Where Do I Start??
By: Scott Braver
Tags: Sleep, Activity, Health, Wellness, Nutrition

Photo by Gia Oris on Unsplash

Many people are starting to jump on the healthy bandwagon and want to start this year strong. Both fortunately and unfortunately, we have TONS of information readily available at our fingertips with social media, Dr. Google, and anecdotal evidence by friends and family.

When trying to sift through everything that’s out there, you can get really overwhelmed and lose track of where to even start.

My goal is to remove the feeling of guilt, frustration, angst, anger, and confusion so we can have a road map to success.

Not only that but a roadmap to SUSTAINABLE health and wellness. No crash or fad diets, no magic pill, no rapid weight loss followed by rapid weight gain, and no BS.

Roadmap to Your Health

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The first thing, and the hardest thing, is taking the first step. I can’t stress how vitally IMPACTFUL it is to have the self-recognition that you want to change.

You should pat yourself on the back for having the courage and accountability to yourself.

Next, we need to CLEARLY identify your goals. I don’t like to hear “weight loss.” I want to hear specifics.

If we can’t specify our wants, we will not be able to obtain our goals.

For example, I want to lose weight and feel healthy.

That’s a lot to unpack, does not provide time-oriented, realistic goals that are specific. If you haven’t given it this much thought, you are not ready to succeed.

An example of a good goal is as follows; I want to lose 15 pounds within 6 months, have improved energy to perform cycling 3 times weekly, and not feel worn down to play/coach with my 7-year-old and his baseball team.

That goal is specific, time-oriented, realistic, and has a clear direction to what their wants are.

People that want to lose fat around their waist/hips, want to be supermodel skinny, and have unrealistic expectations fail. I see this time and time again.

If you can’t be honest with yourself, how are you going to be honest with a provider who is trying to help you succeed?

Going Back to Basics

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Step one is looking at the foundation that our body is built on.

Sleep.

If we can’t get 7–8 hours CONSISTENTLY we are doing ourselves a BIG disservice. Sleep has such a downstream effect on literally every bodily function and we take it for granted too often.

Sleep is where we get growth hormone released. This helps us heal, repair, and grow. If we are getting 4–6 hours of sleep we are not pulsing as much growth hormone and we are single-handedly shooting ourselves in the foot.

Decreased sleep increases our cortisol levels. Cortisol is our stress hormone. If our cortisol is high, how are we going to metabolize fats?

When we are stressed (high cortisol) our body holds onto triglycerides and glucose in case we need to use those nutrients to flee.

We don’t live in a society where we need excess storage of fats and glucose for fuel anymore (like our ancestors), but we still continue to act stressed out all day with unhealthy levels of elevated cortisol.

If we aren’t sleeping, we aren’t decreasing our cortisol levels and repairing our body from the previous day. If we didn’t need sleep, why do we not function well when we don’t get it?

Our body is always talking to us, we are just too busy to listen.

The cycle is perpetual. No sleep leads to higher hedonic urges to increase our dopamine response so we feel good. So we eat sugary foods, highly refined carbohydrates because that fills our void for the short term.

Then we gain weight because we aren’t eating nutritionally dense foods and feel sluggish or unhealthy as a result.

We can’t sleep because we eat and eat and eat, especially close to our bedtime and our dopamine is soaring, blood is shunted to our abdomen for increased digestion of indigestible foods, our heart rate increases to the excess workload. We can’t fall asleep due to the elevated cortisol, which a lower level is needed to induce melatonin production so we can get into the circadian rhythm, so eventually, we can get a big pulse of growth hormone.

Phew! If you followed that process, I tip my hat to you.

This stuff gets complicated, and we can certainly make it overcomplicated. For me, I need to know how something works before I understand how to fix it.

If I know how something is supposed to work, I can reverse engineer and be able to identify the “why” so we can find a formidable solution.

To summarize, make 7–8 hours of distraction-free sleep a priority. Not only for improved weight loss but for undeniable health and longevity.

Let Food Be Thy Medicine

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Step two is focusing on what we put in our mouths.

Food.

Remember, let’s think fundamental and nothing complicated on this subject. We need to eat REAL FOOD.

Real food is nothing that has been processed or pre-packaged. Shop the perimeter of the grocery store. Hit the fresh produce and butcher. Avoid wandering aimlessly up and down the aisles of a grocery store meant to manipulate you into purchasing unhealthy and empty foods.

So many chronic diseases out there are DIRECT results of the lifelong journey of eating crappy food.

Arthritis, depression, hypothyroidism, cardiovascular disease, migraines, diabetes, Alzheimer's, kidney disease, high blood pressure, high cholesterol, Crohn's, and the list goes on.

People can fix their illnesses by fixing their gut health. We fix our gut health by removing the inflammatory agents and giving our body what it is asking for, real food.

Our body is not stupid. It loves normalcy and will do whatever it can to maintain normalcy so we feel good. Over a lifetime of eating poor foods, it can start to throw in the towel and diseases start to take over.

If we heal our gut, we heal our body. Treat your body to real food. If it has a nutritional label, DO NOT EAT IT.

Our ancestors did not have a nutritional label on their foods. They hunted and gathered for what they consumed. They lived in food scarcity and did not have metabolic or cardiovascular issues. We live in food abundance and have unbounded metabolic and cardiovascular diseases. In fact, they are the number one reason for premature death globally.

If we start SLEEPING 7–8 hours a night and add in eating real food, I GUARANTEE good things will start to happen.

Move Stuff And Do Things

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The last trifecta for the third step is moving.

Activity.

The first two steps are handouts down the most impactful. To reach the ultimate level of health satiety, we have to lift things or move things.

Lean muscle mass is the best form of metabolic health. We already know this, but we don’t have to go balls to the wall with something.

I want you to enjoy what you are doing. If riding your bike brings you great joy. Do it.

If lifting heavy things makes you happy as a clam. Do it.

If doing MMA pleases you. Do it.

ANY activity will yield GREAT results.

Make no mistake. Many people skip the first two and jump right into the third step and fail. They fail because they don’t see results fast enough, don’t stick with something, go too much too fast or they hurt themselves.

A comes before B and C comes after B. Stepwise approach to getting AND staying healthy.

Sleep right. Eat right. Be active.

I 100% promise you that if you do these three things, you WILL lose weight and live a longer, more fruitful life. Eating better, sleeping more, and being active is the key to the quality of life.

Prove me otherwise.

I will be right here waiting. Go and do these three things and tell me that your quality of life has not improved.

Go on.

No one will come back because it WORKS.

There is no magic pill. Hard work, dedication, self-discipline, accountability, and responsibility all play a role in our success. I am HANDING you the recipe for health because I believe everyone should have equal access to this knowledge. When are you going to start cooking?

Be strong. Be brave.