Speaker 1: Get everyone. Sam Wood here with another episode of the
Speaker 1: Wood Life. Recently, we brought out a new program on
Speaker 1: my fitness program called Back to Basics, and we did
Speaker 1: a food one and we did a fitness one, and
Speaker 1: it is really simple ten minute workouts, how to do
Speaker 1: very basic shopping, how to cook recipes with four to
Speaker 1: five ingredients. And it was a real eye opener to
Speaker 1: how well received it was because we're not talking. It's
Speaker 1: not about going from a seven to ten. It's about
Speaker 1: going from a three to a six. And really, when
Speaker 1: you think of the state that we're in as a
Speaker 1: country from a health perspective, most of us probably are
Speaker 1: in the three to six category, and yet talking to
Speaker 1: people at the seven to eight is probably not that
Speaker 1: help for many many people. So today we're doing exactly that,
Speaker 1: We're going back to Basics, and we're doing that with
Speaker 1: someone who just makes so much sense when it comes
Speaker 1: to nutrition. We've got a wonderful dietitian coming into the show.
Speaker 1: And then I'm going to help you fix you back.
Speaker 1: If you've got a saw back, you need to improve
Speaker 1: your posture, not the mindset. Great, so a bit hypocritical,
Speaker 1: I'm your guy. That's all coming up today in the
Speaker 1: wood Life, So this is rare. We don't often get
Speaker 1: repeat guests back on the wood Life, but I have
Speaker 1: one of our favorites back sitting in front of me,
Speaker 1: the wonderful Tim Crow, who is an advanced accredited practicing
Speaker 1: dietitian who spent most of his career in the world
Speaker 1: of universe and nutrition training and research. He now works
Speaker 1: as a freelance health and medical writer and scientific consultant.
Speaker 1: If there's anything you want to know about food, he's
Speaker 1: your guy. Tim.
Speaker 2: Welcome back, Sam, I'm in rare a thank you very
Speaker 2: much for the second invitation to come back. I must
Speaker 2: have been Okama first.
Speaker 1: That's right, that's right. We like to spread you out
Speaker 1: because we can't give too much Tim or that the
Speaker 1: crowd will just laugh at mind, you know, but we
Speaker 1: get more food questions than anything else. And I'm a
Speaker 1: fitness guy much more than I'm a food guy. And
Speaker 1: one thing that always jumps out at me, and I
Speaker 1: have to always remind myself of it, is just don't
Speaker 1: assume that everybody understands nutrition. In fact, probably assume the opposite,
Speaker 1: because it is so damn confusing. The science is great
Speaker 1: and the education is great. And the history of these
Speaker 1: challenges is wonderful. But sometimes it's just really refreshing and
Speaker 1: nice and easy and fast to find out what should
Speaker 1: I be eating? So I thought i'd get you in
Speaker 1: Spring is here. What do you love about spring from
Speaker 1: a food perspective? From what gives us energy? What seasonal?
Speaker 1: What jumps out at you mate when springtime rolls around.
Speaker 2: Well, first of all, spring it's obviously in the southern
Speaker 2: hemisphere down here in Melbourne Way and in the southern
Speaker 2: latitudes it gets warmer, the days get longer. We feel better,
Speaker 2: we feel happier, and with that our foods start to
Speaker 2: change a little bit. And one of the first thing
Speaker 2: you notice is stone fruits, berries, all these things, and
Speaker 2: that is the big signal for spring and summer.
Speaker 1: And cherries on the side of the road in Tassie
Speaker 1: you get a massive bag for ten bucks and you
Speaker 1: make yourself sick. That's my happy childhood memories right there.
Speaker 2: And that's spring. That's the start of the new season.
Speaker 2: And with that we start hopefully changing our diets a
Speaker 2: little bit. We start eating some of these different foods.
Speaker 2: We move from the winter foods into more of the
Speaker 2: spring and summer foods. So yeah, I've mentioned the berries,
Speaker 2: the stone fruits, but also things like broccoli, colifflower, tomato,
Speaker 2: sweet potatoes. They are all seasonal to an extent. Yeah,
Speaker 2: and when you're eating seasonally, there are three major big wins.
Speaker 2: First of all, they taste better.
Speaker 1: Yep.
Speaker 2: They're better nutritionally. They're cheaper because they have picked at
Speaker 2: the peak of ripeness, and they have less transport and
Speaker 2: less storage that goes with them and joining them all local,
Speaker 2: so they're great for the environment. They're cheaper, they're better
Speaker 2: for your health. It's just wins all around.
Speaker 1: There's no downside. Is that it's really interesting you say
Speaker 1: they're seasonal, because because of the way foods can be
Speaker 1: processed and kept these days, we sort of forget, like
Speaker 1: it's not that you can't get a tomato or sweet
Speaker 1: potato twelve months of the year. You know, they're there
Speaker 1: all year round. So to actually have the knowledge or
Speaker 1: have a little list of yep, they're there all year round,
Speaker 1: but this is the peak season where I should be
Speaker 1: having a higher volume of these foods in my diet,
Speaker 1: I think is actually a really smart little strategy completely right.
Speaker 2: We are living with the most abundant nutritious, healthy food
Speaker 2: supply in the history of humankind. Today, just we can
Speaker 2: get anything we want in the fresh produce department. We
Speaker 2: have the choice it's going to go uber eats or
Speaker 2: you're going to go out of seasoned fruit and vegetable.
Speaker 2: So while we may argue and debate about nutritional merits
Speaker 2: of seasonal versus non seasonal for the healthiest foods, the
Speaker 2: fact is that always available, and research out only this
Speaker 2: week from the CSIRO found that strain adults, only twenty
Speaker 2: percent of us are eating enough vegetables to start with.
Speaker 2: So I don't argue and debate about nutrients of organic
Speaker 2: versus not organic, and seasonal versus not not seasonal. Eat
Speaker 2: more of them that will be doing. Just go seasonal.
Speaker 2: That'll be.
Speaker 1: That's a little ten percent on top. That is the
Speaker 1: source I like that I'd love to get from you,
Speaker 1: being such a food expert. What are your favorite things
Speaker 1: for brecky lunch and dinner. Can you reel off a
Speaker 1: couple of things that you either in it from an
Speaker 1: ingredient standpoint or a whole meal standpoint.
Speaker 2: So for this time of the year, it is it's
Speaker 2: going to get into the berries. If I had to
Speaker 2: choose one fruit that really deserves true superhero status would
Speaker 2: be the berries. They are really awesome. Those different colors
Speaker 2: of the reds and the blues are there because of
Speaker 2: different pigments, different chemicals in their food, which do a
Speaker 2: world of good for us to deal with our heart
Speaker 2: health and our brain health. So really, the berries by
Speaker 2: far some of the best fruits you're commuting.
Speaker 1: And frozen fresh well, the.
Speaker 2: Thing about frozen is that when their food's frozen, we
Speaker 2: lose a small amount of nutrition, but most of it's
Speaker 2: locked in, so it's a convenient option. And being a
Speaker 2: research noted, we know that people that have more frozen
Speaker 2: produce at home eat more fruit and vegetables, so they're
Speaker 2: actually nutrition They are pretty good. Nothing beats what you
Speaker 2: grow in your own garden, but frozen and even canned
Speaker 2: is a pretty good backup option to supplement your diet
Speaker 2: as well.
Speaker 1: So that's actually that's a great stat So that's proven
Speaker 1: out those that eat frozen or put canned in that
Speaker 1: same category actually eat more fruits and vegetables than those
Speaker 1: that don't.
Speaker 2: That's right if you just rely on fresh, which is fantastic,
Speaker 2: but if you have fresh and frozen as a backup
Speaker 2: for convenience. Overall on our re dule, ate more of
Speaker 2: them and that's going to be a big health wind.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I like it. And what about lunches and dinners?
Speaker 1: Do you have any any favorite pretty stable tuna, grains,
Speaker 1: canned tuna, can tuna, yep, yeah, I love can tuna.
Speaker 2: Convenient, quick, easy, simple. But the core principles of what
Speaker 2: a healthy diet is is going to be most mostly plants.
Speaker 2: And if you choose to, you can have some animal
Speaker 2: foods in there, some dairy, some tuna, some red meat,
Speaker 2: some chicken if you're so desire, But if you've got
Speaker 2: the core of mostly plant foods and a variety of foods.
Speaker 2: And the big win about seasonal produce is when you're
Speaker 2: eating seasonally, you're increasing your variety over the course of
Speaker 2: the year, and changing colors and changing seasons means in
Speaker 2: changing nutrition and changing chemicals which are going to be
Speaker 2: good for us overall. So it's way it just looks
Speaker 2: for color. If you're eating more colors in a day
Speaker 2: than you're doing, your health the world of good. So
Speaker 2: long as those colors are not from skipples and m
Speaker 2: and ms coming from the berries and fruits and vegetables
Speaker 2: and so on. That is that's all you need to
Speaker 2: know about nutrition, Just choose on colors.
Speaker 1: And what about nuts, because I'm a nut nut.
Speaker 2: They are all I mean, the nuts for the research
Speaker 2: to do with nuts is pretty fantastic. They're actually good
Speaker 2: for weight management, good.
Speaker 1: Denting, calorie dent.
Speaker 2: Here's the fun fact about nuts. When you're eating them whole,
Speaker 2: because we don't chew them fully, you actually don't, for
Speaker 2: one of a better word, to absorb a lot of
Speaker 2: the fat from them, not fully, so they're not as
Speaker 2: fattening as what we think they are.
Speaker 1: Them.
Speaker 2: And they're great. They're great, probably really good for your heart,
Speaker 2: really good source of healthy fat. So they're great to include,
Speaker 2: and that's why they're in our dietary guidelines. When having
Speaker 2: nuts every day. And if you ask me what's the
Speaker 2: best nut, whatever one you're like, Brazil, cashiw mecademia, Well, nuts, they're.
Speaker 1: All good them all. And they're not seasonal as much.
Speaker 2: Not as nuts as much because they can they keep
Speaker 2: quite a while.
Speaker 1: What about energy, because I feel like we're all exhausted.
Speaker 1: I feel like I don't know. I had to chat
Speaker 1: with a couple of people at work there was a
Speaker 1: bit of post winter fatigue. You know, you're on Instagram.
Speaker 1: It feels like every second person you know is in
Speaker 1: the Greek Islands. It's not really true, but that's what
Speaker 1: Instagram does to you. You're you know, it's been these long,
Speaker 1: short days, and I know spring naturally helps with longer
Speaker 1: days and modern day daylight sunlight. But from a food perspective,
Speaker 1: do you have any little energy hacks that you that
Speaker 1: you like to prescribe to people?
Speaker 2: So probably it's leveraging off I've already spoken about in spring,
Speaker 2: that's when we're starting to see a change in the
Speaker 2: food that's available to us. So making those sort of
Speaker 2: choices in the warman, whether we're more like a bearding
Speaker 2: outdoors yea, and things like snacks and things like that
Speaker 2: work really well for this time of the year. So
Speaker 2: because we're eating outside or doing more things outdoors, it
Speaker 2: changes the sort of food we may take, whether it's
Speaker 2: compared to winter food. So there's no hacks, there's nothing,
Speaker 2: nothing complain, but just be focused a bit more on
Speaker 2: going for some of those food swaps. I've spoken about
Speaker 2: having more berries, Like for breakfast, you may have eggs,
Speaker 2: but putting in some of the seasonal things such as
Speaker 2: spinach and tomatoes with it will taste better, be better
Speaker 2: for you. Yeah, and just having more snacks for the go.
Speaker 2: And we've already mentioned nuts. They are pretty incredible foods
Speaker 2: to be having dried fruit really convenient way to have
Speaker 2: more fruit. All those are just simple things to be doing.
Speaker 2: I think complex, No, and it's not.
Speaker 1: I mean, I know there's no silver bullet here. I
Speaker 1: don't know. I feel like my relationship with food is
Speaker 1: better at this time of year. I don't not enjoy
Speaker 1: my winter foods, but it's a bit more of a grind.
Speaker 1: So something else that happens at this time of year.
Speaker 1: And it might not be the start of spring necessarily,
Speaker 1: it could be sort of any time in spring. And
Speaker 1: I wanted to talk to you about it is detoxes
Speaker 1: because it's either I've got to repent for my winter
Speaker 1: sins or I've got to undo the damage. You know,
Speaker 1: I'm being extreme, but these are the terms I hear
Speaker 1: from people, or it I need to get myself in
Speaker 1: shape for some same things. So what kind of extreme
Speaker 1: ten day, seven day, fourteen day, whatever it is, method
Speaker 1: is going to help me with that? What is your
Speaker 1: take on detoxes, the good, the bad, the ugly. What
Speaker 1: do you think?
Speaker 2: So over my twenty years in the media, detox has
Speaker 2: meaning that one topic I speak about, and it's always
Speaker 2: in January. I don't know why that January maybe could
Speaker 2: help me out year it's going on in January, it's
Speaker 2: always detox. That the flippant approach is you just say, look,
Speaker 2: you know, we don't need a detox. We've got kidneys
Speaker 2: and lungs that do this really well. All the detox
Speaker 2: diet is it's a Marco Force cut out all these
Speaker 2: food team. You're putting less rubbish in in the first place,
Speaker 2: You're not getting rid of more rubbish to start with.
Speaker 2: So it just gets you focused on eedting better. Whether
Speaker 2: it's a one day detox, the five days seven day,
Speaker 2: whether to rejuice fast.
Speaker 1: What about them? What about those ones? What about you
Speaker 1: know some of them are wacky, like some of them
Speaker 1: are pretty extrame lemon and water only for seven days.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you'll lose weight for sure, as.
Speaker 1: Much fun as a car crashing.
Speaker 2: Worse, they're not obviously not sustainable options. It's probably been
Speaker 2: replaced a little bit with in a minute fasting that
Speaker 2: really is hugely on trends, and that's sort of toxing
Speaker 2: quite a bit because it's a different focus. I like
Speaker 2: what I like about the minute fasting, even though the
Speaker 2: oven says it's not better or worse for you for
Speaker 2: weight loss, it's pretty pretty average. In the end, it's
Speaker 2: not about what you eat. It's just when you don't eat,
Speaker 2: and then when you eat well, you just eat healthy structure.
Speaker 2: Do matic about cut out carbs, cut out this cut out.
Speaker 2: That's just extend the periods of time that you donate
Speaker 2: and if it works for you, do it. If it
Speaker 2: doesn't do something else, there's nothing that.
Speaker 1: Spectatul sustainable provided structure. It gives a snack less that
Speaker 1: you might eat a few less calories exactly, Those late
Speaker 1: night snackings and those in danger times are probably cut
Speaker 1: out exactly. It's common sense when you boil it down.
Speaker 1: But it's just beautifully packaged.
Speaker 2: It's mad and I love it because a book about
Speaker 2: detoxing is a very short read. There's no extensive recipe section.
Speaker 2: It's just about different protocols, and in the end, there's
Speaker 2: there's no one right way of doing whatever works for you.
Speaker 2: So I'll be leaning to more intimateute fasting than there's
Speaker 2: the detox is just jump in there and go hard
Speaker 2: on a juice cleans for a couple of days. It
Speaker 2: does very little to educate you about healthy food choices.
Speaker 2: But the only positive thing about a detox it may
Speaker 2: get you focused on making a shift from having a
Speaker 2: pretty crap diet to eating better and that's a good thing.
Speaker 2: But it's not a purge for all of your sins
Speaker 2: over the last one or two years.
Speaker 1: It's a really good point. I share a very similar view.
Speaker 1: I think if it's for a couple of days as
Speaker 1: the catalyst or the kick in the pants that they needed,
Speaker 1: sure do it. Yep. What I have very rarely have
Speaker 1: ever seen is people that do it for a long
Speaker 1: period of time then transition well into good sustainable eating.
Speaker 2: That's the problem.
Speaker 1: It's normally celebrated with seventy two beers and a partner,
Speaker 1: and it's kind of I've just done done every bit
Speaker 1: of good work that you've put yourself through over five
Speaker 1: year days of torture, and it doesn't give them the
Speaker 1: results or at stack up. It's not the answer at all.
Speaker 2: And then you've got the more the expensive ones that
Speaker 2: I've have all sorts of pills and patients and so
Speaker 2: ons to go with it. So I look, if you're
Speaker 2: going to detox to it for one or two days,
Speaker 2: if it makes you concentrating better for the next stage,
Speaker 2: that's great. But I'll be leaning to maybe a short
Speaker 2: fast as a better option.
Speaker 1: Okay, I love that.
Speaker 2: Give that a go. And you know it's more of
Speaker 2: a sustainable thing if it works for you. You know,
Speaker 2: in the end, if it works for you, don't do it.
Speaker 1: Just be a healthier Yeah. I know, it sounds so simple,
Speaker 1: doesn't it. What about budget hacks or money saving hacks,
Speaker 1: because I mean, food has never been more expensive, Inflation
Speaker 1: has never been worse, cost of living in general has
Speaker 1: never been worse, or not not. I mean it probably has,
Speaker 1: but not really in my adult lifetime that I can
Speaker 1: think of. And I get I guess I'm probably right
Speaker 1: in it now and getting more questions about it than
Speaker 1: ever from my community. What are your top tips on
Speaker 1: without compromising taste, without compromising nutrition, How we can help
Speaker 1: the bank balance a little bit.
Speaker 2: The good news is I've covered half of them already.
Speaker 2: Seasonal produce and canned and frozen is perfectly healthy and nutritious,
Speaker 2: and it can be a lot cheaper, and they.
Speaker 1: Do get sort of their nose turned up. It's particularly canned.
Speaker 2: It's a big myth. Yeah, nutrition, it's pretty it's just
Speaker 2: seems that it's not going to be as good as
Speaker 2: fresh fruit food. But what we consider fresh produce has
Speaker 2: been picked somewhere and transported and sat on a showful
Speaker 2: little period of time. Then it makes it to our home,
Speaker 2: sits in the vegetable crisper for a couple of days,
Speaker 2: and then we eat it.
Speaker 1: So we lose some nutrio.
Speaker 2: Yeah, a garden.
Speaker 1: The home run, isn't it?
Speaker 2: So I say, don't fight it. The research is pretty
Speaker 2: clear nutritionally canned and frozen is nutritionally just as almost
Speaker 2: as good as what we consider true fresh produce from
Speaker 2: green gracer that certainly will be cheaper. And the young
Speaker 2: sung heroes for nutrition the world iver and they're incredibly
Speaker 2: unloved foods. They're legames. They are incredible source of protein, carbohydrates,
Speaker 2: Flight of the Middles, so few of them. They are dry,
Speaker 2: and they are tools dirt cheap, absolute dirt cheap. And
Speaker 2: for the bang for the buck you get for nutrition,
Speaker 2: nothing beats legames and for your health benefits they are
Speaker 2: way up. They are a true superfood. And yet if
Speaker 2: I may be boring, even a cannon baked beans, that
Speaker 2: counts as.
Speaker 1: My cheapest best lunch. And I have this if I'm
Speaker 1: working out of my gym. Is one of those microwave
Speaker 1: Besmarti rices, A can of tuna and a mixed a
Speaker 1: little bean mixed in those tiny little tins with a
Speaker 1: little bit about mcvinegar on top. Probably costs two dollars fifty.
Speaker 1: Legams love it? Are they seasonal? Like? Is there a
Speaker 1: better legam in spring or something that we should be
Speaker 1: looking out for. I actually have no idea about legumes.
Speaker 1: Legims would be one of my topics, so please enlightenment.
Speaker 2: Legs, lentils, chickpeas, chi chi, kidney kidney beans. It is
Speaker 2: about about a dozen of them. They are mostly dried
Speaker 2: and they are all around and just get them off
Speaker 2: the shelf, or you can get them canned. So they're
Speaker 2: not really seasonal because they're always available. They store really well. Yeah,
Speaker 2: so that's why they've been supplement and they're the only
Speaker 2: food that appeared twice in the Ditchy guidelines. Are both
Speaker 2: a vegetable and a protein food. There is your fun
Speaker 2: fact for the day.
Speaker 1: I love that. I love that I think with food,
Speaker 1: but probably think too small picture, like we're so hell
Speaker 1: bent on variety in this in each individual day, variety
Speaker 1: in each individual week, which is great in principle, but
Speaker 1: it gets very expensive and a lot to think about.
Speaker 1: It makes your head hurt actually doing variety on a seasonal,
Speaker 1: quarterly basis, And yeah, okay, well across a year, I
Speaker 1: have wonderful variety is actually such a much simpler, better
Speaker 1: way to think of it.
Speaker 2: I'm a mono eater, yeah, because I'm a bit repellient too,
Speaker 2: And okay, it makes life simpler.
Speaker 1: I do, and and then I get guilty, like, oh,
Speaker 1: you know, I've probably had the same lunch three days
Speaker 1: in a row here where it whereas a big deal.
Speaker 1: Then in come spring, I'm going to shake the whole
Speaker 1: thing up. I probably won't need any of those foods
Speaker 1: again for nine months, six months. So actually, I think
Speaker 1: that it's a really powerful thing to share with our
Speaker 1: listeners that don't don't stress if you've had a similar
Speaker 1: type lunch or breakfast for a couple of months in
Speaker 1: a row. Now, now it's spring, let's shake things up
Speaker 1: and do things differently. Yeah, I love that I'm get
Speaker 1: one more question.
Speaker 2: Yep.
Speaker 1: We've spoken a lot about the good anything bad that
Speaker 1: you want to warn people on.
Speaker 2: No, I rarely will talk about anything you do.
Speaker 1: You do, yeah, which which I love. You're very positive.
Speaker 2: I focus more on the positive. If you're eating more
Speaker 2: of what I consider more healthier foods, you're going to
Speaker 2: be eating less.
Speaker 3: So.
Speaker 2: Yeah, when we can eat generic and talk about the
Speaker 2: ultra process foods and foods tine and added salt and
Speaker 2: sugar and so on, that's a given most people know
Speaker 2: about that. It's reinforcing. Here the foods that we know
Speaker 2: are good for us. Ignore all the noise misinformation about
Speaker 2: carbs are bad, grains are bad. Fruit's bad for you
Speaker 2: because it contains too much sugar. That's all right. They
Speaker 2: are all perfectly healthy foods to it. So I focus
Speaker 2: on the positive message of these positive foods, not so
Speaker 2: much on you know, the junk food and all that stuff,
Speaker 2: because we know about them.
Speaker 1: Which is actually quite refreshing, isn't it nice to speak
Speaker 1: to a nutrition expert and it's all about focusing on
Speaker 1: what you're putting in rather than what you're cutting out.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's more of a positive message that it.
Speaker 1: Is it is, and I think it's a great, a
Speaker 1: great message.
Speaker 2: To finish on fantastic thank you.
Speaker 1: So it's really interesting jetting to Tim because he just
Speaker 1: makes sense. He's really good with common sense. As my
Speaker 1: dad says, common sense is not that common, but it
Speaker 1: is great to I just think cut through all the bs,
Speaker 1: and I feel calmer after I talk to Tim, because
Speaker 1: food can be so overwhelming, even though I get confused
Speaker 1: and overwhelmed by it, and I'm sure many of you
Speaker 1: are listening, yep, absolutely so, distilling it down to its
Speaker 1: simplest form, I think can be really really powerful, and
Speaker 1: it's just reminding us that it's not as scary or
Speaker 1: as stressful or as overwhelming as perhaps sometimes it feels.
Speaker 1: And there's ways that we can work around it by
Speaker 1: just focusing on the basics and doing the basics well.
Speaker 1: The other thing I'd say is too hard on yourself.
Speaker 1: I think I don't know. I think we assume everybody
Speaker 1: else is eating it a ten out of ten or
Speaker 1: better than us, or you know, it's very easy to
Speaker 1: have guilt attached to when we have one bad meal
Speaker 1: or we've got a little vice that's out. Kind of
Speaker 1: go to life is to be lived and you need
Speaker 1: to enjoy yourself. If you eat pretty well most of
Speaker 1: the time, then you're actually doing better than most. So
Speaker 1: the p word, oh dear posture. I do say I'm
Speaker 1: one of my twenty eight videos that I'm as flexible
Speaker 1: as a bathroom tied well, and that's kind of the
Speaker 1: reputation I now have within the whole twenty hour community.
Speaker 1: And it's true. I am getting a bit more flexible,
Speaker 1: particularly through my life back and hamstrings, but I have
Speaker 1: a long way to go. We have spoken about posture before.
Speaker 1: We spoke about it specifically with what was it called
Speaker 1: technic where your head protrudes forward because you spend so
Speaker 1: much time either looking at your phone or looking at
Speaker 1: your computer or driving or whatever it might be. And
Speaker 1: that is a real thing, and it is a real
Speaker 1: challenge of today's society with so much technology and sedentary lifestyle.
Speaker 1: And that is real, and I think it's a very
Speaker 1: safe statement to say across the board, our posture is
Speaker 1: definitely getting worse. So when I got this question come
Speaker 1: through from Mitch, I thought, you know what, it's time
Speaker 1: to talk posture.
Speaker 2: Hey, Sam, been seeing a lot about posture braces, just
Speaker 2: wondering if they work, and if they're worth dropping some
Speaker 2: money on.
Speaker 1: I feel like this is not Sam the expert, this
Speaker 1: is Sam the opinion. I feel like there's probably some
Speaker 1: good ones out there if you have severe posture issues
Speaker 1: or you're recovering from an accident, that are medically sound
Speaker 1: and do a wonderful job and serve a great purpose.
Speaker 1: And then there's the next rung down of Instagram advertising
Speaker 1: crap that is probably just a bit of a scam
Speaker 1: to sell you something that you don't really need. An
Speaker 1: example of one of these things that I thought was
Speaker 1: and maybe I'm wrong. So if there's people out there
Speaker 1: that have used these braces with great success, I would
Speaker 1: love to hear from you. I mean, it is interesting
Speaker 1: when you go to the physio and you get strapped
Speaker 1: and it's just a reminder for when your shoulder blades
Speaker 1: sort of coming forward or when your head's coming forward
Speaker 1: that the tape sort of pulls, and it's like, oh,
Speaker 1: that actually is quite powerful to have a queue that
Speaker 1: jogs your memory that you're going into poor posture and
Speaker 1: it sort of pulls your back. Often we don't realize
Speaker 1: you're im poor posture. We've been there for if not
Speaker 1: minutes hours, So I understand that that can be quite
Speaker 1: a simple but effective method. It is interesting, though, you
Speaker 1: know I'm being a bit of a cynic. But these
Speaker 1: things that are on social media, you know, they blast
Speaker 1: you with ads it what is that thing that being said?
Speaker 1: I did buy one of those things, so I'm digressing.
Speaker 1: He has got nothing to do with posture. I bought
Speaker 1: a toe spacer, which is those funny little webbed rubber
Speaker 1: things that you put between your times and it is
Speaker 1: bloody amazing. So maybe I'm wrong on the braces. We
Speaker 1: really are. Sorry, Mitch, this is this is the worst
Speaker 1: answer to your question, mate, but I sort of that's
Speaker 1: my gut feel. My gut feel with your question is
Speaker 1: there's probably some need. But if you're just thinking a
Speaker 1: posture could be a little bit better, I really need
Speaker 1: one of those things. I'm going to get into how
Speaker 1: you can actually improve your posture in a second, in
Speaker 1: much simpler ways, I believe. But these toe space of things,
Speaker 1: if you get sore feet, or you like training bare feet,
Speaker 1: or you run a lot and you feel like you're
Speaker 1: feeding an squashing your shoes, couldn't recommend them more highly.
Speaker 1: I'm sure there's lots of different brands out there. I
Speaker 1: think mam is just called a toe spacer. Anyway, a
Speaker 1: lot of them, they came in the mail. Snays absolutely
Speaker 1: is repulsed by it. She thinks it's the grossest thing
Speaker 1: you've ever seen, because I'm walking around the house like
Speaker 1: I'm an avatar. But it's cool and they work and
Speaker 1: they're great. But anyway, so there's a little by the
Speaker 1: bye fixing our back posture. However, I think it's three things.
Speaker 1: I think it's sort of the shape of our spine
Speaker 1: and actually changing. Typically we sway too much through our
Speaker 1: lower back, and we arch or around too much through
Speaker 1: our upper back. So if you side on your S
Speaker 1: is too pronounced, a nice subtle S or subtle S
Speaker 1: curve is what you want. Little arch in your lower back,
Speaker 1: round in your upper back, not a big one. If
Speaker 1: you've got a big one on your head's recruiting forward
Speaker 1: or you've got a big arch in your lower back,
Speaker 1: then your hips are really tight and you get lower
Speaker 1: back pain. So once you know where you sort of stand,
Speaker 1: then you've got to go, well, how do I fix that?
Speaker 1: So typically, if you try to get yours less pronounced,
Speaker 1: you want to get on the phone roller across your
Speaker 1: shoulder blades to open up your upper back so it
Speaker 1: doesn't round. You actually go backwards against the way that
Speaker 1: your poor posture is probably sending you, and slowly but
Speaker 1: surely you open up your vertebra, you open up your spine.
Speaker 1: The other way, you want to stretch your peck muscles,
Speaker 1: your chest muscles, because if they're really short and tight
Speaker 1: from doing lots of push ups or sitting at your
Speaker 1: computer for long periods of time or driving, then you
Speaker 1: need to stretch them. And you need to strengthen your
Speaker 1: glutes so you can tuck your butt under. And you
Speaker 1: need to strengthen your back muscles so you can hold
Speaker 1: your shoulder blades back. So when I think of your question, Mitch,
Speaker 1: sure maybe we get to brace stage, but I'd do
Speaker 1: this first for three to six months. And the great
Speaker 1: thing is you can kind of do these things every
Speaker 1: day in sort of ten to fifteen minutes. Am I
Speaker 1: doing some kind of row on a little band or
Speaker 1: something where I'm strengthening my back muscles, particularly my upper
Speaker 1: back muscles. If I'm doing that, I will hold my
Speaker 1: shoulder blades back better. Am I then complimenting that with
Speaker 1: a nice chest stretch so that my shoulders naturally go
Speaker 1: back and they're not pulled forward and tight. And am
Speaker 1: I getting on the foam roller to open up my
Speaker 1: thoracic spine? And am I doing some kind of pelvic
Speaker 1: tilt exercise where I tuck my butt under and squeeze
Speaker 1: my butt Because even me sitting here in the podcast
Speaker 1: studio now, if I'm in a big extended lumbar spine
Speaker 1: so or a big curve in my lower back, there's
Speaker 1: a lot of load on my back when I do that.
Speaker 1: If I tuck my butt under, all the pain, all
Speaker 1: the load is alleviated. But most of us don't have
Speaker 1: very good glute strength, and we don't and we're tight
Speaker 1: through our hips, so to tuck our butt under becomes
Speaker 1: quite difficult. So the reality is most of us, probably
Speaker 1: eighty or ninety percent, would benefit from doing those things
Speaker 1: every day. There might be one or two of them
Speaker 1: that help you more than the others.
Speaker 3: But if you get saw back, if you get a
Speaker 3: saw back, if you feel like your hips are tight,
Speaker 3: your peck muscles are tight, your back is a bit weak,
Speaker 3: your posture, particularly that upper body posture.
Speaker 1: Definitely could do with some work. They're definitely the places
Speaker 1: that I would start. There we go, what do you
Speaker 1: know what today was? Today was just really refreshingly simple.
Speaker 1: I think we can all benefit from better posture and
Speaker 1: we can all benefit from eating better. So hopefully you're
Speaker 1: listening today and you're like, you know what, I got
Speaker 1: one to three to five things out of that that
Speaker 1: I can start implementing tomorrow and be better off for it,
Speaker 1: Because really, that's what this show is all about. That's
Speaker 1: what I'm all about. Until next week, remember reach out
Speaker 1: at any time. Give us a follow the wood Life
Speaker 1: on our Instagram. We'd love to hear from you. We're
Speaker 1: always sharing little snippets of shows that perhaps you've missed
Speaker 1: on our Instagram channel and I'll catch you next week