New Study: Modern Hunter Gatherers
Welcome to the one day at a time podcast where we forget about yesterday. We don't worry about tomorrow. It's what are we going to do today? This all matters because you've only ever had or will ever have the fantastic twenty four hours a day you're about to embark on. Hopefully this episode is going to give you some daily dose of wisdom that you can take action on today to improve your life.
Speaker 1:And remember, all it takes is one day at a time. Good morning, quick one for you today guys so I'm going to get you off your bed or your chair and get moving today okay right now if it's raining go for a walk doesn't matter if you're on your walk well done but I'm gonna talk today about a study a new study done on modern hunter gatherers they're called the Hadza tribe in Tanzania okay 15% of their diet is pure sugar granted from honey still pure sugar but there's no diabetes in these people and they rarely gain weight during their adult lives awesome the thing is they actually spend more time doing nothing sedentary activities than we do an hour more per day in fact than we do in the industrialized nations especially The US they mentioned in the study. She's like well you know moving is obviously important like how they're not moving as much as us what's going on. So it's important really to look at this from a few different angles like they'll do movements per day right so they'll go obviously go and kill animals they go go and find plants and then honey and steal honey from the bees run away from them god knows how long they have to run away before they get stung But they're basically doing about seventy five minutes to one hundred and ten minutes a day of kind of moderate to vigorous activity doing that.
Speaker 1:And then the rest of the time is just sedentary. We probably don't do an hour of vigorous activity per day. We don't do it on average, but we might do like three or four times a week if we go to the gym, obviously. But these scientists are like, right, let's have a look what's going on here then. What is going on?
Speaker 1:They obviously do more exercising us. Okay, in general, like every day they got to do their exercise to go and get their food, of course, right. But when they looked at their sedentary behaviour, it looks a lot different to ours, so different that the researchers actually changed the word from sedentary to non ambulatory. I don't know if that's right guys. So instead of you know sitting on the couch watching Netflix on their back spending much of their time just doing that they are squatting, kneeling, sitting on the floor with minimal support you know we've got back support and chairs right so they want to know like okay let's have a look does that offer an advantage that activate more muscles than we do right so the study, followed 28 of them had some men and women spent moving non moving and transitioning from one to the other.
Speaker 1:Like I said earlier about their vigorous to moderate activity decent seventy five minutes one hundred and two minutes sorry, both men and women, were basically non ambulatory for ten hours a day versus nine hours like I said earlier and the transitions okay the transitions they were around 30 they do about 30% more transitions per day than the typical office worker right so that's quite a significant number And they were using EMG to measure leg muscle activation and stuff like that. So chair sitting requires the least muscle activation, squatting requires the most. So we know squatting. We don't squat at all until it's leg day. These guys are squatting every day.
Speaker 1:Think about it, every day they're kneeling and squatting. We only do that when we work on once a week and that's if we do legs. I'm speaking to any guide that's listening that doesn't do legs, no squatting at all. So like well when do we squat? When was the last time you squatted?
Speaker 1:When you go and pick someone off the floor you probably, we all probably do that wrong as well. Probably don't bother squatting to go down. Think about it. We're not doing any of these little things, and they all add up. Like, I've mentioned in voice mail before I've done a, slideshow presentation for turtles as well in this about, you know the difference in, energy calorie burn from like laying on our back to just sitting on sitting up.
Speaker 1:Laying on your back versus sitting up you burn 4% more calories sitting up. If you sit up and just fidget you burn like 54% more calories right. If you are laying on your back just standing up and not moving you burn 19% more calories than laying on your back. If you are standing up fidgeting you burn 94% more calories than, laying on your back. Think of that that's ridiculously different but these guys are doing even more activity when they're doing like they're not just fidgeting they're utilizing muscles they're activating their core and their legs and their glutes and their back, obliques and stuff like that.
Speaker 1:They're doing way more transitions than us but the transitions are actually using you know bigger muscle groups and activated muscles we don't activate. And that's probably one of the main reasons that they're much healthier than us in general because they're actually using you know if you've heard that quote, if you don't use it, you lose it. And it's quite there's a truth to that. Like there is a truth to that. Like you can, you know, muscle can atrophy, like your muscle can go if it's not being used.
Speaker 1:You know, when you're doing workouts and stuff like that, you're gaining muscle, you stop working out for eight to twelve weeks flat out, yeah you're gonna start losing muscle, not using it. Thing is if you use it a bit though you maintain it, right? So the important element of this is just to show you that the it's actually amazing. It's actually an amazing piece of information because when we think back to the hunter gatherers and stuff like that, we think, their life must have been so much different to ours. They must have been so different.
Speaker 1:No wonder the health like nothing was happening. In reality, the differences aren't huge. It's the small things that make the difference. So they still, you know, we can spend an hour a day exercising, they can spend a day chasing for food. They're gonna eat meat, we eat meat, they're eating fruits and berries and nuts, we're eating fruits and berries and nuts, they're eating honey, we don't have sugar.
Speaker 1:Their carb intake is quite high 65% ours is quite like forty fifty percent of our daily calories. Right it's the small things that make a difference and we can we got so much power over that like if you think about in in a way how we can utilize this information is if you know and if you know can accept with me, so Scott, I accept the the small things, the transitions I'm doing from standing to sitting to moving and make sure if I'm, you know, I might sit on the floor for a bit, get up, use my muscles more, you know, sit up without support. I guess my back and sit up upright and use my muscles. If I'm that's gonna make a huge difference in my health, accept it and I can do it instead of thinking, is that really gonna do anything? All right, so few things.
Speaker 1:If you're taking a phone call always stand up taking a phone call move about use your body move about right. Every time you complete the task stand up drink more water but make sure you got to go somewhere to get the water. Refill small cups makes forces you to get up and go and refill her up or something like that. Drink from a glass if that if that's easier. Put a timer on your phone every twenty minutes you're gonna stand up for a minute.
Speaker 1:Every hour you go and do some posture exercises like go against the wall and spin up your head back and you put your body back against the wall you tuck your chin in get that alignment of the spine do that for a few minutes okay. Do that. If you're sitting down watching Netflix, can you stand up for if you're watching it? Like, you know, think of ways that you can replicate what they're doing. If you're watching shows, TV shows on Sunday for hours, like you use that time to stretch whilst watching like you can do a lot of stretches and stuff and be comfortable.
Speaker 1:Makes sense? So that's what the difference is and it's minuscule. Our bodies don't like it when we don't do when we have little muscle activity right. We hate it. We need to be using the small muscles and that's how we do it.
Speaker 1:That's how we do it. So make sure you do like you know squat. So squatting act like again squatting is what activists the most, the stuff they were doing and sitting down the least. So got sitting on the chairs the least. So you got to think like you know now there's excuses for us to do some squats.
Speaker 1:I know some members when we're a one to one coaching when the kettle is boiling they would do like 20 squats until the kettle boil you can do them fast or slow. Think about things where you have to do a few squats down to the floor kneeling you go into a yogi squat maybe stretch left to right. Think of ways every day that you can incorporate that like what tasks, if you read Atomic Habits, it's called habit stacking. How can we habit stack some body weight squats and just hold it down, move about and activate those muscles? How can we get them in?
Speaker 1:That's your task. But the first thing to do is go for a walk because walking is awesome for all this stuff anyway. So you need to go and walk. And then come back and then set the time or whatever it is. Get today, plan how you're gonna integrate this new information because this, you know, could potentially be life changing.
Speaker 1:So that's it hopefully I've given you a kick up the ass to go and, just be a bit more active utilising muscles. I'll be back tomorrow with another study, again study week this week. If you want to know more studies let me know and I can keep going with these types of stuff as well. Feedback's always welcome on these voice notes guys. I'm trying to do as much as I can to help you stay on the straight and narrow every day but remember, do remember that today is the only focus.
Speaker 1:So whilst we're saying you've to do this every day, just just do it for today. That's it. If you can do it for today, could do it for tomorrow. If you can do it for tomorrow, you can do it another day. That's simple as that.
Speaker 1:But that's what we build. So think one day at a time, that's it. Think of it today, have a good day. Yesterday's gone. It's a new day today.
Speaker 1:Track your macros. Happy days. The rain will go away hopefully one day. And, yeah. Thanks, everyone.
Speaker 1:I'll, speak to you tomorrow. And that's it. Thank you for listening to the one day at a time podcast with your host, Golf Leer. Hopefully, you understood something I said. I hope that some wisdom kind of distilled through into your mind, and I want you to now action it today.
Speaker 1:I don't want you to think about tomorrow. I don't want you to think about yesterday. I don't want you to think about leaving a review on this podcast. I don't want you to think about going to another website. What I want you to do is as soon as this podcast ends, you will take action and make the most of today.
Speaker 1:Ground yourself today. Follow the one day at a time philosophy and your life will change.
