I like to move it - everything you need to know about smart exercise

0:02 A listener production. Hi, Welcome to Crappy to Happy with Tiff and Cass, where we take you from feeling pretty black crappy to feeling awesome and happy with tools and tips and things that you can do, like right now, to feel better. Last episode we talked about perfectionism. Today we're going to talk about exercise, how good it is for your mind and your body. Yeah. Great, And this, I guess this topic is really right up your altit. You're the one who's the athlete, You're the. One who's the six don black belt and have all of the personal training experience. So I'm really keen to hear from you actually today about how you have made exercise such an integral part of your life. And you know, for me, I'm a person who I have to admit I've probably always been reasonably active, but I've dipped in a out of gym memberships and you know, online programs or walking, and so you know, I'm really keen to hear from you. How did you get involved in personal training and exercise and how do you make it part of your life?

1:14 Well, I was born into an active family. My parents are both fitness instructors. Taekwondo instructors. My father he was an Olympic coach, so it was all around being healthy and active. But the difference there was an emphasis on enjoyment and fun. So exercise was never about burning calories. It was about having fun and that for me was doing ballet and diving, and I did a little bit of gymnastics and of course some martial arts and athletics, but I did whatever was fun. And there was a real emphasis growing up from my parents about the function of your body, how cool it is. So it wasn't about what your body looks like. It's about how hard you can do a front kick, how fast you can box, how high you can jump, how you know fast you can run. And if you think about taekwondo, one of the beautiful parts of taekwondo is we wear a dobok, a traditional dough bok. You're covered from neck to toe, and it's not about what your body looks like. It's about the functionality and the athleticism. So that's where I was coming from, and it was a surprise to me to go on the show like The Biggest Loser and be coach where people sort of exercise as a chore, Oh, I have to work out, and I was like, it's so fun, and they thought there was something wrong with me.

2:42 But I was determined to teach people how to have fun with exercise, and that's what I wanted to bring to it, that it's not about punishment, that it can be part of your life, and you have to be flexible. That's why my on tip xo dot com I offer for workouts at are five minutes or half an hour because you can get results in five minutes, and the benefits of exercise I've found to be amazing, not just yeah, you can manage your weight and you can change the way your body looks, sure, but gosh, it boosts your mood and it creates focus. It absolutely boosts your mood. In fact, from my perspective is that, you know, thirty minutes of exercise moderate exercise is proven to be a treatment for depression as effective as medication. So getting out, getting out and doing a thirty minute you know, brisk walk regularly can actually improve your mood, you know, out of sight for people with clinical symptoms of depression. The problem is that for people with clinical symptoms of depression, and not even just depression, but just general every day sed entry people, busy people finding thirty minutes to get out that can it seems like a simple ask, but for a lot of people it's not. So I think that's and that's a bit of the crappy thing. I think we all know that it's really good for us, and we can talk about the benefits of it, but it's when you're not doing it and feeling like it's a chore or feeling like you need to be doing

4:13 more of it and you can't do more of it, like how do we make it work? So you found something for you that was really fun. And I always say you have to find the right fit for you. And some people it's dancing. Sometimes it's just going for a run because they love that repetitive just going through nature and being outdoors and that freedom. And other people will try, I don't know, rollerblading. I mean that's making a comeback at the. Moment your friend's doing that. They love us. There's so many different ways to be active, but you really do have to find the right fit for you. And as a trainer, I won't accept that you don't have twenty minutes a day to be active, be like with meditation, because yeah, I don't buy that, and because as soon as people go, I don't have the time.

5:00 Did you see Game of Throne? Yeah, I've watched all the series. Have you seen Veople all these new shows? You've seen all that, I might, Well, you've had time to watch all. You're right across Facebook. I hear every excuse out there. It's raining, I can't go outside, I don't have the right active weear, I can't wear the right active wear. Don't give me that. Everybody's got the right accus where. Now that you do, Now it's super fashionable, isn't it to wear it out to brunch? Perhaps? And I hear things like, you know, there's childcare issues, there's this, there's that. But I've created a program tiffex so where you can work out in your living room, Like there's so much you can do from home to be healthy and fit.

5:41 And I just think the benefits out way not being motivated. I think that you're right that a lot of that is excuses, and really what it is about is not finding that, not having that sparkle that impetus to get out and do it. And I think the fun thing that you mentioned is really important because a lot of us, especially if you're not fit, you're very fit, you've always been very fit. But for somebody who's not, who either hasn't never been fit, or has never been fit, or who has lost their fitness, then getting started again can feel really difficult. I've got that all ahead of me as soon as this baby comes out. It's really hard to get started. And again, we hold ourselves to these standards that I should, you know, should be doing this, or I should, and you know, it's hard.

6:27 It's actually physically uncomfortable if you're not fit. Yeah, absolutely, to start exercising, you've got to sit. With that discomfort for a little bit. But that's why I think one of the best things you can do is find support, whether that's just talking to your partner or finding a group or you know, even a friend. You don't need a personal trainer, you just need a friend to help hold you accountable, to say, okay, that's your goal, let's go, let's do it together. Yeah, you know, I was thinking about this. The two times that I recall I've always been reasonably active, Like as I said, I dip in and out. But the two times that I have most consistently exercised in my life. Were two different, separate periods when I was living in Sydney.

7:07 When I was living in Adelaide. In Sydney, I would meet a friend three mornings a week at six am and we would walk around the Bay for people in inner West Sydney. The Bay run is about a seven kilometer loop and neither of us wanted to be in the cancil money be the cancel, so we would be lying in bed like willing the other person to cancel, but we would not cancel, and so there was that. We did that for a long long time. And then when I moved to Adelaide, I had a friend and we would go to the gym on a Saturday morning. So two very different exercises, but the common factor was meeting a friend and not wanting to let that person down. I am one of the best and. Would talk talk talk talk. It was fun. It's fun and it's social. And one of the reasons I love taekwondo is because it's a class, it's very social and you work with another person, so it's lots of contact. I love that. But also I'm a personal trainer that knows every trick in the book, and I still have training buddies and training friends. I lack motivation and sometimes I am human, So I think finding a support crew is really important. That's where you know, finding a program or a trainer or just a friend, your sister, someone to help you through can be really helpful. And also just recalling those benefits. You know, you can combat a plethora of health issues through exercising, like not just type two diabetes and metabolic syndrome and arthritis, and you know, you can improve your posture and energy levels and you know so much can be benefited. It is medicinal. It's

8:38 about prevention, and as you get older it is so important. And you know, we all talk about exercise in terms of how we look, but a little trip to the doctors and getting some numbers and you're like, okay, I really need And now like I was thinking about exercise in terms of fertility, pregnancy, looking after a baby, like it's really important being healthy mom. I you know, I don't have time to get sick. Yeah, so that's yeah. I saw something on a clip on Facebook once which was so it was profound to me at the time. It was about you know, it was a young personal trainer saying wish I could remember, but he was basically saying, we exercise.

9:18 You know, not to be fit at the gym. We exercise. You know, when you're in your. Older years, you want to be able to like lift yourself, have the body strength to lift yourself, like off the toilet. Like it was this basic like functional movement, functual movement, the ability to actually support yourself and move and retain your independence and mobility into your later years. I thought, wow, that like that's what he was lucky. It was his life's calling, like he had made this mission. It was so not about his biceps, and it was so about helping people to live well into their older years. And that's something I am so aware of. And I think people come at you with wanting a six pack or now it's all about the Kardashian balm, and you know, body parts change like fashion for personal trainers too. And back in the day, personal training wasn't a glamorous vocation.

10:08 Now it's like there's Instagram personal trainers, and I think, geez. For me, it's always been about longevity. I want to be around for my child, for my husband, and now seeing my parents who started out as fitness instructors and they're sixty. You can see my mom on TIFXO. She does a bit of it with me. They're lean, they say healthy, like my mum's sixty and had all the health checks as you do regularly, and we were all nervous. We're thinking, sixty, you know what's going to come back. She was fine. But they're the moments that exercise and being healthy pay off. Yeah, And I see it as just a non negotiable and we have to get over the excuses and find something that works and work at it because it's not a quick fix. And there are days where you'll exercise and will be fun, and then there are days like you get up and you go to work to earn money to pay the mortgage or whatever.

11:09 And there are training days where you just have to do something simple like go for a walk, go for a run. Perhaps it's twenty squats, twenty push ups, twenty lunges, and you just get it done because you know that you're giving to this body that has to carry you through for your entire life. And I think that we're kind of touching on the stuff that we talked about with the diet episode, eating food to nourish our bodies, not as punishment or not to achieve a particular body shape or weight. And similarly with exercise, what you're saying is we want to be moving our bodies to maintain our health and our longevity, not as punishment or some sort of strict thing we need to do to be better or to fix ourselves, or because we need because there's something inherently wrong with us. Actually, it's a self active self love and self care self care to find something, you know, to move our bodies and support our mood and our yes, metabolism and everything.

12:03 Yeah. And so many people come to me saying, Okay, I need to lose twenty kilos, and I say good. But we're going to get fit first, and weight loss is going to be a symptom of our fitness. So we're going to concentrate on the fit, not the fat. Because as soon as you start training to lose weight, gosh, it's defeating and depressing and it becomes a chore. Yeah, but if you concentrate on fitness goals, Okay, first I'm going to do push up on my knees and then I'm going to work to my toes or I'm going to walk three kilometers or I'm going to just do a two minute interval of skipping. You know, these little fitness tests and goals are so important and they will drive you to feel good about yourself, change your body composition, and then over and over again on TFXO, people come up to me and go, oh my god, I've lost twenty kilos.

12:52 I didn't even think about weight, even thinking about it exactly. And I just think shifting your mind to fitness is so cool. Yeah, yeah, and so much more empowering. And taekwon positive spin, and it's a really positive spin. It's really positive spin. Taekwondo is a Koreean martial art and taekwondo means foot fist which you use, and doe means way, it means a practice. So I always come back to this philosophy within my martial art that health is away. You don't become a black belt overnight, but a black belt is just a white belt who never gave up. You keep going through the progressions of the white belt to yellow, yellow, blue, red, black. Then when you hit black belt in taekwondo, it's the beginning again. Then you start again black belt first and second and third Dad, and you never stop striving for this development of the self and practicing your health and your martial art every day.

13:47 It's a practice like meditation. Yeah, well, there's a lot of mindfulness in martial arts. It is, it is, and so coming from this family of martial artists and this these philosophies of Taekwondo, I really people to learn that movement can be a practice, that it's not something that you're going to achieve overnight, and you don't give up if you're feeling huffy and puffy and uncomfortable in the first minute, you're going to get there and it's going to get easier. Find someone you trust who can give you good advice and expert and then there's a few fundamentals that you can incorporate that are really effective for your training, and by doing that you will get amazing results. Yeah, because it's not just about the body. It's also about eliminating stress and that quartersola we talk about exactly. So after the break, we're going to talk about how to make exercise part of your lifestyle and how to make it stick. Welcome back to Crappy to Happy with Tiff and Cass. We're talking exercise. One of the hardest things CASS with exercise is being motivated, and we hear it time and time again from our members on TI so asking how do I find my mojo?

15:03 Yeah, it is pretty much every day, isn't it. Somebody who's asking what I can't find a motivation? What do I do to get motivated? So the thing that I always say is that you can't rely on motivation. Actually, so we all expect that this mythical, kind of phantom thing called motivation is going to grip us at six o'clock every morning, right in time for us to get up and do some exercise, and actually that's not really how it works, So we need to kind of just lose that idea to start with. Sometimes you'll feel really. Motivated, especially if you've got a really good goal or there's something that you're really striving to work. Towards, like you're wedding exactly. Lots of brides are motivated. Yeah, if you've got if you can set yourself a goal and lots of reminders, and you know, there's things you can do to put around your environment, stickies on the fridge and stuff like that to remind yourself of what you're working towards. That can be really helpful, but there will definitely still be sometimes.

15:54 That you. Just need to do something anyway, regardless of motivation, You just be in a funk, you just might be having a bad day. And so, you know, what I always say is that what we're wanting to work towards is to make these things a habit. Like if something's going to be part of your lifestyle, we're talking about it being as regular and as natural as having a shower or brushing your teeth, eating lost thing. You know, it's just going to be such a routine part of your lifestyle. And this is where again we talked about willpower in a previous episode, and the more that something is a habit, the less you rely on willpower to actually do it. So we want to create things that are habits and just a normal part of your routine so that you're not relying on that mysterious willpower that disappears. Also, it gets drained, so it takes again. So there's a lot of stuff gets written about.

16:45 How long it takes to create a habit. M hm, twenty one days, twenty eight days? Is that a myth? Yeah? So so well, now I don't remember which research of it somebody has recently found out or it's been debunked anyway, that it actually takes more like sixty six days a habit. And I think that's. Really important for people to know, because if you're expecting that I'm going to get up and exercise every day for three weeks and then this thing is going to be a habit and I'll have this whole new lifestyle, then you can feel really deflated and disheartened if that's not the case. So we have to just expect that it's probably going to take a couple of months before we have actually we've created this new way of living and being. And so if we can keep our eyes on that goal, then that can be the thing that really helps you push through those crappy days.

17:30 Where there's no motivation. Just go, just keep going. Eventually, my prize is actually that this is actually going to become a habit and that it's not going to be so hard. And that's where you sort of lean on support and being accountable to others, and I find that can really help people in exercise. Yeah, and you don't have to be doing it perfectly for that whole sixty six days. You can still have off days, yeah, and full you know, break yet habit and have relapses. Think of that gold Star chart we've talked about in previous episodes gold Stars. So but we do have to be realistic about how long it takes for that to become kind of a routine and then and you know, and there'll still be times where you know, you don't feel as motivated as other days, but again, by then it should be sort of pretty much.

18:15 It's just something that you just do. That's it. And it's like anything in life, work, personal projects, anything you're dedicated to. Somehow people think exercises exempt and they should just have the motivation and wake up and be running in hot active gear like everyone we see out and about all the time. It's not like that. It's like anything. It takes work, it takes discipline. Sometimes people say you think discipline is a dirty word, like, oh, yeah, I got a discipline. I've got to have discipline. I see it as a freedom. Discipline's great. I love a uniform, I love a schedule. I love being able to just rely on that habit of Yes, the habit, it frees you up.

18:55 Yeah, it frees up all that mental energy because you're not having to say every morning, will I or won't I do it? I just do it. And you know, before I got pregnant, I was in a routine five point thirty. I'd have my runners there, a heart rate monitor, I put it on and it was just go time. That was it. Whether I did the workout inside or outside, it was just the time scheduled in, no debates. And then I would brush my teeth, have a shower, I have breakfast, day started, don't worry about it done. It's just a habit. Yeah. So Ti, if you said before this is something I'm really interested in, you said before that five minutes is enough, yeah, to get a workout. I would love to hear more about that. And I'm sure all the time poor people would love to hear more about that.

19:39 Absolutely, Oh five minutes. Let's talk cardio, okay. So there's many ways you can exercise, and if you like to do some endurance training where you go and you go for a long run or a long swim or a long cycle because you enjoy it, that's fine. But there's also cardio you can do in bursts of five minutes and four minutes that can be incredibly effective. It's called HIT training high intensity interval training, and it's something that I incorporate into the workouts in Tifaxo dot com because it brush and metabolism and it improves your cardio and also it helps to create that lean muscle mass and the muscle that's your fat factories. The muscle burns more calories at rest, and you really want to be burning calories when you're sitting at work, not exercising yea throughout the day. And that's why you always have that friend who has that slice of cake and they never put on weight, and you know their fit, and they'll eat the cake and you think, how calm that doesn't go straight to her hips. That's because of the body composition, and you know perhaps she's got more muscle, lean muscle mass than you do. And it's formed through a combination of strength training and HIT training. So I love HIT training because from the outset it's centered around rest, which is great, great, right, So the intervals you choose, you can choose interval of twenty seconds, thirty seconds, even a minute if you want to where you work at like eighty percent of your max. You go as hard as you can, and breathlessness is the barometer, so you want

21:10 to be really working in that interval. Then you have a rest, okay, and then you do another interval. Then you have a rest, and in the rest you want to be fully recovered before you go again. And you can do this type of training for four minutes to seven minutes. Studies have shown that twenty seven minutes of HIT training three times a week produces the same improvements in fitness as sixty minutes of cardio five times a week. That's amazing, So it's more effective. And for all of us who are time poll time efficient is so time efficient. I love HIT because I find that it gets the best results for fitness. And you can combine it with a bit of You can do intervals on weights if you love weights, intervals of dancing, intervals of martial arts.

21:53 I combine martial arts into the TIFXO program because martial arts burns the most amount of calories per hour than any the sport. It's amazing. Yeah, and even if you add in supply metrics like jumping and things like that, then you're stimulating that metabolism and a lot of people will just do steady state cardio. Yeah, like go for a long walk. Yeah, and it's not as effective as stimulating your metabolism through going really hard for an interval and then resting. It is really great for working your muscles, working in metabolism, and the best part, there's always a rest coming. So I could do this, for example, just get on a treadmill and go and like, because I see those treadmills have an interval time and just go, Okay, we're gonna do like a forty second.

22:40 Is that how it works? Forty second, twenty second or. Yeah, forty second, twenty second, twenty second, ten second, one minute. You'd do a two minute interval of running if you want it, and have a one minute rest. So HIT training really triggers training heaven because you get an after burn effect, and whenever you're training, you don't want to just be burning calories in the workout. You want to stimulate your muscles and your metabolism to burn calories unrailing. Yeah, it's called an after burn effect, and HIT training is proven to burn calories for forty eight hours after you do that workout, which is fantastic because then you're thinking, Okay, the next morning, I have a muffin accidentally still burn, still burning calories from my workout yesterday, it doesn't matter.

23:23 So I like that. I really think it's very effective. And this comes from like my taekwondo training, which is shut bursts of fighting in competition and also sprint training all of my training throughout my life. And I've gone through phases where I had a huge affair with the treadmill. I was on it, you know, just doing an hour run every day, and wasn't getting the results because in overtraining in cardio you can build up cortisol. It's a stress because exercise can stress your body over exercising and you don't get the results because cortisole can shut down burn. So when I was a gladiator on The Biggest Loser, the techniques we always used was hit training. It's always been effective, but if you really want to up the results, then combining that with strength training can really help. So some weights now one of the biggest myths, and I have to debunk this myth. Everyone when comes up to me, he says, Oh, no, I don't want to lift any weights.

24:21 I don't want to look like the Hulk or the Rock or a bodybuilder. And I say, Babe, for you to look like a bodybuilder, you have to be on the strictest, most restrictive diet. You have to lift heavy, you have to train super hard. It's such a specialist way of training to look like that. You'd be lucky to look like a bodybuilder in twelve months if I put you on that program, yes you were going to bulk up. Eating rubbish will bulk you up. But you know, training with weights and just a little bit of resistance, whether that's body weight resistance like using your body as weight in a push up or a squat, yeah, or just some lightweights. And we have tony workouts on Twfexo as well. I combine it all in. It can really help women lose up to three kilos of muscle every decade from their forties onwards. And the muscle is that precious fat factories we're talking about. So if you lose your muscle, then you're going to slow down your metabolism and then you're going to put on weight as your hormones change as you get older. So it's really important.

25:21 And I'm not a trainer, but the strength training, the weight training, that's the one that's good for your bone density. Right, Yeah, absolutely, it's fantastic, and it's low impact, and you're going to also get that after burn effect. So if you're doing some squats with a little bit of resistance, or you know, you're working through using weights and upping the load, then you're going to definitely get that after burn. You're going to look after your bones, develop better posture, and prevent injury, which is really important. Yeah, what I'm hearing is that that hit training and strength training is really fun, effective, efficient way of exercising if your time poor, but also that for anything to be sustainable, we really just have to be finding the thing that works but making it fun. So even if you don't want to hang out in a gym, take up a dance class.

26:17 Absolutely, And you can apply these principles of hit training to any form of movement, any form. If you're a sprinter, if you love doing you know, going for long walks and taking some stairs, you can do little stare around yeah, and use intervals in that way. You can do strength training at home with a liter of milk in each hand, and you can do some workout and some exercises at home. It's really simple, but really enjoyment and fun is number one. Two, if you're looking for guidance, find someone who is qualified and an expert who is going to guide and support you. And three, the last part of an effective fat burn and strengthening program has to be about stretching and your flexibility as well.

27:09 Don't I know this having lower back injury. It's everything, isn't it? And you know that's about releasing toxins from your muscles and dealing with DOMS delayed onset muscle soreness that you do get from exercise. And I had to google that when I first saw that. Everybody talking about domsday Now I know, yeah, laid onset. Yeah, and that's because sometimes it takes up to forty eight hours for those muscle fibers that you that break down during exercise. They swell, they get stiff, and it takes a little bit of time for that soreness to to come on. So you can you can deal with that through stretching. And it's really super important as you get older and now where all more sedentary sitting disease.

27:54 It's sitting smooth. Yeah, So being active and it doesn't have to be structured X size. Sometimes when I'm on the phone. So I've got a conference call at home, I will do letterbox laps from my kitchen and I walk through the kitchen, through the living room, past the bedrooms, all the way out to the front of my letterbox and back and I'll just do laps. But I usually on busy days, people say it's easy for you. You're a trainer. You must fight, You've got time to exercise. No. I run a business, I have multiple projects soon, I'm going to have a newborn, I've got a husband. I mean, I don't have time to exercise either. I make time, but sometimes my movement for the day is simply I sit on a football at my desk, and I might only have time to do a few football exercises in between emails. Yeah, that's it, that's life. But that doesn't mean I look at my star chart and I go, okay, it's all or nothing, because one day I might fit in a whole hour. Yeah, and that's good enough.

28:54 Yeah. Five minutes can make huge improvements to your mood, your energy levels, and stimulate your muscles and metabolism. And from a psychological perspective, give you that feeling of a bit of an endorphin rash, a bit of a quick win, a sense of achievement, so we get that bit of a dopamine heat to say I did something good and I'm going to be more likely to do it again. So it's that reward, that feeling of achievement that keeps us and. That's something I going exercise satisfaction. So within that five minutes, it's not also always about burning calories. But in that five minutes, you're not going for that snack or you're not making a bad health choice, and you may not want to undo all the hard work you did in that five minutes, so you make healthier choices throughout the day.

29:37 It's like it's a great build up. So sometimes I exercise and I think, oh, I've got only five minutes. I'm going to do what I can because it sets me up in a healthy mindset to make those healthy choices throughout the day. I might have my bottle of water with me, I'll choose a salad at lunch instead of some fast food you know wherever I'm at, and there we go. I can vouch for that. If I do work out in the morning, I just instantly feel better and I know that I make healthier, better choices throughout the day. It does. It has a real effect if you can force yourself to do it, even if you don't feel like doing it. Yeah, the benefits definitely carry through everything else. And one of the tips I have is my ten minute rule.

30:17 And I love a ten minute rule. Yeah, it's a ten minute rule, right, and try this, Try this, But if you don't feel like exercising, just go to the class or the gym, or out to the front door, out the front door, or press play on the internet at home and start. Just start, press play and start. And if in ten minutes you're totally hating it, not having fun, then I give you permission to quit and come back to it another time. But I guarantee that within ten minutes and doorphins will flood your your body, Oxygen will flood your body, You'll get blood flow through to your muscles, You'll start feeling so fantastic. You'll go for twenty minutes and not even notice. But remember, motivation comes and goes. But that habit of what I call pressing play on my program because it's a video.

31:06 Every day, just pressing play on it and doing the workout for ten minutes and just pushing through ten minutes for me will keep you going and give you those benefits. Yeah, train for life, as my dad would say, train for life. Hopefully there's some tips there to help you with your exercise regime and to get moving a little bit more. On the next episode, we're going to tackle how to tame your inner. Critic, another favorite topic of mine. Yes, tune in Too Crappy to Happy with Tip and Cass. Next episode is going to be a goodie and we can't wait. Produced by Daves Lensky, Audio production by nix Later.

31:54 Listener