Cut The Noise | Wellness Simplified

030. Own It: Your Fitness, Your Nutrition, Your Health—Your Way

• Ben & Lindsay Hack • Season 1 • Episode 30

Share episode

Send us a text

 Your journey is uniquely yours—why settle for rigid plans and ideas that don’t fit you? 

This episode challenges one-size-fits-all health approaches and explains why personalization is the key to lasting success. From sustainable habit changes to fun alternatives to traditional cardio, it’s all about finding what works for you. 

We’re breaking down how flexibility in your diet, integrating strength training, and even improving your mental health can make fitness a natural part of your life.

Stop believing there’s only one way to succeed. 

Tune in and discover how to create a fitness journey that’s not only effective but also enjoyable and uniquely yours. 

 🎧 Ready to take control of your health in a way that fits your life? Listen now! 

📧 Email Us

📩 Lindsay@hactivefit.com
📩 ben@hactivefit.com

If you're interested in following us on your socials, you can find us here:

👍 Lindsay on FB
👍Lindsay on Instagram

👍Ben on FB
👍Ben on Instagram

👍The Podcast on Instagram

Ben:

Welcome to episode 30,. Cut the Noise. Wellness Simplified I am Ben and I am with Lindsay. Yep, you are, we are the same. We are the same, actually, with episode 30.

Lindsay:

Episode 30.

Ben:

So if you think about episode, that's 30 weeks, so we're obviously well over half a year. We've been doing one a week for the last 30 weeks, which is pretty amazing.

Lindsay:

It is pretty amazing.

Ben:

I think at some point I don't know when, but I think we're moving towards a time where we may consider do you want to read my mind for a moment?

Lindsay:

Bring some guests on. Maybe, we have some clients I'd love to bring on. There's some other coaches that I work with I'd love to bring on. There's so many exciting things that can happen because, you know, as ben and I have been in this industry for many, many, many years 20 plus years we know we don't know everything. We also know we're not experts in everything. So to bring you guys other experts within our area, oh my gosh, it would just be amazing not to me.

Lindsay:

I want to rush though no, which is what we've always said. We kind of said we were we wanted to do this and do it together, because really that was the starting point. I would say probably 2025, the beginning of the year that's kind of I would agree.

Ben:

I would agree with that. I would absolutely agree with that, okay, all.

Ben:

All right, Well, anyway we put it out there. We're so good at keeping secrets, just so clear. Lindsay and I didn't discuss that at all. It just kind of came to me. I'm like, oh well, let's talk about it. But I think we'd always mentioned that and I think that will be fabulous and I think I think we have to put our thinking caps on in terms of what that might look like and who that might be and who we feel are the most relevant, because it's not a case of if there are some great people out there, it's always which are the ones that we feel will help.

Lindsay:

Yes, and clients, if you are listening and you want to be a part of the 2025 podcast? We're going to come after you.

Ben:

We are, we're going to ask you some questions.

Lindsay:

Before we jump into that yeah I'm not even sure if I told you this okay, I love, I love when we turn on the mic and then he's like oh, by the way, this is good, this is good.

Ben:

So anyway, I'm not gonna name names, but she knows who she is okay, you know who you are you know who you are. She turned around to me last week and sent me a message, yep, and she said you were talking about me.

Lindsay:

You know what? I love that because you know we don't often say names, just you know, for privacy sakes. But we tell stories and you know, if you've listened to these podcasts over the last 30, you know that we tell stories about our clients. We often tell stories about ourselves ourselves and we never say their names. And I have had a similar situation where one of my clients was like you were talking about me in the podcast and so I love when they recognize that we're talking about their story, their situation, you know their breakthrough, their exciting transformation, whatever it was, and it's probably the best thing.

Lindsay:

So, if you're, ever listening and you're like I think they're talking about me. Let us know let us know, because on one hand, we'll be like we probably were, but on the other hand, we might be like what episode was?

Ben:

that? Well, I definitely was that, and I have to be like what did I say? Was it good? Was it good or was I, was I? Was I using somebody as an example that maybe wasn't necessarily so good, but in in this particular case, it was absolutely fabulous and you know what?

Lindsay:

She loved it, and it is one of those things that she was doing amazingly well.

Ben:

Yeah, so actually that leads us quite nicely onto what we want to talk about.

Lindsay:

Actually, that is a beautiful segue into what we want to talk about.

Ben:

Yes, it is Well done. Well done for making it up on the spot. So I'm going to give you a sense of what it is, and then Lindsay can add to it, as always. But we've talked about this quite a lot over the last. Well, the last few days, the last few years and really since we've been working with clients and it's this idea that basically everybody's journey should look the same. So what I mean by that is, you know, to get fit, to eat healthy and to basically improve your health and lifestyle. We all have to do the same things, and it's not stated as that is absolutely the case, but sometimes we see a trend with clients that we work with and people that we speak to that they think that there's one way of doing this yeah, let me just clarify there, because I don't know if if anyone else picked up on what ben just said there was it a good thing?

Lindsay:

no, it was a good thing, but I just want to make sure that people understand what he said was that we think it all has to look the same and what? What we're trying to and what we're going to talk about today is that there is absolutely no one way. There's no one way that works for everybody. There might be some similarities, but there's no one way, and I think the fitness and nutrition industry has made it very hard for us to look at that from that perspective, because they talk about macro counting, they talk about scales, they talk about all of these different things hours in the gym, hours in the kitchen and that's the only way that you'll be successful. So then, when we start talking to our clients about making small steps and changing habits and habit transformation, they're like that can't be enough.

Lindsay:

that can't be enough because the diet and nutrition industry has told me it has to look like this, and it doesn't.

Ben:

You've been listening long enough told me it has to look like this and it doesn't. You've been listening long enough. You know there's different elements of a healthy lifestyle, but I'm going to pick on three specifically, just to kind of use this as an example. The first one is going to be nutrition, so food. Okay, we're going to put that out there. The second one is going to be fitness, but I'm going to talk specifically about cardio, the dreaded cardio. And then the third is going to be regarding strength training. So let me give some examples and then you jump in as well.

Ben:

But the first one we look at from a food perspective is generally, it is understood, there's some healthy foods out there. There's healthy vegetables, there's healthy fruits, there's lean meats. You've heard us talk about all of those natural, healthy foods the things that are grown, the things that are raised, the things that we pick off a tree or pull out the ground or we raise on a farm. Right, these are the things that we know are healthy. Now, a lot of people have a tendency to say, well, I don't like this particular vegetable or I don't like these vegetables and I don't think I'm going to be able to force myself to eat those things, and it's this idea that maybe I have to force myself to eat those things in order to be healthy.

Lindsay:

Like nutritionists, programs are saying you have to eat X in order to be successful.

Ben:

And the idea here is that's just not true.

Lindsay:

I'm never eating mushrooms. I'm putting it out there I hate them. I will never eat them. So you don't have to eat mushrooms in order to be healthy.

Ben:

You do have to find the foods that are healthy, that you love, so you definitely need to be open-minded in terms of exploring.

Lindsay:

Yeah, and I think it's important and I know you're not finished your thought, but I was just thinking about this really quickly is so what we do with a lot of our clients is we actually have a form that basically lists all kinds of fruits and vegetables and legumes and beans, and what we ask them to do is we take a look at things that they eat regularly, things that they eat once in a while, and then things they absolutely despise.

Ben:

Right, so it's a simple traffic like traffic, light form.

Lindsay:

And if you imagine well, it's green.

Ben:

I, like you, know yellow, I'm neutral on orange, I'm neutral on. Imagine red is no well, it's, it's green. I, like you, know yellow, I'm neutral on, orange, I'm neutral on and red is a no right. And what we typically find through that process is people are actually surprised at how much food they like, right, and that breaks it down, like lindsey said, into those different food groups, those food categories. So they're always surprised. But we do have some fixed ideas as well. So there's, everybody has food. Lindsey mentioned mushrooms. Everybody has food that she, in her particular case, she doesn't like. Everybody has that and it's absolutely a hundred percent you don't like it. But also people have ideas about foods they don't like and often what I find is I'll be like, okay, so when was the last time you've actually eaten that? And they'll turn, turn around and say, well, I never have, I never tried it.

Lindsay:

We have a no thank you bite in our house and it's funny because it applies to both Ben and I as well and there's not many things that I would say I haven't tried, there's nothing.

Ben:

I don't think that, ben hasn't tried.

Lindsay:

We've lived in multiple countries in multiple places and he's tried all the things. But the no thank you bye with the kids when they were younger, for sure, and even to be fair, as they grow is we look with our eyes a lot. We look at what we think we don't like and then it's like no, try it. And then if you don't like it, it's okay to say no thank you, Because, as I said, I'm not eating mushrooms. We can't expect people to eat things they don't like.

Ben:

So if we pull it back to what we're talking about here is that Lindsay could eat and be healthily, and I could eat and eat healthily, and you could eat and eat healthily. And if we put of all of our food side by side, there's going to be some very different.

Ben:

there's going to be some common food, so they would look different, but they wouldn't be totally unrecognizable. And then there would be some things that you may eat that Lindsay doesn't, and vice versa with myself, and the idea is you've got to find the foods that you enjoy, that you love, and that's your journey, so you don't have to eat foods that you dislike, because the fact is, if you dislike them, you won't eat them. And remember to do these things long-term, you have to want to.

Lindsay:

you have to enjoy it. And if you told me I had to eat mushrooms for the rest of my life, I would be like I'm out, I'm out.

Ben:

So you think about that. You've got to find the food that you love in amongst all of those healthy foods, by remaining open-minded for things that you haven't tried or haven't tried for a long time, and also be fully aware there's going to be certain things that you just won't eat, and that's totally cool.

Lindsay:

Like I won't touch organ meat, I really don't like Organ meat At all, but you have had it, which is Well that's why I know I don't think I've had A no thank you. Bite With like liver and like some of those.

Ben:

To be fair, it's like maybe 40 years since I've eaten. Right, so I might actually Really like them.

Lindsay:

Yeah.

Ben:

But, but I wouldn't know how to prep them and I wouldn't be craving them on a friday night. But so, if you think about that perspective around food, we take that same philosophy now and we're going to talk about. Well, you got something to say, I do.

Lindsay:

I just want to I want to have a quick moment before you move on, because I know fitness is another place altogether, but the other thing that's really important when we talk about food is what the fitness industry, the nutrition industry, has told us right. And I had a client just the other day turn around to me and say, you know, I don't want to eat just chicken, rice and broccoli. And that has been, you know, for years. The pinnacle of health was that. And I'll tell, tell you right now, even like the bodybuilders that I worked with years and years and years ago, they didn't like it either rice broccoli, chicken right it was not.

Lindsay:

It was not what you need, and well you what they would eat.

Ben:

They would eat rice, broccoli and chicken, and then the next day they would eat chicken, broccoli and rice, and then the next day it would be broccoli, rice and chicken.

Lindsay:

Right and I mean variety obviously is a big part of that. But but I also think you know what we're talking about. Is, you know, not one way is the right way versus the wrong way. And I think, when it comes to even what our thoughts are about healthy foods, right? And again I had another client turned around and say, well, I know, I shouldn't be having pasta right in her head, quote unquote, shouldn't be having pasta. And again we're not turning around and saying you can't have pasta, but obviously understanding that the fitness and nutrition industry has been telling us for years have chickpea pasta, have veggie pasta, have whatever pasta. If you don't like pasta, you don't have to have pasta. If you don't like veggie pasta, you don't have to have veggie pasta. So it's not just about what you think and you like and what you don't like, but it's also what you've been influenced over for the last X number of years, 20 numbers of years.

Ben:

So you can't move on now, because now you've sparked something in my mind.

Lindsay:

I'm sorry, it was just important.

Ben:

But I can give you a perfect example of a client that I went through this exercise within the last three months and her go-to and she'll probably be listening and she'll know I'm talking about her.

Ben:

But she turns around and says I just don't like many vegetables, right, I? Just what she realized through that exercise is there might be a lot of vegetables that she doesn't like, but she was actually quite surprised at how many vegetables she did like and bearing in mind, right, let's say there's I don't even know how many different types of vegetables there are, but there's a lot. If you can identify four or five, six vegetables in amongst that, two or three, right? I mean, let's be honest, you are golden, you're good to go and you know you can do really well off those things, so it doesn't, you don't have to eat a hundred different vegetables. We all tend to kind of get niched into our vegetables a little bit based on how we cook or prepare food, and in her particular case it was like it's more than enough to do what you're looking to do and I think you know that actually is a really good segue into fitness.

Lindsay:

We'll get there, I promise. But I think the big thing too is we often focus on the things we can't or don't like or can't do, and so this obviously will bring me to fitness. But rather than focus on that, we want to be focusing on what we can eat, what we can do, and that is just a quick change of perspective as well right, so just bring it back up, right.

Ben:

We're basically saying there isn't one right way of doing this. From a food perspective, person will have a different view on what they like. Ben, literally, would eat mushrooms out of a container and would enjoy them.

Lindsay:

I would not. So these are things. He eats, tomatoes like that too. I don't love them like that. So it's not to say one is better than the other, it's just knowing that it's different it doesn't matter, it's your way and that's what you've got to find.

Ben:

You've got to find your way that you love. So, talking about fitness, I'm going to break it down into cardio. Right, everyone has said I hate cardio and it's this kind of big, blanket statement and it kind of comes from this idea that maybe in the last 20 to 30 years there was this idea that cardio is king when it comes to burning calories. Cardio is king when it comes to, you know, modifying the body, and it was to. You know modifying the body, and it was this understanding. You know, you still go to the gym now and, to be fair, you see ladies on the treadmill, you see them on the elliptical, you see them on the stair climber. It's like I'm sweating my calories out. Cardiovascular exercise is not a way to manage calories. The end to manage calories. The end, the end, because ultimately you simply can't do enough cardio to burn the calories to make any significant impact.

Lindsay:

Right, and you hear a lot of people often say, you know, especially to Ben because he does it, and even recently for me with it, and they're like oh my God, I hate running, I could never do what you do. Okay.

Ben:

I was talking to a client this morning. Actually it's really interesting, you should bring that up. So I'm gonna say, from a cardio perspective, you got to find the cardiovascular work that you like and then you've got to also understand it doesn't need to be significantly intense. That's not the purpose. It's actually better to be in what is classified as a zone two heart rate, which to give you a feel of what that looks like. It's brisk walking, it's walking with purpose.

Lindsay:

It's slower than you probably would ever consider cardio being.

Ben:

And when you really think about it as well, it's just about moving more. So cardiovascular kind of fitness comes from walking more. So it could be trying to move towards that kind of magic eight to 10,000 steps which we've talked about before, which is a good guide. It's not absolute. You know, when you hear basically health studies talk about absolute numbers in fitness and health, it's misleading. Usually it's just to catch your attention. It's that click bit basically that says this is the absolute absolute number. The reality is there's never an absolute number because fitness is on a spectrum.

Lindsay:

And these type of things are all based on our research or this. And it's again, it's not the average, it's just their answer, so it's not you.

Ben:

What works for Lindsay might not work for me and what works for me might not work for you. In terms of like, for example, I might be great on an average of 12 000 steps a day. Lindsey might be great on six and you might be great on 8 000 steps. So there's not a magic number for everybody, because we're all unique. So we have to remember that. And it kind of brings me to my point about the intensity of cardiovascular fitness. People think have historically thought that the harder the better, right. So that's not true. It's that steady state. You can do that in many, many ways. So like let's list some you can dance and I don't say dancing in front of the kitchen, that's your thing. You could dance, dance. You can dance in front of the in the kitchen I literally just dropped my oldest daughter off at dance.

Lindsay:

That's what she's doing she's dancing, hip-hop dancing. I like to dance in the kitchen you can hike, you can walk, swim.

Ben:

You can swim, you know you can. You can bike right spin you could go on the stair climber in the gym and just do it at a a more even pace. You could go to a numerous different classes that get you moving. There's the step classes that aren't high intensity.

Ben:

Anybody who lives winter you can do, like snowshoeing and cross-country skiing, snowboarding, you know, there's so many ways, but it's not about blasting yourself like if you're dreading that cardio workout then you're probably pushing yourself too hard. Cardio steady state builds a strong heart, strong lungs. So again, when we think of that in terms of what we're talking about, we're really saying what is it you love?

Lindsay:

Yeah, find something that you enjoy so that you don't dread doing it Right, you just produced a list for a client.

Ben:

It was more hobby-based, but you produced a list.

Lindsay:

Yeah, it was like 99 things that you can do to enjoy an active. Ours was an active hobby. That's what she was looking for, but again, all of it was cardio based. You know, it was something that you could do and of course some of them were, you know, like wakeboarding, which, unless you live by a lake, is probably not she did just so clear. But it's finding those things and I'll, and I'll give you an example again.

Lindsay:

Our oldest daughter right now is loving hip-hop. She, last year, is a red black belt in Taekwondo and so at the time she was really enjoying Taekwondo, really enjoying the work that was being done, that the exercises, et cetera. She did not want to do combat, and combat is part of Taekwondo. So she decided she wanted to do a change, and so this is something that everybody has the ability to do. You know, there comes a time and a place where maybe you're not loving running anymore. If that's what you do, maybe you don't love going out on Saturday mornings to play pickleball anymore. Maybe you don't love the fact that you have to do something that you know within type one, type two.

Ben:

Guess what happens when you don't love something.

Lindsay:

Yeah you stopped going, you stopped doing it.

Ben:

And it's part of that mindset of saying it has to be this way or there's no other way, right? So, in other words, I stopped exercising, I stopped moving because I no longer enjoyed x, and what you've got to understand is it doesn't really matter. Your body doesn't really care what the stimulus is, it doesn't really care if it's dancing, running or skipping or jump rope or whatever trampolining.

Lindsay:

it's the, it doesn.

Ben:

yeah, that's another one, doesn't matter, it's you know backyard kids trampoline If you've got one, you know it's a good workout, but the idea being is it really doesn't matter. So again, don't think you have to go down a particular route. And it always reminds me how many times have I been asked or been told by clients or people that I've worked with saying I want to be able to run one day. And my question to them is always why, like what is it about running that you feel like is kind of like the cherry on the top of your health.

Lindsay:

I always come back to the fact that that's a fitness industry's kind of, you know, top line athletic. I'm a runner and again, that is not true. You could be a superstar swimmer. You can be amazing at kangaroo jumping, and if you have no idea what that is, don't worry, most people don't. But it's like a skateboard no, I don't know. It's got like little bumps and you jump on it. I've done the class. It's actually really fun, but anyways, drumming, uh, pilates, bar yoga, like there's so many things, and like I know people who love yoga, they do yoga six days a week.

Ben:

That's amazing it is, but I'm gonna put a pause on yoga for a moment because, lady, we're talking cardio. Okay, we're not talking strength things that you love.

Lindsay:

Sorry, I was on things that you love, but and again, if you took, you know 20 people and you said, okay, what is it who? Who exercise on a regular basis, what do you do? I would tell you we would probably get a minimum 18 different answers yeah, and I think that's what's important.

Ben:

So, going back again, what are we talking about? We're talking about finding movement that you love. Now we're also talking here about deliberate exercise, right, right. So we're talking about I'm going to do this like as a deliberate exercise. Remember, you really don't even need to do a deliberate exercise when it comes to cardio. Walking could be your thing, right, you're active throughout the day. You could get a lot of what you need from doing that 8,000 to 10,000 steps and I'm not necessarily saying doing cardiovascular work on top of that isn't valuable. But what I'm saying is, you know, if you think about exercise, it's a relatively modern concept. It used to be just movement. Our job was physical. We had to pick things up and move them around and we had to walk and get water from rivers or wherever. So when you think about it, we're really just talking about movement that gets that heart rate up, that changes that breathing. Slightly Conversational, it's all good.

Lindsay:

No, hyperventilating, you're not dying. Can't have a conversation. It's not like that. You can't have a conversation, right? It's not like that.

Ben:

So I was going to give the example of the client that I was speaking to this morning and I was saying to her you know, I'll kind of give her a pass because she likes going to spin classes and spin classes are cardiovascular workouts.

Ben:

There's some muscle strength development work as well, but the reality is they typically are quite intense. Yeah, it is work as well, but the reality is they typically are quite intense. So for her, you know, you could make the argument that she is in her 40s and that level of intensity is too much for where she is. But she gets something mentally from that. There's a mental aspect to it that it manages stress. It manages the stresses of the day, it gives her some time to just get all of that out there. So it's kind of a trade-off. It's not a negative, but it's one of those things that you can do more intense work if it gives you something else, because there's pros and cons yeah, and we've actually had this conversation, ben and I, in general, because you know I started running again and you know it is.

Lindsay:

It is hard on my body as well. As you know, I'm supposed to be running in zone two and I used to joke and be like I can't even keep my heart rate down, let alone zone two, and so it's finding those things, but I am very much enjoying it, I'm very much loving it. So it is something that I want to keep going and I think, the big thing to keep in mind. And I had a client the other day turn around to me and say I love hiking, but I don't know why you're trying to convince me that you need to run when I will never, ever, ever tell you you have to, right, you don't. So, again, find what you love. So if somebody wants to swim, fantastic. And so you know our perception of what fitness is now, as ben said, we talked about it being what it was like before, when you had to get water and do your laundry in the, in the rivers and stuff like that.

Lindsay:

But now it's like you know you get to decide whether it's videos on youtube, you get to decide if it's going to the gym, and that's always going to be different depending on the person, and that's okay.

Ben:

I think it's absolutely okay. So again, finding the thing that you love. And secondly, or the same really is the idea of there's not one way. There's not one way, so don't get trapped into thinking there is.

Lindsay:

If anybody tells you there's one way whether it's a program, a coach, somebody on your siblings, you know, best friend's boyfriend or whatever is telling you there's only one way, there's not. First of all, there might be a great way for them, but it's not necessarily a great way for you. And secondly, and more importantly, is that everybody is different. So when it comes to anything food, cardio we're obviously going to talk about strength in a minute Everybody's is different.

Ben:

So when you think of strength training, we'll transition onto that, because it's a good time. I need to get this thought out here. But strength training is resistance. It's resisting something, right, it could be resisting a dumbbell. It could be resisting a machine in a gym, or it could be resisting a band. It could be resisting a machine in a gym, or it could be resisting a band. It could be resisting your body weight, right. So, basically, when we talk about strength training, we are kind of narrowing things a little bit. Actually, yoga, for example, can be a great way to do, and pilates can be a great way as well. So it's it's something where you're activating those muscles and you're strengthening those muscles by putting force on those muscles or holding yourself in fixed positions, like isometric positions. So if you think of the breadth of things you can do when it comes to cardiovascular fitness, I think it's fair to say that there's plenty of opportunities in the strength space, but it does become a little tighter, right.

Lindsay:

It's a little smaller for sure. You know, and we talk a lot about, you know, push and pull, you know. So, again, I always say to my clients you know how does that feel, you know, if they're doing a back pull, for example, you know how does that feel, because there are other ways to do exactly that exercise, with a different way, with a different movement, and so there there are differences. But when it comes to you, the, the amount of changes compared to nutrition and cardio strength training, is definitely the push, the pull, the eccentric, the eccentric like these are very basic ways, but you can do it in multiple but you can also still find a way to do it in a way that you love.

Ben:

so you know, I I have friends and clients that don't necessarily engage in strength training, but what they do engage in is yoga. They do engage in body weight work, so they're using their body weight as a resistance, not necessarily always on the floor. They can be against a wall, they can be sat on a bench, depending on what they're doing. But the idea is there's still diversity there. So if you don't want to be lifting dumbbells you don't have to you can work on machines. If you don't want to work with machines, you can be working with resistance bands of different resistance.

Lindsay:

that you, I don't love going to the gym, so for me, the work that I do is with the free weights that we have, which are limited, and you know I'm at and that's it, and so it really just depends. I have a client currently who's who's recovering from foot surgery and we're doing work with her in a chair, so there's all of these ways that we can create, um, what strength training provides us, the benefits, all of those things. It doesn't have to look one way in one way alone.

Ben:

Right, and you know we've put these into three buckets. But if you think about it, with cardiovascular work there's muscle strength building. That does go on, of course, and if you're doing strength training it does elevate the heart rate and get the lungs going. So there's an element of each in there. But when we look at strength training, I mean I'll go out and turn around and say strength training is generally underrated in terms of how massive, especially for women 40s, 50s right.

Ben:

We lose muscle mass as we age, each decade. There's a process whereby muscle wastage happens. When muscle wastage happens, we also see an effect on the actual dense bone density. Right, the strong muscles keep. Keep strong bones, yeah.

Lindsay:

And if you know of, if your parents are still alive, if your grandparents are still alive, if you know anybody in an older generation. I was saying this to the kids the other day and they're like you're older generation. I'm like I mean older, older, but the thing with that is is the people who are mobile, moving, capable to live independently of themselves are the ones that are thinking about it now in their 30s, 40s, 50s, and so I think you know, strength training with women unfortunately got a really bad rap years ago when, you know, the Arnold Schwarzeneggers of the world came out.

Ben:

I'm going to stop you there. I can't even tell you how many times I hear. I actually have one client that says to me Ben, I just put on muscle really quickly, and if it was only that easy, yeah.

Lindsay:

I often say and actually I just had this conversation with a client, not because she was, she was talking about it, but I was comparing a situation that she's dealing with with this concept where people turn around and they say I don't want to get bulky, and I can tell you this, and I may have even said it multiple times on this podcast you do not women listen, you do not get bulky by accident. Okay, we're talking 3000 to 4,000 calories, we're talking heavyweights that you would not confuse with lightweights.

Lindsay:

We're talking five sets. We're talking huge rest. It is not an accidental thing. Want it cool, we can do it, but most people that's not what they're looking for.

Ben:

They're looking for more lean, defined, you know those dumbbells aren't hanging around under the sofa in the living room.

Lindsay:

Basically, you don't have 60 pound dumbbells sitting around, so it doesn't happen by accident. But anyways, coming back to where we were talking about with strength training, is it still doesn't look the same for everybody, right? We have people who want to. I mean, ben has a client who is in her 70s and she just wants to mobile, mobile, be mobile. She wants to be able to get from her chair to the toilet, up the stairs, down the stairs picking up her laundry there's a different aspect to it.

Ben:

Right, it depends on the goal and the objective, even within strength training. So for her it's mobility. It's being the the, could I say the master of her environment, or would it be the madame of her environment? Master okay, we'll go with master. So she just wants to be able to get out of her sofa, she wants to be able to go to the washroom, she wants to be able to go upstairs she wants to be able to get out of bed.

Ben:

So from her perspective, it's just about having a quality of life right. So what we do is we mimic her life movements in her exercise. So it's very deliberate for her. And obviously, when we look at all of these different modes of strength training, the idea is the same what is the goal? Because the goal always determines how we do the work and what we focus on and what we try and progress. So we can progress in any of those modalities, right, like we can progress, whether it's just with bands. You know we regularly have clients go to hotel rooms on vacation and they whip out their bands and you can give them a great workout.

Ben:

So again, if you don't like holding dumbbells, you don't need to. Don't do it. If you don't like hitting the gym which a lot of people don't you don't have to, right, if you've got your body right. There's a ton of things we can do with your body, even if you have limitations, right. So the reality is, if we flip it back, we can do all of those things. But what you've got to do is find the ways that you enjoy moving your body Right. And by enjoy, I don't mean you find it easy or comfortable. I mean you get something from. It's something that you can see yourself doing in six months, in six years, in 15 years, in terms of just it's joy. Yeah, it gives you something. And everyone probably thinks when I say joy like lifting weights is joy, what I'm basically saying is you either are neutral on it or you don't despise it. You don't necessarily have to love it, right, you don't?

Lindsay:

have to be over and down. And, interestingly enough, a lot of the people that come to us to work with us one-on-one, it's often because they don't know where to go from here. Right, we help them bring down the joy figuring it out. We help them finding the vegetables they like. We help them doing those things. And then, more importantly, if you're working one-on-one in a personal training sessions for example, I had a client the other day. I was saying to ben, I was asking some feedback, what does she like? What is it she doesn't like? And her number one thing was I just like I don't have to make a decision when I turn on my computer I don't have to think I don't have to think, I don't have to make a single decision, because in her life all she does is make decisions.

Lindsay:

So again, if you're listening to this and you're like, oh my gosh, they make so much sense. I don't love running, I don't love that. I do love that, I do love that, but I'm still struggling, I'm not really sure. That's when you can reach out to us, that's when you can come and say like, hey, you know what can I do here? What program would work best for here? And and just remember, we have multiple different programs for multiple price points, multiple time. It is available to you.

Ben:

Right, and there's thousands of ways to do this. The only one that really concerns you is your way.

Lindsay:

The only one Say that again, the only one that concerns you is your way, because if I tried to put my way onto you, it wouldn't work. If Ben tried to use his way onto you, it wouldn't work. So we always are looking for what works best for you within your busy schedule with what you have at home, if you're not going to the gym with what you enjoy, food wise and nothing else. That's what I was saying today.

Ben:

I was saying that you, you know everybody wants the results, but but you need the journey right now. He's a perfect example of the need of the journey is to discover what it is that you actually like so that you can actually build the lifestyle that then you can live. But you need to try some different things to figure out what you like from a food perspective, vegetable perspective, fruit perspective, meat perspective. You also need to try out moving your body. I've got a client that likes a particular way of working from a strength perspective, doesn't like another particular way, and that's totally fine. There's not one right way.

Lindsay:

Well, and we see that a lot with clients. You know I love, you know I love cardio or love Tabata. I love strength and that's the beauty of it. You love what you love, and we will deliver that first of all. But the biggest thing is is that we're not going to turn around and say, okay, now go run if you hate to run if you hear the words, you have to do this and it's singular.

Ben:

And if you don't do it, you will fail. It's just misleading.

Lindsay:

Yeah, it's bs it's bullshit and that is the. That is probably the biggest irk that I have in the fitness and wellness industry, because it's like it's this way or? The highway. I don't know if anyone's about. Parents ever said that to you and I'm like what? It's not true.

Ben:

It's not one way, there's multiple ways and we have to find what works best for you and and it kind of comes to a lot of the headlines we'll particularly see on social media. I despise it when it says these are the five best exercises for x. The reality is there's not five or ten or two or three or seven.

Lindsay:

Here's five that you could try.

Ben:

Here are five great exercises of which, like Lindsay says, you might find two or three of them you actually really enjoy and two or three of them you don't. You might find that some of them you can take the ones that work and then try and find other ones that basically complement the ones that you just don't enjoy doing. I always think of it's a random example, but I always think of tricep extensions for this. Some people can get love it over their head, tricep movement over their head. Some people can do it from a bent over position I don't feel it.

Lindsay:

I don't feel it, I like okay. So then let's try this way. Let's try that.

Ben:

There's a multitude of different ways and you got to find the ones that just you enjoy, and I think that's the overarching message. Like we came up with this idea because we felt, like we hear often this idea of it's almost like tunnel vision. We've been conditioned to say fitness looks like this Nutrition. Conditioned to say fitness looks like this nutrition, looks like this.

Lindsay:

And if it doesn't look like that, you won't have success, will not have success and and this is you know again really quickly because we want to wrap this up it's like you know, when I first brought my business online and gained weight and if you didn't hear any of that story, go back to one of the episodes. It's there, but I had to change the way it was said because it wasn't working for me in my schedule, with my kids, with my business, all those things. And so if you don't look at what does and doesn't work for your schedule, for your likes, for your dislikes, you aren't going to do it. And that is the end, the end period, dot, full, stop the end. It will not happen. So, find the things that you enjoy and find the things that you can do and find the things that you like in terms of food, and that will be half the battle.

Ben:

Right, and I think you know. Obviously one of the things to look at as well is, you know, you'll hear, often the best time to work out is first thing on a morning.

Lindsay:

I was going to say that earlier actually.

Ben:

And I earlier actually, and I'm like some people are morning people, some day and night people. You know the best time to work out whatever works for you, whatever works for you.

Lindsay:

There's no doubt that working in the morning, the world is quieter and you'll excuses to come up.

Ben:

Lots less distractions, life doesn't get crazy, and on an evening it can get crazy and you can miss your workout, for sure I'll buy into that. But the end of the day we've got a. We've got to honor our natural rhythm, our circadian rhythm, in the sense of I love running on a night just as it's getting dark, but I can't do it with my schedule. So I basically run on a morning, which I don't dislike, but if I was to honor my body, I would do it on an evening Totally. Now I can do that because it's just the way it works and I have to do that. But you've got to find a way that works for you, that honors what you prefer in terms of timing, and actually that also applies to food as well to some extent, but we're not going to go into that now. We should probably deal with that in a different episode.

Lindsay:

I have a new client that you know. She turned around to me and we were just chatting and she's like I won't work out in the morning. And then that was her. That was her statement and I was like okay, like I'm not sure if she was expecting pushback from me and being like, well, get up 15 minutes early, get up 30 minutes.

Lindsay:

Or I was like okay because, again, if I said to her work out in the morning, guess what would happen? She wouldn't work out in the morning and that would defeat the purpose of us doing everything.

Ben:

She would stop right because because she told you clearly that she wouldn't work out in the morning and like imagine the obstacle being just a discussion about time of day. Right, it really doesn't matter when you work out?

Lindsay:

No, so let's do what works for you. Let's do whatever works for you, what's best for you. That is what's going to work. So that is all, guys. We will see you again next week for our 31st episode, and in the meantime, do you?

Ben:

yes, exactly have a good one.

Lindsay:

We'll see you next week. See you later, bye.

People on this episode

Head Shot

Ben Hack

Co-host
Head Shot

Lindsay Hack

Co-host