3393: [Part 1] Exercise, but not for the Calorie Burn by Rachel Trotta on Health Focused Exercise

[00:00:00] This episode is brought to you by Prime. Obsession is in session, and this summer, Prime originals have everything you want. Steamy romances, irresistible love stories, and the book-to-screen favorites you've already read twice. Off Campus, Elle, Every Year After, The Love Hypothesis, Sterling Point, and more. Slow burns, second chances, chemistry you can feel through the screen. Your next obsession is waiting. Watch only on Prime.

[00:00:29] From athletic stuff like a full-court pickup game, swish, to athletic-ish stuff like a half-mile stroll. Get those steps in! Head to Sierra or Sierra.com for the brands you want at the prices that let you do it all. From athletic to athletic-ish, Sierra's got it. This is Optimal Health Daily. Exercise, but not for the Calorie Burn. Part 1 by Rachel Trotta of racheltrotta.com. And I'm your narrator, Dr. Neal.

[00:00:55] Hey there, happy Tuesday, and welcome back to Optimal Health Daily, where I read some of the best blogs covering health and fitness, just like an audiobook. Now, we have five shows where we do this. Just search for Optimal Living Daily to find all of them. Now, today's post is a bit longer than what I typically narrate, so I'll read the first half today and then finish it up for you tomorrow. So, with that, let's get right to today's post as we optimize your life.

[00:01:27] Exercise, but not for the Calorie Burn. Part 1 by Rachel Trotta of racheltrotta.com. The Art of Addition In April, the big focus was trigger foods. I'm a huge advocate of knowing yourself and using what you know to set yourself up for success. This often includes reducing and eliminating foods and eating triggers.

[00:01:50] However, in the process of optimizing your eating environment and becoming more informed about nutrition and using smart portion control strategies, it can be easy to get caught in a trap of less. And less. And less. And less. But health and wellness, as a pursuit, is meant to make your world bigger, not smaller. If you feel your world shrinking, it's time to redefine what fitness means to you, and how you can reshape your approach to expand your horizons.

[00:02:20] To address this, my blog theme for the month of May is The Art of Addition Habits and strategies you add into your life to balance out and replace the routines and or foods you may be taking away. It's incredibly important that your strategies for healthy living line up with your vision for your life. Practicing the Art of Addition empowers you to make choices about which routines and habits mean the most to you, and are most in alignment with your values.

[00:02:50] Today, we're going to focus on exercise, a vital but extremely misunderstood healthy living strategy. Is a six-pack really made in the kitchen? When you're focusing on weight loss, it is true that nutrition will make the most significant difference in your overall weight. Exercise can only play a supporting role when it comes to calorie balance. As I will explore further on the blog in the upcoming months, it is notoriously difficult to outrun a bad diet.

[00:03:18] For example, studies have measured the weight loss effects of various combinations of exercise and nutrition, and the conclusion was that both resistance training and aerobic exercise must be combined with calorie reduction strategies to make clinically significant weight loss possible. However, this doesn't mean you should give up on exercise when you're trying to lose weight. Being active provides a long list of benefits other than weight loss, including improved cardiovascular health,

[00:03:46] regulation of mood and mental health, boosted cognitive skills, and allowing older adults to stay independent longer than their sedentary peers. Exercise is a complex physical process. A regular habit at a sufficient intensity changes your body chemistry on a cellular and molecular level. Even if you don't lose weight from exercise alone, your health will improve. A higher level of cardiovascular fitness is correlated with a lower disease risk,

[00:04:16] even at a higher body mass index. In other words, even though aiming for both fitness and an optimal weight yields the greatest benefits, exercise alone yields tremendous health rewards and shouldn't be neglected. When you get too short-sighted, like using the scale as your only measure of success, you miss out on the benefits of regular, vigorous exercise. But if you've been reading my blog for a while, you know that's not where this post is stopping. My secret is that exercise confers a lot more magic

[00:04:46] than can be measured by a blood test or MRI. The alchemical effect of exercise. In a blog post from last summer, I described the phenomenon of catalytic habits, small routines that spark big transformation. Quote, Catalytic habits are usually small details, not giant commitments. However, they're the hinges on which the rest of your day and your mindset turns. End quote.

[00:05:14] Exercise has an incalculable effect on mindset. When we debate whether exercise or nutrition is better for weight loss and health, we lose perspective on the bigger miracle of developing a regular fitness habit. The act of sticking to a consistent exercise routine, whatever it is, is an almost alchemical process. I have observed many of my clients becoming consistent with exercise in ways that they never imagined possible.

[00:05:40] This consistency produces a meaningful feeling of self-efficacy, the sense of, I can do it, which leads to a cascade of other positive changes. The feeling of being capable, strong, and powerful, while more difficult to measure than blood lipids, can make all the difference in helping someone adhere to a consistent routine, which induces smart nutrition strategies over a long period of time. In other words, exercise can be an identity changer

[00:06:08] in a way that declining cheesecake just can't be. A giant asterisk. I hope that as you've been listening to this, you've been anticipating the absolutely giant, all-important asterisk that I have been mentally appending to the end of each paragraph. The asterisk is this. Exercise is tremendously transformational, as long as you do not engineer your habit with a built-in self-destruct button. I would estimate that more than half of my clients come to me,

[00:06:37] either in person or online, already injured from another too-intense exercise program that promised athleticism and weight loss, but only delivered pain. It is incredibly easy to unconsciously create expectations and routines that set the scene for inevitable burnout or injury. When your routine delivers too much intensity too quickly, or is in any way not realistic, exercise loses its alchemical power. And becomes something difficult, arduous, and hard to maintain.

[00:07:08] Instead of promoting adherence, poorly strategized exercise can be the proverbial last straw that leads to completely giving up. So what's the cure? When you're just starting out, the key is to create an exercise habit that, one, gives you that important boost of self-efficacy and empowerment, two, is appropriate for your fitness level, but is also, three, sufficiently intense to make a real difference in your fitness, but, four,

[00:07:37] is most importantly, something that can realistically be a part of your daily or weekly schedule. To be continued. You just listened to part one of the post titled, Exercise, But Not For The Calorie Burn, by Rachel Trotta, of racheltrotta.com. And I'll be right back with my commentary. If you've been optimizing your diet, your protein intake, your sleep, you're already ahead of most people.

[00:08:04] But here's one thing most of us completely miss. The quality of the water we're drinking every single day. That's why I started using CovePure at home. It's a water purifier that sits right on your counter and plugs straight in. No plumber or drilling required. CovePure's ClearWave Reverse Osmosis technology is lab certified to remove up to 99.9% of contaminants. It's not just chlorine, PFAS, lead, microplastics, pharmaceutical residue.

[00:08:34] If it isn't water, CovePure removes it. The removable pitcher is super convenient and being able to choose whatever temperature you want is my favorite feature. Water is the most fundamental thing you put in your body. Every cell runs on it. So make sure what you're drinking is clean. Go to CovePure.com slash OHD and because you're a listener of the show, if you use that link, you can get $250 off.

[00:09:00] That's C-O-V-E-P-U-R-E dot com slash OHD. Girl, winter is so last season. And now spring's got you looking at pictures of tank tops with hungry eyes. Your algorithm is feeding you cutoffs. You're thirsty for the sun on your shoulders. That perfect hang on the patio sundress. Those sandals you can wear all day and all night. And you've had enough of shopping from your couch.

[00:09:28] Done hoping it looks anything like the picture when you tear open that envelope? It's time for a little in-person spring treat. It's time for a trip to Ross. Work your magic. Dr. Neal Malik here for my commentary. I've said this before. If you're using this time to try and undo a quote-unquote bad habit, you have to add a new habit in its place. Otherwise, we feel deprived, which then makes it more difficult to truly rid ourselves of this habit. When something is taken away in your life, good or bad,

[00:09:58] you have to replace it with something. Otherwise, we automatically feel like we've lost. So if you're reducing processed foods in your diet, you've got to add something back in. Of course, I don't mean that it has to be adding another food. But instead, it could be something else that brings you joy. And ideally, something in line with your goals to be your best self. So if, let's say, you removed a processed food from your diet, you've got to add something in to plug in that gap.

[00:10:25] But the key is, whatever you plug in has to bring you about the same amount, if not more, amount of joy and satisfaction that that processed food used to bring you. And again, ideally, whatever habit you plug in, it should be in line with your goals to be your best self. All right, that'll do it for me for today. Thank you for listening. Thank you for sharing this show with someone. I'll be back here tomorrow to finish up this post.

[00:10:52] So I'll see you there where your optimal life awaits.