 Alright guys, welcome back. I'm excited to introduce the next speaker. His name is Simon Chakras and he is the co-author of The One Diet. He's also a high-intensity personal trainer, a weight loss coach, and a well-being expert. And I had the pleasure of chatting with him a few minutes ago and can't wait to hear more about his speech. So please help me welcome Simon. Thank you Robbie. Welcome back to this afternoon's session. I'm going to be talking to you today about having a balanced life. It's going to be about stress, nutrition and exercise component as well. We're going to look to get all of those in. If you have any questions and I know the Q&A at the end is quite short today, you can get me on Twitter, put the hashtag T21C and I'll do my best over the next few days to answer any questions you have. So a little bit more about me. As Robbie just said, I'm a personal trainer focusing on the hit approach, high-intensity training, working with people typically 20 minutes once or twice a week. I'm a nutrition consultant and out of that has come the writing of The One Diet which is evolutionarily based approach to nutrition. I assume some of you in the audience are aware of that approach to nutrition at the moment and I'm a well-being evangelist. As you can see, I take my role as that pretty seriously. So why am I here today? What we're going to cover is stress and its effects on the mind and body and nutrition, the benefits of eating well and then the exercise component, fitness and recreation and how to build those into your life. So the overarching approach is how to have a balanced life where you can perform at your best in everything you do in your life. The outcomes I'd like to achieve today is showing you how to improve your ability to cope with stressful situations, how to manage and improve your energy levels and that's through psychological approaches, it's through nutritional approaches and it's through a sensible approach to exercise, how to keep yourself strong and healthy in general and a greater understanding of how to care for yourself as individuals. In our working lives, in fact in all our lives, in our approach to dating, I know this conference is focused on dating as well, we need to be fit for purpose and that means our knowledge and our skill set, the skills that we have to use to get our needs met in this life are really important and what equally is important is if we want to perform optimally using those skills is we need to be fit for purpose in terms of our physical and mental well-being. So it's only when we can perform our best, when we're in the zone, when we have that state of flow that we can actually get the most out of those skill sets we've built up over time. Does anybody here have a problem with selfishness? I know you're on Brooke's spoke this morning. This is all about being selfish, looking after yourself, even if you were to say oh you know I really enjoy helping other people, which is a great thing to do and I'd say give as much of yourself away as you can, but first and foremost look after yourself, be selfish, take care of number one first and then you'll be able to take care of business, you'll be able to take care of everybody else around you. Is everybody clear with what we're going to talk about today? Are there any questions so far or suggestions as to any of those areas you'd like me to particularly focus on? If not I'll carry straight on with the first section which is stress. There are three main causes of stress and distress in our lives and the first one is change. When we have a situation which is causing us to become aware of circumstances that we're not used to that can create a stress response in us. If somebody's not used to approaching women that situation can be stressful. If you lose your job that situation can be stressful and what I would say is have an open mind towards change because change is inevitable in all our lives. It's going to happen and the more open and receptive you are to change the more free flowing and able you'll be able to cope with anything that life throws your way. So for instance if you were to lose your job some people could look at that in a very negative way and get upset about it and get into a state of depression whereas what I would encourage you to do is look at that as an opportunity. It's an advantage for you. You've now been given a whole lot of freedom to take your lives in the direction you want them to go in. A second cause of stress typically is increased demands. When we have greater demands put on us and in the workplace that might be your it's coming up Friday afternoon and you're suddenly told you've got to get this project finished tonight. The client needs it by the end of working day to day. Suddenly the demands on you have dramatically increased and if you're in a state where you've been looking after yourself building up to that you will be able to perform optimally still even under those circumstances. However somebody who's not good at managing their stress or looking after themselves is going to feel that and they will run themselves unfortunately into the ground over time. And the third major cause of stress is decreased resources. Again if we look at the workplace a friend of mine recently is working for a company and he lost his PA. Suddenly he's expected to do all the work that his PA was doing for him in addition to the most important parts of his role. Now that's adding a lot of stress to him and luckily I was able to show him some techniques that enabled him to get through that. Is everybody aware that there is both positive and negative stress? Anybody? Have you heard of both of those? Excellent. Well if we look at stress as a curve stress can be like a really positive thing because when we're put under pressure we start to perform optimally up to this state of you stress which means performing at your best. If we have nothing going on in our lives we're going to be down here we're going to be bored we're going to be tired. When we move up taking appropriate goals on board we're going to have excitement we're going to have fun and we're going to have pleasure in our lives. However if we remain in that state for too long we go over a tipping point and the stress starts to get to us and we're going to at this point here at the top just just past our best and not quite perform as well as we can do. If we keep going which can be a strong tendency for some people I know for myself I can be sitting at the laptop writing and I will just find myself writing and writing and writing and after a while what happens is I suddenly find I'm researching something completely unrelated to the subject that I'm studying and I'll spend maybe an hour lost in that space whereas if I'd have gone okay you know at this point I'm starting to get distracted let's take a break let's take about 10 15 20 minutes and go for a walk get some fresh air meditate take it easy I will come back in 20 minutes time and I will be back probably around about down here ready to ramp back up into this place and I can eke more out of my working day by doing that. Some people unfortunately continue way past this into a state where they've run themselves down into the ground and unable to perform anywhere near optimally in fact they may well be making themselves sick opening themselves up to catching bugs, flus and generally being unwell and not at their best so what I would encourage you to do is to stay in this zone around about here and when you find yourself peeking over there do the kind thing for yourself bring yourself back down to here and ramp back up again manifestations of stress if we have if we're on that far left hand side of the curve as it was and we have insufficient stress our lives are unfortunately going to be filled because the mind abhors a vacuum they're going to be filled with boredom and frustration and lack of stimulation and challenge when we have optimal stress we have that manageable balance and again if we go beyond that onto the far right hand side of that curve we've got distress ill health breakdown and mental crises and overcompensation not a place any of us won't spend too much time some of the symptoms of stress up there I'm sure everybody can relate to at least a few in there the solutions very first solution is awareness it is about catching yourself at that place just before you push yourself too much and go too far and it's a skill that's quite a challenge to develop but the more in tune you are with your body the more you eat well the more you approach exercise from a sensible perspective the more you're aware of your surroundings and how you feel and how you're interacting with others around you will increase your degree of awareness as to your performance and I would say when you become aware of yourself starting to dip take yourself away give yourself some time for yourself and there are many many ways that you can look after yourself and here are some of them physical relaxation so that could be anything gentle whether you want to go to the park and play some frisbee whether you enjoy something very slow very controlled like tai chi whether you do some yoga I would say high intensity training is a little bit different from that because high intensity training is a strong stress to the body what it will do high intensity training we'll talk a little bit more about that later is create a hormonal balance in you over time so long as you don't over train where you'll actually have more energy and more in the muscles to give but maybe find some ways you can physically relax whether it's grabbing the bike going out for a 10 minute bike ride what I do for myself is I really enjoy walking I enjoy the parks around London I'll get out if I have 20 minutes I'll take a 20 minute walk and just observe nature I'll breathe I'll observe people around me and I'll let all thoughts go out of my head relating to work and any areas of my life that may be causing me stress there are times when it's just essential to switch off breathing techniques we'll go on to mental relaxation we'll go on to as well power napping I'll just say a little bit about it because it's the guys taking a nice power nap there on the slide you only need to take five ten minutes to just sit with yourself close your eyes find somewhere you can be at rest at ease in comfort where people aren't going to disturb you maybe even put some headphones on even if there's nothing playing so that people think oh you know he's otherwise engaged right now close your eyes and just take that time a 10 minutes power nap in the mid afternoon for me or a meditation means that I can be as productive in the afternoon as I was in the morning it really does prolong my working efficiency and effectiveness by about two maybe even three hours and it can only be 10 to 20 minutes of rest breathing is absolutely essential and it's one of those things that we're all doing right now however many people especially when they're under a degree of stress are not aware of how their breathing patterns are and what can happen is we begin to do shallow breathing where it's just into the chest so you're only filling about a half of your lungs with the potential oxygen that they could be taking in and when you're doing that you're depriving the brain and the body of oxygen and you're putting yourself physiologically into a stress state by default it's almost like stress is breathing more stress correct breathing provides energy it drives the nervous system is the key to relaxation any form of relaxation breathing is the key I can alleviate high blood pressure and virtually every health condition and human activity is improved by effective breathing so if we don't know how to breathe properly or can I can I just get a show of hands as to people who have been aware of their breathing or are aware of their breathing or people who have never given that consideration okay that's great to see quite a few hands going up there and the key to breathing effectively is to breathe down into the belly you're obviously not breathing into the stomach you're breathing down into the deep lungs but what ought to happen when you're breathing correctly if I put my hands here is the stomach expands often what you'll see with people who are in a stress state is they're breathing and when they breathe in the chest goes out but they're not breathing right down here when you breathe correctly the stomach will relax and allow more space for the lungs to take in a greater amount of oxygen doing that alone when you're when you know you've got a presentation to give when you know you're going to approach somebody for the first time doing that kind of breathing for two or three minutes before that you engage in that can be really helpful and really beneficial to allow you to be just in that really relaxed state where your inflow where the best part of your personality is going to shine and come out and you'll just get to enjoy that experience more by doing that okay solution four is one I am a big fan of and it's meditation and it took me till I got into my 30s to really appreciate that meditation was a beneficial thing to be doing before that I kind of had this perspective of it as a really esoteric sitting cross-legged much like this lady is here on a mountain top somewhere becoming some monk type figure meditation is doesn't need to be like that if that approach works for you fantastic go ahead and engage with it what works for me is just simply sitting in a comfortable chair closing my eyes and focusing on my breathing what will happen if you're not used to doing that or you're not used to sitting still is that thoughts will come racing into your head you know I've got to phone my girlfriend later I've got to do that for my boss I've got to get this organized all of those things will attempt to come into your mind space during your meditation if they do that's completely fine allow that to happen but also do not grasp onto them let them go at the same time so if a thought comes into your head let it come in and let it go out without attaching with it without engaging with it whatsoever otherwise you're just spending time daydreaming or thinking still and those two states will ultimately exhaust you what you need to do is just focus on your breathing and when I started off meditating I started off meditating for two minutes at a time and it was awesome but I could sit still for that long at that point because I was so physically active and energetic to keep moving that I found that huge challenge other people might be fine and for the very first time they do it they might sit down close their eyes 20 minutes goes by and they feel at ease and comfortable with doing it so what I would suggest is if you're going to begin to use meditation do it for between two and five minutes to start off with and over a period of days and weeks build it up I have a an approach that I've taken for the last two years which is I meditate for 24 minutes a day one minute for each hour of the day and I'll do it usually mid-afternoon and I'll take a seat focus on my breathing and again when I come out of that statewide I'm ready to go I'm ready to give my afternoon my evening everything that I'm capable of so if there are any people who've been skeptical about meditation in the past there's loads of great research on it and it does a lot for you both physically physiologically and psychologically and mentally it will put you at your best and I'd encourage you if you are a skeptic to go and have a look at some of the research that's been done on meditation I can point you towards some if you're interested in that afterwards and it is one of those things that I have made now a discipline in my life like brushing my teeth like doing my high intensity exercise it's one of those things that is an essential discipline and I wouldn't want to have to live without that another solution to stress we're going to move slightly more on to the psychological approaches to stress now and first of all do you remember the first stressor we said the first condition that causes stress is change for most people and having a positive attitude to change is essential it is the one thing as I think I said earlier that is inevitable in our lives if you're opposed to change you're going to get left behind in fact the only time we don't change in our lives is when we're dead so be prepared for a lot of change in your lives up to that point and fostering a positive attitude to change dealing with circumstances as they arise and learning to know that you are going to be okay you are going to be able to deal with this is really important that moves on to positive thinking which is easier said than done in some ways because we can be caught up in our own subconscious psychological beliefs about ourselves and they may hold us back uh from having a positive attitude at times particularly when we're under stress it's when we're under stress that the worst side of our characters will often come out you know we might get grouchy we might get grumpy we might get aggressive some people get manipulative and it's important if you catch yourself going to that place to keep positive to keep thinking about what you can provide what you can do for yourself and what you can provide other people positive self-talk it is something that is covered in a lot of sort of self-help psychological books and I would encourage people to do it and to give yourself some positive affirmations the thing I would say with positive affirmations is that they can be really dangerous if you don't actually believe in them so just saying to yourself I am fantastic with women if you genuinely don't believe that about yourself is not going to help you because there's going to the mind will see a distance between what you're trying to tell it and reality so in those circumstances what I would do is pick an occasion in your mind where you have been effective at doing something so let's say it's I can approach women on the street and you've had an example where you have done that in your life in the past pick that example and say I can do that so you're visualizing a successful moment that you've previously had in your mind from your past then a positive affirmation will be rooted to reality in your mind and it can be beneficial and that repetition creates that same state that you had at that point in the past I'm not afraid to say that I really believe in mentoring and if you cannot relate to my success the guy who's my mentor was working with somebody who is two years ago was completely unemployed and in the last six months they have won a BAFTA so they went from being unemployed to having a BAFTA award which is a pretty big deal I would encourage all of us at some times need an outside perspective it's really good to be able to be self-motivated self-driven at times we need that outside perspective that will give us okay if I just change this angle a little bit here and move in that direction I can get to that place having a good mentor can be something that really drives your life forward in a new direction but your own mind may not have been able to take it in at least at that time or at this time so that's something I encourage you to look into solution six I'm a really big fan of goal setting for any area of your life that you consider important set goals set your first important priority what is it I'm looking to achieve in this sphere what do I want to have happen and make those goals time-ban now my luckily my co-author with one diet has written a book called change directions which I would encourage you all to read which is a goal setting process that covers goal setting from every single angle the mind doesn't work particularly well when it isn't effectively directed if it doesn't know what it's going for it will just grab what's near what's available what's easy what's convenient if you genuinely want to drive yourself forward you need to set a stretch goal I would say don't make those goals unrealistic to start off with you know saying if you're you know living in a bed sit and saying you know I want to be a millionaire by next year that could be a valid goal but have some structure to that to back that up the direction you're going to take drill down in all your goal settings so you really know what approaches it is where you're going what you want to have happen if you do that the likelihood of that goal coming true for you is far greater and when I first read the manuscript of change directions which was about three years ago I said my goal was I want to write a book and a year and a half later that had happened for me so set a goal for everything important in your life it can seem a bit of a challenge at times to have to sit down go through that process but if it's important enough make it happen time management is another area that can help minimize or allow you to stay in control of your stress and there's just some really simple tips up there make lists I'd be pretty lost about a list I make a list pretty much the last thing before I go to sleep at night and when I get up first thing in the morning I know okay that's number one two three four five other things may come up in the day and I might have to make some phone calls I wasn't expecting to make and it froze it off a little bit but in general I'm moving in the right direction and without that list I wouldn't be as productive as I can be work efficiently and that goes back to that laugh occur we saw earlier make sure you stay in your optimum state of energy and focus and if you find yourself tipping over that you're starting to look at those YouTube vids for too long and you're getting distracted from the work in hand that you're looking to do take yourself away do something that's going to refresh you rather than drain more energy out of you always be decisive if a decision doesn't need to be made say okay it's out of here for now that's not something I need to focus on but in any decision that you do need to take action on make it quick and I'd rather make a hundred mistakes than sit there festering being concerned about a mistake I might potentially make I'd rather clock up those mistakes and move forward in my life and that makes things easier don't be afraid to ask for help you know if you need help part of being strong is being able to open up and ask for that support ask for that help and I find when you do that you are encouraging your you're encouraging people into your life or encouraging energy into your life things that will again lift you up and take you forward utilize dead time just make the most of the time you have available to you if you're going to rest if you're going to take it easy say I'm a I'm setting aside this time to rest now and it's two hours it's three hours it's half an hour whatever it is and stick to that and then come back and get focused on what you're doing again prioritized that goes back with writing lists really focus on what is the first important priority what is most important for me to be doing with my day today what is going to create the greatest change or the greatest move forward in my life take regular breaks I think that you can work for between it depends on the individual a little bit but between 30 and 40 minutes in one shot you can work really effectively for after that point it would be a good idea to take anything between a five and ten minute break and then start another round another cycle of 20 to 40 minutes of focused work you'll get far more done than sitting there stewing trying to come up with stuff when it's not flowing be prepared delegate I'm a big fan of delegation whenever you've got roles little bits and pieces that you know are not massive priorities to you if you know people around you who can do that or that is their skill set hand that stuff over to them and have a reciprocal arrangement with them so they can hand over stuff that's more in line with what you do when it comes to that learn to multitask as well I mean it's a it's a joke but guys don't multitask but actually most of the guys I know are capable of multitasking have a few things on the go at any one time don't put your all your eggs in one basket we're going to move on now to more behavioral patterns and how to approach interpersonal relationships and this is part of a much bigger course but I'm just going to focus on the positive today rather than run you through the negative stances that some people can take particularly when we're under stress or stress or pressure so the assertive stance which is the stance we're looking to take in our lives in general means as an individual that you're fair and just in your interactions with other people you know you're not looking to get one over on people if somebody's looking to abuse you you put a halt to it very quickly but in dealing with people who are reasonable people always aim to be fair and just negotiate workable solutions with people around you rather than just bashing heads find the common ground and see what you're able to get out of that relationship rather than just cutting it off before maybe you've necessarily extracted all the benefits you could have done from that relationship there are times when you do need to be able to take personal decisions unaided by others and that doesn't take away from the point I made about mentoring earlier what it means is there's a lot of your life when you need to have that ability to make a quick decision and as I said earlier again I'd rather clock up mistakes and learn to be decisive in that process than hope for perfection and put off making decisions obviously avoid being fearful of expressing your personal needs and emotions uh some people can hold that stuff back and what it's going to do is just eat and eat and eat away inside of you until you're going to explode in some manner whether it's physically or psychologically the key thing to do is learn to become comfortable with expressing those feelings those emotions with particularly with the people who are close to you in your life the people who you consider important in your life um if situations stressful situations of conflict do arise learn to remain calm remember that breathing technique focus again in on your breathing stay in that state where you're not going to be the one who flies off the handle you're actually going to be the one who can steer this situation in the direction that you want it to go in um again always that respect for others even in those circumstances and a mindset that that my mental passed on to me which I really have found very beneficial is to never look at yourself as less than anybody else and net so inferior and never look at yourself as superior to anyone else we are all equals we just have different skill sets different abilities network different stages in our lives and our development everybody however is equal and I look at everybody as equal and I find that a very beneficial mindset to carry around taking that assertive stance into negotiation situations again it's that focus it's about learning to act now rather than delaying things and putting them off till tomorrow or getting stuck in a decision making process in your mind where you're just stuck in that loop and it's going around and around again make a decision take an action if you need to roll a dice you know one and three I'm going to do it four to six I'm not going to do it at least that will create forward movement for you stay focused and controlled I'm just going to run through these quickly because a lot of them relate to the previous slide as well be direct and specific when you're talking with people get across the message you want to get across be certain of your facts if you're going to state something as a fact be sure that you're right because you don't really want to end up with egg on your face later on and that would degrade you in terms of in terms of the other persons or the other people's opinion of you be polite courteous be persistent if there are people getting in the way of your goals of what you want to achieve stay focused stay strong and stay persistent in getting your needs met avoid harboring grudges you know if somebody's in your life and they're not working if you're not for me you're against me and if you're against me I don't need you in my life so cut out the dead wood that can be a challenge to do to start off with but really you're by allowing your mind to focus on and have those people in your life they're taking up a space that could be filled with people who could be a lot more beneficial to your life and just holding on to relationships friendships but aren't serving you is actually not going to just keep you in the same place it's going to hold you back and pull you down don't get sidetracked from where you want to go and never grovel or apologize you are who you are if you make mistakes you can admit to those stakes but you don't have to apologize for your behavior in those circumstances here's another tip and it goes back to that superiority thing or inferiority thing is avoid judging both yourself and others and that can be a really challenging thing to do to start off with what you may notice about yourself is when you're observing people or you're meeting people for the first time you might hear a negative statement in your mind about that person unfortunately all judgment and criticism is self-judgment you're judging a part of yourself in that other person that's the way the mind works and if you can avoid that happening if you can retrain your mind well the way I did it start off with about 10 years ago now was that anytime I had a negative impression about somebody I had to come up with two positive statements in my mind immediately after that negative statement to correct it your mind gets pretty bloody tired of doing that if you have to keep doing it it's a great way to retrain your perspective and we'll move on there are some words in language but we either use verbally or in our minds but are really toxic to our progress and they're words that I would encourage you to look to avoid using so don't ought should must but try wish and hope are words that are of no benefit to you whatsoever I can have hope for somebody else because I can't control that it's outside of my control but I never hope for something for myself if I want it to happen I want it to happen and I would do my best to make it happen but I'm not going to hope for it it's like saying I'm going to try high intensity training if you prompt your mind with that suggestion but you're going to try something that's all it's going to do it's going to try and try is a very weak word whereas if you say I am going to do it you're giving your mind a direct instruction the issue of words like don't is the mind doesn't work particularly well with negatives so if you say I don't want that to happen all the mind is really hearing is I want that to happen you're setting yourself up for something that you don't want to have happen to happen we could go into loads more detail about this but for today I just want you to be aware that there are words that you may some of you may or may not be using and cleaning up your language can be of great benefit okay so we're going to move on to the nutritional aspect of the talk now and nutrition relates to stress because when you're feeding your body well and correctly you're providing your body with more energy more usable energy and perhaps even more importantly you're providing it or avoiding providing it with anti-nutrients which are going to slow you down make yourself slipping into that stressful state far more easy to happen the book that I co-authored the one diet comes at nutrition from an evolutionary approach and I assume that some people in here are aware of paleo evolutionary approach to nutrition can I see a show of hands for people who are aware of that approach and people who are currently engaging with that approach as well okay so from about three million years ago to today as a species to about ten thousand years ago which is about 99.6 percent of our development and our DNAs development our diet consisted of meats seafoods fresh fruits and fresh vegetables those really are the foods our bodies are designed to thrive and perform at their optimum on conversely nowadays cheap ingredients are undermining our health the more we've become removed from the food chain and awareness of how food is produced and what food can do for us the more ingredients are slipped into our diets that are of no benefit and no help to us whatsoever and primarily those are rapidly digested carbohydrates grains sugars and sweeteners which are pretty much prevalent in anything that comes pre-boxed in a package that stuff is loaded with cheap ingredients which makes a lot of sense for the manufacturers because they can sell something with a high profit margin unfortunately it's doing us as a society and as individuals even more importantly a disservice and you have an issue which is of greater importance in the states but is creeping into our food here chemically altered sweeteners like high fructose corn syrup which from an evolutionary standpoint we have no experience of our bodies do not know how to handle and they've been in the food chain for just 20 years tiny tiny amount of time this is a quote from Lauren Cordain who wrote one of the probably the first book on paleo nutrition or the first one in in our era at the moment and he says generally in most parts of the world whenever cereal based diets were first adopted as a staple food replacing the primarily animal based diets of hunter-gatherers there was a characteristic reduction in stature an increase in infant mortality a reduction in lifespan span an increased incidence of infectious diseases cereal grains are packed full of anti nutrients things like gluten things that cause our body major dysfunction and in terms of physiological stress they're keeping us in a state of inflammation we're not going to be able to perform at our best if we're taking in a lot of this kind of stuff now some of us may have metabolisms which can deal with this more efficiently than others however you're still not providing your body with the best energy if you're regularly taking on food like that modern fats vegetable vegetable oils are to be avoided that includes margarine fat shortening anything that's been tampered with hydrogenated fats we've been through some ridiculous chemical process to produce that fat is not going to be of any help to your physiology whatsoever so avoid oils made from vegetables grains and seeds there are exceptions unrefined virgin coconut oil and olive oil are acceptable fats i'd rather the coconut oil because it's a saturated fat rather than the olive oil but both are acceptable and aren't going to cause dysfunction to our bodies saturated fats i'm just going to pop this up here quickly have been maligned by science by the media for a long time now they are not an issue about 70 percent of my diet is saturated fat 60 to 70 percent is saturated fat then protein and then carbohydrate the brain the most creative organ the thing that separates from the rest of evolution the rest of the animals on the planet is 50 saturated fat our nervous systems cannot function efficiently without saturated fats it's rich in the crucial vitamins ad and k2 which most people now living nowadays do not get enough of and there's no need to supplement with those with the exception of d because we get it from sunlight typically um and most of us don't get enough sunlight particularly in the northern hemisphere in the uk where we are we can only produce vitamin d from the sun uh in about three months of the year if we're lucky with your experience in the british summertime at the moment you'll know you're getting vitamin d and is not the easiest thing uh the guys who live over in california you know you're a lot luckier with that uh just an interesting stat from a bit of research that was produced is that consumers of margarine have twice the incidence of heart disease compared to butter eaters cholesterol again has been maligned by science uh it actually helps boost our immunity to infectious diseases it increases the strength of the intestinal war and it aids in the regulation of blood sugar and systemic inflammation systemic inflammation from a nutritional perspective is probably the greatest stressor on the system from the anti nutrients that we're taking in the in the typically modern diet and the liver produces around about 1200 milligram milligrams of cholesterol every day if we eat more cholesterol in in our food stuffs it will reduce that if we eat less it will increase it so whether you like it or not there is going to be cholesterol floating around your system the whole time and it's a very protective steroid uh some more research that was fascinating as i was writing the book is that older people with high cholesterol levels outlive those with low cholesterol levels in their blood and people with low cholesterol are twice as likely to have a heart attack when compared with people with high cholesterol readings it's kind of a reverse of what many of us have been taught over the years omega six and three of a polyunsaturated fats uh typically we're getting in a lot of omega six and not enough omega three uh six comes from those oils i was mentioning to look to avoid which are the vegetable grain and seed oils oily fish and meat raised on pasture so beef lamb etc raised on pasture provides us with omega three there are some of the problems again that systemic information inflammation blood thickening increased risk of chronic diseases risk of cardiovascular disease all of those are primarily attributable to an excess of omega six we need some omega six in our diet but it needs to be in balance with the omega three uh and the simple way to do that is to eliminate vegetable grain and seed oils artificial and man-made trans fats which are in any prepackaged meals they're always or likely to have those in uh and excess carbohydrates and then if you consume meat pastured or organic eggs and oily fish once or twice a week you're going to be providing your body with uh in all likelihood a decent amount of omega three the one diet do eat protein and fat so that comes from the animal sources primarily which are the meats anything is anything is good in terms of meat but the better it's been raised and reared the more organically it's been raised and reared or at least uh free range the better it is because of the profile of the fats in the meat but if you're on a budget the best options to stick with if you are on a budget and you can't afford organic and free range is to go with beef or lamb because the fats in beef or lamb are not so affected by an unhealthy upbringing of the animal um vegetables and salad fine healthy fats we've talked about in a little bit more detail and healthy snacks um if you're okay with lactose if you're okay with um dairy proteins cheeses are fine whole full fat cream coconut milk absolutely fine fruits in moderation i'd say if you're looking to lose weight hold your fruit consumption down to about one piece of fruit a day if you're happy with your weight that can go up two three pieces a day uh high quality cured meats continental sausages and cold sliced meats are beneficial snacks rather than having to go to that sandwich bar for lunch time you can grab some salami something about nature and uh nuts are okay don't go overboard on them um but it's a quick snack a handful of nuts can be beneficial too and to avoid grains sugars and sweeteners the unhealthy fats any altered fat level product so anything that's semi skimmed anything that's been tampered with to moved away from nature i would say avoid fruit juices veggie sugar water essentially uh junk food is an obvious one uh processed meat where it's been filled out with sugars or carbohydrates needs to be avoided as best you can and high carbohydrate alcoholic drinks alcoholic drinks but work uh uh red white wine and the spirits are far better depending on the mixer you use with the spirits if you can take this information away today and eat like this 80 of the time you're going to put yourself in a really good place um and then allow yourself if you need to that freedom to have the indulgence is on the night out that if you eat right 80 of the time your body in all likelihood so long as you're not dramatically metabolically damaged we'll be able to cope with that intake of food i'm going to skip over this section because we're running out of time but there are three body types you can't change your genetics you can optimize your personal genetics but building on that there are certain traits within our DNA that can be turned up like a volume switch or turned down through correct exercise and nutrition so you can to a degree affect the change i'm going to move really briefly now in the last two or three minutes on to exercise i'm a big proponent of high intensity training i know anthony is as well so i assume a lot of you guys have seen some of videos uh the 21 conventions already put up from Doug McGuff i'd encourage you to read body by science by Doug McGuff as well it's an excellent introduction to high intensity training uh you only need to exercise for 15 minutes once or twice a week to get everything that you can from exercise and a really simple routine would consist of the pull down to the upper back and the arms leg press hips thighs quads hamstrings adductors adductors uh calves we're all getting hit there um chest press chest deltoids triceps row it's a pulling movement through a horizontal plane rather than the pull down which is through vertical plane and one more exercise but i haven't gotten here the overhead press that's essentially the big five routine if you're looking to start off high intensity training that's the routine i'd encourage you to start with uh you're getting the biggest bang for your buck you're covering all the essential muscle groups and by doing a set that lasts between 60 seconds and two minutes and reaching fatigue in that time frame you are doing everything you can to switch on the body's growth processes okay uh i'm not going to go through the benefits now if anybody wants to talk more about high intensity training or twitter me i can get back to you with more information uh recreation is also important in addition to high intensity training so do things you enjoy be aware that every form of exercise has a risk reward ratio uh just be accepting if you're going to do something like skydiving of the dangers uh or if you're going to do marathon running be aware of the impact it's going to have on your joints over time if you're okay with those risks and you enjoy it carry on and do that stuff as well uh exercising the brain uh stimulates this is beyond the physical benefits of exercise it stimulates the creation of new neurons it protects existing neurons promotes learning and memory and reinforces neural connections so beyond the physical uh internally in our brain chemistry exercise has a function as well the outcomes from today's talk um i hope you've learned to improve your ability to cope with stress key point there is awareness how to manage and improve your energy levels key point there is to eat a high fat moderate protein and moderate to low carb diet based on evolutionary principles keep yourself fit with high intensity training first and foremost and then enjoy your recreation time as well and a greater understanding to care for yourself be aware of both your psychology and your physiology to get the most out of your life and some recommended reading stress management by myself and george phillips the one diet or for those who don't need all the science the one diet in a nutshell body by science and the goal setting book i mentioned earlier changed directions uh thank you if you want to get in touch with me there's my details i'll be happy to uh field any questions now you mentioned uh being aware of breathing when you're um kind of working in stress and i've i've kind of noticed that i do sometimes get shallow breathing in a particularly stressful situation but it's very difficult to stay focused on that and continue to to do something else so how do you kind of keep that so it needs to become a pattern ingrained pattern first so what i would encourage you to do is just to take some time um ideally if you know you're going to be going into a stressful situation whilst you're on the tube in your car or you're getting yourself walking to that meeting or whatever is to focus on your breathing and focus on breathing deeply by saturating the system of oxygen even before you've got there it's going to encourage you to um stay relaxed in that environment when it comes about um and by doing that repetitively you're going to be developing that skill of breathing in that way and ultimately will become natural for you to do that even under stressful circumstances so it's like build up that pattern anybody else over here hi uh coming from a paleo uh uh diet for about a year now i've recently seen some evidence that perhaps carbohydrates aren't so bad if they come from the right sources particularly stephan guy in it i don't know if you've heard of him um so what what are your options on that because okay because i've reintroduced you know potatoes and sweet potatoes and have seen some benefits so i was wondering what your opinion yeah so for people who are not metabolically damaged who haven't got metabolic issues with massive amounts of excess weight i think that certain carbohydrates can be uh happily introduced into the diet white rice sweet potatoes even regular white potatoes too um to a degree and they can even make up quite a decent amount of your diet as well they they're very low to non-existent in anti-nutrients um so from that standpoint they're fine for you particularly people who engage in a lot of physical activity they're going to be beneficial because they're providing more energy so i i have no problem and encourage people to use those who are not metabolically damaged who don't have dramatic amounts of weight to lose james um i was going to ask you actually about a controversial topic your ideas on the food reward uh stuff going around the paleo sphere at the moment but instead of um as you kind of touched on the um the more uh sort of recent ideas on reintroducing safe starches and things like that um would you be able to expand more on what you said about with regards to stress um and you said about change being a really big source of stress changing people's lives um could you expand more on um some of the potential kind of physical and health consequences from change in someone's life and what what that could have with regard to someone's health uh yeah anytime that you're um putting an x stress excess stress on the system is going to be damaging either psychologically or physiologically over time uh there was a slide that i took out of today in in uh minimizing this about acute and chronic stress acute stress is something that happens uh in the moment um whether it's physical and we we get a cut to the arm or whether it's psychological or stressful situation we're posed if it's going to last five minutes and the body can recover from those really well what it doesn't recover well from is chronic stress that's ongoing um and that would be if you repeatedly damaged your arm or you were constantly felt under stress and by the way it doesn't matter whether that's real or imagined psychologically both have the same impact on our system um and those that slide that i put out that had all the uh sort of consequences of that uh a sort of physical manifestations of that what we are looking to avoid is being in a chronic chronically stressed state um on an ongoing basis short doses of acute stress can be beneficial for us like high intensity training for example um does that does that answer your question and we're there so thanks for your time and attention guys and enjoy the rest of the conference