Exercise is Medicine! Learn about the benefits of exercise and how there is more than the benefit of physical appearance. Join me with Casey Nichols, founder, owner and trainer of Valley Fitness Kickboxing in Glendale, AZ. For more details on Valley Fitness Kickboxing visit: https://valleyfitnesskickboxing.com/ and sign up for a free class!!! Let them know you learned about them on this podcast.
Welcome to Physician Heal Thyself, the podcast empowering you to take a whole person approach to your wellbeing, spirit, soul, and body. Join me your host, Dr. Ana Lara, a naturopathic, doctor, entrepreneur, and a servant of Jesus Christ. We are not just a body. We are spirit and soul. It’s time to integrate medicine and spirituality into our healing. Let’s get started. Hey everyone. Welcome back to Physician Heal Lay Self, the podcast. I’m Dr. Lara, and today I have a very, very special guest. Casey Nichols is going to be joining me. He is the founder and owner of Valley Fitness Kickboxing here in Arizona. We’re going to talk about today about the importance of exercise and how exercise is a form of medicine, and so please help me welcome Casey.
Casey Nichols:
Hi. How you doing? Thanks for having me on. I appreciate
Dr. Ana Lara:
It. Thank you. I’m so excited to have you here. I know we’ve had a lot of conversations at the gym after our hard workout, and I’ve always told you how impactful going to your gym was. For me personally. I started going to the gym in November, 2020. Yeah, it’s been a long time during
Casey Nichols:
Covid. Yeah, it’s a Long time.
Dr. Ana Lara:
And I wasn’t even looking really to go kickboxing anywhere. I remember exactly the day. It was a Saturday evening. I was just laying at home and I looked at a Facebook ad and it was Valley Fitness Kickboxing. I inquired the next Monday I was there and in the middle of the class I knew I’m going to be making this my gym. That’s
Casey Nichols:
Awesome. I love that. I love that.
Dr. Ana Lara:
That’s great. It was hard. Yeah. This is like the best trainer I’ve ever had. Thank you very much. He will kick your butt.
Casey Nichols:
That is true. I will.
Dr. Ana Lara:
You will. And I like that. I appreciate that about you because that’s what makes a good trainer, right? You’re going to push us.
Casey Nichols:
Yeah. A lot of people say, they’re like, when does this get easy? And I say, never. Never. I mean, you will get stronger, but it’s not going to get easier. And I will make sure it never gets easier mentally. But you don’t want a gym where it’s going to be easy. Yeah. It’s not going to do the truth.
Dr. Ana Lara:
It’s easy. It’s sleazy.
Casey Nichols:
I like that. That’s
Dr. Ana Lara:
Good. Yeah, so there was so many great things that I immediately saw from going and kickboxing because I was angry and frustrated because of Covid and all the different things that were going on that I didn’t agree with. A lot of injustices that I didn’t agree with, and I was carrying all this stress regardless of the herbs and the diet and my sleep, all the things that I was doing naturally that were great. I still was carrying this anger and frustration. When I go to kickboxing, I leave it on that bag.
Casey Nichols:
We have this saying that people leave tired, sweaty, hungry, but nobody leaves that gym stressed out. It’s almost impossible to punch and kick for 45 minutes and walk out of the gym stressed out.
Dr. Ana Lara:
It is the most zenful thing done. It Really is.
Casey Nichols:
Right. Done. It really is. There’s something about being a human being and just punching and kicking. You literally can’t be stressed out after
Dr. Ana Lara:
That. I’d rather take it on the bag exactly. Than on a person. Yeah. So tell us a little bit about yourself and what led you to start Valley Fitness.
Casey Nichols:
Yeah, so I jokingly say I had a real job for about 15 years. I worked in corporate America, but all through growing up and all through college, I got into boxing when I was really young, and then I got into kickboxing in college and then I got into nutrition and personal training when I was like 20, 21. And then I got a normal job and I worked for an ad agency and lived in California and had a really good life and was a really successful corporate career. But I just didn’t care about my job. I didn’t care about what I did and I wasn’t really helping anybody. And I went through some personal things and I decided if I have any purpose in life, it’s not going to be working behind some desk. I’m going to have to do something that actually helps other people. So I was like, well, what am I really good at?
And the marriage of nutrition and kickboxing and really health, that’s kind of where I think the cross is for me. It wound up being Valley Fitness kickboxing. So I moved out here in 2019. My folks lived out here and we opened the gym on January 2nd, 2020. And we closed for Covid on March 13th, Friday the 13th. So really open for a couple months, but we weathered that storm. We got a bunch of people like you, and we’ve been open now for four years and five months. So it’s been a really great journey and I love what I do. I tell people I work a lot, but I don’t feel like I’m actually working because you’re working directly with people and you’re helping people feel better. You’re helping people get that stress out. You’re helping people lose weight. And it’s, I feel actually very blessed and very grateful to do what I
Dr. Ana Lara:
Do. Wow, amazing. And that’s why I go to this gym. I drive 27 miles away. You did not live close one-way.
Casey Nichols:
You do not live close to our gym.
Dr. Ana Lara:
It doesn’t know any different. And I always tell people that the body will find a way to adapt to whatever it is you’re doing. So I get a lot of people that say, well, I’m not hungry and I don’t eat all day, so I don’t eat because you don’t eat. And I say, well, you’re not hungry because you don’t eat. You don’t eat, and your body doesn’t have the physical demand for that. Go start working out at the gym and you’re going to see that you’re hungry. I remember you. He does great nutritional plans and I love that you incorporate the two right at the gym. You had put me through this rigorous workout and that night I was so hungry. I was eating chicken and all the protein I could. Your body’s crazy. I remember I told him, man, I was starving. He’s like, that’s good. That’s good.
Casey Nichols:
Good. That’s a good
Dr. Ana Lara:
Thing. Yeah, it’s a good thing. And I felt my body was so hot because my metabolism was just burning through that. So if I want to eat 60 grams of protein and I’m working hard at the gym, eventually it is not going to help.
Casey Nichols:
Exactly. Yeah. If you listen to your body, it’ll tell you what it needs and flip that. So a lot of people will say the same thing. They say, I’m not hungry in the morning. And I say, well, you don’t eat enough. They say, I’m not sleeping at night. And I say, well, you’re not moving enough. Your body is, it’s upside down. It’s underwater. It doesn’t know what it’s supposed to be doing. So if you are able to turn that, you can get your body to respond to what you want to do. I always try and think of it. Either your body’s in control of you or you’re in control of your body. I want to be in control of the machine, not the machine in control of me.
Dr. Ana Lara:
To that. Amen to that. I love that you’re integrating all these things because the four pillars of health that I’ve mentioned in episode two is we talk about the four pillars, which is nutrition, exercise, sleep, and stress management. That’s the foundation. If you don’t get good food, if you’re not moving your body, you’re not sleeping well and you’re not managing the stress part, all of these four start to cross over into each other. So if you’re not moving your body, you’re not going to be able to sleep. And if you’re not eating well, and they all start to affect one
Casey Nichols:
Of the others, it’s all one ecosystem. They all play with each other. They all might be separate, but they all play off of each other, and you need one for the other and one for the other. I’ve had numerous clients. I literally had a client this morning, she’s working out, she’s eating well, she’s getting rest, but she’s so stressed out that she can’t lose weight and her weight is holding onto it. And I’m like, you have to meditate or do yoga or something, and it’ll start coming off. She’s doing everything. She’s so frustrated, but she’s getting more tense and more stressed because she’s frustrated. I’m like, you have to relax. It’ll happen. So that stress factor is extremely important, extremely
Dr. Ana Lara:
Important. I tell my patients that if we do not help regulate the stress response for them, that it’s the equivalent of eating a donut.
Casey Nichols:
Yeah, that’s true. Yeah. That’s very true
Dr. Ana Lara:
Of the high cortisol, high adrenaline that you’re constantly pumping out. That creates an inflammatory process and it affects every other hormone and process in your body because the body is saying, we’re fighting something or we’re running away from something. And you’re not. You’re laying in your bed,
Casey Nichols:
But you’re so
Dr. Ana Lara:
Tense and so stressed out, so tense, intense. And so that’s why physical activity will help reduce, obviously nutrition too. The foundation of all the makeup of the body. Wow, amazing stuff. What are some of the other benefits in your professional personal opinion?
Casey Nichols:
Thank you. Okay. So one of the things that I love the most is I get to see most of my members on day one, on day 30 on day 90 on day 180 on day 1025, whatever it is. And I get to see ’em when they come in and they’re stressed out. They’re unsure of themselves. We get people that have never kickbox before. We get people that never walked into a gym before. And you can just feel the level of surety or they’re stressed or there’s a lack of self-confidence or strength or whatever you want to call it. And over time that chips away. It chips away, and they become kind of this new version of themselves. They get more, they get not only stronger physically, but they get stronger emotionally. They get more confident, they get more sure of themselves. This personality develops out of ’em. They stand different, they talk different. And that to me is the most beautiful thing to see is helping someone kind of break out of that insecure shell and into their stronger version of themself. I’d love
Dr. Ana Lara:
That. There’s truly a transformation
Casey Nichols:
That it
Dr. Ana Lara:
Really is. It really is. And this podcast is designed to address the spirit, the soul, and the body. And I think that oftentimes people forget about the body. It can be very spiritual, and they forget about this physical component and all the work that it took to build and design this body and to keep it functioning. You said something earlier that I’m recalling right now, and it was that people don’t listen to their body. They ignore their bodies. They ignore all the signs and the symptoms that the body’s saying, Hey, give me attention. And when you’re physically moving your body, there’s this mind body connection that you’re making. And I agree. I think that the physical activity in our lives like fitness, it really does transform us on all levels.
Casey Nichols:
And I think physical activity, whether it’s kickboxing or riding a bike or whatever, I am going to use kickboxing. Number one, I’m biased towards it, but number two, you’re using all four limbs and we’re calling out combinations. So there’s a hand eye coordination. You are literally connecting to yourself. You can’t. Absolutely. And one of the things that people say they love about our gym is that because it’s fast paced, you’re changing every 30 seconds. We’re changing a different combo. You’re jumping, you’re doing pushups because you’re changing. You can’t think about anything else. You have to be right
Dr. Ana Lara:
Here in the moment. You have
Casey Nichols:
To be in the moment thinking about what you’re doing, concentrating on this, and then maybe the next. And it literally connects your mind and your body at the same time. And it’s meditative in a way.
Dr. Ana Lara:
It’s medicine I want to share with my audience. In 2021, I was in an accident. I was rear-ended. I thought I was okay. I walked away. I was feeling fine, went and got adjusted a couple times here and there. But almost three months after that accident, I had a concussion. I went to a neurologist and the neurologist was like, oh, you have a concussion. You have PTSD. I’m like, no, I don’t. And he said, yeah, you do. And so he made his recommendations and of course he’s saying, slow down. You have to not work out. You have to slow your lifestyle. And I’m like, absolutely not. That’s the worst thing. I have a business to run. I have a family. I’m not going to slow down. I still continue kickboxing after that accident. But I was just doing it different, just listening to my body, what I could do.
But one of the things that I, aside from the therapies and everything else that I did, what I consistently noticed was how I felt after I did kickboxing. So I know you indicate do this punch and that punch and you have to be paying attention. And I could tell that I was struggling in remembering that short memory recall. I had a hard time, did he say this or that? But I still kept doing it. And I noticed every week that went by, I got better. I did research. And actually I found that it’s highly recommended to do boxing, not to go fight someone eye, get another concussion, but the whole eye hand, the body coordination and also using the both hemispheres of the brain using cross rotation movements. And I thought, this is great for concussions or people with neurological conditions. You just have to listen to your body and follow the pace that you can do. And there’s a lot of healing in that. Kickboxing helped me heal
Casey Nichols:
That. Very true. That’s awesome.
Dr. Ana Lara:
I love that. Is that amazing? Yeah, that is cool. So I tell now, interestingly, I get people with concussions and I tell ’em, get moving. Get moving. Do cross rotation things, even if it’s walking. Obviously be careful if you have stability issues. But movement is very, very
Casey Nichols:
Important. Along those same lines, it’s actually been proven, it’s been shown in studies that should be careful what I say, that boxing and kickboxing can help people with Parkinson’s. And some woman looked that up. She contacted me and she said, she’s in her forties and her husband’s in his late sixties. She said, Hey, my husband has early Parkinson’s. Can I bring him in? And she brought him in and he’s been coming for about three or four months now. He comes Monday, Wednesday, Friday at 10:00 AM and he’s doing really, really good. And she said that, I mean, it’s not going to cure Parkinson’s, but it helps. It helps. It’s a little bit of a crutch and it just helps them prolongs it. And I’m not a, so I’m not going to say anything along the lines, but she said it helps him. So that to me is like, man, if you can do something to help somebody in that position, that’s amazing. Absolutely.
Dr. Ana Lara:
And it makes sense because once again, you’re challenging the brain to do something that it’s not used to doing
Casey Nichols:
Before. I have a story that I think you’ll love. So last summer, I had a strange health scare. My liver shut down for some strange reason. I promise I’m not an alcoholic. So my liver shut down really random. I had jaundice. It was bad. My eyes were his yellow was the sun. And I had to go to the hospital. I was in the hospital for a week. So they were pumping me full of drugs and we never fully figured out what it was. The doctor said he thinks it was energy drinks. But anyway, so I get out of the hospital and when I’m being discharged, I asked the doctor, the head of the whatever that department of your body is at the hospital, he’s discharging me and he’s saying, do this, do this. Take this pill at this time. Take this pill at this time. And I said, what should I be eating? And he goes, oh, it doesn’t matter. And I was like, I just had an internal organ shut down and I’m leaving the hospital. And the medical advice is it doesn’t matter what you eat. And I was like, that is insane that they just let me walk out and on this laundry list of things I had to do, there was nothing from a nutrition standpoint. I was like, you’ve got to be kidding me. That blew me away. And I was like, she,
Dr. Ana Lara:
I’m glad you shared that because in our last episode where I talked about nutrition, we have a segment at the end of the show that we talk about the good, the bad, and the ugly of our current medical system. And I talked about that’s bad. That very particular thing that doctors will say, you can eat anything matter, there’s no restriction, doesn’t matter. It’s
Casey Nichols:
Ludicrous. It doesn’t matter what you put in your body for your internal organ.
Dr. Ana Lara:
Right. Ludicrous. Absolutely. I always tell, take a pill, my patients pill. Yeah, pill. Just because people have a medical degree doesn’t mean they know it all. So you still have the right to question and challenge things and do research yourself respectfully. Right.
Casey Nichols:
Yeah. That actually scared me to know that that’s the medical advice people are getting.
Dr. Ana Lara:
This is the person I’m putting my trust with my physical body.
Casey Nichols:
It doesn’t matter you whatever
Dr. Ana Lara:
You want. Yeah, I get that a lot with oncology patients where they’re just told, yeah, you can eat whatever. I’m like, no, no. You have stomach cancer.
Casey Nichols:
Yeah, yeah, yeah. That’s
Dr. Ana Lara:
Ludicrous, right?
Casey Nichols:
Western medicine.
Dr. Ana Lara:
Wow. Yeah. Well, I’m glad you got that resolved. Yeah, me too. I’m alive. What are some other things? I mean, there’s so many benefits I want to run kind of like a list of them. So energy, it’ll increase your energy, improves your mood. So it helps with depression, anxiety, any psychological stress. It helps your brain health. So cognitive function, that’s a big one. I get a lot of people who want to improve their cognitive function, like anti-Aging is going into the cellular level. And I tell people, then you got to move your body. You got to challenge the body, improves your sleep. Obviously healthy weight management, bone health. So you know what I noticed when I started kickboxing, my knuckles started to get thicker and my shin, your shins, get my shins. I remember when I first started kickboxing, I’m like, am I kicking? Because it hurts like I’m going to break a bone. He’s like, no, you’re doing it right. Yeah, you’re doing it right. I was like, wow, your hin just needs to carry over. No, it doesn’t hurt at all.
Casey Nichols:
Your body is adapting to the environment. You’re putting it in. Yep. It gets stronger.
Dr. Ana Lara:
We crucify it. Yeah, there
Casey Nichols:
You go.
Dr. Ana Lara:
That’s funny. Crucify.
Casey Nichols:
That’s funny. We use that.
So one thing on the depression, that’s such a huge issue. A lot of people suffer from depression. It could be a whole laundry list of reasons why. I have myself, I’ve seen firsthand, and it’s not going to cure depression, but people come in that are just, and I’ve had a lot of parents bring their kids in and I’ve had a lot of just people come in and you can just feel it on them or they tell you, I can’t get out of my house. Covid was a huge problem. And when you have somewhere to be two or three times a week and you have a set time from four to 4 45 on Monday, Wednesday, Friday, whatever it is, you know, have to be there and you know have this little challenge in front of you and you have to fight through it, and you do that consistently, repeatedly, day after day, week after week, you’re going to feel better about yourself when you achieve little goals. And then now you can do 20 pushups and then you can do 30 squats or whatever it is. You start to feel better about yourself. You start to build a little self-esteem. And that is so amazing for not only you physically, but for how you feel about yourself, your identity. And that helps, I think so big with people with depression.
Dr. Ana Lara:
Absolutely. Little goals. Absolutely. I think that Covid did open up a lot of issues. One of the worst. We allowed ourselves to mentally that fear. And so yeah, I am the same way. If I don’t move enough, I will feel depressed. It’s not anything else. It’s a chemical thing for me. So I need to hike or go to the gym or walk, get out, move, get out, move. Get your high something, breathe. And within five or 10, 10 minutes of doing it, boom, I’m uplifted. So let’s talk about the things that as you work with a lot of people with fitness, what are the things that you see people do that makes them successful in their fitness journey? So
Casey Nichols:
I say this probably two or three times a day. Our body loves routine. Again, going back to the idea that your body will adapt to whatever pressure you put it under, whatever stress you put it under, if that stress is consistent, your body knows what to adapt to. If the stress is random, it doesn’t know what to adapt to. So if you’re on a constant schedule and you’re working out three times a week from four to 4 45 or whatever it is, your body knows how to adapt to that. And then you put a healthy meal plan on top of it, and you eat clean six days a week. So now you’re working out three days a week and you’re eating clean six days a week. Your body knows what to respond to and you’ll see success very quickly. And granted that will depend on your genetics and a bunch of different factors, but you will see success, your body will respond.
But if you only work out on Mondays and you only eat clean on Tuesdays and whatever, or you worked out really hard for one week and then you took a week off and your body doesn’t know what to adapt to, it’s all over the place. So you have to keep that stress consistent. You have to keep it constant. So building a routine, your body loves a routine. If you can figure out whatever your workout schedule is, whatever your meal plan schedule that works for you, just do it and don’t break it. You have to raise that priority up on your scale. You might have family, friends, God work, whatever it is, you have to put one up above going out with your friends or watching that game or going to that whatever it is that your health should be a higher priority.
Dr. Ana Lara:
It should be the higher priority. And people, they do nott make other people’s priority. Moms do that a lot. That’s huge. I got to take care of the kids. I don’t have time for this. You need to make time for that. Incorporate your kids into that activity.
Casey Nichols:
That’s actually one of the reasons we started letting little kids come in and we bought these little girls so that they could play around or just hanging out on the bench so mom can come get her workout. I love that. And not feel like she has to do one or the other.
Dr. Ana Lara:
Yeah, I love that. I love that about the gym. And I wish more places would do that too. Yeah, so that’s great. So consistency, consistently routine. And it’s true. I will say the body from studying the body science medicine, the body does like a routine and it wants to know when it’s going to wake up, when it’s going to eat, when it’s going to do these things. It’s very boring. You might be spontaneous, but the body doesn’t. It wants to know when these things are going to happen because it doesn’t have to figure out when it’s going to happen again. Yeah,
Casey Nichols:
People will say that. And sometimes some of the younger people say that life sounds boring. And I’ll say it may be a little boring and mundane, but the benefits are not boring. When you feel good, it’s hard to describe to someone how you’re going to feel good telling someone you’re going to lose 10 pounds or two dress sizes or you’re going to look good in the mirror, that’s great, but you’re going to feel so much better all day long. Every day you’re going to feel without a
Dr. Ana Lara:
Pill, without nothing that you’re taking. It’s just the physical movement itself. It’s creating all of these physiological between
Casey Nichols:
That’s
Dr. Ana Lara
Not, that’s great to me. So consistency, that routine is one of the things you find people to be successful.
Casey Nichols:
Extremely. Routine is huge.
Dr. Ana Lara:
What are some of the pitfalls that you see that people just drop the ball?
Casey Nichols:
So one of the biggest things that I see, and this is probably more than the nutrition plan, is when people try and do it their own way and they try and kind of hybrid your plan with their plan, well, your plan got you here, so let’s try my plan. And the people that buy in, at least give it 30 days, give it 60 days, but don’t go, well, I’ll do your workouts on Mondays, but then I’m going to do my, don’t try and hybrid the plan, just buy in, give it a certain amount of time. If it doesn’t work, it doesn’t work, but you have to give it a shot. And the people that kind of go, well, I’ll do it. I’ll do your dinner, but I’m going to do my own breakfast or I’ll do your workout on Mondays when I’m going to do my No, you have to just do one thing. Don’t try and mix and match.
Dr. Ana Lara:
You know what I find even in my practice that you’re talking about, I’m hearing you say, is that the real problem is that people are not coachable.
Casey Nichols:
Yeah, that is
Dr. Ana Lara:
Very true. They’re not willing to take that by. So what I have done in my practice before, I take in a client, I them and I ask them all these questions and then I let them know that they’re the ones in the driver’s seat of their healthcare and I’m just their GPS. So if they choose to not listen to the GPS turn left at this light G Ps, that’s on them. But the plan is a plan and it works because I’ve seen it works. So the plan and it works know and I’m sure that as professionals we’re willing to tweak the plan as we go, but we need to see a consistency of let’s do this for a month and then let’s reassess what’s working, what’s not working. But people are not coachable. They want to do it their way. They do. And that’s even biblical when you look at scripture, God has given us the roadmap of life, but you want to do, we’re all stubborn. I want to do it my way and then it’s wrong and it’s wrong again. And we keep doing this dance and it’s always wrong. Until then we surrender to someone who knows more and says, I’m going to do it the way you do it. It’s a humbling act. You don’t know it all. And I either don’t know it all, don’t either. You
Casey Nichols:
Don’t need a coach, coach, I
Dr. Ana Lara:
Need a coach. You need a coach, need a coach, need coach. So when you gave me nutritional guidance, I humbled my little butt and say, I’m going to listen to you and I’m going to do it that way.
Casey Nichols:
Surrendering is a good word.
Dr. Ana Lara:
I like surrender.
Casey Nichols:
You have to surrender to it. And you
Dr. Ana Lara:
Don’t surrender to just anybody. You feel like this is someone I can trust. He sounds knowledgeable, I’m going to follow his plan. But if you’re telling me eat tons of dairy and pork, I’m like, ah, I can’t do that.
Casey Nichols:
Yeah, no, I think that’s true. And I remember you saying that you kind of interview people and probably a couple months ago, I had a lot of people start the nutrition plan and just kind of fall apart. And I was kind of like, I want to save more people, what can I do? And so I stopped people, I have a little conversation before they opt in and I say, this nutrition plan will work. I don’t know to what degree, but it will work. But it depends on your ability to adopt it and to just do it and like you said, to surrender to it. And so I say I’m willing to do it, but wait until you are ready. If you’re not ready, if you need to get through a graduation or this or that or someone’s bachelorette party, fine, let’s start it on whatever. But don’t do this until you’re ready. And you have to give it at least 30 days, if not 60 days, because the magic isn’t immediate.
Dr. Ana Lara:
Set yourself up for success and not failure, especially if you know there’s a certain event that you’re going to want to eat that food. Absolutely. And be consistent. Don’t cheat. You’re cheating yourself, not anyone else.
Casey Nichols:
One thing on the cheating thing, especially from a nutrition standpoint, you’re going to cheat on your diet. I cheat on my diet all the time. The issue isn’t, number one, don’t beat yourself up. Number two, get back on the horse as quick as you can. Don’t let a bad breakfast turn into a bad day. Turn into a bad weekend, turn into, forget it. I’ll do it later. Just go, okay, I ate that cookie, I had that brownie. Whatever it is, I’m going to get back on the horse. Immediately, immediately, immediately.
Dr. Ana Lara:
And that’s true with nutrition and fitness. People beat themselves up. If you miss
Casey Nichols:
A workout,
Dr. Ana Lara:
Make the next. And that’s why when it comes to the nutrition part, I’ll tell my clients like, Hey, it’s okay, as long as you’re 90% at some point compliant this because they’ll say, am I going to do this for the rest of my life? And it’s daunting to them that they’re never going to eat these things. True. I’m like, no, we’re doing this strategically for this period of time to reduce all the symptoms, to reduce inflammation, but at some point you’re going to be able to have these foods in small amounts here and there.
Casey Nichols:
Yeah, I’d say a version of that same thing. Let’s get you down to where you want to be. Maintenance level is way more fun, but we got to get you down there.
Dr. Ana Lara, NMD:
You got to get you where you want to be first
And then we’ll cruise.
What are some tips that you would share with someone who is not exercising at all, hasn’t done it in years, maybe never has that person that’s difficult to work with? Where would you tell them where to
Start? I would say number one, there’s two components to it. So there’s a nutrition component and there’s the exercise component. And hopefully you can go to a place where they have both, or maybe you can go to a place and you can find an online coach or whatever and then find a gym. But number one, you have to find people that are willing to help you. There’s a gigantic group of people that don’t like to go to the gym, that don’t like to exercise, that don’t like to go to a big box gym where there’s dudes in tank tops and girls and booty shorts. There’s a lot of people that don’t like that. So that’s not your only option. You can go to a group fitness gym, you can go hiking, you can ride your walk the park, you can walk at the park. There’s a gigantic massive amount of activities that you can do.
But I would try and find somebody that can help guide you and in that vein, find somebody that you find an authority, like you trust them, but someone that you vibe with because you’re going to spend a lot of time with this person or around these people. So find something that you’re comfortable with. You might find a gym and everyone in, there’s super fit, but it’s weird and you feel uncomfortable, don’t go there. Or you might go to a gym and you feel really comfortable, but they’re too soft and it’s too fluffy and it’s too, don’t go there either. You have to find something that is going to push you, but you also feel comfortable with the people that are around you. You feel safe. So from an exercise standpoint, that, and then from a nutrition standpoint, you have to find your, why are you doing this?
Why do you want to lose weight, get stronger, build whatever it is, whatever your goal is, why do you want to do it? And then you put a value against it. And then it’s, do I want to go out and drink tonight or do I want this or do I want to go eat this brownie or do I want this? Once you know your wine, you can solidify it and feel it. Then you’ll be able to balance that out against every other priority in your life. And you have to raise that up against your other priorities. You have to find your why.
Find out the why, guys. I think very that’s important for anything, even starting a business. What’s your, why
Do you want to do it? Why do you want to do it? And if you know why, then at least what’s driving it.
And I think when people understand the health benefits of exercise, that changes the perspective a little bit. I have patients that they were not exercising. I’m like, I don’t care. I don’t care if you start walking five minutes a day every day though same time and pick a time that you’re going to be successful, that you’re going to do it, you’re going to stick with it every time. So if it’s 6:00 PM you’re going to go walk five or 10 minutes, you’re going to do that every day. It’s so pathetic, right, that you can’t walk five minutes. What will happen is eventually they’re like, I could do 15, I could do 20. And so by, I tell ’em, start with 15 minutes walking a day every day, even Sunday. And the next week, add another five minutes or 10 minutes, increase it to wherever you physically feel that you have pushed yourself to little limit. Before you know it, people are like, oh, I’m walking 30 minutes. I started with 15, but it was like I could do a little bit more.
Once you’re warmed up, I feel like you will able to push yourself, but it’s hard to push yourself when you haven’t gotten going. What’s that saying? The hardest move in the gym is walking through the front door. Amen. Getting off the couch and going through the front door is the hardest part. Once you’re there, you’ll get warmed up. The musical hit, you’ll find a song you like and you’ll get in your groove and your blood will pump. Absolutely. And then you’ll go, I can go an extra five minutes and go an extra 10 minutes. But getting there is the hardest part.
It’s always the hardest part. It takes the most energy getting there in anything. Getting
Off the couch and walking. The Hardest part. Yeah. I always tell my patients, there’s days I’ll get dressed. This is how I go to workout, whether it’s kickboxing, gym or hiking. I get ready and sometimes I’ll sit in the parking lot of the gym and I’m like, I really don’t want to do this. So then I know I have to get up right away. Don’t sit there for too long. I got to get in there. And once I start moving by the end of the workout, I’m so glad I did it.
You’re always glad you did it. Sometimes Your best workouts. I’m always glad I did. Sometimes I’m driving to Kickbox and I’m like, man, I’m fine. I get they, I’m all relaxed now from the drive, and then I’m like, I don’t feel like doing it, but I still get myself to do it. So motivation huge, huge. But sometimes you just got To push yourself. You got to push yourself. Sometimes we don’t have the motivation. Oh God. So when you are not motivated, what pushes you?
Me personally? Yeah. So I had, one of the best pieces of advice I ever got in the fitness world was an old coach of mine, and he said, if you ever feel like you need a break or you ever feel like you need to skip a workout, don’t skip that workout, skip the next workout. It might not really be your body telling you over-training is definitely a very real thing. You could put yourself too hard, you could put yourself to an injury. You might not be sleeping well, they’re eating well. But the reason you want to skip this workout might be a little more vein, or it might be you’re just lazy, so don’t skip this one. Tell yourself I’ll skip the next one. I’ll put myself through this one. I’ll skip Tuesday or whatever the next one is, and then once you get warmed up, you’ll be fine and it’ll probably be one of the best workouts you’ve had. And then the next day you’ll say, I didn’t need to skip. I’m fine. I don’t need to skip your workout, so don’t skip this one, skip the next one. But mentally tell yourself I’ll skip the next one. So you kind of gave yourself a little bit of a relief.
Wow. A lot of great conversation, a lot of great points we’ve had. Thank you for joining us. I hope that our audience took a lot of value from our conversation. Fitness, exercising does not have to be scary and daunting starts somewhere. There’s a lot of benefits. We do not want to lose our muscle mass. We really want to preserve it. I like to do the segment of what’s the good, the bad, and the ugly in healthcare.
This particular episode, since we’re talking about exercise, it’s going to be that doctors do not encourage their patients to move their body because chances are they’re probably not doing it. And so get moving. I hope you guys took some great points from our conversations today. If there’s any questions, anything that you were inspired by, share them in the comments, share this video with someone that you think can really inspire them to get moving. And until next time, guys, we will be talking. In our next episode, we’re going to be talking about sleep and stress management, the last two pillars of health. Thank you for joining us today, and as always, stay blessed. Thank you for listening to Physician Heal Thyself, the podcast. If you like what you’ve heard, please like, share and subscribe, help this message, reach more people who may need to hear it. Leave your comments. I want to know what you think. If you’re interested in learning more about raices, visit our website@raicesndmedcenter.com. Until next time, be blessed. Last.