0 (1s):
Hello and welcome to the Get Lean Eat Clean podcast. My name is Brian Gryn. I'm a certified health coach, trainer and author. And this podcast is for a middle-aged men and women looking to optimize their health and get their bodies back to what it once was a 10 to 15 years ago. I will give you simple, actionable items to get long-term sustainable results. Thanks for listening and enjoy the show.
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Hey everyone. It's Brian Gryn and today is episode one of the Get Lean Eat Clean podcast. I'm super excited. I'm going to talk to you about my top 10 principles to live a kick ass Life and I'm going to get you some tips in there as well. So let's jump right in to my top 10 principles and how I came up with these pretty much just through my experience, just working with clients, you have some researching self-experimentation and just my overall knowledge of how to live an optimal life through my 40 years of living. And so I wanted to just come up with my top 10, just so you have a basis for something to build on. I mean, I've always prioritize my health for the most part, and it's become more and more evident as I've gotten older, because I realized that what I was doing in my twenties was not working in my thirties and forties, so I needed to step it up.
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And so I need to step it up with sleep. Breathwork eating, eating, clean fasting, and many other things. And so I wanted to put it together for you and give you my top 10 things that I've learned over the years. And hopefully you can grab one to three or even all of them and implement them into your lives to help enhance, and Make optimize your health as well. So let's get started. Number one, Make sleep a priority for one. Any other tip that I given in any of the principles that I get into in this podcast is not going to mean much. If you don't get sleep. I mean, sleep is critical for cognitive function, focus, self control, and about 35% of Americans only get the recommended daily amount, which is about seven to nine hours of sleep every night.
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Now this could be different for you. I mean, for me, I try to find a sweet spot between I'm about 78 hours is perfect for me. Also, you want to just take this seriously because sleep deprivation can weaken your immune system, which is important nowadays, obviously a port and all the time and your nervous system, and it really can make you vulnerable to disease. So number one, priority is sleep. Also human growth hormone human growth hormone gets released during sleep, which is important because for many things, including building tissue, maintaining leanness. So, you know, the body conducts its own like physical repair during rest, which is important for healthy living in longevity.
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So lack of sleep are poor sleep. It can cause everything from blood sugar, poor blood sugar control to, to food cravings, poor recovery and even depression. So if someone comes to me and they have a certain issue, whether it's weight or whatever it is, you always want to start with sleep. Now, one thing is having a solid pre sleep routine is crucial to being a sound sleeper for most people. Like I said, having six, eight hours is ideal and then adding an a 20 minute nap would be great. Here's a few tips to help optimize your sleep. One, turn off any device, one to two hours before sleep. Okay? Because artificial light can produce high amounts of blue light and disrupt your natural sleep cycle.
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Protect
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Yourself from S from also from electromagnetic radiation. This is coming, this is being admitted from your cell phone. Your laptop is cordless phones, wireless routers. These are all iMeet emit Mo the most intense EMS and we'll have a negative impact on your sleep quality. So anything that pretty much plugs into a wall or uses a battery and it's EMS. So the important thing is to keep it away from your bed as far as like, as far as possible and unplug it from the wall. Also being consistent about what time you're going to bed each night is really important over time. Your melatonin, your melatonin production and, and release will actually naturally adapt to the time you're going to sleep.
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So you're going to get some big improvements in your sleep quality. Just from sticking to a consistent sleep schedule. It's something that I really shoot for another option, as you could supplement with melatonin, you know, especially if you're traveling and if you're someone that historically has difficulty going to sleep or staying in, in deep sleep States, supplementation with melatonin, it can really help out.
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Yeah.
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So reading and meditation is really helpful before you go to sleep. It helps calm the brain. There's tons of apps out there. If you need help with meditation, some something I'm going to talk about later on. Also, if you wanna sort of track your sleep time, your sleep stages and temperature and things like that. There's, there's a lot of devices, but is called an aura ring. Uhm, they are not as a sponsor of this podcast. This is just something that I've heard through other individuals and that I've read and done some research on. So check out the aura ring. And it's something that I had definitely want to try as well. Try sleeping also with a baby, a weighted blanket weighted blankets have, have been linked to help not only with sleep, but also with stress. When this pre, when a little bit of pressure is gently apply to the body actually encourages serotonin production and it actually can help lift your mood as well.
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So check out some weighted blankets. I actually have my one of my own, especially for the winter. Okay. So Learn new things is number two. This is something that I think that doesn't get talked about a lot. I'm in sort of the health community. You'll hear it from time to time, but we always talk about working out and eating healthy. But what about your brain? I mean, if we don't have our brain, what do we have? Right. And as we get older, you know, we see obviously things like all timers and things that affect people. So taking this seriously is important. And it's something that I have done. I've started getting piano lessons over the last six, seven years and I don't dedicate a ton of time, but a little bit over time makes a huge difference.
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And I've been taking a piano lesson once a week for 30 minutes and then doing it about every day for 15, 20 minutes per day. Now you could do other things like learn a new language, you know, create some artwork, maybe some paintings. But the key I think is just being consistent. Find something that you really enjoy. It's never too late to learn. Okay, well we know this and there are studies showing that obviously you can generate new brain cells as you get older, a process called neurogenesis. So it's never too late for any of this number three, Eat nutrient dense whole foods. You know, this is up there I we all know how powerful food is for your mind, for your body and for your overall health, right?
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What you feed your body and nutrient dense foods. Now for awhile, I had never even would eat this way. I, you know, I have a lot of it. I was pretty much a vegetarian. I would have some fish from time to time, but I realized that I was not getting enough protein and I want to do it in a sustainable, reliable way with high quality protein. So I've been actually adding in grass, fed grass, finished meats, nos the tail. And yeah, this is just a great way to go. Obviously, if you don't eat meat, I totally respect that. And there's other ways to get protein. But if you're looking for a high bioavailability, most nutrient dense foods, nose to tail is, is the way the NGO, because obviously most of the processed foods are low in protein, high in carbs and high in fat.
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And there are designed to pretty much increase your pedal ability to make you overeat. Right? So the main thing is Find avoid calories that have no nutrients, things that are refined, processed, bread, pasta cereals, things like that, and get them an abundance of your nutrients from, you know, nutrient dense foods, such as nose to tail eating. You can also get it from eggs. Wild fish is a good way to go. You can have less toxic vegetables, perhaps vegetables that might not cause an issue with digestion. We all know that some vegetables could cause issues with individuals trying to break them down.
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You can also sprout them or ferment them as well. So berries are an option. If you're going to go with the fruit, I would say it more so than like the melons as far as raising glucose and blood sugar. But the bottom line is make sure you're getting enough protein. I think that's really important, especially if you're a really active it least a gram of protein per day. And depending on obviously how much you weigh it'll, it'll, it'll be different. But for me, I'm about one 70, that's a 170 grams of protein. If I was going to go with one gram and I've seen It recommendations higher than that. So if you're eating a lot of carbs will be tough to get in all of that protein. So I put that as the staple of your meals, high quality, nutrient dense food,
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Proteins and foods, excuse me. Okay.
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Next, I'm going to talk about number for, you know, drinking quality water is really important because a lot of times people don't do this and they think they are hungry, but they're really not. They're just dehydrated. So you want a Drink Mineral water now. There's a lot of mineral waters out there. I I've been, I've never in the past that I ever loved sparkling water, but this is something that I've added. And I really like it cause that, you know, with my fasting, you know, that carbonation, it helps fill you up, but you're also getting some minerals as well.
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So if you
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Think of it this way, your body consists mostly of water. Okay. So pretty much every physiological process and biochemical reaction exists in your body. And it's in water hubs pretty much with all of that blood circulation, metabolism and detoxification. So there's a lot of companies out there. If you're looking for maybe an app to help track your water, there's something called water. Minder is called water minder. But you know, you could, there's a few ways of going about it. You could just use the, the tap water, add some, maybe some sea salt to it or some Mineral drops, or obviously you can install something in your house, like a reverse osmosis system, which pretty much all remove chlorine contaminants and about lose at least 80% of the fluoride for me,
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Your water. So
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Add, add water to your routine. If you're not, if you're not doing it already, a number of five Leave snacking to a minimum.
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So, you know,
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There are surveys done out there showing that obviously in the seventies, you know, obesity, wasn't that as big of an issue and people were just eating three meals a day. But you know, now showing their studies showing by 2004, people are eating close to the five to six times per day. And this was something that was sort of in the mainstream, right? You got to Eat to keep your metabolism up. Your brain runs on glucose, which it does, but you don't need to Eat to keep your brain and in great shape all the time. Okay? Your brain, there's plenty of energy that it can get from, from your own source, right? From your own body, fat and your ketones and things like that. So Trolling blood sugar and insulin levels is really important.
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And if your always eating all the time, one, you are going to put on weight and your blood glucose is going to go up and down and you want to really keep your glycemic variability to a minimum. And that'll help obviously prevent things like type two diabetes and avoid crashing throughout the day. So let's go back to the olden days, let's go with three square meals and Leave snacking to a minimum.
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Hm.
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Number six. So Fast a minimum of 12 hours a day. And I say 12, because you sorta wanna start at a base line. And then you can build from that, like in, in the simple, intimate fasting journal, which I created about three years ago, we talk about easing your way into fasting and just sort of training your body that it doesn't need to necessarily eat every meal of the day. So, you know, when I say fast, a minimum of 12 hours, that would be a pretty much taking advantage of your overnight sleep and overnight Fast and then, you know, pushing back breakfast gradually, right?
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So, you know, by fasting at least half of the day, you're gonna allow your digestive system to rest your gut, to heal. You can to promote some fat loss and improve insulin sensitivity and even promote some healthy mitochondria. So there's a lot of benefits and proven benefits of fasting. So most people, you know, most people start their days eating right away. I recommend don't eat right away, push it back gradually until you find sort of that sweet spot that works for you. Okay? Because obviously when you're feeding all day, you're gonna, you're S you're storing food is energy and is body fat. And during fasting, you're going to burn body fat for energy.
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So when you fast, your body is going to start using it, its own stores. I'm not going to go into all of that. But the bottom line is Fast a minimum of 12 hours per day. If you're looking for a challenge, I do have the 21 day intermittent fasting challenge, which you can check it out on my website. Brian Gryn dot com, but number seven, Resistance train three times a week. So people ask me what's more important cardio or Resistance training. And I always say Resistance training by far because there's definitely studies link to being leaner and stronger leads to longevity and muscles become smaller and weaker with age.
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So as we're getting up there, there's something called sarcopenia. Okay. So it's important to be actively engaged with some form of resistance training because building muscle right, and maintaining its function is pretty much a central for performance, a longevity. So build some quality muscle and maintain its function. And you are going to definitely see a difference in just how your energy is, how, how you handle foods. Okay. So the, the more muscle we have, the morals we have the higher, our total daily energy expenditure be, and we can actually boost our metabolism and promote longevity. Okay. So also building muscle helps improve bone density makes your body more insulin sensitivity, insulin sensitive.
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And yeah, it's just, if you're picking one of the other stick to strength training, I mean, I have done strength training workouts. We're literally, it feels like I just ran a marathon. So you can get, you can get, you know, cardio, some cardio benefits from Just even strength training number eight. So this is something that I've been implementing the, my lives and into my life in this made a huge difference is yoga and yoga meditation, finding time to just connect spiritually, you know, having time like throughout the day to unplug and be completely present is so important for your mind and your overall health.
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So like mindful meditation has been linked to boosting serotonin, improving memory, regulating inflammation, enhancing neural connections in your brain. And much more really, like I said, I personally enjoy yoga. This is something that I've been doing. Even obviously with the quarantine, I've been doing it in just one of the rooms in my house. I'm using an app and an app called downward dog and just following their routine. So you can meditate at the end. I actually have been doing that at least 10 minutes after I'm done with yoga, just sitting there in complete silence. And it's just a great way to start the day.
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You can do it any time of the day. I die. You know, some of you can do it at night. If you'd sort of suffer from falling asleep, just to sort of quiet your mind, focus on your breath and it will help you fall asleep. Like I mentioned, there are apps if you're just doing meditation, there's maps like calm or Headspace. But I, I personally like if you're looking for yoga, I like downward dog, but there are plenty of other ones. Number nine, something called Cold thermogenesis. This is something that's again, I've mentored it in my life and has been a huge impact. Waking up your vascular system with cold showers, a little bit of a hormetic stress.
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So this could include cold baths, cold showers, ice. So ice soaks, even cryotherapy, which is something that I've done on and off. I mean, cold exposure can cause an increase in metabolism, calorie burning, reduce inflammation, increase your insulin sensitivity, okay. Improve, sleep and recovery. No, for the most part, modern life is just putting us down this road of always being comfortable and being, you know, for example, intermittent fasting is a form of hormetic stress. Well, here's another one Cold thermogenesis and Just Cold exposure. So I would start off and simply if you've never done this before, just at the end of your shower, leave it on for like 10 seconds to the Cold setting and gradually worked your way up 10 seconds.
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Get up all the way to 30 seconds. And then, you know, you can obviously go from there. I would say maybe perhaps at most like two minutes, but you can work your way. And I would say try that for 10 days straight and see how you feel like taking a cold shower or a cold bath is the, probably the most, a cost-effective way of doing Cold thermogenesis. Cryotherapy can be very expensive. So I would say either fill up your tub with cold water between 40 and 60 degrees or take a cold shower, or the key is you want to just make sure you take a deep diaphragm for us. And once you skip past those first, you know, 10, 20 seconds, it becomes easier and easier.
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Okay. Number 10, this one is simple. And hopefully, maybe you did a bunch of it. We've been doing this more and more with a quarantine, but walking after meals. So like a great habit of walking after meals to help, first of all, with digestion, blood, sugar maintenance, and also getting some sunshine, just getting out in nature a little bit, you know, I think it's something that we just sort of lack nowadays and in the modern world, w we go from our house to your car and yeah, we know we're getting outside from time to time, but even in the winter, make it up, make it a point to get out, put some layers on and go for a walk. If you need hop, obviously, you know, to get a dog.
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So I, I adopted a dog about over three years ago. It's probably been the best thing I've done. Not only just, just for general overall health and just a positivity, but also just obviously getting out and walking. I can't believe how much I walk now that I have a dog. So, and when you get out and walk, you're also getting sunshine and we know how important vitamin D is. I won't go into everything regarding vitamin D. I could probably do a whole podcast regarding that. Cause most of the time, if your live in the Midwest, you're probably, you could be lacking vitamin D also, you know, getting a sweat on to, you know, it doesn't have to be a crazy walk, but, you know, help sort of, you know, keeps your lips, lipstick, the lymph system flowing and more active so that all that will help with digestive issues.
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And obviously some tax toxicities that occur. So I would say if I was going to put a bonus one on here, cause like we talked about 10 are ready, is, you know, sweat, perhaps do some, you know, infrared saunas, you got the Cold, you got the heat and you get some intermittent fasting. So you've got some hormetic stressors and you know, you, you obviously, you wanna do, you know, I have to do these all the time, but I would say at least a few times a week, but walking after meals is a simple thing that can be done. And if you don't have a walking partner, then maybe you can a dog. So those are my top 10 I'll quickly run through them really quick.
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Just to give you a quick summary, Make sleep a priority. Number one, Learn new things, three Eat nutrients, dense, whole foods, four Drink Mineral water, five Leave snacking to a minimum six. Fast a minimum of 12 hours a day. Number seven, Resistance train three times a week. Number eight Find time to connect spiritually either maybe through meditation or yoga. Number nine is Cold thermogenesis and number 10 Walk after meals.
1 (21m 35s):
So I'll put this in the show notes and you know, if it is, if you have, if your doing some of these already great, if not implement one at a time, until it becomes a habit, these are just things that have worked for myself and my client's. And hopefully it'll have a positive impact on your health and help you lead a kick ass life.
0 (21m 57s):
Thanks for listening to the Get Lean Eat Clean podcast. I understand there are millions of other podcasts out there and you have chosen to listen to mind, and I appreciate that. Check out the show notes at Brian Gryn dot com for everything that was mentioned in this episode, feel free to subscribe to the podcast and share it with a friend or family member that's looking to get their body back to what it once was. Thanks again, and have a great day.
