuned his love for photography and storytelling into his new career, which is filmmaking. He's done a number of films. I'm most well known as his feature film, his first feature film called food chains. This was produced with Eva Longoria and Eric Schlosser and was an over 1100 theaters worldwide. And his latest film is what we're going to be talking about today. Now Sanjay is a lifelong runner. He's dedicated to doing just this running. And he was also a follower of the late Sri chum NOI, who many of you runners may know of. He was a Indian spiritual leader who died in 2007, but he was very much into unifying religions and to meditation and the power of a sport and athleticism to help you reach spiritual realms, which I find really, really fascinating subject. Speaker 2: (02:25) And the film that Sanjay has just produced is called 3,100 run and become, and it's based around the fact that human beings are meant to do this long, long distance running that we talk about that we're born to run. And it's particularly seen it on the race in New York city. 3000, 100 miles. This has been going for over 27 years, I believe around half mile block in New York city. And every year about 14 to 16 runners come to test the metal against horrifically long brutal arduous race. And the distances that they cover in that time is over 52 days. Is 3,100 miles set is over with just up, no, sorry, just over 5,000 kilometers. That's like going right across the United States, but in a half mile blocks. So you can imagine how hard this is. It's absolutely brutal. It's not something I would've ever tackled. It's too big. But he talks in chosen this foam, one of the characters, the main characters is the Norwegian runner who has done this over 15 times. And as really the world's best at the super, super, super long distances. So we get into a really deep conversation around philosophy and spirituality. The power of running to train, seeing yourself the healing abilities of running, how it can connect you with mother nature and you know, soul, a lot of our modern day woes. So without further ado, here's Sanjay. Speaker 3: (04:01) Well, hi everybody and welcome to pushing the limits. It's fantastic to have you guys back again. We're nearly at the end of 2019 and I can't believe it. And today I have a special special guest with me who is sitting in New York city at the moment. Sanjay Rowe. Wow. Welcome to the show. Sanjay. Speaker 4: (04:20) Thank you so much. It's a, it's a winter here, so I'm just trying to keep it together while you guys enjoy mother nature in a different way than I am right now. Speaker 3: (04:28) Yes, I've been, yeah. Well you're welcome to come over here anytime. We'd love to have you ever New Zealand. You can come and visit way. That'd be fantastic. So have you ever been to New Zealand? Speaker 4: (04:38) I have, I haven't been there in almost 20 years, but I am coming for about 10 to 12 days at the end of February. The screen, the movie that we're going to talk about. Speaker 3: (04:48) Oh wow. Okay. I've got to make sure I get to that somehow. So we'll talk about that afterwards. So everybody listening who doesn't know sanjay you will soon. So he has produced a number of films over his career. But recently won a film that we are going to be talking about mostly today is a film called 3,100. Sanjay, can you tell us a little bit about this amazing though? Speaker 4: (05:15) Yeah, I'd be happy to. So the movie's 3,100 running become and it follows a pretty diminutive relatively unheard of. Finished man named Ashbery. Hannah Alto is a paper boy by trade. At the same time, he is an underground, multi-day distance running legend. The film follows him trying to complete the 3,100 mile race and the year 2016 this race is the world's longest certified road race. It's almost 5,000 kilometers. It's just a few case short of five K 5,000 but it takes place all around a half mile, close to a kilometer along a loop. In the heart of New York city runners have to try to complete at least a hundred K a day for 52 days in order to finish the race. Under that window. It's grueling, but at the same time, although it sounds like an absolute misery Fest, a suffer Fest, people don't come out of it physically devastated. In fact, the only way you can actually tell the line for this type of mores is to have a deep understanding of the spirituality of long distance running. Speaker 4: (06:31) So in the film, not only do we follow Ash Briana, El Alto, but to kind of show how and why this race is even possible, we'd go back into time. We follow three other runners on their own quests, but runners who come from very deep traditional cultures of running a, we follow an ultra marathoner on the Navajo nation. In Arizona, we go to the Kalahari desert and Botswana at hunt with Bushman hunters who chase down game across two to three day law tracks. And we follow an aspirant in the Highlands of Japan who was doing a thousand day Trek of about 31,000 miles in the mountains outside of Kyoto. This shows the spirituality that's inherent to running that really fuels the runners in the 3,100 mile race. Speaker 3: (07:20) Wow. Well you preaching to the converted here and a lot of my audience, of course Evan runners. And what really surprises me, I mean I have to, I have to tell you a little bit of a story. I actually tried to get a documentary series done for discovery channel called run the planet and we actually uncovered, so the Kalahari, the Navajo, the, the Mount Tia amongst the, and a number of other tribes, people with stories and legends of doing long distance running. I didn't manage to pull it off. We did the the pilot for the series a in Australia reenacting an Aboriginal men story who ran 250 kilometers to save a friend of hers across the desert. And that was the end of the project unfortunately. But you actually manage the Paul was off which a huge amazing seat too though because I know what these sort of things take. Speaker 3: (08:17) But we, we came from the same premise that running is an inherently, we are born to run and stuff. The famous book is from Chris Google. We have born to run and we are made for this sort of long distance stuff and that we've done that throughout history. And you have uncovered these amazing people doing these incredible things. What's interesting for me is you've come from a very spiritual background and I've actually not come from that same background as a runner come more from the sporting and the, you know and I, I think I lived a lot of untapped potential sort of on the table looking back cause I didn't tap into the more spiritual side. I think I did to a certain degree without really understanding it. But you know, let's talk a little bit about Sri chum noise and what the races that he set up all around the world actually have to do with a 3,100 mile race. And, and your, your what, what your beliefs are around, she treats your NOI and has had a trick to long distance running. Speaker 4: (09:25) First of all. I so wish you'd completed that series. It sounds like it would have been awesome and I probably wouldn't have had to do this movie. Speaker 3: (09:33) It would have been complimentary, would've been awesome. Yeah. We didn't manage to pull it off. As, you know, there are lots of hurdles to jump through when you're totally, yeah. Speaker 4: (09:44) So, you know, to your question, I, I ran track in high school and I, I, I grew up in the United States and you know, the state that I grew up in, California has 35 million people. So a lot of people ran track, you know, but kind of got disillusioned from everything at university and ended up after graduation moving from the West coast of the U S to New York city where an Indian spiritual teacher named Sri Chinmoy lived his path really intrigued me because no harm, no foul, like there's no superiority or inferiority. But he really advocated a a pretty unified philosophy of not just making your heart strong and, and trying to develop the kind of beautiful qualities that we have inside, like love and peace and joy. But he also felt that physical fitness was a paramount importance to achieving that sense of inner peace. And so he came at running an exercise from a totally different vantage point than I did for me. Speaker 4: (10:45) You know, it was all about competition. And you know, when I was in high school, I would win a lot of races, but by the time I got to college, you know, I was no longer in that kind of top echelon. And you know how it is. It's like once you realize you're never going to be like at the very, very top, you know or, or you're not going to win every single race. I know you want a lot of races, you start really losing, you know, a sense of purpose. But when I came across region wise philosophy, it was totally different. You know, and, and this is reflective in all the cultures that we explore in 3,101 and become that there's something unique about running and we just have to take it on faith that unlike any other activity, however wonderful, whether it's tennis or swimming or biking, that running connects us to mother nature in a completely unique way. Speaker 4: (11:41) And when I, when you know, when I spent time with the Navajo and people will see in the film are our main Navajo character. Sean Martin says, when you run your feet are praying to mother earth, you're breathing in father sky. You're showing them, you're praying to them, you're showing them that you're willing to work for the blessings of mother earth. And that's a philosophy that I've seen reflected in traditional cultures all over the world. And that was in Sri Chinmoy. His philosophy, even though we don't actually, nobody really consider as Eastern philosophy as something that really revolves around an act of, of, of physical fitness, like running. Yeah. But in a sense, you know, it was men and women, humanity's first religion, that idea of connecting to nature and the energies both within and without through our feet. So when, when, when he kind of presented that to me and to others, that blew my mind, but I wasn't really ready for the philosophy. You know, I ran 800 meters and the 1500 meters, but when I moved to New York to study with them in 1997 that was the summer that the 3,100 mile race was launched and I hadn't, I hadn't even done a marathon. So the idea of doing 60 miles a day or 52 days just blew my mind. Speaker 3: (13:03) Yeah, absolutely. How does the human body, I mean I've, I've done, you know, the longest I've run is like through New Zealand, like 3000, 250 Ks in 42 days, which is not as much money per day is what they were doing. Given we were on the road and doing book tours and things at the same time. But the, the amount of pain in the suffering that you do go through and people have often said to me, did you reach this flow state? And then you became a, and I know that a lot of people experience that. And I, and I have to say I had had times or flow state when I was in a flow state, but unfortunately I couldn't leave a hole myself in that flow state. And the, the suffer face did, you know, it was about, you know, overcoming a lot of pain amazing levels of fatigue with a lot of willpower which we know as limited, you know, we will have a limited amount of willpower. Speaker 3: (14:09) And, and I was always hoping to reach that state of self transcendence really. And, and Neveah, but I hadn't been a catered myself to meditation and to the other sides of all that. Probably enough looking back which I'm much more into these days. But back then it was all about, you know, the physical, mental, the mental strength and the physical strength to actually prepare your body for this battle going in. And this is a completely different approach to what Sri, Jim NOI head and what these people that are doing the 3,100 have really it's, and I wonder how do they actually get to that, you know, as someone who's don't done a hell of a lot of running and not really achieved that flow state for long periods of time, at least how the heck do they do it. Speaker 4: (15:00) So there, there, there are two types of runners in the race and you know, again, no superiority or inferiority, but there are very few people on earth like you that have the mental fortitude to like will themselves through 40, 45, 50 days, you know, of of doing, you know, 30, 40, 50, 60, 80, a hundred Ks per day. Like, you know, that willpower will only take you so far. And, and in your darkest moments, you know, in the run, willpower is not going to offer you any light. If it's gone, then it's just Sufferfest. So a lot of people who come to the 3,100, whether they, there, they come from a background of faith or not, they realize either in their first attempt or beforehand that if they don't kind of develop access to a place within themselves where they can be happy, simply just happy in the worst moments. Speaker 4: (15:58) If they can't be in that flow state at will, then it's going to be a long 52 days. And you know, a lot of people, I would say probably at least a third to a half of people who do it the first time, you know, it's, it's it's a mixture of pleasure and pain and those moments like you experienced in, in your, in your cross-country run, those moments are enough to get you up the next day. But they're not necessarily gonna fuel every single mind mile. That said, it's like the people that come back and do it over and over and over, either through the race or outside the race, they really develop the power of meditation and at the same time, like unlike your race, and I think you'll appreciate this more than most, the reason why they do the race on a half mile loop is so that you have access to your aid every half a mile. Speaker 4: (16:53) You have access to a bathroom every half a mile. There's no traffic. There's foot traffic on this loop from just the public, but it's a pretty isolated area of New York and you don't have to worry about cars or anything. So in that sense your mind can like stop forgetting about the surroundings and, and it's, it's a lot easier that way. So that said, it's like this race, like the people that get the most out of it come at it the way you would now that come at it, knowing that you need to have access to that meditative side of you and you need to train with that in mind. It's like you have to find a way to find joy or happiness in those moments of exertion. And that doesn't come spontaneously out in the suffer Fest. You have to build that in your training. Speaker 3: (17:38) Yeah. And you have to develop that skill and the years and years of meditation, I should imagine to be able to reach that state. And that's something that fascinates me now. And I'm in, I'm developing, you know, those skills of late, but it's something that I wish on head back then instead of just the will and mindset. And I'm doing this no matter what. And, and it surprises me that how many people can override all of the the pain and the, you know, we do have an amazing ability to deal with things. But I cannot, I cannot, in all honesty, say to you, I enjoy it or I was happy in doing a lot of those races. There was a lot of, you know, I want to achieve this. It's a challenge. It's an opportunity to find out who I am. And I think when we, when we connect to nature and we do find out so much about ourselves and so even though I didn't approach it from a spiritual point of view, I think the stuff that I learned from it has been so, so powerful to helping me in, in everyday life. Speaker 3: (18:51) In, in getting through obstacles, other people that are doing these types of things, in your opinion just more, are they tapping into a higher power? Are they able to actually leave the the, the suffering behind in some way? Speaker 4: (19:12) That's a great question. So like going to the time that we spent with the Bushman and the Kalahari, these cultures that have been running for literally 125,000 years, they say you cannot separate running from God. Of course, if you want to run to become a better looking person running, we'll give that to you. If you want to run to become healthy running, we'll do that for you. But if you run with the intention, I mean this is wild, but if you run with the intention of getting closer to the divine part of yourself, to the divine part of the universe, whatever you, you label that as running, we'll get you there. I mean, just like if you meditate for just power of concentration, it'll do it. If you meditate to feel a little bit of peace, it'll do it. But if you meditate for a self discovery to discover the oneness you have with the divine, that's everywhere. Speaker 4: (20:07) Meditation will do that. And so when it, when it comes to running this particular race, people come into it as a pilgrimage. You know, you can either come into it what the mental attitude of like, I'm going to do this, I'm going to achieve this. But there was a runner on an Israeli multi-day champion and Coby Orrin who did the race, I think in 2017 and across the first thousand miles he was pushing. And he actually sat in Israeli national record for the fastest time to a thousand miles in the midst of this 3,100 mile race. But he realized that the true meaning of this race wouldn't reveal itself unless he moved into a completely different state of mind. And he realized that he had to take the race as a pilgrimage. And what that meant was not thinking about your splits, not thinking about how many miles you're doing each day, but really finding a way to focus on the meaning of each action of each step. Speaker 4: (21:06) And when he got into that sense of, or lack of expectation, and when he got into that sense of focus, he realized that there was, there was joy, there was actually happiness by looking at the moments, by looking at the specific actions and the steps and that happiness wasn't going to come. Looking at your watch or looking at your daily mile totals, that happiness kind of existed in the middle of all that. But again, it's like, it all sounds like fun and games, but unless we had that kind of intention, we don't actually find where happiness really exists. Speaker 3: (21:40) Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And I think, you know, overcoming changing perspective. I mean, I never went into races with the, the thought of winning, to be honest, most of the time it was all about, you know, survival getting through to the other in some which way. And I've had some very spiritual type experiences underway. Perhaps induced by, you know, fatigue, sleep deprivation, those types of things, hallucinations. And the things that you actually discover about yourself are just absolutely mind blowing, even without the spiritual aspect. But I do wish now that I had gone more into that side of things to be able to overcome the limitations. You know, what worries me nowadays as a, as a running coach and we train $700 sleets all around the world is, is the danger that is involved with ultra marathon running. Because there is, you know, you can do permanent damage. Speaker 3: (22:44) I've done some damage to my body. Why do these guys not have physical damage from doing these extreme races or do they? I've had, you know, big problems with things like rhabdomyolysis kidneys, you know, not functioning properly from repeatedly breaking down too much muscle. Things like that, fibroid problems, adrenal problems, adrenal burnout. Do these guys ever suffer from those sort of normal physical breakdowns? Of course, muscle tears and in those sorts of things as well. And if not, why not? Why do they not have that limitation, those very human limitations on them Speaker 4: (23:26) That, that, that, that's a great question. You know, as, as opposed to most ultra distance running, I mean this is more akin to your, your, your 42 days across New Zealand where you can't push it. You know, you can't win the 3,100 mile race in a day, but you can lose it in a day and it's not wanting a 24 hour race where you can say like, I can push myself past the limit because I can sleep for two weeks and I can take care of like the damage I do across the next six months or a year with the 3,100. Imagine doing a hundred K then waking up again and doing it again and then waking up again and doing it again. And the, the, the leaders are, are, are at about 120 K per day. So it's a totally different mindset. I mean, you know, they can't, they Canyon say that when you run long distances, whether they're 10 Ks or marathons, you have to run dumb. Speaker 4: (24:20) The UMB like in the 3,100 you have to have like a real sense of softness between your ears. You know, even physiologically, it's like if your, if your mind is thinking and thinking and thinking, your face muscles get tense, which tenses up, you know, your upper cervical vertebra, which have ramifications all the way down your body and you start getting repeated. Use injuries. Your, your knees aren't aligned, your tabs aren't aligned. But frankly it all starts in the mind. And so if you can find a way not to be in your mind, to cultivate, you know, your heart, your spiritual heart, that things that you focused on in meditation and bring those feelings and emotions and sense of self, sense of peace, sense of joy into your one, then it becomes an entirely different experience physiologically. You know, you're much more in tune with what's going on. Speaker 4: (25:14) You're much more in tune with the sense of balance. You have more patients. But in that patience, when you're not pushing, you can also experience a sense of happiness that you, you, you typically don't get in shorter races. And when I mean shorter like, you know, 24 hours and less, where are you going? Like, I've got to get there. I've got to get there. I can't stop. I can't stop. You know, when you've got that type of an attitude in a race, you, you rarely dissociate from your mind. I mean, the trick for those of us wanting shorter races is finding ways in training like the Kenyans to completely get rid of expectation and to find a way to get into that flow state in the first couple of miles. Speaker 3: (25:53) Yup. Yeah. And it does association. I mean, I definitely use it to some degree, obviously not to the degree that I would like to have used it and being able to take your mind away from the pain and the suffering in the body. And that's one of the tools that I, you know, teach about a little bit. And I do find like when you get into a rhythm, a rhythm is something that that is meditative. And I'm often, if I'm running behind, someone will use their feet as a little flicker of they fry, they fried and they, it's almost a trance like state that you can get into. But I can't keep it in the forever. That's a, that's the key point I think. And that's the difference between these guys. So they are tapping into things that we as, you know, average not so spiritual human beings, if you like, for the ones who have a bit of expression and you know, can't tap into. Speaker 3: (26:52) And that's what I find absolutely fascinating because I know what it takes to run 70 Ks a day. I cannot imagine the amount of pain that it would take to run 120 days beyond. It's certainly beyond my physical limitations. And the, the amount of pain that you'd have to overcome us is, is phenomenal. But what you were saying there about stress and stress is I listened to an interview with dr Chatterjee that you were talking about stress and how, why can't AIDS epidemic in our world. And it's one of the killers and it's one of the most problematic things. And we are living in a cult stunt state of alertness and fight or flight sort of state because of the society that we live. And we're no longer being chased by lions, but we seem to be living in that constant state is meditation and using even this, running this self transcendent, running a way of calming the body and stopping those stress responses. Speaker 4: (27:59) So the curious thing is that running is humanity's oldest physical practice, maybe dance as well. That movement through your feet and there is something electric when you're aware of it, between the connection between mother earth and our feet, our lungs breathing in oxygen and air, there's something deeply nourishing and effecting that way. At the same time, meditation is humanity's oldest practice of contemplation. Not just getting rid of stress, but understanding who we are, why we're here, what we're meant to do in any given moment. And meditation gives us access to different parts of our body and our, or of our being, I should say. It's like we've got a tool belt on and we've got 15 sets of tools, but we're using a hammer 24 hours a day. You know, it's like we might not even know all the other tools that we've got, but meditation is a very simple, very natural way for people to go, wow, when I'm stressed, I don't have to like think about it. Speaker 4: (29:05) I don't have to like, you know, just become obsessed with what's going on. There's another part of me that will allow me to feel something different, to allow time, for example, to take its course at the same time. If, if this dress requires something hyper-focused, you know, we can pull that tool out and apply it to the moment and get rid of that stress in a very constructive, you know, analytical way. Some meditation and running, you know, are really the two oldest tools that we have. But it's a question of, of coming back to that as, as a civilization, as a species. And you know, obviously as individuals we can come back to that just, you know, we just have to, we just have to take those first steps. Speaker 3: (29:45) Well, I actually had to an argument or not an argument, but a discussion with reduce your, of the, the portal, which is a new movie that's come out. Tom Cronin, who was on the podcast a few weeks ago and he was, he's, it's all about meditation and the power of meditation to heal the whole world. And I'm a very, very interesting man. And I said to him, I believe meditation running is a meditation. And he said to me, no, it's not a meditation. It's running. And I said, I know, and I had this discussion with an amazing no, because running you are in a sympathetic nervous system state and you're not in a parasympathetic state. Speaker 4: (30:23) It's that if for four, I would say for most people not myself included. That was true up until a few years ago. But I F I was trying to understand why the people who do the 3,100 mile race, most of them come back and do it a second time, a third time. The main character in the movie, Ashby Hunnel, you know, did it again last summer for get this a grand total of 15 times he's completed that race 15 times when when you understand that running and meditation can actually go together, you know, and you've explore what that truly means. I mean, again, it's, it's not simply the fact and I, I get where he's coming from. It's not simply saying like, my running is my meditation. The way that chopping onions is my meditation. It's like, you know, I, I get the kind of like, you know, hyperbole that that comes with that. But if you get into a state in running where you're completely beyond your mind, where you're completely in that flow state and, and you know, it's like the definition or the flow state is not an absence of pain, but it's finding happiness in the, in that exertion. And there there was a Hopi elder. Hopi is there. There are tribes in central Arizona, some of the best runners anywhere Speaker 3: (31:46) We uncover the swipe for that with a series. Yeah. Speaker 4: (31:50) Yes. W a Hopi elder had told us when I was on a prayer run with a bunch of native kids in Arizona, he told us as, as we headed off for monument Valley, he said, find joy through exertion. And that was mind blowing to me because how many of us, when, when we're really working hard, number one, feel joy, number one or number two, even know that we can feel joy in those moments of intense effort. And he said, not only do you need to realize that joy exists in the most extreme forms of exertion, but you can find it. You just have to be aware of it and find a way to, to tap into it. I mean, that totally changed the way I race that only that changed the way I run. It's like in those moments when you're really pushing to learn that joy actually exists there. Speaker 4: (32:43) That you can go beyond that pain by tapping into joy. I mean that that's how to get into flow. That's literally step one and to getting into flow. And when you're in that flow state as, as you know, it's like you can have experiences or you can tap into those same places within your being that you try to get to in your highest form of meditation. That said, learning and knowing how to meditate is going to help you get into that state a lot easier. And if you get into that state and running, you're going to be able to get into that state when you're meditating. So I completely disagree based on experiences that I've had personally, but more importantly, seeing these cultures that have understood the connection between prayer running and the spirit for tens of thousands of years. Speaker 3: (33:33) Oh, I'm so glad you've said that because I've, you know, had a debate with myself over the last few weeks because I took him on what he said, and I thought, well, that's probably got an element of truth about, you know, we're looking at the parasympathetic and the sympathetic nervous system, and you, when you are in the meditative state, you have to be in the sympathetic state. But I have that, I've had that experience of being in a meditative state, running granted I can't do it on demand, but I have been there. So I, I was having trouble with that sort of like autonomy, if you like. They, they're sort of opposites. And that gives me permission to go back to the thought. And yes, actually there's a type of meditation and it is a powerful one and it's something that I've missed like the last four years. Speaker 3: (34:19) Sandra, you you wanna know, but I had a mom who had a mess of aneurysm and my listeners know the story and was in a vegetative state, basically would have any high function at the age of 74. And obviously the last four years I just stopped doing the long distance running because I had to completely focus on her rehab and that, you know, they're trying to make a living was all there was 24 hours in a day basically. And now four years later, I've just written her book. It comes out in March this year. It's called relentless and tells the story of, of bringing her back and she's now completely normal again. At the age of 78 against all odds. And I created, I created this comeback journey that I've been on with her, on to the fact that I've done this running. Speaker 3: (35:06) If I had not have had the mental skillset that I developed through running, I wouldn't have been able to, to do the things that I did with here to look outside the square to, to push through boundaries that most people would have, you know, quit long, long time ago. And to go up against some medical system and say, no, this is the, she will come back. And this the story is very powerful because it's in why I'm so passionate about getting this book out there is because it taps into these types of tools that we discover when we are doing these extreme things like you know, running long distance races and we learned stuff about ourselves and then how the body works and how that we are capable of so much more than what your average local doctor will tell you. What capable of, I mean, have you ever been to a local doctor and they've said, look, you can't run anymore. You've got a sore knee. Yeah, Speaker 4: (35:59) Yeah. I mean, I mean th th th the thing to understand is that we physiologically evolved as runners. You know, from, from an evolutionary biology standpoint and all your, all your listeners will know that the humanities first advantage as bipedal beings was number one, unlike Quadra peds, we could step without having to breathe. Many people can imagine what a dog looks like or a horse looks like in full sprint when their legs are extended, you know, splayed out on the, on the an extension. Their lungs, inhale air. When the legs come together as they all do, they all come together in the middle of the, of the center of gravity. It's like that's when the lungs are forced to expel air. So they're incredible anaerobic beings, but we're the only animals by virtue of standing on two feet that can like trot and not have to breathe every single time we take a step. Speaker 4: (36:56) And so that's given us a tremendous sense of endurance. You know, we can breathe, you know, multiple times per step, which Quadro peds can't do. And you know, we can, we can breathe every three or four steps, which also keeps our Arabic level kind of pretty low. So it's like, if you, if you look at that, you know, human beings are meant to move on our feet. The things that take us away from that state of being are all the, all the afflictions of modern day life. But I would say weirdly enough, like I, I'm on the medical team at the 3,100 mile race too, and 95% of the day to day trauma that the runners face. The pain, you know, we can take away through a deep tissue, we can take away through Raul thing, but it tends to come back day in and day out. And when that starts happening to runners, I tell them like, look, your problems are mental. Speaker 4: (37:50) Like there's no reason why if these problems are taken away through through some sort of therapy that they, that they should come back the next day. I find that 90% of injuries that people have through, you know, basically through a non-traumatic running racing is totally different. But when you're just in training and you're just doing like low stress low intensity type of stuff, you know, maybe heavy miles, the injuries that are repeated use injuries are really due to bad form, which really comes from a state of mental unrest from a state of anxiety and not allowing the mind to release. And then the body subsequently to release. Speaker 3: (38:31) There's not so much rinks in the core strength and you know, like we teach about, you know, you've got to have a strong core and strong had some things to be able to be upright. You were saying it's more of a mental stimulus. That's, that's the problem that we are because of the stress that we're all under or that we are thinking we are under we're actually inflicting that on our bodies as, as much as anything else. Speaker 4: (38:56) I mean of course is since most of us don't spend day to day, you know, I spend, spend our day to day kind of inner body the way we might've as hunters and gatherers. Yeah. Yeah. We need to do all the range of motion, all the core activities that we don't get from our, our, our standard nine to five jobs. Yeah. But still like you have plenty of students that do all of that and that still gets Phantom injuries. Yep. And then I'll take it Speaker 3: (39:22) Good. You know, I can do everything and I'll still be struggling with one or two injuries Speaker 4: (39:27) And that come that that comes entirely from the mind. Like the 3,100 mile race is a great Petri dish for it. Because like I said, like, you know, like LA last summer, Ashby hunt all did it and I was, his handler. It, I would kind of take care of his afflictions, you know, every break he had every six or eight hours. And after a few days of of him having calf pain and taking it away through simple, you know, deep tissue or, or Rolfing or, or, or you know, active release stuff. And I just told them like, I can take care of this every single day. But the reason why you're having these problems is somehow you're, you're not running fluidly, you know? And that comes in that race from overthinking, from stressing out, for thinking about stuff that you shouldn't be thinking about. Mainly from, from thinking at all. Speaker 4: (40:18) Yeah. And so I go, I go back to the time I go back to the time we spent with Sean Martin on the Navajo reservation. We're all you're supposed to do when you run is listen to the sound of your feet. Breathe in the universe through your lungs. And when you do that, you begin to feel the importance of the connection of your feet and mother earth and your breath and father sky. And that nourishes you. And that gives you the sense of happiness that you need from running. But most of us, myself included when I go for a run and looking at my watch, I'm looking at my pace, I'm thinking about my workout. I might think about like, you know what I'm going to eat afterwards, what I'm going to do afterwards. My, my, my, my experience of running is already done, you know, and I'm getting nothing out of each moment. I'm only just checking off a workout. And that's the difference. It's like unplugging from our playlist, you know, you can run with a GPS watch. We all do. But not worrying about what your watch says to you, but listening to yourself, listening to your thoughts, listening to your heart, and taking, running as a spiritual discipline rather than as an escape. I mean, that's when the fruits of running really, really coming to the fore. Speaker 3: (41:34) Yeah. And I'm just going back briefly to that story with mum. The difficulty if I haven't been able to do the long distance running in the, in the last, you know, three and a half, four years and I've missed the clarity of mind that came with it. You know, when you, when you spend hours a day running is indulgence as that sounds. It actually, you know, I had time to work through the problems that I was facing in my life and to get them out, it's very cathartic, sort of a, a thing to do. And when you don't have that, you can be missing that piece quite badly. And then, you know, so they, I think running is a physical release and a spiritual release in a, in a mental release. It's a, it's all rolled into one and the connection that you say to, to mother earth. Speaker 3: (42:28) And I think this is one of the major, major problems that especially our young generation are facing because we so on devices and we so connected all of the time that we have no time to just be in our own thoughts or just being with ourselves and to just be in movement. We just constantly wanting entertainment or connection. And, and not being connected to mother Ruth not being outside in the burning sun, the freezing rain, the, all of those things that really make us feel good. You know, when you go for a run in a storm, you can't come back, you know, if anything but invigorated and like alive, you know. And it might've been hard and it might've been cold and it might've been this, but you're alive. You're, you're feeling you're alive. And I think that they, in their very artificial world where everything's air conditioned and we jumped from Avalon to a garage, into the car and off to the mall and you know, all of these things is just disconnecting us so completely from, from the way that we are meant to be living generally, like outside of just running, but just not being connected to nature is, is killing us, I think. Speaker 3: (43:44) Do you agree? Speaker 4: (43:46) I'm, I'm totally with you now. You know, imagine that 3,100 mile race on a city block. It's sidewalk. Almost a K it's, but it's a square. So it's like you're going around right angles. It takes place in New York city summer, you know, for for almost eight weeks where the temperature last summer climbed above 41 42 seas. For a day or two. But much of the time in, in the heat of the day, you know, you're talking between 32 and 36 Celsius. Again, it's like unrelenting. You're pretty close to some major roads. There's buildings all around and it's not like you're running through the grand Canyon, but that, but that said, it's like if you're, you know, on the South Island or if you're in the grand Canyon, it's really easy to feel the power of mother nature. But our, our Navajo character's father is a, is a as a medicine man. Speaker 4: (44:39) And he told me mother earth is under the sidewalk to no mother earth is under the asphalt. That is mother earth. So on this course, you know, people are, are desperately, desperately struggling to maintain their connection to nature despite being in an urban setting. And you know, when you've got that type of intense focus on what you need when it comes to you, it's, it's in a much higher dosage than you can imagine. So like, yeah, in the 3,100, that connection to mother earth, even though they're running around in circles on a sidewalk, it's absolutely essential. Speaker 3: (45:16) Absolutely. And that you don't need, you know, people often say, well we don't lock them did on these rices and the Sahara and the Gobi desert and Dave belly and Australia and all like Himalayas. To be honest, actually it wasn't about, Speaker 4: (45:33) Yeah, Speaker 3: (45:33) The views, it wasn't about what you were seeing, keeping you going. In fact, most of the time, unfortunately, you know, your heat is usually down on the ground trying not to fall over the next thing or you're so, so tired. You can have the enjoy your surroundings very often. And, and of course it is more inspiring to at least go to these places and you know, in the before and the after and the cultural exchange that you have. But actually during the race, it's not about the beauty, you know, it's and running around and ran a block or running through a desert. They're both connected the both outside and nature. Like you say, they both are. Speaker 4: (46:15) And w one of the great things about this race happening in New York is that whatever you need, whether it's a new pair of shoes, whether it's a very specific type of medicine you're in New York city, someone will be able to get a volunteer. We'll be able to get it for you within a couple of hours. And as you know, it's like when you travel for these like international ultras, very often if you don't have something with you is stuffed, you are not going to get it. Yeah. It's not going to be a good experience for you. Speaker 3: (46:44) No, it must be. Yeah, it definitely has a be a great advantage to have all of the things around you and that half-mile block, although it's, you know, mind numbing and people think, Oh gosh, going around in a circle. I mean I've only done like 24 hour races, but they are easier than running across the desert per se, where you don't have access to anything. And if you've forgotten something, you're in deep, deep trouble, physically in trouble. But it does become about the mind and what you are, what you were doing. The so this, this movie is coming to New Zealand. This phone was [inaudible]. Speaker 4: (47:23) Yeah. Yeah. So from February 10th through, we'll be traveling from, I think we're going to be an Oakland, Wellington, Christchurch maybe a few other places in between doing single nights screenings. The information is going to be up on our Facebook page, which I think is facebook.com forward slash 3,100 film and afterwards, after the 20th, that you can't make, one of those screenings will be up on all the online platforms. But Lisa, I would love to have to be able to, to, to ask you questions at one of our screenings. You know, I'm not sure what city you're in, but Speaker 3: (48:02) It would be fun. It would be really, really fun. I think we can make that happen. I live in a little place called new Plymouth, so you probably not coming here, although that would be awesome. But I can travel to, you know, walking into Wellington or something to make sure that I get to see this and I've seen the movie. But to actually meet you would be of course just, you know. Awesome. and you know, people out there, how do they get tickets so they can just go onto Facebook and find out where the screenings are. Get me tickets via that way. Speaker 4: (48:30) Yeah. The, the, the, the movie screenings are going to be in proper theaters and all of those cities. And so, you know, on our Facebook page there's links to the times and dates and we're going to be adding a few more things here and there. But yeah, all the tickets can be purchased online. Speaker 3: (48:45) Fabulous. And we will put all the links in the, in the show notes and stuff and all that. I do want to ask you a couple more questions about you and your background because you've had a fascinating life. This isn't the first movie you've done. Tell us about how did you get into filmmaking? Cause I'm very fascinated by filmmaking. I made a couple of, well eight documentaries, but on a very, very low budget documentaries. And I know I want to know, you know, how did you fall into this area and do the amazing things that you've done. So tell us a little bit about your life. Speaker 4: (49:19) I, I'm, I'm a Jack of all trades, master of none. Know I, I moved from California to New York to basically, you know, S to just study what's rich and white and spend a few years even with a good university degree, you know, just spend a few years working in health food stores and just, you know, getting to understand who I was and what I really wanted to do in life before launching into a career or whatnot. But switch in my head a lot of friends from other Theresa to Desmond Tutu and Mikhail Gorbachev and Mandela. And as I got more interested in kind of humanity specifically in, in like international development, humanitarian aid, human rights, I began having opportunities to work with some most rich and moist friends. So I got a chance to, to work with Desmond Tutu and you know, a ton of other people and gradually kind of like made my way into the world of humanitarian aid and human rights. Speaker 4: (50:18) So I kind of worked in that, in that sphere for about 15 years till around 2010, 2011. And you know, realize that a lot of the projects that I really, really enjoyed were ones that required me to take photos or to make little small documentaries, just being the only person with a camera for hundreds of miles. And I began making some short films, like my first one that most of them have been on sports, weirdly enough. My, my first one was called ocean monk and it was like an, a personal exploration of the connection between meditation and surfing in the winter in New York city. Of all things. I mean there is surfing like you know, in New York city in the winter here, you know, you might walk through, you know, half a meter of snow or a meter of snow to get to the water. But you can imagine like when the city's going like 24 hours a day to be out in the water was no one else around is probably the only experience of real nature we can get in New York city. Speaker 4: (51:21) But my, my second film explored, you know, kind of a curious aspect of streets and noise life. You know, after he stopped being able to do distance running, he took up weightlifting and he left, he lifted astronomical pounds, you know, in fact, when I was in New Zealand in 2002 and 2003 I was actually on a three month trip with him and one of, one of the cutest things he did was he went to a farm, you know, not too far away from Topo. A sheep farm and sheep are put into little cages and put onto this contraption that's reaching. Mike could sit under and he would like push up, you know, a cage with a sheep on each hand and you know, lifted a thousand sheep. It was just, it was really, really cute and childlike but also kind of mind boggling. And the physicality. Speaker 4: (52:11) I made a film called challenging and possibility, but then kind of went back to my human rights roots and made a film about the exploitation of farm workers in the United States. And that was, that actually achieved some success. You know, we had some famous people that were involved, Forrest Whitaker and then this movie 3,100 run and become was my second, you know, big feature length project. Wow. Oh, I should add as well. Just jumping back to the last topic that there have been two Kiwis that have done that 3,100 mile race, a man named Jade Lynn who did it I think in 2006 but there is a three time female finisher of the race. Hurry to Davey's. She lives in the States, but she's actually gonna be in New Zealand with us for all these screenings. They, cause she's doing a series of events during that time called the peace run. It just basically, it's like a, an Olympic torch style relay where they're going to be running from Oakland all the way down. You know, obviously what the ferry all the way down to Christchurch and stopping in a zillion schools. So she'll be at all though. She'll be at all the screenings too. I'll get to make a hopefully. Speaker 3: (53:27) And we also have another very famous lady. He used to do the 2000 kilometer race in New York city. Sandy Barwick. Oh yeah. Cause she's [inaudible] who was my role model. I feel like as a little girl growing up and who, who came with me to the family when I ran through death Valley, an incredible woman fates that again, just defy I think she had nine world records. I think some of them still stand. So we've got a, you know, great tradition in New Zealand of incredible runners and, and she was certainly way above where it, anywhere I ever got to. So we've got some amazing people. And on the note of shirt tree, Jim, he wanted to tell you just a little cute story. I was in the nationals. We have the streets of NOI, 24 hour race in Oakland every year. Speaker 3: (54:17) And it was, she was actually very, very sad while we were doing it was, it was in 2007 and we were doing the 24 hour race and a day before the race. [inaudible] He died as you would. Well, and, and so the people were devastated who were organizing. Right. And so they all just dropped everything and flew to New York basically. And I didn't really understand the whole street and rowing movement at that stage. I just, just was a runner turning up to the race to run and all of a sudden the rice was no longer happening. So one of the other runners and I, we decided we're doing it anyway, so we just, we ran around the track for hours. Well, I need actually made it to 20 hours that they ended. It was a absolutely torrential rain. The poor people in the street show me the way that were just so devastated. Speaker 3: (55:16) I just had to go, you know, they just had to be there to say goodbye to the master. And it was just a really for us back home running around in the rain, me and one other guy. And it was one of those special memories because it wasn't an official race. It wasn't going to be the official national race. And I'd been trying for years to qualify for the New Zealand team to go to the world champs. So I had to wait another year before I qualified, but we did get there in the end. But yeah, just the dedication to him was, was really moving and that they all just, they just dropped tolls and all just flow to, to New York overnight. It was really they were so, they were so devastated, obviously. Because he was such a great man and, and it was a man who, who really unified the religions rather than, you know, things are, don't matter. From what I understand. He was a very unifying figure. And yeah, for sure. I mean, his philosophy was, was, was love of God. Again, from an Eastern tradition, we don't really have the singular Speaker 4: (56:24) Concept of, of God being just, just, you know, a masculine energy, you know, it can be anything and everything. And, you know, we, we worship many different forms of, of the divine. But you know, his was about, you know, kind of an ancient path that way. But at the same time it was very accepting of people no matter what their backgrounds were. And, you know, he felt that you could live in the outer world and still achieve the highest. You didn't necessarily need to become a monk and renounce everything. And I know he loved New Zealand, you know, he, he had a, he's had a long friendship with a number of Kiwi runners like Alison Rowe, who he, I think he first met during the the New York city marathons. And you know, just to my great benefit, when we opened the movie in theaters in New York city and in November of 2018, it was during the week of the New York city marathon. And Alison was there to be inducted in the New York city marathon hall of fame, and she came to one of our screenings and did a panel. So I got to meet a lifelong hero of mine. And yeah. It's like, it's interesting because all the people that I've met through each and Moy still have, you know, you know, some sort of a connection with activities that his followers still kind of hold around the world. Speaker 3: (57:41) Yeah. Yeah. And even, you know, even my life. So through that we connected in some weird, weird, bizarre way, you know, and that's fantastic. And, and th the, the one that you did was the on the food food chain. Tell us a little bit about the food chain movie. And that was all about the, the site of conditions for workers migrant workers. Speaker 4: (58:04) Yeah. So most countries require some sort of foreign labor to pick their food. And especially when you're looking at like industrialized countries. I mean even England, you know, has had pre-Brexit you know, had a lot of, a big requirement for Polish workers, for Chinese workers, for Thai workers to come seasonally to pick food. You know, we know these are the hardest, most labor intensive jobs anywhere in the world and most people in developed countries don't want to do that kind of work no matter how much it pays. But in as we know it, those types of jobs don't pay much at all. I guess the big corollary in the South Pacific are the, the fishing fleets with a lot of indenture Thai workers, Filipino workers, Burmese workers working in essentially some in some cases like realistically slave like conditions. But the movie really delves not just interpersonal stories but looks at the kind of economic system behind it. Speaker 4: (59:05) Most of us, most places in the world kind of follow a food system that America set up. And that's like a supermarket grocery system where we expect to buy the cheapest possible food, good quality, but like very low prices. And w you know, Walmart in the U S a big chain kind of started that. And from their standpoint, they insisted on buying it ultra low prices from farmers and from meat producers and dairies, but buying in very, very high volume. And that created a set of conditions that not only had made it really hard to be a farmer in the us, but has made farm work essentially, you know, extremely low wage. Now we've see, we see these supermarkets all over the world and this is really a model that was created in the U S and exported to other countries. Even though you know, obviously there's, there's chains that are completely, you know, owned by people in their country. Speaker 4: (01:00:04) But when that supermarket system, that idea of convenience and being able to have the same types of food, you know, 365 days a year, that's made us in the U S rely on a lot of like New Zealand blueberries. But at the same time, you know, you guys get a lot of stuff into your country that are, that are not seasonal, that aren't grown in New Zealand, but that you still expected very low prices and we don't necessarily know the ripple down the food chain that it's causing farmers to really, really make very little at the same time. It creates this reliance on labor that's very colonial, that's very almost kind of feudal as well. And that's what the, the movie food chains kind of looks into. Speaker 3: (01:00:47) Well thank you for bringing it to light because it is a worldwide problem and that, you know, we have migrant workers here as well from the islands. You know, I, when I was the young girl I used to work on, on fruit, on, you know, Apple picking and kiwifruit cracking, I can tell you it's bloody hard work and very little money. Speaker 4: (01:01:07) Yeah. So yeah, so you, you, you, you, you absolutely know that it's, it's not something you would ever want to do the rest of your life. Speaker 3: (01:01:15) Oh my, no, definitely not. I'd rather run the 3,100 actually. There you go. There you go. Look st I would have taken up so much of your time today and I just really wanted to thank you for all the work you do, all the goodness that you put out into the world because it's very, very powerful what you are sharing and you're making people think and you're making people aware of some of these humanitarian stuff that you've done earlier. And also with this new wonderful movie that you bought out, everybody, you have to go and see this movie. It is, if you're into running, obviously you have to go. But if you are into just finding out about what the human body is capable of, what the human mind is capable of, and you want to see very average. And I put that into, you know, a quotation marks, average looking, average appearing, people doing incredible things. Speaker 3: (01:02:06) And that's the beautiful thing about ultra marathon running. We don't all look like Hussein bolt or Paula Radcliffe or or some, you know, elite specimen. We just normal people, but with very, very strong minds and strong willpower to do things. And in this case, it's all about the spiritual side as well. So thank you very much for doing this movie, for putting it out there. And I can't wait to see it and I hope we can connect and not, I can get to one of those screenings that would be absolutely fabulous. Meet you. It'll make my entire trip worthwhile. Right. We've got to make that happen. Thanks for not Sanjay. Thanks so much, Lisa. Speaker 1: (01:02:48) That's it this week for pushing the limits. Be sure to write, review and share with your friends and head over and visit Lisa and her team at Lisatamati.com.

In this episode, Lisa talks to her business partner/Coach Neil Wagstaff about resetting your mindset and how to get your brain to do what it should. We all have goals and plans and as we head into a new year we are all making new years resolutions and dreaming of what the year could bring us. But how often do you fall off the bandwagon, how often do you sabotage your own goals and don't know why. Neil and Lisa discuss tricks to get your mind on track, to developing new habits, reprogramming your subconscious to get onboard with the plan and how to trick the limbic brain into doing what your conscious brain wants.

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Epigenetics Testing Program by Lisa Tamati & Neil Wagstaff.

Wouldn't it be great if your body came with a user manual? Which foods should you eat, and which ones should you avoid? When, and how often should you be eating? What type of exercise does your body respond best to, and when is it best to exercise?

These are just some of the questions you'll uncover the answers to in the Epigenetics Testing Program along with many others. There's a good reason why epigenetics is being hailed as the "future of personalized health", as it unlocks the user manual you'll wish you'd been born with!

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The platform uses over 500 algorithms and 10,000 data points per user, to analyze body measurement and lifestyle stress data, that can all be captured from the comfort of your own home

Find out more about our Epigenetics Program and how it can change your life and help you reach optimal health, happiness, and potential at https://runninghotcoaching.com/epigenetics

You can find all our programs, courses, live seminars and more at www.lisatamati.com

Transcript of the Podcast:

Speaker 1: (00:01) Welcome to pushing the limits, the show that helps you reach your full potential with your host, Lisa [inaudible] brought to you by Lisatamati.com Speaker 2: (00:13) Well, hi everybody. Lisa Tamati here and I am once again with Neil Wagstaff. How are you doing Neil? I'm good, I'm very good. And tonight Neil and I, this is just before Christmas that we were recording this and we want to, you know, we're coming up to new year's and time to reflect on what you did this year and it might be playing for next year's goals that you want to sit out. And we thought we would do a session on resetting your mindset. I knew. So we want to go over some tips and tricks and some things we use. Think about when you're setting goals and how you going to be able to stay on the right track more often. So first of all, you've got to set some goals. I knew where do we go from here? Speaker 3: (00:56) Is this the best place to start? Make sure there's a, there's a goal in a goal in place and make sure it's a clear goal. Make sure it was well outlined and make sure, most importantly, once you've got the goal in place, you understand why you are doing it. Speaker 2: (01:09) Why, why the why, the why. The why is a really important fact to see if you have a goal in itself. It's, it's in it. It's nothing. It's just a piece of paper that you wrote something or it's all of those. It's when you start unpacking the why that you want to get this goal. That's when you come into the emotional triggers and your values and all this sort of stuff that actually creates the action that actually creates the, the, the ability for you to overcome the obstacle obstacles in order to get to that goal. So it's really important to understand your why. Now when you're working with a client, what do you do to pull out the why if you like, Speaker 3: (01:53) Hey, it's, it's really making sure it's down in your, it's written down in your words, your language. It's, it's used, used the words that you, you actually come out of your mouth, the language you use. So as an example of someone had been very stereotypical, says they're gonna they might not want to lose weight and I'm going to then continuously ask why. And it's like literally peeling back the layers of an onion. So we want to, as you said, get deeper and deeper, fond at the emotional reason that's driving that. And once you keep putting back the layers, why, why do you want to lose? Why'd you want to lose weight? Well, I want to lose weight because I want to feel more confident. Okay. Why do you want to feel more confident? Because I want to be able to comfortably company run half marathon. Speaker 3: (02:33) Okay. And why'd you want to run the half marathon? Because I want to be a good role model for my children. Okay. And why do you want to do that? Because my dad wasn't a good role model to me, so I want to step up now, make sure that I'm really a straight to my children, that I'm moving and being regularly healthy. And am regularly active is, is what we need to do to, to move forward in a productive way. Once you get all those layers back, we've then got the words that you jump out. There will be things like confidence, health activity, role model, and then we can put that into a statement that actually means something. And that's the key thing is the statement that the all clients have in front of them should mean something to them. And then that statement, we are statements to write down on paper and then that is then put somewhere that they can see it on a regular basis daily. Speaker 3: (03:21) And for some people who are really encouraged to actually rewrite it on a weekly basis. So whether that's taught into update it into a Google doc or it's actually written down and rewritten. So that is just front of mind writing. We've, the experience I've had and firstly from doing myself actually having to write it out, just brings it back front and center again. You know, I want to be, for me, my key words that have been, I've been enrollment of my children being a superhero for them. I want them to look up at me like I'm a, I'm a superhero, so I want to remind myself that on a regular basis so that that's my why and once I put that clearly in my head, understand and let me do a little bit of work on purpose as well, but that's probably another podcast in itself. Speaker 3: (04:00) But really once you've got the goal written on paper, clearly there, then that is what you're going to base your daily decision on. Because if you really want to get to that and achieve it and get to that half marathon, do it in a time. You won't be the wrong mode. You want be the be the superhero you want to be. Then each day when you're making your decisions, you make your decisions purely based on your goal that's clear in your heads. And if it's not clear and you don't understand why, then it's so, so easy to take the wrong path and make the wrong decision each day because you're not very, very clear on what you're doing. If you're a hundred percent clear on what you're doing and taking the right path and making the right decision is a whole lot easier. Speaker 2: (04:38) Yup. And we have like two to 300 decisions a day to make. And so this is really, really important that we have these goals and these are the reasons why in the front of our brain all the time that it's how, and I actually find two that actually working that physically on an old fashioned note and piece of paper much better than on a computer. I find that it just, it gets in your brain more, you know, and you have it in front of you. And when we come to, I call them lawyer folk in the road, each decision that we have as a fork in the road and I can just decide to go lift, which will lead me to the path towards more success than the other one is away from the goals that I want to have. And if we take the, you know eating chocolate, what am I definite weaknesses in life is a chocolate and right. Speaker 2: (05:22) So when I come to the decision, I actually want to eat less chocolate. The chocolate sitting there in front of me and I can decide I'm going to either eat it because it tastes good or I can stick to my goals, which won't be to lose weight or to, to have a healthier diet. And then when I understand the why behind it, I can take a little bit more of a zoomed out view instead of just the taste and the immediate impulse. So we as human beings tend to run on Sudi sick and decision making impulses. And if we can to lay a decision for just a few seconds, sometimes we can override then impulse to just stick the chocolate in your mouth. Right? And, and so w when we zoom out a little bit and we see what's around the corner, cause often we come to a fork in the road and all you can see is the chocolate. Speaker 2: (06:12) Yes or no. You can't actually see you like you, you're not thinking about, well if I eat this chocolate and I do this behavior repeatedly is obviously one piece of chocolate isn't going to be a problem. But if I do this behavior repeatedly, then around the corner as perhaps disease round the corner is obesity around the corner was diabetes. And, and while negative health outcomes I say, and not a motivator, it's still a good thing to be able to zoom out and to understand, well actually I want to be fit. I want to feel good. When I got to the beach, the sear on the summer and we my bikini, I, I want to, you know, whatever it is that moves and motivates you, seen as more likely to be at least a ten second sex discussion in your mind about whether you're going to do it. Speaker 2: (06:56) And sometimes you'll start to win in those discussions. If you can just delay the impulse a little bit is as human beings we and this is scientists speaking, not me. We all go towards pleasure and away from pain. We don't like to move ourselves towards painful decisions. And, and when I first heard this, I was like, I don't agree with it. I, I, you know, running a marathon definitely can be painful. I knew, you know, or an ultramarathon there's a hell of a lot of pain and discipline and overcoming yourself. And they said yes, but you're still going towards pleasure because you bigger goal. And again, we're looking at the zoomed out view is actually leading you towards more pleasure. The goal of having the marathon done the middle around your neck, that, that feeling of achievement. So you are moving towards pleasure and that pleasure is bigger than the pain of having to overcome yourself to get out the door to go training this morning. Speaker 2: (07:54) Does it make sense? So the pleasure and pine thing, it can be just an immediate impulse, the pleasure of that Tyson, that chocolate is going to make me eat it right now. Or I take a slightly zoomed out view at the bigger goal and w w w worked towards the pleasure of being fitter and stronger and losing weight or whatever the goal is. And remember, this stuff is not just about food and training. This is not just about that. This is what every goal you have in your life and your career and your business. If you can take this, this method, if you like, this framework that we're trying to give you and see this as a real fork in the road. Get a picture with a, you know, a tree in the middle of the road that goes left in a road that goes right and picture that in your brain. And when you come to those decision points, try and think about what's around the corner and what is my bigger goal and zoom out a little bit and at the beginning, Neal, isn't it? Isn't it true that when you be stopped starving you habit, it's a really tough road at the, Speaker 3: (08:56) This is real, real hard and it's not. If it was easy, then we'd all be doing the right stuff all the time, but it's a real, what's worked for me personally and everyone we're working with is just really, you've got a fork in the road and just understanding that doing small things consistently will can lead you down the bad road. So consistently, as you said, in chocolate in small pieces daily will eventually lead to the you somewhere. You don't want to be consistently having four or five coffee today daily. In the short term it provide pleasure, but in the longterm it's going to take it somewhere you want to be. If you flip it round and often the Creighton, the new habit, it feels quite overwhelming. There's going to be a real big, big challenge, but if you just pick one or two things and work out, if I consistently do those day in, day out, it doesn't need to be massive things. Speaker 3: (09:45) It could be simply walking for an additional 15 to 20 minutes a day. It could be drinking a little bit more water each day. It could be something real simple, but you work out. I consistently do that and I do that every day, day in, day out. Then all of a sudden the path to the pleasure and the longterm goal gets a whole lot easier. So it's not massive things you need to look at and that's where a lot of people end up taking the wrong puffs. It's actually just too much to do and it's really not. It's consistently just the little things. And to your point, looking at 30 seconds of immediate pleasure looking out across and above that and into the future and seeing that, right? If I just leap frog over that go this way, then all of a sudden the results start coming. Speaker 3: (10:27) Health changes, body changes, how you're feeling changes. And now it becomes easier to make, make more future future decisions by agreed, yes. The habit for me is is the tough part, but consistent little bits each day and work out what are you willing to commit to? What can you commit to? Because a site, a lot of people's at, if you could be 50% further ahead from where you are now, would you take that and everyone goes, well yeah, so it's not like we're asking you to make a huge change. If you can make some a 50% improvement, which percentage wise doesn't sound massive, but some changes that are quiet re give you 50% improvement. That's goal. If you're 50% in three months time than you are today. That's some big improvements from a health point of view. Some big improvements from a fitness point of view, big improvements from a mindset point of view, big improvements from a business point of view. Whatever you apply this to is it gives you some big, some some big wins and I'll ask the question as well. What's the one thing if you did it consistently each day, who would make the biggest difference to your goal? Yeah, Speaker 2: (11:27) The 80 20 rule. Yeah, exactly. Speaker 3: (11:29) One thing that I'm trying to do. Lots of little things. What's the one thing that will give you the biggest, best bang for your buck? What that out and then just go go at that. Because in a amongst time you're going to be glad this is Speaker 2: (11:42) In chopping things up into little bits that you can handle when you hear it. You know, it's like that analogy that I've used a lot of times about running through New Zealand and being totally overwhelmed by the thought of this 2000 plus kilometers and mum going to me just get to the Dame through Apple for status. Stop thinking about all that stuff. You know like if I say to, I'm going to eat healthy for 24 hours a day, seven days a week for the rest of my life, that's never going to happen. Cause on I myself, I know I'm not always going to win and that's okay. But if I say to myself like, I'm going to have five good dinners this week and I'm going to, I'm gonna not have a takeaways or something, then that's a small goal and I can manage this week and I'm focusing on just one or two things at a time. Speaker 2: (12:25) There was also, you know, when you, when you make a habit and you, you, you starting to develop a new habit, it takes about 60 days for the brain to be able to actually make a new pathway in the head. So we have what they call neural pathways. Now these are habits that you've formed and connections in your mind that make it, then the brain is very lazy and then it wants to use as little energy as possible. So when you create a pathway in your mind that repeat so behavior over and over again, it goes, Oh, this is easy. And it's, you've got a real big highway. If you can imagine you've made a big deep groove and the in your, in your brain, we're not physically but I a deep highway, that this is where the traffic is going every day and the brain knows this pathway. Speaker 2: (13:13) It knows this behavior. And so it becomes a, the path of least resistance. So how that translates to habit forming is it in the first few weeks, you're going to find it royally, really tough cause you're going to be running all willpower and decisions and the goals that you've set and having this front of mind and that requires some willpower. But willpower will, will run out on, you can tell you will run out on you. But what doesn't run out on ya is the fact that you've created this new neural pathway, this, you've created this habit. And then it actually becomes easier for the brain to just to, you know, I did the social example. I have a morning routine. I get out of bed, I do some stretching exercises, I go and have a cold shower, horrible. And then I'd gotten him a better leader or a vegetable juice. Speaker 2: (14:02) And it's not life stuff. It's horrible. You know, it's what, it's what I should be having. And that's the way I start my day. And it's a good thing because I'm sitting my day out. But at the beginning it was like, Oh, this is awful. Now my body does it without even thinking. It just goes. Because that is the habit that I've created over many, many months. And so now it's actually quite normal for me to do it. And it's actually a, I can seal it when I, when I travel and I don't have my blender or whatever with me and I can't do my routine. It's like, Ooh, don't feel like right. Usually because I haven't had that routine to follow. So it gets easier as we do these things. And so just get through those first couple of weeks and then already really it will be easier. Speaker 2: (14:46) And when you get to 60 days, it'll be a piece of cake, you know? But so the Brian moved type their path of least resistance once you've set that up. So another little trick that I use Neil, and I've done it if you use this one, is if I'm don't feel like training for example, own like, you know, feeling what and I don't really want to and I'm unmotivated and I know that I've got a race coming up or I've got something that I want to achieve. A little trick that I use to get myself going is that I count backwards from five, four, three, two, one. And when, you know, every movie in the world has got that, you know, with, we're going to lift off in 10 seconds, 10, nine, eight, seven, six, even if you just do it from five to one, it creates this impulse of action because you've heard that so many times and you, you, you know, they don't. Speaker 2: (15:38) Zero, you're going to take off. So, and there's a whole book written on this about just counting down from five to zero. And by the time you get to zero, you'll just go and do without ruminating, without thinking and overthinking. Do I feel like training today? Do I not feel you need a bloody feel like I can tell you when you've had a hard day at work and you know things have gone wrong, you'd just rather go home and I put a bottle of wine. We all feel like that, but if you can go and put your gym clothes on or your running clothes on, I have a bargain with myself. I'm just going to get changed and then I'll say and once I put my clothes on, usually I'm like, cool, I feel more athletic already and I've actually done this thing and I'll, well I'm here now. Speaker 2: (16:22) I might as well just do a little warmup and see how I feel and then I start warming up and then all of a sudden my body starts to kick into gear. My body warms up, it gets ready for action and then we're off. We're off to the races, but I hate to overcome myself each and every bloody time actually people is, it's not just like, you know, Oh are you one of those motivated athletes who loves to give them the gym everyday? No, there are very many days when I do not feel like going for a run when I do not feel like going to the gym. But that's a little trick that I use to get my app Speaker 3: (16:56) The road. Exactly. We've been, you know, you said at the start at least it's having that fork in the road and setting yourself up, giving yourself signs valid. I like to put signs that direct me in to that, to the, the right fork in the road. So last night, it's good example. We've we've had a few nights this week. We've had friends around for barbecues and things like that. This morning is, I definitely getting up and going for a run. So I put my spiky ball. I used to roll my feet before a run. I'll stick that on the wood on the workbench before I went to bed last night, made sure I knew where shorts, t-shirt, have fines were for my, my phone's heart goes to my music when I'm running. All those things are out shoes by the front door. So when I got up this morning and walked into the kitchen, all those, they're the signs for me. Right? Not rolling your feet, trying to the, it was, there was no reason because the easy thing to do, if those things weren't there, then all of a sudden I'm off down Speaker 2: (17:50) The, the other path, and this is what I want everyone listening to understand is the people will look at often look at you and me and other people like this guy and they just get up and do it. It's easy. It's, it's not, it's not. But what we've got better at doing is, is really getting our minds and in the position to make the right decision. And that some of the time you need to, you need to do things like you've described things that I've described where you put your sign up, they put them up, you make it easy. And then you have your your accountability partners in place as well. The people that are going to ask you like in the day, how was your run? The minute I came down to the, to the gym this morning to jump on the podcast with you as I walked in, it was couple of memes I'd already told and couple of the team who had already told I was going running. Speaker 2: (18:34) First thing else was how did you run feel so much better explained to them how great the run was rather than saying, Oh yeah, so that and that, that's where you start to get the, the feeling success as well and that's the bit you is never no way that I want to walk in this morning and go that didn't do it. So when I saw the people I knew I was going to see, right, they were my accountability partners who are even realizing they were going to be my accountability partner. It says if they pay pressure that they are good prefers. Yeah. And we are all part of a, you know, they talk about the herd mentality and I like to call it like a Wolf pack. Really. You know, you're like, you, you're part of a pack and a when, when someone just exudes a little bit of pressure on you or makes you accountable, it's gonna make you go, you know, it's gonna make you go a whole lot more. Speaker 2: (19:21) Another example, my husband Heisley, he, he's had a hell of a week. The Farber gave some mess of big fires, you know, lots of overtime, three days, three nights. I haven't seen him in, in a week and tonight on his schedule was a 35 K run because he's preparing for the unity ultra, which we've got coming up in March, which is 84 Ks and you know, I all signed to him last night when if you have another really bad shift night then you know, you might want to shift that. And luckily last night wasn't too bad but he had everything prepared. You know, he had all his gear out, he had the foods that he needed, he hit the water all prepared. He had his literal lights all done. He had prepared his mind all day yesterday for the beta lets coming today. And he just came in the house before to get some headphones and then he ran back out again and carried on his way. Speaker 2: (20:09) And he's on a mission and he's happy because he's, he's actually doing the thing that he set out to do and he prepared himself for it, even though he's had a hell week. And I've said to him after this, you need a bloody good break and you need to sit and watch YouTube for a while, you know? And then it's okay. And it's understanding that as well that you need that downtime. But that's a classic example of somebody who's prepared themselves and his prepaid, the mind for the battle is to come and he's out there doing it right now. So, you know, and that makes me proud of him and in what he's doing. So home, like we have got the unity ultra coming up. I just wanted to mention that while we're talking about it. So I, I'm invested at for the unity ultra, which is a a 51 mile or 83 K's, I think it is down in Christchurch in March of 2020, if anyone is interested in doing this. Speaker 2: (21:01) This has been done is a to commemorate the victims of the Moscow techs. And Christchurch, one of the organizers lost his auntie in this horrific event and was moved to as a run out wanting to do something and Koran golfs. And he asked his friend who's a rice organizer and who does a lot of charity events to come and help organize this event. And they're actually over in Bali at the moment, running another event. But this one is going to take place on the 20th of March 20, pretty 20th to 22nd of March. And so it's one day of running, but it's a whole three day of beans around, you know, sinking in, in, in showing solidarity to the people that were affected by this horrific event and honoring the 51 people who died in, they'll see lives. And we're also going to be raising money for the red cross to help refugees who are being set up in New Zealand and needing some help and support around and the, you know, establishing themselves in New Zealand. Speaker 2: (22:03) So a great cause, a great reason to be doing it. So if anyone is wanting to find out more about that, you can go to the unity oprah.com. And, or reach out to us and we can tell you more. So that was just an a little bit of an aside. But going back to the goal setting into this year, like we're coming up to the end of the year, we've got the new year's resolutions coming in. 90% of people who sit new year's resolutions, I don't know what the actual statistic is, but it's pretty horrific. Do not follow through with it. So I don't be one of those statistics this year. Be one of the ones that's, it's some really good, well thought out goals. Start to understand your why behind these goals and then start to understand what it's going to take to get there, break it down into small bite sized pieces and then start developing the habits that will get you there and understand that you are going to fall off the bandwagon. I knew you're not going to be perfect, Speaker 3: (23:01) So if you need help then there's a whole process, quite detailed process we take off on through understanding their goals, their purpose, their why, what their purpose in life, what they're doing is, is as we've talked about many times before laces when you achieve your goals, there's a lot of other factors that come into it and that's what we can help you with. If you want to, we can take you through a goal setting session, a purpose session at the start of the year and then tie that back to what you're doing, the chances of you been successful in achieving it. If you've got support around you, if you've got coaching around you. We use, we use coaches ourselves. We use mental, mental ourselves for that reason because we know we're going to be a much higher chance of being successful and achieving our goals if we've got support around us. So we create that around us with own mentors and our own coaches and we can help you guys and go through it as well. So if you need help with it, reach out. Where's the best place to contact this list? Speaker 2: (23:54) I'm Lisa tammany.com [inaudible] website. And you can contact us via that. You can see all our programs. We have our epigenetics program, which is what Neil was talking about there. So we go through this process, but we go through this with the lens of looking at your particular set of genes. A very an incredible program that we've talked about a couple of times and we are actually going to get onto doing some sessions on the genetics program that we have in the next few weeks. We've been saying it for a couple of weeks and the idea would be to get onto it, but it's actually a really amazing program that will give you insights into your genes, what they're doing, how they're expressing and what recommendations and trying to understand who the heck you are. This is the biggest power in this is not just the food lists and having lists of foods that you're going to, that, that are going to be good for your body and in times of the day that you should be exercising and what types of exercise. But it's also about how your mind works in relation to your genes and how you were, how you were made. You know, it goes right back through embryology when you, and your mom's tummy, how you developed, what we, what energy went into the different systems. And I won't go into it now because it's very, very detailed and scientific and we need our you know, probably five or six podcasts to get through it all. But we have a huge result. So this and we're just, Speaker 3: (25:20) I'm really my skill set in and finding your purpose easier. Cause once you know who you are, how goal setting process and, and the purpose process becomes so much easier because you've got the tools to really, really, really help you choose the right fork in the road. Speaker 2: (25:35) Yeah. And understand how you operate. You personally, what is it that your dominant hormones are and how is your mind set up for action? You know, and we know you know, Neil and I worked together and we have both crusaders and this is one of the epigenetic types biotypes and we both very, you know, mission driven and very on a mission all the time and in huge goals and things. And we know that other people operate differently. And we can as coaches now talk to them in a different way, motivate them in a different way because they need to hear different things and what we need cause we taught the person, if that makes sense. So we will be going into all that. If you want to chicken out or really you can help onto our website, at least the lisatamati.com Hit the programs button and you'll see our three programs, our online run training program, our epigenetics program, and our mindset Academy, which is all about mental toughness and developing war emotional resilience and mental toughness. So check those all out. Have a great Christmas guys is upon us account believers and if you're listening to this afterwards yeah, I'm sure we would've had great Christmas. Any last words you want to add to before we wrap up the holiday period? Enjoy the Christmas. Have a great new year guys, and enjoy Tom and your family and loved ones. Yeah, sounds like a bloody good idea to me. So you guys, yeah, Speaker 1: (27:00) That's it this week for pushing the limits. Be sure to write, review and share with your friends and head over and visit Lisa and her team at lisatamati.com.

In this episode, Lisa Tamati and Exercise Professional, Health and epigenetics coach Neil Wagstaff discuss the latest trends in the fitness industry, the latest shocking stats and how we can reverse them and about the power of power posing, stress management techniques and disease prevention rather than cure.

Shocking Health states & the latest insights from the Fitness Industry Timestamp:

2:52 The latest (and shocking) insights from the fitness industry In new Zealand

7:55 being a role model & brain health

9:20 Stress, stress manifestation, and stress management

13:10 the power of posture - Power poses

16:00 Anger vs Love & Gratitude

22:40 Preparing for healthy holidays

30:15 Working with us, And epigenetics

We would like to thank our sponsors:

Running Hot - By Lisa Tamati & Neil Wagstaff

If you want to run faster, longer and be stronger without burnout and injuries then check out and TRY our Running Club for FREE on a 7-day FREE TRIAL Complete holistic running programmes for distances from 5km to ultramarathon and for beginners to advanced runners. All include Run training sessions, mobility workouts daily, strength workouts specific for runners, nutrition guidance and mindset help Plus injury prevention series, foundational plans, running drill series and a huge library of videos, articles, podcasts, clean eating recipes and more. www.runninghotcoaching.com/info and don't forget to subscribe to our youtube channel at Lisa's Youtube channel www.yotube.com/user/lisatamat and come visit us on our facebook group www.facebook.com/groups/lisatamati

Epigenetics Testing Program by Lisa Tamati & Neil Wagstaff.

Wouldn't it be great if your body came with a user manual? Which foods should you eat, and which ones should you avoid? When, and how often should you be eating? What type of exercise does your body respond best to, and when is it best to exercise?

These are just some of the questions you'll uncover the answers to in the Epigenetics Testing Program along with many others. There's a good reason why epigenetics is being hailed as the "future of personalized health", as it unlocks the user manual you'll wish you'd been born with!

No more guesswork. The program, developed by an international team of independent doctors, researchers, and technology programmers for over 15 years, uses a powerful epigenetics analysis platform informed by 100% evidenced-based medical research.

The platform uses over 500 algorithms and 10,000 data points per user, to analyze body measurement and lifestyle stress data, that can all be captured from the comfort of your own home

Find out more about our Epigenetics Program and how it can change your life and help you reach optimal health, happiness, and potential at https://runninghotcoaching.com/epigenetics

You can find all our programs, courses, live seminars and more at www.lisatamati.com

Transcript of the Podcast:

Speaker 1: (00:00) Welcome to pushing the limits, the show that helps you reach your full potential with your host, Lisa Tamati, brought to you by Lisatamati.com Speaker 2: (00:12) Hi everybody. This is how many here at the limits and this week I have my favorite person, Neil Wagstaff on the podcast who's been on here so many times. I can't count any walls cause he's my offsider at by running hot coaching our company. So welcome to the show Neil. Thanks Lis nice work as always hoping to find a person. That's cool. Besides my husband of course now Neil has just been up at the fitness awards, which, and New Zealand a fitness industry awards and it is also a three day conference alongside this and he has just come back with a Monaco award. So I want to congratulate my mate own winning the Monaco reward. Now this is for excellence and leadership and work ethic and there's something that has peers have nominated him for because he is a really major player in the fitness industry and fully deserves this award. So congratulations mate. Well done. Thank you. Right, thank you. He'd grown a little bit now. Now well done, Mate, the Monaco award at the FedEx, that's a really top notch thing to meet, to receive in the fitness industry. So we're really, really proud and I'm not surprised to be honest. I mean, you just absolutely mentioned this, you know so congratulations on that. Speaker 3: (01:37) The cool thing about the neighborhood as well, Lisa's and it's very touching to get it very, very cool, but it mentions the people around you. So it's really a great reminder to me that I can't be what they are. We can't do what we do without the people around us. So having, having good people around us makes a massive, massive difference. So, you know, for me it's not just about what I'm doing, it's about what we're doing and, and really thankful to the people that that we've got around us and I've got around me. So it's very, very cool. Speaker 2: (02:07) Yeah. And that just really shows how humble you truly are because a lot of it is down to you, but use your team is important. Last week I had on the show, dr Rob bell and he has a book called no one does it alone and that will no one gets there alone. And it's definitely true for this case as well. And we're always a team effort usually for everything. Even the races that I used to do, I used to think, crikey, here's me getting the middle. But without my proof I wouldn't be standing there, which could be meetings for the crew as well. Speaker 3: (02:40) It's about team. And it's anyone who says that they're on their own is often raise an eyebrow cause cause they've always, Speaker 2: (02:46) Yeah, PayPal of part. We're not so self-made. Right. So what we're going to, again, my aim on this podcast guys, we wanted to talk stuff that new sorn for the FedEx awards and Oh, conference, sorry. Because this is like a cutting edge of the latest and the fitness industry and he learned a whole lot of great things and we always like to stay up on the latest in science and the latest developments. So Neil, take us through what you learned on this incredible. A few days up more often. Speaker 3: (03:23) So the, we had a great real good keynote at the start of the weekend, which was where everyone comes together and goes to that. And the the, the chief executive, the heads up excised New Zealand. He gave me some guidelines which nearly had me falling off my chair on you. We were, we weren't where we needed to be from activity point and newsfeed. And it's when I heard the stats and the and looks at the numbers, it was quite shocking and often the, I found myself in a little bubble with the people I worked with. Cause we're all very active where we're at the gym we're at with our business, we're surrounded by people right to, for across New Zealand the world health organization guidelines. We are the 13th worst in the world for an activity 13th world worst in the world for our kids. 90% of our children don't meet the daily guidelines of 60 minutes of activities a day. Speaker 3: (04:13) That's 90% of our children meeting the the activity guidelines of 60 minutes a day, which isn't a huge amount of time of physical activity. Our adults are just about 50% of meeting the guidelines of 30 minutes a day. That's, that's half our population who aren't meeting the activity guidelines and 30 minutes a day, which again isn't a huge amount of huge amount of time as well. And for obesity we're sitting at number three, number three in the home and the whole world. So well that what that after I fell off my chair, pick myself up and brush myself down, it really sort of hit home to me in a message I wanted to send from from this podcast today and for our listeners is, is share what you are doing. I know a lot of our listeners will be out to if they will be moving, but you will be an inspiration to those around you. Speaker 3: (05:01) You are in a position to teach and educate those around you. You are in a position and more importantly to teach and educate our children please, especially over the upcoming holding holiday period. Take the time to, to be that role model. Take the time to, to, to get active with the family, get out with the family that worry if you ended up in the next few weeks. If you're not hitting your runs. Exactly. Don't panic. But do make the time to get out with your family and get walking on the beach. Get walking on in the, in the local parks, walking on the local trails and get the family moving and just let everyone around, you know, handful and that is and let everyone around. You know what, what is going on in our, our community and our country because we need to get moving. We need to move or regularly we need to really address our health or a obesity epidemic and we need to do something about this quickly so that we're in a position to, to reverse that because there's a lot of choice, right? So it's out there, there's a lot of options, but they are clearly not hitting them up. They are not meeting the market school. So pretty that role model for that person. Speaker 2: (06:03) This is going to have massive consequences for our health system, diabetes and all the obesity diseases, any of escalators. There's always things that a knock on effect if that chosen one and not, you know, we used to, we used to have such active childhoods. I mean I had a wonderful childhood running around all day, every day. And that's not the case now. And those kids aren't learning those habits and those routines and it's going to be a disaster for the health. You know, the medical system and New Zealand and I mean this is not just New Zealand, this is happening obviously across the board. We all know Speaker 3: (06:40) Worldwide. It's a worldwide problem. There are, there are stats, but every, every country is facing similar things. And I mean, just look at how much on you and your family is spending on screens over the holiday period. Look at how much time you do in general. If you're trying to get something done at the and, and your family are on screens where you're trying to get something done, it's plans and so on. Take some time out where you are actually moving. It doesn't need to be high intensity, but get yourself and the family out, move in and just ask yourself, look at those stats. Are you one of the 50% that is meeting the guidelines or are you one of the 50% that is missing them? So if, if that's the case and with your children, you know, you want to, we want to really reduce that 90% so that children each day and really so much gets my blood pressure up. But this does because that there's responsibility from our schools as well as the responsibility from our schools to take this on board as well. And look at how much movement the the children are doing each day as well. Speaker 2: (07:37) Yeah. And as you've got three little kids who are extremely act the one, know how much you put into their activity and to keeping them on point. And you know, I come around to your place and you've got the kids ability with that doing their own thing. I mean, I was always surprised to come, come around and it's three and four year olds doing like little bell swings and stuff and sign little, okay. And what did he do? Like a 12K last year and he got beaten by us big sister this year I'm like, I'm running what, 15 Kai up the mountain or something,uin signing for little kids. Uit doesn't have to be that level guys, but,uyou know, you are a role model for your children and I will [inaudible] Speaker 3: (08:20) What you do and watch what you do and be there. And then the other thing I just wanted to add in this world, and you, you know better than anyone leads the importance of brain health. So the connection with activity and brain health is, is phenomenal. So this isn't just about movement. This is about development of, of of the brain as well. And from an education point of view and a learning point of view and an experience point of view. And as we're, you know, we're using more and more Lisa from RF genetics point of view, the rec geneticists program, the importance of mind with that and the connection of how we will develop our mind and use on mind is, is key. So this is a huge, a huge topic and something we're both very passionate about. But there's simple message out there is please, please, please think about what movement you're doing each day. Cause it's, it's not just about activity, it's not just about why it is about, it's about learning resilience, it's about the development of of the brain and mind. And it's about, you know, Atlanta children's become Speaker 2: (09:16) Good, good, healthy peoples who grew up as well. Absolutely. And that sort of goes into our next topic, which was around the stress and emotional the effects of stress on the body. Because this is another thing that it ties in very much. You hit another good, great point. Speech up there. Speaker 3: (09:33) One of 'em, one of, one of my mentors who's, he's taught me a lot over the past few, few, few years, Angela Lee and she, she was delivering a session called issues in the tissues. So your tissue, basically the message is coming out of it. Your tissue as in your your muscles. Yeah, all my, all the connected tissue. Of course, your body will carry a lot of your emotion. So it's the structure of our body. You can have injuries and niggles that are caused not by necessarily by postural problems that are not caused by a lack of flexibility but actually caused by emotion. It's a simple comparison. There's a lot of lists. There's, I'm sure when we experience, when they get tired or stressed, they're anxious, they feel tension around their neck and shoulders. But that can manifest itself all over the body. So a couple of good examples and we've done some release work with some of our clients, one on one and some of the members here at the gym as well. Speaker 3: (10:26) I've had people who've actually released them, really some some of their body that burst things tears because that, that part of their body has been carrying, carrying the emotion. So something to be very aware of as well. If your body is tight, if it's restricted, it's feeling uncomfortable. And for those of you that are runners that are listening, it might might be the distraction just doesn't work. And you've got to address the emotion with the, with the good movement and the stretching and relaxation work. So release the, release the emotion. All of a sudden you'd be moving, moving a whole lot better in response to stress in our body. And this was a great point I took away. We've talked a lot, Lisa, about the flight or fight response. Okay. What angel did very well and just reminded me of as well, there's also a freeze, a freeze response. Speaker 3: (11:10) Now the freeze response is what a lot of us are doing in this day and age. We're no longer fighting, staying and addressing an issue and therefore we're getting, we're allowed, we're able to release all those stress womans. We're not flighting and running away and releasing all the stress hormones that we've built up in our body. We're actually freezing and submitting to it. Yeah. We're freezing in place, submitting to the stress, the stress response we've been given. And if that can't be released by fighting or fighting or the sudden that's just loaded into our, into our body and into our tissue, which then results in, in a pretty pretty tight body. Speaker 2: (11:47) Does that mean that when the boss yells at you at work next time you should fight back, keep yourself healthy or should you run away? Speaker 3: (11:59) Is it needs to be released so it has arrows released that a, again, to lay one on your boss probably isn't the best of it. Speaker 2: (12:05) Well, I don't go and punch a box. We're not saying that, but leave it out somehow. Yeah, Speaker 3: (12:09) Let us somehow, and if that comes out in a constructive discussion with your boss, then then great. Or if it comes out with a discussion with your partner at the end of the day or a loved one, then the imperfect, if it comes out through some exercise activity, then great. The key message here is it needs to be coming out because if it's not, and this can be, you know, we've, I've looked at a lot of the research on it and then there's the stuff that some people will be carrying from childhood and teenage years that is now causing and continuously built up kind of structural. Our body is a great representation of the emotional stress we've been through over the prayers previous years and managing that and releasing it is is key. She led in very nicely from there just talking about the importance as well of this in mind and have a control on motions throughout that they and how we feel about ourselves is the importance of power posts this which I know you understand really well and you use a lot of them. Speaker 2: (13:02) Yeah, definitely. The Bay sadness Speaker 3: (13:04) And I and a hundred position is you can leave this feeling by the end of the day, pretty, pretty uncomfortable depression all about ourselves. So changing that body position can have a massive physiological and hormonal benefit as well, which, which really changes how we feel. So what did you talk through some of the things you'd do? Speaker 2: (13:21) Yeah, I'll just give me a bit of an example of what the hell we're talking about with power posing. So just one example that I use on a regular basis. You know, do a lot of speaking on, on stages and sometimes big scary stages. And you know, when I start to feel the nerves and you know, I've been doing it for 13 years and I still feel nerves every time. I go somewhere quiet, even if it's in the, in the toilets or somewhere. And I do some power posing, which might sound a bit weird. I go around, you know, beating my chest and I, you know, Rocky top of the Philadelphia stairs there and saying, and standing in a really strong position in being what they call power posing releases to saw thrown into my body and makes me feel more courageous and stronger. Speaker 2: (14:06) It's an actual physical thing. And I've talked about this before, like from sample, what the all blacks do, you know, to do the hacker before they go into the game. And that was done traditionally because they pumped up the, the, the main going into battle back in the day. And the Maori you know, back in the war days without tribal people, they would do the happiness to psych themselves up. And that's psyching themselves up as really releasing the hormones so you don't have to second to that level. But by doing a little bit of power pose in straightening up and even like putting a smile on your face when you don't feel like it, it actually causes a change in the difference in your hormone hormones that are being released into the body. And that will change how you feel. You know, that's a little bit of a fake it till you make it, you know, you put a smile on your face in, in, and after a couple of minutes you start to feel action. Speaker 2: (14:58) You'd better you stay in that Strider and you feel stronger. You hunched over all day. I was used to that at the chiropractor with my mom, which one? I'm getting his spine straightened out and I said, you know, I'm really struggling to get her to stand up straight. And you know, probably he'd bet cause with the Brian [inaudible] because when you have a, an injury of a snatcher, your body's response is to go into that fetal position is to hunker down and taped your, your heart and chest, your areas that are, that are vulnerable. So the Xena becomes a chronic situation, which you said you hunched over like this. So now I have to try and remind him of either to hold herself up nice and straight. And that's another example of the body's actually doing it to protect yourself and then instance, but it's no, no longer work with thing in the chronic state. So you will, posture has a massive influence on how you feel and how you act and the hormones that are running around in your body. So try it out. Speaker 3: (15:56) Very, very tricky. You've got to them about the good examples. If you think about anger, if you feel angry, then it's going to increase your heart rates and increase your breathing rate, your blood pressure, it will have your brain doughnut at great speed. You can have higher adrenaline and cortisol levels. Loving comparison. You're gonna release your your good hormones, your oxytocin, your dope mean blood pressure will come down and breathing rate will come down, heart rate will come down. And generally you're gonna, you're gonna feel good, less anxiety, less depression. So practicing love is, this is a very simple way to start feeling, feeling, feeling better about yourself. Speaker 3: (16:33) And we are having this discussion earlier on can actually make you and will actually make you put on weight. It will make you, it can make you can make you fatter and where might you fall? Whereas practicing love, you can, you can lose, you can lose weight. And if you think of examples in your life and sometimes the, the time with those of you listening where you fell in love, you would have probably felt, if you think back, it was one of your, one of your healthiest times, you felt great about yourself. You'd have been going for that period with your partner where you're, yeah, you're having fun, you're going to exploring the world together and it's good times. That's important to work on that in life. And it's important to work on that. So important in your relationship, not just for the stability, your relationship with this stability, your help as well. From a physiological point of view, there's cool responses and things going on in your body. You're getting released, serve, as I said, the oxytocin dopamine, which just makes you feel a whole lot better than excessive adrenaline and cortisol that you get with that you get with anger. Speaker 2: (17:26) [Inaudible] This, I'm actually Dr. Bruce Lipton, who I've talked about inversely on this podcast. He has a book called honeymoon effect, which is all about that. They in love sealing and had, had a sustain it and love feeling an all the both sides of that. And I had wait, wait, before the last block, the poor Lawson on the show the scientists or who's an expert in it and he was wearing a constant glucose monitor to see what his sugar levels were doing throughout the day. And he had a bad email comes through from his accountant. You know, how your anxiety level goes up when you get an email from your accountant. And it caused an angry response in him because this something in NEMA and he watched on his glucose monitor, his his blood sugar levels go through the roof even though he'd been fasting for 18 hours at this time as he did intermittent fasting. Speaker 2: (18:21) So in other words, his blood sugar went up without any food going into his mouth, just from the reaction from his anger. Okay. So that's how powerful this is. So when people say to you, stress is a killer, we see it very gladly and very like, Oh, you all got stressed and stuff. It is eye color. And it will cause you to put on weight and it will cause you to be more unhealthy and have problems. So if your blood sugar levels are going up and you've got problems with diabetes or prediabetes or have some insulin resistance going on, then is going to damage your body. Another reason to go for a run very quickly and get out and, and releasing that. But it's, it's that powerful. You have an angry response to someone in the traffic. You are not hurting the dude that you're giving the finger. Speaker 2: (19:12) So you're hurting yourself by having this emotional reaction. And when you understand that, you start to think about getting angry all the time because then you start to realize, wait, actually I'm not, I'm not doing any damage to anyone else. I'm doing damage to my own cells token when we have gratitude in their heart. And we, there's a great book by the HeartMates Institute which is all about developing this, this, this muscle of gratitude and in, in tuning in with the heart. And when you do this, it all sounds very airy theory, but it's absolutely based in science. When you have a feeling of gratitude, when you, if you're having a really bad vibe of what I do as I imagine I'm stroking my cat who I love Dealy and when I cuddle my cat it calms me down. So we know I'm having a response. I'll often think about my cat as stupid as that sounds, but that calms me down a little bit. Okay. Or it might be cuddling your baby or whatever it is for you or giving mom a hug or all these things that would actually help you feel more gratitude than you would like. Thankful for that personal, thankful for that, that little weight or whatever you have. And that changes your, your, your psychology and your actual biology immediately Speaker 3: (20:31) As well. The grass tutors practicing that on a daily basis. And there's some other good things I've just been writing down journaling or just talking with your family about three things that have happened that day that are good. It really does change your physiology and your body connection is key as well, so connecting with people you want to spend time with. That can be husband, wife, family, friends, have a look. Often there's people, especially at the stage of life, a lot of our listeners will be in having that connection with people that they want to because of other commitments with life, family, work. Take the time, especially in the holiday period, coming up to connect those people again and just see how different it makes you feel. That is the really is it's not just the, again as you say, an airy fairy thing is a very cool physiological response going on. Speaker 3: (21:17) Hormonal responses. You do that and bring as much fun and laughter and as you can often makes you feel real. I feel a whole lot better. Having fun in life is when it's there your, and again you look back into memory some times you remember you, you remember because of the amount of fun and laughter in those in those times, but you want more health, you want more control of the physiology, then bring these, bring these things in. Interesting as well Lisa. We've got about 80% advantage it sorts and in quite a lot data about this. 80% of our serotonin is is found and developed technical gap. So again, some another looking at as another one of our happy hormones. It's looking after your gut health is key. So the connection between gut health and one of our other, our other good buddies, Ben Moore and talked a lot about this as well is a connection between depression, anxiety and gut health. Speaker 3: (22:05) And general mood is, is huge and this is the reason if you've got issues with your gut, leaky gut or the food you're putting into your body is not as good as it could be. Then we're looking for stuff to make us feel better the whole time we're fueling ourselves with staff. There's going to flare up our gut and cause inflammation. Easy winds. And especially something to be conscious of coming into the holiday period is what we're putting in because it's a time we should be happy, should be fun, should be hanging out with your friends and families haven't lost. So put some quality stuff into you and you got, rather than stuff that's going to flare up, because that's going to affect the serotonin production, which then means from a happiness point of view that starts, that starts, starts dropping, dropping down. Speaker 2: (22:42) Yup. And I'll say on that point, you know, being that we're coming into the solace season and we're coming into Thompson, we're going to be having lots of fag family get togethers hopefully and, and lots of good food and alcohol and, and all that sort of stuff. And it's a hard time to be disciplined. And you know, a little bit of leeway and a bit of fun is it's cold. But if we go in a little more competed mean to Lee for those situations. If we think about, you know, on Christmas day and all the food that's going to be available, and what am I going to do on that day? So that you're not like hijacked by a surprise at all. Oh my God, they have Loma that I've been dreaming about for ages is sitting on the table. And it's not to say you can't have any, you know, like it's never a, you know, we all have treats now and again as well. Speaker 2: (23:32) The thing is to be prepared mean to me because when you make yourself aware of what's going to come, then you can arm yourself for bagel. It's like preparing for a race. And I talk about visualization a lot appearing for that battle coming. And this is in a way a willpower battle. And if you're prepared for it to more likely to have maybe a little bit of traits but not too much traits so that you feel sick afterwards, you know, and we all have that, you know Christmas afternoon, like, Oh, what did I eat that for? Remorse, you know? So if you go into it, being aware of it and then practicing this, you'll be easier. W our brains are just like muscles. When you start a new habit, when you start a new behavior, it's very, very hard at the beginning because you creating a new neural pathway. Speaker 2: (24:24) But once you've done it fits B 60 times, it's just old hat in the brain is very much about conserving energy. And so it does want it the path of least resistance. And that means it does what it's used to doing. So you'll find after getting up every morning and having a routine, like a a morning routine and the right foods and you do it day in and day out and the first few weeks it's terribly hard. There's a whole lot of willpower involved that is dice like white becomes more retained and then it becomes easier and easier and easier to say no to the bad stuff because your brain is actually used to it. And it just follows that same path. It doesn't think a lot of time. It just does. And this is the danger things when you program in your body negative things or you program and all sorts of things it will ever work. Speaker 2: (25:14) And one other point on that the emotions that you attach to things, it's also a very important point. So I like, for example, if I, if I go for a run and my whole thought process in the half an hour before the random as I'm going out the door is I hate running. I don't want around, but I have to run. I have to go because it's all my program and I've got to do it. This is, Oh, I'm so lucky that I can run and I can't wait to get out the door and have some time to myself and to be able to breathe in the fresh year and sick the whole lives. People who can't do this and how lucky I am. Do you see the difference in that mentality? And that's in has a massive influence on how you will perceive your future training sessions. Speaker 2: (25:58) When you program negativity with your exercise or with your food, it becomes an automated response. So the next time you go for a run, before you've even sought about whether you want to or not, your Brian's going, ah, hat's the run. I don't want to do this. That's already got that preprogrammed emotion with that activity. So it's really, really important to program, even if you're faking it. Once again, I love running. I'm feeling positive about running. This is a privilege for me to do. And when you go out with that attitude, it will program your brain in that way. Then an associates exercise with fun in Asia and not exercise with, I have to, and I hate this and that will in the same goes with your food and say if you put food into your mouth, it's not optimal, but you are actually believing this is really good for my body. It will be better for your body than if you actually put good food in your mouth. But go, I'm hating this. This is awful because you were associating and neither before the hormones and everything else is still affected by it. So in other words, your mental game is as important as the food you're putting in is as important as the exercise you're actually throwing. Speaker 3: (27:15) Just the stuff on the mind and Brian leads is just easy wins as well as hydration. We talk about this loads and I continue to talk about it because it's just such an easy win. I still see so many people that, that aren't looking after their hydration. They're looking for something else to fix. But your brain needs water, your brain needs water. It needs hydration. Well thinking, well I'm feeling positive and being able to just really reinforce everything you've just talked about there. Then keep on top of your hydration, especially over the next, the next few weeks in the holiday period, think about your water. Think about what's going in. I dry the brain. The brain will feel a whole lot better. Therefore your mood will be a whole lot better simply because you're getting some good quality hydration to the brain tissue, Speaker 2: (27:56) Especially when these times where you know, alcohol is going to be a part of a lot of parties with people and it's also so hot and we're changing the seasons. We're going to need more water and keeping on the older people in your family because older people tend not to have the same system. Fix, hit make so they don't feel the need for the water because the Seuss doesn't work as well, but they actually need it. And then they go on Austin, have a cup of tea and think that they're hydrating. Whereas tea, coffee, alcohol are all do relaxation, take water away from your body. And I, my dad is a real bad one for this. How had a cup of tea, you know, I don't need to have some more water. Oh, I had a bit of a drink out of the hose models gardening all day. Speaker 2: (28:37) And it's like old dead. You know, you've been out 15 hours in the bloody sun cause he still doesn't see you're dividing and he hasn't had anything to drink. You know, and then he's wondering why his brain's not working. That's why, you know, it's not the nature. It's Stripe not having enough water. And in fact, a lot of the people that are admitted to hospital woods, dementia, older people actually come right when they put on a drug. So strike up demodulation. So if you're older, loved ones are not drinking what they should enough water just give them a chain to Rwanda. Coffees and teas. Very true Speaker 3: (29:15) Enough police. I'm up at the conference too to share what we do. So we were lucky enough to have the three talks while I was up there. It's the other coaches and trainers around the country. One I'm running skills and drills one a, a business one about how we've structured and set up our online training. And I'm also one on the runners warm up the importance of that and some good things that we use in our warmups both online and, and in our one on one and our big seminars we do as well. So it's really cool to be able to share that. And it was really, again, very humbling and very cool to see how much the 10 days participants were taken away from it. So it's just to remind everyone as well that we're, and it reminded me as well that some of the stuff we're doing is, is quite different. Is, is from our perspective and our client's perspective is a cutting edge and it's, it's, it's getting good results. So if you're interested in finding out more about it where, so people, people go to the website and get to least times you.com and find out some more about it and has the best ways to connect with dealers. Speaker 2: (30:18) Yeah, I'm pretty easy to find. I'm all over Instagram and Facebook at lisatamati on both of those. And he, he don't over to our website, at lisatamati.com Under the programs button you'll find epigenetics programs. We have running coaching our online run training system which we have over 700 employees. I think now we're wide on this program. It's a holistic program. It's based around health as well as just running and we're not high mileage coaches has been said quite a few times on this podcast. We do everything about Tom efficiency and avoiding burnout and injury, which is really, really important, especially is a lot of our people are busy executives and got kids and go crazy Koreans. And as you know, the stress levels can be quite high. So when you are trying to run long but also not blow yourself the pieces and having the right combination of the right structure is really, really important. Speaker 2: (31:12) So we're also also health coaches and epigenetics programs. So if the epigenetics testing is one of our major programs and in the coming weeks for going through the, doing some stations on AP genetics this is the most exciting thing since sliced bread. It really is, it's, it's the next level and science. This is a first time in history that we have had access to this information about our own genes and our own body. It's the combination of fisting different sciences who all put in new evidence. There's one on toll, hundreds of scientists around the world of the past 20 years have all worked on this. This is really Nick's label paper with you as ceiling. Like one of those people as I train, I eat right, I do everything right and I'm not getting the results. I can guarantee you it's because the stuff that you are doing is not white for your genes in this program will tell you exactly what to eat, when to eat it, how to eat it, what combinations. Speaker 2: (32:10) It'll tell you all about more dominant hormones and youth basically just want to have on your health and tell you so much about your personality. It's not just about food and fitness, it's all about the mind, how your mind works, how your personality works, how you developed in the womb. This stuff is next level. So we're super excited to be using this really cutting-edge toll. If you want to find out about that, if he's sick of not kidding results because the one size fits all fitness and is just not giving it to. Yeah. And we've been honestly frustrated with us for years. We've trained two people in sacrad saying giving the exact same thought and like completely different results. We know that every trainer in the world will tell you that, that and that experience, that client that doesn't get the results because of their genes because they're not doing the right thing. Speaker 2: (33:01) So if you want to reach out to us, talk to us about that. That's our epigenetics programs. And then the third program we have is all about mindset and meeting partners. Which we call mindset. Who is our online equal spirit. If you want to take your mind to the next level, Bulletproof yourself was mean too late, then that's the program for you then otherwise you can reach out to me and Neil anytime just by the website. Any last words today, Neil, before we wrap this one up, go and do something that really releases you. Get almost the day, can get someone to cuddle a kiss. I laugh and laugh loud and just consider what you're putting into your body. Yeah, sounds good. So it's wrapping up for this week and we'll see you again next week. Thanks guys. Speaker 1: (33:53) That's it this week for pushing the limits. Be sure to write, review and share with your friends. And head over and visit Lisa and her team at lisatamati.com

Dr Rob Bell from Indianapolis in this USA is a renown Mental Toughness Coach, Speaker and the Author of 6 and soon to be 7 Books on the subject.

In this interview he shares his top insights from working with elite level athletes across a number of sports and corporate athletes as well. He discusses his approach, his philosophies around developing mental strength to optimize performance and upgrade your life and the tools and perspectives he uses with his athletes. Dr Bell says: Mental Toughness means performing your best when it matters the most AND dealing with the adversity and setbacks that we will face. If performance is important in your life, then both of these are inevitable, so it isn't a matter of "if", but "when" mental toughness is needed.

The odd thing is that many people don't actually need to be mentally tough in today's society. These people are comfortable on the sidelines. I'm not sure about you, but we just survive in mediocrity, not thrive. Our goal is to be the BEST at getting BETTER."

You can learn more about Dr Bell and his work, his books and courses at www.drrobbell.com. His books include

No One Gets There Alone Don't Should On Your Kids No Fear Mental Toughness Training For Golf 50 Ways to Win Hinge

Mental Toughness - The Key To Success with Dr Rob Bell Timestamp:

4:20 About Rob

5:32 About the hinge

7:50 hinge moments

11:05 lisa's hinge moment

14:34 Rob's coaching stories

17:45 a new level, a new devil - being excited vs being fearful

24:02 focusing on success vs focusing on segnifficance

28:32 Mental Toughness Hacks

33:28 reprograming our subconscious & choosing our tribe

37:52 Scarcity vs Abundance mindset

We would like to thank our sponsors:

Running Hot - By Lisa Tamati & Neil Wagstaff

If you want to run faster, longer and be stronger without burnout and injuries then check out and TRY our Running Club for FREE on a 7-day FREE TRIAL Complete holistic running programmes for distances from 5km to ultramarathon and for beginners to advanced runners. All include Run training sessions, mobility workouts daily, strength workouts specific for runners, nutrition guidance and mindset help Plus injury prevention series, foundational plans, running drill series and a huge library of videos, articles, podcasts, clean eating recipes and more. www.runninghotcoaching.com/info and don't forget to subscribe to our youtube channel at Lisa's Youtube channel www.yotube.com/user/lisatamat and come visit us on our facebook group www.facebook.com/groups/lisatamati

Epigenetics Testing Program by Lisa Tamati & Neil Wagstaff.

Wouldn't it be great if your body came with a user manual? Which foods should you eat, and which ones should you avoid? When, and how often should you be eating? What type of exercise does your body respond best to, and when is it best to exercise?

These are just some of the questions you'll uncover the answers to in the Epigenetics Testing Program along with many others. There's a good reason why epigenetics is being hailed as the "future of personalized health", as it unlocks the user manual you'll wish you'd been born with!

No more guesswork. The program, developed by an international team of independent doctors, researchers, and technology programmers for over 15 years, uses a powerful epigenetics analysis platform informed by 100% evidenced-based medical research.

The platform uses over 500 algorithms and 10,000 data points per user, to analyze body measurement and lifestyle stress data, that can all be captured from the comfort of your own home

Find out more about our Epigenetics Program and how it can change your life and help you reach optimal health, happiness, and potential at https://runninghotcoaching.com/epigenetics

You can find all our programs, courses, live seminars and more at www.lisatamati.com

Transcript of the Podcast:

Speaker 1: (00:00) Welcome to pushing the limits, the show that helps you reach your full potential with your host, Lisa Tamati, brought to you by Lisatamati.com Speaker 2: (00:11) How everyone listed. Somebody here at pushing the limits today. I have a real treat for you, but before we get underway, I'd just like to encourage you to hop on over to our website and to check out all our flagship programs. We have an online run training Academy running hot. It's called a holistic run training. Whether you are doing your first half marathon marathon or doing ultra marathons or even if you're just taking your first steps, check out our system, what we do and how we can help you achieve your goals. We also have an Eaton genetics testing program. This is absolutely my blind stuff. I've just been away actually on the weekend doing some more training. On this. And this is a personalized health approach. This is taking the last 20 years of hundreds of science work from festing different science disciplines. Bring this all together into one online tool that will enable you to get insights into you and your genes. Speaker 2: (01:12) Like [inaudible] before. You'll be able to understand exactly what foods to eat and what time of the day you should be eating, what types of exercise to you, but you're learning so much more than just food and exercise. It's all about how your brain works, what hormones are dominant in your body and what a fixed means will have and what time of the day these are these are happening. You'll get information about what types of work you'll be put at, what times of the day you should be doing different types of activities. Just insights that will absolutely change your life, blow your mind. I'm really, really excited about this genetics program because it's no longer a one size fits all approach, which it has been throughout history up until this point of time. Now we can look at who you are, how your genes are expressing and give new personalized recommendation. Speaker 2: (02:08) So that's our second bag ship program. And the third one we have is mindset here, which is all about developing mental toughness, a strong mindset so that you can achieve the things in life that you want to without all the problems getting in the way and stopping new wrench in your potential. So check those all out at Lisatamati.com. Now, today I have Dr Rob bell on the show and he is from Indianapolis in United States and dr Rob is an author, a coach, and a speaker. He's trained hundreds of executives and athletes of all levels and across all sports. He's the author of six books and soon to bring out his seventh and you're going to get so much value out of today's show. So without further ado, I'd like you to introduce you to Dr. Bell and one last thing before I go. Please, please, please give the show a rating and review if you enjoy the content that really helps the show get exposure and really helps our ratings on iTunes, et cetera. So I really, really appreciate you doing that right over to Dr. Bell, everybody, Lisa Tamati here at pushing your limits. Fantastic to have you with me again on the show. We've got a very exciting geese. We've got to the Rob bell all way from Indianapolis in the United States with me today. So welcome to the show that grew up. Speaker 3: (03:33) Awesome. Thanks. Thank you. Thanks Lisa for having me. Speaker 2: (03:37) So Rob and I have connected by LinkedIn as you do these days. And I have delved into Rob's work and what he's done and he's a meeting toughest coach and an author and a speaker. Someone who speaks my language obviously. And I just loved what he was doing in his work, so I wanted to share that with you guys and my audience and to maybe get some insights from Rob about about me to toughness and he works with a whole lot of different types of athletes and corporate to golf to, to NFL, I think, or you'll be able to share. So, dr. Rob, welcome to the show. And thanks for being here. So tell us a little bit about yourself. Speaker 3: (04:22) I mean, well, thanks so much for introduction. And I mean, again, we connect over LinkedIn and I was like, wow, like this, this lady's amazing. Like, look at all the races she's done. So anybody doing like those ultra marathons, like Badwater like yourself and you know, the salve there in the Sahara. I mean, I'm all about, I mean, not just I'm in my, my whole life is just dedicated I think just to helping people get to where they want to go. So it's just being the coach and, and you know, as well as I do, I mean, the, the greatest satisfaction I think we get as a coach is just being that small part. And that piece of, you know, I think what we're always trying to get is just that one moment that, that one point in our lives, and I call him these hinge moments where we don't know what it looks like, but if we can make that small difference in that person's life. So helping them connect with who they are, with who they're going to become. And I always preach and I know you, you're on the same vein, but you know, no matter how bad things aren't, our life only takes more. It takes that one moment, that one person, that one event to make all the difference. And that's why I just love no one. I do. So I mean I've been blessed enough to just always kind of follow that passion and just leave me here, the podcast today. So I'm excited. Speaker 2: (05:34) Absolutely. And you actually have, why you have seven bowls, six books in the seventh one on the way. Is that right? Your books is called the hinge. I know. And so this is all about hinge moments in sport does it, right? So what do you do? Speaker 3: (05:51) Well, so I say like every door has a hint. So if you hear about doors opening and closing in life, that's of the hinge you hear of a rusty door. It's not the door that's rusty at all. It's the Hinsey gets rusty. And so always say is every, you know, a, a door without a hinge hinges a wall. It just doesn't work. And so what the Hanjin is, the answer is going to be that one person that's gonna be that one moment or one event. Sometimes that one decision that makes all the difference in our lives. We just don't know when that's coming. We can't connect the dots in our life looking forward, but can only connect the dots looking backwards and seeing the impact of that one person or that one moment made in our life. And when it comes to, you know, mental toughness, like I said, it only takes one. Speaker 3: (06:34) Now we might not know the hinge connects sometimes two weeks, months, years later. The impact of one person saying you can't do it, you're not going to be good enough. Or one decision or that one person that we, that we met that connected us to somebody else. And since we can't know when that moment's coming, that's the importance of being present and not taking any day off and making sure that every moment that we do and every person that we meet matters. Because it does. Because we don't know when that moment's going to happen. And that's, that's the real point about the hitch. Speaker 2: (07:10) That's a real insight. Yeah. I hadn't even thought about this. This just opened up my mind to a new way of thinking. I hadn't thought about that at all as being, I was sort of thinking hinge moments, those, you know, crucial moments. And, and in the sporting event where, you know, either we left or it went right and you succeed, but you're saying the opportunities are going to come towards us, these opportunities, but we don't know or see them necessarily as really important pivotal points. And if we're not paying attention and if we're not out there actively looking for these hinge moments then we're gonna miss them and miss opportunities in our lives basically. Is that right? Speaker 3: (07:50) Yeah, absolutely. And I mean a lot of, a lot of these come when we're, when we're not even ready for them, you know, and one of the half iron mans I did, I mean one of the hinge moments was somebody to stop the change my tire for me. And I have no idea even what I was doing in the race, how to change a tire. And that changed my entire life. Just that one moment. And we're going to have several hinge moments throughout our lives. But I think that's the real importance. And, and that's the part that I really think is, is so crucial is no matter how bad our situation is, right. No matter how bleak and outcome looks, no matter what, it only takes one. That's what we're getting. Speaker 2: (08:29) Yeah. Actually I, I re listen to that little video on your website about the doctor. Rob was in a, in a halftime, it was one of your early first ones. I believe Tony wasn't signed up with no training at all. And then suddenly your talk gives up and then you standing on the side of the right guy. What do I don't disappoint? People that are riding past you as they doing it. Rice. Yep. Named some nice person. Decided to sacrifice basically their position in the rice to help you out, help you change a tire and get you back on the road. And prior to that, what was your way of thinking before and what was it afterwards? Speaker 3: (09:13) Well, I mean I think like people don't think people don't do things to us. They do things for themselves and it's kind of the two by four principle and no matter what, no matter what the kind of situation is, I mean it was, it wasn't like I was a bad person, but when it comes to racing, you do that suit best that you can. I asked myself in the question when this guy stopped and I would tell people about this, what I have stopped and the answer to that point, Lisa was no, I wouldn't have stopped. I wouldn't even have thought about it. But once he stopped, then I started exploring then other professional examples of why would other people stop their own race and what was it about these individuals that they got that I didn't get. And so now every race that I go into isn't focused really on how I do every race is who am I going to be able to help. Speaker 3: (10:03) And then it's one of the things I just kind of pray about, put me in a situation Mark and help somebody. And so then the whole viewpoint changes. And the reason why is cause you know, we can't help out others in life without also helping out ourselves. And that's the part that we never get. I mean, if anybody has volunteered before, it's a perfect example. We volunteered. No one leaves volunteers situations helping out kids at a hospital saying, boy, those kids are so lucky that I was here to help them. We say the opposite, right? We say, boy, those kids helped me more than I ever helped them. Yeah. Why is that? Would they give us where they gave us perspective, right? They gave us an appreciation and gratitude for our own problems. I'd gladly take that stuff and we cannot help out others. But that also helping out ourselves. That's the point about getting outside of our own head. If we can just focus on other people, that's how we get outside of our own head and that's how we help ourselves at the same time. So it's, and I think it was like Gandhi or author Ash that said it, you know, one of the most selfish things you can do is to help somebody else. Speaker 2: (11:05) Wow. That's real. It's really insightful. And I tell you what, you're getting into Oak marathons now of light and you've got a hundred model. You, you said you were hoping to play next year, a hundred mile are coming up this year. Yep. What I've, one of the things I love about ultramarathons, and this is how it's changing slowly, but it's very much not about the winners. It's, it's, it's different to say iron man's where it's really competitive and crazy. Most people are doing outwards because they have a personal challenge that they're trying to overcome themselves. It's, it's, you know, me versus me sort of situation for most of the people, the top couple of esteem going for the placings. But for most people understand that it's all about survival and getting to the finish line some which way, and the moments that I've, in my school where I've been literally people saved my lives, people have helped me. Speaker 2: (11:58) I've helped other people in medical situations where you're in dire straights. I mean, one comes to mind. I was running across Nigeria a 333 K race. I'm terribly organized, one of the most poorest, most dangerous countries on earth. Civil war going on. I got food poisoning an hour into the race, passing out and really deep trouble. And one of the other girls comes past me in the race. You know, I'm alone, unconscious in the same, she gets me, you know, wakes me up, gets me out, warms me up, stays with me, keeps me on my feet, drags my ass until the next checkpoint. You know, it took a good couple of hours that she lost out of that in a, in a race that's, you know, on the edge of crazy. And that, that's sort of a sacrifice for someone that she didn't even know, you know, she'd meet two days before and was just phenomenal, you know? Speaker 2: (12:54) And it's those sorts of moments that you think, wow, this is more than just about, did I get to the finish line or not? This is about humanity and this is about, and you know, you, when you, when you go outside of yourself and you, you might be suffering in an ultra somewhere, right? And you're just like, Oh my God, I don't know how I'm going to get there. And then you come across someone who's in worse shape tell you what you like, focus fully on them and you'll forget that you're suffering and they're not an arrow to go buy a new guy. Like, where did my pain go? It's absolutely amazing how when you focus on someone else, your own suffering disappears or diminishes. That's the point. Like when we're stuck in center head, that's when we're behind enemy lines. The only way to get out by an enemy lines is turn your thoughts towards helping somebody else. Speaker 2: (13:48) I mean, think about it, right? When we started encouraging others in those races, we're encouraging ourselves at the same time. So church is, so that's the, so if anybody wants to get actually any of your books, where do they go? They just go to www.drrobbell.com or have they always said that's the best way. Yeah, www.drrobbell.com and and the book on so no one gets there, gets there alone is also sort of a story that was the story of the half iron man and the guy's not going to change my tire. Absolutely. Yeah. And nobody does get there alone in life in general. We all need a team of people and we all need to stand on each other's shoulders, so to speak, to, to reach the top. Tell us a little bit about now your, your work with the athletes that you worked with and some examples perhaps of, of amazing experiences that you've had and things that you've seen in your time as a coach. Yeah, I mean, Speaker 3: (14:53) Yeah, I was saying, I mean I was, I was blessed enough to know early on in my life, this is what I wanted to do. And I got into the field because I was the athlete that would always think too much and no one can, no one could ever help me out, at least never go in, would always say, Hey, those butterflies go away and playing baseball then everyone away for me. And you know, I had a really, I had a hinge moment when I got to college and that was because I was partying way too much. I thought I can play baseball and party in college and be the best, no accountability, what could go wrong. And I, and I fell off a 80 foot cliff in college and you know, fraction my back broke my arm and that was the end of sport. Speaker 3: (15:31) And yeah, that was a hinge most of my life because from that moment on now, everything was different. If that didn't happen, I don't know if I would have taken that psychology class. I don't know if I would've had that one professor who had just spoke right to my soul and I knew I want to do with my life. And you know, always, always be in the ultimate sports honk. And it didn't matter what it was, but if we're trying to do something to the best that we can I just discovered early on that everyone needs a coach. Speaker 4: (16:06) Okay. Speaker 3: (16:06) There's all these demons that I think get in the way of us trying to reach greatness and what we're doing and really as a coach and, and you know, as well as I do, I mean, it, it does take a team and there are no shortcuts. There are no shortcuts to it. And our job is to point out the blind spots in people's lives. I think there's many ways, many routes up to that mountain. There's not one route. And which is going along the journey with athletes and helping them get to where they want to go as just been absolute blessing. I mean, you know, with any coach, I mean there's two types of coaches, those that have been fired and those that will be fired. I've been fired before, you know, so I've been at the lowest of lows. And then when in in the highest of highs you know, our job as coaches sometimes to work ourselves out of a job that's not, that's not the best business model. Speaker 3: (17:02) I don't know. Somebody, I don't know, somebody selling insurance that wants to come in there and be like, boy, I don't really think you need me anymore as insurance sales. So if we're trying to work ourselves out of a job because you know, we're trying to build them up in their capacity, you're gonna get fired. So, I mean, that's, there's just so many examples. I mean, it's just I really just focus on the office that we have and what's the office? So my office is a swimming pool. My offices, you know, is there going to be that golf course sometimes? Is that executive board, but other times, I mean, it's a you know, it's the race track. It's, it's going to be you know, on a, you know, at the tennis match. And then that's, that's the best part. It's just what the office looks like. So you, you, you try and cut Chinese leaps, end Speaker 2: (17:50) Corporate executives. So in all types of sports, what are the, some of the biggest things that in general now people are struggling with? Like is there a couple of central themes that people just keep coming back to that you see again and again as being a major Speaker 3: (18:09) Problem for people on their bridge? Sure. So I think when whenever we hit a new level, there's going to be a new devil. And so a lot of the difficulties when we get like that success and how do we deal with that if, if I've got to boil it down in what I think like the essential mental skills come. I mean obviously the building block of all mental toughness is, is going to be that motivation, right? It's going to be that persistence is, gets back to our why. You know, your goals, your, how are we willing to do the things that we don't want to do? Yeah. After that, then it comes into confidence and I mean confidence that, that trust, that belief in ourselves. And what we're trying to do. There has to be that belief. I believe that everyone has that, but it just gets really muted throughout our lives. Speaker 3: (18:59) A lot of times when we listen and then to that wrong voice, we're not, I think it comes to confidence. What I believe is that we have to adapt the philosophy that it all works out in the end. If it hasn't, then you know what? It's just not the ENT. And that's, that's a big part of what people suffer with. I think another one then it comes back to then focus like how do we build our confidence to what we're focused on? Are we focused on the excitement? Are we focused on being nervous? If we focus on being excited physiologically? I said same exact thing, right? Like we are palms get sweaty. Like we get real anxious, you know, it gets rolling. Our thoughts are a lot, but boy is that nervous or is that excited? Because I think it's excited. It means I want to be in this situation something good can happen. Speaker 3: (19:45) Being nervous means I don't want to be in the situation. This is a threat. And then being able to train our mind to focus on everything is an opportunity. That's how we build a confidence in ourselves. And then that, and then I think that last field, so we got the, the motivation, the confidence, the focus. And then I think that last mental skill, which I suck at is how do we let go? Mistakes. If you show me, if you show me an athlete that can let go mistakes, I will show you somebody that's mentally tough. So I like to say this, our confidence focus is how we build our confidence. How we refocus just reveals the level of confidence. Wow. What I mean by that, if you show me an athlete that makes mistakes and still stay school calm and collected, well what they're really saying is I don't need everything to go my way in order to be successful. And we know bad stuff's going to happen, right? But it's all about how we adjust from that. If you show me an athlete that his or her cool when stuff starts going bad, I'm going to show you somebody that never had any confidence to begin with and then they got to play the mental gymnastics and not as well as competing against themselves. That's where it gets really tough. Speaker 2: (21:00) See, this is a journey for you as I'm making toughness coach, it's not like it's, it's an easy thing we've got at once and we've, we're away laughing and we're never ever going to have a problem again. That doesn't quite work like that. Speaker 3: (21:11) No man, people were, people make more fun of me when I get upset because it's like, wait a minute, I thought you're supposed to be good at this stuff. Speaker 2: (21:16) Yeah. You know, I have moments, Tobin, I'm thinking, you know, you just watch your own behavior sometimes and you're going, hang on a minute. This isn't cool and I'm glad I was watching. Speaker 3: (21:29) Right. It is. I don't think we were really made to coach ourselves. Speaker 2: (21:32) I think we need others to coach us. Very, very good point. It's hard to get out of your own forest and see the trees when you're in the middle of it and someone who has that seed perspective on you can give you a lot of more insight into your behaviors that you're not actually even seeing. And I really love that challenge versus, and I have been in mind, you know, things that I talk about, the challenge versus the threat and changing your cause. It actually changes your physiology when you're standing at the start of a massive race and you start to feel fear and step B, feel nervous and Oh my God, am I trying enough? And all of those things that are going to be absolutely no good to you, they're not. They're not going to help you and your performance then by changing the narrative and your story, like you said, exciting opportunity. Speaker 2: (22:19) This is amazing what you know, what a chance to have that releases actual hormones in your body. The more testosterone you get, more bold feeling rather than the nerves. And that can just change your perspective. And it's a subtle change. Sometimes it's not, you know, like a massive thing. But it'd be enough just to get you over the line and get you going. And we all know like that waiting around for rice can be the worst time once you're actually on the way and you're five Kaizen. It's like right, I got this. But those nerves at the beginning can be pretty bloody horrible, can't they? And that's I can imagine with someone like golfers, I don't play golf, but the mental toughness, a completely different type of mental toughness, but the ability when all eyes are on you and on the, you know, one sick and when you hit the ball, they must have some special challenges as its own. Speaker 3: (23:10) Yeah. And that's it. Cause there's so much time in between shots, you know, but that's why we need people like you to the poor my life and to coach me up cause I can't push myself. Speaker 2: (23:19) Well I had, I loved me to help me get to that a hundred miler that would like, and we can swap some, I need some coaching on, on the mental toughness. How do you do this? How do you bring it across? Be, you know, cause you've obviously been doing this a long time seeming books as let's say in lots and lots of athletes who are Olympic athletes and corporate people and you know, Ben have really had massive success working with you. That's always exciting to connect with and you know, amazing people. And this is, this is one of the selfish reasons I have this podcast. So I get to meet cool people like you. So this is not all selfless. Once again now you see it on your website, there was a quote there that I really resonated with. If you only focus on success, then you'll never reach significance. But if you're living in a life of significance, then success will follow. Yeah. Quote. so if you're focused on Jess winning all the time, just on the money, just on the whatever it is, it's all gold. It's not going to bring you the joy in life. Actual the legacy, if you like. Is that right? Speaker 3: (24:31) Well, that's absolutely true. And the, and the reason why is because well let's use Mount Everest as an example, right? I mean the, the year it takes in terms of preparation, the four to 30 to 40 days of actual hiking, they spend what, 10 15 minutes at the top and when did most of the deaths occur on the way down from Mount Evers? And so I mean, if it's all about the journey, it's all about the process and it's all about who we can help along the way. That's how I think that we get real significance in our life. The fact of you know, even those that hold up the trophy, even those that fly back with a gold medal from the Olympics, there are people that had that feeling lease of, boy is that it? Or okay, okay, now what? Now I've spent my whole life for this and I got it. Speaker 3: (25:25) What now? And, and, and that's the part, right? The new level, new devil. If we focus on other people and making that impact along the way of our journey them, that's how we just focus on, you know, success is going to happen from us. And that's the part of just being able to focus on that process. And be able to make that impact. Those with elite athletes, I mean there, there has to be selfishness there because of how much time it takes. But at the same time, how can we help others along that journey and, and using our skill and our craft and our God given talent to help others. That's how we get that. That's how we get that significance. Speaker 2: (26:11) Yeah. And so it's not just about that gold medal and most people who have, who have a gold medal or something massive success will also understand that it wasn't them alone that got them there. Unless, you know egomaniacs but most of them will understand that this was a team effort. You know, and this was and like you say, we're not all going to be on the gold medalists. We're not all going to be world champions. So it's defining success, insignificance as well. Like the significance for me, like I want to have an, I knew obviously the same, want to have an impact on, on many, many lives and change lives with the knowledge that we have and help people through the journey and help them avoid the problems and the, you know, fast track them to, to success and help them reach their full potential. Speaker 2: (27:06) And therein lies the significance more than the couple of finish lines that are, you know, reached or the podiums that I've managed to reach in the middle that's hanging on the wall. That's all great stuff. But at the end of the day, I think you and I at least when we get to the end of our days, want to look back and go, wow, that all right. I helped a lot of people and I made a big impact in the world and I left the legacy. And these are, these are words that I think you know really, really important for us to have in our vocabulary and to be thinking about, it's not just the individual moment, it's not the selfish endeavor. And I mean, as an athlete I was, when I look back over my younger career and stuff, I was selfish to the point of, you know, I didn't understand I was selfish, but I expected everyone else. Speaker 2: (27:58) But there were doubts around my mission. You know, I was very mission oriented and very focused and that was the only thing in the world that was important. And I understand now that we added a lot of sacrifice on the behalf of other people, had to sit price for me to get there. And you know, you do lead that single-mindedness to, to achieve those sorts of things. But understanding now it's a bit more older person that you there isn't the only macro of success in the, yeah. So Dr Rob what book are you working on at the moment and what are some of the other sort of mental toughness tricks that you can help people gives people, you know, there are a lot of people suffering out there. There are a lot of people with lacking massive self confidence and self belief. They've been told perhaps their whole lives, they're not good enough, that they're not the right shape and not the right height. They're not the right one either to be good at something. Have you got any words of wisdom for them? Speaker 3: (29:03) Sure. I mean the, or the next book that I'm working on, it's called puke and rally. How, how champions adjust. And I know you get this one cause you thrown up and racist too as well. And it's not, yeah, it's not about the puke, it's about the rally and the fact of, you know what? Everyone in our life, everyone has puked. So no matter what, everyone has had setbacks, everyone has had failures. They are inevitable. That is going to happen. The only way to do it is to sit on the sidelines of life. And then you just live a completely different life. You know, if you want to be in the game, there's going to be, there's going to setbacks. And I believe, and if anybody listening that that resonates with this, that it's not about the setback, it's about to come back. Yeah. That's, that's what matters. Speaker 3: (29:51) So it's about the rally. It's about how we rally on your point. I believe this is everyone that has reached high levels of success was told you can't do it. That's a dumb idea. Don't try it. Why is that? Cause I haven't come across anybody that's achieved anything that has, you know, you especially with your mom were told by doctors, there's no way that that person's going to come back. And what does it do? Well, it Galvin not yes it has proved people wrong and I'm going to prove them wrong and that motivation, but it also has like in order to do something, you better believe in yourself. And so if we listen, I mean we got to really thank the people that say you can't do it because they're the ones that are given us a diner, are going to galvanize our own spirit, our own soul and our own confidence towards achieving that goal. Speaker 3: (30:45) And no matter what it's going to be there. Now I think it's really difficult to like coach that way. You know, you can't coach that way. I mean, but I do it all the time. Sometimes I can in short situations tell my pro golfers, boy, there's no way you get this ball up and down and say par and you know what it does, I'll watch me. Right. I'll show, I'll show you. Yeah. And that's the point is who is it that tells you you can't do it? And then what's the other voice say? What's that true voice? Cause like I said, I believe everybody has that confidence muscle. It's there, you know, it just sometimes getting muted so much in our life. But what is that voice really saying and allow that voice instead to be able to come out. You know, a lot of times what I think is we as individuals, I mean we, we hear that voice that we were as a nine year old kid, you know, from our dads saying, you know, how could you strike out? How could you miss up? And then that's the voice that we got in her head. Well, if that's the voice in our head, then what's the real voice that want? And that's, that's the key is just allowing that real voice then and be able to come out and, and sometimes, you know, we've gotta be able to tell ourselves and yell at ourselves rather than just listen to it. Speaker 2: (31:57) Yeah. And, and, and this is, and we've all had those naysayers in their life. And I know in my life I wouldn't have got there inanely of the things I did if I didn't have those people. And if I wasn't trying to prove something, and some people might say that that's a negative motivation, but I actually think that this is a really powerful tool that we can use to really fire the furnaces, to push through those hard times, those obstacles, those times when you want to give up and you think about those people who said you couldn't do it, and you're like, nah, I want to keep going, even though it's painful. When I want to quit, I'm gonna keep on going. And I think that that's a really powerful, and what you see at about the nine year old child, we all have this inner child. Speaker 2: (32:41) I believe this, this kid who took on staff without sautering it, which has landed in our subconscious and then become a part of our thinking mechanisms. You know, when we were paid ugly, told as kids, and often these were teachers, appearance or whatever, we're just having a bad day, you know? But they were telling you things and that they weren't perfect. But when you hear this repeatedly becomes a part of your subconscious programming, and when that becomes the, the voice that sees you useless at sport, you were too dumb to go to university. You're to this, whatever that was that was programmed into your brain. And as an adult, you've got a heck of a job to override that in a subconscious thinking. Is there some ways that you've found to get around that, that programming that we had as kids when Speaker 3: (33:36) Just Speaker 2: (33:37) Put into our subconscious without us even thinking about it? Speaker 3: (33:40) Yeah. The best thing we can do is tell ourselves rather than listen to ourselves. You know what I mean by that is you got to tell yourself what it is that you're going to do here. When you tell yourself then commit to it. When you commit to it, it gets done too often. If we listened to it, then we hear that, well, that voice in the back of my head, you've got to tell that voice sometimes where to go and that it doesn't have a vote in this kind of situation here by confidence. Yeah. Confidence in doubt. Like they live in the same house, but it's confidence. His house now it is a squatter, like it just lives there. Rent free. Well, if there's somebody that overstays their welcome, I'm going to, I'm going to tell them where to go. Right. At least I'm gonna say like, look, it's been a little bit too long. Why don't you just hit the road? But we think you know that doubt that that has a right to live there. And that's the part is tell yourself what you're going to do. Don't listen to yourself. Speaker 2: (34:31) Yeah. And program the stuff that you want in there. So then whether that's through affirmations and outfit gnosis and being around people who are positive, giving the support, the coaching, the mentors, the tribe of people that tell you you can or these things will happen slowly. Speaker 3: (34:51) We assist who you are and what you're capable of. Speaker 2: (34:56) That brings me to the point, you know, the five you have it on your website too. The five people that you hang around with the most. I think it was something, something around there. And so w who you will become. And I think this is also a very important point that we need to bring up. Speaker 3: (35:13) Well, I mean, we, we are, we're a, you show me your friends. I'll show you your future. So true. I mean, if we want a higher net worth, you've got to hang out with people that have a higher net worth. It's just, it's so important because the mindset's different. You know, they, the conversations are different. You know, if you look at any kind of any kind of sport team, I mean, I'll take baseball for instance, but I mean, well, I mean, let's just look at the all blacks, right? The starters are hanging out with the starters all the time. Those are sitting on the bench and not playing. They're hanging out with one another because the conversations are different. And you know, I love the all blacks when it comes to the culture because man, they're focused on the team and boy and I don't know how many little kids are there that aren't thinking, boy, I want to be one. Speaker 2: (35:58) Oh yeah. Everything. Speaker 3: (36:01) And that's the part, I mean, we've gotta be able to hang around successful people and winners, not people that were better than just so we can feel good about ourselves. Yeah. Harrison game. And that doesn't work. Speaker 2: (36:14) Yeah. So when you're hanging around people that you are actually at the top of the class, and if you like, then you don't really, but when you're hanging around people who challenge you and stretch you scare the hell out of you sometimes. Those are the ones that are going to help them change and develop and grow. So pick your tribe carefully is a, is a, is a hugely important message to take away from that one and get the coaching you need and get the support that you need around you so that those naysayers, when they come calling and they will come calling, don't have the control in your mind. And when you do have those naysayers or then you use it as fuel to overcome. Absolutely. Man. Yeah. You find ways to get there. So not people Speaker 3: (36:57) And this, and this is the point, Lisa, and I need you to, I need somebody, show me somebody that that reached success that did not have, somebody said you can't do it. Yeah, maybe there is, but I haven't seen it yet. Speaker 2: (37:10) We've all had those people want, I mean, yeah, I've had them all less through my life and in there can be your family, be your best friends. And it's not to say they're not good people. There may be reasons why they are saying this to you. I know, you know, parts of my family. It was like fear for you because they're scared that you're going to get hurt, you know, or going to fail. And what happens then? And so that can be well-meaning naysayers, but they can still be nice. I as, and we have to get ourselves away from that and listen to the people who've done it and listen to the people who tell you you can do it and that you're going to get there and give you a pass to get on your way. And that's why it's really, really important. I want us to just talk a little bit about scarcity mindset versus the abundance mindset and why it was competitive world that we live in. Speaker 2: (38:03) You know, we don't have to be, well, if I help that person, I mean, classic example, so mental toughness coaches, right? We could be going, well, I'm not talking to him because he's competition, you know? Or I can go, wow, he's got insights that I don't have and perhaps I haven't sliced the, you don't have. And we can. Yeah, we can. We can learn from each other and we can grow. And that's a, that's a classic example of the mindset we both have, which is an abundance mindset and not a scarcity mindset. Do you see a lot of the other, you see a lot of the scarcity mindset and how do you. Speaker 3: (38:37) I mean, you know, I think we all possess, I still possess it. You know what I mean? I, I think true success, true success is when we can root for everybody. Because then what that means is, is, you know, and I, I grew up sometimes I would go to my wife's you know, Thanksgiving and they'd have these meals, but it's a big Italian family. And if you don't get in there, that's going to be gone. Speaker 2: (39:01) Well, right? Speaker 3: (39:04) Yeah. I mean, so if we approach life that way, then what we're saying is, is that there's one piece of pie for me. If I don't get that piece of pie, then it's gone. Look, there's the, being able to root for everybody means that I can still have my slice and you can be successful too. Being able to root for everybody is true success because it means just because that person's successful doesn't mean I can't be successful too. And then we're not playing a zero sum game, then we're playing a game of abundance and then just the game changes, you know, we're playing on a different one. That's the part where I kind of look at like how often am I room for other people and if not, then I'm coming from the point of scarcity. The real part about that and the scary part is then that's what I start projecting. Know the people only when I can get that abundance mindset in here, then, then I'm able to give that away. Speaker 2: (40:01) Yeah. Without being, these are my little pressure steams when no one else is giving them and having that mindset of I have to hold everything in and my knowledge or my, whatever it is, skills or whatever is a scarce thing. It isn't just about one, one point. There's only one slice for you. It's actually lots of highs when you start walking in. And I think just adopting that attitude in life makes you a more generous and caring human being for other people. So doctor, I'm thinking very much for all of these insights today. I really appreciate your time and I hope we will get to have a few more sessions like gruesomely I'd love to swap notes and maybe work on an idea or two with you. And dr Rob also has his own podcast. Can you tell us where people can, can listen to your show wants? Speaker 3: (40:49) Oh well yeah, it's a, it's 15 minutes of mental toughness either on my website, www.drrobbell.com or or Apple. I am and I look forward to having you as a guest on their tool. I can collect is, yeah, cause your book will be coming out. Thanks. Fantastic. And that would be great. Speaker 2: (41:06) No, it'd be absolutely fantastic to do that and I can't wait to do, to do a few things with you, Dr. Rob, I'm very glad that I found you on LinkedIn. It's been fantastic and I'm sure that my listeners would have gotten a lot out of today, so I really appreciate that. Dr Rob bell.com six books Siemens on the way. Go and check those books out. There's also a 30 day challenge on, on Dr Rob's website. Make sure you check that one out as well. And if you've got any questions, I'm sure Dr Rob will help you. If you've got, if you've got anything that you want to know from him, so please reach out to them. Have you got a Instagram handle or a Facebook or anything? I do. It's you know, with Twitter and Instagram says D R or B B E L L. Easy. So doc, Rob, thank you very much for your time today and we'll be in touch again soon. Speaker 1: (41:55) That's it this week for pushing the limits. Be sure to write, review and share with your friends and head over and visit Lisa and her team at lisatamati.com.

High-Intensity Interval Training is all the rage at the moment and for good reason, there are so many sporting, performance and health benefits to be had from this type of training. But it isn't all just about all-out sprints and going till you blow but using HIIT Training strategically and learning the different types of HIIT training and how to integrate them into your sporting and fitness goals. Dr. Paul Laursen has a Ph.D. in Exercise Physiology, is an author of the bestselling book "The Science and Application of HIIT Training" alongside co-author Dr. Michael Bucheit. He is an Endurance coach, high-performance consultant and has helped many of the world's top athletes get the best out of their bodies. He is an Adjunct Professor of Exercise at Auckland's AUT and was formerly the head of Physiology of High-Performance Sport NZ and resides at the nexus between research and applied sports science. He is an expert and goes into in this episode HIIT training types, Heart Rate Variability and how to use it gauge your training and health, Thermoregulation and Artificial Intelligence in training. He has don 17 Ironmans himself and uses his experiences both as a top-level athlete and scientist to help his athletes. He has two websites www.hiitscience.com where he offers a course in HIIT training for coaches and exercise scientists and his book and www.paullaursen.com. He is the co-founder of the Floe Bottle (www.floebottle.com) - which delivers ice slurries via a specially designed bottle for athletes training and racing in extreme temperatures. Ultramarathon running Pros & Cons Timestamp:

7:13 why is HIIT Important across all sports?

10:53 how do slow-twitch fibers have in endurance muscles

12:29 the 5 HIIT training weapons

16:03 how far should we go with HIIT training?

18:32 Are other sports (except for running/swimming/rowing considered as HIIT?

20:17 what type of training is best for ultra running?

22:10 Is There a Danger in overtraining? and is there a way of returning to balance?

27:40 ways to reach balance and lowering stress

33:27 About HRV + HRV app (HRV for training)

38:40 The Flow Bottle

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Epigenetics Testing Program by Lisa Tamati & Neil Wagstaff.

Wouldn't it be great if your body came with a user manual? Which foods should you eat, and which ones should you avoid? When, and how often should you be eating? What type of exercise does your body respond best to, and when is it best to exercise?

These are just some of the questions you'll uncover the answers to in the Epigenetics Testing Program along with many others. There's a good reason why epigenetics is being hailed as the "future of personalized health", as it unlocks the user manual you'll wish you'd been born with!

No more guesswork. The program, developed by an international team of independent doctors, researchers, and technology programmers for over 15 years, uses a powerful epigenetics analysis platform informed by 100% evidenced-based medical research.

The platform uses over 500 algorithms and 10,000 data points per user, to analyze body measurement and lifestyle stress data, that can all be captured from the comfort of your own home

Find out more about our Epigenetics Program and how it can change your life and help you reach optimal health, happiness, and potential at https://runninghotcoaching.com/epigenetics

You can find all our programs, courses, live seminars and more at www.lisatamati.com

Transcript of the Podcast:

Speaker 1: (00:00) Welcome to pushing the limits, the show that helps you reach your full potential with your host, Lisa tamati, brought to you by Lisatamati.com. Speaker 2: (00:12) Hi people, and welcome to pushing the limits. Before we get under the under way with today's guest, Dr. Paul Laursen, who I'm going to be introducing in a moment, I just want to remind you to please, if you enjoy the show, give us a rating or review on iTunes. It really, really helps the show get exposure, share it with your friends and your networks. We do a lot of amazing interviews with incredible people and the value that you get out of the show is really, I think, awesome. Some slightly biased well with the time investment. We'd also like to invite you to come and check us out on our website at lisatamati.com And check out our programs. Now we have three flagship programs. We have our online run training system running hot. And this is all about helping you develop your running skills and taking you to the next level. Speaker 2: (01:03) It's how to run faster, how to run further and longer without burning out, without injuries. It's about what even level that you're all with you just starting out in your running career or with you're doing, you know, 101 hundred miler. We'd love to help you there. The other program that we have is called mindset. You now, this is my online mental toughness and emotional resilience equals that you can do, which is all about developing that mental game, getting stronger in your mind, developing leadership qualities helping you be more resilient to cope with all the stresses that life throws at you and how to reframe your mind stronger for whatever challenges you are facing. And then the third flagship program that we have is epigenetic testing. Now, epigenetics is a pretty new area of study. This is an incredible program that we're having huge results with, with our, with our clients. Speaker 2: (02:00) And it's basically personalizing your health and fitness program to you and your genes and how they're expressing right now. So you'll get information from this about Zachary, what foods to eat and what ones to avoid. More importantly what times of the day you should be eating, how many meals they should be having, what work environment you do well and what social environment, what dominant hormones you have, what a body type you have, whole lot of information that will really help you take your training to the next level without being generic. And it's all specifically made for you and what you're doing right now. So check out all those programs at lisatamati.com now today's show, I have Dr. Paul Laursen. Now Dr. Paul is one of the world's leading scientists and hit training that's high intensity interval training. He's a exercise physiologist, the manager of high sport in New Zealand at AUT and is an adjunct professor of exercise physiology at a UT in Oakland. Speaker 2: (03:07) He resides at the nexus between research and applied sports science and physiology and he's a real expert on HIIT training on HIV, on Sumo regulation and on using AI for training. So it's really interesting interview. I'm sure you're going to get a lot out of it now without further ado, over to the show. Well, hi everyone. Listen to how many here at pushing the limits. Once again, thank you so much for your loyalty and coming back to the show every week. I really, really appreciate it. I'm super, super excited. I've been studying all yesterday and I've got one of the, one of the world's leading experts and head science and exercise physiology on the show today. I'm Dr. Paul Laursen, so thank you very much, Dr. Paul for being on the show. Welcome to the pushing the limits. Oh, thank you for having me. Listen. Honored to be here. It's so exciting. Dr Post's setting in Canada but he also knows New Zealand very well because he was the head of exercise physiology over here. Yeah. and you were here for two Olympic cycles training our Olympic athletes. Speaker 3: (04:15) That's right. Yeah. I was there for the Rio or, yeah, the London and the Rio Olympic cycles and I was leading the physiology team at that point in time, so, Oh wow. Great times. Awesome memories based at the millennium Institute on the North shore in Oakland. And you know, words have a hard time kind of describing this, like what a great time in life. That was for my whole family and stuff and so much learning along the way as well. That really forms where I'm at today with hit signs and some of the other stuff that we'll talk. Speaker 2: (04:52) Yeah, because you're really at the cutting age between your, you yourself are a very experienced iron man triathlete. So you have experience actually as an athlete as well as being a professor and exercise physiology and having all these experience with Olympic athletes. That must, you know, it's an incredible combination. Can you drop a few names of people that you perhaps worked with an ORC and that'd be interesting to, to, to know. Speaker 3: (05:21) Well I mean, you know, I don't know if I can really name drop too much. Like it's not, I think the cool thing about being a physiologist is that you, you sit in the background and you work with people and you work with all the top coaches and the top athletes, but you really just need to, yeah. You just kind of be the quiet person in the back. And I mean anyone in that you can just about anyone in that Olympics, those two Olympic cycles, you touch their program and see the, through the coaches support. It's a big end. Like it's, and again, I'm just one cog in the wheel of the high-performance system, so it's just, and it's a whole, it's all about team and yeah. So but yeah, no lots, lots of other, lots of big names, but they're not big on dropping. Speaker 2: (06:15) Fair enough. Fair enough. So Dr. Paul today I want to go into some of your areas, especially special day. So a lot of my audience, not all of them, but a lot of my audience are runners. And many of them are ultra marathon runners. And I'd like to we're going to get into the science of, of hit training. So high intensity interval training for those listening and how the supplies and maybe something in, in the sport, like, like marathon running or long distance running and, and what sort of benefits we can gain from it. So can you tell us a little bit about band and then I would like to go later on to heart rate variability and or those sort of good things as well. But let's start with training. So you've written the book on her, on her training what does the title the signs and application of her training. Can you tell us a little bit about why is it training so important across so many sports? Speaker 3: (07:14) Yeah, it's, it's a, it's super important. And, and when you look at a sport like ultra distance running, you would think it may be almost has no place, but in fact your listeners can get massive gains by implementing such type of training in their, in their programming. And you know, well, let's maybe ask the question why, why would someone who's doing a, you know, a hundred K ultra possibly benefit from hit? And the, I, I guess they're, they're really, I mean, we should also define what hit is like high intensity interval training specifically is defined as repeated bouts of high intensity exercise that are performed above your threshold. So that threshold kind of pace going to be above that by by default for it to be called kit, but not even moderate intensity sustained efforts. We're actually talking like above your your threshold. In other words, it's, you can't sustain the exercise for too long before you have to stop and take a breath. Speaker 3: (08:19) If you were to hold the exercise intensity up there, you would, you know, you need to ultimately fatigue. So if you're doing this repeatedly, you're actually you're listening some effects in your physiology that you're not going to be getting from just your steady state exercise, your long distance training. And some of these key ones are recruitment of your fast Twitch muscle fibers. So you get to, you know, you get to build on those fast Twitch muscle fibers. You, you know, you have to use those by default to perform such exercise. And that creates the adaptations you want, especially as an ultra distance runner. You want to create those faster Twitch muscle fibers, make them more slow Twitch like, or fatigue resistant and oxidative. And you do that by if it's, if the stimulus is repeated, you wind up actually doing that. So and then the second one relates. Speaker 3: (09:15) So that's the peripheral component. The second component really relates to the central component. And I am like, I'm pointing to my, when I'm saying central component, I'm really pointing to my, my heart, my cardiac cardiac apparatus. So the VIN trip, the ventricles of the heart wind up stretching out further filling up further. And by default they actually push more blood out to your stroke volume, winds up, increasing your cardiac output winds up increasing. So you and you and you get more so than chicken as stretch, more so than if you were just gonna do a steady state long exercise. So by supplementing his exercise into an ultra distance program, not all, but just that, you know, intermittently in the week your listeners will get you know, a real, real good bang for their buck. Speaker 2: (10:09) Yeah, no, I as an, as a young athlete before I knew what the hell I was doing at all, I used to do just miles and miles of slow, long distance running. I had no speed genetically speaking, you know, I wasn't right. Didn't have a great Theo to max or anything like that. And so for years, especially in ultra distance, it was very much a sort of a pioneering time if you like, you know, 20 something years ago and we had no idea of anything or at least not my circles. I just go out and just run long and slow because that's what we were going to be doing in the race long. And so and of course I could get to the finish line of those races, but it wasn't the most efficient style of training as I now know. But it was, it took me a bit of a stretch to get my head around why, you know, if I'm all about the slow Twitch fibers, I'm all about the endurance. Speaker 2: (10:58) What possible benefit can I do by recruiting my fast Twitch fibers? And I'm sure I've got very few left. I don't know if you can lose them all when you're doing journeys training. So how do the fast switch fibers actually benefit you later in a, in a, in a longer race, for example? You know, why is it not just all about the slow Twitch fibers I get, I get the cardio output side of things. You're going to be fed, you know, Hy-Vee, [inaudible] and so on. But from the flow Twitch fibers don't ant they the most important thing for an endurance runner. Speaker 3: (11:34) Yeah, they would definitely be the most important thing. However the more fast of the larger motor units you know, it's a bit of a continuum. It's, you know, it's hard to say whether a one is actually fast versus slow. So the key thing is actually the like, like you want to be able to these larger motor units like the the fast Twitch fibers, and when you do, they're more powerful right there. They're actually bigger. And these more, these bigger and more powerful motor units when they're contracting, they're going to be able to propel you a lot faster than your slower ones. So your pace will be able to be increased. Your pace on the Hills will be a lot better. You just have, you, you'll just feel a lot more energy ultimately. So you'll be able to, Speaker 2: (12:23) Yeah, a sustain a higher pace even over the longer, along with us sensors. Now there are different types of training. Do you, have, you talked about the five training weapons, I think you call them. Let's look at that because you know you know, for the average person, hit training just means, you know, perhaps sprinting and then backing off and sprinting again. What are some of the variables and some of those different types of pet training that we can do? Speaker 3: (12:51) Yep. So the two key variables and the most influential ones are the intensity of the workout and the duration of the work boat. Those are the two key ones, right. And then we can also look at the recovery interval as well. The intensity and the duration of the recovery interval. But let's just focus on you know, if we break the intensities up, the first one we usually start with is our long interval. And this would be just above your are just, sorry, just at, pardon me, your VO two max exercise intensity if and if you know where that might might be. Right. So that might be sitting on a, you know, repeated one K efforts on the track would be typically if you're going to do, you know you know, six of those that's typically around your BX max and exercise intensity or you know, you're, you're starting your 1500 meter to 3000 meter run pace on the track, all that kind of thing. Speaker 3: (13:46) So, but yeah, so you're kind of repeating those four, a two to five minutes repeated, repeated bouts of that for two to five minutes at that pace. And that's typically, or that's considered your a long interval. And that's the first of the five questions that you referred to. Second weapon is the short interval. The short interval aren't done. It just a marginally higher exercise intensity that we've done in a long interval, you know and these might be on the track, might be like, Nope, 100 or 200 or 300 meter repeats, something like that with the equivalent. Usually equivalent rest intervals is recovery too. So I've done a little bit harder, not much, just a little bit more harder than the long interval with with, with some sh with equivalent short rests. So these are typically in the 10, second to 62nd range duration and 10 seconds to 62nd range of recovery. Speaker 3: (14:43) Got, there's your long interval, there's your short interval, and then the, the other three. Let's let so the next one is you, you referred to it. Do I all out? But yeah, the next two are all out maximal sprints. Tobacco, like intervals for the sprint interval training. Those are the long sprints or really short and sharp all out short sprints for repeated sprint interval sprinting. And we'll try it. So I'm sorry, repeated sprint training, R, R, S. T. and then the last one is not used too much in the the ultra distance context, I would think. But it's game-based interval training. So there's a good, there's a good team sport base of of people in New Zealand with the rugby and the football. All those various different sports. And if you're in a team sport, you're definitely using game-based animal training. They're typically, they're like, you're actually in putting the ball into play as you do an interval Speaker 2: (15:41) And making it a bit more fun and very short sort of sharp bursts of, of, of activity. Speaker 3: (15:46) So, and the coach will actually do that and they'll kind of almost trick their players into getting the, the, the work the work done. So yeah, they create, create fun, but it's also very sports-specific too. So you can see why it's so successful in the team sport contents. Speaker 2: (16:02) Yeah, absolutely. And you know, you said, you said trick them into it because you know, we, when I hear training I hear, Oh no. And I like personally when I have to go, I've got a head session on today, it's like, Oh no, here we go. You know how, how do you overcome that sort of a feeling of like, because you know, should you be going to the point of, of absolute exhaustion and throwing up in the bucket somewhere during these sessions? Or is that going too far? Like, you know and it is another question too. Is training only in relation to running like cardiovascular or a bike or can you do say a tobacco session net counts as a hit training session? So it can be weights relate related or is it only sort of cycling and Speaker 3: (16:54) I'm running? Sure. So let's start with your first question there, which is basically around the whole, you know, does it have to do, have to go to the weld? Does it have to be no pain, no gain? And that is a really important question that you asked Lisa because it's absolutely not, the shouldn't hit equipment hit training was never originally designed for that. It you should like, it should not be no pain, no gain. Like, that's not if you've taken it to where it's too painful, like that's, you've taken it too, too far and it's ultimately not, not very effective for almost like a longevity type type sort of thing. So you, the key thing that we find with training, those who are most successful in training are those who backup session after session. Consistency of training is key. And if you are going to the well and you're killing yourself and you're not able to perform the next day because you to be trained too hard in a hit session or for whatever year you're slowing down the progression compared to what you could actually, she had you had, you punched a little bit back and then repeated that repeated some sort of a session the next day. Speaker 3: (18:10) So that's the first question. It's not about no pain, no gain. It's not about going to the, well, always leave a session like you could have done one more. So the first rule remind me of your second question. Second question was, is it only cardio is hit training only in relation to say cycling and running is yes, no cardio, you know, activities also tobacco and or CrossFit, you know, those sort of things counted as hit training. Yeah, bit of a debatable one. So from a purest standpoint, it's typically we're talking about a, you know, a, a mode of exercise like cycling, running, rowing, swimming, a whole body type exercise. However, there's lots of ways to skin the cat as we love to say. And you know, there's a lot we see this being done throughout team sports and exercise and fitness industries, CrossFit, etc. Speaker 3: (19:09) And the, you know, there's, there's certainly way, loads of different ways to kind of do that. So I guess it's kinda yes and kind of no on that question. It just really depends on the camp that you're sitting in. Here's to our own. Yeah. And also like, I mean also depends probably on like what you're trying to. So if you're a time crunched individual that has to sit in an office and work most of the day, you know, you might like a cross fit type exercise where it's hitting lots of different things like circuit training, that might be all you can kind of get in in the day. And that might be really practical to your context. So it's super, super. If we're going to take the professional athlete, we don't recommend it because the professional athlete context, typically we can just be a little bit more precise with the, with the training and we don't have to be super setting everything and going back and forth. Speaker 3: (20:05) That will differ and that will differ across you know, beliefs and strategies of, of different conditioners. That's just what Martin and I kind of feel with our, with what we, what it is that we do. So it's very specific to the sport hat that you're doing. So you would train a soccer player different than you would train to note for a marathon runner or an iron man triathlete. What are some of the typical training? I mean, not typical training sessions. Probably a hard one to answer, but if you had an athlete coming to you that doing a hundred K, what type of trainings would you prescribe to them as a typical part of the week? Yep. So if Speaker 3: (20:48) I was training an ultra runner, I would probably train them very similar to a, you know, a marathoner and I would train them, you know, they would they would have lots of elements of the long slow distance type training in it, but they would fit in terms of the hid sessions. There would likely be a short interval session in there. So like 30 on 30 off, you know, set point in certain sets of 30 on 30 off, say like you know, seven 30 on 30 off and then followed by five minutes easy. And then repeat that. So you're actually listening of the OT response and you're again recruiting those fast Twitch muscle fibers. I might have a long interval in there, a few long intervals at a couple of different moments in the, in the training program. I would be implementing Hill training in there. Most definitely because so many ultras actually have have a Hill requirement. Plus that would be kind of a, as a strength endurance element that we wanted their, both that benefit that you get both on the uphill climbing as well as the downhill. So I think those would be the key. Those would be the key elements in addition to some moderate intensity, pace, pace work and lots of lots of long distance work in there. Speaker 2: (22:07) Yeah. And that's sort of what we sort of, you know, adhere to, to generally. So I want to ask you what are the dangers like? I just, you know, selfishly asking for personal reasons now I've done obviously, you know, loving long time of doing stupid amount of running. And in the beginning, you know, just doing huge, huge mileage and now I'm totally not into huge monitor meant more the, you know, bearing everything up and the five pillars, we call them, say, you know, your strength training in mobility, your, you run sessions of varying types your nutrition and your mental game as well. But I've run into problems with burnout and adrenal exhaustion and the HPA access, you know, in the gutter, basically cortisol, not while I'm like at a stage now where the cortisol is just not, not producing at all. It's just like more day is have. And I think I've done too many we're long staff and the, the head stuff as well. Is your danger in doing too much overtraining and can you come back from that very complicated your way back for me? Speaker 3: (23:34) Yeah. I mean I think the body always wants to get back and heal itself and return to homeostasis and balance. Right. So, so, and I think you know, the answer to the first question, you certainly can burn out food too much, too much yet. And that is a, so you may have seen the article in the film afternoon and I wrote on the unhealthy athlete and that's really around the old you know, burnout thing with fit but unhealthy. Healthy. Yeah. So it's made its rounds around rounds around the world and, and yeah, that's one of the ones that, yeah, I mean I even saw that a lot in the high performance sport context, whether it was just too much intensity in certain programs and we do see this, this burnout that actually occurs. And yeah, it really, really, it's just, it just requires a period of rest and provides a, usually a well let me back up a bit and just say that, you know, there's stress comes in many different forms and it's often not just the high intensity interval training that's contributing to that. Speaker 3: (24:37) A lot of times it's a bunch of different stressors that are coming into play and creating a perfect storm ultimately. So we've got, you know, nutrition can be a stress in itself if it's inappropriate for the individual. A lack of sleep is a huge stressor. Psychosocial stresses that we all experience through our human existence, going to life. So all of these things create and then add exercise into that as well. If any of those are creating too much of a stress, but we're all, it affects what you mentioned, the hypothalamic pituitary adrenal access, the HPA axis, which is basically our integrator in the brain between the nervous system and the endocrine system. And it, it it's there to help protect us. At least it was, and now I can can sabotage. That's right. Speaker 3: (25:29) And, and yeah, and then also we can see we can reach the point where it's you know, it's almost done a little bit too much and we're not able to return to create, to you know, create the hormonal profile that we need to have control our moods and, and these sorts of things. Right. But at the end of the day, it requires rest and recovery. One of the, one of the little tricks that I like to use, or I sometimes when that happens, is a floating, and I'm not sure if floating is taken off in New Zealand has around flotation tanks. Speaker 3: (26:10) It's a great means of of resetting and returning the body to homeostasis. What immune, it's not like you're going to get there on one single float, but it's like a series of floats can reset the sleep and then it can, and then the body can kind of come back into rhythm. You really need to get back into that circadian rhythm again and getting, yeah, so, so what you're saying, and it's something that we talk about a lot and now coaching is you've got a bucket of stress and it, you, if you were sticking in mental stress, Speaker 2: (26:44) Work, stress can stress whatever wrong photos and then your bucket sets here fall and then you've stopped putting in training loads that and when you're not a professional athlete, you just, you know, busy executive or something with three kids, then you're going to overfill the bucket and then you've got to tip over. And that's when they sorts of things can start to happen. And and on that point we could get onto the heart rate variability in a moment. But yeah, it is, it is quite a struggle. What we're seeing a lot of with the people that we're coaching is where we touch a lot of Sonata elite athletes as much as probably 80% woman and their thirties, forties and 50s who are having hormonal changes as well as going through, you know, but trying to still stay at the top end of the of their game, wherever they're at. And that can be quite a tricky tight rope walk as well. Have you got any experience or any advice for, for say, a woman approaching those changes, menopausal years, period, menopause in regards to the training that can help them get through that period if you like. Speaker 3: (28:00) You know, I don't I don't have any great advice that's you know, it doesn't really add on what I just kinda mentioned. Like you've got to, so those changes are going to be happening. That's a natural physiological occurrence. Can't get away from that. And your management of those issues is going to relate to your own context. You're going to do the best you can. But some of these strategies such as really checking in with your diet, you know you know, potentially there's a lot of individuals that have, I think they've gotten the diet right, but maybe it could actually be better not issues. That's a real telltale sign that something's a little bit off. You get some help with that. Cause that could be, you know, two things that are, that are kind of going awry in the, in the diet or in the, in the stressors. Speaker 3: (28:57) And then, you know, things like in meditation it's so much easier to say that harder to do, but if people can find a meditation practice that helps, that is, that is one, another way that you can kind of reset the HPA axis. Almost forced meditation is this look flood tank kind of, lot of people can't have, they can't even imagine getting into one of these isolation tanks because they think like they're just so claustrophobic and anxious about it. And that is again, a telltale sign that they could be an issue there. Right. If he can't do that, that's another, yeah. That, that anxiety might be elevated. Stress might be elevated in that individual too. So, and where do you start with us? You know, I don't know. You just take one step at a time, fix one little thing, make one step towards becoming a, you know, lowering that stress in your life. Yeah. Because there's no, there's never a blanket solution for every individual. And look, in my experience, the menopause process is very, it's quite variable. It's, you know, it's, it's all, it's weird on one morning and then it's fine the next moment. And then, yeah. Speaker 2: (30:21) Big conscious self proponent to be a good general Rowando. I'm not expecting the eighth all the time of yourself. But yeah, I think that the message, and I know I'm a very big proponent of meditation or deep breathing exercises and things like the Wim Hoff meets ed or those sort of areas that can help sort of stimulate that parasympathetic nervous system and calm the body down so that it is Speaker 3: (30:45) Not completely in fight or flight all the time. Having seen things. Yeah. Can I add one other big one is, you know, we're, we're both using it right now as we speak and some of the listener because they're listening to us likely on some sort of technology device, but it's, technology is a real big elephant in the room too. We haven't had that in the past. And that is another thing that really affects our stress levels as being glued, you know, to our, to our phones and to our computers and iPads and all these various different things. You know, it's become integrated and part of our life. But that's another big factor that we can, that can really make a difference. And that's probably why, you know, ultras are so appealing to people because their phone and need there need a little bit of technology behind when they go. Speaker 3: (31:40) They can just get away from it for a certain amount of time. And if you're feeling that way, like I know you, I know I do. So you've got, you know, there's, there's a, there's a little bit of magic that's probably within that whole you know need that we kind of need to appreciate. So last year I went on a big big paddle trip, but the family, and it was in a place in British Columbia where there's no technology and it's like, yeah, it's public. It was called the Bower and lakes. It's a series of, you know, 11 lakes and your poor through it. And there's just no point in taking any technology cause there's nothing out there. So you just, you live in when you're camping or that many days. And I just, you know, I can't tell you how incredible that was a whole reset of the, of the HPA axis for me. I just like, you know, it's back to nature and stuff. So doing more ultras. Speaker 2: (32:40) Yeah. I think, I think that's something that I'm miss. Cause I've stopped doing ultra marathons the last three years. I had a mum who got sick and I hate to, you know, drop everything and rehabilitate here. And I miss that singularity of thought and that, those hours of clearing the mind every day. And that's something that really is missing, especially when you're, you know, like, like yourself running businesses and folly. You know, always high-performance everything. And it can really be a load on the whole body that I think is actually worse than the load of ultra Raleigh. If I could go back to the simple days when all I had to worry about was the finish line getting to the finish line, it was a whole lot simpler than all that stuff that we have typically in our life and our crazy world now have coming at us. On their point. I wanted to start talking just briefly about HIV heart rate variability and how you use this to judge. What is it first status. Cause a lot of people still haven't really heard what heart rate variability is and how it works and how they can use it in their training. Can you talk a little bit about that? Speaker 3: (33:49) Sure. So heart rate variability is what the word kind of described. So it's variation of the heartbeat. And a lot of times when we, when we just start out and we just think of heart rate in itself, we think of it more of a less like a clock or like a metronome. And it just goes tick tock, tick tock, you know, if you're to, you know, listen to your heart, that's what you would think. But in actual fact, there's a lot of variation that's going on beat to beat. So it's like, it's actually going tick tock, tick tock, tick tock. And that variation, what scientists have discovered is that that variation in those beads actually means something when it's more like the clock or the metronome and it's just, it's right on time. You're using what's called your sympathetic system or your fight or flight. Speaker 3: (34:41) Okay. So your stress would be high. And when it's really a lot more variable, I'm going all over the place. Well that's more associated with the parasympathetic system, the rest and digest system being relaxed or recovery like when you're sleeping. So what's what's happening now is there's, we've, we've gotten very innovative means being able to get, get a hold of the area of this heart rate variability. And that's why people are hearing a lot more about this. If I certainly measure this in my own athletes and they can because they can do it. So simply now, and this was a, we had, we had the honor of being a part of this innovation and development and validation of it, the AUT lab in millennium. And we verified this HRV for training, not the HIV for training actually uses the iPhone camera. I'm not sure if you're familiar with this, but basically you can measure you can measure your heart rate variability just using like the, the phone, like a phone camera so you can actually use and you can actually like get a measure of your heart rate variability just on your, on your oxygen. Speaker 3: (36:02) Oh, well this is teeny of HIV for training. And we verify this and lab with against CCGs standard ECG. It uses various different, you know artificial intelligent means of, of just a, a stab wishing the, the HIV and it's even better than using a polar chest strap. We discovered HIV training so they can, people can get that in the app store and, and, and there's also a coaching version too. So I use the coaching version a bunch. All my athletes are on that. We can just see how easy this is. So I was right or wrong. I do sleep with my my iPhone beside my bed and I wake up in the morning. Yeah, very, very first thing I'll do is I'll take this measurement of the HIV and that just automatically logs on to the HIV for training, I guess server and then your coach or yourself can actually look at that and he can actually get your score and yeah, you don't actually even look at what, you know, a single measure you don't usually look at like a single measure, but you looking at the trend and that measure over tolerance. Speaker 3: (37:19) And that's very useful, especially if you're under a heavy training load or stresses are getting in the way. So all the stress stuff that we were talking about before, it can be quantified using the HRV for training or at least it's on marker. Right. So that's, that's a really exciting, I mean, we use a very simple analog version, which is like a, a wellness check sheet that sort of give us people who are writing a one to 10 on the hydration, their sleep and Nagel go their stress levels, all that sort of thing. But this is a much simpler way to just get that one figure. But there is a little bit of is it isn't just saying, Oh, today it's dropped before I'm not healthy or something's going on. You do have to look at the train lines and not reading too much into any single ratings, isn't it? So when you're saying I have a three or four days, there's something going on, that's when you get more maybe it's time to back off and have a, have a bit of a recovery period before you go and see a Nick session. So that's definitely a super exciting app. I'll be downloading it today. Everybody go and grab that. That's tip tip of the white, that one. So, and this is something that's very simple that we can really measure that if we're going into over-training or Speaker 2: (38:36) Getting sick or anything that's going on inside the body, it's a very quick way of, of giving us that measurement. So that's, that's super exciting. Now I wanted to go onto your flow bottle, but we, you have designed the flow bottle, which is like a slushie. And I said to Dr. Paul before I got on the recording, I wish I'd had that in this Valley or in the sorrow when I was running. So how does this work and why is so Summa regulation is another area that you're an expert in. Tell us a little bit about that. Speaker 3: (39:12) Yeah, sure. So this has a cool story that again goes back to New Zealand. And so when I first arrived in New Zealand and I was coming from Australia, I'd just done my PhD and been a professor over in Australia, working a lot with the Australian Institute of sport. And there were a couple of hot games that we were preparing for. I think one was Atlanta, another one was Athens. And yeah. And so pre-cooling was one of my areas that I did a lot of work on figuring out how we could cool the body beforehand. And one of the first things that my, I guess the leaders at HBS and Zed said when I first arrived is, you know, do something innovative Paul and figure out, you know, make sense, be creative and make us something that we, you know, our athletes can kind of use to to win on the world stage. Speaker 3: (39:58) So, but my head, you know, put my head on and got to work and I came up with this because I knew the power of, I slushie the coolest I from my work in Australia. I said, wouldn't it be cool if we could actually use ice slushie when we're exercising? And I said, Oh, perfect, easy. We'll just we'll, let's get a water bottle and we'll, we'll put ice slushie in it. There were no water bottles at the time that would allow for the expulsion of a slushie when you were exercising. So that's when we went to the, there's this innovation project with the engineers and the university of Canterbury down in Christchurch. So we got into their program, they took it on and a bunch of fourth year engineering students made the flow bottle, which is basically a, you know, they figured out, they did all these, did various different experiments to figure out how they were going to design a bottle to be able to cause for the, the the ice to ice slushy to kind of get out of that, keep it cold. Speaker 3: (41:02) And they came up with a prototype bottle. They did an amazing job. And then a company by the name of procreates a Graham Brewster, his company out of, out of Auckland North shore. He and his team made a beautiful, what I believe is a beautiful design of a silicone version of this one. You know, a Silicon from your other nets and other sorts of gay, it's been kind of keeps it like it's solid, but it's still like you can kind of you know, push it to to laugh that slushy to come. And they made beautiful design in terms of the nozzle and, and now, now we have the, the flow bottle. Yeah, it's being used by number of different countries in the, the Olympics. You might've heard that the Tokyo games, it's just going to be absolutely in terms of the key. So it's already been used in the test event. We've seen some very great photos, New Zealand team mates using that and that's been just absolutely awesome. And and yeah, the so it's, it's, it's pretty exciting. So it's available for anyone to use and especially your listeners most to be in New Zealand can, can can access that pretty easily through, through the flip bottle website. And and actually, you know hitting up procreate for some for some bottles. Speaker 2: (42:23) Oh, got to get one. So what is the website there? So this is tip number two for the, for today's show we get asked a flow bottle from what was the essence Speaker 3: (42:33) L O E ball. So we're a bottle so and no flow. FFL OB is like a plan where it's with like a a nice slow, which is but yeah, like a nice, a nice slow like a, you know, like a, like an iceberg and stuff. And then they call like little pieces that are breaking off and hanging out there in the Arctic. The uthe flows. Yeah. So it's, yeah. Speaker 2: (42:55) Well something that they will be very beneficial in some of these hot races, especially hot long running races. How does ISIS is the last thing before we wrap up today? So I'm aware of your time. How does when you put ice in your tummy, doesn't it? I've always hated it. It's not good, you know, and we'll stop the digestion and cause trouble. Is that true or what's, what's the go there? Speaker 3: (43:19) No, it certainly wouldn't be through the cool temperatures and that can only kind of benefit. So we should actually leave with, with being very clear on the benefits and why I especially actually works from a cooling standpoint. So it works for a couple of different reasons. First of all, it's almost like reverse of the sweating process. So when we sweat and our sweat is actually a BACP rated on our skins, it's the process of the evaporation, the actual state change from a liquid to a gas elicits that energy release, heat energy us. So again, that's a, that's a very important physics kind of principle that allows us to survive in not sweating. But when you can't evaporate your sweat and not flakes, such as in places like Tokyo or Hawaii unity, what are you going to do? Well then you can't really do too much about it. Speaker 3: (44:12) You can, a little trick of course is to work the opposite phase chain and you're, you're actually going from a, the same thing happens stuff that happens on you when it's going from a solid to a liquid. So you're putting solid ice into your system and in order to melt that ice, it has to, the ice has to rotate heat, energy away from your body. And it does that in the places that matter as well. When you're ingesting it, it's cooling your neck and the carotid vessels that are going back up to your brain. And same with your essential core. So you're getting it in just the right places that you need it. And yeah, I mean all the sciences on the website, if people are interested and cleaning all of the research papers, it's well documented within the studies. Again, that's why I'm, and that's at this thing cause I was, you know, we did, we did eight years of research in a laboratory to kind of uncover a lot of this stuff works like a hot damn. Speaker 2: (45:09) Wow. Cause one of the things that we did say in death Valley or whether it was extreme temperatures was always having ice, little ice bags that we hit on our wrists and up here, a thing around here. But yeah, nobody had one of those back then. So definitely something to watch out for. Now. Dr. Paul, you have a course, a training course for any other, you know, sports and conditioning coaches out there who want to really dive deep into the top in science. Tell us a little bit about that course and about the book that goes along with that and what you are doing now and how people can reach out to you. Speaker 3: (45:46) Yeah, for sure. So I am, so my main, I guess main work is with hit science. So it's hits which is H tie it, science.com. Check it, check that out. And there's a course on there that the user can take and it'll teach you all these various different things. So for coaches, they'll find it very useful in terms of getting the prescription and you know, understanding how they can manipulate the sessions appropriately. Same with the book. So the book is published by human kinetics. It's a best seller and that's on Amazon. So again you can reach that through the hit science website as well as links on everywhere. And then otherwise, if you want to find out all the other different things that I'm doing, all my other different projects. Annette Nepal, arson.com, and I'm a, an endurance coach to many of the top endurance athletes in the world, at least in the sport of Ironman triathlon and a bunch of other different, Speaker 2: (46:49) You're an amazing coach and an amazing level at the top end of cutting edge science. I, I hope I can do that course and that in the course of the next year I've got another couple of I'm going to get through AP genetics training and a few other things, but I'd hope that I can get there because that's what helped take our athletes definitely to the next level as well. And that would be very interesting for us. So thank you for all this information today. I think there's been some real gems of wisdom for our listeners that they can take away. And yeah, everybody, you've got to do your training no matter what sport you're in. There is an application for this. If you want to find out more, if you want to dive deep into the research, get their book out of science and application or pet training by Dr. Paul Laursen and your colleague's name was Dr Michael Bucheit. Speaker 2: (47:38) So you can grab that. I'll put the the links in the show notes. Any last words, Paul, for for anyone out there or anything that you would like to say is the last message to get across? Well, my, just, my last message is that I miss miss New Zealand by the way friends and family back in New Zealand. We are a joint, so we spent enough time in there that we're actually a joint citizenship family heritage as well. And come back. We move back one day. We love, we love it there. Thank you so much for having me on. Thank you so much Dr. Paul. Speaker 1: (48:19) That's it this week for pushing the limits. 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