This amazingly strong and determined individual undertook daily coffee enemas, drank his own urine (rich in nutrients apparently), meditated, exercised daily with the discipline of his sporting days, and ate a diet practically free from toxins and pollutants. And he coupled that with the best that Western medicine had to offer.

Jim Stynes’ ill-health conquered him despite the fact he exhausted every avenue he had under his control. What was heart-wrenching for me was the sheer futility of his battle. His choices were not enough to conquer the spreading cancer which makes his plight heroic, but it screams injustice.

This makes me think of a conversation I had with a client of mine today. This beloved client has been, and continues to be a walking billboard for our business, and has so far converted a number of her friends into becoming clients of ours also. Her quest continued on the weekend past, advising a friend who ‘suffers’ from type 2 diabetes and low back pain that he should seek our services. This would be an unlikely realisation, as her friend didn’t really want to spend the money, and was reticent to change.

Let me make this point clear- type 2 diabetes and low back pain are conditions of choice.

Unlike Jim Stynes fatal illness we have immense power and control over our experience of conditions such as these. Whether we continue to ‘suffer‘, is determined by the choices we make.

Take the first example- type 2 diabetes. This condition is a side-effect of lifestyle choices. Carrying excess weight around the mid-section, sedentary lifestyle, a diet rich in simple carbs and sugars and smoking; are all associated with the development of type 2 diabetes. Those risk factors are all well within our control. Yes genetics play a small role, but our genes only affect our succeptability, they do not condemn.

Diabetes dramatically increases our risk of cardiovascular disease, kidney disease, blindness and limb amputation (due to compromised peripheral circulation). Our choices determine whether we experience one of more of those unpleasantries.

Now for low-back pain. For the vast majority of people experiencing low-back pain the root cause is simple dysfunction of the neuromuscular system. What this means in English is the muscles around the low-back and pelvis are not functioning the way they are supposed to. Some have switched off, some have dialled up and become tight.

We know if we can correct these dysfunctional patterns, we can greatly affect our experience of low-back pain. In many people’s defence, they may be completely unaware of this (and the traditional tendency towards disempowerment from the health industry may have contributed to this) so their choices would have been limited. But when a close friend is giving you a new option and you choose to ignore, you make sympathy for your plight a challenge.

Unfortunately accessability to services such as ours is limited because let’s be honest, we don’t exactly give ourselves away for free. It is a real shame that many people are not able to access health professionals to the extent they require, as their financial situation does not allow it.

But there are many choices we can make that do not cost anything- walking during our free time instead of sitting. Drinking water instead of coke. Sleeping instead of watching television. Choosing the formers over the latters will improve our health, and are free to choose.

If you want to take things a step further, and seek professional advice to help you rectify a condition of lifestyle and choice and you are weighing up the cost- rather than focusing on the dollar$, ask yourself, what do you value.

Little people can teach us a lot about life.

At this point in time, my not-quite-two year old is wise beyond what she can express through her vocabulary. This is often a source of frustration for her, and my challenge is to efficiently decode her words so as to validate her verbal communication.

So when she looks at me with her big brown eyes on these cold mornings when I’d rather be rugged up inside; and repeatedly beckons ‘owside, owside!’; here is the interpretation:

“ Dad: due to the impending season, our opportunities to absorb daylight are becoming increasingly limited. This is compounded by our modern tendencies to stay in the warm and ride out the cold weather. For many people, it wouldn’t be unusual to achieve less than five minutes of direct outside light exposure on an average day during the colder months. They may be unaware of Seasonal Affective Disorder – a set of symptoms resulting from reduced daylight exposure. Fatigue, depression, irritability, trouble concentrating, soreness, decreased physical activity, overeating, weight gain – are all symptoms of hormonal imbalance, synonymous with those who just don’t like winter and avoid exposure to it. There also appears to be greater risk of illness due to increased uptake of recycled air and heightened exposure to germs. I’d like to avoid this, so I need you to get me outside at regular intervals during the week. Especially when the sun’s out as inside light does not suffice. So let’s go OUTSIDE!! “   (enter battering of eyelids)

Seasonal Affective Disorder (aptly abbreviated to SAD) has historical links with Vitamin D deficiency. However, phototherapy as a remedy for SAD is simply exposure to a really bright light box for 30 minutes daily, indicating less to do with Vitamin D synthesis from sunlight and more to do with our hormonal responses to bright light – the type that we see when we are outside.

Without discounting the growing incidence of Vitamin D deficiency, the message here is simple: Take some time (ideally 30 minutes a day) to step out of your climate-controlled environment while it’s daylight. Even when the weather is cold! Our bodies were built to handle it, and may actually thrive through the darker months with exposure to the elements. You could even avoid the extra layer of winter weight!

So go, harness the inner two year old and loosen the grip on some creature comforts.

Remember, we were built to adapt to our habitat.

Not the other way around. Adaptation of our habitat to make us comfortable all the time may be costing us more than we realise.

It is a common misconception that our skeleton is basically a set of bones stacked up upon one-another, with cartilage in between to reduce friction as they slide back and forth during movement. Our body, when functioning well, does NOT work like this.

Our body is ‘tensegrity structure’. What is a tensegrity structure? See the image below.

This amazing feat of engineering is the ‘Needle Tower’ in Washington D.C. It is an 18metre high tower composed of aluminium poles and steel cables, with none of the poles touching one-another. They are held in a uniform tension by cable ‘tendons’ running through the poles and connecting pole to pole. This structure describes how the musculoskeletal body maintains its structural integrity, when it is in balance

The bones in our body are held APART from one another via complex chains of connective tissue, known as ‘fascia. This allows for a narrow space in between our bones in which synovial fluid is able to pass through freely.

If your bones are touching one another, that is a sign of inbalance of your facial and muscular network, and thus a loss of tensegrity. Bone-on-bone is merely the end result of a cartilage-on-cartilage system wearing itself through. Cartilage-on-cartilage is dyfunctional, bone-on-bone is just that, plus time.

So what can we do about this? This loss of tensegrity is a result of some muscles losing tone, allowing bones to fall into sub-optimal joint positions, with other muscles tightening to stabilise these mis-aligned joints. A postural analysis and flexibility assessment is a good first line of assessments to discover your tenedencies in this regard.

From here, an inteligent strength and flexibility program, specific to your postural needs can work wonders in restoring balance, and hence tensegrity.

Remember, bone-on-bone is just an accumulation of time with dysfunction. Restore balance and give your joints some space!

They all dressed REALLY nicely!

I know…insightful!

The reason I noted this, above anything else is, I was there to talk about the benefits of exercising before AND during work to enhance productivity. I was duly informed this is not practical for well-dressed, nice smelling people who wished to remain that way through the course of their workday.

So I want to throw a spin on the perception that meaningful exercise must ALWAYS make you stinky!

If you read my last post (if not, here it is), you’ll remember I launched a vendetta on meetings! This time I want to show you how, when you just have to have them, you can promote creative thought and productive outcomes through exercise that can be performed without sweating!

OK. Suit up and try this:

Stand on one foot. Easy?

Now stay on one foot and raise your opposite hand high above your head. Just a little harder?

Keeping your hand high above your head, take a short step forward onto your other foot and allow your front knee to bend. Once you start to feel some resistance from your leg/hip/trunk muscles, straighten your front leg and return to your original stance on one foot. Should be slightly harder again. But if not:

See if you can push up onto your toes and hold for a few seconds, with your hand still in the air.

For those of you who are not yet tumbling over (yes – lint from the floor should be of greater concern than sweat at this point!):

Try it all again with your eyes closed, and repeat for a couple of minutes each side of your body.

Here’s what’s happening inside your head:

Your cerebellum is where your ‘movement files’ are stored. Once deployed, movement patterns are sent through this area of your brain for precise execution via sequential activation of muscles. This elaborate series of events happens subconsciously, and in a split second, which makes for an efficient process.

However, when your brain is asked to carry out a task that it doesn’t normally coordinate, your cerebellum is forced out of autopilot and into conscious engagement of movement.

This can have multiple benefits on productivity:

Your cerebellum heats up!

As well as motor control, your cerebellum is involved in articulating creative thought. Therefore, stimulating this area before a meeting may have similar effects on performance to a physical warm up before a football match. You are priming yourself for cognitive performance from the outset.

Your mental state levels off…

The cerebellum has been associated with generating response to fear. Although not it’s primary role, involvement in such regulation means that feelings of stress or anxiety toward your upcoming meeting can be managed through provision of a new stimulus here.

Your internal world becomes exciting again!

Have you ever sat in your office and felt hazy and sluggish? Maybe due to tiredness; perhaps overfamiliarity within your environment; somehow unable to get things going in that space?

Overcoming this without altering your sensory input is kind of like ‘culinary rut’; swaying between an empty fridge and pantry hoping something magnificent will appear by repeating the same mundane action!

The remedy is actually pretty simple:

1. Temporarily change your environment (ie. go to the shop!)

2. Engage your navigational system (ie. find the things you need to restock your shelves!)

The same applies to cognitive rut! Environment and movement are variables that can be altered to spark your cerebellum.

Input creatively to output creativity.

Familiarity is the comfort zone of the cerebellum. The key to exercise selection here: challenge yourself cognitively to resist the physical forces of gravity! Enhance this benefit by changing your surroundings, and all of this can be achieved in the comfort of your suit!

Upon weighing in, it is revealed a contestant has lost 4.9kg of body weight in the course of one week. The reaction from his trainer, the caricature known as ‘The Commando’ is that whilst 4.9kg is pretty good going, he’s gonna have to pull bigger numbers than that is he is going to compete with the real big-time losers. There are a couple of serious problems here. One is for the message it sends our society, the second for the poor individual that is undoubtedly in for some Commando-style punishment over the coming week.

Firstly, society. If you wish to lose weight (like most of the Australian population), 4.9 kg in a week is dangerously excessive and unsustainable. A healthy, sustainable rate of weight loss is between 0.5kg and 1kg per week depending on body size. This expectation of miraculous, enourmous weight loss serves only to feed our societies want for a quick fix for a lifestyle problem (see Chesty’s article http://informhealth.com/skinny-and-rich-in-only-18-months-without-exercise/ for more on this topic). I have had many clients become upset when they undertake an adjusted eating plan and increase their exercise output to find they only lost 4kg in a month. ‘I was expecting more like 10-15kg for all changes to my life I have made’ is a response I have heard on many occasions.

Secondly, for the indivdual actually losing the weight. If you lose weight rapidly, you will put it back on again. That is based on more than just empirical evidence *(of which by the way, there is a lot!). Tara Parker-Pope in The Weekend Australian Magazine in early February detailed that science is now discovering that when we lose weight rapidly, metabolic and neurological changes occur that make us much more likely to put weight back on.

Post-weight loss, the hormone grehlin, which promotes hunger (preferentially for simple carbs) is produced in greater quantities, whilst production of peptide YY and leptin, which are hunger suppressing hormones are decreased. Also, after a period of weight loss, the nutritional requirement for sustaining weight is dramatically reduced. An average sized woman of around 86kg needs 1260 more kj than a woman who has lost weight to achieve that same size. It is as if the body has gone into shock after the weight loss, and therefore alters hormone levels to regain the weight.

This makes sense from an evolutionary sense. For most of human history, rapid weight loss would be perceievd as a massive threat. Before our current state of abundance in the developed world, rapid weight loss would be because of a sheer lack of food availability. It was in our species best interest to set itself for storage during times of famine, so that we could survive off of our fat stores if absolutely necessary.

It must be stressed at this point that the studies that have garnered the results that I have detailed so far, were from interventions aiming for rapid weight loss. Most of them involve a massive, sudden decrease in caloric intake, with many of these studies using shakes like opti-fast to achieve the weight loss. It seems, at least from this literature, that rapid weight loss is an instigator for the post-weight-loss shock state.

Science is proving that there is currently no silver bullet for weight loss, and that a quick-fix approach is destined for failure. What you weight is largely symptomatic of your lifestyle. Focusing on changing our weight lends itself to seeking the most rapid solution. But your weight is not the problem- it is the lifestyle that has preceeded the weight that needs alteration.

If you wish to lose weight, ask yourself, what aspects of my lifestyle are currently facilitating weight gain or weight maintenance? Remember there is more at play here than just food and exercise. Stress and sleep are two variables that can dramatically influence our hormone levels and predispose us to weight gain- or negate weight loss.

Rather than ‘losing weight’, we tend to promote ‘gaining health’. Rapid weight loss is not a healthy behaviour, our systems are actually protective against it- hence why it is unsustainable. For more information of sustainable weight loss, see our FESS up tips page at:  http://informhealth.com/fess-up/tips/.

Is your workday structured around your physiology, or is your physiology dictated to by your workday?

On a very complex level, asleep or awake, our bodies operate in cycles. It is physiologically impossible to be firing on all cylinders for the entire day, and so the busy structure of our external world can deplete our reserve of internal endurance.

You can’t force productivity.

However you can nurture it. The coming installments will tactically address the requirements of your physiology to create an internal environment that thrives in external conditions.

It was recently presented to me that the greatest barrier to productive workdays were M&M’s! It took me a while to work out that this wasn’t a reference to tasty little treats, but rather the concept of Management and Meetings.

I once worked under a manager who, I’m sure, had a KPI to interrupt work as often as he could! He would constantly pop by for a chat, to see what I was up to, and to add new tasks to my hectic schedule. He called meetings for everything, and scheduled these – without fail – in the most inconvenient times for me.

As a young ‘Go-getter‘ in my first full-time job I was eager to impress with my resilience and ability to get things done that my more senior colleagues would refuse. I started arriving to work an hour or two before anyone else, and found that I was more productive in this short space of time than I was able to be for the entire standard workday.

I ended up hating that job – despite enjoying the work – because my ability to produce good work whilst at work was so stunted by other requirements that contributed nothing to productivity.

Meetings are toxic to Productivity!

Meetings that break up the working day are disruptive and costly to business. It’s like with sleep:

Sleep is a series of progressive phases that reaches climax at the REM stage. This is where we dream, and parts of the brain associated with memory and learning are stimulated. Studies have shown that deprivation of REM sleep leads to poorer cognitive performance, and deprivation is caused by interruption to the cycle.

But more on sleep and it’s relevance to productivity another time…

The point I want to draw here is that to sleep well, we must be in an environment that supports us through all stages of sleep. Interruptions effect the quality of sleep by activating the ‘restart’ button on the processes involved.

The path to productivity is no different. Achieving great work requires a series of progressive events in which our limbic system (parts of the brain connected to evaluation and response to stimuli) is gradually wound up into a state called Flow. This is the skill of being ‘in the zone‘.

Unfortunately it can be unpredictable as to when this state will occur. However, what we know for sure is that it happens when we are in our least distracted state. So the mid-morning or mid-afternoon meeting that lurks in the back of your mind, even though it is not right now, can be a deterrent to Flow. As can visits from management and personal problems, among many of the other things that we contend with in the course of a normal day.

What’s this got to do with exercise?!

Along with good structure and management who trust in their choice of people to get the job done, exercise can assist with the process of resetting limbic response. Physiologically, it provides input that can override a prevailing sensory stimulus. So if you’re stuck with M&M’s, personal distractions or other deterrents to productivity, a short bout of good quality exercise can rewire your limbic response in order to spend greater parts of your day ‘IN the zone‘ rather than ‘TRYING to get in the zone‘!

It is like we need a tank of that high octane fuel to get us through to Easter!

However, with a few simple tweaks of our metabolic engine we may be able to develop a machine powerful enough to see us through these busy times with plenty of energy in reserve.

Muscles are our metabolic engine.

Inside our engine we have these cylinders where our fuel goes to give us energy called our mitochondria.

It has long been known that with exercise we can develop more of these mitochondria, effectively turning four cylinder motors into powerful V8′s. With a bigger engine the day to day feels so much easier.

Our engine only needs to idle away at 50% rather than being pushed to it’s limits.

This should be motivation enough to stay fit…

However we are finding that with the right type of exercise we can not only build a bigger engine but we can effectively build a new one. Resistance training is the key here and it can actually make the mitochondria in your muscle cells look like they did back in their 20′s and 30′s.

If you are interested in how our amazing bodies are able to do this please read an earlier blog on the topic: http://informhealth.com/reverse-the-ageing-process-with-90-minutes-of-resistance-training-a-week/

For us to build these “V8″ engines we also need high quality parts which we receive through our nutrition. Therefore what we eat is imperative to building brand new muscles, and at the cellular level protein and omega 3 fats are the building blocks to health.

We don’t just put any old part in our motor vehicles so why should our bodies be any different?

To find out more about this fascinating area of research and how it can improve your energy, a seminar will be held at iNform Health & Fitness on Wednesday evening the 11th of April. See our link here for more details.

Client: ‘You’re a fan of running aren’t you?’

Me: ‘I’m a fan of running well.’

Client: ‘Yeah but you think running is good for you hey?’

Me: ‘I think that running well is good for you.’

Client: ‘Sorry, I mean running is good for developing good cardiovascular fitness, isn’t?’

Me: ‘Yes, a side effect of running would be an improvement in cardiovascular fitness, but this goal shouldn’t be aspired to at the expense of the running itself’.

At this point my now frustrated and perplexed client furrowed her brow, and understanably shook her head and decided it was time to change subject. I don’t blame her.

When having conversations such as this, I am not deliberatley trying to be cryptic or clever, or just a plain old smart-arse. My response has been formed by an omnipresent error formed in people’s motivation to run.

Clients of mine have wanted to run for many reasons, such as:

• To lose weight
• To improve CV fitness
• They know it is good for them
• For competition
• For a ‘signpost goal’, like running the City-to-Bay, or a marathon so that they can say they have done it.

In these instances, running is merely a tool that is used to achieve something. I have very rarely, in fact, never been asked for assistance with running simply for the purpose of enjoying running. And that, I believe should be the primary focus when running, especially during the formative stages of your running life.

If you are using running as a modality for some purpose other than enjoyment, you will sacrifice your form, gauranteed. Running with poor form will result in increased loading of joints and unbalanced loading of connective tissue and increase the likelihood of injury development. Added to this, running poorly is also tremendously innefficient.

Running is a motor skill, and motor skills require time, repetition and accuracy if they are to become an ingrained pattern or program, and hence natural. If you have put pressure on yourself by giving yourself a time-based goal, like running a marathon in 6 months time when 5km currently is a struggle, you will not run with the cognition and feel that is required. Instead, you will be consumed by your heart rate monitor and runkeeper to the detriment of the process.

Exactly what a truly efficient running gait is is still subject to debate, but the research into this area is starting to really elucidate what it might be. More on this to follow. But in the meantime my experience tells me that making adjustments to running form- largely for the purpose of improving force transferral and shock absorption; will result in an improved perception of the running experience by the runner and hence more enjoyment. If you are comfortable with the act of running you can then use it as a tool to achieve a great number of things.

If a client tells me they want to run, my first question is ‘why?’ Ask yourself this question too.

I’m going to indulge my AFL bias, and suggest that if our work day were a football game, the match report might go something like this:

Heading into opposition territory, bottom placed Internal Physiology were always going to have a tough day up against ladder leader External Conditions. With the roof closed on External Environment Arena, the home side took early ascendancy with Caffeine and Email goaling in the opening minutes. Ringing Mobile was busy around the packs and provided further scoreboard pressure while Caffeine asserted dominance up forward slamming through a second goal before quarter time.

The second quarter began where it left off for External with cousins Office Colleagues and Office Noise teaming up for back to back goals before Cortisol entered the game with a handball to Adrenaline for Internal’s first major. Cortisol remained busy throughout the remainder of the half despite a heavy collision with teammate Insulin, who left the field with concussion.  Internal struggled to cover this loss and looked fatigued with External’s constant pressure.

In an unheralded twist, the match umpire’s allowed Internal to continue playing through half-time during which they attempted to gain some lost ground. Despite lack of contested pressure, full-forward Blood Glucose-Level constantly dropped marks and judgement errors occured with Cerebellum’s disposal. By the time External Conditions returned to the field, team Internal had managed to add only a small margin to their score – an opportunity gone begging.

The second half saw External’s pesky small forward Demanding Clients chime in for uncontested goals, as he ran amok on Internal’s speedster Adrenaline who was moved into defence. Personal Issues made some clumsy errors across Internal’s half-back line, upon which Distracting Thoughts was able to capitalise on numerous occasions for External.

External brought Unnecessary Meetings off the bench for the final quarter, who dominated a depleted Internal midfield leaving star onballer Serotonin with a quiet day, and they missed Sunlight in their midfield rotation.

External Conditions wreaked havoc on an Internal side that once looked strong on paper. A growing injury list including captain Hormonal Balance, replaced in today’s side by Fatigue, has left Internal unable to live up to it’s early-season hype and fans are calling for coach Reduced Productivity to be axed.

In a post-match interview, Internal Physiology’s centre half back Sufficient Sleep controversially stated that his desire to play each week was at an all-time low due to the constant battering that he and the rest of the backline were receiving with a lack of support from further up the field.

Match statistics from this game showed that Internal’s forward-line supply from Good Nutrients had been limited through a tagging role by Unrealistic Expectations, and that Exercise had been held goalless from the relentless pressure of External’s experienced defender Mixed Priorities.

Internal will need to head back to the drawing board and restructure their tactics if they are to overcome this powerful outfit next time around. There is no doubt in the potential of Internal’s recruits, but they are looking constantly overwhelmed by fierce opponents and need to find a way to gel as a unit both on and off the field if they are to start registering consistent wins. Stay tuned!

Literature on goal setting and goal attainment consistently talk about the five, seven, ten or whatever stages that exist. Words like ‘precontemplation’, ‘readiness’, ‘implementation’ and ’evaluation’ permeate this language and provide us with convient compartments to place ourselves. This means that even if you are not actually making progress, you fall into a category within the scope of goal setting, so you should feel pretty satisfied about that.

I on the other hand believe there are two states of being in regards to our goals- you are either on the path to achieving your goal, or your aren’t. I have run this through my mind a number of times, and I fail to see any other category that could exist. If you fall into the latter category, I ask you, is your goal really a goal, or is it a fanciful dream?

What is a fanciful dream?

Let me give you an example. I would love to stand on the summit of Mount Everest. However, I am not willing to undertake the years of physical preparation, climbing training, financial sacrifice and the risk to my life for me to actually achieve this. I am bascically not willing to do what is required to achieve it. Therefore summitting Everest is not a goal of mine, rather it is a fanciful dream, and I am very comfortable with that.

Apply this to a goal of yours. If you think about the end result, of course you want that pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. But what would you have to do to actually realise this goal. Are you willing to undertake the changes that you would have to make in order to make that goal a reality? Are you currently living in a way that is contrary to your goals? If you are, then you are allowing an unnecessary conflict to exist in your life.

I truly believe that if your lifestyle and your goals do not match up, you need to either change your behaviour, or change your goals.

This is a conversation that should exist without judgement, as I said in my opening sentence, your goals are yours and you can change them at any time. But it is not useful to exist in conflict, nor is it useful, in my opinion, to justify procrastination using fancy psychobable like, ‘but i’m currently in the precontemplation stage!’

I don’t think there is any doubt that using a goal-setting framework  like the SMART model (Specific, Measurable, Achieveable, Realistic, Timely) is a good way to go- in most instances you should be able quatify your progress, and working towards a time-frame can be motivating.

Again, if your goals and your behaviour do not match-up, one of those needs to change. I would always err on the side of changing behaviour, as for one, you wouldn’t have decided upon a goal in the first place if it did not hold some importance for you. And secondly, commiting to a goal and achieving it is an amazingly empowering and enriching process.When you do it once with a significant goal, it opens up possibilities that may seem outlandish right now, or perhaps have not even been considered yet!