Speaker 1: Welcome to Fitness Disrupted, a production of My Heart Radio.
Speaker 1: I am Tom Holland, and this is Fitness Disrupted. There's
Speaker 1: a line I used frequently when I am on TV,
Speaker 1: especially the home shopping channels, where I gosh, I think
Speaker 1: I've done well over a hundred shows by now, and
Speaker 1: selling different fitness equipment, different things like that. But it
Speaker 1: also comes up in many other aspects of my life
Speaker 1: and my job, where I say now, I exercise primarily
Speaker 1: for my sanity more than for vanity, and that's true.
Speaker 1: At fifty three, I am much more focused on how
Speaker 1: I feel, and that goes for feel in good and
Speaker 1: being injury free. Don't get me wrong, I still care
Speaker 1: how I look, and that is an added benefit, but
Speaker 1: it's not the primary one as it is for so
Speaker 1: many people, especially when we are younger. But that's the
Speaker 1: amazing aspect of exercise in that it doesn't matter what
Speaker 1: your main goal is. To look better, feel better, live longer,
Speaker 1: you get the other two. So if your goal is
Speaker 1: to look better, that's your primary goal, you're gonna feel
Speaker 1: better and you're gonna live longer. If your goal is
Speaker 1: to live longer, you're gonna feel better and look better.
Speaker 1: It doesn't matter. It doesn't matter why you start. But
Speaker 1: now I exercise primarily at least in the moment, because
Speaker 1: of how it makes me feel. That's immediate. When you
Speaker 1: find exercise that you like, not that you don't like.
Speaker 1: Not that's a punishment. Not when you exercise to punish
Speaker 1: yourself for eating something, which whole another show, and it's
Speaker 1: not the way to do it. You shouldn't do that.
Speaker 1: And the math doesn't even add up. But it's instantaneous
Speaker 1: when I go for a run, when I get on
Speaker 1: a bike, when I choose my form of cardio, and
Speaker 1: what I've learned over the years is it is a
Speaker 1: huge coping mechanism for me. So something happens that potentially
Speaker 1: could raise my heart rate, as I said, I live
Speaker 1: my life as if I have a heart rate monitor,
Speaker 1: and my goal is to not let anything raise that
Speaker 1: heart rate, like someone cutting me off in traffic, someone
Speaker 1: being rude on an airplane, whacap and reacently my choice
Speaker 1: how to react to that, right, And so for me,
Speaker 1: exercise eyes now is an amazing tool to feel good
Speaker 1: in the moment. And the Grand Canyon, the second Grand
Speaker 1: Canyon run I just did, that was an entire day
Speaker 1: of bliss until the end. If you haven't heard that
Speaker 1: episode yet, I just released that one, my second Grand
Speaker 1: Canyon run. My first one is still They're They're all good,
Speaker 1: They're like kids. You love them all, just differently, those events,
Speaker 1: those experiences. But yeah, I choose that suffering because before
Speaker 1: that suffering, the final couple of hours was eight hours
Speaker 1: of just Heaven Beyond. And so that's what today's podcast
Speaker 1: is about. It's a recent study on exercise and depression
Speaker 1: and it's amazing and it's not new. In other words,
Speaker 1: there's so many studies. This is a meta analysis, so
Speaker 1: it looked back at many other studies into exercise and depression.
Speaker 1: But here's where I'm getting to in my life as well.
Speaker 1: You know, I consult for specific fitness company home exercise
Speaker 1: equipment and what I would love for them to do.
Speaker 1: You know, part of my job's thought leadership giving them
Speaker 1: ideas talking about studies like this is to get away
Speaker 1: from the commercials that just focus on weight loss. What
Speaker 1: if there was a commercial that showed this harder to
Speaker 1: do can totally be done. In other words, focused on
Speaker 1: how good exercise makes you feel, focused on the cognitive benefits,
Speaker 1: the mental benefits above the physical. How amazing would that be?
Speaker 1: And I'm pushing them and pushing them and pushing them
Speaker 1: to do that. And the company that does that first
Speaker 1: and best. There's some companies that touch on it, touch
Speaker 1: on it. But this is one of the major problems
Speaker 1: with fitness and exercise and the goals that most people have,
Speaker 1: the expectations that most people have. Short term, I'm gonna
Speaker 1: finish with a commercial and a topic that I did
Speaker 1: a podcast on that was a little controversial for people,
Speaker 1: and I have to do more of those because it's
Speaker 1: so important. All Right, So exercise and depression, minutes matter.
Speaker 1: An amazing new study meta analysis, look back at a
Speaker 1: handful of studies on depression and exercise, and once again,
Speaker 1: when this podcast over, you should be so excited because
Speaker 1: it is validating so much of what I talked about
Speaker 1: minutes mattering and how powerful movement and exercise is. All right,
Speaker 1: quick break, we will be right back by the way.
Speaker 1: When I talk about minutes mattering, when I talk about
Speaker 1: the micro workout plan, doing micro workouts throughout the day,
Speaker 1: I do them myself. Everything I talked to you about
Speaker 1: I do myself. My new added micro workout is hundred
Speaker 1: You know my hundred AB exercise routine I've talked about
Speaker 1: and did a fit tip about. I do it before
Speaker 1: recording every podcast. Now mix up the types, but my
Speaker 1: point is I do them. This works a fifty three.
Speaker 1: You know, I talk about my events and I do
Speaker 1: the events to show you it can be done, to
Speaker 1: show you that I walked the walk, and I wasn't
Speaker 1: injury free. When I was a kid, I couldn't run
Speaker 1: my entire childhood. I had shin splints and angle issues.
Speaker 1: Sat on the bench soccer. We won the state championships
Speaker 1: in fifth grade, mostly on the bench, got a couple
Speaker 1: of minutes, but it was in pain. And back then
Speaker 1: they knew nothing that diagnosed osgood slatters, all these different things.
Speaker 1: Now that they have some idea, much better idea of
Speaker 1: figuring out and diagnosing things. No, and so to think
Speaker 1: that I had the ultimate not one, but many excuses
Speaker 1: to never run again, how sad. And so my point
Speaker 1: is I do it and it all works. I just
Speaker 1: gotta give a time. All right, So let's talk about depression, right,
Speaker 1: I'm someone, as most are, who have experienced this. Uh,
Speaker 1: someday I will talk much more in depth about my issues,
Speaker 1: but focusing on the positive now. But suffice it to say,
Speaker 1: I have some experience, a lot of experience, and I'm
Speaker 1: gonna read right from this study. By the way, the
Speaker 1: study association between physical activity and risk of depression pretty straightforward,
Speaker 1: not as crazily worded as many of the studies I've
Speaker 1: brought to you in the past. A systematic review and
Speaker 1: meta analysis. Again, meta analysis and systematic review means that
Speaker 1: they are not conducting research, they are looking back at
Speaker 1: past research. Okay. Depression is the leading cause of mental
Speaker 1: health related disease burden and a major cause of disability worldwide,
Speaker 1: affecting approximately two hundred and eighty million people I mean insane,
Speaker 1: and I would argue probably much higher and accounting for
Speaker 1: more than forty seven million disability adjusted life years in
Speaker 1: two thousand nineteen. Depression is also associated with premature mortality
Speaker 1: from other illnesses and suicide. I would argue that the
Speaker 1: thoughts we have in our head, the stress, the unchecked stress,
Speaker 1: this is one of the major benefits of exercise. You know.
Speaker 1: We can talk about the other myriad benefits and I do,
Speaker 1: and I will continue to because there are so many,
Speaker 1: but the stress reduction that we get from exercise prevents
Speaker 1: so many other issues, not just depression. Don't hear that enough.
Speaker 1: Don't see it in marketing, it's all about weight loss.
Speaker 1: It's all about how you look. I don't do any
Speaker 1: cardio and look how skinny I am. I'm gonna get
Speaker 1: back to that. Started to get worked up. This was
Speaker 1: published online A twenty two just came out Jamma psychiatry,
Speaker 1: and I'm gonna read you there. But what made this
Speaker 1: study different? Right? This meta analysis? And I quote they say,
Speaker 1: no study has yet synthesized the evidence to describe the
Speaker 1: strength or shape of the association by conducting a dose
Speaker 1: response meta analysis using harmonized exposure estimate. Now, now we
Speaker 1: got the words out right. What they're basically saying here
Speaker 1: is they're looking at the the dosetress like how much, right,
Speaker 1: how much you need? And then they're going to talk
Speaker 1: about kind of the the shape of the association. Right,
Speaker 1: it will make more sense in a second. All right,
Speaker 1: here's the abstract. I love, I love these studies that
Speaker 1: I love bringing them to you. The importance depression is
Speaker 1: leading cause of mental health related disease burden and maybe
Speaker 1: reduced by physical activity. But the dose response relationship between
Speaker 1: activity and depression is uncertain. This is one thing I
Speaker 1: get it. I complain about this frequently when doing reviews
Speaker 1: of studies, talking about studies. It's always like, how much like,
Speaker 1: what's the minimum exercise you can do and get benefit?
Speaker 1: I get it, people, But in all my years now
Speaker 1: of doing this, if you want the least amount, you
Speaker 1: haven't found what you love. Wow. I never quite set
Speaker 1: it like that, but it's true. If you're looking for
Speaker 1: the least them ount, you're not doing it right. Because
Speaker 1: if you told me Tom you can only exercise ten
Speaker 1: minutes a day once, I would be stressed and be
Speaker 1: really stressed because it doesn't allow me to feel good
Speaker 1: and get all the benefits. There's four major benefits. It's
Speaker 1: such a good study and one of the first ones
Speaker 1: that really just pulled out these four things in this way.
Speaker 1: I'll get to that a second. I'm always getting ahead
Speaker 1: of myself. If you want the minimum dose, you're not
Speaker 1: doing it right. You haven't found your exercise. If you
Speaker 1: want the minimum amount of food that you that is healthy,
Speaker 1: you haven't found the healthy food, right. That's the beauty
Speaker 1: of healthy food. By the way, always going off on tangents,
Speaker 1: but like when you find like I have the fruits
Speaker 1: and vegetables and lean sources of protein and healthy fats
Speaker 1: that I love, not depriving myself, and you can eat
Speaker 1: a heck of a lot of vegetables and a heck
Speaker 1: of a lot of eggs because you enjoy it and
Speaker 1: their low calory, many of them, and they make feel
Speaker 1: good and you don't over eat, you're not super hungry.
Speaker 1: See totally off on a tangent. All right, let's get back.
Speaker 1: So the objective of this study to systematically review and
Speaker 1: meta analyze the dose response association between physical activity and
Speaker 1: incident depression from published perspective studies of adults. Again, we
Speaker 1: can get studies into depression. Now, this is really what
Speaker 1: starts to separate this study and make it a really
Speaker 1: good one in my opinion. Okay, they included perspective cohort
Speaker 1: studies reporting physical activity at three or more exposure levels
Speaker 1: doesn't really matter for you. You don't have to understand that.
Speaker 1: And risk estimates for depression with three thousand or more adults,
Speaker 1: so sample size had to be more than three thousand,
Speaker 1: three thousand or more. That's a really good size, right,
Speaker 1: and that starts to weed out potential issues with the
Speaker 1: findings and the associations. Okay, and not only three thousand
Speaker 1: or more in the study, but three years or longer
Speaker 1: a follow up. So now they're trying to control for
Speaker 1: pre existing depression, right, So that's a good thing when
Speaker 1: you have that length of time and you have that
Speaker 1: big a sample size. Okay, here's the specifics. So they
Speaker 1: narrowed it down and included just fifteen studies that fit
Speaker 1: this criteria. Okay, almost two hundred thousand participants, one thousand,
Speaker 1: one and thirty participants and two just over two million
Speaker 1: person years were included. Approximately six of the participants in
Speaker 1: the studies were women. All but one included studies that
Speaker 1: originated in high income countries, so that could be a
Speaker 1: potential issue like does this uh, you know as the
Speaker 1: association for you know, the less affluent countries as well
Speaker 1: and people. And then the specifics with where six were
Speaker 1: from the United States, six from Europe, one from Australia,
Speaker 1: one from Japan, and one study that included data from India, Ghana, Mexico,
Speaker 1: and Russia. And again, this study reports the first dose
Speaker 1: response meta analysis of siations between physical activity and incident
Speaker 1: depression to the researchers knowledge. What are the findings relative
Speaker 1: to adults not reporting any activity, Those accumulating half the
Speaker 1: recommended volume activity, which is four point four hours per week,
Speaker 1: they had eighteen percent or risk of depression. So for
Speaker 1: those who did nothing again self reports, those who accumulated half,
Speaker 1: what I would argue is a pretty low volume of
Speaker 1: physical activity almost twenty percent lower risk of depression. Adults
Speaker 1: who accumulated the recommended volume of eight point eight hours
Speaker 1: per week had pent lower risk. And they throw in
Speaker 1: the met hours per week and things like that, just no,
Speaker 1: it's it's a handful of hours. It's not a lot.
Speaker 1: And I'm going to get back to that too, because
Speaker 1: that is such an important takeaway of this as well. Okay,
Speaker 1: and here's what's confusing, and I'm gonna always put in
Speaker 1: everything right. They were diminishing additional potential benefits and greater
Speaker 1: uncertainty at higher volumes of physical activity. So what they
Speaker 1: found was this was that the strength or shape of
Speaker 1: the association. So what they're saying is after you got
Speaker 1: above the recommended the benefits were diminishing, so they they
Speaker 1: started to drop off. Now there's a reason for that.
Speaker 1: Just hold on to that thought, Okay, what you need
Speaker 1: to know is you don't have to do a lot
Speaker 1: couple of hours per week low intensity, low to moderate
Speaker 1: intensity exercise. Okay, this isn't red in my notes because
Speaker 1: this is so important. Based on an estimate of exposure
Speaker 1: prevalences among included cohorts, if less active adults had achieved
Speaker 1: the current physical activity recommendations, eleven point five of depression
Speaker 1: cases could have been prevented. That's amazing. That's an amazing finding.
Speaker 1: If those people who were doing basically nothing got to
Speaker 1: the couple of hours per week low to moderate activity,
Speaker 1: more than ten of depression cases could have been prevented.
Speaker 1: Not with drugs, not with therapy, but especially not pharmaceutical
Speaker 1: interventions which are expensive and have side effects. No drugs,
Speaker 1: this is free. A lot of the movement was walking,
Speaker 1: and you are in control of the dose people. And
Speaker 1: this is why I talk about micro workouts. You sure,
Speaker 1: you can go for an hour to hour walk in
Speaker 1: the morning to our two hours of whatever type of
Speaker 1: cardio vascular exercise you can do thirty minutes on the
Speaker 1: but whatever your cardio is can do that. But you
Speaker 1: can and should also break it up and do ten
Speaker 1: minutes in the morning, and a twenty minute walk after lunch,
Speaker 1: and maybe a forty five minute walk with your dog
Speaker 1: in the evening. And what I love about the findings
Speaker 1: is it's going to bring in a bunch of the
Speaker 1: studies and effects that I've talked about another podcasts. All right,
Speaker 1: eleven point five of depression could have been prevented. You know,
Speaker 1: this is where the I'm not one of those people
Speaker 1: who screams from the rooftops about, you know, medicine being reactive,
Speaker 1: but it is. It's much more lucrative to sell a drug, then,
Speaker 1: That's what I'm trying to say, than it is to
Speaker 1: sell activity. That's true. And ten over ten percent of
Speaker 1: people could have avoided it completely just by doing the
Speaker 1: minimum or the recommended. So the minimum amount of expers
Speaker 1: eyes amazing. And I'm gonna go out on a limb
Speaker 1: here and say, because of the limitations of the higher
Speaker 1: activity levels, that number will be higher without fail believe
Speaker 1: that based on everything I have studied and learned and experienced,
Speaker 1: and and no, all right, let's take a quick break
Speaker 1: and we come back and to bring it all home,
Speaker 1: all right, I'm gonna talk about the why why for
Speaker 1: awesome reasons and again tie into I do say so myself.
Speaker 1: A bunch of the podcast I've already done a lot
Speaker 1: of its common sense, but a lot of it. Some
Speaker 1: of the causes you go okay, And this is why
Speaker 1: I repeat over and over, because you're gonna start to go, oh,
Speaker 1: maybe I didn't believe that the first time I heard
Speaker 1: Tom talk about it. Maybe it took three times. Now, Oh,
Speaker 1: now I'm starting to connect the dots. Now it's starting
Speaker 1: to make sense, because it doesn't always make sense. If
Speaker 1: it did. All this information we give out to people,
Speaker 1: they believe it right away. All right, quick break, We'll
Speaker 1: be right back, and we're back talking about one of
Speaker 1: my favorite topics, just the psychological aspect of exercise. There's
Speaker 1: so much to it, performance, Alzheimer's, memory, happiness. Why are
Speaker 1: those benefits not highlighted more? Why are they not in commercials?
Speaker 1: Why are they not in advertising? You can't show it.
Speaker 1: You can't show it the way you show a skinny person.
Speaker 1: You can't show it the way you can manipulate images
Speaker 1: on Instagram. And you can't just have it genetically, as
Speaker 1: so many people in this industry do. Listen, I was
Speaker 1: a fitness model with Wilhelmina. For years, I saw it.
Speaker 1: I saw some really unhealthy skinny people and really unhappy
Speaker 1: skinny people. It's not about being skinny. It's about being
Speaker 1: healthy and it's about being happy. And you can't tell
Speaker 1: either of those things from a picture from a body type.
Speaker 1: All right, let's get back into this because it's so good.
Speaker 1: Reading from the study once again, the greatest differences in
Speaker 1: risk observed between low doses of physical activity, suggesting most
Speaker 1: benefits are realized when moving from no activity to at
Speaker 1: least some Oh my gosh, this got me so excited
Speaker 1: when I read this. Read it again. Most benefits are
Speaker 1: realized when moving from no activity to at least something
Speaker 1: sounds familiar, excessive moderation, right, So for those people who
Speaker 1: are on the couch, for those of you who are
Speaker 1: listening and like you're just not even close to there yet,
Speaker 1: I get it. I've worked with you. I've worked with
Speaker 1: thousands of people like you of the years, and I
Speaker 1: loved it. I love working with I loved working with
Speaker 1: all clients and did back when I was a trainer
Speaker 1: and coach every type of age and fitness level and
Speaker 1: goals you know, from kids up to you know, plus.
Speaker 1: But give me someone who's just starting. Give me someone
Speaker 1: who I know I'm going to make feel good right
Speaker 1: away with not a lot. Not by killing them as
Speaker 1: I was literally told to do at one gym many
Speaker 1: years ago for orientations. Kill them to the first session,
Speaker 1: make them crawl out. That's a good idea, and that
Speaker 1: was the head of the personal training department. Again, I
Speaker 1: go off on tangents, but for good reason. It's one
Speaker 1: of the problems with fitness and trainers and lack of
Speaker 1: education understanding. Let me continue though. Accumulating an activity volume
Speaker 1: equivalent to two point five hours of brisk walking per
Speaker 1: week was associated with twenty five lower risk of depression.
Speaker 1: I mean it takes my breath away. So people will
Speaker 1: talk about how much do I have to walk to
Speaker 1: lose weight. I've contributed to those articles for thirty years.
Speaker 1: Over thirty years, I get it again. I'm not I'm
Speaker 1: not dismissing the way we need to be a healthy weight.
Speaker 1: But when you focus on the cognitive benefits that you
Speaker 1: feel immediately, that's how you make it a lifestyle change.
Speaker 1: When you find the activity that you enjoy that feels good,
Speaker 1: and you don't do too much too soon and you
Speaker 1: break it up and you do the other things I'm
Speaker 1: gonna outline shortly. That's when you start to feel good,
Speaker 1: you start to do a little more, you start to
Speaker 1: eat a little better, and then the weight changes. But
Speaker 1: you focus on the psychological first. Plus you have to
Speaker 1: go in believing what I'm telling you, because then it
Speaker 1: becomes easier. Not only do you feel good like your
Speaker 1: body and your mind those hormones, serotonin and things like that,
Speaker 1: but if you truly believe you're doing great things for
Speaker 1: your body and your mind becomes exponentially easier. And then
Speaker 1: if you do that long enough and you see the
Speaker 1: body change, then you're Then you're done. You're hooked. Then
Speaker 1: you're me and you can all be this. I promise
Speaker 1: you're just not gonna do it the same way I do.
Speaker 1: You might not run. Many of you won't, and that's fine,
Speaker 1: all right. Let me go on. I'm gonna read it
Speaker 1: once again. Though, accumulating an activity volume equivalent to two
Speaker 1: point five hours of brisk walking per week was associated
Speaker 1: with lower risk of depression beyond amazing, and at half
Speaker 1: that dose, the risk was eighteen percent lower compared with
Speaker 1: no activity two and a half hours per week. Break
Speaker 1: that up. Are you doing five days? Are you doing
Speaker 1: three days? Are you doing seven days? And that's why
Speaker 1: I love looking at it as a seven day plan.
Speaker 1: In other words, what's my goal by the end of
Speaker 1: the week two and a half hours? You go, You
Speaker 1: don't have to do the same amount every day unless
Speaker 1: you want to. In other words, one day you can
Speaker 1: do thirty minutes. The next day you can do forty five,
Speaker 1: third day you can do five if you prefer to
Speaker 1: have that. Like every day, I'm gonna go out at
Speaker 1: you know, whatever time, at lunchtime, after work, whatever, and
Speaker 1: I'm gonna do thirty minute. That's great, But you don't
Speaker 1: have to, and life gets in the way, and you
Speaker 1: can't and shouldn't beat yourself up when you go, oh,
Speaker 1: I had that thirty minute walk, couldn't do it? No
Speaker 1: do more than next day, or break it up, you know,
Speaker 1: over the next few days. And the final sentence here
Speaker 1: again little confusing. Only minor additional benefits were observed at
Speaker 1: higher activity levels. I'll get back to that. This is
Speaker 1: the only other red passage in my notes because it
Speaker 1: is so important and one of the most important takeaways
Speaker 1: of this podcast. Our findings therefore have important new implications
Speaker 1: for health practitioners making lifestyle recommendations, especially to inactive individuals
Speaker 1: who may perceive the current recommendation target as unrealistic. That's
Speaker 1: a word salad for. People aren't doing it because they
Speaker 1: think they need to do more than they need to do.
Speaker 1: People aren't doing it because they don't think they're going
Speaker 1: to get the benefits from micro workouts, from doing a
Speaker 1: little bit a lot, not a lot, A little bit
Speaker 1: minutes matter. That's why I put it in the title.
Speaker 1: It's exactly what this is saying. And so for all
Speaker 1: those people, especially the people who are listen, significantly overweight,
Speaker 1: aches and pains, and they go, what's the what's the point?
Speaker 1: And they may have tried it in the past and
Speaker 1: not lost the weight, not achieve the goals that they've
Speaker 1: read or seen from sources that they shouldn't have been trusting.
Speaker 1: Those are the hardest people to get motivated. And when
Speaker 1: I think back to the handful of people who I
Speaker 1: have interviewed and met over the years who exemplify this.
Speaker 1: David Garcia, listen to that podcast if you want a
Speaker 1: real life example of what I just read. Someone who
Speaker 1: had well over a hundred pounds to lose and did
Speaker 1: everything I'm describing here slowly over time, and he lost
Speaker 1: over a hundred and fifty pounds fifty kept it off
Speaker 1: for over ten years. But if you're on your couch
Speaker 1: and you're not feeling good about yourself and you're not
Speaker 1: feeling good physically, and you go, I'm not three hundred
Speaker 1: minutes a week or whatever whatever the recommendation is. Are
Speaker 1: you look at these crazy workouts. So you look at
Speaker 1: these images on Instagram, you go, I'm never gonna be that. Hey,
Speaker 1: yes you could and be maybe you don't want to,
Speaker 1: and the image is not indicative of health or happiness.
Speaker 1: All right, So ten thousand steps you don't have to
Speaker 1: do and shouldn't do ten thousand steps right out of
Speaker 1: the gate. That's a problem. Average American does like three
Speaker 1: to four thousand, So to jump up to ten thousand
Speaker 1: right away and to expect to do that every day,
Speaker 1: I don't always do that when I'm traveling, like I
Speaker 1: just did you know, Yes, I went to the Grand
Speaker 1: Canyon and we had a cross, so I made up
Speaker 1: the steps. But guess what, the day I traveled, I'm
Speaker 1: not sure I hit ten thousand steps because I got
Speaker 1: in a car and I drove to the airport. And
Speaker 1: I went to the airport and I sat and I
Speaker 1: had breakfast, and then my running partner and I got
Speaker 1: on a plane. We sat on that plane for six hours,
Speaker 1: and then we got all off. We went to the hotel.
Speaker 1: Oh No, I sat in a car for three and
Speaker 1: a half hours and got out, walked to the restaurant,
Speaker 1: had pasta, walked back to the hotel, I went to bed.
Speaker 1: Did I care how many steps I got in that day? No,
Speaker 1: it's a cumultive effect over time. I don't want to
Speaker 1: do that every day, and I'm glad I don't have to.
Speaker 1: And I made up for it the next day, and
Speaker 1: I think I had seventy steps, and running partner ran
Speaker 1: a little farther. I think you had a hundred thousand.
Speaker 1: But this is a problem with the recommendations. This is
Speaker 1: a problem with beat yesterday ten steps kill yourself. Now,
Speaker 1: just start moving more. That snowball effect is so powerful.
Speaker 1: All right, let's wrap this all up. So what's the why?
Speaker 1: This is what I love. I'm so glad to study
Speaker 1: HIT on these four things. So why, what? What are
Speaker 1: what's the what is the effect? What is the activity
Speaker 1: doing the exercise to help decreased depression. Four things they
Speaker 1: pulled out improved physical self perceptions and body image. Yeah,
Speaker 1: feel better about yourself. You feel better about yourself. And
Speaker 1: I would argue that's also because you're doing something. You know,
Speaker 1: this is cognitive behavioral stuff with depression. I'm the biggest
Speaker 1: proponent of cognitive behavioral therapy. Get out and do something. Start,
Speaker 1: get off the couch. Feel good about something, whether that's
Speaker 1: a hobby or working or exercise or all the above.
Speaker 1: That's huge. So improve physical self perceptions, embody image. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you feel good because you're doing something, full stop. Number
Speaker 1: two more social interactions. Oh my gosh. Have I talked
Speaker 1: about that in the past. How important that is? And
Speaker 1: if your home feeling bad about yourself, you're on the couch,
Speaker 1: you're not moving a lot, you don't feel good. We
Speaker 1: are social creatures, the blue zones. Social interactions. Listen, this
Speaker 1: is you know. I know my weakness is it's getting
Speaker 1: in enough water. I don't sleep enough. And number three,
Speaker 1: I actually like to be alone more than I probably should.
Speaker 1: I ran the Grand Onion by myself and I loved it.
Speaker 1: I purposely took a different route along the way so
Speaker 1: that I could avoid people because I wasn't there to
Speaker 1: be chatty. I was there to like have the most
Speaker 1: amazing solo experience in one of the most amazing places.
Speaker 1: But we need to have social interactions. So maybe you're
Speaker 1: walking with other people, maybe you're walking outside and you're
Speaker 1: just around other people. Maybe you're going to the gym.
Speaker 1: The social interactions are important. They're part of the whole puzzle.
Speaker 1: And I love number three, the personal development of coping strategies.
Speaker 1: I talked about that at the start, you can it
Speaker 1: stresses a choice, and that stresses a lot of people
Speaker 1: out when you tell them that you're situation is not stressful,
Speaker 1: it's your interpretation of it. I can be running through
Speaker 1: the Grand Cannon and hit the wall the way I did,
Speaker 1: like I've never gone from feeling so good to holy cow,
Speaker 1: which just happened. And that's where my coping strategies kick in.
Speaker 1: Have I been here before? Do I have the tools
Speaker 1: necessary to get myself through it? And the answer was
Speaker 1: hadn't quite been their way the specific way the wheels
Speaker 1: were falling off, but I was pretty sure I could
Speaker 1: get through it. And so that is connected. When you
Speaker 1: have control, it's a control when you don't feel you
Speaker 1: have control. That's really depressing. And that's why I end
Speaker 1: every episode talking about control. Coping strategies is everything self efficacy,
Speaker 1: believing you can get through something. And that's why when
Speaker 1: someone tries to drive me nuts or something happens, getting
Speaker 1: to work out in I'm moving more. I know the
Speaker 1: alternative and the other coping strategies not as positive, all right.
Speaker 1: And number four and to wrap it up with this,
Speaker 1: I love this. Did this show about this recently. The
Speaker 1: role of the environment as a potential moderator of the
Speaker 1: association between physical activity and depression should also be considered.
Speaker 1: For example, the use of green space is associated with
Speaker 1: the lower risk of depression. The biophilia hypothesis people being
Speaker 1: outside makes us happy, makes us happier. You can work
Speaker 1: out in your home gym. You can go to the gym.
Speaker 1: You go to the gym, you have the social interactions,
Speaker 1: you got, the improved physical self perception and body image,
Speaker 1: you've got the personal development of Coping strategy might not
Speaker 1: have the role of the environment or the environment playing
Speaker 1: a role. You don't have to have all of these
Speaker 1: all the time. But I walked the dogs in the
Speaker 1: morning in the woods for this two, get the low
Speaker 1: level activity to clear my mind, to disconnect from you know,
Speaker 1: social media and electronics, and to get that biofit to
Speaker 1: connect with nature. I know this sounds for even for me,
Speaker 1: a little out there, but it's not. I had like
Speaker 1: the craziest moment in the Grandkid many but one in particular.
Speaker 1: I stopped on a cliff about seven hours in maybe
Speaker 1: and experienced complete silence in a way I had never
Speaker 1: experienced it before. It was uncomfortable for a short amount
Speaker 1: of time. It was so bizarre and so cool, and
Speaker 1: it was connecting. And if you want hear more about that,
Speaker 1: listen to the podcast I did on the biophilly hypothesis.
Speaker 1: All right, I could go on and on, but then
Speaker 1: you'll write and say, Tom, shorten it. So let me
Speaker 1: give you the takeaways again. In the study, relative small
Speaker 1: doses of physical activity were associated with substantially lower risk
Speaker 1: of depression. Read it again, Relatively small doses of physical
Speaker 1: activity substantially lower risks depression. Minutes matter, Stop saying, just
Speaker 1: stop saying only something. I only walked for an hour
Speaker 1: this morning, or I just did ten minutes of you
Speaker 1: know the bike. I hammer every person I know to
Speaker 1: stop saying that. And we have to all stop saying that.
Speaker 1: Who said we didn't evolve to go to the gym
Speaker 1: for an hour? People? We've all to move all day long,
Speaker 1: we have all to connect with people. Our modern society
Speaker 1: is just horrific at at our for our health, physical
Speaker 1: and mental. All right, all right? So what are the
Speaker 1: possible limitations of the study? I gotta talk about that.
Speaker 1: Uh And I read directly it is still possible that
Speaker 1: the associations observed in the President analyses could overestimate the
Speaker 1: role of physical activity because of reverse causality. Really obvious, right,
Speaker 1: Depressed people move less, so X equals why orders? Why
Speaker 1: equal X? I think both are true? You Like? This
Speaker 1: is where I would say that I'm gonna throw common
Speaker 1: sense in, Like, I'm all for the scientific method, but
Speaker 1: of course, when you're depressed, you move less. So it's
Speaker 1: chicken and egg which came first, doesn't matter, doesn't matter
Speaker 1: in my opinion, I understand it matters when we're trying
Speaker 1: to measure these type of things in research. Depress people
Speaker 1: move less, Depressed people need to move more. That's what
Speaker 1: we have to take away from this. And they say
Speaker 1: to limit risk of bias from undiagnosed depression. They only
Speaker 1: included studies with at least three years of follow up.
Speaker 1: That was the main reason that they excluded studies that
Speaker 1: didn't have at least three years a follow up to
Speaker 1: try to limit that bias from undiagnosed depression. Perfect No.
Speaker 1: And finally, as I've talked about with just about the
Speaker 1: vast majority of studies when it comes to diet and exercise,
Speaker 1: a limitation of these analyzes is that it included studies
Speaker 1: that use self reported measures of physical activity, which are
Speaker 1: subject to yes recall and social desirability biases. I'm gonna
Speaker 1: tell you what I think you want to hear because
Speaker 1: it makes me look good. I'm gonna not tell you
Speaker 1: the bad things I ate. I'm not going to tell
Speaker 1: you how little I exercise. I'm gonna over report. It
Speaker 1: just part of all these studies, and it will always
Speaker 1: be a limitation. All right, What's the final takeaway. It's
Speaker 1: under our control how much we move, and how much
Speaker 1: we move is the who we connected to, our attitudes
Speaker 1: and what we put into our mouths. Those three things
Speaker 1: I say at the end of these podcasts. We control
Speaker 1: how much we move, what we put into our mouths,
Speaker 1: and our attitudes. I could throw in, you know, the
Speaker 1: following line that they're all connected. Exercise is so much
Speaker 1: more than weight loss. Let me leave you with this.
Speaker 1: I'm debating if I should. I'm gonna I talk about
Speaker 1: the commercials and how I would love for this to
Speaker 1: be a part of it. Remember the Peloton commercial Everyone
Speaker 1: was up in arms did a podcast on that and
Speaker 1: I had people like weren't happy. And if you don't
Speaker 1: know the story the Peloton commercial at the holidays where
Speaker 1: a woman was given a Peloton stationary bike by her
Speaker 1: husband and the backlash was she's skinny, how dare the
Speaker 1: husband give her a bike? As if people who aren't
Speaker 1: overweight don't need to exercise. I'm not going to go
Speaker 1: deep into this, and if you want to hear me
Speaker 1: really rant, listen to that episode why the Peloton backlash
Speaker 1: was so wrong? And if you think that it was
Speaker 1: wrong or that it was right, the backlash was right
Speaker 1: and the commercial was wrong. You need to listen to
Speaker 1: more of these episodes. You can't tell the health of
Speaker 1: a person by looking at them. What is her blood pressure,
Speaker 1: what is her cool us to all? What is her stress? Like?
Speaker 1: That is the there's so many things I listed off
Speaker 1: in that episode. But let's just stick with the topic
Speaker 1: at hand. Depression as powerful, if not more so, then
Speaker 1: pharmaceutical interventions. That's what many of the studies show. Exercise.
Speaker 1: What are the downsides? What are the side effects? When
Speaker 1: you listen to the commercials and and I know many
Speaker 1: of you are probably on medication for depression, and you should,
Speaker 1: you know, listen to your doctor. But over time, many
Speaker 1: of those types of people when doctors prescribe exercise and
Speaker 1: do it in the right way, and you start to
Speaker 1: feel better about yourself and you start to do all
Speaker 1: those behaviors they just talked about outside biophilia, getting around people,
Speaker 1: amazing things happen. Exercise is so much more than weight loss.
Speaker 1: We don't see that, we don't read that, we don't
Speaker 1: hear that. It's not on Instagram. Let's look at the
Speaker 1: crazy workout I'm doing. Look at the crazy outfield. How
Speaker 1: much agin I'm showing, Look how great I look? How
Speaker 1: do you feel? Be happy? I am all right? What
Speaker 1: an amazing study again, if you want to look it up,
Speaker 1: just came out. Association between physical activity and risk of depression,
Speaker 1: A systematic review and met analysis GAMMA psychiatry April. Thank
Speaker 1: you for listening. I love what I do. I love
Speaker 1: reading these studies. I love bring them to you. Reinforces
Speaker 1: every single show reinforces how amazing exercise and eating healthy
Speaker 1: and being happy is, and how they're all connected and
Speaker 1: how we're in control of all those things. If you
Speaker 1: want to reach out, Tom h Fit is Instagram, Tom
Speaker 1: h Fit is Twitter, you go to Fitness Disrupted dot com.
Speaker 1: Email me through the site. My recent book is The
Speaker 1: Micro Workout Plan. It's connected to everything I just talked about,
Speaker 1: and I talked about the cognitive benefits. It's not just workouts,
Speaker 1: it's the science. So you can grab that too if
Speaker 1: you're interested, and if you do have it. By the way,
Speaker 1: I haven't broken a hundred reviews yet. It's my goal.
Speaker 1: I'm a goals oriented person. You have read it and
Speaker 1: enjoy it, would greatly appreciate an Amazon review. Thank you
Speaker 1: ahead of time. I remember my goal is to help
Speaker 1: all of us, myself and you, with our best lives.
Speaker 1: That's it. That's it. I don't want to be biased,
Speaker 1: because if if my bias keeps me from achieving that
Speaker 1: goal for myself, what good is it? I am Tom Holland.
Speaker 1: This is Fitness Disrupted. Believe in yourself. Fitness Disrupted is
Speaker 1: a production of I heart Radio. For more podcasts from
Speaker 1: my heart Radio, visit the i heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts,
Speaker 1: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.