A better You

This is a post about fitness. No, no, not the fitness that you are thinking with costly gym memberships and men grunting as they bench press a lorry or its equivalent, no, not that type of fitness. The fitness I will discuss under some sub headings below are simple little fixes and for my the key to each one is habit. That's right, it's that simple. Forming a habit is key to any change we want to make and the same is true for bad habits that we get into also. Once you form that habit, it can be hard to break the cycle, as whether the habit is good or bad, it becomes habitual and starts to become part of who we are.

So, what I propose is that you use this habitual behaviour to form some good habits. Now, you don't need to do everything that I am currently doing as outlined below, but even if you were to chose just one or two, I am confident that it will help you to be a better version of you, as it should help both your mental and physical well being, at least that is my experience.

Of course we are all different, so if you disagree with anything I am saying, I'd definitely love to hear about it in the comments or maybe you have some additional advise or other simple tips that you can share with me and the rest of the readers.

Ok, now I have set out my stall and you know what this post is going to be about, so let's get stuck in and I will start off with the obvious one, which is exercise.

Daily Exercise

This one is exactly what it says on the tin. To be fair though I do give myself the weekends off usually, so my daily exercise happens every weekday morning before my morning cold shower, yes I said cold shower! More on that later on. At least three quarters of those reading this now think I'm nuts! I am not, I promise. Read on to find out more on the benefits of cold showers and why you should all give it a go.

Before we start talking about cold showers though, let's take it back to the title for this section, and that is daily exercise. This can take many forms, but in my opinion the best time to do this is first thing in the morning and that way life's circumstances like a bad day at work or unexpected visitors cannot get in your way. You see if you leave it until the evening, for me anyway, there is a much higher probability that it just won't get done, so if you are going to try to form this habit, then first thing in the morning would be my advise.

The exercise can vary depending on what you are looking to get out of it. My brother and brother-in-law choose a 6:30am swim in the Atlantic every weekday morning, some friends opt for 5km walk with the dog as soon as they wake. What I tend to do is help with the kids lunches and such first thing when I raise, then get a pint of water and retire to my home office which doubles up as a home gym, stick on my favourite Podcast or some tunes and start my workout. That typically takes the form of three sets of the following:

30/35 pushups
30/35 dumb bell curls variation 1
30/35 dumb bell curls variation 2
30/35 dumb bell curls variation 3
100 sit ups

That usually takes somewhere in the region of 40/45 minutes, with a quick rest between each set to check a couple of emails, yes, I am efficient type of person, always looking to kill two birds with one stone.

Intermittent Eating

The next thing I will cover in my recent heathy regime is Intermittent eating. The basic premise here is to give your gastrointestinal tract an extended break from time to time. It would not be unusual for somebody to have breakfast at 7am and eat other meals throughout the day and maybe a snack with a cup of tea around 9pm, and thus only giving your body a short break from the chore of digestion.

With Intermittent eating the idea is to squeeze all of your eating into a short period of time, say six or seven hours and that way you give your body a full 17 or 18 hours of a break. My typical Intermittent fasting days will be as follows:

11:30 Healthy breakfast
2:30pm Healthy Lunch
6pm Health Dinner
Some cups of tea between 11:30 and 6:30pm
Any snacks, biscuits etc are had with the main meal.

This may not be a good idea for everybody, especially those with underlying health conditions, but it is safe for me and I usually do it at a couple of days a week for a period of time and then fall out of the habit again, but I have been doing it all month so far.

Cold Water Showers

If I was reading this post around one year ago, I'd be thinking to myself this guy is nuts, as in me! Turn the dial on the shower to full cold in the height of winter and then step under and wash your hair and body. No feckin way is what I would have said. In fact I remember a good friend telling me a few years ago that he often finished his shower with a quick blast of cold water before getting out and I most definitely turned up an eyebrow and shivered at the thought.

Fast forward a few years to March 2022 and I was on a webinar with work that was focusing on wellness, mindfulness and such things. The guru who was giving the talk mentioned his early morning routine of having a cold shower and talking over the many benefits of doing so. Around the same time my brother and brother in law were trying to recruit me for the early morning sea swims and were waxing lyrical about the many benefits of the cold dips.

As the guru continued to talk up the cold shower, I thought to myself, I can do that, in fact it might be quite nice straight after my early morning exercise, and so another part of my new routine was born and I have done it 95% or more of mornings since March 2022. I took a break from around Dec 22nd until Jan 2nd as everyone in my house including myself were sick with colds, flus and all sorts and cold showers would not have been a good idea at all.

So what are the benefits of these early morning chills I hear you ask. Here are a few that I can think of from the top of my head:

Increased blood circulation to the extremities.
Helps reduce inflamation.
It can help reduce muscle soreness and fatigue.
It can lower stress levels and worries.
Supports a healthy immune system.
Makes you feel more alert.
Less inclined to get sick.

Mindfulness

This is another one that I have gotten into in the last two years since moving home to Galway. I had read about mindfulness and it kept coming up in conversations with friends and family, so eventually I thought to myself that I would have to give it a try and see what all the fuss was about. I was very impressed when I did try it with an open mind and these days there are loads of options for where you can find good meditations and mindfulness content, including the following which I have used:

Youtube
Spotify
Insight Timer (Free App on App store or Play store)
Calm (an App you have to pay for - my work pays for it for us)

I find the meditations a great way to destress if I am stressed from work or whatever and also are a great way to fall asleep if you struggle with insomnia - now in fairness I have always been a great sleeper, but on the rare occasion when I cannot nod off, something like a Yoga Nidra meditation is perfect.

Varying My Diet

Variety is the spice of life. Isn't that what they say? Well I believe that is true in lots of areas of life and food and diet is no different. What I will suggest here is tricky because we are creatures of habit and we all like certain types of food more than others.

So the concept is that when out for dinner or when doing the weekly food shop, you do not always go for the same things, but rather you mix things up as much as possible and instead of buying chicken every time, opt for fresh fish or pork or beef for a change. Why I hear you ask?

Well it is to do with your Microbiome which is the neighbourhood of bacteria that live in your large and small intestines - there are billions of these little critters living inside you and they are essential for your health. By eating a variety of different foods you ensure that the gut flore or Microbiome is nice and diverse which is the way that you want it to be.

In this modern world where antibiotics are routinely prescribed, one needs to be mindful of the Microbiome and that is because an antibiotic is like napalm to the bacteria in our guts, it basically nukes everything in sight, both the good and the bad bacteria, so what I would advise is to take a pro biotic after a course of antibiotics to boost the gut flora and a particularly good one is Udo's Choice Super 6, now it is expensive, around €30 for 30 tablets, but I would highly recommend them.

Dry January

Anyone who reads my Beer Saturday posts will notice that a key ingredient has been missing for the past four Saturdays, yes, that's right the beer! That's because I have been on the dry for the month of January so far. That will all change next weekend when I meet some friends for some much anticipated pints of Guinness - I might well make this a yearly habit for January going forward.

Quality Sleep

Sleep is important. I don't need to tell you that. It is a well known fact, but how many of you are getting your recommended eight hours a day? I wager not that many of are getting that much sleep on regular basis.

I often here people saying that they can survive on five hours a night, six hours a night. Yes, you can survive alright, but what are you paying for this rest deficit in the long run? I am pretty sure that you will pay in life expectancy in the end if you don't mind yourself and get enough rest. After all your body is a vessel. Let's take an anology, where two people buy a brand new car in 1990. One person really minds their car, no crashes, or dents, regular services and oil changes and limited mileage. The other person does not service their car often, bumps and bangs it regularly and drives hundreds of thousands of miles covering every square inch of the country. Which car will end up in the scrap heap quicker?

Our bodies are the same and as per above they need good fuel in the form of whole foods and non-processed foods and they need regular sleep also, so whenever possible get the eight hours at a minimum. Eighty year old you will thank you for it.

Eat Whole Foods

I will finish with this one and I already touched on it above. The fuel that we put into our bodies matter. If we fill it with take aways, convenience foods and processed foods then in the long term we will pay the price with health complaints like diabetes, crohns disease, Ulcerative Colitis and others in later life.

The simple key is that if it grows on a tree or comes out of the ground, then it's generally going to be good for you and if you are taking it from a tin, a packet or the likes, then it's been processed and too much of it will not help your all round health.

Well my fingers are getting sore from all of that typing so I'll leave it at that, thanks a millions for reading and hopefully you learned something or took some inspiration.

These photos are not my own and were all sourced on copyright free website Pixabay.com and the links are below:

Eight Ways to be the Healthiest Version of You