Can we always be mindful? | Walk N Talk with Dr. Tom Rifai

Walk in talk Tuesday with Dr. Tom is on. We are live. We are talking about mindfulness today. Good thing. Or can you overdose on it or somewhere in the middle. That is right. So we are going to be talking about mindfulness today and where my perspective lies in terms of the balance that we all need to find in multiple areas of lifestyle. But in this specific key, we're talking about mind matters. Now remember, in the 5Keys system to transform transformation of your lifestyle and maintaining it, these flexitarian five keys, we have psychology, we call it mind matters. Okay. And in mind matters we are talking about mindfulness, mindset and mental health. So we're going to focus in on that mindfulness component. And obviously the other keys, there's nutrition, activity environments and accountability, just to round that out in context. But here we're focusing in on mindfulness and I can tell you my clinical experience and my personal experience regarding mindfulness. First and foremost, I am not here to poo poo mindfulness. That is not the point here. It's how do we fit it in the perspective of long term lifestyle change? And I'll open with this just to set the stage. Frankly, we cannot always be mindful. We can't have our mind constantly exercising focus. In fact, there's some evidence on the numbing effect of being so deep into mindfulness and meditation. Not everybody, but for some people that we have to be careful that we do need to have some strategic resting. Strategic resting. What am I talking about? Well, how about sleep? Would we consider it a waste of seven to eight hours of life to sleep when we could be up 24 hours getting things done? No, obviously that's ludicrous. I think we all know that is a absolutely legitimate form of strategic resting. Literally. Literally strategic resting or certainly resting. I think many of us would consider it strategic when you understand the power of sleep in terms of metabolic health, mental health, dementia risk, cardiovascular risk, etc. That being said, there are also other components of strategic resting that you know from this system I want to bring out because it may help context here as well. So in terms of the 5% fun zone, so people have asked me, what exactly do you mean about the 5% fund zone? Largely talking about food, but it could be about other things. But let's keep it simple here. So the 5% fun zone concept is a strategic resting concept. It implies really a couple things. Number one, that there is really no approach that works. That when it's zero tolerance and tells somebody you can't have something, something that they are smart enough to can be done in a level of frequency and true moderation. That would not be a risk. That would outweigh the benefit of that occasional joy, whatever it is. I mean, carrot cake, I mean, it doesn't matter. Fill in the blank of whatever that riskier food is. Notice I didn't say good food, I didn't say bad food. I just spoke about the fact that a more crap or calorie rich, refined and processed crrap food, which I occasionally enjoy myself, is going to be a risk. And it's a calculated risk. Okay, so there's in a sense a mindfulness to that that we understand it's going to be a risk, but it's worth the risk within the context of 5% fun zone, meaning how much you need to not want to kill me. Okay, it's not about literally measuring 5%, although I would say there's probably some reasonable data from the Tsimane hunter gatherers of Bolivia that might say, you know what, that 5% is actually semiliteral. You know, that 5% of calories coming in as crap is probably where the management of optimal metabolic health can be achieved without any significant risk. That being said, it's not really about calculating exactly 5%. It's more a philosophical one because it has to do with us as individuals, realistically, at any point in time in our journey and stages of readiness for change, that it's whatever amount you would need to still be willing to stick to a lifestyle transformational process. And over time you can continue to improve. And there are times that we, you know, we might also fluctuate backwards and you know, through Covid. I mean, it wasn't even a 5% fund zone anymore. It was more like a, you know, 10 to 15% numb zone. Let's numb ourselves. The whole country seemed to move backwards in that regard. But I digress. The point is that a 5% fun zone is an investment in the 95% to having that strategic rest from some what otherwise would be considered a rigid dietary approach which really isn't, you know, repeatedly eating healthy things over and over again in terms of whole fruits and vegetables and legumes, beans, lentils and peas and smarter protein choices in the animal food world that are dosed more intelligently and chosen more intelligently in terms of metabolic health so that they're leaner, lower in calorie density, less saturated fat, not salt injected, different walk and talk. But you know what I'm getting at, Those aren't really so boring and repetitive when you have just enough of your Non negotiables to make it to add that spice of life, okay, that once in a while thing. That of course would be complemented by the environment key that you're not swimming in it and constantly testing your willpower because otherwise you're not giving yourself a strategic rest in that regard. As a matter of fact, strategic resting comes into play when you think about the concept of balancing. Yes, I can have it in my life, whatever that your non negotiable food or beverage is, for instance, but I'm not going to have it in my face in my house, constantly sitting on the counter trying to tempt my will, willpower muscle, which is never going to grow that big. And I know I only have a finite amount of which, so I'm going to rest it while I'm at home. But I'm not going to go to that nth degree of saying I can never have it because that just triggers deprivation psychology. Okay? So strategic resting in terms of mindfulness is also an issue because sometimes we just need to understand we can't always be mindful. We need to be able to be mindlessly able to get to what we, our goals are. And I just mentioned in terms of environment, if we're so mindful, then I guess we should be able to sit in a sea of hot fresh brownies. I mean, I'm just expressing my own issues now at this point, but you can fill in the blank with whatever yours are. I don't care how much I know about the metabolic health risks of overeating brownies. If you stick a pile of fresh hot brownies in front of me constantly, that's just I'm going to be eating them. That's it just a fact. Okay, that's there's a biology below which the gray matter exists in my more modern brain. More around mid brain, Neanderthal Paleolithic level that says hey, that's a rare food. And it's still set up that way in that, in that primordial mind. And therefore you need to eat it because there's going to be almost no chance that this will happen again soon. Of course it will be. Of course there will be. My rational mind might say that. But that impulsive hundreds of thousands of years worth of innate behavior impulse is going to override that. So my better choice would be, okay, I'm going to set up an environment around me so I don't have to be mindful, so I can be mindlessly eating healthfully in my house and if I want something, I go out and get it and I have it. And then I don't beat myself up about it. But I don't pretend I'm going to domesticate a wolf, bring it into house, pretend it's a dog, and blame the wolf when the wolf bites me. Okay? That's not the wolf's fault. It's a beautiful animal meant to be outside. Right? Just like Haagen Dazs. So that being said, we do need to understand the power of mindfulness. And I absolutely love teaching about intuitive eating principles. I love teaching about the hunger scale. I love helping people relearn what they were born with. For instance, in terms of hunger awareness. My children have this naturally built in ability to know when they are full and to stop. And we do not tell them they have to finish their plate. In our house, we try to come up with the right, you know, portion size, but frankly, you know, regulatory eating, you can't always pick the exact amount. You might, if anything, I guess you might just say, you know, serve a little less and if they're hungry, they can ask for more. That might be one thing. Thank you. By the way. I'll send you a check for the counseling session. Thank you for helping me. Help me think of that idea right now. But beyond that, at this point, we're pretty close. But when they are done and they're still 20% on their plate, we don't say, finish your plate, say, are you hungry? No, I'm not hungry anymore. Okay, if you're not hungry, don't eat. Simple. We're born with that. We kind of teach people how to eat for every other reason. Eat because it's a Super bowl, eat because it's your birthday, Eat because it's a lunchtime. Eat because the plates not finished yet or whatever. And instead of listening to your biological drive to eat, your hunger cues, which you have to, in a sense, relearn, but it comes back. I love teaching about that type of mindfulness. It's valuable. It's not something I'm poo poohing in terms of mindfulness. I'm just saying there has to be opportunities that we don't have that, for instance, mindfulness overeating is much more useful in general. When I'm at a restaurant or I'm in someone's house in which I can't control the food environment and I have some water willpower muscle left over because I didn't have to burn it out at the house. Trying to resist Eminem with peanuts to my left and. And potato chips to my right. And all of that. So there is a situation right there, just specifically mentioned, where I don't have to be as mindful, strategically set it up that way. And then in a situation I cannot control. Remember the three levels of control, right? The things you can control, the things you can influence, and the things you cannot control. I'm going to say my willpower more for these situations that I cannot control. So there's a nuance to mindfulness that there's nothing really that we should buy hook, line and sinker as the magic bullet. There is no magic bullet when it comes to longevity, lifestyle and wellness. It is a series of very powerful but very basic and simple skills in the five keys to optimal wellness. That becomes really silver buckshot, no silver bullet. Okay. Any one might be more particularly helpful in a single person than another. But almost never have I seen, I've coached someone, seen them as a patient or as a high level coach. And it was just one skill they needed. They just needed to learn calorie density and then everything was cured. Or they just needed to learn the hunger scale and then that was it and it was all done. Or they just needed to learn to be insightful about being a neat freak. You know, non exercise activity time, which of course we love to express here in the walk and talk, but it's, it's just all of these things and, and more obviously in the five keys. So let's re, let's review the five keys again. Five keys are number one at the top, you see in the Pentagon symbol that we turned around so that the flat part was at the top to give it priority. Mind matters. Mind matters includes mindfulness, mindset, positive psychology, for instance, and mental health issues. Even going into the medical realm, if somebody's on psychotropic type drugs, I have the ability as a coach, unlike most, to discuss those things. Not just the psychology of lifestyle change, but the physiology and even the pharmacology issues, whether it's lipids or blood pressure or psych drugs. So mindfulness, mindset and mental health. Then there's nutrition. There are five transcendent principles in nutrition. That doesn't matter whether they're applying it to vegan or Mediterranean. It doesn't. It supersedes all of that. That's why the way I like to describe myself as a flexitarian, that's the only concept that I really appreciate as being disciplined without extremism, no verboten foods. Then there's physical activity, not just formal exercise, which is nice to kind of seal the deal, but frankly, where There's a lot of room for help, mobility and just getting up and moving at all. Light physical activity is not to be discounted. I love the moderate, I love some intervals. For me personally that's all fine but where the real, real table stakes are, where there's a lot of low lying fruit, is just people just getting up and moving. Just, just get up out of the chair and walk for a minute. Go to the, go to the next drinking fountain. I mean if there's two drinking fountains away, then go to the third one. Fine. You know, take the further bathroom break, walk all of that stuff. Parking further wherever you're at, any way, shape or form you can move more in the United States, you're going to get a lot of benefit. And then there's environment of course, and that is your food environment, sure. But also your social environment skills there and your physical environment knowledge of your four season state in Michigan, for instance, that you know, you know that you have a historical drop in your physical activity in winter. Got good news for you. Fall is your warning. So you've got three months to figure out what you might do in the winter. I remember specific cases where these skills are helpful. And although this is just a basic run through, last but not least, accountability. So eventually we learned to be more and more internally accountable, reflected like in Jack LaLanne's response to his wife when he was frustrated in some city, he was apparently going to do a speech or something along the lines of that he couldn't find a gym at and he was walking around saying I can't find a place to work out. And his wife said well Jack, why don't you just skip today, damn it, nobody's gonna know. And Jack said in a split second I'll know. That's internal accountability. But he needed, when he was younger, he needed a coach, he needed coaches. As a matter of fact he's really described himself as a sugar addicted kid and so forth. So that kind of compassionate accountability, that community, that's what we're here for right now. So I hope that makes sense in the main topic, right of mindfulness and where can we dose it just right and where we might need some strategic resting from mindfulness and maybe even setting up our environments that are the safest places to do so so that you know, at home, for instance, when it comes to food, but in general, you know, we need a break. You can go on a vacation, I'm not saying go hog wild on a vacation with food and woohoo and but on a vacation are Your expectations that you're going to really going to eat the same exact way in a place that you may never go to again. Let's say you're in southern France and you're not going to try something while you're there. That's ridiculous. Okay. We need to be aware that we need strategic rests and that we have an overall philosophy and direction, the center of gravity of which we're pulled to because we have a why. We know why. We have the need to be healthy. And in that process, we can make reasonable decisions and risks where it is worthwhile for the joy of life and balance it all together. Okay. All right. I like it. Oh, Tracy, thank you so much. And wow, there's a lot of people. I'm sorry the ticker tape was so fast today. And we have a. Gosh, I hope that isn't. Looks like we've got a possible fire and maybe even. That's a maybe that is even substituting as an EMT team. I hope whoever that is going to as well. You guys and gals, all of you, I love you all. Thank you so much for watching. I'm gonna give you a hug. There you go. We're getting there soon. Real hugs coming. Right. But there's no reason to do anything more than some physical distancing if you're not vaccinated or that's your priority and your risk management says that's appropriate, that's fine. But social distancing, no, no, no. We can be social. We can call, reach out. We're a community. Oh, I was just. Thank you, Daniel. God bless you, too. God bless you all. All right, take care. And we'll see you next week right here for Walk and Talk Tuesday with Dr. Tom, Noon Eastern Standard Time. Please click Love Like. Share this as far wide as you like and we will see you soon. Take care. Bye. Bye.