How Light, Nutrition & Circadian Health Transformed a Pro Fighter

From Fight Camp to Sunlight: 

In this episode of Sunlight Matters, guest host George Alexander speaks with professional kickboxer and osteopath Nathan, currently ranked #1 heavyweight in the UK for Muay Thai and #2 for K-1 kickboxing.

Nathan shares how working with previous podcast guest, health practitioner Teresa Bug, completely reshaped his approach to performance — moving beyond traditional calories-in/calories-out fitness culture into a deeper understanding of sunlight exposure, circadian rhythms, natural nutrition, and recovery.

The conversation explores how simple changes like morning sunlight exposure, red light therapy, better sleep timing, and natural food sources dramatically improved his energy, recovery, and training performance.

One of the biggest shifts Nathan made was understanding the importance of sunlight exposure and circadian health.

Key sunlight habits he implemented:

• Morning sunrise exposure whenever possible
• Using a near-infrared red light therapy panel during winter
• Planning his home orientation using a shadow mapping app to ensure morning sun

This is a practical example of sunlight analysis in real life, where sunlight exposure influences decisions such as choosing a flat with a balcony facing the sunrise.

Key Takeaways

• Sunlight exposure plays a major role in energy, sleep, and recovery.
• Red light therapy can help when natural sunlight isn’t available.
• Circadian health influences performance as much as training does.
• Natural food sources can replace many synthetic supplements.
• Small lifestyle changes can produce measurable performance improvements.

Sunlight Matters is a podcast exploring the role of the Sun in human health, architecture, cities, and everyday life.

Through conversations with scientists, architects, and technologists, the series examines how natural light shapes our bodies, our buildings, and the way we live indoors.

Hosted by Dave Wallace, Sunlight Matters asks a simple but overlooked question: what happens when we disconnect from the Sun?

Because sunlight isn’t optional. It matters.

Please do not forget to Like and Subscribe. 

Transcript

George Alexander (00:00.236)
Yeah, okay. And you can still hear me fine and everything. Okay, cool.

Nathan (00:04.044)
Yeah, all good.

George Alexander (00:08.408)
So Nathan, thank you very much for your time today.

Nathan (00:11.598)
Thanks for inviting me.

George Alexander (00:13.358)
I thought it would be good to kick things off just by sort of asking you to give a little bit of context on who you are and what you do.

Nathan (00:21.358)
I'm a professional kickboxer, currently ranked number one in the UK for Muay Thai and number two for K-1 kickboxing. I'm also an osteopath, so it's like a fun contrast of fixing and breaking people.

George Alexander (00:37.934)
And so recently we had Theresa on our podcast, Sunlight Matters. And I know you've been working with her lots and she spoke about the different things that you can do for your health related to light and related to nutrition. So what was your sort of introduction with Theresa and how long have you been working with her now?

Nathan (00:54.978)
But I think I did, I think I've been on about six months with her. So every week we've been having calls, obviously initially getting to know who she is. I listened to the podcast as well. So like I'm from a, from a like a empirical evidence based background. So like every time I start speaking to somebody, it's always about scrutinizing the legitimacy of it. And she had an argument back for everything and a successful argument back for everything. So.

Yeah, it was sort of an unknown venture for me, but it turned out really well because she sort of opened my eyes to lot of all these other aspects of health that I'd never really thought about as a fighter.

George Alexander (01:38.926)
That was going to be my next question. So from my perspective, the average fighter or that industry for what most people think of it is your typical, they don't really care about the smaller details of light and these different health protocols and it's macronutrients, how much protein can you get and how much can you trade? So I imagine there's lots of things that she's introduced that people around you and that you aren't really familiar of. What did things look like before you started working with her?

Nathan (01:53.154)
Yeah.

Nathan (01:56.92)
Yeah.

Nathan (02:02.998)
Yeah.

Nathan (02:08.28)
So it was literally calories in versus calories out. Eat when you can, do what you can. Like health is secondary to all the fitness training when you come into like professional sports of all kind. Like performance is always first. And like if you have decisions where something that would benefit performance is not actually good for your health, you always go the performance route and sacrifice the health side of things.

George Alexander (02:34.35)
And is that across all fighters as well as yourself?

Nathan (02:39.31)
I'd probably say so. I mean there's a mix but I find that as I've gotten higher up and interact with other people at that sort of level it's just sacrifice. think it's all because you can only get hit in the face so many times and deal with that side of things. There's definitely a cap age-wise so we all tend to adopt the mentality of let me just sacrifice a little bit in the short term and then hopefully reap the rewards and relax in the long term.

George Alexander (03:06.478)
100%. So I assume you train in a club with lots of other fighters as well. Have they also seen what you've been doing and started to adopt some of the things that you have been doing with Teresa?

Nathan (03:12.065)
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Nathan (03:17.442)
I've had people messaging me asking me what I'm doing, what supplements I'm taking. It's the quick fixes, the supplements, stuff like that. But yeah, I'm the biggest guy in our gym, sort of size-wise. And I think a lot of people think that there's some magic to that. There are genetics, but I am so much fitter than I was before. And I am actually significantly better than I was six months ago.

George Alexander (03:35.106)
Yeah.

George Alexander (03:38.413)
Mm-hmm.

George Alexander (03:43.278)
So it's light and you become ranked number one. in a normal morning routine, what are some of the things that you've implemented through working with Theresa that you didn't do before?

Nathan (03:48.054)
Yeah.

Nathan (03:57.39)
So because I've been working with her over the winter period, so sunrises is sort of much later, getting out for the sunrise, is something that she was really adamant about for all the sort of general benefits of sunlight exposure, red light exposure, that's been the most difficult thing. But the work around that Teresa found was red light therapy. So I have like a nice near infrared red light.

panel, of maybe like a dinner plate sized and every morning I'll get up a little bit earlier, I'll sit in front of that, try and expose as much of myself to it as possible and I mean I've noticed quite a lot of differences from doing that to be honest.

George Alexander (04:43.182)
So yeah, as you said, it's not exactly outdoor light because obviously I live in the UK as well and it's not easy to get that in the mornings, especially if you're up early for training.

Nathan (04:49.955)
Yeah.

Nathan (04:53.344)
Yeah, and work and things like that. mean, for me, I'm still working as an osteopath. So I'm normally at work and with my first patient as the sun's coming up. it's just not practical for me to be able to get out and see the sunrise. Obviously, as the sunrise comes out earlier, I'll do that more often. But the red light is the bridge that sort of bridge the gap.

George Alexander (05:20.494)
Yeah, so I know lots of people also go out for like a morning walk when you have that sunlight in the summer. But I know you've mentioned before about just using your balcony as well.

Nathan (05:25.347)
Yeah.

Nathan (05:30.764)
Yeah, yeah, so I I used the Shadowmap app when I was moving this January to decide because there was three or four flats that we were looking at and we've got a nice balcony. We didn't really use our balcony last year and I thought if I can get one that actually faces the direction of the sunrise then eventually, sort of as the summer comes in, I'm going to ditch the red light panel and actually sit out there and get sunlight.

George Alexander (05:58.575)
Yeah, that's such a common case for people who use Shadowmap. Especially for the people in the UK. It's how can I actually get it in the morning because that's where I know it has the most benefits instead of... I know the red light panel is good, but how can I actually have something natural that I can go out and see instead of a small panel instead of inside?

Nathan (06:02.338)
Yeah.

Nathan (06:07.117)
Yeah.

Nathan (06:16.223)
Yeah, yeah and there is a difference like it is better for natural sunlight and that would be the preference in all cases. You just go to places and you're sold by windows but you don't know they're actually facing darkness 24x7.

George Alexander (06:27.31)
you

No, 100%. 100%. So obviously you've been using the red light in the morning. Is there any other sort of ideas that she's mentioned to you about lighting? Like for example, we had Glenn Jeffery on recently and he spoke about LEDs and how bad LEDs are for all of us. So have you made any other changes to your lighting to sort of come away from LEDs?

Nathan (06:44.846)
Mm-hmm.

Nathan (06:51.744)
Yeah, so I mean, we've, I've ordered incandescent light bulbs for all of the bulbs in the house and we've got like a pretty cool dual bulb lamp in our living room as well. So one of the bulbs is normal incandescent and the other bulb is a red light. And then we've got one in our other rooms as well. So, I mean, I'm wearing like blue light blocking glasses in the evening because I'm conscious of all of that.

got I think it's called Iris Tech she's got me to download this app on my laptop which it knows your time zone it changes the the blue light exposure from your devices so like your phone and your laptop once the Sun sets so yeah I've become like really conscious of all of these things and it was one of the sort it was one of the things that six months ago I would have thought now this is a is too much effort this isn't this isn't gonna give me too much a reward but like

George Alexander (07:32.942)
you

Nathan (07:45.12)
Now if I take my blue-light blocking glasses off, I'm squinting, I'm blinding. Like I was saying, my girlfriend, she now asks me if she can turn the light on in the morning because you know, it's offensively bright to me now.

George Alexander (08:01.639)
Yeah, 100%. And that's the thing, all of those things you mentioned, like downloading app on your laptop, like changing a bulb, they're so easy to do and actually probably not that expensive either. It's something not all of us could do.

Nathan (08:11.767)
Yeah.

Mm-hmm. Yeah, yeah.

George Alexander (08:16.43)
But it's also something that you don't see. Like if you do a tough training session or eat a good meal, you see the benefits pretty much the next day when you go into train. But when you change a light bulb, you don't see that difference the next day.

Nathan (08:27.595)
Yeah.

Nathan (08:32.64)
Yeah, yeah, I mean, there's so many things that, like, you just need something objective with it. I mean, I use a, I use a whoop, so I always check my, like, health metrics. And I think if people were more inclined to look at stuff like that and compare it to sort of a long period of trialing out these things, like, they'll see little differences. Like, it's a, and anecdotally as well, you speak to any top level athletes, most of them don't listen to their...

their garmin or their whoop when it tells them they shouldn't train. You've trained enough, you know how you feel and I I feel better. I don't think I said like I drink less coffee now, I feel more wakeful in the mornings, like I can tell the difference.

George Alexander (09:16.243)
Mm hmm. hmm. mean, in mountain training you do, you're probably on the red on the roof most days anyway.

Nathan (09:20.174)
Yeah, it's always catastrophic, injury, imminent. Don't do anything, don't walk outside, don't open your mouth. It's always bad.

George Alexander (09:24.937)
Yeah.

you

100%. And I guess it comes back to just doing as much as you can, like going back to lighting, like you've changed it all in your home, you've got the red light in the mornings, but you're probably not going to go around your office at work and changing every light bulb in your whole office.

Nathan (09:44.014)
Yeah, yeah, and Teresa did try, she did try because it is beneficial. But yeah, like it is, I mean, we have like a lamp and I could definitely change it there, but we do have LED lights at work. there is an element to which you have to, you have to assess the impact on your day to day life and the potential benefit. And like I said, little things like changing light bulbs, just getting outside for 15 minutes.

it's not too much of an inconvenience to your life and it gives you quite a big return. Whereas some things are crazy and some inconvenience and you might be only scraping back 1%.

George Alexander (10:18.828)
Mm-hmm.

George Alexander (10:24.27)
not going to work just because the LEDs are not going to the pub with your friends just because the LEDs like...

Nathan (10:27.426)
Yeah, I should.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, like we could, mean, I could be homeless and get 100 % of sunlight exposure being outside, it's a, but working quality of life, those sort of things. Yeah, yeah.

George Alexander (10:42.158)
It's always trade-offs, 100%. And then moving on to nutrition. So I know you said, you briefly mentioned about having less coffee and you're feeling a energized, but what was your sort of diet, I suppose, before you started working with Theresa and what are some of the things that she's changed for that?

Nathan (10:59.502)
Generally it was pretty well lined but it was much less organic. it would all be calories in, macronutrient tracking, I used my fitness pal for everything. It was all quite sciencey and thought out. But yeah, it's all... But she's been very much organic, natural protein sources, heavy metals, all of these sort of things that...

George Alexander (11:17.688)
path.

Nathan (11:29.258)
are things that I've never really thought about. But again, when you spend a lot of time away from things, you really see the difference. Like, when I don't drink, I maybe drink once every six months. And now when I do drink, I feel awful. I can feel it. I can feel the difference for a week. It's the same when I eat rubbish. If I have a takeaway, like, I feel awful. Like, I can feel it for the next entire week of training. Whereas, like, currently...

George Alexander (11:45.837)
Mm-hmm.

Nathan (11:57.23)
Again, my lifestyle is quite inconvenient for cooking and sort of being really prepared because I work long hours and then I train one to two times a day. So she's found really good workarounds. I bought a high quality blender and I do shakes for breakfast and lunch that contain pretty much everything organic. Like all my protein is from egg whites and eggs, raw liver, heart.

stuff that most people wouldn't want to do but because I see the benefits now it's not a challenge for me, it's not a problem.

George Alexander (12:34.357)
So where are you sourcing a lot of this stuff from? Is it mostly local? I know you said it's organic, but how are you also sourcing the liver?

Nathan (12:39.52)
Yeah, so like a lot of the ingredients I get like raw milk and kefir which I have from a milk round which comes from like local farms and certain websites that have been recommended. I get a lot of my supplements in my like protein powders from a company called Ape Nutrition which do entirely organic supplements so they'll have desiccated oysters and capsuled.

liver and organs, are pretty much the actual outer capsule is made from the animal and it's just ground up, dried, powderised oysters and liver and most of those are natural sources of all your daily micronutrient requirements and then the protein is pretty much just ground meat and then dates, vanilla extract and like...

manuka honey, sort of things for flavouring. it's not as bad as it sounds, but again, when you see all the ingredients on stuff like that, and then you go back to my protein, like clear whey or whatever, it's too many numbers on the ingredients. And now I'm quite conscious of all of that. And we're lucky we live in an area that's full of farms, so I'm always getting meat and stuff from the farm shops nearby.

George Alexander (13:38.018)
Mm-hmm.

George Alexander (13:48.867)
Yeah.

George Alexander (13:58.159)
What I always find, and this is how I sort of judge it, if I'm in the supermarket and I'm picking up any item and I can't pronounce any of the ingredients, that's when I probably know it's not filled with things I should be eating.

Nathan (14:08.321)
Yeah.

Nathan (14:12.558)
Yeah, yeah, it's pretty good. It's a pretty good metric. is like a, and again, I think ignorance is bliss and like, unfortunately, living really healthily and following all of these sort of rules is more expensive. Like a lot of the ingredients, a lot of the products, they all cost more. But so, so I think a lot of people just choose to be ignorant or subconsciously are ignorant because it saves them money and you still feel like you're doing good. And I mean, you can't be healthy with

other diets but if you're in a competitive sport where every percent counts, these sort of things are pretty important. Could be the difference.

George Alexander (14:51.246)
Once again, it becomes a trade off. Do you want those percents or do you not want to pay the extra amount for the organic?

Nathan (14:57.486)
Yeah, yeah, you do have to like, like for some of the things that me and Teresa were backing forth in about, like circadian health is a big one, something I'm much more conscious about, but like if one evening I get back super late from a gym session at sort of, I don't know, half 10 o'clock in the evening, for me having a bit of a wind down, the psychological benefit of that outweighs the go straight to bed, wake up the next day. So you have to pick and choose, whereas most other nights I'll be.

George Alexander (15:06.081)
Okay.

George Alexander (15:24.12)
Hmm.

Nathan (15:27.17)
really religious and really consistent, but yeah, you do have to pick your battles.

George Alexander (15:31.828)
Mm, 100%. So you mentioned circadian health there. Has she spoken to you a lot about sleep and timing of your sleep and consistency?

Nathan (15:41.004)
Yeah, yeah, So sleep efficiency, sleep sort of consistency, time as well. Like that was one of the first things that she really sort of for a battle of attrition changed because I would sort of get back late, long day of work and training. I would want to relax. So it would mean I would be staying up much later. I wake up early. my and because I've done it for so long, I'm very comfortable with minimal sleep.

and you almost get used to it. If you're like a student and drinking every day, you forget what it's like to not feel awful. So you feel it's normal. And until you go periods where you're following the doctrine, you don't actually notice, you don't realise until then that you are actually not in the best position.

George Alexander (16:32.014)
I know a few people that could listen to that. Okay, and then rewinding a little bit, I know you mentioned supplementation. So you've of shifted away from the, I guess my protein's one example, but the standard supplements that most people take if they're training.

Nathan (16:34.317)
Yeah.

Nathan (16:41.506)
Hmm?

Nathan (16:48.32)
Yeah, yeah, Yeah, Omega 3 was a big one as well, like plastic capsules, yeah, like cross contamination, over-processing, like as much of it is from natural sources. So, Theresa's got really big on oysters and liver and sardines. Sardines from Omega 3, prawn, salmon, get as much of it as you can from your diet. And...

George Alexander (17:13.026)
Mm-hmm.

Nathan (17:18.242)
then you can supplement where you need to. I do still take regular supplements, but my list was huge before, now it's much more minimal and it's much more natural.

George Alexander (17:29.518)
How difficult is that to source? Because the supplements I take are just plastic capsules and I just look it up and it's either my protein, as you said, or another top rat. How hard is it to source those more natural sort of ones?

Nathan (17:38.69)
Yeah.

Nathan (17:42.158)
It is difficult and like I said, you do end up having to pay a little bit more for a lot of them. mean, Theresa was a help for me, so I didn't have to do too much research. She was always sort of finding things and sort of sending them my way. So like my list is pretty good. I still have some, like I have one supplement from my protein that she looked at the ingredients of and she said, yeah, you can keep that one. But yeah, I mean, I've been like...

Santa Claus of supplements giving away my massive drawer of supplements to people because I had so many stocked up and saved up and don't take any of them now.

George Alexander (18:10.122)
Thank

George Alexander (18:18.488)
What about creating?

Nathan (18:20.118)
Yeah, creatine I stick with. If Theresa would have said to me not to take creatine, even though she did tell me to take it anyway, I would have had to fight very hard to keep that because there's just too much research behind it, there's too much sort of beneficial literature over it. And I noticed the difference. I've taken it probably since I was 18 and I can tell the difference when I'm not on it.

George Alexander (18:30.605)
Yeah.

George Alexander (18:39.502)
Mm-hmm.

George Alexander (18:44.942)
Yeah, that's one of the biggest ones for me. But when I buy them on the packet, it often gives you like a purity percentage. Have you changed the creating you've been buying or has it just been the same?

Nathan (18:53.62)
Okay, I've not looked at that.

Nathan (18:59.237)
Yeah, no, it's just been similar. Yeah, yeah. I get through so much that like if I see something in a shop, I'll grab some and but that's interesting. I'll look into that because I mean, that's obviously something that would be beneficial.

George Alexander (19:11.63)
100%. Yeah, I don't know. I think I have the company Bulk and it often has a percentage on purity. But I also know lots of other supplements have like an informed sport certification. So these organic ones that you're sourcing, do they still have that informed sport? Because I know, as I don't know if you get tested at all, but I know you want to know exactly what is in the supplements you're taking.

Nathan (19:17.537)
Yeah, good.

Nathan (19:26.369)
Yeah, yeah.

Nathan (19:34.999)
Yeah.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. the supplements I use from my protein, I had actually checked for a lot of that because I do get tested and I do have a massive list of all the things to have and what not to have, but the ape nutrition stuff, it's not actually super relevant because the ingredients are all 100 % organic. They are all natural sources. There's nothing that would flag up essentially.

George Alexander (20:00.505)
Mm-hmm.

Nathan (20:03.448)
And you do have like little things that you're advised not to take like anything with cranberry in it or like poppy seeds, because they're all false positive producing like elements. But yeah, that stuff is literally all you look at the ingredients, listen, it's just natural. There's nothing synthetic.

George Alexander (20:24.076)
Interesting. Yeah, I didn't know that about cranberries and poppy seeds.

Nathan (20:27.776)
Yeah, cranberries I think create a false positive for steroid use to the point that some people actually told not to use like cranberry infused shower gels and shampoos as well. Just to play it safe because you because it can it can come back if you have a test tomorrow and you've just showered with it or just eaten it it will yeah.

George Alexander (20:39.896)
Wow.

Yeah, 100%.

George Alexander (20:49.452)
Hmm, really interesting. Okay, well, lots of these changes that you have made, the supplements and the diet, lots of them seem obviously slightly more expensive and maybe not what the average person would do. But one of the ones that really stands out is where you mentioned liver and heart. How's that been?

Nathan (21:06.702)
Yeah, yeah. So it was an interesting first experience because I'm like I said, I'm quite busy. I'd rather convenience. I'm happy to make food a fuel source rather than something that I enjoy every day. So for me, convenience came over like sort of luxury. And as a result, like Teresa was like, you need to have raw heart, raw liver.

George Alexander (21:23.491)
Mm-hmm.

Nathan (21:36.824)
They're both good for you, liver predominantly. It's cheap meat, nobody eats it, nobody wants it. So you can get it from butchers pretty cheap, which is good. And so I just, yeah, I just tried having it raw a few times. And even for me, that was tough. I tried like mixing chunks of it in water and downing it and yeah, I went for it all. But the solution that actually worked and she did suggest it is I bought these like pill sized

George Alexander (21:52.366)
the

Nathan (22:06.67)
frozen trays that you can get for dogs and basically blended up the heart and liver, poured it into these trays so that it would freeze into these sort of capsule pill sized frozen pieces. And because it's frozen, you can't taste it. I would just sit there and take them like supplements, of drink them, have them with water, swallow them whole. And that's the solution that's worked for me.

George Alexander (22:35.286)
As you do.

Nathan (22:36.366)
I've blended too much at times and overfilled the trays and had a very frustrated and annoyed girlfriend because wall over and heart doesn't smell nice if you leave it. yeah, yeah. But my argument is I'm hopefully going to live longer because of it. So you me to live longer or do you want a smelly house? I can't really argue there.

George Alexander (22:44.984)
Yeah. I can't imagine. That with the Mega 3s and a bit speed cupboard.

George Alexander (22:56.014)
Well my next question is quite ironic now but I was going to ask you out of all the things you've done lots of these might be more extreme like the liver and heart but what ones could the average person actually do quite easily and implement that's actually going to make a difference?

Nathan (23:16.076)
Yeah. Well, supplementation changes for sure. generally, like I said, all this stuff, it can be quite expensive, but if you take the average person and all the unnecessary and negative to health things that they're doing and accumulate the cost of it all, it's probably more. Like if you're going out every weekend and you're spending, I know, like 50 quid plus on drinks, that's your mum's supplements. yeah, yeah, yeah.

It is just prioritizing things. I think it's all attainable. The supplementation, definitely that's the easiest thing. Processed foods, natural protein sources. Sunlight's by far the easiest. There's initially no argument to it. Unless you work nights and have a work-related inconvenience, you can sit near a window, you can open your window. Teresa says she opens a window when she's driving to get direct sunlight exposure.

pretty easy, it's pretty easy to... And even with the red light panel, you literally just sit there in front of a light, you're not doing anything, it's not hard, it's not difficult, it's not painful. Most of it, I would say, is all easy. Raw liver, maybe not for most people, is a bit of a challenge there. But you can get the desiccated liver capsules.

George Alexander (24:34.924)
Hmm. Okay. What are those like?

Nathan (24:38.914)
Yeah, they're literally just like capsules. They're literally just like you would take any pills, like powderised pills, like zinc magnesium. It's just made out of beef. So if you held it in your mouth and let it disintegrate, it would taste gross, but you're not doing that anyway.

George Alexander (24:56.46)
No, for sure. For sure. Well, I you mentioned something really interesting there, which is the prioritization. And I think it's so easy for people to be able to add something like this. That's going to be really good for them to do with light, just with something that they already do. So if you're eating breakfast, just eat it with a red light panel. Or if you're driving, as you said, just pull the window down.

Nathan (25:02.296)
Yeah.

Nathan (25:11.789)
Yeah.

Yeah, it's not a difficult thing. You're not losing anything by trying it out. You may as well give it a go and see how you feel. I see so many people now that wear whoop bands and track their health statistics, wear garments. You've literally got a tool on your wrist that you can use as a objective measure of changes that are happening.

George Alexander (25:42.445)
Mm.

Nathan (25:42.926)
you can see the difference in your sleep quality, you can see the difference in your energy levels. If you're sceptical, try it out. If it doesn't work, don't do it. you don't feel a benefit, don't do it, but you probably will.

George Alexander (25:56.527)
And then linked to energy, you mentioned earlier about coffee and caffeine. How's that changed?

Nathan (26:02.569)
Yeah, so I mean, I go through phases where I don't drink any caffeine at all and phases where I do drink caffeine. Caffeine tends to go up when I'm in training camps like now because it's way higher volume, way more stress on the body, way more sort of overall fatigue. But the red light panel, I actually wake up, do that, go to work and having coffee becomes a choice rather than like a necessity. Like I actually...

less brain fog, more mental acuity. I don't feel like I need it. If I do have it, I always sit there and I think I'm just having it for the sake of having it.

George Alexander (26:41.518)
Because most people when they wake up the first thing they do is they're like they're zombie walk their way to the coffee machine first we're on the way to work they need I always have caffeine every morning and I struggle to function without it. So is it a case of just laying off the caffeine for a while and getting over the

Nathan (26:48.842)
Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

George Alexander (27:00.238)
sort of side effects of not having it, or is it the other sort of light benefits that you've been doing like the red light and getting light in the mornings that's making your circadian health better, which is making you more energy.

Nathan (27:10.926)
I believe it's definitely the light. Like I have already benefited from reducing caffeine before, which there is a benefit to, but the only thing that's additionally different is the light exposure, the red light therapy. I mean, they're both going to benefit you. They're both additional. I found that for caffeine, most people's caffeine consumption was affecting their sleep quality, which was then making them wake up feeling like they need caffeine.

It's like a vicious cycle. yeah. People drink it too late, goes over into sort of the time that you sleep and yeah, you just end up fueling the same problem.

George Alexander (27:51.905)
Interesting and it often sells the night before. You wake up in morning needing caffeine, but it's yes the light in morning is going to help, but it's the blue light that you had the night before or eating too late the night before.

Nathan (28:02.402)
Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

George Alexander (28:05.646)
So, has she spoken to you about, I know you've gone into circadian health and your sleep, has she spoken to you about digestion and eating too late? Because I know lots of people who say if you eat too late, that's going to then disrupt your sleep. But I know you've late from trainings as well.

Nathan (28:19.893)
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So this was one of those things where, um, actually she did help a lot with that. So it was one of those things that she was very adamant about. And like, I've, I've known it for a long time that you're not supposed to eat too late to sleeping, but because I am just out of the house and constantly I have with patients or training the windows for eating and getting, cause I need to get a certain amount of calories. Um, the windows are few and far between.

So, I mean, there's been phases for a couple of years where I'd be having one meal a day late in the evening, like three, 4,000 calories worth of food. And I'm probably still digesting it two days later. But that's where the shake came in. So as much as you'd rather me eat sort of whole foods and cooked foods, getting some sort of convenient nutrition in throughout the day.

George Alexander (29:06.126)
Thanks.

Nathan (29:18.466)
dilutes down how much that I'm eating in the evening. So I actually eat much less in the evening now and later now than I did before because I'm having, and obviously there's benefits to fueling and training before, I'm very much based on feel. don't like, it's not very nice being punched and kicked in the stomach when you're, when you've got a stomach full of food. So I quite like not having that, but the shakes is convenient. I can do that within 15 minutes the night before. it first thing in the morning, have it.

between patients at work and then yeah, less. And most of the days I try and eat much earlier. It's just two days a week I finish the gym at half 10 and have to eat late. And if it's between not eating and recovering or digesting whilst I sleep, again, it's the path of least resistance.

George Alexander (30:10.386)
I mean, it goes back to the trade off again. Like you can't do everything, but you can do something.

Nathan (30:16.095)
Yeah, yeah, but I'm conscious of it. It's definitely a thing if you can eat earlier, eat earlier.

George Alexander (30:22.862)
So we've spoken about increased energy levels and you've been fixing your sleep, your circadian health and your nutrition. How has that showed up in your training?

Nathan (30:33.806)
I feel better. I just feel better. More energy. I'm fitter. I train hard all the time. I train hard every camp. I can only attribute. I have changed strength and conditioning. I have changed training, but the changes in my fitness, my energy, my recovery are almost too significant to correlate just to that. There's just an objective difference like I am.

so much fitter and kind of have to accept at this point that all of these changes have had that effect.

George Alexander (31:11.342)
100%. And then just to close off, is there anything that you've been doing with Teresa or anything that has helped or any benefits that you've had that we haven't mentioned so far?

Nathan (31:21.646)
That's probably, there's going to be tons. I've had to do, say I've had to do, she's very good. She's been very military with me because I'm resistant to a lot of changes. we've changed so many things that all in a short proximity of time that so many of them have probably helped with this or that. I mean, the main things is sleep health, sunlight exposure, red light therapy.

George Alexander (31:23.827)
Hahaha.

Nathan (31:51.593)
Yeah, nutrition supplementation changes and eating throughout the day or getting calories in throughout the day. Loads of little tweaks, loads of little things that she's added in but there's probably too many to list.

George Alexander (32:08.462)
Well, that was absolutely amazing. Thank you so much. There's so many things there that people can take away and that they're actually just maybe not the liver in the heart, but so many things that are easy and practical for people to actually do and to make a difference.

Nathan (32:17.911)
Yes.

Nathan (32:22.272)
Yeah, I do remember one that's actually relevant to this because I do train late at night. There's awful, like ultra bright lights in the gym, sunlight blocking glasses and wearing more covered up clothing. So like long sleeves, long tracksuit bottoms, those sort of things just to avoid the sort of the light exposure to the skin.

George Alexander (32:49.806)
Mm.

Nathan (32:49.826)
to help me sleep better after the training because I'm spiking my heart rate up and if my body thinks that it's daytime, it's not the time to go back home. That's another thing that's actually helped quite a lot as well.

George Alexander (32:56.43)
You

George Alexander (33:02.19)
And then during daytime sessions, have you tried to do more training outside? Do you have an outdoor gym near you or any runs outside?

Nathan (33:08.43)
It's very hard. Yeah, I because I need weights for gym work. I run outside, but I usually end up running at times where it's too dark outside. then, yeah, kickboxing is barefoot. So it's quite difficult to do anything outside.

George Alexander (33:24.95)
Yeah, 100%. Once again, it's just one of those things where if you could have it outside, amazing, but there's probably not too many outdoor kickboxing gyms in the UK, I can imagine. Well, thank you so much, Nathan. I really, really appreciate it. And good luck in your upcoming fight.

Nathan (33:30.69)
Yeah.

Nathan (33:34.594)
No, not with the weather here either.

Nathan (33:43.758)
No, no, thank you. appreciate it. I appreciate you sort of connecting me with Teresa as well. I'm stuck with this lifestyle for good now.

George Alexander (33:47.95)
Mm.

Well your girlfriend doesn't seem too pleased about all of it but...

Nathan (33:54.05)
No, no, it's just a deliver and thing. I am slowly bringing her on board. I'm going to get her some prescription blue light glasses and she's going to be forced to sit in front of the red light panel. Yeah. I appreciate it.

George Alexander (34:02.754)
You

slowly but surely. Thank you very much. Sweet.

Nathan (34:12.75)
All good.