The Health HubHave you done your 10,000 steps today?
Personal trainer Alex Flint joins to discuss whether 10,000 steps is a fad marketing scheme or truly beneficial to your health.
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It's rocking back. This is the Weekend Collective. I'm Tim Beverage. And by the way, if you looked at it, missed any of our politics centril. We're going to catch up on the latest and then you can go and check out a podcast. Look for the Weekend Collective on the News Talks hev website or on iHeartRadio. But right now we're moving on. This is the Health. We want your calls, your text and we're gonna be talking about well, generally speaking, fitness. But but there's a thing about hitting your ten thousand steps. And if you've got a smart watch or even your smartphone's always in the back pocket, you might have a pray and whether it be with your Apple or your Android, that something is you know that the app is telling you oh look, guess what you did. You've done six thousand steps today, and you might feel quite good about that. I think my target that my phone sets me, although I'm hardly ever carrying when I'm exercising, so it never really catches up on the latest with me, it seems to set my goal at about six or seven thousand steps, and I sort of think that's not a hell of a lot. Anyone who works as a teacher or say a nurse in a hospital or something, they'll be like, huh, ten thousand steps amateurs, But as ten thousand steps are those step counters? And is that goal? Because that does seem to be the thing in social media at the moment that people are all going, have you got your town ten thousand steps today? Is that the thing? Anyway, we're going to discuss that, and I'm going to dig into a little bit nutrition as well. Joining us he is well, he's from Body Talk and his name is Alex Flint and he should be he's no strateery to you guys, of course, because he's been on the show a few times now. Alex.
Here you go, Tim, I'm really good thanking you.
Of course you look well because you know I mean, I guess you have. Do you have? Do you feel the pressure look good when you're running a fitness sort of advice and personal training, bespoke management type of thing. If I could sum it up so crudely.
Yeah, No, I definitely feel that it's important that I practice what I preach. Yeah, and getting out of shape is not a great idea if you're a personal trainer.
How long have you been a personal trainer?
For very long time now, I'm nearly fifty. I was scrubbing around in my parents' gym, so they owned gyms when I was thirteen fourteen, and so I was kind of doing this semi non formal type of personal training back then. But as soon as I finished school hit uni I started, So nearly coming up thirty years.
You would have been through a journey of course, when was there a point where you suddenly went, ah, this is what I want to do, and this is what I want to offer people, Because you know, you'd learn a bit here and a bit there, and then you'd study or whatever, and then you'd get experience. And as if say you've been even just doing.
It for a couple of years, No, I think it's definitely one of those things that it's a bit of a journey. And what I found is that I've got a real kick out of helping people get great results and from that it just made me have to learn more and learn more. And it's the more you know, the more you realize you don't know. So you know, I've been all around the world, I've had a lot of mentors over time, and there's never I think the big thing is you never really come to this conclusion of I've got it all now, I know everything I need to know, because everyone's got nuances and the way that people live their lives are very different. But there's definitely a standard set of rules that work for most people.
I guess it depends on their goal as well, doesn't it, Because there'll be those who want to it's shred. I mean, just they want to build up the muscle, they want to look good. I want to trim the fat off. But they're not going to run any marathons, are they if they're just in the gym all the time? So I guess how much of it relates to your goal setting?
Yeah, that's right.
And there's you know, train young guys that are playing rugby through to people that are just trying to look after themselves and live a long, healthy life. So I think you know what bodies need in essence is much the same. It's just how that transfers into what a program looks like is different.
I want to get into the ten thousand steps thing in just a moment. But actually because people will know you from the prog and match fit with these rugby players who are getting themselves back on track, and I just I've got a really sort of dumb question, which is professional rugby players know all about fitness and conditioning?
Is it?
Because what if they missed that when they retire, we see them maybe not look like I mean Richie mccaus side. That's one guy who does seem to be on top of his fit post rugby. In fact, he probably looks even better, doesn't he? But what is it that they haven't learned that means that they need to see you ten or fifteen years later and get themselves back in shape.
Interesting question. I would say that through the generation, if you look at modern day rugby players now very well educated, what they're exposed to in their day to day training absolutely top notch. This has come on over a long period of time, so what was happening twenty thirty years ago is very very different to what it is today. The other thing is, just because someone is a phenomenal athlete doesn't necessarily mean that that's going to transfer into their after life, because it's really like a job to a lot of these guys. So they're in great shape. They do that by turning up to training, regimented times, doing what they need to do, and the outcome of winning sport and.
Their livelihoods depend on it. Space when that pressure comes off, they're just as fallible as us, all to the wrong food, sleeping and a bit maybe skipping that day, then skipping another day than before your art you've gone to seed.
Yeah, it's very true. You know a lot of these guys are retiring because their bodies are giving out on them and they just want to rest, you know, and that rest can turn from maybe a few weeks to rest to years to a decade, and then all of a sudden, you know, they're still eating what they used to eat and still eating the same amounts, and all of a sudden, there's a lot more of them, but unfortunately it's a lot more body fat, and you know less health.
Yeah, okay, we're going to dig into into a bit of the diet question later on. But first thing I talked about the ten thousand steps? What's is it a good thing that there's this general sort of social media thing. I mean you can say it with people over People say to me, I'm at my ten thousand steps today? What is ten thousand? What is ten thousand steps? And I mean it's a nice round number with lots of zeros. It's not ten thousand, seven hundred and twenty eight. What's the special thing about ten thousand steps? And is it a useful thing that people think that it's a goal worth achieving?
So the ten thousand steps analogy actually was born in a marketing labor, wasn't born in a sports science lab. So it was from the nineteen sixties. Japanese manufacturers made a pedometer. Yeah, so pedometer obviously counts your steps before we could just stick a smartphone in our pocket. And what they came up with was that a decent amount of movement per day was going to be, you know, something which probably is good for us. And they picked, they literally picked ten thousand steps. That's how it started.
Do you think they also did it because they went for a few they were walking around and in the lab there might have been a bunch of them going, I've had eight thousand, I've done twelve thousand, and they're going there must be a magic number. You know, maybe would have been born out of sort of just literally, hey, I did it, I've done eighteen thousand. I went had to go and they just decided that that's the ballpark and let's round it up.
Yeah.
Absolutely, that's exactly how it happened.
Fantastic.
So since then, you know, we've I think the biggest line in the sand has been that since we've moved into the age, the technology age, and a lot of the need for manual labor just doesn't exist anymore. That has been one of the biggest things that's happened in terms of us losing what's now deemed neat non exercise activity thermogenesis. So once upon a time, we did a lot of chores, we probably did a lot more walking, and there was a lot of things that we couldn't just sit on our backsides all day and expect a computer or a machine to do for us. So what has happened is over a period of time, and this is speeding up. You know, for some people literally they don't need to get out of bed anymore. If you're working from home, you know, the biggest walk that they might do is from their bedroom to the kitchen. And so scary thought, right, but it as quite scar Humans are designed to move and we're just at the point now like never before, where we actually don't need to do much in our day anymore. And it is a real problem. So the ten thousand step rule, why.
It started while it might be in an accident.
But yeah, yeah, I mean it was obviously onto something. He knew that counting steps was a good thing. But now there's a large amount of studies. One of the first ones was the London bus Driver's study, which was done in the nineteen fifties. So they was some thirty one thousand participants. They were the bus drivers and the conductors, so the ticket guys and girls. So a bus driver eight hour day sitting on there behind driving the bus, the conductors up and down the stairs, walking around the stations, literally on their feet all day. So that study was done over a decade thirty as I say, thirty one thousand participants. At the end of that there was clear data that thirty percent the rate of heart disease was thirty percent lower in the conductors. Now, that was regardless of if they smoked, what their other lifestyle preferences were like, whether they were overweight or not, just simply the fact that that job meant that they were on their feet longer, they had a thirty percent less likelihood of having cardiovascular zees and a fifty percent less likelihood of sudden heart attack. So walking and being on your feet is actually very important for us.
We'd love to hear from you on this. Do you one, Do you count your steps and do you have a particular goal in mine, because intuitively it does sound like ten thousands sounds pretty good. I've just counted min I went for. I'm bloody annoyed actually because I went for a walk this morning because I thought I've been sitting around trying to solve some I T problems at home. I thought I better get I better get the blood pumping because I thought my brain's really going to atrophy before I do the show. And I went for I think it was a half hour walk, and the money up to about six thousand steps, which I'm but disappointed about it.
Yeah, if you start, you know, it's a bit like watching the toaster, you know, like when you start really counting them like that, you realize it is quite a lot of movement in the day. But at around about seven thousand, six hundred to ten thousand, that's that's around about the magic number.
So over that, sorry, what.
Is that magic numbers?
What's seven thousand, six hundred? Okay, yep, to ten thousand in that vicinity seems.
To be where the real gold is.
Over that it starts to sort of it peters off in terms of its ability to create any more goodness, I guess. So when they've looked at women, so they've done studies Journal American Medical Association. They looked at I think it was four four and a half thousand steps women that did four and a half thousand steps compared to their counterparts they did two thousand, five hundred, and there was a huge difference in mortality rates and disease rates in the ones and they were below right, So they're only doing four and a half thousand. So if you can't get seven thousand, six hundred, it doesn't mean that you're not you know, you shouldn't.
You shouldn't bother at all.
It's just that that's around about the magic number.
So is it the number of steps and moving? Would that be important in addition to because you'd be people who go to the gym who might they'll do a warm up, they'll be let's say they're in an office job and they go to the gym, but they're doing a weights regime, but they're not moving a lot. They do you know, five six sets eight five to twelve reps. I don't know. They're not ticking the box on the movement. Do they need to sort of is that something that people should be aware of, Like, it's very it's all very well that you can squad one hundred and twenty kiloys, but could you go for a two kilometer walk without being out of breath?
You're onto it him.
So the biggest thing with this is it's it's highly underrated. So we have when we look at our metabolism, about sixty to seventy percent of our metabolic rate is just at rest. So it's our muscle mass, it's our brain working, it's our heart working, it's our liver. So we've only got about thirty to forty percent leftover. That we can actually influence by what we do day to day. Now, one of the big reasons why weight training is so important is because muscle mass is considered part of our basic metabolism. So you know you've got good level of muscle mass when you're at rest, that's helping tick your metabolism over. Then we only have a couple of things left over. We have exercise activity, we have the thermic effect of eating, and we have non exercise activity, and then there's a little bit if you're hot or cold as well.
So when we look at that.
Basically, if we look at exercise, that has an ability to change the amount of metabolism turnover in a day by about ten to fifteen percent in most people. Your non exercise activity. So that's the people at fidget that are taking stairs, they're catching the bus so they're walking, and they're people that are physically active at work.
That can be up to thirty percent. Wow.
So if you think about that for a moment, someone that does a weight training session and nothing else and they work an office job, they can still have an extremely low energy turnover per day.
You have someone who.
Has an active job, they could actually be outstripping that person that's going to the gym. So there's a bit of give and take, and that's why we think about it in two ways.
We have planned.
Exercise and we have incidental and to be honest, they're both important.
I would love to say your cause on this as well, because there was a question Alex that I had for you, which was we haven't put it in the sort of an hour and my thinking for today, but it was actually, what are the easiest, you know, the easiest forms of exercise to get without an effort. But it seems like we're actually in a way covering that because if you can just get yourself moving, you don't have to be going for a run, you don't have to be getting on the treadmill, you just simply need to move. That seems like it's the first thing to tick if you want to be well and fit and healthy.
Absolutely, so we know that at any body weight, people are healthier if they move. So we're not saying that, you know, people that have got large rates of obesity are necessarily healthy, but they are definitely healthier if they are exercising. And that's the same at any body weight. So the number one thing that you need to tick off. To be healthy is moving every day? Doesn't need to be a gym, No, it doesn't. Gyms are only a phenomenon that have been around in the last twenty years.
We love your calls on this. Do you actually the first thing is as well? Do you count your steps and is that your first thing you try and set off or do you think or have you been one of those people? Possibly me, I've been running a lot exhips, stopped sabbing your ownder, the gym three times a week and outside of that, possibly need to do a bit more moving to be honest with you. But anyway, take your calls on it as well. If you've got any other questions for Alex Flint he I think he'll be able to help you. If you've got any questions about diet and exercise, to give us a call. Eight hundred and eighty ten eighty in text, also a nine nine. It's twenty two past four. Y's welcome back. We're taking calls about the ten thousand steps. Have you hit your ten thousand steps today? It sounds like you know what that should be your first goal ahead of getting to the gym and pumping all those weights. But let's see where we go with our calls.
Stuart, Hello, Hi Jim, how's are going?
God? This is Stuart that we know Stuart Nash, isn't it?
Yeah? Yeah? Yeah, Hey, Look, I think we don't simplify this too much. There's a guy called Peter Attire who is one of the world's leading experts on longevity. Difference between good health and longevity. I get that this is a heart sorry stand for an educated doctor and wellness guru. He says the big three things that will termin longevity are VO two max, muscle size, and muscle strength. So you know, don't confuse a fat bathart walking seven thousand steps you're going to be healthy. That's not true. I mean I try and do fifteen thousand steps a day, but I get to the gym five days a week as well.
But guys, we.
Start losing muscle mass really early on, and you know you've got to do if you're not doing, if you're not getting to the gym, then at least do some bodyweight exercises because we know what happens if you're over age to sixty five, if you fall over and break your American data. But pretty similar to here, i'd say you got a there's a very high chance the odd something like twenty five percent within two years you'll be dead because you lose your mobility. So walking is important, but just because you do ten thousand steps, it doesn't mean you're healthy. Guys and woman, you've got to get to the gym. You've got to keep those muscles working, you've got to get the strength, and you've got to get your Votwo max up.
Yeah, let's throw that over to Alex as well. Stay there, Stuart, There we go, he's on the mic.
Stuart, I can't fault you. You're one hundred percent on the money, absolutely right. I think probably the only thing that I would add to that is, you know, we've got to look at everyone's on a continuum and if there's there's people that are sitting at home and they're wondering where to start, then the right place to start is to get off of the off the couch and get moving. So Peter Attia is absolutely fantastic resource, as Stewart has said, for anyone out there that cares to look into him. So his actual stats are that if you are strong, so if you retain a good level of muscle mass, an easy way to do that is to measure your grip strength at any age, especially over the age of fifty or two hundred and fifty percent less likely to die wow from anything. Now that's anything, accidents, the whole lot.
If the stats for a standing effect, you'd notice, mate that there's almost a new study every month that says that exercise will overcome almost anything in terms of long diivity, good health. I mean, if you're going to sit on the couch and you know, drink coconut pie, that is not a resku of good health. We know that, and I get it. If you want to make it, start and start walking around the block, but don't leave it at walking around the brock. Keep keep exercising, keep pushing that, push it out further and further. I mean Scotty Stevens is the place of case. Now. He was a bat bastard, right, he really was.
I can tell you're not. I can tell you're not in politics and longer Stuart.
But he had a goal. He ended up running up to a mountains because he just started really slowly built up and has kept it all off. So diet's important, but exercise is vital to good health and for long and long.
I guess Stuart, you can understand how when you said it's about VO two max and muscle de incident such and such, there's a lot of people who would instantly switch off because it sounds high for looton, whereas ten thousand steps everyone can go, well, that's good, I can I can make sense and that my fine will tell me what I've done. Well, So you can understand that that's a good starting point for people, isn't it.
Well.
The bottom line is you've got to have some discipline. As mentioned eating pie and drinking coat, you're just never going to get there. So it does require taking some time out of your day putting some stuff in the diary. Unfortunate for blokes of sort of my age, there is always an excuse, oh, you know, I got kids, I'm too busy at work, or the wife wants me to spend time with it or something. But the thing is you've got to make time in your diary, and it's like anything. If you don't, you'll never do it, and you'll leaned up a seck old bastard. That is not a good way to spend the last twenty years of your life.
How often do you go to the gym, do you say five? How long are you out of the job?
Do you say about in between an hour and our ten? And then I do some cardoo in the morning and about an hour an hour ten at the gym, maybe three or four five times a week, and then I walk. I would walk ten to fourteen thousand steps. I mean, I take this very very seriously, and I always have because you know, we all know people who live to eighty, but they're sick from fifty, right, And you know, if you want to live to eighty or ninety or pick a figure, the aim is to live to you know, seventy nine and three quarters, to get crooked for a month and then die. You know, you don't want to be sort of langer the last ten twenty years, like exactly. But there is a and I know people may listen to this and it's all too hard. Well, if that's your approach, it's never going to end well for you. I've got to You've got to put aside some time and be disciplined.
Still.
One of the things that we talk about so at my gym, we encourage people to train five to six days per week. Some of those are intense. Some of those are very easy days. But you know, the most important thing is movement. But one of one of the terms that we use is actually just called building building your war chest. So you know, if you think about the greater fitness and the greater strength that you can build and then you know at some point it's going to start coming backwards. But if you can continue to build that through your fifties and your sixties, then as it slowly does drop away, you know where you are compared to the average person is so much greater. So back to what you're talking about with statistics, and you know what the average eighty year old looks like. Well, if you've spent the last twenty years investing time and exercise in aerobic you know VO two max and strength and muscle mass, then you're in a much greater position to be able to hold your ability to get around, to move and you know, to to enjoy quality of life as you age.
Hey, just week we go to other callers step but one last question, was there a time for you where it hit you? Because you know, everyone goes through phases in their life when they're in and out of the exercise, and maybe not that dedicated. But I know that you've you've you are serious about what you do. When did you get serious? And was there something that motivated it for you?
Matte? I've been rememberment for thirty nine years and you know I still do your like force it to one hundred kg times teen rips on the bench brish ah.
Now, okay, what's your what's your what's your best dead lift? I just have to get that number. Then we've got to go.
I well, in the day about two hundred and twenty kg's But I don't did lift anymore because you know, when I was a young fellow, I pushed this really hard. But it's easy to do. And the thing is you don't have to start in your twenties. If you know, if you're if you're reach off and go shivers, things are a bit roughier. Get to the gym. You will be astounded and how quickly you build muscle and build strength. But it's imperative you do it.
Thanks, you're a great role model.
Thanks, Jarrett.
I appreciate you, mate, much appreciate it.
Um.
Okay, that's quite a big that's quite a big dead lift. Just curious, look we got it. We got more calls to take and we're going to do them right now. Matthew, Hello, good day guys.
Me it's a hard each to follow, but I'm a forty nine year old part time truck driver these days, as Tim knows, and also mornings in the nursery, so that's quite physical. But I find six thousand is what I aim for. It feels like I've accomplished something if I do. But I've also started cycling for my knees, just to get those moving and build strength in my legs. Yeah, I just thought at this stage it's probably alike and manage. I know these excuses and reasons why, but mine is more like reasons I don't really have time or the gym is not close, so I do what I can. But yeah, is that sort of good enough at the stage of my life, you know, pushing fifty or so.
Matthew, What I would say is that you know you are very very close to that. So six thousand steps, as we just talked about, Tim and I were talking about before, you know, anything is better than nothing. So literally, you know, if you're doing two thousand steps, that's better than one thousand. If you can get yourself somehow to that seven thousand, six hundred. There is a lot of a lot of data out there to show that that will make a real difference in your health. Starting that cycling is a really great thing because when we look at this, we've got non exercise activity, so that's just daily movement, and that is stuff that we should be doing. But then on top of that, actually a little bit like what Stuart was just saying beforehand, we need to build things like our aerobic fitness and our muscular strength. So you ride a few hills, do a few cycle workouts a week and you're well on your way. Really, we need to get a minimum of three programmed or planned sessions of training in a week, so whether that's cycling, maybe it's some body weight exercise as well, but those six thousand steps a day, it's a fantastic start. And then put some more programmed exercises cycling maybe three days a week.
On top of that that, how far would you suggest I would cycle like fifteen half an hour you know minimum?
Yeah, so you need to be getting your heart rate up over sixty percent of its maximum, which I mean lots of us wear wearables, whether it's a watch or you get a chest strap now above sixty percent of its maximum. Really for a minimum of ninety minutes per week, that's better off if it's broken up. So you're talking probably half an hour three times a week as your minimum, and that's of having your heart rate up, you know.
So fiar if you're rolling down the hills, you might have to.
If you live at the top of a very high mountain in order to simply hop on your bike and coast down, that's probably not Yeah, you're going to go back up.
Thanks, just on that one for Matthew. You know, like it's the age old like do I have time? The biggest problem is there's no one that gets to the end of their life in wish they didn't have a little bit more time on the plate. So you know, it's one of those things where a small amount of extra time per week can make a massive difference to you long jo that's right.
I've found for myself that I found that if it was some I think it was a GP had written a book about ways to live Longer, and he said he talked about setting exercise goals that don't give you an unpleasant experience. You have to find a way of exercising that you enjoy, because if you go out and you just going punish yourself, it's going to put you off for another six months again. And that was his thing. And I loved the goal that this guy said. He said, when you go and exercise, just go to be lightly puffing, and I thought that sounded like such a pleasant thing. It's just like you're just a little bit short of breath, but you're not You're not busting a gup. And if you just keep doing that, then you suddenly your capacity improves and then all of a sudden, it's about get in the Habit.
Doesn't it, It absolutely is, And look, there is a joy in exercising. And once you get to a point where you're reasonably fit and you've you know, you've got some feedback on yourself. Hey, look I've put this time in, all of a sudden, I'm starting to see some results. It's very very motivating, and it's one of those things where you know, actually what we're talking about with Scotti Stevenson, you know, he didn't go out and try and run an oldra marathon in his first day. He was just probably trying to look after his health a little bit more so, he's found joy and he's you know, he's found accomplishment in long distance training. Some people get to that point. For other people, it always becomes a chore. And that's why we've got to remember there's an easy way around this, which is, you know, you don't have to be perfect to make a difference.
If we have people that are just literally.
Moving, yeah, okay, maybe they're not going to have the gold standard in terms of what's possible, but it is significantly better than doing nothing right.
We're gonna take more calls in just a moment. It's twenty two minutes to five. News Talk said b Yeah, yes's welcome back weekend collect And my guess is Alex Flint. He's a trainer at Body Talk. That's t O r QUI actually, and by the way, Alex has done a program for me. He also did that unpleasant thing, Alex of scanning my body to tell about the body fault of God. I put that information to one side.
Chris.
It's kind of a confronting thing to do, isn't it.
But it is confronting, but sometimes it's exactly what you need.
But that's one of the things you I mean, you've got a gym in Newmark. We'll just mention this before we take our next caller, But so you've you've got a gym in New Market. But you do actually design programs for people remotely where you can monitor what they're doing and they make their choices about what they want to do. And that's the thing, isn't It's about getting the right getting the right exercise sort of regime and schedule and program, isn't it.
Yeah?
Absolutely, Yeah. So I have people in Germany, in the US, in Australia all over the place work with remotely, and you know, the recipe varies depending on who they are where they train, but largely it's the same stuff.
Yeah, sounds fascinating and as if this was a TV program, you'd all be noticing the results because I'm.
Just ripped, just got a couple more things to work on I've just been talking about in the Greg, Hello.
Hello, how are you good?
Thanks?
Hello? Alex?
Okay, Greg, I'm I'm My wife's just recently done the joass On and I've sort of I used to be a traslate in my late twenties, early series and thought i'd get back into it now. I recently would to fit, but you know, to see what my sets are now, I'm twenty five ki here, I'm one hundred kilos now than what I was when I was doing tras ons. But the stats on my foot but say I'm averaging some thing twousand sets a day and and I've got a normal rest heart rate of fifty and no blood pressure issues. What what I'm sort of asking this? I think I'm reasonably fit, but overweight because my body just got used. Now I'm a builder, right, so I'm still on the tools. Well, I just saysing twenty five thousand steps, so I still do a lot of exercise because my body just literally got use to me being on my seat all day and I can't get this heavy and sort of running in to do a triath on. So how would I lose weight with all the exercise I'm literally doing at work all ready?
Yeah, okay, let's throw it. I'm thinking diet. But anyway, Karen Alex, what do you reckon?
Yeah?
Greg, first of all, it's great that you're thinking about getting back into doing some duathon and also you're on the money when you talk about the fact that being really heavy and getting back into endurance exercise.
There's a lot of perils.
In that because joints, especially as you're a little bit older, you know your joints can really take a pounding. Guys, it's calves is a big one as well, but ankle's, knees and so forth. So you do want to try and think about minim the impact in the exercise you do. This is just from an injury perspective. I'm not talking about weight loss, but you know, spend more time on the bike. Soft surfaces when you do start to do a little bit of running. But the weight loss side of it. If you're you know, if you're a builder, you're one of the few people you know, you're an outlawer and that you're still actually active during your work hours.
We do get efficient.
Our bodies are amazingly efficient at starting to down regulate the amount of energy we need per day if we do the same thing over and over again, so we find ways to minimize to become economical. I guess you'd say in the amount of energy you use, so I would one hundred.
Percent say that.
The first thing you probably need to do is get a body composition assessment. Just figure out how much body fat you're carrying how much of that as muscle and how much is body fat?
And then it more so.
Likely is actually to start with a look at what nutritionally you can do to start losing weight. We know that exercise probably has the ten to fifteen percent effect on our metabolism per day, so you know, it is very very easy to eat back those three to six hundred calories that we burn during that exercise hour. But if we look at dropping, you know, changing the way that we eat slightly, that can make a massive difference without us, you know, even putting their running shoes on. So I would say that it's probably food that you've got to address to start with to get that weight down.
I'm sort of trying to get that balance because at the end of a working day, I'm necked if I don't eat, you know, So if I'm trying to cut back on the calories to lose a bit away, that's trying to get through the workday before it even start the exercise at the end of the day that I'm sort of struggling with.
So, Greg, if you are looking if you've added if you're eating the same amount of food and now you've added some exercise on top, in on.
Top, assess that.
So take your weight daily over seven days, take the average weight, and then look at that seven days later. So you need to as a male. It's easy for us females. Hormones mean that weight fluctuates a lot, but as a male, you should be able to take your weight every morning. After seven days, take the seven day average. Now, if you're eating the same amount of food all the time, the next week, have a look and see if your seven day average is down half a kilo.
If it is, you're doing a good job.
If it is not, then you just need to adjust your calories down a little bit. It doesn't have to be a huge difference, and that's where a lot of people go wrong. They cut in half what they're eating. We're not saying that you shouldn't eat. You absolutely should. You need to eat plenty of food to support what you do in your work, your energy levels and then your.
Exercise as well.
So it only needs to be a slight reading and it might simply be some different foods.
I think writing down what you're eating is actually part of the discipline too, because most people don't realize, Oh god, I didn't realize they had that handful of nuts at three o'clock, and then I had that at five o'clock and then you know, I'm talking for myself actually, be.
Honest, Yeah, it's very true. Like it, Greg, what I'd say is like just doing keeping a food dory. I'd be more than happy to help you. But it's obviously sort of something outside of the realms of here, but it probably would be the biggest thing that you would do. But as I say, have a look, if you've just added exercise on, it might be enough to start the needle moving down with your weight. If not, then yeah, you'll have to look at either doing more exercise again or just reducing food slightly only a little bit.
Thanks for cool, Greg.
Just an encouraging text before we take a next coller, just saying, sixty year old female have always had good natural level of fitness and walked reasonably regularly, but was lacking strength. Joined the gym a month ago, already feeling the benefits, saw muscles, but feels good and sleeping. Well, it's never too late, which that's the message, isn't it.
It absolutely is, and especially for women, strength training is hugely important for a number of reasons. Our bone density. Women's bone density starts to go down, and muscle mass we lose it at a rate or not. It really is an elixir. It's for all of us, but women especially if there's one thing that you should be doing, especially after that sort of menopausal eraror you're going through that and post menopause. Strength training as a real ris.
Is that strength training asn't like doing a you know, whether you can still got to classes where you've got a few weights and things like that, is that sort of thing is that need to be more serious weights.
It needs to be a way that you can progressively overload your body over time.
So a structured program. Look, if you can't get to a gym, it doesn't mean.
As opposed to a pump class with you know, the sort of think I'm thinking with it, you might be carrying a couple of dumbbells and doing multitude of movements, not cutting out on Again, a.
Pump class is a great way to expend some energy and burn some calories. It's not really going to fit the bill long term for you to be getting the strength training benefits. Unfortunately, it's great and I'm not saying you shouldn't do it, but it's not really progressive.
Kalerships who've got the habit of going and they love the social side of it as well, and so many people to relate to that. How often do they need to step out and actually do it? Be in the gym maybe lifting some weights a couple of times a week.
More minimum two times per week.
You can probably get away with forty minutes if you're very determined. You're not scrolling on your phone, you're not having minute to ninety seconds to two minute rest breaks, and you're getting stuck in. And the main thing with strength training is pick big compound exercises, push ups, bench presses, squats, don't take too much rest, but week write down what you're doing and try and get a little bit more in whether it's more reps, more sets.
And actually don't check your Instagram feed because that one minute rest turns into five minutes and then you've got people like me going, have you get finished for that machine yet? Anyway, we'll be back in a moment. Mike's next new stalks The B News Talks The B My guest is Alex Flint from body Talk. By the way, it's body talk dot Co. Dottie and z if you want to go and check it out and some great resources there, and yeah, if you want to get in touch with Alex Sora's.
Team, talk is in momentum to r que E t U r que T you O r que what's wrong?
And they can't spell right. Let's keep moving, Mike, Hello.
Good Ey.
I was very interesting half rates. I'm seventy three, have a very physical job, and I didn't know how hard I should push my heart rates up. I'm a farrier. I shoe horses, which is very physical. It can jump up to one hundred and forty five on a bad one. And compare Rrison, if I'm miing the lawn for an hour, it won't go over one hundred and teen or one hundred and twenty. So how far can you push it out and keep it up? At my age plus I serve a lot too.
Yeah, Mike, So, first of all, congratulations on the fact that you're staying active. That's fantastic at seventy three, that you're still still doing that is inspirational. In terms of heart rate. It is something which is a little varied based on a number of things. One of them is how active have you been your whole life. For me to give you an actual guideline, generally we say two twenty minus your age is around about what your maximum heart rate is. So if we figure that out, that's almost where you're getting to. Is that safe or not? Well, we know that the more active you are probably the more chance is it pushing your heart rate up? Is fine, but it's a bit of a medical question to be honest, Mike. So one forty five for you might be fine, but to be honest, it would require you to go to your GP, potentially have a cardiologist, treadmill tist just to make sure that's kosher. But by the sounds of things that the life you lead, there's probably a good chance.
So that's okay.
But yeah, unfortunately it's one of those it's it's difficult for me to say. So what we do know is there's two major zones of heart rate which are really great for us. One is zone two, which is about sixty five to seventy five percent of you or maximum heart rate, so we could figure that out. And then the other is is that really high intensity that's you know, getting close to that that two twenty minus your age that we want to do in small amounts, and we need to make sure that your ticker and your blood vessels are in good shape.
Is that a reason? That's a caveat we should put out for people who've been couch potatoes and in middle aged it's like, maybe go and see a GP and get a check up before you suddenly go pound the pavement for a you until your death's door.
Yeah, yeah, so Mike, it could be one hundred percent safe, but it's unfortunately, I just it's very hard for me to say, you know, I don't know what your insides look like.
Yeah, actually've got one here, just a quick one. I'm close to sixty nine years old, female, not a gym person. Run four or five times a week, train for marathon, swim three km's three times a week as a gym is still something I uhould do. They're pretty impressive xation regime, what social bit ships. You'll be doing weights as well.
It's it's tough when you've got you know, there's only so much time, and you think, well, how much time should I put into my well being? It really depends. But the main thing is we must maintain muscle mass. So there's actually a way that we can look at muscle mass like we can your body mass index, so we all have we know that BMI like if we're over twenty five for BMI your high times of weight squared that you know we considered overweight. We can actually do a very similar one with skeletal muscle mass. So if we know if your muscle mass is within normal range, then that's great. The other thing that we need to make sure of is that your strength matches that. So you could be very well endurance trained but have low strength, and that can be something that would mean yes, you need to get in the gym.
Get in touch with the folks at body talk dot cod and see. Gosh time flies. When need about fifteen seconds to say goodbye, Well, we'll have to talk nutrition next time. Alex.
Absolutely, i'd love to, so would I.
Hey, and I sorry if we didn't get to your calls or text, but Alex will be back and next time you get on that blowers straight away. As soon as I give out the number, we'll be back with Ammana Morale for Smart Money. Next it is three minutes to five News Talks.
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