Benefits of walking 1000+ more steps
Good morning, turtle meth nation. How are we doing this morning? Again, I'm back with some studies today because I think it's important. When new studies come out, we have looked into them, don't we? And we see what we can learn from them.
Speaker 1:So the first thing, first study was to look at French fries every day. What would happen if you had a French fries every day? The the university that did the study wanted to see actually because it was observational studies being like the more potatoes people consume the least a week in. This is like correlation or causation, you know, if people are eating a lot of potatoes, it might be a lot of this and that. So remember correlation does not equal causation.
Speaker 1:So someone can show you a graph saying sugar into going up and then weight going up. And then you might think well it's sugar's fault, but actually what comes with our sugar is more fat intake, more calories, maybe a worse lifestyle, all this stuff, so we can't say it causes it directly. Now, very simple study, not the best to be honest, it wasn't too long, thirty days. There are three groups, one group would eat 300 calories more day of almonds, one group would eat 300 calories more day of french fries, and one group would eat 300 calories more per day of french fries with herbs and spices because they thought that might help with digestion slow it down blah blah blah blah blah. Anyway, here's what it's let's cut to the chase.
Speaker 1:Let's not mess about. Almond group thirty days gained a pound. The french fry group, thirty days gained half a pound. The french fries with herb and spice gained one pound. So you know they didn't really track what these people were eating much.
Speaker 1:The study's not great. But when they were given, you know, the bad food, the french fries every day, it didn't magically gain all the weight versus a healthy food we would dub almonds. So, this is another this is another kind of study to just back the fact that like no food in itself is gonna make you fat, gain weight, stuff like that. It's your total consumption of calories over time. This is very simple.
Speaker 1:So like we need to stop and, you know, people go, you'll always face these people, you can't eat McDonald's, you can't have that, you can't have a dessert if you're just trying to lose weight, you can't do this, you can't do that. They think that one food is a difference and it's absolutely silly. So this study just again proves the point that it's not about the actual food it's about the total calories your lifestyle lead and blah blah blah blah. Are you with me guys? Are we gonna eat potatoes today?
Speaker 1:Let's go. Okay, another study to share. The benefit of an extra thousand thousand steps a day. In short, big difference. Researchers calculated looking into more than 28,000 adults of all ages that every thousand daily step increase was associated so listen to this, every thousand step increase was associated with a twelve percent lower risk of death from all causes.
Speaker 1:Right? They analyze a subset of group by age people 70 and at a thirteen percent lower risk and these findings even account for BMI, alcohol consumption, smoking status, pre existing health conditions and step intensity. So you want to add those steps guys, you think adding a thousand steps today is nothing, we start small but the benefits are huge like I said yesterday losing 510% of your body weight isn't a huge number where you compare to diet culture but that's where you get a lot of health benefits. Same as steps you try and do 4,000 steps a day, You're like, oh Scott you say 6,000 at least I'm only doing four. See, well try and get four and a half, try and get five.
Speaker 1:We don't have to jump up and this study even showed that there is limited evidence for benefits beyond 12,000 steps a day health wise. Mean it's probably because they don't have much data on it but you know I say 6,000 that's when you start seeing a big up uptick in benefits 6,000 to 12,000 is the Goldilocks zone of steps, I'd say. That's why 10,000 steps has this big number. That's actually a marketing thing by some Japanese company or something. But anyway, you know, try and add a thousand steps today.
Speaker 1:So whatever you did yesterday, your task today is to add a thousand steps to what you did yesterday and that's it. Maybe that's your one big thing today. 1,000 steps more today and let me know how you get on because listen, it all adds up. It all adds up. Steps are so underrated, isn't it?
Speaker 1:I mean people, I think it is more spoken about now in fitness and all that, so nice walking, walking with a podcast, walking with an audiobook. Just it just sorts your day out. Like, if you feel a bit frustrated, I notice it all the time when I feel frustrated working long hours, stuck in my own head, getting frustrated, all this stuff, and you're like, oh, let's go for a walk. You go for a walk, even a short one to shop and back or down the park. You know, you come back, you got a new new wind of energy, basically.
Speaker 1:New new wind of energy is the word. Second wind. I think it's important that we know that it does come from just going out in nature having a walk I'd say. So guys go for a walk but you don't have to hit x number just try and do a bit more over time and what fits your lifestyle. Right, because some of us work jobs were very sedentary and it's hard to get up, we have to do something about it, we have to be prompted without a prompt, we don't take action.
Speaker 1:You're not going to magically have an moment every day like every few hours to say go for a walk when you're busy with work, with other stuff, we have to have a prompt via the phone notification, attach it to an anchor behavior, whatever it may be we need to do that because if we're not doing it we're not gonna it's not gonna magically happen. And let me tell you your boss doesn't care if you walk or not. He or she whatever will want you to just work, work, work, don't care about your mental health really and we might do a tick box exercise yeah blah blah blah. But it's up to you, you've got to take control of this. You know people like work long hours and say oh I've got so much work to do and like the world isn't gonna end and the job isn't gonna end if you just don't overwork yourself that extra hour or you skip your, like you skip your, if you skipped in the time at work it's your fault, it is because you have to start standing up for yourself now.
Speaker 1:So this is my hour I have for lunch right. I'll eat for fifteen minutes, ten minutes, but I'm gonna spend the rest of it moving, walking, going outside. You say, oh, there's so much to do. It's always, that's always the excuse. Even I catch myself doing all the time.
Speaker 1:I catch myself doing it all the time. And I also, know, Ryan might be like, you know, go to gym now and I'd be like, Oh, I got so much work to do. But I'm like, I could go to gym now. You know, we fall into a trap and I got so much to do. And then we go to the gym and so we come back, we have even more productivity.
Speaker 1:We actually do better work when we're not just stuck in all day. There's a technique I mentioned called the Pomodoro Technique and you work for twenty five minutes on one task and nothing else. You literally can't do anything else. Like if you don't know what to do on the task, have to just sit down silence and you do twenty five minutes, and then you get a five minute break, and you do a few of them a day, happy days, right? But yeah, I think there's a mindset shift that needs to happen.
Speaker 1:We need to start building steps into our days. Has to be a lifestyle, not something you just do for a bit. Same with all this stuff. And I noticed yesterday actually, I was loading a van with stuff, go back to Wales in the warehouse and I remember like loading a van thinking, years and years ago I'd have been like, oh why am I doing this? Why am I loading the van?
Speaker 1:Why am I moving boxes? But then I was like, you know what, this is class neat. This is good neat. I am burning calories. I am moving.
Speaker 1:Am, you know, doing a job here. And I felt like I'll do it. Give me another box. Give me another box, man. I'll keep going.
Speaker 1:So there's definitely a mindset shift when we realise that the small things that we do day to day are the most important factors, the steps, the neat, the taking the stairs, the walk into the shop, parking further away, all that stuff that we all know about the little tweaks we can do to our days. That's the stuff that changes our lives. Not the big PB deadlift, Emma Bates calling you at 100 kilograms deadlift, one kilogram, 180 kilograms. You know, it's not the big huge achievements that we do in the gym like doing you know it's amazing right doing a 10 ks run, marathon, doing these big PBs but if you stop after doing those achievements you've just done something for the end goal and it's not really been something baked into your lifestyle. It would be better if you didn't even done do the 10 ks or the PB and you just kept those habits going where you did still go for walks instead if you wanted to be a runner you just did the runs and you did it weight training you know.
Speaker 1:That's way more important than some ex trophy and all that stuff. We've got to get out of that mindset. So just be content with little, right? That's the most important lesson from today's voice notes. Be content with little.
Speaker 1:Some of you are listening you are full steam ahead smashing it. Some of you are listening you, you may be a bit on the back foot you're like well seeing everyone making progress and remember there's no love for yourself in comparison. Once you start comparing you start bringing in someone's better than you or you have to be above someone else because once you think someone's better than you and you're comparing, right, you've created this larger system and the the dark reality is the larger system means that you were above someone else because you might look at someone else less fortunate and go, well, I'm not eating all of them. You know? And that's it's the game we play.
Speaker 1:Well, I wanna be there, but it's not there. None of this good. We shouldn't be in comparison whatsoever. I mean, it's not easy for you to say, try it mate. Obviously, our automatic thoughts try and jump to these things and try and compare makes feelings, know, make us do something else blah blah blah.
Speaker 1:But we have to catch, we have to observe Because if we start comparing, we're in for a rough ride. So there's no comparison, that is you, then there's other people, then on this journey, we're all trying to improve our health and fitness. That's the common goal. We're all trying improve ourselves. But we don't look at each other in comparison because then there's no love for yourself, there's no seeing what is, which is what you've got to do today because you're thinking oh should have done this and I wish I this, wish I that.
Speaker 1:Just literally work in from nonsense. I wish I was her, wish I did you're not. You're not her, you're not him. Pointless, I wish I was Alan Schwarzenegger, but Scott you know Alan Schwarzenegger, yeah, wish I was. I mean what is that conversation?
Speaker 1:What is that gonna do for me? Make me feel terrible? Wish I was aunt. I wish I was this. I wish I was that.
Speaker 1:Of course, we fall into these traps sometimes, but we can't let those those silly traps pull us down. You are you, and you can only do what you can do today and you can only improve slightly from what you were doing before. Now see whatever you've got your day to day ahead of you, right, you can make the most of the day ahead, you can make the most of your day based on your circumstances. You can't change your genetics, you can't change where you were born, you can't change your height, you can't change any of that. But you can change your attitude in this moment and you can change the voluntary action.
Speaker 1:Either do, the next move you do is either a positive one in your day or it's going be a negative one. And that's what we say, what's the next positive move we're all going to do today? Is it going to look at our steps, I'm going to beat that today, go for a walk? Is it going to be I haven't done workouts, I want to do strength training because I know the benefits, I'm going to get that workout done today? Is that I haven't tracked my macros I need to get back on I'm gonna track my breakfast 100%.
Speaker 1:Or is it just look I am on a roll, I'm feeling good and I'm gonna make sure that my momentum doesn't self sabotage me by thinking I've already reached these goals we're set and then I'm gonna slow down. Because we don't, we need to slow down or speed up. We just take it one day at a time. That's the pace we go. The present moment.
Speaker 1:So guys, your days. Enjoy your happy days. So get your one big thing done. Remember just to get a thousand steps in more today, that's your task and you can do another one big thing as well. So your one big thing wherever that may be and then the task today, add a thousand steps to that step count and let me know how it goes.
Speaker 1:But I'll speak to you all on the radio.
