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The Wellness Blueprint: With Dr. Caleb Davis
Welcome to The Wellness Blueprint with Dr. Caleb Davis, where we uncover the secrets to living a long, active, and pain-free life. Hosted by Dr. Caleb Davis, an orthopedic surgeon and fitness enthusiast, this podcast is your ultimate guide to musculoskeletal health, injury prevention, and wellness.
Dr. Davis combines his expertise as a shoulder and elbow specialist with a passion for empowering people to take charge of their health. From deep dives into cutting-edge restorative medicine to practical tips on avoiding surgery and optimizing recovery, The Wellness Blueprint offers valuable insights for anyone seeking to preserve their body and thrive at every stage of life.
Join us each week for professional guidance, fascinating medical discussions, and actionable strategies that help you move better, feel stronger, and stay functional for years to come. Whether you're an athlete, a weekend warrior, or someone looking to age gracefully, The Wellness Blueprint provides the tools to design a healthier you.
The Wellness Blueprint: With Dr. Caleb Davis
Episode 16: Willpower Wisdom: Why Resolutions Fail and How to Fix Them
Can willpower alone help us stick to our New Year’s resolutions, or are there deeper psychological forces at play? Join Dr. Caleb Davis and Nicole Davis as we discuss common resolutions and the reasons they often falter. We'll guide you through the process of crafting specific, attainable goals that go beyond vague intentions, and explore how tools like vision boards can keep you motivated. Discover how nutrition and sleep influence your resolve and how the concept of "food drive," possibly rooted in genetics, impacts your eating habits.
Our discussion unveils effective strategies for maintaining healthy habits even when life gets chaotic. From intermittent fasting to the convenience of pre-made meal services, we delve into practical solutions that cater to all lifestyles. We'll address the pitfalls of unrealistic resolutions and all-or-nothing thinking, offering insights on structured approaches that ensure sustainability. By sharing personal stories, we highlight how small tweaks in meal prep and routine building can significantly reduce decision fatigue and enhance adherence to nutrition plans.
Reflect on the broader significance of health and wellness goals beyond numbers on a scale, and learn how to prioritize mental and physical well-being along with family and spiritual growth. We also touch on the crucial role of bone health, especially for aging individuals, and provide tips on supporting your body through proper nutrition and exercise. With the Wellness Blueprint, you're not just setting resolutions—you're transforming your lifestyle for lasting change.
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Hey everybody and welcome back to the Wellness Blueprint with Dr Caleb Davis. I'm your host, dr Caleb Davis, and I am joined by Nicole Davis today, as usual.
Speaker 2:Yeah, no, like pre-words on how great I am, man, now I'm feeling robbed.
Speaker 1:Well, you know it's been a long year. No, sorry, I got up at four o'clock this morning to go to jujitsu class. I think I'm just a little tired.
Speaker 2:Whose fault is that?
Speaker 1:You know it's the new year. I got choked a whole lot by some people. It's been a good morning, all right. Let me try that again Today. I am joined by the beautiful, talented, wonderful.
Speaker 2:That's too many.
Speaker 1:No.
Speaker 2:No.
Speaker 1:Man, you interrupted me in the middle of my introduction. This year I am joined by the beautiful, talented and quiet Nicole Davis. Oh wow, nicole, welcome back to the show.
Speaker 2:Thank you.
Speaker 1:Today I want to talk about New Year's resolutions. You know, I'm sure it's a topic everyone's been thinking about. Sure, very, very common. Lots of people like to make resolutions at New Year and try to make some drastic changes that overhaul their entire life and change their identity. It's very common. Have you ever done anything like that?
Speaker 2:Yeah, for sure.
Speaker 1:Okay, so it seems to always come up at this time of year. If you ever made a resolution in January, have you only just given it up in February, or even sooner? You're definitely not alone if that's the case. In this episode, we're going to explore the psychology of willpower and decision fatigue and break down some fascinating studies and dig into some of the statistics on which resolutions succeed and which fail. We'll also talk about what separates the people who succeed in their goals and for those who don't. I'll share some of my personal perspectives on this as well, and I'm hoping Nicole will too and we'll talk about some practical strategies that may help you stick with your resolution this year. Let's take a look at some of the numbers. It's estimated that about 38.5% of Americans make a New Year's resolution every year. I actually thought it would be higher than that, but it's about one out of every three adults, and the most common resolutions, according to surveys, are why don't you make some guesses, nicole? We'll make this interesting.
Speaker 2:I'm going to guess about number of exercises per week.
Speaker 1:Exercise more is number one on the list 48% of resolutions.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and then something related to careers or jobs, I would guess.
Speaker 1:Eating healthy is number two.
Speaker 2:Okay.
Speaker 1:Losing weight is number three. Okay, I'm real wrong. Okay, well, you got the number one first. So saving money is next Spending more time with friends and family. Reducing alcohol consumption is down on the list at 12%, and then quitting smoking is at 9%. So that's just that breakdown. There's a lot more different topics, but that's the top few.
Speaker 2:So it's all pretty much habit-based behavior.
Speaker 1:Most of it's habit-based behavior, but I did like the more spending more time with family and friends. I like that one. It's a pretty high one. Yeah, definitely, I think that's a good thing that a lot of people overlook. And for those who didn't listen, we did have a dry January alcohol abstinence episode that you should go check out if that's one of your New Year's resolutions and give that a listen.
Speaker 1:So with all of those different resolutions people have, unfortunately, everyone starts the New Year with good intentions but the majority of resolutions fail About 23% of people quit their resolution in the first week, by the end of January, about 64% have abandoned their goal, and by the end of the year, statistically only about 9% to 12% of the people have felt that they have succeeded at their goal. Pretty staggering odds there.
Speaker 2:Yeah, may the odds be in your favor.
Speaker 1:So why is it that this happens? I think part of it comes down to how we set our goals. They can be a little bit broad, they can be vague, like I want to get healthier or I want to save money. Those are difficult to stick to because they don't really have a clear goal or direction or expectation. I find that people have more success with smaller, simpler and more specific goals, like I'm going to cook at home three nights a week instead of eat out. That's something that's manageable and measurable.
Speaker 2:It's manageable, depending on who you talk to Well at least it can be measured.
Speaker 1:It's not vague and nebulous.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Right. So it's something you can achieve, or at least measure and say well, I didn't do it. That week I'm going to have to try harder, where just saying I'm going to eat healthier doesn't really mean anything.
Speaker 2:I've also been advised that thinking about goals in terms of looking to the future in 30 days, in 90 days, in six months, whatever and try to actually imagine and envision yourself having completed your goal and having that vision will actually help you stay on track.
Speaker 1:I've heard that a lot as well that having a vision is very important. Some people even talk about having a vision board where they write it all out and look at it every day and try to manifest destiny which.
Speaker 1:I laugh. I don't mean to Just sometimes the verbiage around it can seem a little silly, but I think there's probably something to that, at least as a daily reminder to yourself and making it more tangible, and I think for some people that's probably very helpful and it's certainly not going to hurt anything. What is your perception of willpower, and is it more of a? Is it a real thing? Is it something that can be measured? Is it limited? Is it something I can be measured? Is it limited? Is it unlimited?
Speaker 2:I think that certain types of willpower are inherent in some personalities, but then when you add in things like nutrition choices, sleep, when you add in societal expectations, willpower can be adjusted and affected.
Speaker 2:And so I think that a lot of people find maybe they're not naturally a person who has a lot of discipline or willpower, but then they use all of these other things to have confirmation bias and say, oh yeah, I don't, that's not me and it certainly isn't me because of this reason, this reason, this reason, and then for people who naturally are a little bit more inclined to be structured because I'm equating willpower with the ability to remain structured and stick with the routine and habits that's how I think of it and so I think that those people can also become off track by those other factors, or they can dig in their heels more. I think that willpower is something you can grow and hone, but it does require an enormous amount of discipline and you have to do it in most likely in stepwise functions in order for you to see the gain and want to keep doing it. But it's challenging.
Speaker 1:Since we're on this topic, I would like to give a quick disclaimer that, where a lot of the episodes I try to focus the show notes on hard data that can be quantifiable and measured, and I can share that data and base my statements off of it. A lot of this is going to be conjecture and opinion for this episode in particular, so I do want to warn everybody that this is not hard science we're talking about here.
Speaker 1:It's like Nicole's realm Well it's something I've given a whole lot of thought to as well, but I just don't want anyone to think that a lot of those things I'm going to say in this episode are my opinion or Nicole's opinion. It's not hard scientific fact. A lot of people talk about willpower as being finite, like an actual gas gauge in your car that you can run out of it, and I bet everyone listening here has experienced that. If they get sick or if they're stressed out at work or if there's a loved one who's passed away, when bad things happen in their life, it seems like their willpower is depleted. Would you agree with that?
Speaker 1:Yeah, like outside influences affect Right like you said, the simplest and silliest one I can think of is when I'm on call at the hospital and working Friday, saturday, sunday, and I'm at the hospital and I'm operating all day Suddenly it becomes much, much easier to eat the candy bar than not eat the candy bar, because you're just, your bandwidth is just so taken up with other responsibilities where, if you work from home and you have a fairly low stress job and you're not taking care of four crying babies, then it's maybe a little bit easier to make good health decisions. That wasn't directed to anyone in particular, that was just a hypothetical.
Speaker 2:I did feel attacked that wasn't directed at anyone in particular.
Speaker 1:That was just a hypothetical. I did feel attacked there. So, all that being said, I do think that there is an amount of willpower that you can get. The way I like to think about willpower is just like working out muscle at the gym If you don't practice it, you lose it, and it takes a long time to grow. And it takes exposing yourself to doing difficult things and it can get better. Yeah, that's been my experience with it. Yeah, and I think that's probably true for most people. I've been reading more about this fascinating subject, about food drive. Have you ever heard of this concept? It's new to me and it's about some people have more of an inclination to indulge in food than others.
Speaker 2:I think anecdotally, I could have told you about that.
Speaker 1:Some people are saying it may even be genetic and not just environmental. I've always held the thought that, because I was I've just always heard emotional eating.
Speaker 2:Is that what you mean by food driving?
Speaker 1:No, not exactly.
Speaker 1:Although emotional eating certainly plays a role. It's the idea that you can take two people and take them to a restaurant and one of them is going to say, this food is incredible, I need to eat it every day, forever. And the other person might say, yeah, it's all right, it's pretty good, I could take it or leave it. Some people just aren't that big into food. I am not one of those people Food. Maybe it's because I don't do drugs or drink alcohol. Maybe it's because food is my vice. There's almost nothing more enjoyable to me than a great, great meal. So I have a very high food drive and there's more of this research that's leading to look at people who have high food drives than those who don't. And it doesn't necessarily have to be linked to emotion or stress eating.
Speaker 2:Okay.
Speaker 1:So some people can just take that hyperpalatable, pleasurable food. They can take it or leave it. That's another thing to consider. And there, that hyper palatable, pleasurable food, they can take it or leave it. That's another thing to consider. And there's more and more research being done on that, especially as people start taking more glp-1 agonist medicines like ozempic. They're actually supposed to be dropping your food drive and your hunger drive and appetite. There are even studies that are suggesting that drugs like ozempic might even decrease impulses like wanting to smoke, drink alcohol or gamble General impulse drives for pleasure, which would be a huge breakthrough if that could be harnessed and used.
Speaker 2:Yeah, sure.
Speaker 1:Basically a drug that gives you more willpower. We're not there yet, but the idea is fascinating. It would certainly help with New Year's resolutions. There was a psychologist who popularized the concept called ego depletion. This was popularized by a psychologist named Roy Baumeister. The idea is that willpower is like a muscle it gets tired when you use it too much, and that means the more decisions that you have to make throughout the day, the harder it becomes to resist temptations and stick to your goals, like the example I used of having to do surgery all day.
Speaker 1:There was a study in the proceedings of the National Academy of Science older study. It looked at over 1000 parole judges, so judges trying to decide whether a prisoner could go on parole or not. The study found that judges were more likely to be lenient and grant parole earlier in the day or right after having a meal break, and later the day they had more decision fatigue. They were less likely to grant parole Okay, regardless of the severity of the crime of the people who they're deciding on, okay. So just as they had to make more decisions, they were more likely to be less lenient and think about giving grace and parole.
Speaker 1:Now, this doesn't just like any social science study. I don't know if you can take the study and directly correlate it to your ability to not eat a piece of cheesecake or not, but it is an interesting piece of data. So how do we overcome this? One way that's been proposed is that we create routines that reduce the number of decisions you have to make. One way that's been proposed is that we create routines that reduce the number of decisions you have to make. For example, you meal prep your lunches for the whole week and that eliminates your daily decision on what to eat. Obviously, you can still make a decision to go to Wendy's, but it's a little bit easier when you have that higher capacity to make a decision, when you do all your meal prepping and say, well, I've got lunch in the fridge, oh, that's made a huge difference for me. Yeah, that's something you've experienced.
Speaker 2:Tell us about that. Yeah, okay, so because I'm trying to follow this nutrition plan set by my coach and he gives you the meals ahead of time, like on a Thursday, and it's to start on Monday, and so you have the whole weekend to grocery shop and meal prep and everything. And I've noticed that if I don't take the time to meal prep, then during the week what happens is I get hungry and I'm like, oh man, better have any chicken cooked or whatever. So what can I find immediately to satisfy my hunger? And then I will make poorer decisions in order to satisfy my and it won't be stuff that's part of the meal plan Like maybe I'll try and fudge it a little bit by going out and buying a salad out somewhere, but, but then it's like, oh, but then you have all these other things added into it that don't fit into the meal plan.
Speaker 1:But you bypass your decision fatigue by meal prepping when you have more capacity and that takes away your decision to have better willpower at that moment.
Speaker 2:I feel personally like my willpower can be so low so I've told my coach please only give me recipes that are simple, Like my favorite recipes are like ground turkey or ground beef and rice and a vegetable. That's my favorite kind of meal, Whereas everybody else who's on this meal plan like they want the exciting stuff because they cook for their children and their families and stuff.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that just illustrates that everyone has different needs and needs different scenarios and there's never a one size fits-fits-all model for anybody but I'm taking out the decision fatigue for myself by saying, okay, if all I have to do is buy a thing of ground beef and cook it and then instant pot my rice or whatever, then I'm much more likely to put effort into that and have that planned out for myself than if I have to do multiple complicated recipes a week.
Speaker 1:I'm the same way. Another one is exercise. If you've had a really hard day at work and you've had to do all sorts of hard decisions, how easy is it not to go work out?
Speaker 2:Oh my gosh, so easy. You're like I'm tired.
Speaker 1:Right, yeah, I just ate. A lot of people bypass that by working out in the morning before they have all that decision fatigue. Or they make a commitment to a friend saying I must work out with you, this is scheduled, and then they have a little bit of social peer pressure on them to go exercise. That's built in to help take away some of that decision fatigue.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's how I help myself, and then I also will sign up for group classes, like my yoga classes. And yeah, oftentimes these boutique, boutique, what's the right word? I don't know Boutique. Boutique, boutique, boo, okay, anyway, what they do, is they? If you sign up for a class ahead of time and then you don't show up, they actually charge you money, and so that's a good, that's a good motivator.
Speaker 1:Financial punishment.
Speaker 2:Yes, but it's fairly effective.
Speaker 1:Wasn't there a running app that you had, that if you ran a certain amount you didn't have to pay for it, but if you didn't you had to pay $60? What happened with that?
Speaker 2:Yeah, you lost yourself like $75 there, dr Big Guy, I lost myself $75?.
Speaker 1:I think somebody else lost me 75 bucks. Oh man, I'm doing something interesting. That again, one size does not fit all. But I think this is going to be an interesting one and maybe this will help somebody. I am going to start doing intermittent fasting, not because I think intermittent fasting is any sort of magical diet that's better than everything else, but yeah, I'm a busy surgeon. A lot of times I'm up very early in the morning. Sometimes I'm back at home very late. I'm never home for lunch and a lot of times I just don't have time to meal prep. Of course that's a lame excuse, but we'll move on from that for now. Prep Of course that's a lame excuse, but we'll move on from that for now.
Speaker 1:The main reason I'm doing this is so that when I'm at the hospital or at the office I can commit to doing intermittent fasting and only eating dinner at night. That way I say no to the donuts that get brought into the office. I say no to the bad food that's at the hospital. I say no to the catered lunch that comes to the office. All this bad food and moderation is not my friend. With something tasty that's in front of me, I tend to eat all of it, but I am good at saying no completely. So the reason I'm doing that is to just take the decision out of it completely. There's no decision of should I not eat that next cookie? My answer is just no. I'm not doing any of those things and I'm telling myself you don't have to eat breakfast and lunch because you're on an intermittent fasting diet.
Speaker 2:Right.
Speaker 1:So that's going to be my approach and I think it's worked really well for me when I was a medical student.
Speaker 2:And I think it'll work really well again. Well, and also in our household. We've tried so many different things for ourselves and with Caleb's busy schedule, but we've tried different meal. What do you call them?
Speaker 1:meal plans pre-made meals prep. Meal preps that's yeah that kind of thing.
Speaker 2:We've tried a bunch of them and they can be very helpful and that can still be part of the diet yeah, absolutely, because it gets shipped to your house, it's pre-made, you pop it in the microwave or the oven or whatever, and that stuff is enormously helpful for busy people and there's so many options out there that are healthy as well so that combines the meal prep and the financial incentive, because you already spent money on it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, but it does take a lot of stuff out. So I actually started talking to my mom about maybe trying to get on one of those, because she's like living by herself and she doesn't have a lot of motivation to cook because it's hard to cook for one person. So I said maybe you should sign up for one of these meal prep things and that way you actually have a bunch of nutritious meals that are ready and available to you at any time. So if the weather's really bad and you don't want to leave the house, you at least have good meal that you can just heat up and you'll be good to go. So she's going to give that a try as well. So it's not just for young professionals who are super busy, it could be for the retirees in your life as well.
Speaker 1:So that's another option, but it can be financially prohibitive for some people. Absolutely Just to throw that out there, it's not a catch-all solution, because they can be expensive.
Speaker 2:Right. I think that the budget-friendly version of that is people who will create bulk meals and then freeze it themselves. So I've seen a lot of courses online like out there, where people will teach you how to make bulk meals in your Instant Pot and then you separate it into different Ziploc freezer bags and you portion it out and have it in your freezer and then that way you've got meals ready and on the go and all you have to do is heat it up.
Speaker 1:By the way, when you go that method. That's actually often cheaper than eating even fast food. I know a lot of people say, oh, I eat fast food or I eat bad food because it's cheaper, and I empathize with that approach. But if you do bulk meal prepping a lot of times, that's the most economic thing you can do.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so there are lots of free resources on the internet that will tell you how you can do that, and that's much more budget friendly.
Speaker 1:All right, well, that's some good tips. So why do a lot of resolutions fail? We talked a little bit about unstructured, nebulous goals. A lot of times, people set unrealistic goals. People often aim too high. They want to lose 50 pounds in a month. That sort of thing. It's not realistic, it's not sustainable. Then we talked about lack of specificity.
Speaker 1:I want to eat healthier, I want to save money. That really doesn't give you a clear roadmap on how to proceed. What does healthier mean? How much money do you want to save? It's hard to make any kind of progress if you don't know what that is. Then there's the all or nothing thinking, and I believe that probably is one of the big ones that gets in people's way. If someone messes up, like they skip a workout or eat some junk food, they often think, well, I've already failed for the day, so I might as well give it up entirely and live it up, and I've been guilty of that in the past too. Yeah, just because you eat one donut doesn't mean your entire day is ruined. But let me tell you, if you then eat three donuts for every meal or go out and have fast food for every meal, that's going to catch up with you real quick.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:The other one that I see a lot is over-reliance on motivation. Have you ever heard about people talking about they must get online and watch a motivational video to be able to do things?
Speaker 2:No, no, but I live with you, so Maybe that's more of a gym bro thing. Oh, okay.
Speaker 1:I've seen a lot of motivational speakers of men talking in the background while some dude's lifting weights and they get all fired up to go to the gym.
Speaker 2:Oh, so okay, but now I'm thinking about all those movies like Braveheart, where they give the big impassioned speeches. So maybe men typically respond to that.
Speaker 1:Maybe that's more of a man thing, I don't know. Maybe on to that, maybe that's more of a man thing, I don't know, maybe it is. But the thing about giving a big brave speech before a battle is all you need to do is just for that one battle. It's not something you're going to be doing every single day. Personally, I don't think getting external motivation is a sustainable thing.
Speaker 2:I see it in the female world, where Instagram influencers will post a picture of themselves and then they'll say something like I realize that I'm beautiful and blah blah blah. And I can, I'm strong and able, and blah, blah, blah, saying self-affirmative words, yeah, and then they use that as their like version of an impassioned speech.
Speaker 1:I'm very cynical where I think anyone who's posting like that is just trying to get clicks so they get more money.
Speaker 2:Well, that's because most of the time you see that and it's somebody who's wearing a thong.
Speaker 1:My favorite is one where they post an inspirational quote and it's like hey, look at my butt. Yeah, it's just. I got nothing else to say here on the wellness blueprint. I promise that you'll never see a picture of my butt. I'll never post that.
Speaker 2:That's just for me.
Speaker 1:So what separates success from failure? So here's some characteristics that you might see in a more successful goals Specific, achievable goals. Instead of saying I'm going to exercise more successful, people might say I'm going to go to the gym three times a week and work out a half an hour for those three times. Now, as that becomes a more regular habit and that becomes easy for you, you can increase that over time. But it's much better than saying I'm going to work out an hour every single day and you just start beating yourself up as you don't make that goal. By the way, I don't even exercise an hour every single day.
Speaker 2:No.
Speaker 1:Yeah, accountability this one's hit or miss. Sharing your goals with others can help keep you on track. Sometimes there's some studies that have shown that people who actually keep their goals to themselves and work in silence sometimes have better success. But, all in all, sharing it with at least a couple people who might help you keep accountable, like a workout buddy or a coach sometimes that can also make a big difference, because there are people out there who know that you're not sticking up to your goals. I think that may be more dependent on your personality.
Speaker 1:Honestly, consistency is more important than perfection. You don't need to let one mistake derail you and just say oh, I'm not perfect, so I quit and I give up. If you skip one workout or eat one unhealthy meal, you can get back on track right away. It doesn't have to ruin the whole thing. This one's the most important one to me, and it's why, back when I first started lifting a lot of weights in college, I think I was much more concerned about the way I looked. I wanted to be muscular. I wanted to look good with my shirt off. I just wanted to be more attractive. I don't really care about that anymore.
Speaker 2:It's because you've already married me.
Speaker 1:Well, I was going to say if I got any more attractive, then we wouldn't be able to get anything done.
Speaker 2:That's yeah, that's not wrong.
Speaker 1:I'm just kidding. I just don't care about my physical appearance that much anymore. I have so many more things to worry about, like being a good surgeon, good doctor, caring for my patient, being a good husband and taking care of the household. It's just much, much more important to me than having six pack abs now. So your motivation can be that I'm not telling you that it's bad to just want to look good. But now I think much more about how can I be functional and healthy? How can I make sure I live a long time to take care of my family and my friends? How can I have a minimum amount of pain?
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, I think about that one a lot. That gets to be more important the longer you are alive.
Speaker 1:Personally, caring for my wife and family and caring for my career are the two most important things in my life. The fact and Nicole can attest to this I care so much about getting a good night's sleep because I know I have to take care of my patients and operate on them, so that's a big motivator for me to have a disciplined life.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you got really cranky last night because you wanted to be in bed by a certain time.
Speaker 1:And it was New Year's Eve, so I didn't realize it. I'm sorry. I got cranky, I'm just passionate. You listen to an impassioned motivational speech.
Speaker 1:I'm a passionate, passionate man. All that being said, it's important to find your why. Whatever that may be, if you have a more long-term based goal, more like I want to live a long, healthy life, I want to be functional, I want to be strong and fit, I want to be able to protect my family, I want to have a good career, these are all really good, sustainable goals. Do you have anything like that?
Speaker 2:Yes, I decided to narrow down my three major overarching goals for 2024, about halfway through the year and I said, okay, if it doesn't fit into one of these buckets, then it is not a priority. And so my priority was my mental and physical health, and so that meant the way that I was exercising and also how I was eating. I was trying to change a lot of habits based around that. So that's when I signed up for my coach, who gives me my nutrition meal plan and exercises, and I do hot yoga about three times a week. And then my next thing was focusing on my relationship with my family. So that included local family, but also trying to call my family far away more frequently, discussing things with family on apps and also some personal goals Caleb and I have within our household, with family on apps, and also some personal goals Caleb and I have within our household.
Speaker 2:And the third thing was my spiritual life. So I wanted to focus on improving my relationship with God, being more involved in my church, attending Bible studies, that kind of thing. So those were my three main buckets and it really helped me to narrow down to those three, and so every time I wanted to make a decision and I felt conflicted about it. I was like well, does it fit one of those three? And if it doesn't, then it's not a priority and I should instead prioritize a thing that fits within one of those buckets.
Speaker 1:You shape your life around your priorities, not change your priorities around impulsive dopamine bursts.
Speaker 2:So this year I will probably try to instead of wide, because that was a pretty wide umbrella that I gave myself in 2024. So now I'm going to try to narrow it down, because I feel like I have improved the muscular willpower that's in my brain, I agree.
Speaker 1:I think you definitely have yes, now my goals are going to become more focused on the topic of how do we measure success, I wanted to touch on one thing. I think I'd be really remiss if I did not get on this. People focus so much on body weight.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah.
Speaker 1:I would not encourage people to focus on the weight on the scale. I think that's a big trap. I think that's a big mistake. If you are concerned more about how you look I'm not condemning you for that but maybe focus more about how you look in the mirror and not so much on the number on the scale. If you're looking for body composition changes, like just having less fat around your midsection, there's nothing wrong with that. There's actually a lot of health benefits to not having as much.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I was going to say with that. Aren't there studies that show like with every extra inch around your midsection that increases your rate of getting obesity?
Speaker 1:What they call central abdominal obesity has a lot of negative health risks associated with it. So the circumference of your waist does have negative health effects, or at least has a correlation to negative health effects.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:So yes, and I'd rather you focus on that than the scale number Right, because typically, even if you're not losing numbers on the scale, you may be changing your body recomposition where you're losing fat and getting more muscle.
Speaker 2:Muscle is heavy.
Speaker 1:That's correct. The other thing that you can measure might be blood work, cholesterol, triglycerides, LDL, blood glucose or, if you're cutting back on alcohol, maybe your liver enzymes.
Speaker 2:Maybe one of your goals needs to be that you actually go see your primary care physician at least once this year to get your blood work done.
Speaker 1:Yeah, but those are all measurable things. I think it's important to be able to measure things in a healthy way. It could be your blood pressure, it could be your resting heart rate, it could be all those things. It could be the distance you want to run, just as long as you set achievable realistic goals, want to run just as long as you set achievable realistic goals. We covered most of the things I wanted to cover for this episode, but before we wrap up and give a summary, let's take a break for fractured facts. All right, everybody, welcome back to fractured facts. Nicole, how's your skeleton doing?
Speaker 2:Well, you know, I think it's all right.
Speaker 1:You got nice. You got some nice bones over there, thanks. You ever thought about replacing them. Well, I try to minimize that. Did you know that your body replaces your entire skeleton every 7 to 10 years?
Speaker 2:Like a snake, sheds its skin.
Speaker 1:No, it's not like that at all. Oh, your body is constantly doing something called bone remodeling and turnover, meaning it's taking in and out bone cells and mineralization of those cells and recycling and reproducing them, essentially, I had no idea, I did that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it takes a long time and it's not happening all at once. It's gradual. But basically your bones are a living and dynamic structure and it completely replaces itself about every 10 years in adults, it's faster in kids and it's called bone remodeling. Bone remodeling is the body's way of balancing bone breakdown and bone formation to maintain skeletal health. It's like a constant home renovation project for your skeleton. This process involves two major steps. There's a process called bone resorption and there's a cell called osteoclasts that break down old or damaged bone and there's bone formation by cells called osteoblasts that fill in new bone by building fresh bone.
Speaker 1:Now, this is a very delicate balance that can have all sorts of problems. As we get older and we'll talk about that a little bit too Old bone can become brittle and weak over time, so remodeling replaces it with newer, stronger bone. There's also minor micro fractures happening throughout your skeleton daily through activities or exercise that are constantly being repaired or remodeled. Remember we had a fractured fax on stress fractures. Yeah, that's an instance of where you're having too many stress fractures, too often without enough rest and your body doesn't have a chance to heal it enough. Bones also adapt. For example, if you do a lot of weightlifting, your bones will actually grow and even stronger than they were before stronger, denser and thicker. Another really important thing that a lot of people don't think about is our main storage of calcium in our body is in our bones. So if our bloodstream has too low of a calcium level, your body can pull calcium from your bones to help regulate it at a healthy level.
Speaker 2:That's why the milk industry started telling people to drink milk to get their daily calcium intake.
Speaker 1:That's one reason, yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, is that useful?
Speaker 1:Well, there's calcium in milk, but you can get calcium from other things too. Dairy products are probably one of the best sources of calcium. Things like milk from cows or goats. Cheese also is high in calcium. So is yogurt. So lots of dairy products. As far as plant-based sources, leafy greens like spinach, collard greens, bok choy, kale that all has a fairly high amount of calcium, as does broccoli, and almonds also have a fairly good amount of calcium as well.
Speaker 2:Are there any supplements you recommend to help your body with the regenerative bone remodeling process?
Speaker 1:Well, into your 30s you don't really have to worry about it so much. In fact, bone density usually peaks around the age of 30. But as you start to age, and then especially after menopause, you start to see a drop off in bone density, because bone remodeling is heavily affected by estrogen, testosterone and growth hormone, and once women lose their estrogen production significantly, a lot of times they start to see a breakdown in their bone density. In general, I recommend a lot of my patients take vitamin D and calcium, because a lot of my patients are older and if you're in the office see an orthopedic surgeon, chances are you have a bone fracture, so a lot of my patients will get a recommendation for vitamin D and calcium. There are some prescription medications that can also affect this process as well. There are a lot of medicines that people take when they're diagnosed with osteoporosis that are supposed to reduce the bone resorption process as well.
Speaker 2:Okay.
Speaker 1:There are also some drugs that can stimulate bone remodeling and those osteoblasts that lay down more bone. But it gets complicated, it can be difficult to manage without side effects and overdoing one thing or the other. It's not an easy thing to manage and it's a widespread problem, especially in aging women. But my biggest recommendation for bone density I think everyone knows it what is it?
Speaker 2:Weight lifting Weight lifting, that's right.
Speaker 1:Everyone should do resistance training and weight lifting to help with their bone density, especially elderly women. But I like to think of this as a start, doing it young so you can build up that balance in the bank, so you have nice thick bones when you're 30, so that they have more to lose as you age.
Speaker 2:Is that like a come on? You could use like hey there, your bones are looking thick.
Speaker 1:I already told you you had nice bones. That's true. Did it work?
Speaker 2:Yeah, definitely, yeah, okay.
Speaker 1:So the best way to support healthy bone remodeling would be eat some of the foods that are rich in calcium, like dairy leafy greens, and also vitamin D, like fish and other meats. Incorporate weight-bearing and resistance exercises into your routine. Avoid smoking and excessive alcohol, and then just get regular checkups. As you start to age, or especially after menopause, you can do different tests to see how your bone density is holding up. That wraps up fractured facts. Let's get back to the episode, all right, so let's wrap up the episode just by summarizing some of the practical tips that you can use in your new resolution.
Speaker 1:Start off with small and realistic goals, just because it doesn't sound so exciting and dramatic. It's okay to start off with smaller goals and as those become routine and normal and more easy for you, you can expand those goals to be a little bit more grand once you understand what's more realistic. There's nothing wrong with that. Create a plan and track your progress. This way, you can have some encouragement, knowing that you're actually making that progress. Again, you're going to see a theme for me that it's really important to write it down and note what you're doing and make sure that you're actually following a structured plan. That way, when you look back, when you're feeling discouraged, you can have some encouragement that you're actually doing the right thing. Build in routines that help you reduce decision fatigue, like the meal prep planning. That was a big one that's really helped Nicole quite a bit and there's other things that you can do that you can make the decisions in the moments where you have more bandwidth, before you're having to be put in those high stress situations.
Speaker 2:If I may, I'm going to interrupt you there for a second and say that for me that even extends into preparing for things that I know are important for me. So, if I know, I want to leave my house for a hot yoga session. I mean it's a 4.30 PM class, but after lunch I tend to get a little sleepy and maybe I sit on the couch to watch an episode of something, and then I get sucked into the couch and I'm like, okay, if I go ahead at lunchtime and set up my yoga stuff, so it's already in my car and that way, when four o'clock rolls around, all I have to do is use the restroom and maybe change my yoga clothes and head out the door. I'm far more likely to go without giving myself any excuses as to why I can't make it in time. I can't go. So I don't know what you call that, but it's just preparing. I just give myself an opportunity for success.
Speaker 1:I'd say it's the same thing You're anticipating problems before they happen and trying to mitigate those problems while you have good decision making.
Speaker 2:Yes.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I'd say it falls in that category. That's a great point.
Speaker 2:Okay.
Speaker 1:Focus on consistency and not being perfect. It's okay if you make a mistake, just get right back on the horse and forget about it. You don't have to say, well, it's ruined, so I give up. And then, finally, I think one of that's really important is find your deeper. Why. Why are you making these decisions? Why is it important to you? Why is this really important for you in the long term? And remind yourself of that regularly and keep note of that in your journal as well. So, to summarize, new Year's resolutions are a great way to set intentions for the year, but they require careful planning and realistic expectations to succeed. Remember, it's not about being perfect. It's just about making progress and building good habits that support your long-term health and happiness.
Speaker 2:Yeah, well, I encourage you guys to go out there and have a great year.
Speaker 1:I hope you all have a great year and I hope you have some good goals that can help you achieve being more humble, more happy and more healthy. We'll see you next week.
