Ep 51 | Health Series Part 3: Why Exercise Will Help You Live Longer

Thank you for joining me today. It's Brian Gubernick, and welcome to the No Days Off Podcast, where we believe that every single day brings a new opportunity to get better. Let's get into today's topic. It is part 3 of our health series. Uh, part 1 was on sleep, part 2 was on nutrition, Today, part 3, we're gonna be talking about exercise, movement and exercise. Now, same disclaimer I gave in the previous episodes, I am not licensed to give advice on exercise. However, I am somewhat qualified in that I do exercise quite often and I have explored and experimented with all different sorts of exercise. All different sorts of movement. And what I share with you today is based on those experiences, both personally and in those that I've coached and trained in a previous life, having owned a gym and done some things in that space. And so I love this conversation. I talk about and I think about exercise and physical exertion all of the time. And I'm constantly competing and aiming to get better, like many of our listeners, like many of you. I very much believe in the No Days Off movement, not much of a surprise there. And I especially believe that every single day we have an opportunity to improve our health. And I'll tell you, a lot of my mentality around health today is quite a bit different than it was in years past. A couple decades ago, when I was a much younger guy, my thoughts around exercise were, were based around how they would impact my performance in playing sports. My thoughts today, though, are different in that my thoughts around exercise and nutrition and sleep and all these other areas is more about longevity. Life longevity. And how do I define that? I think about life and longevity around not necessarily how many years I live, though of course that plays a factor in all this, but how many years I live being able to do physically and mentally what it is I want to do. How many years can I go before I have to unfortunately maybe not be as physically active as I, as I'd like to be? The longer I can go in terms of years, decades into that timeframe, well, I think the happier I'll be. And so that's the game I'm playing. And when I talk about health, but when I talk about especially exercise today, I just want you to understand my mentality around it. It is extending the longevity of my life and the happy years that I'll get to experience. So exercise, okay? Why do we have to exercise? I think we all know the answers to this, but real quick, what are the benefits to both our physical and our mental well-being? Some key reasons why I exercise. Number 1, physical health. I mean, I want to be strong. I want to be fit. I want to be a fair weight. I want to look good. I want to feel good. I also want to prevent diseases, chronic diseases. I want to prevent things that will inhibit or prohibit me from doing the things that I want to do. This is why I have to be active. This is why I have to move. This is why I have to exercise. So my physical health, regular exercise, helps me maintain that and, and achieves all those other things I just mentioned. The second reason I do it, if I'm inactive, I'm like anybody else. I will gain weight, especially if I'm not eating properly. Exercise for me, physical activity, allows me to maintain my weight by burning the calories and by boosting my metabolism, which is especially important as, call it what it is, I get older, right? Like, I'm not getting any younger. And so I want to have energy, I want to burn calories, and I want to burn more than I'm consuming, or at least the same amount that I'm consuming. So that I manage my weight, because a healthy weight leads to longevity. I mentioned disease prevention. I think we all know that. But some of the other benefits— in the sleep episode, I said, "Hey, physical activity helps me sleep better. It helps me think better. It improves my energy and improves my mentality, my behavior, my quality of life." So what should we be doing in terms of our exercise? And I'll tell you what, I don't want to overcomplicate this. If you're not moving on a regular basis today, start moving. What a recipe. I know that was a huge breakthrough for you. But if you are presently not very active, okay, cool. Hey, you're listening to this podcast. You want to get better. You want to improve your health. In addition to working on your nutrition and sleep, like we talked about in previous days, Now let's get off the couch and move. What does move mean to me? I don't know what's it mean to you. I think it's getting outside and maybe going for a walk, maybe building a habit around that. Maybe you're not even ready for that. Maybe it's getting up and doing 10 air squats. Maybe it's, you know, doing 10 toe touches. It may not seem like much to many, but if you're sedentary, if you're not moving, it's actually a ton. So in terms of exercise, the first thing I want to say is start small and move. Don't do the New Year's resolution approach, which I've seen so many do and fail, which is, "Okay, I haven't been working out. Now it's time for me to start going to the gym 4 days a week and lifting like I used to lift when I was a teenager and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah." I mean, that is a recipe for failure. Start small and start by moving. Now, once you make some progress around moving, I would say, "Okay, we've got some activity. Now, what are our goals?" For me, 44 years old, I want two things. I want to be physically strong and I want to have lung capacity and endurance. What does that require me to do? It requires me to train endurance-wise, which for me is running, hiking, biking, these longer activities that improve my lung capacity, push my heart rate to a certain zone. I'm not necessarily pushing it to the extreme every day, but I'm getting to a steady, steady heart rate where it's uncomfortable for me to talk, and I'm maintaining that for a portion of time, for a period of time, and that's leading to greater endurance. But I'm also physically doing resistance training. With the intent being to build muscle. There is not a person that I've ever met, especially one who's up there in years, that ever says, "Man, I wish I wasn't this strong." It sounds funny to say, but it's really interesting. Like, there's never a person that says, "I wish I wasn't this strong." So what are you doing? If you're not working on your strength in some way. Now, do you have to go to a gym and lift weights and do all that? Not necessarily. As a matter of fact, I actually don't do a lot of that, but I do a ton of push-ups, and I do a lot of dumbbells in the garage, and I do a lot of resistance training. Like, even in terms of hiking, I hike with a heavy backpack and things like that. These are all things aimed to build muscle. Now remember, what is my primary goals for me? My primary goals are— is built around longevity, which means I've got to have more endurance and I got to have more strength. And I want to build those things before I get to a point in my life, which frankly, I probably am getting into a point in my life when there is no more up, there's only opportunity to go down because of age. So I've got to maintain these things and do the best that I can to push it and maintain it. I'm not saying be extreme like me. I am into endurance competitions. I'm into all sorts of different sports and athletics and trying to do and push my body as hard as I can. I've been doing this for years, and I think many of you have as well, and you can relate. But if that's not you, that's okay. Let's start by moving, then let's start by figuring out what we want to achieve, which may be around strength and endurance, and then let's take baby steps to building habits around those things. I think the, the core message here is you gotta move. You gotta be moving. And in doing so, I would increase my flexibility, my muscularity, my endurance. There are so many other things we could talk about around exercise, but that, that was a very basic conversation in a relatively short period of time. We just do not have the time on our podcast to do that. But of course, like I do with every episode, I'm going to leave you with some focusing questions, and today's are pretty obvious. What do you need to bring into your world in terms of exercise starting today that would improve your overall health? If you're not moving on a regular basis, what movement can you introduce? If you are moving on a regular basis, what are your goals, and what steps can you take starting today to close the gap between your present reality and where you want to go. If you are in fact strength training and endurance training and doing all these things you love that are keeping you active, I can't help but ask, what can you do starting the day exercise-wise to plus your game? Just a real quick mention, for me, it is constantly reading and researching and learning new models because I'm very aware of the fact that I don't know it all. So I will listen to Peter Attia on podcasts, look him up. I will read books like Primal Endurance, look it up. I am constantly looking for the edge. I'm constantly looking to improve or up my game. And I think there's opportunity for all of us as it pertains to increasing and improving in our exercise. That's all I have for today. The No Days Off Podcast. Thank you so much for listening. Remember, every single day, Brings a new opportunity to get better, so let's get after it.