5 Minute Facts - Fish Oil

This is episode 172 of the Empowered Team Podcast. Hey there. Are you looking to grow as a leader or grow leaders on your team? If so, then our leadership series is for you. It's running all year long. It's free webinars to teach you about various topics in leadership that can really expand your growth, elevate your leadership, and be able to really serve those around you. If that's something for you, then opt in to our leadership series, our free webinars that will be going on all this year. Welcome to the Empowered Team Podcast where we explore how to optimize your performance in career, sport and life. And now your host, executive coach and life strategist, Kari Schneider. Welcome to Performance Power. We've got our five minute facts today and this month's topic is all about fish oil. So fish oil can be something that we've heard all about. And it's one of those things that we figure, well, is this fad or is this one of those things that actually works for our health? So on our five Minute Facts, we're going to try and dive into that. But the first thing I'm going to start with is not one of the points of the five Minute Facts. It is that fish oil is in fact one of the top five most validated supplements. So what that means is that in all the research on all of the supplements that are out there for us humans, that fish oil is one of the top five most validated, meaning research study after. Research study after confirms and replicates what we have already seen in previous research studies. So that's kind of a really, really cool thing to know that its validity is that strong. It's not just that there's been some possible outcomes that look positive, it's that the positive outcomes that have come from fish oil have been replicated over and over and over again. So number one on our top five or our five minute facts for fish oil is heart health. And I can actually show a little share here. And I go into this and when it comes to heart health. A little more details here. There you go. So we've got. These are our top five when it comes to heart health. Sorry, I'm going to get rid of that. It is an increase in hdl, that's high density lipoproteins and that's our cholesterol. So when we think of cholesterol, we've got our HDL and our ldl. Our HDL is the good cholesterol, if you ever heard kind of good cholesterol and bad cholesterol. The HDL is the good cholesterol. And fish oil consumption helps increase the good cholesterol. It decreases our triglycerides. That's some of the fatty acids within our bloodstream that we want to lower in our body. So it increases our good cholesterol, it decreases our triglycerides, it decreases our blood pressure and prevents plaque buildup within our vessels. So that's just number one on heart health when it comes to fish oil. So really, really powerful that way. And when we're talking about fish oil, the beneficial part of it is the omega 3 fatty acids. So these omega 3 fatty acids are the things that we're looking at. And specifically it's two areas, one called EPA and one dha. And there's a really long name for those letters, but those are what you're looking for if you're looking for a label. I'll talk more about that at the end. So let's go on to number two. So number one was heart health. The increase in hdl, the decrease in triglycerides, the decrease in blood pressure, and the prevention of plaque buildup for our arteries and vessels. Number two is improving body composition. That's our ratio between our muscle mass and our fat mass. So not only does it improve body composition, but also eye health as well as skin health as well as bone health. How incredible is that? So improving body composition, eye health, skin health, and bone health, just this overall need for our health and part of it is because it's the fatty acids that are in there that are so beneficial for us. Number three, decreases inflammation. Now, the thing about inflammation is that inflammation is a really good thing in our body on the short term. If we have a fever, an injury, anything like that, it is our body's response to help our body recover from whatever the thing is that has been going on. That is what our body is doing with inflammation. However, long term chronic inflammation is awful for us. It actually causes serious illness in the long term. So we don't want long term chronic inflammation. And fish oil helps decrease inflammation. Number four, this is where it really packs a punch. And this is improving symptoms of depression and even can be used in treatment of some mental disorders. The brain itself is 60% fat, and omega 3s are essential for normal brain function. In a standard American diet, there are a lot of omega 6 fatty acids. And what we really need more of in that ratio of the fatty acids that we have are the omega 3 fatty acids. And that's why fish oil becomes so powerful when it comes to depression or brain function. It can even improve attention and, and hyperactivity in children. There have been studies that have shown that providing children with fish oil really helps their brain and the symptoms of hyperactivity and also improving attention. So that's number four. Number five is a slower decline in brain function due to aging and it can even improve memory. So we all have age related decline in a number of physical things including, including brain function. And when that age related decline comes in, there are things we can do such as supplementing with fish oil that decrease that age related decline. That's number five. But we've got a bonus here. The bonus is this. Sometimes when people get fish oil, they don't know what fish oil to choose. They don't know what the differences are. And they may want a vegan option instead of an actual fish oil. They may want a vegetable based option. So, and those are valid points. So number one, you're looking for on the label DHA and EPA in each serving, but you want a specific ratio and what I mean by that is a ratio of 500 milligrams per thousand milligrams of fish oil. So you want to have that 500 milligrams of the DHA and EPA per the thousand milligrams of fish oil dot. So there's a difference here and what that looks like. So for instance, in that difference, what that looks like is that if you have a tablet form of fish oil and a tablet form of fish oil does not have to be refrigerated. However, a fish oil that's liquid in a bottle does have to be refrigerated. So you're going to find two things that a lot of the tablets are in darker bottles and they may even be darker on the tablet and the bottle of the liquid is also darker. And but the tablets don't have to be refrigerated because they're typically protected with something that protects the oil from oxidation. And that's why it's able to be in a tablet and not be refrigerated. However, in the tablets, when you look on the label, you're often going to find a higher amount of DHA and EPA per the amount of fish oil. And that's why if you took the tablets, you may not physically be consuming as much as you take spoonfuls of the liquid fish oil. And that would be something that, you know, there's this logical difference like these are so much smaller than what I actually consumed in the spoonful. So why do I need to Take less. And it's because of the EPA and dha amount per fish oil. And you're going to see that in here and on the label it will say amount per serving. And when you look at the DHA or EPA and even ala, this is the alpha linoleic acid. But the EPA on this particular one per serving is 300 milligrams of EPA and 300 of DHA in that particular serving. So that's 600 milligrams that I'd be looking for. That's exactly what I'd be looking for in this. Now, if I look at a liquid fish oil, it's going to be in a dark bottle and it may have. You may notice that there's more fish oil, but you still want to make sure you're getting the right amount per serving, which is a minimum of 500 milligrams per serving. You have to keep it away from light. That's why the tablets are often stored in dark bottles. You don't want it sitting on your countertop in the sunlight. You want it in a cupboard or in a dark bottle. The liquid fish oil that's stored in the fridge, that needs to be in a spot in the fridge that ideally isn't in the door of the fridge. The door of the fridge tends to have the most temperature fluctuation in your refrigerator. So the door of the fridge is going to have some of that fluctuation. So to protect it the most, you want that fish oil a little further into the fridge, not in the door. The other part of the fish oil is you want to make sure it's being sourced from a sustainable source. And you probably have heard, if you know anything about fish oil, that you've got the potential for consuming heavy metals when you're consuming fish. So especially swordfish, salmon. So some of the bigger fish, they're longer living, they're going to be building up more heavy metals such as mercury and also other chemicals that are in our oceans. So what you want to take a look at there is that you want it to be. You want to know that the company you're consuming from has done a lot of filtering and. Or they are sourcing from a sustainable source. And their fish that they're sourcing from are often smaller fish, things like anchovies, sardines, mackerel. And the reason the smaller fish is that A, they don't live as long and B, they don't grow as big to accumulate as much of some of the toxins that would come in there have Actually been studies done to look at how much, if any of heavy metals are there in fish oils and that can be negligible. But again, it's going to really depend on the source. It's going to depend on the type of fish that's consumed. So those are some really key things away from light in the fridge where it's coming from, a short lived fish so that you're not getting some of the things that aren't good for you in this supplement that's so good for you. However, you may not want to consume fish at all, especially if you're looking to be more plant based or vegan. And those options would look like chia seeds, flax seeds, especially if the flaxseeds have been ground a bit. If you consume flaxseeds that haven't been ground, a lot of those beneficial acids go right through you. Because it's really hard for our body to break down the shell of an actual flaxseed, so. So having them ground first makes a big difference. Walnuts, brussels sprouts, and especially algae or a gal oil. It's algae based oil and the algae is so, so powerful because that's what the fish are eating. The bigger fish are eating the little fish, but the little fish are eating the algae. And that's where we're really getting the processing of this amazing omega 3. So algae oil, chia flax, walnuts, brussels sprouts. You can get Omega 3s from avocado, but avocado have such a variety of types of avocado that you have got different fat levels, different amounts. But this is mostly ALA and not as much of the EPA and dha. So that's why fish oil becomes so powerful. So before we move on to other questions and our performance power, I want to really honor fish oil and let you ask any questions. Pop it in the chat or unmute yourself and we will answer any of those fish oil questions that are there for you. What do you have on fish oil? And if there's no questions on fish oil, then we will move into some other topics as well that you can ask. Kari. Like many supplements, there are certain things they shouldn't be taken with or certain times of days it's better to take them. How is that aligned with fish oil? Okay, that is a fantastic question. Now I'm going to preface this with saying make sure you check with your doctor because there's going to be a whole lot about any prescription that I don't know about and your doctor does, and especially your pharmacist may know more than your doctor does about that particular prescription. So check with your doctor, check with your pharmacist. But here's what I can say. When it comes to fish oil. I don't know of a lot of contraindications when it comes to fish oil. There are some natural supplements that you know, it's like, yes, that's an immediate contraindication for certain things. However, fish oil, not as much. What I do know though is that it is so anti inflammatory and so it's very, it can thin our blood. When it talks about decreasing plaque and increasing HDL and decreasing triglycerides, you end up with this scenario in our blood system, our vascular system, that our blood is flowing more freely. That's why you've got this decrease in blood pressure, what that looks like in the blood being slightly thinned, with this decrease in inflammation overall in the body as well as that in high performance athletes. What we've often advised when we're working with high performance athletes is to stop their consumption of fish oil prior to a surgery. So if they're about to go into a surgery, then stop their consumption of fish oil and go into the surgery. Because a lot of the people who want to be super healthy, they're taking high quantities, not the minimum of the 500 milligrams per thousand, they're taking higher quantities of fish oil. And it can have this kind of effect that's not adverse, but this effect of a little more of a thinned blood scenario that you don't want to have going into a surgery. So that would be one, but I would really say just double check with anything else. It tends to have more of a, you're hearing more of a mechanical effect on how it affects the blood flow in the brain, how it affects all these other things. But please double check on that. But that's what I do know is just prior to surgery we'd often advise athletes and clients to go off of the fish oil for a bit. Awesome question. Other questions on fish oil in particular. Okay, and this. Now we'll open it up to other questions in general. Exercise, supplement, hormones, you name it, whatever is there for you in terms of your training, your injuries, your health, your energy, all of those things. Pop the questions in. And I also have a few that were asked to me over this past week that I can also bring to light as well. So any questions there, pop it in the chat or unmute. And while you're doing that, I'm going to go with one that someone Asked. I've recently spent a week with a lot of people who are very, very high driven business people and I was at a dinner with one of them and naturally the question was framed around business thinking. And the business thinking comes in, what is the 20% that gives the 80% return in business? A lot of people look at there are really small chunks of action that really are the things that bring the 80% return. That happens in sport as well. However, this person was asking me this in relation to health. And my immediate response, which is pertinent to our today's topic is nutrition. The 20% that's going to give the 80% if we accumulate all of the health actions that we are doing for our body, our physicality, our energy, our preventative measures, and we look at all of that, that might be our sleep, our nutrition, our exercise. The answer is nutrition. If there's the biggest impact, it's what we consume. And I know that I've been away for over a week and in a scenario where a lot of meals were provided for us, the majority of the meals were provided for us. I'd say 90% of the meals were provided for us. And so there just was not the range of vegetables I would ordinarily have. I noticed the difference within 24 hours on how I felt immediately because I am highly consistent and regulated with my meals. The time of day I eat, what I eat, the amount of vegetables, amount of fruits, I'm highly consistent with that. As soon as the change happened, then I could feel it physically. Now imagine if I could feel that, what that's actually doing in terms of my body and just how its functions and processes and cellular function is happening. That was one of the responses. Pop your questions in on any other things you can think of along the way. And another question that was asked was whether I drink, so whether I drink alcohol. And again, this is in an environment where there's a lot of driven business people and a lot of what happens when business people are networking, they will have dinner or just go out for some drinks or do that kind of thing. And my response was, it's not that I don't drink, it's that I always. I used to say that I accidentally stopped drinking when I had my first child because I was so I just didn't drink during the pregnancy. But then after the pregnancy and I was back into normal life, normal life was so busy that I didn't like the cost of how I felt. If I had a couple glasses of wine, then the other factor for me in particular, because my sleep is so important and I can lose sleep so easily that alcohol affects sleep in an adverse way. So it makes us feel nice and groggy when we fall asleep. But a good about an hour or between an hour and two later when we are sleeping, it actually disrupts our sleep. It brings us, our metabolism changes the sugars that we're processing and metabolizing the alcohol and then we are in a disruption, disrupted sleep pattern. So that was another one of the questions that came about and that I answered just the short version of the question. Another one question here is if starting back at a workout, what level is a good place to start? 50%. That's a fantastic question. And I think, to put this in context, I'll put this in a couple of contexts. So for instance, the context you might be talking about is from being ill. So whether there is a bacterial infection or a viral infection, and then you've been really ill, you haven't been able to work out because it's really set you back so much, then that kind of scenario, your body is going to be a really good indicator of everything that you're doing. I remember one time I had such a bad virus and I went and I felt so much better. I knew that I was recovering from the virus, I felt so much better. And I went into the gym, I was excited and I went to start doing, I would say, you know, 75% of what I would have ordinarily done in the gym. I went in there to do it and my body told me immediately that nope, that was not what was going to happen. I could tell by my energy, I could tell by the lack of strength, I could tell by all of these things and it was just okay. I had to adjust everything. And what it looked like is okay, I guess I'm going to do just four exercises and do a little stretching and be happy that I was able to do that and then see if there were any adverse effects, like if I was over tired the next day or that night, not a good kind of tired, but felt like I had a setback from recovering. Those would be indicators of whether or not you can move forward, especially when you've had an illness. Another context on getting back to workouts is that I've been away for eight days and trying to fit in all of the workouts that I can but couldn't fit everything in when we're going until 2 o' clock in the morning and all day long and other activities that get very, very intense in terms of the time demand. But I fit something in every day. One day I was supposed to do an interval run. Well, that day, it turned out instead of doing intervals, it was 10 minutes of running. Another day, Paul and I had an upper body workout and we made it through, I'd say, three quarters of the workout and then had to just reduce it to one or two sets for the last few exercises because we just didn't have the time. So in that, I was just fitting in what I could. Let's say you've been traveling for a month on some African safari and you come back to it. What I suggest for all people is starting back at one or two sets, if they were ordinarily doing three or four sets, just starting back at one or two sets in the case of being ill. And I think specifically for this question, for the person with this question, I think that it would be a matter of just try cutting everything you'd ordinarily do both sets and reps, cutting everything you'd normally do in half, at least. Just going through that and doing a self check after just a couple of exercises going, is this feeling like it's really good and increasing my energy by doing this, or is it feeling like I'm feeling pretty wiped by doing any of this? If that's the case, you might just want to put on the brakes and do a few stretches. You can finish with just some stretches and go further. And that's the other thing. Whether it's been illness, injury or traveling, or just being away from working out for whatever reason could be a family issue. Who knows? Any reason for being away, when you get back into it, just start slow. Or if you haven't been able to get right back into it, then there's always that 10 minutes of stretching and rolling that if you can't physically do the strenuous stuff yet there is something you typically can do. And it typically looks like some mobility work or stretching or rolling. Any of that work will make a big difference in helping your body transition back into your normal routine and building back up slowly and carefully. Just remember that your body's. Whether it's travel, whether it's not having done the workouts or whether it's recovering from injury or illness that your body is dealing with. With those other stressors that were placed upon you, even inactivity is a stressor. But especially injury and illness or stressors or the travel or the moving or the whatever took you away from your workouts, those are something that your body is dealing with. So introducing the good Stress of exercise is still something that needs to be progressed and integrated with awareness of how you're feeling. So you listen to the feedback your body's giving, differentiating between, I feel like I'm setting myself back and oh, this is a good kind of tired. I feel energized, but just kind of tired. And I feel good sore the next day. Not too much, but feel like I actually did something. Those are great indicators. We might have time for one last question here. Any other last questions before we head out? Okay, I'm going to finalize with this thing. I had a young woman ask me a question. What happened was, is in front of a number of people my age was revealed, and I had a number of people approach me saying that they would have put me at X age at the most, and it was 10 years younger than what I actually am. And so then that prompted women asking me questions on, well, what kind of cardio are you doing an hour a day of cardio? There's this kind of thought pattern that I must be just doing a lot of fitness and cardio and that kind of thing. And the answer definitively that I gave back and I tried to hammer home very clearly is that, no, I'm not doing an hour of cardio every day. I am lifting, I am doing cardio, but it's not long bouts of running. What it is, is shorter bouts and intervals. And I make sure that I'm lifting three times a week. Yes, the fitness is important, and yes, that overall high level of fitness is important, but I'm not doing that through long bouts. What is most important is for my bones, my mobility, my strength, all of those things is going to be those lifts three times a week. And trying to hammer that home to the female population in particular, because there's this false narrative that most women have about what weight training will do to them. And actually, in reality, it will typically give them the shape and the energy and the function and the metabolism of body that they're actually looking for. So I hope this gives some insight to all the things, especially fish oil and progressing back into exercise and all the other little tidbits we focused on. So have a beautiful rest of your day. It is so wonderful to know that you've got this interest and love for this because it's quite literally what gives the quality of life and that vitality and energy that you. You really, really want. Thank you. And I will talk to you soon. If you enjoy listening to the Empowered Team podcast, you'll love being on the Empowered Team. The Empowered Team runs year round. It is our group coaching and accountability program where we take mindset and physical performance concepts and break them down to usable action steps that optimize results. To learn more about our Empowered Leadership Coaching for business, our custom online physical training plans, and of course, the Empowered Team Group coaching, head to www.theempowered.ca.empowered learn more. That's www.the empowered empowered learn more.