 Thank you very much So I obviously realized those in this room have really amazing teeth so So yeah, I'm Darrell Edwards and I basically you know how people a Lot of people hate to exercise Well, I my job is to help people overcome their fear of exercise and to fall in love with movement again and So a few things about me. I'm a health coach. I'm a certified personal trainer and also a nutritionist This is one of my clients a 12-week transformation movement Good food and other lifestyle changes Another client of mine. This is a one-year transformation This young man hadn't exercised Since he was 11 years old because he was told by his doctor because he wasn't producing any adrenaline Naturally, he was told by his doctor that he fee exercised He could die within seconds and when I met him he showed him the dog tag That he had to have on him and I said we'll get you exercising We'll get you moving and this is a transformation after 12 months Here's another 12-week transformation This lady it did extremely well again a diet of movement and Good food and lifestyle choices I'm also an author paleo fitness paleo from a to Z An introduction to paleo fitness and also I have a free e-book on the importance of play Available for download if you go to primal play com So I know everyone here loves stats and some of you have seen some of these slides before The dangers of high fructose corn syrup. Well, there is a relationship between running into a tree and dying and high fructose corn soup consumption and There is there really is and this data comes from the USDA and The national vital statistics reports So and as we all aware correlation is not causation But this is being tracked over 10 years and there's quite a strong relationship between those sets of data Why is cheese not can save safe to consume? Why should we avoid dairy arguably is because you're more likely to be strangled by your bedsheets if you consume cheese and again this data you can verify it comes from the USDA and the CDC over a 10-year period and That is the actual data Cage and specific cause mortality again some of you know I no longer watch Nicholas Cage movies Why because you're more likely to die? by drowning in a swimming pool Okay, and Yeah, so I do know I no longer watch Nicholas Cage movies and I avoid swimming pools just in case I do so the seriousness about this is that we can present data and We can be fairly convincing in our arguments, but we need to spend time Validating that data and questioning that data because I could be saying any anything to try and convince you of my arguments So I would ask you to please Don't take anything for granted What we do know is that we're suffering from a chronic lifestyle disease Epidemic and up to 75% of us will die prematurely from a chronic lifestyle disease globally and And we kind of know what what that is, you know issues with cholesterol and triglycerides or stroke chronic low back pain cancer blood pressure type 2 diabetes Obesity arthritis old swimmers multiple sclerosis and and even if we're ready to be healthy now We probably know people who fall into this category We may have lost those close to us based on one or more of these diseases and and very few of us are The 25% who will live live a long and healthy life So I'm gonna be presenting the case for exercise the case of physical activity You are the judge and jury. I'll be presenting some evidence and you can make a decision as to whether my arguments are sound so Here I've got a few quotes Walking is the best medicine That which is used develops that which isn't used the waste away We need the right amount of nourishment and exercise Look well to the spine for the cause of disease Eating alone will not keep a man well. You must also take exercise And if you're in a bad mood go for a walk if you're still in a bad mood go for a never walk And do you know what this these quotes are attributed to Hippocrates But what the heck does he know about good health? Hey So, um, but it's really interesting the amount of Hippocrates quotes I see tend to gravitate towards food or disease begins in the gut Let food be my medicine that medicine be like food But there's a significant amount of quotes in relation to physical activity and the benefits of physical activity So London double-decker bus and Jeremy Morris 1953 published a paper in the Lancet looking at different occupations and The risk of cardiovascular disease and he found that Comparing bus drivers with bus conductors and the main difference between the two populations were bus drivers were sedentary for 90% of their working day They were sitting They had twice the risk of early death in comparison to bus conductors who were Climbing 600 stairs a day. They were walking back and forth on the length of the bus They were helping passengers on and off the bus and had a third Decreased risk of heart disease and they were more likely to survive a cardiovascular event and He started to look at other occupations comparing postal workers with civil servants at their desks and He basically discovered that there's a high likelihood of premature death just based on sedentary activity alone So with the same type of diet the same type of you know Other lifestyle habits like smoking and so on levels of poverty and the like the main difference in relation to these studies Were physical activity So what about obesity does exercise really make a difference? I argue with a lot of people online About the fact that exercise of the right type can actually be really beneficial when it comes to Sustainable weight loss and often people say no no it's 80% food 20% what you do in the gym It's 50 50. It's actually all about food. What does it ever evidence say? Well, most papers comparing diet versus exercise. There's one interesting fact about those comparisons Usually a diet is a 500 calorie a day diet and When they look at exercise at intervention, they'll do something like a 300 to 500 calorie Workout and so they'll say Wow, if you have 5 gene calories a day, you'll lose far more weight Then if you exercise and most papers rely on this type of comparison Another fair comparison arguably if you look deeper into the research You'll see that increasing aerobic activity reduces visceral fat Central adiposity is reduced. You may actually have weight gain because you're building lean muscle mass Especially if you're resistance training that is usually not taken into account But the best combination is really a helpful diet and exercise for long-term success What about mitochondrial function what are the effects of exercise so the only mechanism to increase the size and volume of Muscle mitochondria is movement But younger adults for older adults. You can have almost 70% increase in energy production the first workout somebody does after being sedentary is a hundred and fifty four percent increase immediately in mitochondrial function and in terms of the most most effective exercise Usually high intensity in the interval training and resistance training are the most effective Reducing blood pressure So the world's biggest silent killer is hypertension Exercise has been proven to reduce blood pressure in the long term But in the short term there's an increase in blood pressure both in aerobic activity and resistance training and the reason being is the heart is strengthened There's a greater efficiency Cardiovascularly and you have a 50% reduction in hypertension if you regularly exercise Moderating stress does it make a difference? Aren't we all getting stressed out with lots of physical activity? Well in most cases and with the right types of physical activity You do have an elevated cortisol and adrenaline response again in the short term But chronic exposure to exercise we would use cortisol it calms the body It helps the body deal with stressful situations So most research points to success in managing stress chronic stress based on physical activity Stress I worked in a really demanding job. Some of you know I worked in investment banking I was really successful. I was one of a handful of Technologists around the globe who could make banks shed loads of money lots of money I was working 16 to 18 hours a day Seven days a week. I was pretty much on call 24 hours a day and I decided well, I had to get I had to get fitter. I had to change my diet So I went into a gym and started doing really stressful Performance-based exercise So I took my hard work performance-based work ethic into a gym environment and I struggled with injury. I struggled with a lack of enjoyment of the work that I was doing and That wasn't a very good prescription for myself and that's why I had to change my approach What about inflammation? So doesn't exercise increase inflammation and the answer is yes it does It does increase inflammation But only in the short term So that short term response of inflammation tends to be Dom's delayed onset of muscle soreness Interleukin 1 beta is increased Tumor necrosis factor alpha is increased these markers are markers of inflammation They're all increased in the short term CRP increases in the short term, but long term Interleukin 6 which can be pro or anti-inflammatory actually drives down systemic inflammation So the long-term effect of physical activity is a driving down of CRP Tumor necrosis factor alpha interleukin 6 interleukin 10 and so on So it's really interesting when people complain about the fact that they may be aggravating inflammatory responses through activity It's about choosing the right types of physical activity What about gut health? I had no idea that physical activity could actually promote healthy gut flora and microbiome Diversity I had no idea. I believed it was just about food kimchi kombucha But actually there is some research that physical activity affects the gut microbiome the diversity of the gut microbiome and health-promoting bacteria and some of the research compares a group of rugby players and On a controlled diet and they found that the fittest rugby players within a team Had greater microbial diversity and they attributed that to Their VO2 max So it's purely to do with their aerobic level of fitness and that VO2 max discrepancy or difference could account for 20% Increased diversity and variation in diversity Which is quite interesting. Secondly, which is kind of my theory behind this is especially playing rugby. You have more exposure to soil-based organisms and the like But you know, it's interesting that you can affect microbial function through movement What about improving health span and longevity? so some of the kind of markers for aging that we're aware of like telomeres and the Hormones such as iris in which is known as the kind of exercise hormone All improved telomere length improves based on physical activity and Again, there's some really good Research out there around that if you're gonna look at this have a look at iris in The hormone iris in known as the exercise hormone and it's tied into longevity and healthy aging and Those who are fitter aerobically you can have a nine-year difference in biological aging Just based on a difference in levels of fitness Improving mood It affects all of the feel-good hormones Physical activity, you know endorphins as we're all aware is a natural pain killer We get an endorphin rush because we pretend to do a lengthy physical set of activity And we need that type of response to let us know that we should be feeling good about this So we get dopamine oxytocin especially when we have tactile Physical activity and there's improvement in mental health outcomes those who are physically active so mood Yeah, so I I experienced this myself Last year so my sister passed away in 2016 39 years old She died of cancer some of you know this story and I basically stopped Pretty much everything that I could do in relation to living a healthy lifestyle Stopped on the day my sister passed away. I started eating rubbish food I started becoming extremely sedentary. I Felt in love with my Xbox Xbox one and I was playing computer games pretty much from rolling out of bed all day until 3 4 in the morning and I repeat the cycle and I Didn't let anyone know about this behavior and if anyone spoke to me. I was like, yeah, everything's fine Yeah, everything's okay. I'm doing I'm doing okay, but I was I wasn't doing okay, and even though I knew Me not exercising was making my mood worse I still couldn't get out of bed and Become physically active, and I was waking up at 1 o'clock in the afternoon 2 o'clock in the afternoon It was an awful period of time for me and what turned that around was one day I went to my local gym, which is my local park and And I was like this is why I should be out here enjoying what I do And so movements became enjoyable because I was in a natural environment and I recognized I needed to do this for my mental health that was why and I needed to do this now So it took a significant amount of time, but it was an amazing Euphoric moment when I recognized there was a way of me enjoying life again through movement What about that lipid lipids and cardiovascular risk? So again often we're told it's just really all about Our food. It's all about carbohydrate intake. It's all about some would argue saturated fat intake But regardless food tends to be the main focus when it comes to triglycerides when it comes to good and bad cholesterol When it comes to lipoprotein a when it comes to particle size when it comes to inflammation around cardiovascular risk Homocysteine is a cardiovascular risk marker inflammatory marker and physical activity basically improves all blood lipid mark biomarkers It was anything you can think of LDLP count particle size Levels of information Homocysteine levels are reduced through physical activity lots of research in in that area. So it isn't just about food What about sleep quality again studies show that exercise leads to better sleep patterns You're less likely to be an insomniac less likely to have other sleep disorders if you're physically active and the earlier in the day that occurs the more likely is to stimulate Restorative sleep. So serotonin is activated at the start of the day when you're outdoors especially and when you're physically active That's what the body was primed for Improving brain health and cognitive function It helps everything from children academically Those were sedentary studying don't perform as well as those who are given regular breaks Learning less but actually achieve more academically to those Middle-aged individuals who are less likely suffer from cognitive decline because they're physically active and the driver for this is something called BDNF which is like a kind of fertilizer for the brain and Movement is the only way to promote neurogenesis the growth of new brain cells It doesn't come through brain training doesn't come for Sudoku or CrossFit puzzles. It only comes for movement brain training will retain The new ones that you have in the brain, but movement especially new interesting improvisational movement creates increased brain volume and in and neurogenesis blood glucose control So after exercise your blood sugar levels drop up to 48 hours after physical activity Incident sensitivity is improved whether it's aerobic activity or resistance training the best combination is resistance training and aerobic activity and Incident resistance risk reduces type 2 diabetes risk reduces your twice as likely to suffer from metabolic syndrome if you're sedentary And what was really interesting for me looking at this is 70 to 90 percent of our glucose requirement is about muscle tissue 70 to 90 percent so when you're being told that excess Circulating blood glucose gets converted into fat when insulin isn't doing its job. That only affects five percent five percent Adipose tissue is affected by that Because 70 to 90 percent of the requirement is muscle mass But if you're sitting down if you're sedentary that 70 to 90 percent needs to go somewhere So just physical activity alone is a remarkable way to manage the glucose and there's lots of studies supporting supporting this and What's also interesting is there's a transporter called glute for which doesn't need insulin to to force But glucose into cells especially muscle cells doesn't need insulin. So just movement alone without insulin Can be supported through physical activity? so finally looking at Discussing all of that. Why is movement really important and it's a really great research Looking at the development as to why we had to move And so the common sense one is well if we didn't move we couldn't We couldn't feed You know, we couldn't reproduce. There was a driver for movement and this gentleman here proposes that Actually our cognitive ability and cognitive function is purely driven by movement That's all it is us thinking us being able to create iPhones and great technology is driven by Our ability to move our ability to consider what will happen if my movement is unsuccessful If we get to place B and there isn't food though, what will we do next? So an intention to move predicting all the possible outcomes and then acting upon that is really what our cognitive ability is about So to summarize What are some of the risks associated with a sedentary lifestyle? I put this together and It basically covers all of the ways research I could find on how physical activity and movement benefits us and They pretty much isn't anything Anything at all about the human body that doesn't respond well to movement 50% reduction in all causes of death or cause mortality so Movement is medicine and that music was mine by the way just so you know Okay, so yeah, so Movement is medicine. So I'm gonna go back in time now As I said earlier, I was a computer program. I was a technologist working in investment banking This is how it all started for me in 1979 My mother came home with an Atari computer and I was really upset because it wasn't a games console I was like mom. There's a keyboard. What what the heck's that? I want to be playing games and she went I don't know the salesman told me it was a really new and fantastic product and you can plug it into the TV and you can You can touch type. Oh, that sounds interesting. So I So I learned to code on that machine right that right there the Atari 400 and Back in those days you had to load computer programs By a cassette tape and you'd be waiting there waiting for it to be successful or not It would take 30 minutes to load and it was oftentimes unsuccessful But at that stage I spent more and more times more time being sedentary And that's what I did when I was working with in banking. That was a long time ago. I had four monitors I was really successful, which meant I had more than just one or two and by time I left I had nine monitors and and you it was literally almost like a status symbol The more monitors that you had and I had more monitors than anyone else I was surrounded by by monitors, but I was also extremely sedentary So what are the recommendations? What can we do about this? For your kids, they should be getting at least 60 minutes a day of moderate to vigorous activity 60 minutes a day for adults from 18 to over 65 It should be at least 150 minutes per week at least two of those days should be resistance training So if you're just running or just doing yoga, it's not enough if you're just in the gym it's not enough you have to have this composite of Resistance training and aerobic training if you're an older adult You should be also incorporating coordination and balance Dating and the like to improve function, but there isn't a reduction in the requirements for 150 minutes a week What about what does the research tell us? It tells us that 35% of UK adults 21% of you US adults are meeting the requirement When we wear an accelerometer only 5% of adults meet the requirement So basically it means we lie when we're self-reporting about our physical activity Requirements and it's the same for kids as well. Unfortunately, not many children are getting enough physical activity 8% of kids It's just ridiculous scandalous What does moderate activity mean? It basically means if I have trouble talking whilst performing this activity That's moderate activity. If I have problems Singing that tends to be vigorous activity that gives you an idea So just to let you know this right here is not doesn't count as my 150 minutes This right here is doing pretty much nothing for me apart from me getting up out of my chair and walking a bit A bit of locomotion, but it isn't meeting the baseline health requirement for moderate intensity activity just to let you know How much should we be doing? There's great research that the sweet spot for the amount of physical activity per day is between one and a half to two Hours a day of moderate intensity activity After that it can become problematic After that it can increase the risk of chronic inflammation and the like But most of us should be aiming for that sweet spot of one and a half to two hours Here is some evidence of me Kind of collating what happened in Iowa recently when I went out during the day a summer's day I didn't see any kids playing and I walked for about an hour and a half and I saw no kids playing none And when I asked a few adults they were like yeah, 20 years ago 15 years ago kids are out playing But we that's rather stay inside Then I started to think about being a pedestrian and I saw these signs saying you know I'm making it difficult for you to cross the street and I use this walkway And I need you have to run across the road because the countdown was so quick I was like there was no way I'd want to do this on a regular basis It was a hazard for health then I saw signs like this telling me oh my gosh There's gonna be a walking man and it's quite dangerous like Do you know I mean like I've seen kangaroos in Australia on signposts and deer and but like I've never seen a walking man And I was like I'm in a really nice neighborhood. So I know there were no safety alerts This is just watch out for pedestrians and I was one of them Okay, and then I saw this which was I don't know what the heck was going on here a dry through ATM so I Actually thought I saw a petrol pump or a gas pump Until I saw somebody drive up and actually collect some cash And I was like people can't even get out of their cars to get a bit of money And they're celebrating the fact that you don't have to get out of your car And you can drive up and collect some cash a grand opening celebration in August now available Ridiculous. So what should we do? We should focus on getting fit fi double t be functional have integrated movement Make sure it's transformative. Make sure it's therapeutic. It should be powerful. It should be practical. It should be playful Primal play and before we close physical inactivity Can be detrimental to your health Before before beginning any program of physical inactivity. You should always consult with your doctor particularly if you have a history of a healthy body composition or any type of medical condition that might be worsened Okay, so If you like what I do if you want to find out about a playful enjoyable effective approach to movement, please visit my website the primal play calm you can download a free book You can take part in a free e-course that I have and please connect with me on social media. Thank you very much Thank you so much Darrell. Okay. We have some time for questions, but I think we only have one microphone So oh is there Doesn't look like it. Well, if you have questions you can head over this way Okay, I couldn't see it Just a question about the the movement it was interesting That maybe the reason we move is to for a cognitive function, but I couldn't help think of you know people like Steven Hawking or Someone like George R. Martin very powerful powerful brains creative people. So are they Just outliers where the lack of physical activity doesn't affect them or is it just that were they more active? They'd be even their their minds would be even more powerful. I mean, that's a really interesting point I said to Steven Hawking obviously he wasn't always suffering from motor neurone disease It was only I think it started occurring in his early 20s Whilst at university so so that that research was purely about it the evolutionary driver And how we're still impacted by that. So just the an action in itself Is driven by a desire to move? So yeah, it's it's kind of all part and parcel is again lots of interesting research in in relation to that But from a common sense point of view again like if we couldn't move You know, we couldn't get optimal food sources, you know It's all of us as mammals or any anything in the animal kingdom is driven by movement of some description So it kind of just makes it really does make sense to me, but yeah, it doesn't really answer the question but Yeah, creativity. Yeah, I oh here's actually I do have an answer for you If you look at the leading tech organizations The companies that seem to be the most innovative the companies that are the most disruptive They reduce the amount of work time per day and increase the amount of play time Because they recognize it produces more ideas more innovation more creativity So I would argue that yes You become far more creative and make far more impact when you're given the freedom to move and to play Imaginative exercise. Yes. Yes, arguably arguably so for sure Yes, so okay. Hey, let's everyone stand up stand up. Stand up. Stand up. We've got another question. Stand up. Stand up. Stand up. Stand up Okay, so right so can I have a volunteer quickly? Okay, and not okay, and all right, so all right, so we're gonna so we're gonna play sticky shoulders So hand on my shoulder hand on my shoulder basically keep it there. Okay, keep your hand Okay, so all right, so start thinking about this now don't struggle Being concerned about what I'm gonna do next just keep in contact. Okay. I'm not moving very quickly But what I want you to do They in tune Whatever I'm doing good. So movements like this will generate Innovation and creativity. So give it. I think everyone should give this a try wherever you are sticky shoulders Wherever you are give that a try. I know you're limited by space some of you come on test All right Do you happen over it was a one but you can do two. Yeah All right So this this movement right here If you had an fMRI scan you would see The amount of new runs that will be fired by this kind of cross-part pattern Movement Okay, this multi-directional movement. So there are more new ones that are fired by this type of movement Then me just kind of running in a straight line Okay, the fact that I'm not really sure what's gonna happen next the fact that we have to be imaginative and creative and Move our bodies in really interesting ways, which is why dancing really helps older adults in terms of improvements of cognitive function for because you do have this improvisational aspect to movement Any more questions? Sorry You can run over anyway, so So my my question probably won't lead to as much fun, but movement in pregnancy Even though the research clearly shows that moving in some forms better than not moving Sedent a sedentary lifestyle is basically encouraged I am told to sit and put my feet up and and because lifting five pounds might cause some sort of problem So I'm wondering if you have information on that or ways to encourage because there isn't a program and they basically say We don't know if it's safe to move therefore don't move. I was in India earlier this year I'm fairly remote part of India and I remember seeing this lady about eight months pregnant and she had like a hat made of all sorts of objects on her on her head and And she was walking up a really steep incline and I had somebody who could translate for me and He asked her like, you know, where did you start? How long you've been walking for and she's like, oh it was about six miles at the point where she where she was at and I and I asked if I could put these kind of whatever it was contraption on top of my head and I'm I kind of like I nearly crushed my skull and he's like really it was basically very very heavy And when she's walking she had an amazing posture posture, so I would argue The evidence is right there, you know in most parts of the world women don't slow down because they're pregnant They don't reduce the type of physical activity that they do so obviously it's it's it's it depends on your physical state and condition For our pregnancy, but for most I would say more movements We're better than than less of the right types And I don't think it's a coincidence that we have this rise in gestational diabetes and preeclampsia when we don't let pregnant women move Exactly, I agreed agreed and you don't have any fortune. You don't have to be pregnant You know if we if we're kids. Yeah, if your kids were told not to move if you know I mean stop me Johnny get back here get off the ground stop moving. It's not you know It's not good for you stay in your high chair, you know, we're told all the time don't move It's dangerous the stairs in the London underground where I live you know their warning sign saying don't take the stairs because It's gonna hurt by time you get to the top of it So that's the reality My wife's an anti-natal tutor and she gets asked this sort of thing as well And she's actually looked into the proper research and actually Some physical activity will lead to far better labor experience and an easier labor and often even a shorter labor and In fact, she encourages amongst us students that women do Start to do some physical activity Obviously if you're not used to doing a major amount of physically don't go and suddenly start doing high-impact crossfit or whatever Because as she says if you're going if you intend to do labor and you're sedentary It's like being sedentary for nine months and then suddenly being told to run a sub For our marathon That's about there and you would never do that labor. It's it's not called sitting down and having fun It's called labor for a reason so Great points Thanks so much for that Daryl Just a question on your recommendations on Exercise intensity level how much focus do you put on heart rate like in terms of a work threshold or you know You know, just do you find that's a factor when you're making recommendations to your clients? No So when I started getting to physical fitness I was it was all about the numbers all about the metrics Training, you know an aerobic threshold lactate threshold all that sort of gobbins Heart very hard rate variability and the like All I do and track personally now is probably my resting heart rate alone And that's what I would do with my with my clients and and the the greatest emphasis is on the a variety of physical activity and Activities that are the most effective One and a half hours, you're not concerned with them training a little bit too hard and kind of Producing those stress hormones that are maybe exasperating some of their problems Yeah, for most people they they don't the people who tell me that they over train You know, there's usually other things happening So a bit like myself with my work, you know What I was doing the gym wasn't really the problem is the fact that I was really hyper stressed out Anyway, and then I'm doing a little bit of physical activity, which is also stressful and it tips me over the edge So for most people once you start regulating other aspects of your life There are not many people who are doing too much of physical activity. I mean their outliers, unfortunately And you know even with elite athletes who do Die usually before sedentary adults in the US and it's usually because of things like concussion That's the reason why it isn't because their heart is packed in or do you know what I mean? Or they've been working too hard physically it tends to be the other risks that associated with the with certain sports So it takes an awful lot to do too much physical activity We just need to make sure we have the right variety and then we'll always stay within the kind of safe zone So pretty much everyone playing that game earlier, for example, that was relatively high intensity interval training right there You know, it was aerobic. It was coordination. There's some balance going on, you know There's a lot we can do without being too concerned about Potential risks, which aren't really aren't really there. Thank you. Okay. Thank you very much