Chapter 4: Maximizing Health and Personal Growth in Minimal Time

Imagine spending less time on your couch and more time living a healthier life without sacrificing your daily commitments. Sound unrealistic? Not at all!

This episode opens your eyes to the alarming amount of time we spend on sedentary activities and their detrimental health impacts.

But fear not. We're not here to scare you. Instead, we help you understand how to manage your time and prioritize health by carving out specific time slots for essential activities - a crucial step to leading a wholesome life.

Have you ever felt that maintaining fitness requires a drastic lifestyle change?

Let's debunk that myth together. We talk about the significance of slowly building strength and endurance, making your fitness commitment manageable.

We also introduce you to CrossFit, an efficient workout routine that can drastically improve your health in merely 15 minutes a day.

But health is not just about physical fitness; we delve into the power of daily personal development through the Whole Life Fitness Power 30.

A mere half an hour every day can yield significant improvements across all spheres of life. Tune in to understand how investing time in yourself can catalyze enormous personal growth.

You'll leave with actionable steps to streamline your life and balance your health within time constraints.

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Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

Chapter 4. It's about time. What we say is the one biggest hurdle to prevent you from leading a more consistently dev life? Is it that you're traveling, raising a family, perhaps working at a busy job? I've got news for you. All of these seemingly different excuses are just versions of one thing A big old time crunch. We're all strapped for time for a million different reasons. In our Whiplash Pace Society, it's a little wonder that there's one heck of a widespread perception that we don't have time to work out. Our days are limited to 24 hours, of which one third is spent sleeping, if you're lucky, and for many of us, at least one third is spent doing a job that is often stressful and largely sedentary.

Speaker 1: 0:45

To make your head spin, here are some statistics about time. Number one the American Journal of Epidemiology estimates that the average American spends 55% of waking time, that's, 7.7 hours per day in sedentary behaviors such as sitting. Number two a 13-year long study published in 2010 by the American Cancer Society found that women who sat for more than six hours per day were 37% more likely to die during the time period study than those who sat for fewer than six hours per day. The study also showed that men who sat for over six hours a day were 18% more likely to die during the study period. Those who were long-time sitters and also generally inactive in their day-to-day lives had even higher mortality rates during the study period 94 and 48% for women and men respectively. According to the Nielsen Corporation, the average American watches more than four hours a TV each day, or 28 hours per week. Or two months of nonstop TV watching per year. Two months, two months. In a 65-year life, that person will have spent nine years glued to the tube. Canadians are similar to clocking in a whopping average of 30 hours of TV viewing per week. Compare that to the following mind-blowing stat the average time that Canadian parents spend engaged in meaningful conversation with their child is only 3.5 minutes per week 3.5 minutes. Most commercial breaks on a 30-minute sickle are longer than that. Now number four the World Health Organization published the following stats of a physical activity One insufficient physical activity is one of ten leading risk factors for death worldwide.

Speaker 1: 2:35

People who are insufficiently active have 20 to 30% increased risk of death compared to people who are sufficiently active. Insufficient physical activity is a key risk factor for non-communicable diseases NCDs as they refer to them such as cardiovascular diseases, cancer and diabetes. Physical activity has significant health benefits and contributes toward preventing NCDs. Globally, one in four adults are not getting the recommended minimum of 150 minutes of moderate intensity or 75 minutes of vigorous intensity physical activity per week. More than 80% of the world's adolescent population is insufficiently physically active.

Speaker 1: 3:22

Wow, as a society, we are moving less and we're eating more. We live in a culture of instant gratification. We consume calories on autopilot and get into our cars to travel two blocks Collectively. We are getting more and more out of shape. Today, a state of poor health, or, as I like to say, unhealthy, feels more normal to many of us than being healthy does. The biggest problem is when you don't even know what you're missing. It's pretty hard to imagine a better way. The hard truth is that when we don't make time for health, we will ultimately have to make time for disease or illness Reminders that time is fleeting around us.

Speaker 1: 4:03

The late Apple founder, steve Jobs, stated during his famous address to the 2005 graduating class of Stanford University Remembering that I'll be dead soon is the most important tool I've ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life. Essentially, jobs was saying that accepting the fact that you're eventually going to die allows you the mental freedom to design a life that is awesome. We can all be the change agents in our own lives. Right now, in this moment, you can choose to stop using lack of time as an excuse for an action. Instead of saying time owns me, I'm powerless over my schedule, try saying hello time, old friend, I've decided to get health. Try to see time as a positive force in your whole life and not a barrier to it. Blocking your time. Sadly, we can't just buy time like a commodity. And, by the way, a little aside, if you know a way I can, I'm very interested. We can only work with what we've got, and that's not always easy. I get it. I've been there myself. I still deal with it. You know it's never time's always going to be there. We got to learn how to work with it or we're going to be working against it.

Speaker 1: 5:17

I came to a major turning point in my life when I realized that, although I might not be able to manage my time minute by minute, I can manage my commitments by blocking off chunks of time for the things that matter to me. If it's not blocked out on my calendar, the likelihood of it happening decreases. Of course, everyone uses a calendar to keep track of appointments, but I'm talking about scheduling those regular reoccurring commitments, the filler days, such as working, running errands, spending quality time with family. By visualizing my commitments as blocks of time and mapping them across a weekly agenda, I can turn time into a tangible thing that I can see and have greater control over. To work fitness into your life on a regular basis. Schedule it and stick to it. I encourage my clients to print out an agenda every week and block out all the activities they know they have to commit to doing, from bringing children home from school to attending a night school class or volunteer sessions. Be realistic of how long these activities or commitments take and don't forget to include the journey there in battle. Add your work commitments again, including your commute, if you have one. Once you've blocked out your commitments, really look at the shape of days and week and ask yourself where can I fit in my daily commitment to myself? And yes, it has to be daily or close to it. As you know by now, I'm a big believer in trying to move your body every day, because body at rest likes to stay at rest. If you let your body do nothing, it's going to be more than happy to continue doing nothing. But let's get one thing straight that daily time commitment doesn't have to be huge.

Speaker 1: 6:53

Many people overestimate what's required, especially when it comes to making new year's resolutions. Starting January 1st, you see the resolutionists committing to grueling 90-minute workouts of the gym four times a week and swearing that this is the year they're going to do it. But the truth is this is probably too much for most people to sustain, and their trouble may be twofold. First, it's a shock to the system. Strength and endurance need to be built gradually, so propelling yourself from the couch to an extreme workout program is not good for you. Second, it's hard on your motivation. What's more defeating than falling at the first hurdle, failing to keep your date with the gym come February? Literally, it's crazy. Most people that have set a new year's resolution, by the time February comes around, they've already given up. The problem comes from the mistaken belief that you need to reinvent your lifestyle to fit those extra long hours at the gym. Resolutionists who try to do this often don't think about the extra steps that have to be factored in to make their promise a reality. Spending four evenings a week at the gym likely means they have to let something else go in order to fit into their schedule. Now there's a reason why it didn't work before right. To think that they're miraculously going to cram it all in without compromising other commitments is unrealistic, and it can be very discouraging too.

Speaker 1: 8:14

Crossfit crossover. Like every parent, my world changed when I became a father. Suddenly, my time was not mine alone, but also my daughters. I wanted to spend every moment with them. What's not to love about watching a child's miraculous development? I wanted to be with them for every great milestone, the first smiles, the first chuckles, the first words. However, I knew I had to balance this love fest with my fitness, and at first I didn't handle it well at all. What's not to love about watching a child's miraculous development?

Speaker 1: 8:42

I was in the midst of building my fitness retails, this logging at 50 to 60 hours per week, trying to maintain a baseline level of health and fitness and, on top of that, trying to be a great father and husband, knowing that my health and fitness was still a priority to me. I would spend an hour or so at the gym after work, which is actually a two hour time commitment or more after factoring in the commute and shower time and, of course, conversations around the waterfowl. This wasn't sustainable, because I felt guilty for not being home with my family and I was missing out on important moments. Having spoken about this with my coaching clients, I know that this is common for many people. My life was revolutionized at the age of 30 when I was introduced to the then new exercise concept called CrossFit, which showed me how to achieve and maintain a high level of fitness in very little time.

Speaker 1: 9:33

Typical gym workouts include long sessions consistently consisting most of weight training with a little bit of cardio. My typical split during the week would see me spend an hour on my back and chest one day, triceps and biceps next followed by legs. This is what my typical gym workouts look like, with an abs day thrown in here and there. Now I'd also have days dedicated to cardio and core, spending 45 to 50 minutes focusing on burning calories, getting my heart rate elevated for sustained periods. All in all, my gym routine usually took me from seven to 10 hours a week. It's a lot of time, right? I mean it's huge. It's just typically what was believed needed to be done. At least, that's what I felt. Now there are many things to consider when it comes to exercising, or moving with purpose, as I like to call it, I will always recommend incorporating full body workouts, focusing on aspects such as balance, agility, coordination and other skills that round out your fitness. But trying to work all of the aspects into your routine requires a lot of planning and knowledge, which often leads to routines that are so complicated that you spend more time trying to understand the exercise actually doing them.

Speaker 1: 10:39

Crossfit is different. It incorporates the principle of efficient, mindfully done. That is, instead of lengthy weight and cardio training circuits, crossfit workouts introduced me to training method known as an AMRAP, which stands for as many reps as possible or as many rounds as possible. It means working out a sustained level of intensity for a set period of time, without stopping. In any given workout you might only do a few movements, but you're constantly in motion until your time is up. As you become healthier and fitter, you can increase your time limit or keep it the same, but the workload and intensity will gradually change. Your capacity will increase and you'll find that you're doing more reps or more rounds in that same block of time.

Speaker 1: 11:22

I found that this new way of working out doing a short and intense workout every day made great sense for my body. It also made sense for my life, which suffers the same time crunch that others face. The principles of CrossFit allow me to take care of my fitness needs quickly so I can devote adequate time for my other Fs, family, finances, faith and fun. In other words, you can accomplish a lot by doing a little training every day. You just need to make sure that little is well designed, attuned to your goals and power packed. I base all of my programs on these principles, which is why a whole life fitness, power 30 workouts can be completed in just 15 minutes.

Speaker 1: 12:02

Might be hard to believe that that's all it takes to get fit, but I find that it is ideal, not only because it's effective, but also because it's sustained. Everybody has 15 minutes. I don't care who you are, what you do, what kind of life you live. I can find 15 minutes in your day for a quick workout. Once you get going, you'll see how making your workout commitment manageable will help you to seamlessly integrate fitness into your life. For 15 minutes a day, you're going to move, no matter what. This works out to almost 1% of your 24 hour day. Is that a worthwhile way to spend 1% of your time. If you really want to go for the gold in your own life, you might choose to follow your daily workout with 15 minutes of meditation and personal development, and why not? That would still amount to only 2% of your 24 hour day. Of course, there's always an opportunity to do more. I encourage my clients to be active throughout the day, for example, by parking as far away from the store as possible, especially when you're at the grocery store parking lot, or by taking the stairs instead of the elevator, by doing some extra movements in the park while your kids are playing, by clenching your glutes while you're sitting at your desk, or by going for an energetic walk during your lunch break rather than shooting the breeze by the water cooler and all that's up. This is not a fact, it's a lifestyle. It's a forever habit. Making this kind of sustained commitment to your own health and well-being will have a massive effect on your entire life. That will play out in everything that you do.

Speaker 1: 13:30

Move Over Time Vampires. Once you start examining how and where you spend your time, you'll soon notice a whole range of time vampires that rise up to suck the time right out of your day. Very often, you don't even feel them doing it. Maybe watching television is a big time vampire for you, or catching up on social media, playing video games. If screens demand a lot of your attention, you're not alone. Americans spend more than nothing times as many minutes watching television or movies as they do on sports and exercise. According to research conducted by the University of California, the Bureau of Broadcast Measurement Canada reports that the average Canadian adult watches 30 hours of TV every week. Other time vampires that might be sinking their teeth into your schedule include drinking, gossiping or simply putzing around aimlessly well, in a way, the time without purpose. We've all gone our weaknesses when it comes to wasting time, and they show up in many different ways.

Speaker 1: 14:35

The question is just how can you steal your time back from those vampires? It starts with prioritizing your health and your long-term happiness. Maybe your ideal window is in the morning, afternoon or evening. The main thing is to just find those 15 minutes of physical activity and 15 minutes for personal development. You don't have to take it from your kids, you don't have to take it from your job. You don't have to take it from your parents, but maybe you can take it from TV, facebook or any other activity that drains hours from your life without paying you back with lasting well-being.

Speaker 1: 15:08

If you're a hockey, football, master chef fan, I'm not going to tell you that you shouldn't indulge in your passion, but maybe you can find creative ways to allow your pastimes to support your health rather than undermine it. There are always breaks in gameplay, not to mention commercial breaks during TV shows. Those can add up to a decent chunk of time over the course of a game or program. I challenge you to use those minutes to do something physical in front of the TV. By dovetailing your fitness into another activity that you already love to do, you set off a positive cascading effect in which one thing reinforces the other. Healthy body, healthy mind. You might have heard of gateway drugs, which can trigger the abuse of harder, even more addictive substances. Let's put a positive spin on that concept.

Speaker 1: 16:01

Think about the whole life fitness power 30 as your gateway fitness plan. Once you try it, damn you'll be hooked. It will lead to more movement, extra workouts and more active participation in the world around you, perhaps through team sports or community events. If you're like many of my clients, you will start to see your work daily reset. This is one of the biggest reasons why I love my 15th hit. Even on days when I can't get to the gym or find time for a long walk, my quick daily workout is always there for me, an accidental reset button. I always know that whatever else is going on in my day, I'll have a chance to burst some steam with excess energy and get focused. I inevitably feel better afterward. Who wouldn't look forward to that and want it in their everyday life?

Speaker 1: 16:52

The second half of my whole life fitness power 30 or two involving five minutes of mindfulness, 10 minutes of personal development is when I fill my mind with little positive juice After a brief five minute meditation. Sometimes I'll read from an inspiring, other times I'll spend those minutes journaling. Documenting your thoughts like this is a great way to connect with yourself and anchor your goals. Spend some time reflecting on your thoughts and write down what you discover. What are you doing in your daily life that makes you feel good? What would you like to do more of and what would you like to move away from? Have you come across any positive messages in personal development books that resonate with you?

Speaker 1: 17:31

Over time, you'll start to see how the ideas of the great thinkers in the world can be reflected on your own mental canvas and applied to your overview. Ten minutes of personal development per day effortlessly turns into 70 minutes of a week and 305 hours a month. And then bam, after a year you will have clocked two and a half days. Two and a half days of personal development. Books will be read, journals will be filled. You'll have a whole pile of expressed words, thoughts better understood and real insights gained for your precious time investment. Can I get a high five on how awesome that is?

Speaker 1: 18:12

Because the whole life fitness power 30 is based on a very compact chunks of time. It's always accessible to you, no matter what. You'll learn to never again use time as an excuse. You might not always choose to follow through with your plan. I get it, life happens. But that's really what I want to hammer home.

Speaker 1: 18:28

You make the choice. It's up to you to own your situation. Own your choices. You can't blame time for your decisions. Once you accept that, you're the one who chooses what to do with it. The result of committing 30 minutes each day to my own well-being is that I always feel like I've accomplished something. That time is my win for my day, and I'd love it to be yours too. Life can be a journey of constant growth and self-improvement, and this routine is a rock solid tool that you can use to really make that happen. Physically, emotionally and psychologically. Moment by moment, you will find that you feel just a little bit better than you did the day before, much better than you did a month ago, a whole heck of a lot better than you did the year before. Gradually, the whole life fitness power 30 will become a daily ritual that keeps you on track in every aspect of your life, daily ritual you don't even think twice about, and it will have you laughing in the face of the words I don't have time.