What's the best diet? | EAT + SLEEP + MOVE | WELLNESS | TED RYCE

Wellness Force Radio.

Feelings are essential, but.

They can't dictate our actions. We literally infect each other with our emotions.

We came here for a special purpose.

Let the purpose unveil itself. Knowing without doing is the same thing as not knowing.

They're not just trackers. I'm gonna wear this and it's gonna help me do the right thing. Wellness force radio episode 99 with world class health and wellness influencer and the founder of legendary life, Ted.

This is probably the biggest lesson I want you to understand. We have hunter gatherer genes. We're designed to hunt for our food. Some people argue and say that we were foraging for our food and we started hunting later. Doesn't matter. Just understand if you don't feel good, if you wake up in the morning and you're fatigued, if you got brain fog, you've got to look at your lifestyle and you've got to learn the rules of the human body. There's no sitting down and talking with a psychologist who's going to be able to fix that. There's no medication you'll be able to take that will be able to fix that. If you're living too out of sync with what your genes need to function optimally, you're not going to feel good, you're going to be overweight, and maybe you're going to be unhappy. Things aren't going to go well for you. The thing that actually works is habit change. There is a solution to every problem. It may not be the solution that you will want, may not be the solution that you were hoping for, but there is a solution to every single problem. And in a world where we have so much access to information and there's 7 billion people on this planet, you are not alone. Someone has figured it out. The solution is out there.

Welcome back to another episode, my friend. I am your host, Josh Trent. Thank you for spending your time with me here on the podcast. Thank you. This is where every week I'm bringing you access to global experts in all things wellness, behavior change and new technologies. On this podcast, you'll learn from exceptional people who are dedicating their lives to being a positive force for our physical and emotional wellness. My intention with the show is that together we'll discover the connections between our emotions and healthy habits to live our best life and enjoy the process. This episode is brought to you by Perfect Supplements, a company I'm stoked to partner with who actually walks the talk with their values. The of non GMO pesticide free real food supplements that fuel us for the wellness journey. Head on over to perfectsupplements.com wellnessforce Enter code wellnessforce to save 10% off your entire order.

What's up, Wellness Force? Are you feeling like the first month.

Of the year was more like a 30 day trial?

If so, today, let's make this the starting point of something great. And if you've already had an incredible stretch of progress for your health and wellness this year, consider this a digital high five. You know, so much of what we learn about together in the show involves our thoughts, feelings and actions. And in this episode, we're combining that trusted feedback loop you've already heard so much about with the three fundamental yet often overlooked things we all get to do on a daily basis that give us the health we're looking for. My good friend Ted Rice is returning back to the podcast after sharing last year one of the most vulnerable plus powerful episodes ever about dealing with his loss and turning his pain into the love of service for others at Legendary Life. Not only are you gonna love Ted's authentic and fun personality, but I think you're gonna connect with just how real and unscripted he is with his clients and definitely on the podcast. So what's interesting is that I've seen.

Over the past three years especially, we've.

Had so much time with two decades of content being online now that everyone in the health, wellness and fitness industries, I believe, is attempting to recreate the wheel, kind of repackage the wheel.

But the reality of our behaviors is.

That these three things that we all.

Get to do to have what Ted.

Calls Legendary Health are applicable to everyone. And Ted is going to share what he's Learned in these 20 plus years of eating, moving and sleeping Our way to better wellness. What really works in those three categories that are so important? You'll learn about the tactical action steps you can take in these three categories. Why we are ancient bodies in a modern world, how this affects our health behaviors and mood, why our body has a fat thermostat and how to structure our food environments in the kitchen and work and elsewhere to make our best nutrient choices and what to do when you're looking for the right answers. How to know if somebody's lying or if someone is really telling the truth and how that relates to your wellness. Ted is a 20 year celebrity fitness expert. He's a keynote speaker, a corporate wellness coach, and the host of the Legendary Life Podcast. Not only has he worked with Fortune 500 CEOs, but also Richard Branson, Ricky Martin and Robert Downey Junior. He helps all of his clients globally develop and stick to high performance habits that help them manage stress and adversity and lead more successful lives. All right, let's step into some fun energy with Ted Rose.

Ted, welcome back to the show.

Oh, happy to be here, Josh. Great to connect with you again.

So excited, man. You know, it was over a year ago you came on the podcast and you completely rocked our world.

Thousands of people's world.

Telling youg Life Story. We're gonna link that in the show notes if anybody's interested in the depths of ted. But today, you're coming on to talk about eating and moving and sleeping. Our way to having legendary health, man. So we really appreciate you coming back on the show.

Absolutely great to be here. And, you know, we went a little deep and talked about some personal things on the first show, and I appreciated you willing asking me about those things and your listeners willing to go there and hear about it. I want to share something a little more tactical and practical with your listeners today. So really excited, man.

Me too.

You know, that last show was one of the shows that my own dad listened to, and he said that was one of the best podcasts I've ever heard. So everyone go check that one out. But, Ted, everyone that you and I know, especially busy entrepreneurs, busy parents, busy anyone has more notifications, pinging them, and more distractions than ever before. You know, we're in this age of overstimulation. How do you see as a starting point for this conversation, someone actually just checking in to creating this system of sleeping and eating and moving better? We're talking about sleeping, we're talking about moving, we're talking about eating. We're not reinventing the wheel here, but there are some different ways to approach it. So what does that initial breath look like for somebody? We can go into the different stages.

Well, the first thing I want people to understand is, and this is best illustrated, I think, by a question that my dad asked me. He's like, ted, so much information on nutrition, on exercise, yet everybody's fatter than ever. They're unhealthier than they've ever been. They're more stressed than they've ever been. And my dad was. He was asking a genuine question. He's like, what's going on? Why is it like this? And we are ancient bodies in a modern world. This isn't my concept. It's something that a lot of people like Marc Sisson and, you know, so many people in the evolutionary biology community and the paleo community. So it's not new, but I want to give my own perspective on it because I've been in this field for nearly eight, actually over 18 years now, just a few days, because my birthday was not too long ago and I started in this business on my 22nd birthday. I'm 40 years old now. This is probably the biggest lesson I want you to understand. We have hunter gatherer genes. We're designed to hunt for our food. Some people argue and say that we were foraging for our food and we started hunting later. Doesn't matter our genes, what came first, we're designed to do that. We're designed to be outside, were designed to get sun on our skin. In fact, the amount of melanin in your skin, which gives our skin pigment. So if you have a darker skin, you have more melanin. If you're lighter skinned, you have less melanin. The purpose of that melanin is to, if you have more of it to protect you from more sun exposure, not be as prevalent because you evolved in a place that didn't have a lot of sun exposure. And why I'm talking about that is because we are really out of sync with where we came from, with the environment that we evolved to function optimally in. I'm not one of those people who wants to go live in the jungle, right, barefoot. And I love being able to talk to you right now and your listeners on Wellness Force Radio. I love this modern world that we live in. And I feel this is, of course, your expertise. I feel like technology will get to the point where it will start giving back. There will be climate optimized and light optimized homes. Right. But we're not there yet, Josh. And I can't wait to have you on my show to talk all about what the tech at CES that you saw. But just understand, if you don't feel good, if you wake up in the morning and you're fatigued, if you got brain fog, you've got to look at your lifestyle and you've got to learn the rules of the human body. There's no sitting down and talking with a psychologist who's going to be able to fix that. There's no medication you'll be able to take that will be able to fix that. If you're living too out of sync with what your genes need to function optimally, you're not going to feel good, you're going to be overweight, and maybe you're going to be unhappy. Things aren't going to go well for you.

And this Genetic coding that you're talking about. Everyone has basic, fundamental physiological needs. So we all deserve vitamin D levels. We all deserve, like, minimal activity, and I would hope maximal activity if we can. But, Ted, like, from a strategy standpoint, when we look at just the category of moving alone, I know we'll talk about nutrition and sleep, too, but just in movement, I mean, how have you instituted this with your clients? We are going to talk about your legendary health coaching program with clients that come to you. What is their number one concern or the number one thing that comes up when they're like, I can't move, Ted, you don't understand. I can't. I can't move throughout my day.

Yeah, Ed, usually that's not their concern, right? It's, oh, I got to lose this weight. You know, I just started working with a personal training client, but I wish that was their concern. And that's the question they should be asking, right, Josh? I mean, you're in the fitness game, too, and we know movement is key. What I end up doing is I focus on strength training. And because we know that your muscles are actually the biggest endocrine organ in your entire body, your muscles secrete all sorts of things if you stimulate the muscles, right? And that's what I want to get to, because one of the things I'm a big fan of, being 40 years old especially, is sustainable fitness. I think everyone listening to this podcast now knows you go into the gym and you push hard, right? But what happens when what you did when you were 25 doesn't work when you're 35 or 45. So that's what I'm really into. And we can get into details, but I want to be. I don't want to be that guy with the story. Hey. Oh, you're in shape now. I was in shape at one time, too. And they tell you their war story or football or whatever it is. I want everyone listening to understand that you can maintain a high level of fitness, strong muscles, a healthy body well into old age.

A lot of people listening are no stranger to exercise and movement. There's a lot of coaches that are listening, too. But on your site, in your podcast, you've talked about these really strong ways to plan your workouts for the best results. You've mentioned alternating between accumulation and intensification. Can you unpack that a little bit?

Here's where that came from. I started learning from bodybuilding magazines, like a lot of us, mixed results, and I don't have great genetics, although some people would say I'M in pretty good shape. It was very hard to get to this point for me. And I got so frustrated because I would read Men's Health, which Men's Health is completely different than what it was 20 years ago, 30 years ago, whatever. And they put out some great stuff now, but at that time wasn't so great. All the bodybuilding magazines had these guys who are taking drugs and saying that, oh, this? No, it's the workout that makes me this ripped and huge. It didn't work for me. And I was like, how do I figure out what works? And I ended up learning something called periodization. And I learned from strength coaches, guys who were training Olympic athletes, guys like Ian King, Charles Pollikin. You know, Charles Staley is another influence, so many others. Tutor Bomba wrote the book on periodization. And while that's a fancy term, what it means is how to plan your workouts for optimal results. Because we all know, okay, well, I need to do more work in the gym. I need to lift heavier weights or I need to do more sets or more reps. Something's got to increase if my body's going to continue to change, because if I don't challenge myself, I can't change myself.

So what you're talking about is the intensification piece. But I think a lot of people, especially in the CrossFit community, may get injured if they're always adding the weight. And I think I've been playing around with a lot of body weight exercises, too. So contrasting the accumulation versus the intensification, this periodization table. As a trainer in the gym, you're literally planning the workout from when they come in to how they're assessing their body's movement to loading their weight later on when they're ready for it. But you don't start with throwing on a hundred pounds on the bench press. Like, there's body weight exercises we can do. And I think that one of the cool things about the Internet is, well, it's also a plus and a con, is that there's so much information out there, Ted and we had Dan Pardi on the show. He talked about, like, how to find the health you're looking for. And I think what would be most valuable, man, is what you might say about when people are looking for the right information and whether it is accumulation or intensification. What are some things that they can do when they're actually seeking that right health information? How do they know who to trust based on your 20 plus years in fitness?

Yeah, and I'll tell you one thing, being 20 years in fitness doesn't necessarily mean that you're an expert. Right. Or that you're someone that someone should listen to. I would say look for people who are constantly evolving, willing to challenge their own philosophies, and they're constantly experimenting because we're living in a time right now. I'm learning new things all the time. I'm learning new techniques or little tweaks to. To get 3, 5% more. I mean, how I write programs now, how I teach exercise. And I'd love to give some specifics with strength training if you're up for it. But just understand, like, we're living in a world where information is coming at us really quickly and it's very hard to tell who's the person to listen to. But I would say listen to Wellness Force Radio, and I know another podcast called Legendary Life that has a lot of solid people on as well. But find those people who you listen to them and you know or you feel when you listen to them that they have your best interests. They're looking for the truth, in other words, instead of trying to sell you on something very gimmicky or cool sounding. I'm very straightforward with everything that I do. I think what I do is pretty good. Would I say I'm the best? No. I don't know if there's a best. Right. The best has to be individualized. But what I do works. It works consistently. And look for people who are willing to tell you the truth. Like that.

Yeah. And I think what's really unique about a podcast medium, I mentioned this on a previous show, is that almost anyone can hire out a blog post to be written.

Oh, so true.

Anybody can write a blog post, but you can hear it in someone's voice if they're stammering or stuttering, or if they're not really sure. We have an existential barometer for bullshit, don't we? And sometimes it gets lit up. Have you ever been talking to somebody who may be a fitness professional or a wellness professional and you just don't believe what they're saying?

Absolutely.

They might have all the certifications on the wall and whatever. So what I'm hearing from you is the same thing I'm hearing like, hey, somebody who's constantly evolving, somebody who's consistently putting out content, that's the people we should trust when we look at the strength training paradigm, what do you say to someone that wants to avoid injury? And then what might that look like for a month of someone starting with.

You, I want to touch on the point that you just made. If it's cool. Yeah, I'm a two part operation, two person operation. Giselle, who is my partner, is also a partner in the business. She's a marketing professional. And Josh, I'll tell you, man, she could write nutrition articles, she can go and read a few blog posts and learn some things and put together something very expert sounding to someone who isn't in the business. You and I would know, but your average person reading may not. And, but, but that, but she's a marketing professional and that's what they do, by the way. It took me a long time. I know what to do, but it took me a long time to get my. Organized my thoughts in a way and communicating properly.

Yeah.

So I wanted to share that because we joke. Giselle and I joke about it a lot. So onto your question. Here's what I love to do. Okay, so the number one thing is focus on your technique with strength training. Now, we can't get into technique specifics and obviously this is audio, not a visual medium. So I can't show you specific exercises. But I do do that on my website. And you know, but what I would tell you is focus on your technique, Learn, hire a trainer if you need to study the techniques. And what I tell people, Josh, nobody would go out to a golf, the golf greens or tennis court and do a really hard, sloppy serve and they hit the ball with the tennis serve. But that ball, that just, it's one of the balls that goes out of the fence, they wouldn't turn around and go, yeah, but that's what we do with fitness. We don't treat it like, hey, this is a skill that I'm learning because you're not in there to count reps, you're not in there to count sets, you're not in there to lift the most amount of weight you can or whatever. Although those things help us as metrics. But what you're there for, if your goal is longevity and health and functional strength and all those other good things to stimulate muscle, to burn some fat is to stimulate your muscles, right? You've got to stimulate your muscles and, and the reps, the counting, that's great, but your muscles don't count, right. They tell time much better with the energy systems, right? So just learn how to do things properly. And one thing that I love to dial things in is a technique called eccentric isometrics. I also use a lot of what are called yielding isometrics from gymnastics like L sits and what Are some other ones hollow body holds, arch body holds, planches.

How about just regular planks too? Like a plank on a bench and regressing exercises that way you could do that.

I am not a. I love like I do planks with some people, but. And they're a good exercise. But you want to progress people. And like you said, you mentioned the word regression. Absolutely, if that's what needs to be done. But what I see with a lot of people is they hold planks for two minutes or do five minute planks or whatever it is.

Is that really doing anything once we surpass like a minute and a half or a minute even. Is it really doing much besides just training the mind at that point? Right. The muscle pathway has been changed.

Right. You're working muscle endurance more on the aerobic spectrum. And unless you're doing it at a heart rate of 120 to 140, like.

How functional is it to hold a plank for that long, you know, for like 10 minutes?

Yeah, there's. Unless you're trying to. Unless you're going to win some something cool for breaking a record. It's. You want to progress from that. You want to do things like try a hollow body hold instead of a plank. I use those much more than planks these days, which is a little bit hard to explain. But imagine laying on your back with your arms straight above over your head and your legs out straight. And you lift your legs about 3 inches off the ground and lift your arms a few inches off the ground and curl up into like a half crunch. And you'll feel a tremendous activation of your anterior. The front of your abs, it's going to say anterior abdominal wall. But the front of your abs, you're going to feel some hip flexors and quads in there as well. And it's a much stronger stimulus than a plank. Now if you can't do that for 10 seconds or sets of 10 seconds, then maybe a plank is where you should start. But you want to progress. And with body weight exercise in particular, I love body weight. You mentioned that. I think it's a fantastic place to start. And body weight is one of those methods or forms of exercise where you really have to learn the progressions to keep going forward because you'll get to the point where you can do a hundred bodyweight squats, but you gotta eventually put some weight on there. Some people grow with high volume, low, low weight, high reps and high volume like that. But you're not gonna build strength like that for sure.

What do you Think about time, length. You know, you know, people work out for two hours. Some people work out for 20 minutes. And I think it really depends on body types. We talked about on the show before, you know, the endo, ecto and mesomo. Knowing your body, knowing its limitations, knowing what feels good when you leave. If every single time you leave the gym or even a park training session, you're completely floored and you have to go to bed, you're obviously training too hard. There's a bit of ego that I think gets involved. But from a scientific standpoint, what do you see being the optimal time window for people? Is it that shorter, more intense workout, or is it the longer kind of hit or cardio training they might be doing?

Yeah, that's a really great question. And I think it's very hard for people, even people in the fitness business who are personally personal trainers, especially when you get a client who's coming to you looking for that beat down with exercise. But I get client. I got a client right now. I need to interview her on the show because she didn't want to train with me. When I got her to train, I dialed back. We do strength training, and we don't do that much, and we spend maybe 45 minutes on it. And she does aerobic exercise on her own in one day of interval training. She's got a daughter, so she's a mom. Yeah. And she can see her abs more than I can. She's got less body fat than me, and she drinks more wine than I do as well. But story for another time, but she's able to do that, and she wasn't getting those results before. And so many people assume that the harder we push ourselves, the better results. But I think you said it best, and I'm not sure if we can actually quantify exactly why this works, but the right amount of volume, the right amount of time, more is not necessarily better. More is not necessarily better. And like you said, Josh, and I learned this lesson the hard way, doing my Brazilian jiu jitsu training where I was close to 30, and I was just feeling terrible. You would have looked at me and said, whoa, that guy is strong. That guy's ripped. Which was true at the time. And I felt terrible. I slept terrible. I didn't even. I didn't sleep. Hygiene wasn't hot then, you know, and I felt awful. I was not a healthy person, even though you would have looked at me and said I was. And more importantly, and going back to one of the ideas that we're talking about here is sustainable fitness. It wasn't sustainable. In fact, I had to stop because of the pain, because of the. The bad sleep that I was getting. To answer your question, finally, you've got to listen to your body. And I find for most people, unless you have a very low stress, like if we see those movie stars that get into amazing shape because that is their job, they train twice a day.

Yeah. They're getting paid to be ripped.

Yeah, yeah. And they have an awesome trainer, probably a nutritionist and someone to give them massages and a chiropractor to adjust them and do soft tissue work. If you don't have that, you've got to really pay attention to your body. And yes, you got to work. But pushing too hard, that should only. And that's what we call overreaching, because you should never push it that long to where it comes into overtraining. But if you're overreaching, if you're really pushing it to the point where maybe it's affecting your sleep, that shouldn't be done for more than a week for most people. So listen to your body. It's way smarter than I am. And you are right.

And beyond the scientific knowledge, beyond that scientific knowledge that you're talking about, it's. I think it's getting in tune with that voice that we all have which says, hey, I'm feeling like maybe pushing it today, but know your limits. Don't let the ego take over. And I think, honestly, to transition. The same thing applies with food. Most people will do something like a diet. Three first letters die. Right. So when they start a nutrition program, they'll. They'll do something that's so constrictive and cutting out favorite foods and doing all these things. I mean, what really works, you know, from two decades that you see and in your coaching program, is it a Whole30 approach? Is it cutting out the processed food? What have you seen actually work in your life and the people you work with? When we look at moving for this legendary health and eating for this legendary.

Health, I'm going to try to stay away from the more controversial subjects. You asked about the whole 30. The thing that actually works is habit change. And you mentioned with the diet and we know from research and, you know, people who go on. The people who diet the most are the most fat people. They're probably the most unhappy people, too. Why is that? Well, they go on a diet. It's not a habit change. It's not a lifestyle change. And what we do in the coaching program is we Implement habits. We provide accountability in the coaching. I want to talk right now to the person who. Well, I'm trying keto right now because I heard it on, you know, biohacking, you know, crazy Biohacking Secrets podcast or whatever it is. Okay, that's fine. You lost some weight. You know, it's probably partly glycogen and partly water, because, you know, whatever. And I think it's great to experiment with diets, but if you're at the point where you don't know the basic habits, you don't belong on diets. Diets are for advanced experimentation where it's like, well, I'm at 12% body fat, but I'd like to get to 6% body fat because I have a competition or a race or whatever it is. So I focus on people's habits and I get them changing their habits. And, Josh, there's a great quote. I can't remember it word for word by John Maxwell, but it's basically, you're never going to succeed until you change what you do daily. The success is found in the daily habits, the mundane things that you do daily. It's not that awesome diet or the magic workout. In fact, with the workouts, I write good workouts, but they work because I get people doing them for six months.

And staying consistent.

Yeah, and staying consistent. That's the number one key. Right? So a couple of the habits that we have, people do wake up in the morning, drink two glasses of water. That goes with every diet.

Why do you have them do that?

They've been asleep all night, haven't drank any water. Most people don't drink water. They start with coffee in the morning. So we get them hydrated. Of course, you can pay attention to the color of your pee. Right? And that's the best, most functional measure of whether you're dehydrated or not. You know, I try to give people easy things to follow. Another thing is eat until you're 80% full. That goes with every diet, even if you're eating Paleo, even if you're eating ketogenic. You know, if you. If you drink down the entire thing of butter. Right. And down the entire thing of coconut oil, which is great, you know, two great fats, but you can still overdo it. You should not be stuffed when you eat unless you're doing that for a specific reason. Or maybe, like, it was my birthday the other night. I was a little stuffed by the time I got around to dessert. Had this Bavarian key lime thing. I got a thing for key lime I don't know. I'm from Florida. Whatever. But it was super tasty. But it shouldn't be a regular thing. Eat slowly, chew your food. That works with every diet philosophy.

That is such a big point. I think just that initial mindfulness, you know, I started asking the question, what are the things that you might do when we look at moving and then eating for legendary health? And I think that just having that breath. How powerful could one breath be with your friends if you sat down at the table and you had a frantic day and you all just took one breath? How many calories less would people consume if they would just do a group breath together? I mean, does that apply to the template? Like, I know you meet with clients virtually a lot. Do people talk about just eating mindlessly with their. Checking their cell phone while they're eating dinner? How many extra calories are they eating by not being mindful in the moment of eating?

That's the thing that nobody's talking or very few people are talking about. I recently interviewed Brian Wansink, who wrote the book mindless eating, and he would be a great guest for your show too. If you want an intro. More. More than happy to do that. But he's done all this research. Even nutrition professors of nutrition aren't able to accurately gauge what they're doing if they're not being mindful about it. He's got this cool story and study. Actually. He set these people up for failure and it worked. He was able to trick them. And we trick ourselves all the time. And you mentioned. And I want to also say, Josh, I'm not judging because I used to be the guy who, like everybody said, you eat so fast, like, why don't you take a breath and enjoy your food? I'm like, I was inhaling my food, you know, I like, I was in prison, you know, trying to protect my cornbread.

This is a great point. I'm in a space now for the past couple of years where I've been making it a point where as I sit down, it's a trigger action response where every time I'm chewing, I place my fork down.

I love it.

So that way I'm chewing with open hands. And that's been a big one for me, man. So I still resonate with what you're talking about. Even if it is cornbread.

Yeah. And it's just those types of things. Right. Doesn't matter what diet you're following. That's applicable to every diet. And then, you know, the others that everybody talks about eating protein with every meal. Again, where even if you're vegan, you can get your Brazil nuts and walnuts or, you know, I'm not a vegan, so I don't know. Wherever you get your pea protein. Right. But it works with everything because we know how important protein is. The studies show if you want to lose weight, you cut something back. But if you maintain protein and cut other things back, you maintain more muscle mass, especially if you're working out hard. By the way, calorie restriction's hard on your body. Through most of human history, like, we didn't have enough to eat. So your sex hormones go down. And so if you're pushing yourself hard, you wanna, you know, make sure you're eating enough of the right things. You wanna feel satiated as well.

Yeah.

Protein does that. Eat vegetables with every meal and get the powerhouse vegetables. The CDC did some research on powerhouse. What they call powerhouse vegetables.

What are the powerhouse vegetables?

Yeah, number one is watercress. It's not kale. In fact, kale, I think, is number seven. And it's just the. The fruits and vegetables that have, like, the most of these certain minerals and micro and macronutrients. It doesn't tell the whole story, but at least they've made an effort to quantify. Josh. Instead of, like, in our business where it's like monk fruit. It's the new superfood.

Right. Everyone's always trying to find something new and powerful. Yeah. When really this is such a cool moment, because we're going back to the very first couple sentences we had. We're not reinventing the wheel. We're just getting more clear on how the wheel turns. Everything you're saying, I think, appeals to someone's logical and rational mind. Yet it's the execution of the knowledge you're telling us that I think is most challenging for people. You know, the bridge between knowing and doing. And I think connected to that is a really clear why. I'm curious too, because when you talked about, like, the fat, what actually burns the fat? Do we have a thermostat? I mean, are we having, like, specific foods for specific body types that raise and lower our fat Burning thermostat? Is that even possible?

You know, it's your hypothalamus in your brain. You know, I heard Dan Party actually call it a fat thermostat. What we're talking about there is that this is another thing that doesn't get mentioned enough. When we try to cut calories, for example, and we do it drastically like. Like a lot of Fad diets do, right? Our brain does not want us to lose body fat. It certainly doesn't want us to eat less because we evolved in a place of scarcity, especially scarcity of food. When you do that, we know that your brain starts to upregulate your hunger hormone, ghrelin, and it down regulates your satiety hormone, leptin. And so what happens when you move more, you get more hungry, when you exercise more, you get more hungry. When you cut back calories, Your body isn't like, oh, this is great, we're gonna lose some fat because we got too much around the midsection here. No, it makes you hungry and it plays games with your. Not games, but it exerts a powerful influence on your emotional state which is designed to get you to behave in a certain way. And I believe we're in this era now where we're starting to realize that we are not as in control. We're not really in the driver's seat the way we'd like to think we're in the driver's seat. We have all these things that push us to ultimately try to affect our behavior. And the fat thermostat is one of those things. And why that's important is because if you want to actually change your body and change your lifestyle, you got to do things the right way. You got to change your habits. And going on those crash diets, they can work. In fact, I had a guy on Dr. Stefan Guynet who is saying that a 500 calorie diet can reverse type 2 diabetes in a matter of, I think eight weeks is what he said. But for a lot of us, we can't handle 500 calories a day emotionally to get lean. So you gotta know your limits. You gotta understand these physiological processes that are trying to push your behavior in certain ways. And you got to do things that work for you, that can become a lifestyle and maybe think a little bit longer term. And when you do that, everything becomes easier. And you're not like 30 day body transformation, let's do it.

A big part of our emotional health comes from how we feel in our body and how satiated we are throughout the day. I mean, it's hard to treat other people well and think good thoughts if you're walking around hangry. One of the best ways to cure satiety and satiation is to add in powdered collagen to your drinks, your waters and into your foods. I use perfect supplements, collagen, it's sourced from 100% grass fed cows that means there's no hormones, pesticides or synthetics because these are healthy cows that eat grass while the sick cows eat corn. So beyond these healing powers of collagen for digestion and joint health, it also has 20 grams of protein in two scoops, which helps to curb appetite and increase that satiety. One of the cool things about this collagen is that there's individual packets you can mix in water and you know.

What, it tastes like water.

I mean, all of a sudden my glass has 10 grams, 20 grams of protein and all the health benefits of having this non GMO pasture raised collagen in my bloodstream. So don't walk around hangry. Pick up your grass fed collagen. Feel better in your emotional body and your physical body every day. It's part of the Wellness Force radio bundle and it's heavily discounted just for you. Click over to perfectsupplements.com wellnessforce to save 10% off the already discounted package and get more wellness in the process. The structure of these food environments are a big deal too. I mean, if there's things at home, we all know this on some level. If there's food at home that is not in our nutritional plan or not in our lifestyle. Notice how I didn't say diet because, like, we don't want people to feel like they're dying. That dialogue that you had talked about when we're on a caloric deficit, you know, the kind of pain that's going on in our brain, but we also don't want to put those low hanging sweet fruits hanging around our house anymore as well. So buying chips and buying chocolate and having all these things. I think the challenge is with families. So if I'm a busy mom or, you know, I see my brother's home, he has three kids and so I go to their house and sometimes there's really healthy food, sometimes it's a kid's birthday party and whatnot. What does it look like to structure an environment in the kitchen, in the house so that everybody can make great food choices? I mean, it's different for single people than it is for parents in the home.

Yeah, and it's a real struggle. Even though I live well, Giselle and I live together. I'm the health and fitness guy, she's the marketing person who can just write about health and fitness if she wanted to. Right. Knows all this stuff but doesn't do it. So what I'm trying to joke around, they're making a joke about is, is, you know, it really has to do with the people who you surround yourself with and food or environment. It's so important. It's one of those things that lead to the mindless eating that we were talking about and so much great information. But yeah, just understand that if you have things available and you rely like you have cereal on your counter, you got a tub of pretzels or chocolate or whatever it is on your counter, relying on willpower to not eat them isn't gonna work. It just isn't. It's gonna take one stressful day at work or a stressful ride back home, or maybe the kids are going crazy, someone's driving you nuts, you see the food, you start to eat.

This is the decision fatigue piece, right? I mean, we can only make so many quality decisions based on the stress load that's coming in.

Absolutely, man. You know, and I'm sure you talk about it a lot, but just know. I'll just probably reiterate what Josh has already told you, which is you've got to set yourself up for success. Willpower won't get you there. Or, you know, it's just you have to set yourself up. So make sure you're doing. I tell people never to buy anything that they shouldn't be eating. And if you want to treat, this is what I do personally and this is what I teach people to do. If you want a treat, go buy one. Bar. One, for example, is something I like, Josh. The Haagen Dazs bars with the almond and the chocolate covered, I love it. And here's where we are talking about food environments. If I go to the grocery store, I look at one, it's like, I don't know, three, 50 or four bucks. I look at a package of three, it's five bucks. In a financial analysis, it's a no brainer. I get the three for a fraction of the price, more. But what you don't understand or may not understand is that that three is going to cost you around your waistline. It's going to cost you for your health. So you really got it. If you want to go have a treat, go out, have the treat and try to keep it as clean as you can at your house. And if you got kids and they need the pretzels and the Ding Dongs and the whatever else, the Little Debbie's cakes or whatever people are eating, I don't have any idea. I don't. You don't even see that stuff much anymore. You gotta put it in your laundry room. Put it, don't put it in your pantry, put it somewhere even further away.

Man, I love. Thank you so much for bringing up the fact that if people are buying the products that are cheaper, it's probably gonna cost more for their health in the long run. I think that's a big deal that most people don't think about is, like, how much money I'm spending today on a food that's perceived as cheap. And Rob Wolf talks about this, right? Cheap food. When you buy something that's cheap, there's a cost later on. Of course, in that moment, we don't think about that, and it's easy to forget. And I think when we look at sleeping, too, because we've talked about moving, you've shed some really, really bright light on the fact that people get to listen to their body in the same way with food. We've talked about listening to your body. I mean, I don't know if there's a bigger signal in our life than when we're tired. Who doesn't feel when they're tired and then want to go nap or want to go sleep? What does that look like for the compass of are we really tired because we need to sleep, or are we just tired because we're stressed? I mean, what's up with this pandemic we're seeing where people are just walking around like zombies?

Yeah, that's a great one. Well, I think it mostly comes down to sleep, Right. That's the first thing I always ask people about. It's like, how much sleep are you getting? I sleep five hours, sometimes six. Cool. Okay. How many times you wake up? Maybe two or three. Maybe three. Okay. And what did you do before you went to bed? Oh, well, we watched tv and then I went to the bed, and I was on my phone, you know, blowing up my eyes with blue light. And, you know, they don't say that part. I'm just thinking it. But yeah, that's a first place to look. You gotta understand. It goes back to the genes. Right. We are not designed to go without sleep. It has a high cost for when we do, and it's hard to pinpoint. It's very new science. And I know, you know, you've interviewed a lot of amazing people about sleep on your show, but it's hard to pinpoint exactly what is perfect for everyone. But you can tell, like you said, Josh, if you're not feeling good when you wake up in the morning, if you're struggling to get out of bed, if you're struggling to get going in the morning, because you need a pot of coffee before you can talk to anybody. You better start looking at what you're doing as a nighttime ritual. You may want to look into the quality of your sleep as well. And things that you can do that don't take much, like lowering the temperature, blacking out your room, making sure you stay off of your devices an hour before bedtime. But it really should probably be more. But, yeah, that's the first place. And then also the other thing that a lot of people neglect is, and obviously this is a health and fitness show or wellness show. If you're not exercising enough or if you're exercising too much, that can be an issue as well. People don't realize it's like if you're out of shape, you're out of shape for life. Right. If you, you know, playing with your kids or just going to work or sitting up all day, you're still using muscles all the time.

Yeah.

And if you're fatigued from doing that because you're so weak that every time you have to move your body and brush your teeth and try to sit up straight in your chair, that you're taxing your muscles, that's like someone just working at the limits of their physical capacity. That's why strength training is so important. So that would be another place to look. Too much exercise or not enough.

You mentioned sleep tracking. Is there a way that you love to track sleep? I actually have this new device. It's called the Somni Resonance device. I got it from the guys at Blueprint Health, and I'm gonna try this out because it actually emits a signal that allows us to drop into that deeper response. Restorative sleep. There's also Dave Asprey, who's been on your show. He talks about using the Sleep Timer app. Do you use anything for yourself or do you recommend to clients any technology that can help people sleep quality?

Yeah, I personally don't mess around with sleep tracking. The gold standard is polysomnography. Right. And that's what actually looks into your brain waves, looks at what is actually going on and what stage of sleep you're in. I don't know of anything that quite is there yet. I've heard about that. I'm very curious. When you come on my show, I'll ask you about your experience and you're the tech guy, not me. Right. But I don't. But I do pay attention to what I do before. I pay attention to how I maintain my sleep environment. My cave, my sleep cave. Right. And I pay Attention to how I wake up in the morning and how many times I wake up at night. And actually I got into this because I don't sleep very well. Right. And by the way, I know I have a client who sleeps amazingly well and he doesn't do any of this stuff or probably know much about it. Right. But if you are struggling with sleep, you've got to learn. You got to learn the rules, you got to learn the sleep hygiene and, you know, keep listening to shows like this and dial it in. But, you know, I take my HRV as the only thing that I track.

Regularly is that first upon rising. And what are you using? There's a few apps. There's also some chest straps and devices. There's Bioforce. Do you love something for your own training to track your sleep and training?

I like hrv. I find it very interesting and there's even stuff that the American Heart association has written about it. I think it's really cool, especially if you're into a lot. I don't find strength training hardcore. Strength training really does that much, at least for me. And again, everybody's different. But if you're doing any type of energy system training, it can be excellent. Like when I was in Jiu jitsu, I paid special attention to it. And if you have a bad night's sleep, it can show up. So I use it for that. I use Bioforce HRV from Joel Jameson. There's a couple other great ones out there, but I've been using that for years before a lot of other people started talking about hrv, you know, and he's the one I learned it from. It's not like, you know, and I just feel like he, although he's not the best at marketing himself, I feel like he's a wealth of information. He's played with the best, like the megawave, the $10,000 megawave. And, you know, he's a great resource of information. So that that's the only thing I do.

What is one thing, and I know we've talked about so much today, I'm writing down notes as we're speaking. I know people are probably going to want to listen again to get all the nuggets, but if there was one thing on a high level for sleep that you tell every client and everybody who's just, you know, that you care about, that you want to sleep well, what would that one thing be?

I would say here it's a great question. And instead of giving a blanket answer, I want to challenge everyone to experiment and to Find out what disrupts their sleep the most. For example, noise messes me up. Actually, I have a lot of them, so I'll just share. I'll share the three. Well, not a lot, but, you know, more than most people. So noise messes me up. If I. If there's a loud noise, I get pulled right out of deep sleep and possibly into being completely awake and having trouble going back to bed. So I do something about it some night. If, when I travel, I take earplugs with me. Soft foam from Superior soft foam from CVS or Max Soft foam. Just make sure you get soft foam. If the earplugs bother your ears, that's critical. Blue light. Light in general really messes me up big time. Meaning if I have it coming in the darker, I feel a huge improvement the darker I make my room also cold. I can't sleep if it's too hot, so I have to have it cold. And so I put it. Or cold for me. Sorry, I'm a Miami guy. So I'm talking 60, 69 degrees, 67 degrees, somewhere around in there that may not be very cold for some of your listeners. And what I want to tell you is you've got to figure out what gives you the most bang for your buck, because I may say, no, it's blue, it's put your temperature down. Then you try. You're like, I don't really notice the difference. I want you to learn the rules, and I'm happy to give your listeners a little gift to tell them more about this sleep thing if they're interested. But learn what the rules are and then experiment and find out what works for you.

What I'm hearing from you is sleep quality depends a lot on light, noise, temperature, and sound. These basic human inputs that we've been dealing with with millennia. And I feel like throughout our whole show today, Ted, we've been talking about the fundamental things that we've always needed for 10,000 years or more in this modern busy world. People can go to your site. They can learn more about sleep health, sleep hygiene. There's some great podcasts you've been on that will link. One of them was on the Old Order of Man show. It's called Sleep Done Right with Ted Rice. I feel like this is really your specialty, so maybe we can have you come back in 2017 and have a show just on sleep and really unpacking what sleep is. But this is the last part of the show.

This is where we dig a little.

Bit deeper into your psyche. This is seven Fast questions for seven answers. Are you ready?

Let's do it.

Question number one. If there was something that you could tell somebody on the street when they tapped you on the shoulder and they said, hey, you're a trainer, how do you stay fit? What would that be? And I ask you, because that happens to most trainers.

How do you stay fit? I would say master your body weight, do push ups, pull ups, body weight squats, single leg, body weight squats, and I would probably take them through all those exercises right then and there. So if you're starting, that's where, if, if you want to know the answer, that's where you start.

What cracks you up the most in life? I mean, what makes you laugh uncontrollably in life?

I would say irony. I would say a good stand up comedian who has insight into human psychology because I think human beings are hilarious.

What is the one thing that you take with you when you travel? Either supplement or exercise equipment or even mindset that you will never leave home without when you go out on the road?

I bring with me some food that is tolerable to eat, some beef jerky and some trail mix of some sort. I bring something to cover my eyes and I bring some tape to either tape all the lights. And what I usually do is I unplug every single alarm clock in the hotel room.

Oh, that's a good one. I didn't think about that. I usually try to cover them. Nice. That's good.

They probably hate me because I'll reach back there and I'll yank out. I can't stay. It drives me insane. I take them, I unplug them all.

What is your mission this year with the podcast? I mean, you have on some of the most world class people that I respect. I know you respect a lot. But what's your number one thing, what's your driving force for this year and what you're creating with the legendary Life podcast?

The direction I'm really going in is really helping men in particular and with anti aging, with vitality, because I see so many guys struggling to get in shape, struggling with their lives, struggling with their health, struggling in all areas, in many different areas of their life. But when you start to focus on your health, when you clear out your mind, when you are able to manage your stress, that's when you start to go and do the things that you should have been doing. And no amount of psychological help, I feel, can help you do that. You've got to start with the machine, the biological machine, the vessel that we're all walking around in first Last year.

I asked you a question around a mantra or a message. When you're going through stress or strife in your life, has that changed? Do you have something you can share with us about what you might tell yourself when shit gets real, when things get challenging for you in those moments of just dire straits? What is the narrative in your head? Or is there a phrase you might tell yourself?

There is a solution to every problem. It may not be the solution that you want, may not be the solution that you were hoping for, but there is a solution to every single problem. And in a world where we have so much access to information and there's 7 billion people on this planet, you are not alone. Someone has figured it out. It may take some work to find them, to find the information, to test out the different things, but the solution is out there. Never give up. Never stop searching.

Last question, Ted, what is wellness to you now? So in the year's time since we've talked and looking at the year ahead, how would you define wellness for 2017?

Happiness, energy, sex and purpose.

I think we all could use all of those things in great quantities. Thank you so much for your answers. I know that people can learn more about you at Legendary Life Podcast, but there is something really unique about today's show. We talked about eating and moving and sleeping for what's unique to us. And that process is unique for all of us. And something they can do on your website is go to legendarylifepodcast.com free. Tell us about that video series that I know people can download and they can learn more about what you got going on.

Yeah. And thanks for having me on, Josh. It's always a pleasure to talk with you.

Always.

And you know, it's just an incredible opportunity. I put together this video series I know we talked about a lot and I know sometimes you're listening to this and you're driving, you're on your commute, you're working out, you're running, you're doing whatever it is, cleaning the house. That's what I do sometimes when I'm cleaning the house, I'll put on a podcast. And you may have missed some of this. I put together some 30 minute, 20 to 30 minute videos on each of these things that go a bit more less about the cool stuff, the big picture overview that we gave today, which is awesome, but more tactical. Right. And so if you really want to learn some things that you can plug into your life right away and test, because that's what I'm a big proponent of you got to test what people give you got to test information to make sure it works for you, to make sure it's right for you. But if you'd like to test some of what, how I approach things, how I help people, go to legendarylifepodcast.com free and the video training series is yours. Eat, moved and sleep.

Ted, always so fun talking with you. Thank you for sharing your knowledge. From training CEOs like Richard Branson over the past 20 years to now working in corporate wellness and with clients across the world. I think fitness and these key fundamentals, eat, move, sleep, these are the ones that are so important and so forgotten by many of the trends that overshadow them from selling books and new fads.

They don't receive as much light as they deserve.

So thank you for coming on the show and talking to us about these key things that'll help us live life well.

Absolutely. Josh, always a pleasure and thanks for having me.

Hey, you made it to the end of the show. This is the end of episode 99.

That's right.

Next week, 100 hundred episodes on wellness Force Radio. I can't even tell you what I thought this road was going to look like, but it definitely had a lot more twists and turns. I want to thank you so much from the bottom of my toes up to my teeth for being a part of the Wellness Force community. Are you on the newsletter? Are you receiving some of the exclusive content I'm giving there? Make sure you sign up@wellnessforce.com news.

Also go to our Facebook group. I create an easy URL.

It's wellnessforce.com group. That's our community on Facebook.

We're all there anyways, right?

I mean, is anybody not on Facebook anymore? I have a few friends that aren't, and I never really hear from them that much. That is exactly what we're having. The conversations about wellness, about the things that matter, like what Ted shared with us, these strategies of eating, moving and sleeping our way to having great health, but also our thoughts, feelings and actions. If you combine those six things and you make that your work, no matter.

What career you have or what you're.

Doing to earn money, those are the things that really move us forward. Those six components, I believe from my experience in my own life and from.

Working with people as well, those are.

The ones, those six blocks that really make a difference. Show notes from today are going to be found@wellnessforce.com ll that's just the letters ll for legendary life. So wellnessforce.com ll you can learn more about Ted's video series. He's giving that away. He's going to teach you basically for.

Free how to do all the things.

That he talked about on the podcast.

So huge props.

Thank you so much, Ted, for your generosity. And I have one big thing, one key takeaway from today's show, the one that hit me in the chest the hardest and the one that I played on repeat for a day or two after we talked, and that is that we are ancient bodies living in a modern world. It's no surprise that sun feels good in your skin and walking outside feels great and even eating high quality organic food feels great. And we know all these things on some level. So to know is so much different than to do. And I believe from learning on our episodes with Drew Canole and David Zapposzotti and Gay and Katie Hendrix, it's so much more real to have knowledge and a concrete why a emotionally fired up, really connected, heart centered why about who you want to be healthy for, who you want to be well for beyond just yourself. Because knowing about these six components I.

Talked about, those aren't going to get.

You there because you know them. What's going to get you there is building that bridge that we've talked so much about on the show. And that bridge is so unique to everyone. It takes trust, it takes being open, it takes showing effort and getting people in places and things in a community behind you that want you to walk the bridge. They're walking well. That's what you found with Wellness Force and that's why I'm glad you're here. So until I see you again real soon, I'm wishing you love and wellness.