The ConverSAYtion
The ConverSAYtion is simply a couple of middle aged men sharing company and conversation. Psych and K take their time sorting through so much to say about society, culture, relationships, education, finance, technology, health, and more. Inspired to find engaging ways to entertain and enrich the lives of their listeners is their primary pursuit. Join them as they invest themselves in providing value to their audience. Welcome to The ConverSAYtion.
The ConverSAYtion
Finding Balance in a Fast-Paced World
Can New Year fitness resolutions avoid fizzling out by mid-February? Uncover the secrets to maintaining motivation and integrating fitness into daily life with practical strategies and realistic planning. You'll learn how everyday habits, even excessive screen time, can become opportunities for healthier choices. By addressing common fitness hurdles, such as the high dropout rates associated with gym memberships, we demonstrate how to create sustainable routines that prioritize consistency and commitment over fleeting enthusiasm.
Transform your fitness journey by embracing consistency and tapping into the power of ambidexterity. Explore how training your weaker side can boost overall coordination and how to fit workouts into even the busiest schedules. From morning gym sessions to lunchtime cycling escapes, find inspiration in treating exercise as an essential, non-negotiable part of your day. Our conversation offers practical tips tailored to your lifestyle and preferences, emphasizing the importance of consistent efforts in achieving lasting health improvements.
Eating healthy doesn't have to break the bank. Discover affordable nutrition options that challenge the notion of costly diets, from staple foods like beans and lentils to the benefits of home cooking. Learn the art of preparing delicious, nutritious meals at home that surpass restaurant offerings, and hear how shifting from fast food to home-cooked meals can transform your health and well-being. The rising costs of fast food make meal prepping not only economical but a sustaining solution for maintaining a healthy lifestyle. Join us as we explore the value of home cooking and the transformative impact it can have on your eating habits and overall health.
You don't gotta do it if you don't want to. You don't gotta do it if you don't want to. You don't gotta do it if you don't want to. It's just a suggestion. Come on, cheers.
Psych:We're doing this again.
Letter K:You can't stop us.
Psych:Welcome back to The Conversation. I am Psych and joining me, as always, the 11th letter of the alphabet, Letter K, and we're going to continue our conversation on health and fitness. I was just sharing, I was just at Costco and health and fitness is everywhere, everywhere. Anything with high amounts of protein, anything low carbs, anything keto or or gluten-free, or it's everywhere the labels are the labels are bigger, they're in bold, they're up front, they're on every end cap. There's samples being given. You know this firsthand, uh, from your previous career.
Letter K:Yeah, and as I alluded to last time, you know, this time of year you put out palette displays of Slimfast, Whereas after February it all goes away. If you don't sell it, all you're not selling it, okay.
Psych:So that was my next question don't sell it all. You're not selling it, okay. So that was that was my next question. If, if that, if those products stayed available year round well, they, we know they are available, but if they were promoted as much throughout the year, would the sales also match and continue? No, no, okay.
Letter K:So the sales follow the consumer trends yes, we, we know from decades of market research that when you, when you put out slim fast in, you know the last week of december, so that's ready to go january 1st, that you're gonna your average store is gonna burn through. You know x amount of of pallets of that stuff and then you know, right, right around valentine's day cuts off. You might as well just take it down and put up easter candy.
Psych:Okay, so that local market has been saturated. They don't want anymore. They've had enough or they've had their fill.
Letter K:They've moved on so to give you an an idea, because last time we talked about how just starting versus continuing and we debated, I had suggested that it was easier for people to start than it was for them to continue, because people can start and start, and start and start, and based on that, I pulled up some statistics and what I've got here is based on a 2012 study, approximately 73% of people who set fitness goals as New Year's resolutions abandoned them before achieving their goals and, according to a 2017 study, more than 90% of individuals discontinued gym attendance within the first three months.
Letter K:More than 90% of individuals discontinue gym attendance within the first three months. So, yeah, it's tied to that cyclical concept of the New Year's resolution and it's the same with gym memberships as it is with grocery products. People don't stick with it. They don't have the motivation, or they have unrealistic expectations, or they convince themselves they don't have the time for it or it's too expensive. Whatever it is, I give I give the bulk of people in the united states who decide to kick the new year off with better health initiatives about six weeks.
Psych:Okay, I think, like with anything else, it's scheduling, it's people have routines and habits and they have all of these behaviors built into their 24 hours a day and now they want to add something new and they don't realize you can't just keep adding stuff into your day. Something's going to have to give eventually. You're going to have to trade off something. There's going to be an opportunity cost in there. And unless you account for that I would say unless you're just absolutely blowing your time, if you are wasting your time, if you have time to kill, if you have just forever and you're literally doing nothing, then yes, you can trade nothing for something.
Letter K:Yeah, but most people are doing nothing. I spend way too much time on my couch playing video games and watching television. So even if you're doing nothing, you're doing something. So find those somethings. And I totally agree you can't add time to your day. Arnold Schwarzenegger he's famous for saying that people only need to sleep six hours a day, and if you feel like you need eight hours of sleep, sleep faster. Sleep faster, yeah, but he also is filling up his time. So say you spend you. Look at your life. Look at your life. Say you spend five hours a day after work watching television, playing video games. There's a good opportunity there for trading some of that time out with something that will actually benefit you. You know, health goal-wise.
Psych:So what would you say and suggest? As I know people like to say hacks, life hacks, there's a hack for this hack know people like to say hacks, life hacks, there's a hack for this hack. I, I mean the term is trendy and people like it, but it's, it's just a solution, it's just stuff people have done. You know, are there things that people have legitimately overlooked over time and somebody came up with a new, creative solution? I mean that maybe I would put into this container of things we call hacks, but for somebody that doesn't have time or thinks they legitimately cannot, I mean, what did you do? I mean, what did you do to build your schedule? You're a busy individual.
Letter K:My example was my example. I spent a lot of free time just sitting about and I ate away. At that time. It's like, well, I mean, if I'm only gonna I mean I exercise for 45 minutes a day I can spend 45 minutes less playing video games. And, yes, I think that you need to assess yourself Because, yes, we're routine oriented and in order to maintain any kind of health goal, it's like anything else in life.
Letter K:It's like going to work, it's like breathing. It has to be a part of your schedule, you have to plan for it, you have to add it into your routine. You've got to do that. I don't know anybody who just flies off the seat of their pants for exercising and does it consistently. It just doesn't happen. So, yes, evaluate your life. You know what you're doing. Look at it. What am I doing? Monday, tuesday, wednesday, thursday, friday, saturday, sunday? Am I spending? Do I do something? Five or four to seven, you know seven days a week that I could eat away a little bit of that, because it's frivolous, because it's useless, because it's just me being bored. Yeah, that's what I would do. I would suggest to anybody to look at themselves. Look at themselves and, if it's important, find the time.
Psych:I think there's opportunities that people may not even consider, such as their time at work. I know there's many people that I work with that. On their breaks and lunches they'll go for a run or they'll go for a long walk. They'll use a standing desk. I don't know of anybody that has treadmills underneath their desks. Yet where you work Does anybody have that? Have you seen that around?
Letter K:I've've seen it. One time we did a private office and they had one.
Psych:I think it's cool.
Letter K:I would like to have one myself however, I was curious, so I asked the customer, or asked the user uh, because I did notice that it was not centered with his desk.
Psych:He wasn't really using it. Oh, okay, okay, I was. Did you get to sample it?
Letter K:I did not. No, I don't ask people if I can use this stuff in their office.
Psych:I would be curious how typing and utilizing a mouse and everything desk work would actually go while you are midstride.
Letter K:You're talking about trying to type an email while coordinating moving your feet. I don't know if I could do that. I would have to try it to see if I could even pull that off.
Psych:I was just in my mind as a thought experiment. I was like, I don't know. It struck me as one of those things like patting your head and rubbing your stomach at the same time.
Letter K:And the only reason I can do that is because I practiced it as a kid, there you go.
Letter K:So maybe, like anything else, it just takes a little practice. Yeah, I suppose it's like how I read a thing once recently. Actually, I have problems with my tendonitis in different spots and I was getting, you know, I got breastitis in my shoulder, I was getting golfer's elbow, and it's probably because I favor this side, because this is my strong side right, and so I was looking that up and there are studies that show that people who work towards a more ambidextrous, coordinated effort of their body, it's a solution, and I'd read about talking about different ways to train your weak side so you can become more naturally ambidextrous.
Psych:Okay, that would probably help somebody excel in all sorts of things, including fitness goals or in sports, things that they would like to pursue in their health journey.
Psych:I was thinking about when you were mentioning you don't know too many people that might just jump off the couch and try to put fitness and shove fitness and health into their into their lives. I think the the only thing I could think of that might fit into that category are people that were enthralled in sports, for example, people that love basketball. I'd love to go out and play pickup basketball or go to the park and play basketball, or go to the gym and play a pickup game. If I know people, if they got a phone call and so it's like, hey, we're gonna go to the, we're gonna go this saturday and play, or hey, and meet us at the gym in two hours are gonna go. They might just do that, but I can't think of too many people that would do that for for something gym related, like hey, let's go, let's go do some bicep curls for you know, for the next 45 minutes.
Letter K:And yeah, but I mean, even playing basketball is exercise, it's, it's an endeavor, it's an effort. But getting a random call to play a pickup game is not consistency.
Psych:No, no no, no, it's not. It is not, but it might be something that somebody feels compelled to do as they're watching basketball. I'd say it happens far less and, yeah, it's not something that is conducive to somebody's long-term health.
Letter K:And now, if you were obsessed with hoops and you dedicated yourself to four days a week going to the gym at this certain time and getting and getting into a pickup game, more success that's more successful scheduled. But again, you've got to schedule it. It's got to be a part of your life. You know it's like I say it's so. I know that I got to be at work at 6 30 every morning, right, and so I know that I. I know that I have lunch every day at 11. I know that I'm gonna get home every day at five. And these, these things are static, they are. There's no, there's no changing them. If I want my life to succeed, I have to do those things, those are the big things.
Letter K:Yeah, exercising should be a big thing too. I would would say I exercise every morning. Before I do anything, I have a cup of coffee and I stretch and work out. Or I have a cup of coffee, I drive to the gym and I swim. On Saturdays, I have a cup of coffee, I get together with Rod, we go train and I do that. So that's how I was able to create a consistency I found for me. I found that trying to do it at the end of my day left too many opportunities for me to decide against it. Okay, so it's equal parts adding it to your schedule, making it a part of your life and then discovering what works best for you. I know plenty of people who, when I tell them I work out in the morning, you know I get before in the morning to work out before work. People call me crazy.
Psych:Yeah, I did I know I joined you that one morning, yeah, the one morning at the pool. At the pool, yeah, and I don't know if God was up at that hour.
Letter K:So he can sleep and I can handle it. But and for me I mean, I know that you come home from work and you'll get into the gym and you'll work out for ridiculous quantities of time. I it makes me tired thinking about that. You know about spending all day at work, coming home and then exerting myself in that manner. So it's whatever works for you.
Psych:So I'm not the average person. In regards to just simply taking my schedule alone, school is out before 4 o'clock, right? And I don't live all that far away from my house, so I can be here late afternoon.
Letter K:Yeah, but that's just the nuance of your specific situation, but it's still relevant to there's only three ways to do this Either you do it before work, you do it during work, or you do it before work, you do it during work, or you do it after work, and so we've just we've just talked about all three scenarios. Yes, I know plenty of people who there are people at the lab who get on the full-on bike gear with you know the cycling gear with the skin, tight, spandex, everything and the and the helmet that has the point at the back, and they've got these love that they've, they've got these three-pound bikes and they're just going around on their lunches full on. That's what they're doing, and they're doing it in the middle of the day.
Psych:That's great.
Letter K:Yeah, it's hilarious.
Psych:But yes, Are they riding indoors? No, no, no, no On the property.
Letter K:Yeah, it's a big. The property, yeah, it's, it's a, it's a big. I mean, yeah, it's, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's almost like a section of a city. So there's those streets, there's roads, there's all kinds of ways to go and sometimes, sometimes, they'll get go off campus and they're in livermore. You know, uh, it's just the fact that they, that they put on all the gear to cycle on their lunch break that's how it should be done every time. Yeah, part of their routine.
Psych:So you mentioned the gym. I was just thinking about the gym. Did you notice that our gym membership went up? No, I don't pay attention to that stuff.
Psych:Yeah, it went up and I was going to bring that up today because that's one of people's biggest complaints as far as their ability to get fit. Gyms are expensive. Gyms are expensive if they want specialized machines. Let's say they live in an apartment, they have a studio apartment and they're barely making it and their apartment complex does not have a workout room and they just want to. They would love to work out. They would if they can get to a gym and the good gyms you have to invest.
Letter K:All right, let's talk about excuses. Hit me with excuses. So you don't need a gym membership, you don't need weights, that's but I want a gym membership.
Psych:that's the only way I'm going to do it, yeah yeah.
Letter K:So I'm going to tell you right now that you may have to levy some different expectations in your life, and one of the biggest things that I've come across is that people believe they need a gym membership or they need a rack of weights in their garage or they need equipment. There's so much that so many people can do for so long with just their own body weight before their own body weight isn't enough, that most people will stop way before they reach that point. So I say that if you need to be frugal, uh, and that if the cost is one of the reasons why you're not engaging in better health immediately, I will tell you just to go to youtube and look up body weight, hit h-i-i-t. In fact, I'll do that, and then we're gonna see. We're gonna see how many we to see how many programs just come up immediately.
Psych:High intensity interval training. That is yeah. So, in spite of what people might like to believe or might be more comfortable for them to, there's plenty of available sources to to get yourself from point a to point b as far as one's fitness journey and body weight. It might not be for everybody, but at least it is a free option that's available. I know with our. I mean, we use Apple products in this household and our phones have fitness built in to our monthly subscription and basically we have all of Apple's, their whole fitness catalog. You can scroll through anything and everything, if you want meditation, if you want yoga, if you want whatever it may be.
Letter K:So 20 to 40 minute body weight hit videos go on forever on YouTube. They go on forever.
Psych:No, no, they don't folks. It's only 20 to 40 minutes. We're not asking you to work out forever. No, I mean, I mean, the options.
Letter K:Yeah, yes, yes, I mean it's just, and I think that. So one of the reasons so I started with body weight when I first started working out, and one of the reasons I like body weight is I think a lot of people injure themselves quick and fast when they go right to weights, and you learn a lot about your body movement uh, the different muscles and such doing body weight before you get to doing weighted exercises. You know things like things like squats and pushups and there's so many different movements that are also being done with weights, but you don't need the weight at first. I mean, if you're just some out of shape slob like I was doing, a 20 minute body weight workout is hard.
Psych:It's hard work but it's a great place to start and everybody has a body and presumably I'm putting that clip on the internet Presumably your body should be able to sustain its own weight without completely self-destructing, yeah. So if you can find ways to gradually increase the resistance from there, then yes, but starting, starting with just moving your own frame, your own figure, your own body is there's a lot of value in there, I think. Probably the biggest, the biggest obstacles people don't know where to start, and I think we're saturated with information that it can get overwhelming. Like which one of these is the one to start with? Well, I, they almost want a prescription for it.
Letter K:So I'll, I'll tell you, I'll tell, uh, I'll give, I'll give, give a free, uh, a free, no sponsor plug. So, uh, this guy right here, tiff Tiff and Dan Rod uses Dan's 25-minute HIIT workouts and they're pretty hardcore. They're intermediate to advanced, but it's all body weight and you don't have to keep up with this shredded guy. Dan, moment for moment, you can do the best you can, but if you're looking for a place to start, this is as good a place as any and it's free, it's on the internet and they're pretty good.
Psych:And I think most people might not even realize that with their Apple One subscription that the fitness is included there for people. We have the Peloton here here. I know that doesn't work for everybody. That's too expensive and it's too much initial cost.
Letter K:I can't ride bikes and some people can't ride bikes and the multi-subscription is pretty much a gym subscription but for just for just a bike, or you correct if, if you were affluent enough to have a whole Peloton gym in your house, then the subscription would make sense.
Psych:But the Peloton does have a subscription that is far less I think it's less than half of what we're currently paying and it will allow you to get on your phone. Do you can follow their weights and resistance training. You can follow their yoga. You can follow their meditation, you can go with the stretching. You could go for runs. There's there's a variety of things that you could do at a.
Letter K:You know just a fraction of the, the regular cost yeah, and there are plenty of program program suites out there, like I used to do beach body and there were hundreds of programs. They were full programs. They had dietary pages built into the program, they had workout regimens, they had calendars and schedules and they had all the videos. Some of them, every single video, was unique, like you'd have a 60 or 90 day program and every single video was unique. You weren't doing the same videos over and over, they were fresh, it was all fresh. And you know peloton has the same thing. I know that taco does the, does the, does the non-bike cardio stuff with from peloton. Um, there's this free one that I used for a while to test it out for people. It was called I want to say it was called On Fitness Sounds familiar.
Letter K:yes, and all the videos were free and it had the same deal you had to watch an ad or something, and a lot of those were kind of fun because they were all run by celebrities, so it would be like Ariana Grande doing a 15-minute cardio workout or something like that. Yes, there, yes, there's a lot going on and it can seem it can seem a little daunting, but that you're using as an excuse. Yes, you know, it absolutely is Just pick something and try it and if it doesn't work out, pick something else and try it. And I did that for the better part of three years before I found something that I stuck with and it worked consistently.
Psych:And if you can't pick, if you're too indecisive and you just are incapable of selecting something, then get with somebody who can pick for you.
Letter K:Just put in the comments that you can't decide. I'll pick it for you.
Psych:Find somebody who is willing to go on this journey and help you select the path that's at least going to get you started, which we spoke about last time having a group, having having a circle of support.
Letter K:That's having friends to actually walk this walk with dude, having at least one person who is at least within your range or, in my case, willing to carry me along. That changed everything for me. I was very consistent when me and my wife were working out together watching the videotapes and such, and then when she moved on to yoga and I I moved on to weights, I kind of I handed hard and I had some false starts and I stopped and I got hurt and then I quit and I started up again and it wasn't until you, me and rod started working out in my garage that I was just. I haven't looked back ever since.
Psych:That's been three years so it's been three years since I started, since you started that.
Letter K:Yeah, yeah. So, yes, having a buddy, huge, huge, no excuses then, unless you want to make that excuse to your buddy.
Psych:So, going back to cost, I know for me, personally speaking, I always have done better following through with things if I knew there was a cost attached and if it was free, I avoided it. If it was something free and it was always available, and I liken it to things on Netflix. You have Netflix? Yes, I do. There's pretty much enough content on Netflix to consume from now until the end of time you'd never.
Letter K:You know if, if you watch netflix full-time with ot, you'd never see everything you know. That could be a good video idea.
Psych:No, thank you, oh gosh. So anyway, that's not a good side trick. But the things, the things on there, when you know they're on there, there's not really a rush to get to them because you know you have them, yeah Right, there's just like there's food in your refrigerator, in your pantry, and you're hungry. Well, there's no rush to get to those things necessarily because they're there. Let's go order something else. Getting, finding, having, having the, having an additional cost attached to something, always meant more commitment was required of me, because I paid for this and I need to use this yeah, and and so I would agree with that fundamentally, like on the base.
Letter K:It's logic, logical, it makes sense.
Psych:I'm paying for this, I've got to use it, but I don't think that a lot of people think that way no, I, I, I think, yes, what we've seen in gym memberships and 73 and many of those people continue to pay. I mean the people the gyms are overselling memberships. If everybody with a membership decided to show up one day at the gym, you couldn't use the gym. There would be way too many people there. They're overselling, like a lot of airlines, as we know, overselling the tickets, overselling the memberships, and they're hoping that people don't cancel and they continue to receive that residual income and they continue to receive that residual income.
Psych:I was a part of that cycle years ago when my wife and I had a gym membership and we maintained it for years and didn't use it and I kind of looked at it like a punishment hey, if I'm not going to go do this, well, this is this I'm gonna punish. I'm just gonna this is the cost, right, do it or don't, but we're paying this and so finally, I did get rid of it. I'm like that with my master class subscription same same same deal.
Letter K:I got rid of that a while ago. I could I couldn't it. So, according to, a 2023 Cleveland Clinic survey found that 46% of Americans view healthy food as too expensive and thus not worthy of their dollars for spending. It didn't say things about gym memberships, but I'm sure it's similar, so half of Americans think that being healthy is too expensive.
Psych:so I would. I would counter that with adam carolla, adam carolla's hilarious.
Psych:I love adam carolla yeah and and his his podcast is is great. He's been good on radio and television anyway. He talks about this topic specifically and has over the years, just like how much does oatmeal cost? How much does an apple cost? I know eggs have gone up recently, but eggs are not. Well, I've heard they've gone up, I've just always paid more. In fact, I was at the store yesterday and I couldn't buy eggs because they did not have organic eggs. They didn't have the expensive couldn't buy eggs because they did not have organic eggs.
Letter K:They didn't have the expensive stuff. It wasn't Because they all die. The organic chickens were not resilient enough to survive the freaking bird flu. So, yes, eggs have gone up. In fact, when I went to Food for Less last weekend, I didn't buy eggs because an 18-pack was $10.19. If you bought one, if you wanted a second one, it was $12.49. And then I went to Costco and got a five-dozen flat for $12.
Psych:Did you hear about the tangent? Did you hear about the Costco egg recall?
Letter K:No, yeah, should I look into that before I eat these eggs.
Psych:I would Okay, yeah, if they had them on the shelf now, because they have already known about this. But yeah, there was a nationwide scare with Costco eggs being requested.
Letter K:When was it? Because I bought them last Sunday.
Psych:I just read the headline this week.
Letter K:Okay, I'll look into it. I won't waste time in the podcast doing that, but remind me.
Psych:But those simple ingredients, right. If you hard boil a couple of eggs, like if you're just dirt poor and you eat an apple, there's something to be said about. An apple a day keeps the doctor away, right? That adage is the red drink.
Letter K:The Red Delicious Apple Company coined that to sell you apples. The Red Delicious Apple Company coined that to sell you apples. So I asked ChatGPT that question and then I asked about arguments and the number one argument is affordable health options and it includes staple foods. It says beans, lentils, rice, vegetables, seasonal vegetables, especially in California. You know. So years ago when I was in groceries, my store manager very unhealthy, that store was the only store I ever worked at that sold Lucky Strike unfiltered cigarettes and it was because he was the one who bought them. Oh, anyhow, anyhow. The one who bought them oh, anyhow, anyhow.
Letter K:Getting older, health, declining, overweight goes to the doctor. Tells the story about how his doctor In the supermarket industry we try to sell you meat as the center of your plate and then you know the vegetable stuff, because it's more and more profit and like cuts and stuff, he was being told by his doctor to move the meat off to the side and make the center of his plate the healthy options of the vegetables and rice and things like that. And that ties in directly with my experience with my meat consumption and when I did the macro calendar thing I discovered that I was eating way too much protein and my center plate was I breast chicken. I was I was taking way too much chicken for my lunch and I was taking 110 grams of protein of chicken. It was unnecessary, my body couldn't process it, and so so I moved the chicken over a little bit and filled my tray with more vegetables. And it was cheaper because chicken, especially breast chicken, is not the cheapest option.
Psych:I think you made an excellent point with seasonal stuff and I know people kind of don't even bother to figure out or learn what fruits and vegetables are in season because we get everything at all times in our country from everywhere. However, when those when you can get local fruits and vegetables and they're in season, they're the most nutritious, they're the most flavorful. Many times I'd like I prefer to go to local farmer's markets to pick up stuff around here. There's one around the corner of your house at the mall on Sundays.
Psych:There's one up the street over here on the way to the country I like to visit and take bike rides out too, but getting that stuff many times is less than what you pay for in a supermarket and it's more flavorful and it's more nutritious overall.
Letter K:Yes, and we live in California. So, yes, farmer's markets are a thing here and we also live in California, so the concept of seasonal vegetables might bleed for us a little bit because we're just importing so much Avocados from Mexico.
Letter K:Yeah, asparagus from Argentina, bell peppers from Chile, bananas from Brazil, yeah, everywhere. But yes, farmers markets fresh produce, seasonal vegetables. The nice thing about seasonal vegetables is they go out of season right around the time you get sick of them. Start in your own garden Also, if you have the climate to do that, and we have seven growth seasons where we live in california, which is ridiculous, but I can basically grow italian squash year-round. Um, and you talked about being fresher and stuff like that. Another inexpensive or affordable option for vegetables is frozen vegetables and frozen vegetables and it's marginal. It's not as high as somebody might try to convince you, but frozen vegetables oftentimes have a higher nutritional value than fresh vegetables, because they're picked right at or right before the peak of their freshness and immediately flash frozen, and as long as you don't boil them in a in a gallon of water and suck all those nutrients out. Yes, you know, if you, if you get one.
Psych:Just make sure you drink that gallon of water while you're done so amethyst used to.
Letter K:She was you, so it's good. No, she's like we have the. Uh, I've got, you know, the, the, the two-layer, uh, steam colander. But they also make those, those, those inserts that go in, and you know, you just put a little water in the bottle, salt in the water and you steam the vegetables and the wife would drink the water.
Psych:But uh yes you use it in soup. You also mentioned, uh, beans. Especially when beans are, you should buy dried beans, yes, which I like to. In fact, I just made some this week, pinto beans. I mean, we love mexican food in this house, so I'll make pinto, a big batch of pinto beans, and, uh, we'll have them with the meal and then I'll make some, turn some of them into refried beans. But, um, all the blue zones beans, legumes, lentils, those are a staple in all of the. Did you watch the the blue zones documentary or docuseries on netflix?
Letter K:no, you told me about it but so documentaries.
Psych:basically, the blue zones, for those of you who are unaware, are specific places on planet earth where people live the longest, well into their 90s, and they have the most people over 100. And this gentleman went through and documented all of those places and one of the themes, one of the things that was the same, is beans. People ate a fair amount of beans on a regular basis in every single one of those museums.
Letter K:And yes, beans are cheap, especially dry beans. My excuse is that dry beans take super long to process and cook Two hours. I have you beans in two hours. Okay, I'm curious about that process because I've always you look at the back of the package, and so I just did black beans. Recently I had a pound bag of black beans not even not even sure why, but it happened and so I followed the instructions on the back of the package and it told me to soak them overnight. Uh, you know, you gotta separate them so you don't eat rocks. And then you stand and then, and then it told me to soak them overnight.
Psych:And then, and then I cooked them and they came out fine, but it was like it felt like an arduous process so the, the soaking them over overnight and draining that water, uh, one, it makes the beans easier to cook the next day when you go to. So they say, okay, soak them overnight, come to the next day, dump out that water, then you can go right into cooking them, because they're already softened, right. So that's the advantage there, the, the advantage to discarding the water that they soak in uh helps with digestion. People, people that if beans affect their stomach in a certain way, uh, and if they don't want that or if they want less of that, then you discard the water. But when you're discarding the water you're also discarding all of the nutrients.
Psych:So my process sort with sort through the beans, make sure there's no stones in there, don't eat rocks, don't eat the rocks kids. And uh, fill, put them in a pot, put enough water in there, and I just turn it on high and let them boil for two hours. At the end of two hours they're done. I'll toss in the salt seasoning and I might simmer a little bit more, just if I want to get more water off. Or you know if I, if there's too much liquid or if I, you know whatever consistency one wants.
Letter K:But basically, in two hours I have beans and so let me ask you this so can you make beans of a quantity so you can have beans later? And you just talked about making refried beans. Yes, so because? So for me, two hours to make beans for a specific meal the same day is still too long.
Psych:I'll make two gallons. Oh okay, I'll do it like on a sunday you put them in plastic and I I'll.
Psych:I have, I have, I have commercial size containers to store food in and I will. I'll store them in there and then, as I need them, we're gonna have these beans here, these i'murpose. I'm going to make refried beans out of this for a dish and just pair it with everything. I try to eat beans often, especially more often and more frequent. After watching this Blue Zones thing, I found that it was quite interesting. Of course, there's many other factors and one's health and overall health is not Diet's a component of it. It's not everything, and beans are just one particular food, and so it's not the end-all be-all, but just knowing wait a minute, all of these cultures, all of these places all over the world are doing this.
Letter K:It's like, okay, I'll give it a try, let's see what happens are doing this, it's like, okay, I'll give it a try, let's see what happens. So one of the things that I discovered about eating healthy and eating better was so I've always known how to cook, you know, I could. I could sustain myself if I needed to. I can cook. I'm not the best cook, but I've gotten better and better since I've started eating healthier.
Letter K:One of the things I learned that, uh, you know we're're so used to the massive, the massive unnecessary ratio of fat, sugar, salt, of like fast food places, of restaurants. You know we start to crave those high quantities, those flavors, and you start cooking for yourself and you're like, oh, this is bland garbage and it might be cooking for yourself. And you're like, oh, this is bland garbage and it might be, but you can make healthy, better tasting foods in your own kitchen. Then you can get most anywhere else. You just got to practice it. Yes, you know it's just, and so it's. It's just like, like, um, exercising and make creating a routine for yourself. You know you can, I, I prefer my own cooking at this point, like if, if we're out and about and we're starting, we're thinking about well, let's get something real quick, nothing comes to mind I'm right there with you.
Psych:I can identify with that. There's so many places I don't go and or will avoid because I know I make the food that they serve there better. And if I go there, I'm going to be disappointed. I'm going to wish I didn't spend the money. I'm going to want that money back in my wallet, back in the bank account. I'm not going to be satisfied. I'm probably going to go home and make something that I actually would enjoy and would have wanted to begin with at home. And so now it's a waste of money, waste of time.
Psych:My boys now, if I give them the option, hey, let's go out for burgers, or I can make burgers at home. They hands down 100% of the time, want burgers from me at the house. Hey, you know what? I was thinking about? Buying some fried chicken, or I could just fry some chicken here. What do you? What do you want? Or I mean, I'm just using those two as examples. But whatever their favorites are, we can go out anywhere you want and go get it, or I'll prepare it here.
Psych:Now I do practice cooking quite a bit and I pride myself on the, the food and the cuisine I serve, and I like people to enjoy it, and it's. I've proven this with one teenager and one adolescent, one 10 year old, who presumably would not like anything right and didn't for quite some time. But if I can feed children which is a good test if your flavors are good enough to that children don't reject it, you should be okay. And if your kids don't eat, you know, if you're preparing three or four or five meals at your house because this person wants this and that person wants that and I need to eat this for my diet, that that's really going to be a hurdle. That's an obstacle that I would try to avoid at all costs because that's not going to long-term. Preparing so many different meals in the household to meet everybody's either dietary requirements or just what their wants are, that's unsustainable.
Letter K:Yeah, no, no, no. And yes, I agree that not everybody has to binge watch Hell's Kitchen in order to be a gourmet chef like you.
Psych:You have to go to Hell's Kitchen and study them in person.
Letter K:Yeah, no, but you can. Yes, you're like. You know my, my meals are rather provincial. You know I do the turkey chicken and rice and I do the. You know the things that I do aren't extravagant, but I've gotten consistently better at them over the years by just practicing and just being a part of that, and for me, what it's become now is the one thing that I would always be okay with going out and eating is breakfast, and that's completely gone away now, and I don't know if it's because I've gotten better at it or if it's because the breakfast spots now have just started to go down.
Psych:Hey, there's that one diner at the Bowling Alley. We like that's a pretty good spot. Yes.
Letter K:And that's a good example of a place that I will frequent. There's not a lot of them, no, especially the franchise places Like the Denny's. I'm sorry, denny's, I'm going to throw you under the bus.
Psych:They're struggling.
Letter K:There were two Denny's here in town and one of them closed down. And when it opened back up I was like, oh remember, we went. And I was just it hurt, it was so bad. And they just opened back up. So I was like, well, maybe they're still trying to get their footing. It's obviously a new franchisee in the place. They got new staff, whatever.
Letter K:So a month later I took my wife to the same Denny's and it was worse. And then another month goes by and I'm taking my car in for service. I decide I'll just go for a walk, I'll go to the IHOP and I've never really had a good IHOP experience. But you know what? I'll give them a chance. So I go to the IHOP and not only was it sub it, subpar period, it was mad expensive, like if you're not getting the, the bottomless pancakes, everything was ridiculously expensive. And it was all a cart, you know, and I got, I got this french toast thing and some hash browns and coffee and it was like 30 bucks for me. And I was like I was, I was blown away. Where I can stay home, even with the cost of eggs today, yes, yes, and and make my own waffles in the, in the waffle iron, mm-hmm. Have have two eggs, have bacon or sausage or spam and like not, not the point of my story, let's, let's not do the spam and folks and do better, can't?
Letter K:we? Don't worry about it, don't worry about him. His, his, his, his taste buds are gods of themselves. He's got a royal tongue, but keep going. But the uh, but the uh. The point is, and I could make all these things and make like a legit high-end breakfast for six or eight people, yeah. Or I could go to IHOP, yeah, no.
Psych:No, breakfast is one of the things, especially if you're trying to eat healthy, right Breakfast, american breakfast is not healthy to begin with and probably you should avoid it. But if you want some of those things a little bit healthier, like the protein pancakes we just got a big thing of that from. I do the Kodiak protein pancakes. We got the Kodiak, we got the Kodiak. They're good, they are good, they are good, they're healthier. If you're going to have pancakes, you should have, you should try, at least give them a try and you can make your own. I have a recipe for protein pancakes and you can adjust them just to your heart's content. But breakfast, to your heart's content, but breakfast, yes, they're making a killing. And it's denny's. I mean, their eggs are small to medium. Uh, the the bacon is like just paper thin you can.
Letter K:You can read through the bacon yes, yeah, yeah.
Psych:So, yes, you can get a higher, higher quality everything. You can go get a loaf of bread for toast, you can go get a dozen eggs, you can go get a package of bacon and you can go home and have a great time with with that and have several meals or feed your whole, feed your whole family, just like you said, and not be mad that, hey, you dropped 30, 40, 50 bucks on you, you and somebody else, um, eating out. I would say, if someone's on this, this whole road, uh, probably should be infrequent. At best once, once or two, like and really go, I would say treat, make it a treat, right, cut out all the other eating out.
Psych:Do the cooking, do the meal prepping, do it for yourself, do it for your health, and then you know if that's Saturday night, that Friday night or or maybe a Friday night out as a Saturday lunch out. You know that's fine. But do that at places that are worthy of the dollars that you're spending. Make sure they're providing you something that you can't do for yourself, which is why I rarely go out and order chicken, because I can make amazing chicken Eggs. I cook eggs well, right, uh, pasta most places are using. If they're making dried pasta right, well, I can do that. I can go buy a package of dried pasta for nine cents right, I could do that at home.
Psych:I don't need so. If I go out for pasta, that pasta is made fresh. Somebody in the back made the sauce, they made the pasta and if they're making it fresh, if they're making it from scratch you know it's not this ultra processed, high processed food that is not going to add very much nutritional value or anything to your. You want to add to your health and not take away.
Letter K:Yeah, no, I totally agree about the chicken thing. Like, like, I can't eat chicken and fast food places if they're, if the if, if your chicken is kicking it under a heat lamp waiting for me to order it. You know, if you have go to sykes house, yeah, try that over. Try out some. Try out some real home-cooked chicken, some fried chicken, and you'll never, you'll never eat at churches again, and I used to love that stuff. But now it's just like I just made fried chicken. I made chicken and waffles last weekend and you know I just do it myself. I just fillet, cut the damn chicken breast and you know, boom, boom, boom fry. And it was obnoxious how great it was. And it's just so simple. I don't need 11 herbs and spices, I've got my own little proprietary blend and it was great.
Psych:Most food will taste good if people add the appropriate amount of salt. So if people think, oh, I can't cook or my food doesn't taste good, what usually is the case is they're just not adding enough salt.
Psych:And if they just add more salt and make sure it's a high-quality salt. Don't use an iodine. How is somebody going to get iodine? I don't want thyroid disease. There's other ways to get it. I mean you can use it here or there, but that stuff is already built into many of the other things. You're not going to be iodine deficient.
Letter K:Yes, yes, I've got. So I get the coarse cooking salt and when I use that over the table salt, the wife is like what did you do?
Psych:Yes, and it's just the salt. It's just salt.
Letter K:You know what I just bought, actually, at Costco. I haven't opened it yet because I still have a little bit of table salt left in my shaker. I bought a big old thing of fine grain pink Himalayan sea salt, and I'm expecting that to be kind of awesome. Yeah, it is. It is, but yes, and there's also. It's a fine line, though, because you get too much salt and then it just tastes like salt.
Psych:Yes, and it's unhealthy. It becomes inedible. And if you're not going to consistently work out, if you're not going to break a sweat later, then people should cut out the sodium in their diet. But if you're going to be working out and if you're going to be exerting yourself, if you're going to be breaking a sweat, then, yes, your body is going to need that sodium and that's going to help you perform.
Letter K:Yeah, I think that's great. And yes, when you, when you talk about needing more salt, it's a marginal increase, it's not like oh for salt. There's a fine line between no flavor and too much salt.
Psych:Yes, Salt just helps things taste like themselves. Yes, itself, the food, the ingredients are going to taste better. So, yes, if somebody's on this health and fitness journey and we talked about last time how diet is you just can't even emphasize how important one's diet is and the nutrition they're putting into their bodies. I think one of the biggest things a person can do for their own personal growth and development as an individual and as somebody who's a part of a family too, this learning how to cook good, healthy, nutritional food is not just helping yourself. If you have a family of people, if you can feed them, if you can teach them I'm sure I'm. We talked about some of the statistics and last time about the level of obesity. How many people are overweight and obese in our country? As it was wasn't approaching like 80 or something. In our country is it was it wasn't approaching like 80 or something like that something outrageous.
Psych:It was no, no not quite that high but, uh, almost half, almost almost half of half of the country so it was like 43 or something, so chances are everybody knows somebody in their life who's close to them that could benefit from learning how to eat and consume food healthier and yeah, and we're so food driven and that's fine and but I think you can figure out how to cook things that you want.
Letter K:You want more than you want to go get a cheeseburger, so and that's for me. That was the transition for me was you know what? You know, I don't want to go, I don't want to go to mcdonald's. I want to cook at home because my food is better. And you'll find that if you cook more and more and more, you will want to eat out less and less because your body doesn't want or need all that extra fat, sugar and salt and it starts to make you sick. I can't eat at McDonald's. I can't go to Burger King. I can and do go to taco bell occasionally.
Psych:I know, and your palate will change. I notice now if, if I have a burger from mcdonald's and I live across the street from mcdonald's, uh, it's sweet the, the bread and the bun is why.
Letter K:So why, why does?
Psych:this taste like I'm eating pastries fat sugar yeah, no, so much sugar for me.
Letter K:I loved carl's jr. Like, Carl's Jr. was my fast food place and I would go there four times a week or more. Hell, when I, when I started out in groceries as a janitor back in 2000, uh, every night before I went into work I stopped off at the, the Carl's Jr. That was at the, the, the front of the, the, the parking lot, and I got a famous star with cheese. I did it every single night for a year and I never got tired of it.
Letter K:And then I stopped going to fast food when I started getting healthy and I lived on chicken and rice for a solid year because I didn't lose weight and my, my, I was all messed up. And then we went to Reno and we're driving back and I was super hungover and I needed to eat, so we stopped off, went to Carl's Jr and this is many years later this is probably only about six or seven years ago Went to Carl's Jr. It was right off the freeway and I got the famous star meal or whatever it was, and it was gross and usually when you're hung over that kind of stuff is like oh my God, you love it, but it was, it was terrible and I didn't finish it, even though really needed to. But because so, yes, you're going to find that as you, as you learn to cook and as you practice and you get better at it, you're and you're going to be more apt to want to cook. But if you do crave and want those things, like I said, I crave Taco Bell, tacos.
Letter K:Del Taco was too. I wish the Del Taco was closer than the Taco Bell, but they're basically the same kind of feel. If you're eating at Taco Bell every day, there's nothing special about it. So make it something special, make it something to look forward to. Do your meal prep, cook at home, eat healthy and then have that Thursday, eat out at Taco Bell. That's something. Use it to keep you on track instead of instead of using it to screw your health.
Psych:One of one of my staff members looked at me funny. This was a few months ago. I came back from lunch with a Taco Bell bag and funny yeah.
Letter K:Since you give me shit about talking all the time.
Psych:I do so I was like you know what, let's, let's re re examine this, this, you know it used to do with with mcdonald's right.
Letter K:You take five, ten years off, and then you every every half decade I go to mcdonald's and be like what the hell was I thinking?
Psych:so I did that with with taco bell. She gave me this. Look. She's like are you gonna eat that? Are you okay? Is something wrong? And I did a mental health check and as it's like, no, I'm fine, I'm just going to, you know, I just wanted to see they have some of these things on the menu. I just want to check them out. And I did, and I did not feel well afterwards. Too high in fat. My body rejected it. In fact, I was out sick the next day.
Letter K:Yeah.
Psych:That's really bad, not like food poisoning, but just maybe. I don't know if I could describe a grade below that. Just did not feel well, just did not feel well at all.
Letter K:I get that like food sickness from eating things that are too greasy and fatty. Yeah, and if you were getting like the burritos that make your fingers sticky when you're eating them because they're so greasy and fatty, then, yeah, I. You were getting like the, the burritos that make your fingers sticky when you're eating them because they're so greasy and fatty, then, yeah, I could see you getting sick from that.
Psych:Yeah, so yeah you know your money, your time and your health are things that can run out and you misuse them. And which is why, if you really want to eat something right, if you have your to eat something right, if you have your heart set on, I want these. I want tacos. Well, go get some really good. Go get tacos that are just going to put everybody else's tacos. You know it's going to blow them out of the water. You're just not going to want this.
Letter K:Yeah, like Toro, bravo Toro.
Psych:Bravo, oh yeah, Toro.
Letter K:Bravo, they're good. And like the place across from the hospital that I've started to go to, instead of Taco Bell.
Psych:The El Grillo.
Letter K:With the dollar. Tacos yes.
Psych:Yeah, that's a good place. There's so many.
Letter K:Yeah, you've been on this taco kick for a while, dude my wife yesterday accused me of being addicted and I was like you know what? I think you're right. I made tacos recently.
Psych:Love tacos.
Psych:So we spent a fair amount of time talking about nutrition. I think this conversation deserved it. This topic definitely deserved it Health and nutrition, what people eat, how how people can avoid bad food and avoid the obstacles that prevent them from I mean, we know, foods costs are going up and they're going to continue to go up and they're going to go up next year and they're going to go up the year after that and uh, you know, we're all in this together. Hopefully people can find creative, continue to find creative ways to prepare and serve food that's going to encourage their continued health.
Letter K:I think that as fast food becomes less and less, you know, the affordability gap is starting to shrink.
Psych:I think that as convenience foods become less of a frugal option, people will be forced to into food meal prep, which is always going to be the cheapest way to go well, even places like applebee's you know applebee's was they had a whole, a whole advertisement campaign targeting fast food, specifically burger joints and things of that nature, because McDonald's and Burger King and those places their meals. If you get a meal, you're over $10 and sometimes approaching $15, $16, $17, $18, depending on what size you get and what options that you have. And I know Applebee's in fact I checked them out recently because I wanted to test this. They had the three for ten. It was three for ten. You got a burger, a side and a drink and I was like, okay, well, let me go get their chicken sandwich, their grilled chicken sandwich. Okay, let me try.
Psych:I think I tried the fries on this particular occasion and let's just see are they any good? Is there enough of them? Are they serving like two? You know a handful of fries and that's it. Or, being generous, you want to, you want to value check their deal? Yes, and what size is the drink? And you know it was legitimate. It was a legitimate if you have, if you only had 10 bucks and you wanted to go out to lunch and you could call it in.
Psych:And I use the app. It's super easy. In fact, I think I got a little discount on the first. Uh, first go around. Yeah, uh, when, when it came to decide, do I do I go out to fast food or do I do I go to a place like an applebee's or chili's or something like that, who's competing directly competing with those fast food establishments, I would, I would side on the the full sit down brick and mortar restaurants. Go to go to one of those places that are, if they're, if they have a. So I would side on the full sit-down brick-and-mortar restaurants. Go to one of those places if they have a deal such as that.
Letter K:Yeah, I think that's a good place for us to kind of close it down, because all we're going to do is get into bashing fast food places from this point.
Psych:Any sponsors available out there after this? Probably not Denny's leased us.
Letter K:Yeah, Denny's and IHOP are not calling level K. There's a few places out there that we didn't slam, and I do, like Taco Bell.
Psych:And we'll get to you later. Yeah, we'll see you next time. Yeah, where we solve health, I'm looking forward to solving it. I think the world needs it. Maybe we can win a Nobel Prize. See you next time, yeah, where we, where we solve health, I'm looking forward to solving it.
Psych:Ye ah, I think the world needs it maybe we can win a Nobel Prize.
Letter K:Do they have a Nobel BS Prize? I'm out. Join us next time, thank you. That's hilarious and stupid.
