Daniel: [00:00:00] Hi guys, and welcome to the dead by tomorrow podcast. My name is Daniel winter and my cohost is Andrew Monroe.  Andrew and I will explore topics too important to wait to think about until your last day on earth. As we explore each topic, we encourage you to remember that some tomorrow will be your last.

So each day could be your final chance to really live.

Andrew: [00:00:22] Hey guys, welcome back. I know it's been a little bit, but yeah, we are glad to have you here. This episode, we're going to be talking about fitness and movement and how that affects your life. And this is actually one of Daniel. Mine's more common pastimes that we at least share together.

So hopefully this episode is fun for you guys as it is for us. Okay, Daniel, let's start this off with a fun question for you. What's your favorite way to keep in shape?

Daniel: [00:00:48] outside of, chasing your mom.

Andrew: [00:00:51] Ooh, she got in fast, man. I don't know.

Daniel: [00:00:56] I couldn't resist that. Your mom joke. Okay.

Realistically, my favorite way is definitely playing ultimate Frisbee. any chance I get to play pickup games, play tournaments to play leagues. I definitely enjoy it. really? any game, any competition? Basketball Frisbee volleyball, Spartan races, which is essentially just making a competition out of obstacle courses.

I would say that those are my favorite ways to stay in shape.

Andrew: [00:01:22] Oh. And those are all great. I know we referenced that in some of our writings we've done on it, we both played a lot of tennis and Frisbee back in high school and then you've definitely played a lot of Frisbee since then.

Those races are some of my favorite memories. If someone was wanting to do an obstacle course race, but they're scared for the myriad reasons that people seem to be scared of those things. What would you say would be a good alternative for them to try it out anyways, or, a way for them to overcome the obstacle of going and doing obstacle?

Well,

Daniel: [00:01:53] obstacle course races are actually. Pretty scary. I think most people at those races are super friendly, really look into encourage each other. it's not really filled with a bunch of just like cutthroat Spartans, like jerks and things like that. So I would say that those races are for the most part, pretty.

On intimidating for the people and the comradery aspect. Now I know having to do burpees. If you can't do a rope climb, that sounds pretty intense. Having to Wade through ice cold water, or if you're in tough mudders, getting shocked by electricity like that is intimidating. But the thing is with all of those obstacle courses, it's really.

Knowing your own limits. So if you are going to pass out, if you have to do running the open division there, nobody's going to scream at you for not doing them. I think you should maybe internally scream at yourself a little bit, but nobody's going to shame you, body shame you or anything like that. So I think those races, it's a, it's actually a great opportunity to make some friends, to do something fun, to push yourself.

And it really, I [00:03:00] don't think there's anything, all that scary about them.

Andrew: [00:03:02] No, I totally agree. That's why I asked was it's been one of those things that a lot of people seem really hesitant to try, and we've both taken a number of friends on these races with us. And I think everyone's had a really good time for the most part that said I'm way against those tough motors.

I have. That shock. That hit me, that one race we did. I still don't understand how they could have something that powerful on a course like that. And I don't know if they cheated on me or what happened, but I'll do so many burpees before I go to a tough motor again.

Daniel: [00:03:31] Yeah. See, I missed out. I missed out on the shock.

Whenever I got to that point, the guy running, it was asking, he actually asked me to touch one of the wires. Cause he said he didn't think it was on. I looked at him like. Are you serious? How stupid do you think I am? But he assured me that he didn't think it was on. I didn't hear any buzzing. So I reached out and as quick as I could tapped a wire.

And it wasn't on. And so at that point he said, Oh yeah, just give me a second. I'll get it back on. I said, Nope, sprinted through it. And I was done with that part of the race.

Andrew: [00:04:00] Yeah. Yeah. I was about two seconds behind you and they turned it on while I was in it. It's Latin to me.

Daniel: [00:04:08] Yeah. I actually heard you scream

Andrew: [00:04:10] after went.

I was going and the guy, I saw him throw a switch or something. He there's like a click and then one of them hit me like. Like the wire was right on my chest and it went, boom. And I'm not going to lie. I screamed like a child and it knocked me flat and I crawled the rest of the way out. It was, that was bad.

I did not enjoy it. Yeah. So maybe

Daniel: [00:04:31] there may be some intimidating parts of those races and. it's not for everybody, but again, unless you're going out and you're running and the competitive division, and you're, really wanting to clear all the crazy stuff or you're doing a beast or an ultra-beast or something along that line.

I think doing a, a tough mudder doing a Spartan sprint, doing a warrior dash, those sorts of things that's within the realm of capability of most people who can walk, 5k and do monkey bars.

Andrew: [00:05:01] Dude. Absolutely. we've seen tons of people that were doing it. Everybody's super encouraging.

And as long as you can walk five miles, like you can handle them. The course is usually generally really safe. And I think the worst I've ever seen was, a few people getting heat stroke because they weren't properly hydrating and a couple of rolled ankles or cramps from people who really push themselves too hard that didn't have the business of doing such a thing like that should have walked out and they ran instead or ran downhill instead of walk downhill

Daniel: [00:05:26] guilty of some of those cramps.

Andrew: [00:05:29] Yeah, we won't get into that either. We have too many stories and we don't want to turn this into an obstacle course. Race episode.

Our thing is dead by tomorrow. How do you take action today and better yourself? So a lot of the things we're talked about is how to. Take advantage of the time you have today to do something meaningful. And generally when it comes to fitness, to me, that means, either going and playing some kind of sport with friends, because you both get the exercise cardio aspect and you also get a [00:06:00] social aspect out of it.

on my side, at least I have more often go to the gym with somebody and work out with a friend or get a quick lift. And before I go do something social. So these are things that I think are really important and. I was hoping we could talk a little bit about this. Isn't just an Andrew and Daniel think it should be a fit thing if there's, the science behind it.

So to say,

Daniel: [00:06:20] yeah, totally. And I think we touched a little bit on that in our entertainment episode, where we looked a little bit at. Okay. We have all heard. The accepted wisdom that TV is bad for you, but if you look further into it, in reality, what's bad for you is sitting and being sedentary for a long period of time.

And TV does a ton to encourage that.

Andrew: [00:06:43] Absolutely.

Daniel: [00:06:44] And so that's so guilty of that

Andrew: [00:06:45] lately.

Daniel: [00:06:47] Yeah, same here. Yeah. Working at home and just. Not having as many opportunities to go out, really do promote a more sedentary lifestyle.

Andrew: [00:06:55] I don't know about you, but a lot of that starts to have kind of a negative effect on my mental health.

I start getting a little less satisfied with the day and kind of grumpy, or I'm not as forgiving of. What I see as other people's failings or even my own failings, I'm a lot harder on myself and harder on the people around me. And I know there's some studies I've talked about, exercise makes you happier and there's this really cool thing in Japan.

That's called forest bathing and they wander around trees and that's how they clear their heads as they go for forest bath, finish, walk through the woods. With their thoughts. And it's proven to be almost as good as meditation, which we could get into meditation too. That's at this point scientifically, and to increase your mental capacity, to deal with depression and anxiety and all that kind of stuff.

And everything's just so much better for your head, which in turn is so much better for what you do at work and what you do with your friends and everything like that. And we have all these great memories. we have to pull ourselves back from telling stories about the Spartan races we've been to, or the hikes and these.

National forests and parks that we go to because people are tired of hearing us talk about all these cool climbs we did that nobody else could really join up with us because they hadn't been focused on their fitness or, all the different reasons that people have not to do something more physically active than what they're comfortable with.

Daniel: [00:08:08] Yeah. I think it does open up different. Opportunities different things that you can go do and go experience. Whether that be, going on a longer trail, going on a longer backpack trail, a longer hike trail, doing a further swim, those sorts of things. And there is a little bit of actual world that opens up if you're taking care of that.

But it's one of those things that it's the journey itself that you look forward to? Or what is that quote?

Andrew: [00:08:34] Oh, are you talking about the Stormlight one?

Daniel: [00:08:36] actually that is. There is a storm I quote, journey before destination. That's not essentially sums up what I'm talking about.

Just if you're super fit, you may be able to do the 15-mile trail and you get to see the cool waterfall at the end of it. And that's awesome. that's a destination mindset, but I think what we're getting at is the actual journey itself of working of [00:09:00] sweating of getting yourself moving.

that's the real. Benefit that we're looking for, that you get to enjoy it's the journey itself, not just the destination

Andrew: [00:09:10] before destination to life before death. I love it. Now. That is what we're going for is, any kind of movement, if you don't want to go to the gym and lift weights.

That's cool. If you do want to go to the gym and lift weights, that's also cool. If you liked playing Frisbee or basketball or whatever your sport is, or if you just want to go on a walk, there's so many options, but the main thing is you just want to make sure you're. Building that habit where every day you're moving a little bit.

You're getting ahead. Not behind on where you should be physically.

Daniel: [00:09:41] All right, Andrew. So if you had to guess how much time do you feel like adults send or spend sitting on a, on average each day?

Andrew: [00:09:52] Whoo. okay. Let's see. We're probably awake for roughly 16 to 18 hours. So I'm going to say that. I think they're probably sitting for good. 12 of them.

Daniel: [00:10:03] Wow. That's a really bleak outlook, 12.

Andrew: [00:10:09] I'm guessing some of those people have, jobs that they're sitting for eight hours and then they come home and they probably watched TV for three hours plus dinner. I guess that's really 11 hours. So 11 to 12, depending on how much their Netflix habit gets in and how much food they eat before and after work.

Daniel: [00:10:24] All right. some of the surveys that I was looking into and I was looking@everydayhealth.com, talked about how from. So this is from 2016, so it could have changed in the last four years and increased more. But, adults ages, 20 adults, ages 20 and older, their daily sitting time was six and a half hours.

Andrew: [00:10:47] Yes, I was off

Daniel: [00:10:49] that grew from two, 2007. It was five and a half hours. That's growing and it could be growing more. And then actually, adolescents, it was eight hours a day. So adolescents are sitting more often than adults, which, you can blame school league, ring, blame TV, you can blame video games for that.

Andrew: [00:11:03] That's honestly surprising to me. I would've definitely bet money that it was in reverse, but at the same time, I guess kids do have all this. Entertainment access now. And I definitely would have sat and played video games as much as possible if I had them as a trial.

Daniel: [00:11:17] Yeah. I feel like it was a good mix, but I'm curious.

So knowing that those averages have increased, what do you think is contributing to that? And do you think we're on an upward trend in terms of. Sedentary lifestyle.

Andrew: [00:11:30] I think we're in that kind of an upward trend towards a sedentary lifestyle, like that movie. What was the mood?

Daniel: [00:11:36] Wally. Polly.

Andrew: [00:11:38] Yeah. Yeah. That was depressing and scary. I do think we're headed in that direction. as a culture we've been focused on convenience and industrializing to a stronger, better society, which in our mind is we do less work for more results and. When you looked down at it, transportation and all the different things that would [00:12:00] involve us moving is those are inefficient uses of energy, right?

So those are problems we see as a society. We want you to think the quicker we get something where in the less work we have to do to produce a result, the better we are off as people. If we continued in that direction, heck there was an article I saw the other day where they're trying to find this miracle drug and there, it sounded like close where they have this protein pill.

And I say that because I don't really understand what they're going for, but they want a magic pill. And the substance is some kind of odd protein chain. And I have no idea what. They were talking about that case. That was way above my head, but essentially you could take this pill and it would be the equivalent of doing two to three hours of hard work out because of the way it interacted with your body and eliminated the need to go to the gym on one end, that'd be really cool because everybody's healthy, but that mindset that we are looking for, those kinds of shortcuts to not move as much.

And we're also giving people more opportunities to not move. Unlike Netflix and our phones and our computers and all that different things. We have that, Oh, calling in food. So all of those things that have become really popular during the covert crisis have really shown us that we don't need to leave for our apartment for anything or our home or wherever you're living at your parents' home or the basement.

There's all of these activities and passions that we had that are being watered down but made more convenient by leaving us on our couch. And that mindset is what I think is leading towards a far more sedentary lifestyle for people across the board.

Daniel: [00:13:30] Yeah. It's ironic that a. Disease that really attacks the respiratory system, even those that aren't having it.

It's, we're adopting a lifestyle that puts us more at risk. If we ever were to contract it,

Andrew: [00:13:44] it's scary, man. And there's so many works that you can do at home. we could talk about what you and I and Brett have been doing. We've been doing these fitness challenges with each other for the past two months now.

We just finished this past weekend or 22-day pushups from that guy on YouTube, which was very rough, but it was fun.

Daniel: [00:14:06] I'm actually really curious to see what studies look like in the next few years, as far as exercise. And again, that sedentary lifestyle, because one thing that I do feel like is moving the trend in the right direction is the fact that I think workplaces are a lot more conscious now of the health risks of sitting all day.

So you see companies like very desk rowing, More companies that are focused on doing standing desks or doing yoga and the office, or, now we have the ability to do commuter or not communal work, remote work a lot more. It's a, there may be a little bit more of a mix between. Being in office and at home.

And I, I personally definitely move more at home working, compared to in the office because in between breaks, I can get up, I can do some laundry, I can do some dishes. I can get some things done. I'm a little bit more incentivized to knock out [00:15:00] work quickly so I can take care of some of those other tasks versus if I'm in the office, then, I just plow through getting.

Office stuff done. And maybe I get up to talk to people or get coffee, but

Andrew: [00:15:10] maybe get some coffee. Yeah. That is when I was in an office. That was almost the only thing that got me out of my desk was, Oh, I need my fifth cup of coffee. I guess I'll walk 10 feet and go make one then. Yeah. So what's cooler about that.

And I really hope a lot more companies will even with the remote work. Cause it looks like remote work is going to be a lot more prevalent. I hope there's some kind of incentivized program that helps encourage people to move around more. There was a company I went to when I was doing sales for Amarillo gear and we went and visited a company within the industry just to say hi, and this is wild because this was in Lubbock, Texas.

Yeah, Amarillo and Lubbock are pretty backwards comparatively to more progressive cities and work environments. But this company had a workshop and they're doing a lot of manufacturing and everything like that. And this actually ties in with an article on how exercise improves work productivity from live strong.

These people must have read the same article about how its increased alertness and lowered injuries. And. fewer sick days and all that kind of stuff, because they implemented a nutrition program and an exercise program that took their injuries from whatever the number was. I can't remember what they said.

The cool part was they took that number and they zeroed it out. They had zero injuries since they started the program. And they, even if you're talking about two injuries a year, which I think they had way more than that. And that's still crazy small because they aren't counting like paper cuts or, things like that.

They're talking about like lost fingers or hands or. I can

Daniel: [00:16:40] downplay paper cuts. That's a big deal.

Andrew: [00:16:42] That's fair paper cuts are the worst, but like you get to recover from those in the comfort of your own home. Maybe,

Daniel: [00:16:49] maybe physically, but do you ever emotionally recover from its paper?

Andrew: [00:16:53] That's a good question.

I'm not sure I need to go down that rabbit hole because. I don't know if we're going to be able to finish this podcast, but yeah, they, they did this nutrition program and the exercise program and their injuries went almost to zero, or it went to zero and their sick days went to almost zero. They stopped having all these people that had sick days, everybody's immune systems were boosted up and they were, the whole program was just incredible.

How well it worked for this company that you would think more companies would jump on board with that. But a lot of people just don't like the idea of providing lunches for them. Staff. and at least this company's case, I had CrossFit every morning, but most of them don't want to encourage that kind of exercise program.

They might get a gym membership for their employees, but they aren't actually going to hold them accountable to use it. And I think that's one of the problems we've run into and definitely are going to run into if people are working from home and hopefully it's. Something like what you're doing, where people are encouraged to move more and, get up and get those limbs flowing and the blood pumping and whatever it takes, even if it's just a walk around the apartment or the house or down and up the stairs again in between calls.

That'd be awesome.

Daniel: [00:17:59] Yeah. I think [00:18:00] there's, I think there are some positives, some things that are working in our favor. again, we've referenced this in several episodes, but in one early on episode, about commitment, we were just talking about. The things that you measure are the things that grow.

And the fact that we are paying a lot more attention to fitness, to stagnant lifestyles and those sorts of things and are calling out the issues there. I think we can see some growth. One other area. I'm curious to get your take on, that's a little bit of a trend maybe in that regard. It, maybe it's a little bit bigger than a trend, but is the whole fitness tracker movement.

What's your stance on fitness trackers?

Andrew: [00:18:46] Oh, that is funny. You ask, because for a really long time, I was super against it. I did not like everybody running around with these fitness trackers, because it felt like people were posing that they were fit. It's Hey, I look, I wear this fitness tracker. Now I'm an athlete.

And it drove me nuts. There's people who hadn't stepped foot in a gym acting like they were working on their fitness. And it really bugged me, man. But I have thought about it more since then, especially cause I've tried just about all of them. I think the only one I haven't actually had was an Apple watch, but now that I have an iPhone again, that's.

Very near in my future. What I realize just when I've been wearing them, was it wasn't necessarily only that I was getting more fit or trying more, but it goes back to something that we've talked about before, which is what is measured and recorded grows exponentially. And whenever you have that fitness tracker on, I think what's happening is because that data is being collected and stored for people to look at the fact that's happening, makes them more conscientious of their lifestyle.

And it might not fix all of the problems, but I think there's enough people that are triggered by seeing, their little watch beep and tell them that they should stand up or we're trying to give them these. And what are in the end, cheap, pointless challenges to move and get the rings on Apple watches or whatever, the footstep goals.

It works. And it works on a lot of people because human psychology is easily fooled like that. I think it's actually doing a lot of good, despite the larger scale of at least the American culture where people are becoming more sedentary. I think there's that smaller bit that I think this is helping STEM the tide, is what I'm saying.

It's doing its part. It might not. Turn us all the way around, into a healthy culture. But I think for the people who have, when it's actually really effective.

Daniel: [00:20:28] Yeah. it's interesting because some of the early on data would probably disagree with you there. That, and that it's not actually all of that.

Meaningful statistically, a one article I read from wired talked about, science says fitness trackers don't work, but where one anyway. Yeah, it was interesting. It just talks some about how there are some major downfalls with trackers, battery, life accuracy, and measure, just chunkiness, all that sort of stuff.

And a lot of that was more the early [00:21:00] fitness tracker movement, but. Everything is getting a lot slicker. And I think fitness companies like Fitbit, like Garmin, really Apple that they've branded themselves as a health company. They're getting better at gamifying it, which going back to what you were saying, that always taps into the psychology.

And so that's some of the mindset of we're one anyway, because it may not work right this second, but it's likely to improve and work more. And then also may not work for everyone, but. If it works for you. if it even gets you a little bit more active and Apple watch, you can get for probably two, $300.

Actually, if you have. Aetna for your health insurance check into attain. See if you have access to that, that's a program that they offer where essentially give you an Apple watch, make payments for it, but you can earn your payments through staying fit and staying active. So you can. essentially get a free Apple watch, but even if you're in

Andrew: [00:22:05] a program, so I want everybody to be running.

That's the world we need to be in is, Hey, it should be fit. Here's this thing that costs money. You can have it, it's the money. If you don't go to the gym or go it.

Daniel: [00:22:16] Oh, for sure. It's,

Andrew: [00:22:18] we'll track it and tell us if he did or didn't do it.

Daniel: [00:22:20] It's definitely motivating. But even if you don't have access to a program like that, if you spend $300 on a watch, that's not as much as the vast majority of people would spend on a gym.

And how many of you listening have signed up for a gym membership? Went. maybe one week in the year and didn't stick with it, if you buy your fitness watch and it causes you to stay more active for a week. guess what? That was just as valuable to you as your gym.

Andrew: [00:22:46] Oh, absolutely.

I don't know if you're still wearing your whoop. I finished my six months out with it just recently and I didn't end up wrapping on it because $30 a month was a little steep for a fitness tracker. I thought it was cool because I admit it made me run more. A lot of the data on it was so to say the gamification was, Hey, you want a high score in your exercise.

And it was running was how you got the high score. And so I, I ran a lot more while I had that whoop fitness tracker than I've done.

Daniel: [00:23:17] Yeah. I didn't stick with mine either. And that kind of goes back to things, being a little bit of trends. But what is important is like you're saying for those first six months that I had it, I felt like I learned more about my response.

my we'll use it a lot of what they call stress response. So my stress response to running versus weightlifting, my stress response. If I don't get as much sleep, if I drink alcohol, like there are so many things you can track in this journal. And that's what was really cool about it is you can say, I.

Didn't sleep in my normal bed. I flew on a plane. I had two drinks of alcohol, high coffee, and my strain level, not stress strain. My strain level for the day was high because I played a Frisbee tournament and my [00:24:00] recovery tanked the next day. Super low. And then I would feel it physically versus if it's I slept in my own bed.

I didn't have any alcohol. I'm going to have coffee every day. So that's an, a given, but I didn't do as physically demanding of an exercise. My recovery, the next day is really high. I would feel that. So it was insightful, full, and I felt like it did lead to some different fitness decisions when I had it early on.

And. It reminded me of whenever all of us got Fitbits and we're doing stuff challenges for several months straight. And it was all about, we were checking the app all the time and I kid you not during that time, I would find ways to get up from my desk throughout the day. Just go walk up and down the stairs over and over because I wanted to win the fitness challenge and.

Hillary hated me because if we went to the store, first of all, I'd be like, yeah, I would love to go to the store with you, which that was, wait, what do you want to go to the

Andrew: [00:24:53] store with me? Walk away. We're parked

Daniel: [00:24:56] in this is possible. And you can sit here, I'll get all the groceries. Oh, wait, it's on the other side of the store.

Yeah, totally. I've got it. And

Andrew: [00:25:04] for side of the store at a time,

Daniel: [00:25:07] Yeah. And so we were on that trend for a little while as well, and it fell off. Cause that's the thing about trends, again, we don't lose out on that. The benefit of getting in all those extra steps, we don't lose out on learning about how our bodies recover and react to strain.

Those are things we can use, we can grow from and can keep using and things have a funny way of coming back around, like I've got. An Apple watch. I do competitions with her friend, Michael, and we used to do them religiously all the time, fell off for a little while we started doing them again and I'm super competitive.

So it pushes me like there last week we were neck and neck. I stayed up until midnight doing a jogging in place while playing Xbox at night so that I could get enough points and beat him.

Yeah. But yeah, it's finding those trends. It's sticking with them when they're working and finding the next thing, but then finding also your baseline, your bread and butter, your thing that you stick with.

Andrew: [00:26:09] That's what I was thinking about, the whoop and some of these fitness trackers is.

At least anecdotally, a lot of what we've done. There's some of my best, at least peaks of fitness have been more socially or peer challenged. They've either been, when we were working out together or whenever we've had the same trackers and we're competing on a weekly or monthly basis just to get steps or, a strain or whatever it is because it does it pushes you to that further level because you have that information.

And I. I think that works with a lot of people. If you can plug in with a few friends or even if you don't know him, but you just plug in with a community of people in your area that are using that fitness tracker or whatever it is out there you want to use, that gets you moving. That's awesome for just group workouts.

I know we were talking before the podcast about the Murph, that CrossFit body weight workout. [00:27:00] The only time I've actually managed to do the full Murph was with you and Jake because y'all were there. And I don't think any of us realized quitting wasn't an option. So we all just kept going and just about died and the wind played Frisbee afterwards, and it's probably one of the best works I've ever gotten outside of going to the Spartan races.

Whenever we're really pushing those on the, the beast, at least having that community and having those friends who you're. Pushing with, and it's so much better because it's not, yeah, just a single workout. You're getting to have an incremental increase every single day for a long period of time.

And when you look at it in a year, if you're just doing, let's say a pull up, pull ups, a good number or a good reference point. So if you do one pull up a day every day for the year, You're talking about 365 pull-ups she did for the year. Bring it up tomorrow. Let's say you did five. I can't do that kind of math in my head.

That's a lot of pull-ups you're what? 1500 is that? Right?

Daniel: [00:27:56] A few more than 1500

Andrew: [00:27:58] somewhere in there,

Daniel: [00:27:59] somewhere about 30, something like that.

Andrew: [00:28:02] Okay. So that's five a day, but if you did you know if you're weightlifting? And you're only doing pull ups once a week at 10 pull ups a week, your volume is going to be so much less over it.

The year that it doesn't matter. And this is not my idea. This is something I pulled from a YouTube video that blew my mind. But if you can find that little thing every single day and you can do it consistently. You're going to be so much further along in the long-term than if you are forcing yourself to do stuff you don't like to do on a weekly or by monthly basis.

Daniel: [00:28:34] Yeah, I think there are some pros and cons. There are some benefits to both because honestly, if you do one pull up a day, even if you end the year doing 365, I promise you're not going to look any different at the end of that year, doing full up a day. that's just not how your body.

Works. you've got to, you've got to break things down and you've got to push it yeah. A little bit. But if let's say you do that as your baseline, you do your one pull up a day and then you do a challenge with your friends every week, or just a challenge with yourself. It doesn't have to be a threat, you push yourself and you do a lot more.

Then that's where you can see some of that benefit because you push yourself, you grow, but then. You have the minimum that you're doing to maintain. And I have a buddy at work. his name is Nick. he calls it, brushing your teeth whenever he goes, his damn he's yeah. just got to brush my teeth.

It's like that routine that you do to maintain a pretty baseline level of, fitness or health.

Andrew: [00:29:30] Oh, that's a great way. I've never thought of it as brushing your teeth. I've always, whenever I've tried to talk to people about it, it's Oh yeah. It's like going to work. You just. not go to work.

It's the same thing. it's what you do on a daily basis or, five times a week. It's just that thing you do, because it's what you require of yourself. Yeah. Everything else is a bonus. And hopefully you're looking for those opportunities to find bonuses, but a lot of people don't even have that baseline and that's really important.

[00:30:00] Daniel: [00:30:01] All right. So what do you do to brush your teeth? I know we've talked a lot about the fun, like social fitness things we've done. I've pushed us to wacky, weird limits and stuff like that, but, what's your bread and butter in terms of workouts.

Andrew: [00:30:16] So for me, at least I have a minimal and it's changed a little bit with the knee injury because that really messed me up for a while.

I'm back to good, I think now, but generally I'm looking at four days a week minimum that I am going to the gym to lift. At least four days a week, I'm lifting and at least one extra day a week. So I'm trying to go for that five days, five workdays, at least the fifth day of that week, I'm going to do some kind of cardio, like solely I will just go run or hit the Stairmaster or row or the salt, but whatever it is, I will try and do cardio for 30 minutes.

So five days a week, I am focused on baseline lifting with a little bit of cardio. That said I try and find some other stuff to do. I like going and rock climbing and hiking and that kind of thing. And anytime I can get an opportunity to do those bonus activities that are physical, I'd jump on that.

And those are the best weeks I have is whenever I stretch that five days into six or seven days with an extra hike or something more fun to do, if I was giving fitness advice, which I'm not quite qualified to give, but I'm also not. Not qualified to give after this long, if someone was just looking for what, a general baseline they should be going for, I would say roughly covering five miles a week, either walking or running or whatever it like a mile a day for five days straight while you're running it or walking, it is a really good starting point and trying to do something, muscle building.

If you can't do a pull up, focusing on working on, getting up to being able to pull up doing 10 squats. Every day or every other day or something like that. And just making sure that you're covering those big, major muscle groups and working them over pushups, pull ups, squats, and they can all be body weight.

And if you're just doing that and doing a little bit of, mile eating on, and by that, I mean covering a mile or two every now and then every week, I think that's a good general baseline to be brushing your teeth. Okay. So with all of that said, and my obvious love for working out, being on the table now, what do you think is the dark side?

Are there any negative aspects that we need to watch out for that our audience needs to watch out for since you and I are both more on that front?

Daniel: [00:32:27] Yeah. And there are definitely negatives to working out. Pretty much anything in life, even fitness, even working out you should do with moderation.

And so I looked a little bit into this and a lot of this, really, a lot of the negatives apply to endurance, like extreme endurance events. I'm talking like ultra-marathons. Ultramarathons goodness props to you for doing it, but it's. Taking years off your life, it's not great for your body to do those sorts.

It's a thing. [00:33:00] And then yeah, there can be negatives such as if you're doing crazy lifts and you're up and more and more weight, and you're doing it too quickly with that form, those sorts of things. you can hurt yourself. you're probably not going to hurt yourself in one crazy like moment sitting and watching TV.

You just slowly kill yourself over time, but you can do some damage playing a sport, Andrew, as. You know all too well.

Andrew: [00:33:25] Wow. it's funny. I don't actually ever think of that as like a danger of fitness, but it is like I would not have flown out all of the things in my knee if I wasn't playing Frisbee that day with you guys and really sucked.

it is still a recovery. I tying my shoes still hurts. My MCL. It's just life in my mind, but yet that is not something I'd wish on somebody. So yeah, that is obviously a danger of at least a lot of context sports or, even some Olympic lifting or noncontact sports. I get a little too close to comfort for other people in the Frisbees case.

Daniel: [00:33:59] So that's a risk. But it's one that can, the risk of injury can definitely be managed. if that's a big fear, just go swim in a pool. very unlikely that you're going to hurt yourself doing that sort of thing, but a drown,

Andrew: [00:34:11] can get you

Daniel: [00:34:13] in a pool. What kind of sharks are in pools?

Andrew: [00:34:16] I don't know, but that's how you stay safe.

Daniel: [00:34:21] You only live once and you want to live as long as you possibly can fight tooth and nail till the end.

One thing I mentioned earlier in the episode is that if you don't get out and get your workout, you tend to be grumpy. You tend to be frustrated and that's because, you're addicted to the endorphins that you get from exercise. And just like any other addiction, you can certainly. Overdo it, you can get too addicted to exercise where, you have to go get your run and you've got to go get your lift in and you have to do those things to the detriment of family of obligations and things like that.

Again, I don't think that's something that's coming up for a lot of people. I think that's typically, somebody that's trying to do iron man’s triathletes, things like that, where you've got to devote just crazy amounts of hours to training. That's probably not going to come up if you're trying to get your 30 minutes of anaerobic exercise a day or anything like that, but it's a risk.

Andrew: [00:35:18] like Goggins, he, I absolutely, borderline worship the guy. If you don't know who I'm talking about. It's David Goggins. He's this Navy seal. That's I think insane, but he does all this crazy stuff, but that is his thing. he spends five to six hours training. that's killer because it eats up six hours.

Plus you're now probably pretty tired the rest of the day.

Daniel: [00:35:37] Yeah. So it's training to what end, like if you're training, if that's your life and if that's all you love to do, I guess that's okay. But I don't think that's most people that we're talking to. I think most of what we're trying to get across as, Hey, this is something that's important to supplement your life and help you enjoy it.

All of the other things more, and if it takes six hours to achieve that, then it's is that [00:36:00] worth it? Probably not

Andrew: [00:36:02] on. So on that point, how many hours do you think you spend every week? Cause I'm curious where you're at, because I know where I'm at. I don't think it's nearly as much as a lot of people.

Daniel: [00:36:10] Oh, it's not a crazy amount. And it depends on if I'm in tournament season, race, season, or whatever that is. So while quarantined at home, Man, it's, I'm trying to think maybe five hours a week. and on, I would say on average, like outside of, when I've got access to gym and things like that, it's probably closer to, I'd say seven, eight hours training and then also probably another three hours or so of actually playing sports and things like that.

anywhere from 10, 10 hours to 15 hours, something like that.

Andrew: [00:36:47] Dang. You're honestly a lot higher than I am per week. I am pretty close to almost every week hitting roughly six hours. that's like on the good weeks. There's plenty of weeks where I have that one day where you just like, ah, I'm not doing it today or I'm going light today.

I'm going easy. And I'm down to five and a half hours or whatever. Then I think I'm generally a pretty fit guy. So it's not a huge time chunk. If people are wanting to be really serious about getting in shape.

Daniel: [00:37:14] totally. And you've got to consider like I'm factoring in the fact that most weeks outside of COVID times, I'm going to probably play anywhere from three to three to six hours a day.

Frisbee basketball or something like that. And that's not every single week, I've also got tournament

Andrew: [00:37:33] weekend Saturdays.

Daniel: [00:37:35] Yeah. yeah. Now I've also, tournament weekends. It's that's a solid 10 hours across two days. Yeah. of playing. So those things rack it up alive. If you're talking, just go into the gym, running those sorts of thing, then I'm right there with you.

It's probably five or six hours.

Andrew: [00:37:50] Yeah. And that's, and it's weird, I'm not going to say that we have unfit friends or anything like that, but generally a lot of people that we go spend time with outside of the gym, if we're doing trips or hikes or extracurricular activities, we generally are at a much higher level physically than a lot of those people that we run into in our outside lives.

And that's just from five hours a week.

Daniel: [00:38:15] it's five hours a week for the past. What

Andrew: [00:38:18] 10, 15 years,

Daniel: [00:38:20] 15 years, something like that.

Andrew: [00:38:22] And that's exactly it. If you're consistent for 10 years, you're going to be right consistent for a year. You're going to be in a way better place than you are right now, if you haven't been consistent.

So once you've got to start somewhere and it just, it helps. And yeah, we were crazy back in high school doing a lot more than that, but it's really not that hard to. Not go overboard and really not lose a lot.

Daniel: [00:38:45] That is one of those dark sides, as well as if you're pushing your body a lot, your heart has a limited amount of beats before it's done your joints have a limited amount of shock that they can absorb before [00:39:00] they're done.

And while exercise does strengthen your heart, you can overtrain, you can over-exercise and doing a lot of that exercise, it releases free radicals into your blood, which caused can cause you to age, more being out in the sun can cause you to age more as well. Like these things do have a toll.

so again, that's where it's. Yeah. All about moderation there's benefit for sure. You're sitting in a dark room, not moving all day. That's not the way to go, but also just running nonstop under the beatings on that's not the way to go.

Andrew: [00:39:38] now we know how Daniel Andrew feel about ultra-marathons.

Oh, you're crazy.

Daniel: [00:39:44] I can't do it. So you're crazy for doing it.

Andrew: [00:39:48] They are crazy on, we've talked about. Most of this has been about exercise and like going to, getting fit. But one of the things we haven't mentioned is nutrition. I'm not even going to pretend to give nutrition advice, but whenever you really get down to it, this the stuff we're talking about is mood boosting.

And it helps increase your heart health and metabolism physically because you've got more muscle, hopefully. And there's a lot of benefits there, but a lot of what we're talking about helps you mentally and cardiovascular system be stronger, but if you're really wanting to lose weight and have like a transformation physically, that actually comes down to diets, take everything where thing with the eye, with the understanding that if you really want to see Fat loss or really big muscle gain.

It is embarrassingly for me, at least because I've been pounding my head against a year against the wall for so many years on this, but it's all about the diet and your nutrition. And that's honestly going to be more important if you're looking at this episode in a body recomposition mindset.

So grain of salt, keep that in mind.

Daniel: [00:40:53] Tell me about the mindset. I'm curious about it.

Andrew: [00:40:56] The mindset is where you're focused on keeping a positive mindset. So your mindset is focused on increasing your mindset's ability to cope with stressful situations and make proper decisions and follow your principles.

And remember that you might be dead by the way.

Daniel: [00:41:12] How many times do you think you said mindset just then.

Andrew: [00:41:16] No, I can't count very high, bro. Come on. Don't call me out like that.

Daniel: [00:41:25] Thank you all for joining us. This is Daniel and Andrew with dead by tomorrow. we just hope from this episode that some of your takeaways are one that moving is a good thing, and it's probably not as hard as it originally seemed. there just a lot of great opportunities for fitness and there's really a lot of great reasons for it.

And then again, if you really are looking for that total body transformation, we've got a great video link that we'll put in the show notes about really the best way to just increase your power level. And, just your overall fitness. it's hard, it's [00:42:00] probably one of the toughest things that I've ever seen.

I definitely couldn't do it, but we'll make sure to tip you guys up with that here at the end. look forward to the next episode and until then, Stacy.

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