IFYL2GO: The After-Meal Walk; Extend Your Life with Grip Strength

In this episode we discuss:

Fix your pasta to make it healthier.

The scent sleep memory hack.

The latest backyard trend.

"Ozempic ears"

And many more topics.

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For more information, and to sign up for our private coaching, visit tesh.com

Our Hosts:
John Tesh: Instagram: @johntesh_ifyl facebook.com/JohnTesh
Gib Gerard: Instagram: @GibGerard facebook.com/GibGerard X: @GibGerard

Transcript

Unknown: 0:08

Hello and welcome to another episode of the podcast. I'm Gib Gerard here with another IFYL to Go episode of the show. That's where we take clips from this week's Intelligence for Your Life radio show, and we pull them out of the show. We package them, and we let you put them in your pocket in the podcast, and take them with you wherever you go. IFYL to go, intelligence for life to go. That's what this is. This is this week's IFYL to go, ladies and gentlemen. Without further ado, here is me and John Tesh. John Tesch for Gib Gerard. A lot of people talking about the power of the after meal walk. We just did a thing on our coaching call about it. Researchers at Ritsumei University in Japan, in the journal Scientific Reports, they had people walk for 10 minutes immediately after eating versus waiting 30 minutes first. Only the immediate walkers blunted their blood sugar. If we wait even half an hour. The spike has already started. The window to catch it closes really quickly. So as soon as you finish a carb-heavy meal, get up and walk for 10 minutes. Yeah. So this is gonna. If you do this, if you do this correctly, where you go within the first 10 minutes after you finish a big meal, and you just get up and walk for 10 minutes, you are going to reduce the spikes in blood pressure and blood sugar. Excuse me, and then and everything that goes with it, all of the inflammation and insulin resistance that goes through those high those high spikes in blood sugar, it is it'll help you digest faster. I mean, it's a it's a cheat code for how you metabolize the nutrients in in a big meal. If you if you're the kind of person that tends to overeat and doesn't like how you feel afterwards, this is the way to start to unpack that, and eventually you'll control your portions better because you're like, ah, I got to go for a big walk. I can't eat that much. Yeah, so walk for 10 minutes immediately after eating. I find it interesting that nowadays we're talking more about blood sugar than any other health health condition because it's connected pretty much everything. Everything. Researchers at Posnan University of Medical Sciences, in the journal Nutrients, they reported that cooled cooked pasta in the fridge for a full day and then reheating it is the after meal blood sugar spike drops by a full 40% with the total sugar surge down 60% It turns out cooling and heating turns some of the starch into slow digesting fiber resistant starch, right? That your body cannot spike on. So cook your rice and pasta or potatoes a day ahead, refrigerate overnight, and then you can reheat before eating. I eat the cold pasta out of the fridge, but this is this is great to know because I mean, if anybody that has has been pre diabetic or has anybody in their life who has diabetes, whether type one or type two, knows that pasta is a very difficult food to manage as when you have diabetes because the timing of when you take your insulin and the way that it digests is so complicated. This is a great way of getting to have pasta and not spike your blood sugar, have that resistant starch. Also, by the way, we need more fiber. Most most adults, American adults, do not get enough fiber. This is a great way to add your fiber. So, leftover pasta. Make a bigger portion of pasta the night before, and then for lunch the next day, you have the pasta in your lunch. It's a win-win. Yeah, it's great. All right, from our conversation starters, Gib, here's a couple of trends to report. First, the latest summertime snack is watermelon drizzled with olive oil? Oh yeah! Food experts say the healthy fats and the oil balance the crisp, juicy sweetness of the fruit. I also like the watermelon with feta cheese. That's like a new thing too. Yeah, feta cheese. I'll eat little feta cheese and some cucumbers. I actually really like when you mix the when you mix the the the sweetness of fruit, like a super sweet fruit, like watermelon, with some more savory stuff. So I had a basil, cucumber, and feta cheese salad with watermelon in it recently. I love this stuff. I put, you know, I put the tahin on my watermelon. I like all of that. Salt on your watermelon is not bad either. Yeah, I've been around for a few years now, and I just discovered watermelon juice. It's it's so good. Oh my gosh, I don't want to look it up because I'm afraid it might be pretty watery. I mean, watermelon-that's the nice thing, right? Is that it's it's it's sugary, but it's it's not very dense. One more thing from our conversation starters: according to the consumer insights company Circana, sales of the book version of the Odyssey are up 76. Not not not surprisingly. No, every time there is a movie, people want to look it up and and give it a read. You are going to remember it's just as hard to get through as it was when you were in high school. By the way, it hasn't gotten any easier to to get through all of those all of those trials and tribulations that Odysseus goes through. Gibber, here's the latest on memory. Researchers at UC Irvine reporting in the journal Frontiers in Neuroscience. They had older adults sleep near a diffuser rotating through seven different scents: rose, orange, eucalyptus, lemon, peppermint, rosemary, and lavender. Lavender is my favorite. So it was two hours a night for six months. I wish I was in on this. Memory scores jumped 226% Compared to a control group using just one scent, wow! So smell is the only scent wired straight into our memory with no detours. You put a diffuser by your bed and rotate a different scent every night. So I think this this must plug into the concept of novelty. We know the power of scent. We've talked to you guys about this before. You have a big exam to study for. Sniff something that has a very strong scent while you're studying, and bring something that smells exactly like that, bring that same scent with you when you go to recall on the test the next day. It will improve your memory. It's been shown to do that. But what, because of the stimulation that that scent gives to your brain, I wonder if that additional stimulation wires your brain and gives you just more brain power because we talked before. The more you stimulate your brain, the better your recall is going to be. The better all of your all of your neurological function is going to be. So I'm wondering consistent novel sense if that helps you. Yeah, get ready for me to sneak this this whole thing in my bedroom. 100. And then and then second night she's going to be like, "What is that smell? What is going on? She hates that stuff. You have a different cologna. Well, if you just had a had a look at Gib's eldest child, who is is 14, you would see that she's the one I think that started this trend. Google data showing that people are really looking to wrap themselves around a good book, and they want to create comfortable spaces for it. So here are a few of the top trending searches on Google, pool float for reading. Oh yeah, breakout search over the past month. That that I would definitely do that. People are also searching for corner floor cushion for reading book and reading nook wallpaper. Also, backyard reading book is a breakout search too. People searching for reading nook are also searching for a four by four shed. What? Oh, the the reading shed. They put you put a shed in the backyard. You sit down. You just sit in it. It's just for reading, no distractions. That's amazing. I'm getting one of those too. You got it. Hello, Amazon. And then two more Google searches related to reading are reading cafe near me and reading in the park. Look, I think what's happened is people are finally pushing back against the constant inundation of from screen time, and they're realizing that hey, sitting there with a good book and having some attention for a long period of time. By the way, parents are probably doing this for their kids because the research is out about how bad screen time is for kids focused long term. So for the summer to get kids off screens, to get yourself off of screens when you could be out doing fun stuff, reading is a great way to build that up, a great way to build your attention span, and a great activity that you can do at the beach in the backyard. I love getting lost in a book. I like that this is trending. By the way, I am four by four or more six. Yeah, you are going to need a bigger space than the like five foot two woman who's putting the she shed in the backyard. Oh, Gib, but we knew this was coming. How about a health check every time you go to the bathroom, so there's a company called Casana. They've launched a smart toilet seat for just under 200 bucks. The seat automatically measures your blood pressure, your heart rate, respiratory rate, blood oxygen, gas passing. No, every every time you sit down, it uses AI-powered sensors that can identify and track individual household members. Unbelievable. Has its own app which can track your long-term health trends, and you can share your data online. Kasana thinks their toilet seat will be just the thing for the 48% of adults with high blood pressure. I don't like. They've also got underwear that does this electrodes in your underwear that what could go wrong. I gotta get Amazon up here. I don't like all of the smart toilets until I use one, and then I'm like, "Oh, this is pretty incredible. The seats warm and it cleans, and it's it's amazing. This would be weird if you go to a friend's house and you use the toilet, and then you come out and they've got an app on their phone, and they go, "Hey, by the way, you should see your doctor because your blood pressure's all over my face. Maybe back off on the Brussels sprouts. What we we had we went to a hotel in in Houston recently. Connie and I, I walked into the bathroom and the and the toilet seat opened up. Oh yeah, oh yeah. And then I sat down. I was like,"Whoa! It was it was heated. Huh? This is this is the new thing. It seems dumb until you try it, and then you like I can never go back to to go into the bathroom analog ever again. But getting up to pee at like 2o'clock in the morning, and it goes like welcome. Yeah, get out of the house. Hey, Gib, you know we've already heard about Ozempic face and Ozempic feet side effects of being on GLP ones. Now there's another unexpected side effect. It's Ozempic ears. Oh gosh, doctors say it's not caused by the medication. Instead, rapid weight loss can reduce the fat that naturally gives earlobes their shape, making them appear thinner, looser, or saggy. Yep, saggy ears, and even changing how earrings fit. Some people are now turning to cosmetic fillers or minor procedures to restore restore lost volume in their ears and make their lobes look quote more youthful. I mean, look, we know that noses and ears don't stop growing. So one of the signs of aging is when your nose and your ears get bigger relative to your face. And look, Ozempic. We know that Ozempic and GOP ones in general. We know that there are some huge benefits to losing weight. We know that there that that's a. Strong correlation with all kinds of health markers, but when you lose weight really quickly, whether you've used a GLP-1 or you've just done it with diet and exercise or gastric bypass, whatever, you will notice, and people have noticed this for a long time, especially people who've got like bariatric surgery on their stomach where they lose weight really quickly. That there's there are side effects. There is loose skin. There is gauntness in the face. There is saggy skin in all kinds of places. And if you're super focused on cosmetics, yes, you're going to have to go through some procedures to undo the, you know, the results of rapid weight loss. You had me. My ears keep growing. I didn't even know that. You did ears and nose. They keep growing. All right, folks. Let's talk about your biological age, John Tesh with Gib Gerard in the studio. Finnish researchers at the University of Yuva, and by the way, every every word sounds like that in Finland. Everything in Finland is Yuba School. They tracked adults for 20 years and found people using a sauna four to seven times a week had a 77% lower risk of dying from heart disease. Wow! Yeah, heat stress trains your blood vessels like a hard workout does without the joint pounding. If you have access to one, aim for four sessions a week. This is new to me. I mean, I know it was supposed to. It was the old cut hole in the ice and then go in the sauna in Scandinavia. Yeah, you jump into the ice, you get cold, and then you get into the sauna and you get warm and you go back and forth. This is a crazy number. So this is super impactful. My question becomes: If you are somebody that's saunaing, you're in the sauna four times a week. My guess is that it's part of an overall healthy lifestyle. So is this a strong correlation, or is this really causative? It can't hurt. We know that acute stress, which is you know limited amounts of stress on the body that your body is then able to recover from, like you get from being in a sauna for a period of time and then getting out and cooling off. That kind of stress is good for you. It is good for your your circulation system, your your cardiovascular system. It's great, but chronic stress is bad for you. So this is a I can see why this works. I just wonder because the people that I know that do asana a lot are also you know they're doing two-hour hiit workouts and jogging up mountains. You know what I mean? Yeah, I got you. Anyway, the power, the health power of a sauna. I got to tell you, I've seen obviously because of what we do, so much health intelligence, and there's so many more studies now coming out about grip strength. A recent analysis now of nearly 10,000 adults published in scientific reports found the weakest fifth for grip strength were more than twice as likely to die within seven years as those with stronger grips, a stronger predictor than blood pressure or cholesterol. Turns out that your hands are a readout of your entire muscular system, so you can test yourself. Hang from a pull-up bar as long as you can, and add grip work to your week if it is weak. Yeah, you look. This is when people talk about old man strength. They talk about farmer strong. 90% of the time, it's grip strength. You know what? People who have competed at a high level in the American Ninja Warrior, which is fantastic show if you've never seen it, they say that ultimately almost everybody that goes through there is of a certain amount of fitness that they can handle the obstacles. What it comes down to, the winners versus the losers, is grip strength. So it is an overall sign of fitness. It is an overall sign of your ability to manage all kinds of independent tasks as we age. There is no downside to training your grip. You should be working on your grip consistently. I I fully fully support this concept, yeah, and just and don't use the shopping cart. Just you know, your groceries in each in each hand. Just carry the farmer carry, and then and then one trip from the car. That's all you get. You can't go back. Yep. All right, Gib, check this out. More women's sports bars are opening up everywhere, same as a regular sports bar with wings and wall-to-wall TVs and plenty of beer. But they're dedicated to playing women's sports on those TVs. Your wife's gonna love this. She's so great. She's such a sportswoman. The popularity of women's sports is growing officially, and the number of women's sports bars quadrupled in 2025 alone. The trend comes as the number of women's sports fans is growing. For example, last year's WNBA season was the most watched in league history, there's a bar in Portland, Oregon called the Sports Bra, now has backing from Alex Ohanian, co-founder of Reddit, and his husband Serena Williams. Yeah, that that is. Look, I as somebody that follows women's sports, my I have daughters that play soccer. My my wife played at a really competitive level. I have season tickets to the local NWSL team, which is the National Women's Soccer League team, it is fun. It is exciting. It is great to follow. I I would absolutely go. I don't know how welcome I would be though at the women's only sports bar. Can women only attend, or can anybody go and they just only watch the women's sports? Yeah, just watch World According to GARD before before you go. You guys can look it up. That's it for the show today. Thank you guys so much for listening. If you like the show, please rate, comment, and subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, wherever you get your podcasts. It helps us out a lot when you do that. We also try to respond to every mention of the show, every DM about the show. You can tell us what you think about it because ultimately we do the show for you guys. So thank you so. For listening.