#1821 My Health Protocol - Harps (PT2)

all that kind of shit. Anyway, So this is that that this is part two of me banging on about me. Feel free to not listen, but you may or may not find it of value, and you may find it interesting otherwise see tomorrow, all right. Also, keep in mind that your caloric demands or your requirements, your food slash energy slash calorie needs are generally not a constant, and the reason is because you don't do the same thing

the same way every day. Now, I'm not saying that every day you should have a wildly different intake or a wildly different diet, but I'm saying, you know, for example, if I got up tomorrow and I was fucking starving, like wildly hungry, I would have a bigger breakfast than normal because my body's going, hey, eat more. Conversely, which happens quite often, I get to and by the way, I don't know why, but I do not get very hungry in our people like hungry every eight minutes. That

ain't me for better or worse. But there are times when I get to dinner, and the dinner that I thought I was going to eat, I end up cooking or preparing about two thirds of that because I'm just not very hungry. And I eat what is, you know, seventy percent of what I would normally eat, give or take. And I'm good. I'm fine, and I'm fine because my body told me and I paid attention. All right, But let's look at supplements. I don't take heaps of supplements,

but well, I don't know, maybe I do. That's it's funny, you know. I say don't take heaps of supplements because I compare myself to a lot of people that I know who take thirty seven different fucking pills and powders and potions and tablets, like my training partner, the Crab, who is hilarious and is always researching and finding something that I should be taking to improve this or change that, or but my daily regime. Again, this is not a recommendation.

I take creatine creatine monohydrate. Creatine is the most researched supplement in the world. It improves a whole bunch of things, and it's good for recovery, it's good for strength, it's good for energy and training, and we already get it in our diet, but some times not to the level that we need it, And so I supplement. A typical recommendation or a typical kind of dose is about five grams per day. I use creatine probably eighty percent for

the cognitive benefits. So we know that there's lots of cognitive benefits, mental acuity, concentration focused, what we might call brain horsepower. I use about ten grams a day. The recommended is five, but people have people have lots of it, but I don't think you typically need more than about five. Again,

this is not a prescription or advice. But a lot of people that I know, I mean, I know hundreds of people that use creatine and get it's not going to blow your socks off, But I truly believe it makes a different. There's difference. There's another thing called NMN, which is getting a lot of press coverage and and if you do a search ONMN, really a cognitive enhancer, which for me is important. Again it's a supplement. These

are all powders, by the way. And another thing that I take called trimethyl glycine is that it's called trimethyl glycine TMG. I only call it TMG, which you know supports cardiovascular health and they think it's involved in lowering blood pressure and reducing inflammation and improving xcise performance and recovery and cognitive function. So also a good one, trimethyl glycine. What else do I take? What else do I take?

I take oh protein powder, which I said before. And the one medicine I take is I take a low dose blood pressure medication because thanks to dear old Mum and Dad, I have genetics that predispose me to high blood pressure, but because of all the stuff that I do, it's not. It's not as high as it would otherwise be, so it's quite manageable. But I take no other drugs, no other medicine. The only thing I take is a low dose of a medication that's prescribed by my doctor.

All right, now, just quickly, because fuck, I've been talking for a long time. Let's talk about my excise. So, as you know, I do strength training daily. You definitely don't need to do daily. I do it more daily because it's therapy, it's socialization, it's fun. It's me getting out of this fucking chair I'm sitting in at the moment. It's a chance to hang out and connect and laugh

my guts outlift a few heavy things. Some days, the quality of my training would be if we're talking just about the quality of the training, it would be afore, but the quality of the experience might be a ten. Other days I train like a fucking animal and it's a nine. But for me, it's really just it depends on how I'm feeling, and it depends on sometimes what I did the day before. So I do I just trained my whole body in you know, kind of varied formats through the week. I don't do a set program.

I don't do a two day split or a three day split. I don't do chest and back on Monday and shoulders and arms on Tuesday, and legs and lower back on Wednesday and then restart. I don't do that. I go into the gym, I train everything. Of course, I train upper and lower back. I train glutes and hamstrings and quads. I don't do a lot of calf training. Do a little bit of calf training, but the calfs get flogged in day to day life anyway. And of course you know upper body and abs and all of

that stuff. So I probably do somewhere in the thirty too of actual lifting thirty to forty five minutes, but I might be in the gym for sixty to seventy five minutes hanging out talking shit. And I do when I'm training properly. Let's say I'm doing a proper serious session. I train as heavy as I can once I'm warmed up, once I've done some warm upsets, once I get to the point where i'm doing what I call working sets, I train as heavy as I can safely, so as

heavy as I can with good form. There's nothing reckless. There used to be lots of reckless. These days, there is nothing reckless about what I do. And I'm trying to get as much intensity, so I'm going to vary the weight, the sets, sets, the reps, the time underload, you know, the actual weight. Of course, the movement. So, for example, you talk about are you thinking, what does that mean? How do you vary the intensity? Well, let's say I said to you, do ten regular push ups,

and you go one, two, three, four, ten. You do your ten push ups up and down one second, one and a half second, and the whole set of ten push ups has taken you in the ballpark of ten to fifteen seconds. Right now, let's say I say to you, I want you to do the exact same thing, ten push ups, but I want each each push up to

last six seconds, three seconds down, three seconds up times ten. Well, now, instead of your muscles being under load for ten to fifteen seconds doing your ten push ups, now your muscles are working constantly and underload constantly for sixty seconds, somewhere between four and six times longer than the previous set. Despite the fact that you did the exact same movement in a different way, but the same movement with the same body weight, but you slowed it down by four

to six times. And in the slowing down of moving the same weight, you increase the resist not the resistance, but well, you kind of do increase the resistance, but you definitely increase the intensity and the effect exponentially, So there are a lot of ways that we can manipulate speed and hand position and the machines that we're using, and sets and reps and recovery time between sets, and volume.

There are lots of ways that we can manipulate all of those variables to create more intensity without creating much more, if any risk. Obviously, the harder that we work, there's always a little bit of increased risk. But when we work harder but in a very intelligent way, it's as safe as we can be. And of course, you know when we're trying to build strength or muscular endurance or

even for that matter, cardiovascular fitness. But when we're trying to create one of those outcomes, we're always stressing our body, right you stress good stress, distress bad stress. We're always stressing our body to adapt to that thing that we're doing.

So when I get stronger, or when I build muscle, or when my bicep gets bigger, or when I can do more reps or I've got more muscular endurance, my body has adapted to that stimuli, al those stimuli or that stimulus, So my body has adapted to the stress. So I do weights nearly every day. Most days anyway I do my walking, I do around fifteen thousand steps

a day. My minimum is ten thousand. I was walking not much, and then about four or five months ago I had a bit of a wake up call when one day my phone told me basically I was a lazy fuck and I needed to get off my ass. And from that day when I got that message and it showed me how few steps I had been walking in the previous three four months, and I realized, and I think I've said this on the show, but it was there. It was like four or five thousand on average,

which is terrible for me anyway. So I said, right, that's it. From tomorrow, rock bottom. Any day the least I can do is ten. And since that day I have not done one day with less than ten. Some days over twenty. Most days you will take fifteen right now. In terms of proper cardio, I'm going to be honest. I don't do heaps of cardio at the moment, but I do well I run, which is clearly cardio. But what I'm saying is I don't do lots of bike

or stepper or rower or elliptical strida or versa. Climber or interval training or stare running, or I don't do a whole lot of varied cardio like a lot of people do. I'm a big fan of cardio, but for me, I tend to do higher intensity, shorter stuff for a couple of reasons. One, it's convenient to the cardiovascular like the VO to match your actual your absolute aerobic capacity. Benefits of doing shorter, harder stuff is better and higher.

And for me it's I like when I do shorter, harder stuff it seems to lower my blood pressure significantly. There's a few other benefits. But and like I said, it's really time efficient. So what I do is I run. And you're going to laugh at this. You might laugh at this. I run at the most three k's. By the way, if I had to, I could go and run ten k's. Now, I just don't want to. And one of the reasons I didn't mention is I don't want to run ten k's because I want to hold

onto muscle. Now, that's not to say you shouldn't run ten k's or people shouldn't run ten k's. With my body, my body type. When I do strength training and run long distances, I actually go backwards in terms of strength and power and muscle and the kind of body that I want to live in. So I want the benefits of running, but I don't want to strip the muscle of As you get older, muscle is hard to come

by and hard to maintain. So if I took my current body and started running ten ks five days a week, for me, within a short period of time, I would start to lose strength and muscle and in some ways function. I would be a much better runner over distance, but it's not a priority for me. So I run typically minimum two maximum three ks, and I run about five minute k pace. So I run about twelve twelve kilometers an hour. That's my speed, give or take, which equates

to one kilometer in five minutes. I have a couple of sets runs that I do. The shortest is like two point one. The longest is like three point one or two. In fact, I might do one. When I finish this, I literally walk out the front gate, run for twelve to fifteen minutes, get home done. I don't overthink it, I just do it. I don't wear headphones. I just go and run. I get home and I do that. Typically I do that three days a week, and for me, that's enough, and that's really good flexibility.

As I said to you before, my flexibility is rubbish. I would like to pretend to you that I stretch more than I do, but I do not. I stretch a couple of times a week. Some bits of me are really quite flexible, like my hamstrings are quite flexible. Ah, my hip flexes are not bad. My lower back is fucking terrible. I've had a few lower back injuries. My calves a borderline terrible in terms of flexibility as well,

But that's quite typical. But I mean, for a sixty one year old bloke who smashed his body the way I have, you would not say my overall. You would not say that my flexibility if we were to compare me to others, which we shouldn't, but if we were to, you'd say, Craig, you're not terrible at all. You're probably better than average. But for what I could be, I'm a four, I'm a three. I need to do better. What else do I do? What else is part of

my protocol. I use a roller. I use a phone roller every day, which is not stretching, but it's kind of in the ballpark. I use that somewhere between five and fifteen minutes. I enjoy that. That kind of makes things crack and release and all kinds of great shit. I don't have time to go into it, but you know what I'm talking about. I also, I also when I go to bed, I have my sleep protocol. Is I could lie to you and go, oh, I do no screens and all that that just for me isn't true.

I often will watch TV. Do not do this, boys and girls, but I'll often watch TV. I'll fall asleep watching TV, so I turn that off go to sleep. But I generally do turn the TV off while I'm still awake and play White Noise. I play this. I've got this thirty minute track of white Noise that turns itself off, and I really like it. I used to play like some music, but the music used to get

my attention. It used to. Especially anything with lyrics is for me terrible because then I'm thinking about the lyrics, or I'm in my head singing with the lyrics, or even anything instrumental because the drums or the guitar or the keyboards or whatever would get my attention. But White Noise the one that I have. It's just this constant Where do I find that? Where did I get that from?

I got that from? What is that? Spotify? So yeah, I just found some white noise, a couple of tracks in there, and I just put them together, and so that gives me about thirty minutes of that. When it literally before five minutes is done, I'm sleeping great. I tend not to have sleep problems. I think I'm just lucky. What else do I have to talk to you about.

Let's quickly talk about brain optimization. I've spoken about it a bit for me, keeping my brain cognitive function as great as it can be for as long as and I say great as it can be based on my potential. So, just like we train our body, just like we do all of these things to our body to keep it working well, so to if we want our brain to work optimally into old age and beyond, and we want to be atypical and we don't want to we do on our cognitive function to decline the way that it

typically or naturally would. I'm not talking about brain disease here, I'm talking about just natural degeneration. If we want to mitigate that or even reverse that to some extent, and that's possible depending on your starting point. We need to do stuff. So I'm always learning, I'm always teaching, I'm always reading, I'm always writing, I'm always doing creative stuff. I'm always you know, what I'm doing right now is a cognitive process as well as a creative process. I'm

always solving problems. I'm always trying new things, doing new things, doing what I call un craig things, because I want my brain to work as well as it can, just like my body, for as long as it can. And so I'm all about lifespan, yes, but more importantly health span. And then the last thing I'll talk about just quickly, because stress and anxiety and mental health are massive things.

I think I'm lucky, thanks to Mom and Dad, that I'm genetically not really predisposed to massive mental health issues, which is not say that I never have any or that I never get a bit sad, or I never get a bit anxious, or I never get a bit flat or depressed. Of course I do. I think that's

part of the human condition. But I also know that because my diet is good, because my lifestyle is good, because I don't drink booze, which can be a depressant, by the way, because I don't use certain drugs which can make you anxious and dysfunctional, because I optimize everything that I can, not all the time and every time, but for the most part, and because I've kind of created in terms of not just my health protocol but more broadly, you know, life and work, and like right

now now as I'm recording this, You've heard me say this a million times. But I'm looking out the window. I'm looking at a whole bunch of trees. I love those trees. I'm just looking at a wall of nature that's ten feet outside the window that I'm currently looking through. I'm sitting in a pair of shorts and a black T shirt in bare feet, in a room that I really like to be and I love the environment I'm in.

So so much of these things that are going to create good outcomes for us in the moment, in the

short term, and in the long term moving forward. It's everything from you know what you put in your mouth, to who you listen to, sleep protocol, your ability to be able to learn new things and try new things and have new experiences, to how many steps a day you have to getting your shoulders back, getting your head in a neutral position, using a roller, doing some stretching, you know, paying attention to the biofeedback, all of those things that contribute to the end result, which is how

you look, feel, function, And when you get to my age and maybe your age, it's more about how you feel and function. Of course, does my body work well? Does my brain work well? Does my mind work well? Am I relatively painfree? Do I have good energy? What do I need to do more of? What do I need to do less of? What is my body telling me?

What are the results telling me? As much as you can, it's my last bit of advice when it comes to optimizing your body, your health, your wellness, your longevity, your health span. Turn down the emotion, turn up the strategy, and then step into the strategy and don't look back. I get a champ hype, your bloody terrific. Guess what.

So I finished that recording of that podcast, and I remembered that while I had spoken to you in some detail about my philosophy, my personal philosophy and my personal practice around food, told you what I eat for breakfast also in some detail, and that I ate two meals a day, and that, give or take there about ten or twelve hours apart. I didn't tell you what I eat for dinner. Some of you will want to know that it's not exciting, but nonetheless some of you will

want to know. So every night I have a protein sauce that could be something like an omelet or scrambled eggs with tomato and onion and capsicum and maybe some spices and herbs, or more typically, I would have a meat protein sauce like chicken or beef or lamb or turkey. I predominantly have chicken and beef, and that would be around two hundred and fifty grams of that with some rice. Typically it would be basmati rice, a low gi rice or dungara rice, and some veggies. The veggies would usually

be veggies. But if I'm being really honest, really boring, typical, this is what I would eat five nights a week. This is probably not going to do my credibility any good whatsoever if I have any but about five nights a week, I have this mince beef that I cook up, which is premium mince beef with a bit of tomato, bit of onion, bit of curry, powder bit of salt, few other little things in there that are nothing amazing, saucy stuff that makes it taste fucking incredible. About two

hundred and fifty grams of that meat. I have about one hundred and fifty two hundred grams of broccoli and maybe about one hundred and fifty two hundred grams of cooked bas mardi rice. And that is pretty much me. And I don't know why I'm weird, but I'm not weird for me. I'm normal for me, but compared to a lot of people, I'm weird. I can eat the same thing seven nights a week and I don't get bored,

and it's not bland. It tastes amazing. You know something's good when every time you eat it it's like you've never had it before and it's fucking incredible. Well, for me, that's what my dinner is like, and that's what my breakfast is like. I'm so glad that I'm relatively low maintenance when it comes to food. I don't need I personally don't need a lot of variety as long as I'm covering my micros and macros, which I do, you know, every now and then I will I'll have a real

cross section of veggies I'll have. Sometimes I'll get a stirf fry from a Tai food place down the street, which is just chicken Cashew's stir fry, which is I'm not going to say it's ten out of ten health, I'm going to say it's about seven. It's yellm me. It's got lots loaded with veggies, loaded with chicken, loaded with some cashews. I generally eat that by itself without rice.

Now and then I'll have some fish. But every night my protocol is similar in that it's a decent server of and some veggies, and probably most of the time I have some kind of starchy carb like either sweet potato but mostly that, or mostly basmati rice. Like I said, you probably didn't need to know that. Not particularly exciting, but I did leave it out of the first the first run through. So there it is my dinner. Wow, you'll never be the same. So yeah,