Norwegian Wellness Secrets You Can Borrow | Two Siblings Raised on Different Continents

I grew up in America, He grew up in Norway. Same genetics. Two completely different environments.

My brother Kenneth shares what growing up in Norway actually looked like while I compare it to my experience growing up in the United States. From hyper-processed foods and infrastructure to outdoor culture, healthcare, and everyday habits, you'll discover small changes that could completely change the way you think about wellness.

If you've ever wondered why healthy living feels harder than it should, this episode might provide an answer.

WHAT YOU'LL LEARN
• Growing up as siblings raised on two different continents
• Why Norwegians naturally move more without "working out"
• The surprising truth about hyper-processed foods
• How your environment influences your health decisions
• Grocery stores, food quality, and labeling differences
• Why nature is part of everyday life in Norway
• Practical wellness habits Americans can adopt today
• Small lifestyle changes that compound into lifelong health

CHAPTERS
00:00 Introduction
02:02 The Norwegian approach to daily movement
03:58 Food habits and nutrition in Norway
08:04 Active commuting and infrastructure
12:08 Food labeling and quality standards
16:01 Cultural food stories and preferences
19:49 The impact of hyper-processed foods
24:59 Practical lifestyle changes anyone can make
29:58 The importance of nature and outdoor living
34:31 Mindful consumption and reducing plastics
39:38 Building healthy habits effortlessly
44:37 The Norwegian wellness mindset
49:33 Walking, resting, and aging gracefully
54:21 Final thoughts

KEYWORDS
Norway wellness
Norwegian lifestyle
Healthy habits
Longevity
Blue zones
Whole foods
Hyper-processed foods
Nutrition
America vs Norway
Walking culture
Wellness podcast
AIWA Podcast
Healthy lifestyle
Scandinavian lifestyle
Preventive health

CONNECT WITH AIWA
https://linktr.ee/AIWAcollective
If you enjoyed this episode:
Subscribe to the channel
— AIWA Collective

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

The big issue here is a hyperprocessed food. The food industry wants you to keep on eating that hyper-processed food with a lot of sugar and fat, very little fiber in it. And then of course you get this problem with obesity and not nutrition enough food uh to to be a healthy person.

SPEAKER_05 0:20

You're listening to the All-in Wellness Approach podcast. This is your wellness, your life. So just one question. Are you ready to go all in?

SPEAKER_06 0:29

Okay, guys, it's Aubrey. This is your all-in wellness approach. On the show today is my brother Kenneth. He is my older brother that I did not know I had until I was about six years old. We were both raised in very different environments. He was born in the US, but was raised in Norway and still resides there. And I was born and raised here in the US. Those two different environments quietly shape how people move, eat, rest, and live every single day without anyone ever calling it wellness over there. Whereas in the US, we have to actively work at our wellness culture. Word to the wise, this is not a debate. It's not a comparison or a scorecard. This is not a battle of the countries. It's a sibling conversation about what happens when wellness is built into daily life instead of something you're constantly trying to manage. So, Kenneth, you live in Norway. You have a home in the US, which is where we're at in lovely Pompano Beach, Florida. I found out when I was six that I had an older brother. Will you share your version of what your story is when you found out you had a younger sister?

SPEAKER_01 1:32

Yeah. Um well my mother lived in uh Michigan and uh she took me back to Norway um when I was about one year old. She said uh that she was going home for the holidays and uh she never returned to Michigan. So I grew up with my single mother when I was uh 15. The phone rang and uh it was our dad uh inviting me over for the summer. My mother told me not to go, but uh he paid for the ticket and everything, so uh I met him for uh for the first time then. It was a huge thing for a young boy from Norway and uh uh he introduced me for uh your mother after a few months. He called me. Uh I went back to Norway again and uh he called me later and uh told me that they uh were pregnant with you. With me.

SPEAKER_06 2:30

So I didn't know that you met dad before I was born, and then the next time you came was when I was like I guess that'd be seven years later. So I was about six. Right. You were with my sister-in-law, Therese, and that's the first time I met you. So I remember um when I was younger, I'd whined to my mom, I want a baby brother, I want a baby sister, I want somebody to play with, you know, and she's like, No, no, no. And one day she came to me and she was like, Well, you've been wanting a sibling, you have an older brother. And my tiny brain, the math wouldn't math. How do I have an older brother when I've never met him? And I I never really fully understood. But as soon as you came to visit, I was just starry-eyed. You you were so tall already, and I was so little, you put me on your shoulders. We went to the circus, we rode the elephant. I just I remember so many core memories with you. And um, I guess I think there was that time, and then you visited one more time when I was maybe 12. A few years later, you already had Leander. And then after Le after that you were pregnant with Emmy. So I've got two nieces and a nephew by you, which they're just fantastic kids, and they're not even kids anymore, they're adults. And then thank God for social media, because when I got into end of high school, beginning of college, we were able to more easily communicate and connect over Facebook.

SPEAKER_01 3:52

Was that the thing before Facebook? What's that name again?

SPEAKER_06 3:55

MySpace?

SPEAKER_01 3:57

Yeah, MySpace.

SPEAKER_06 3:58

Who remembers MySpace? Now we're just aging ourselves. But yeah, I mean, I guess for me after that, as an adult meeting you, I was I'm so intrigued by cultural differences. So much is different in our worlds.

SPEAKER_01 4:12

And I share that with you because uh it was a lot of talk between Terry and uh also our dad about the differences uh between our two cultures. He came to Norway to try to look for me and uh my mother, and he met uh my uh granddad. As our father told me he was very direct and uh showed him the door and never come back or something. If you show up again, I will call the police. He he told me that he was got very scared then as a young man, and uh instead he went for a trip experiencing uh the whole of Norway.

SPEAKER_06 4:46

When my Blaine and I came to visit you for the first time and um I studied some of the differences, and one thing that stuck out to me is one of the conversation pieces in the US when you first meet somebody is hi, what's your name? What do you do for a living is the question. Whereas that's not appropriate. You guys don't care what you guys do for a living right off the bat. You care more, you know, where are you going today? Um, but for the sake of of this interview, I'm gonna ask, what do you do for a living?

SPEAKER_01 5:18

I work as a police officer.

SPEAKER_06 5:20

You deal with a lot of kids.

SPEAKER_01 5:21

Yes, yeah. So let me take you back uh um when I started in the police uh 20 years ago. I was working like a regular detective and uh patrol officer. This um the parents of a 13-year-old they came to me and uh said that oh, we're having trouble with our son. Can you please uh talk to him? And uh before I um had the time to do that, he stole a car and uh had a f fatal accident with that car. So uh that uh influenced me to specialize in juvenile crime and now I'm the senior field uh specialist of juvenile crime.

SPEAKER_06 6:03

How physical is your job?

SPEAKER_01 6:05

It's not that physical uh now. This is a senior position. What I do is uh I gather information about the juvenile's interaction with the police, and um then I um find out how to handle uh these cases both on a on an individual and uh on a macro type of level. Even in fact, up to the the Minister of Justice ask uh asks us how new laws should be implemented and uh advisory around juvenile crime.

SPEAKER_06 6:37

And a senior position, then it's probably pretty heavily a desk job, right? How does that affect your daily movement? You you and Therese have done a beautiful job raising the kids in terms of being very active. You guys hike and ski, and like you guys are are highly active and clearly in great shape for your age. Thank you. Uh so now that you have the senior position and a desk job, what is your how do you get exercise?

SPEAKER_01 7:01

Yeah. Um I also use gyms, not at the moment, but uh I've been living different places and at different positions. So at the moment we have a gym at work. I do the crossfit crossfit uh with the fire department.

SPEAKER_06 7:16

You're allowed to work out with the fire department.

SPEAKER_01 7:18

So it's a big focus to keep in shape. So uh we get one to two hours off every week to exercise together, usually with an uh run like intervals or just a long run, maybe uh five miles or something.

SPEAKER_06 7:35

So one to two times a week is intentionally doing some sort of gym exercise.

SPEAKER_01 7:40

Right.

SPEAKER_06 7:40

Then how are you so fit? Because if I only went to the gym one to two times a week, I would not look like you or the kids or tree.

SPEAKER_01 7:47

It's a thing to do a lot of more movement on the daily life. To get to work, for instance. I can run, I can use a bike, or even do like public transport if the weather is really bad. And this is the most common thing, and it's really looked up to to use a bike to work or run to work.

SPEAKER_06 8:04

I remember when we made our trip in Norway back to Oslo, which is where kind of your main home is. I thought it was the funniest thing. They called it the Tour de Finance instead of the Tour de Finance.

SPEAKER_01 8:15

You remember that? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yes. Yeah, the finance district, uh, you know, with the really high paid uh jobs. Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 8:22

They encourage them and incentivize them to ride their bikes to s to their business. And do they provide like locker rooms to change and all of that at their all of that and also a garage for the bike?

SPEAKER_01 8:36

Yeah. So uh that's what they have been doing for many years now. They limit the car parking spaces and instead they install bike garages and they also limit lanes for cars, bigger, wider bike lanes, and um making it more attractive to commute with a bike. But I want to emphasize on how it's really looked up to always to to exercise to and from work because uh then then when you show up at work, you're really fresh and ready to work. Uh when you have this light exercise.

SPEAKER_06 9:16

Right.

SPEAKER_01 9:16

Yes.

SPEAKER_06 9:17

You have what we would we would coin here the nine to five type of job Monday through Friday. What time do you start work? What time do you finish work?

SPEAKER_01 9:25

Uh 8 to 3 30.

SPEAKER_06 9:28

And then I remember you told me a little earlier talking that if you get to a point where you've been staring at your screen, you can just get up and go for a walk.

SPEAKER_01 9:36

Yes.

SPEAKER_06 9:37

Which blows my mind.

SPEAKER_01 9:39

That's quite cool. Yeah. That's uh if if you're the focus is to be productive, I mean, not to be glued to the to your to your desk with how productive you are. Of course you have goals and you have to cooperate uh and have a clear mind. But typically if it's uh ten o'clock and uh you've been sitting, working intensely and concentrating from from eight to ten, it's quite regular and uh normal to take a walk outside to clear your mind. Yeah. You ask me, oh, you have to find your boss and ask if you can do it. No, of course not. You just mentioned it uh to uh to your colleague. If someone's come looking for you, where's Kenneth? Uh I think you went outside to uh fresh his mind.

SPEAKER_06 10:26

So our infrastructure in the US, um, for example, we're based in Texas. You visited Longview before. We have bike trails, but you are taking you're driving your bike in your car to the bike trail, getting your bike out of the car to then bike the trail. There's no biking to the bike trail. But it's because our infrastructure is not built. We don't have sidewalks where it would make sense if we could, you know, have it have a warm-up to jog to your workout class at your gym. There's there are some locations in the US, you know, like a lot of walking transit for New York, Boston area, universities are really good at that. But what do we do in our locations where we have to be so actively mindful of getting our daily exercise in and transitioning into that with food and stuff? Our weeks for work, for example, Blaine and I, we pay for it, we plan it, and we prep it. If we want to live in our healthy lifestyle, I'm paying for a meal prepping service because we're working a ton. I'm planning out my days in terms of when I fly and when I'm home to actually go to these gyms that I'm also paying for. And I'm preparing the week to know when I can squeeze in my workout. So it can be exhausting and quite honestly paralyzing, which is why you see a lot of obesity in the US. Our system needs improvement, very much so when it comes to a healthy lifestyle. So in the US, health is framed largely as personal responsibility and choice. From your perspective, how is that conversation different in Norway? So we talked about how you can get movement to and from work. What do you guys do as a family?

SPEAKER_01 12:08

It starts already with the small children. Um because after a year maternity leave, uh the child then starts in kindergarten, and that's subsidized. So it it costs uh $100 $150 a month for the kindergarten. Yeah. So it's very easy to go back to work uh for the mother.

SPEAKER_06 12:33

You guys have maternity paternity leave for one whole year. Both of you can be home with your kid for a year paid.

SPEAKER_01 12:39

You have to divide it, it it's it's one full year, either for the mother or the father. And then I go to the kindergarten, and um it's a huge focus to be outdoors in the kindergarten. Always at least two, three hours outdoors every day in the kindergarten.

SPEAKER_06 12:57

When you're saying kindergarten though, that's when they're one year old, correct?

SPEAKER_01 13:00

Yeah. So k kindergarten to you is keep outside, that's uh normal. They they have their um midday nap outside in the stroller.

SPEAKER_06 13:10

Just to clarify, kindergarten to you guys would be our preschool or daycare. Because our kindergarten doesn't start till they're five. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 13:20

And and let's take, for instance, the clothing. I mean, all kinds of types of clothing for winter, for rain, and it's no excuse to not being outside if the weather is bad. It's a saying there is no such thing as bad weather. It's only bad clothing. Uh they are taught from an early age to be outside and play and being active, and also they go on field trips like the preschool. Take the kids to go skiing, to go uh hiking in the woods.

SPEAKER_06 13:51

So, what age do the kids start to walk by themselves to school? Because they all commute usually probably on foot, I'm assuming.

SPEAKER_01 13:58

They they start at school and they're five or six. You're heavily emphasized by the school and the parents' group, no car to school because what we know about cars around schools is that uh when parents drive their kids to school, often they are stressed because they're late for work and everything. Yeah so they are causing traffic issues, dangers, dri dangers, driving and everything around the schools. So it's much safer for the kids to walk. Usually the schools are about uh a mile or two from kids' home. So they walk up until um two and a half miles, and uh then they get paid to take uh the public transport by the county city.

SPEAKER_06 14:51

Do your kids take a lunch to school or does the school provide lunch or both?

SPEAKER_01 14:56

It's very uncommon uh uncommon that they provide any lunch at school. Really? It's a t tradition uh to always bring a lunch box to school and also to work. And I remember the sheriff when I started working, he was uh always bringing his packed lunch with uh five slices of uh multi-grain bread with only Swiss cheese.

SPEAKER_03 15:26

That's it.

SPEAKER_01 15:28

He was uh not very refined, but it was uh quite healthy because it's uh like a really dense multi-grain uh bread, not not that soft sandwich type that's common here.

SPEAKER_06 15:40

We'll definitely get to the bread story for sure. What's a normal lunch like you would pack your kids?

SPEAKER_01 15:45

That's bread. Cheese saw meat uh on it, uh liver paste. Uh liver paste. Liver paste? Liver potate? Okay, liver potate.

SPEAKER_06 15:58

Oh, that sounds fancy. No, that sounds disgusting. I wouldn't try it.

SPEAKER_01 16:02

Oh, yes. Lots of iron and vitamins in it.

SPEAKER_06 16:05

Do they sell it over here? I've never seen it.

SPEAKER_01 16:07

I think so. Have you never eaten liver?

SPEAKER_06 16:09

Are you gonna make me try it?

SPEAKER_01 16:11

Yes.

SPEAKER_06 16:12

Okay. You've you've opened my eyes up to a lot of really cool foods over in Norway, which we've brought back to the US. But one of my favorite food stories from when I was little, and it this still blows my mind, and I feel like you kind of giggle when I bring it up, but um, the Oreo story. I don't remember if it was the first or the second visit, but I just remember you tasted American Oreos and you were obsessed, and you bought what looked to me like you bought a hollow suitcase and you bought like hundreds of dollars of Oreos and you shipped them over to Norway. And uh I never really understood until I asked you finally as an adult. I'm like, are you still obsessed with Oreos? And uh you told me that they were contraband cookies. So let's explain why you wanted US Oreos in Norway.

SPEAKER_01 17:00

You couldn't get Oreos at all in Norway. But uh in fact, uh I live not far away from the main NATO base, and they had a lot of American uh personnel there. So the soup market they were importing sort of parallel import. I don't know how they did it.

SPEAKER_06 17:19

This uh they could bring in a small amount of Amer uh American-made food.

SPEAKER_01 17:23

He actually had some Oreos, but it was very secretive, and I asked him, why can't we get Oreos? And he told me no, because it's uh added vitamins, and that's illegal in Norway. So don't tell anyone uh I have uh American cookies uh hidden uh under the desk.

SPEAKER_06 17:43

I see why you're in uh juvenile policing because you were you were the bad kid with contraband cookies.

SPEAKER_03 17:50

Yep.

SPEAKER_06 17:52

Um since we're on that subject though, one of the most intriguing parts of our cultural differences that I love learning is the food and the choices and how you guys eat over there. Um, the amount of fish blows my mind. I have gotten better since visiting you on my fish consumption, I guess.

SPEAKER_01 18:10

Mackerel and tomato. Did you like that?

SPEAKER_06 18:13

I don't remember. You fed me a lot of weird things when I was in Norway.

SPEAKER_01 18:17

That's also a very healthy choice eating uh mackerel and tomato. Like a bread spread.

SPEAKER_04 18:23

Was it cold? Did we have it at breakfast?

SPEAKER_01 18:25

Yeah, probably.

SPEAKER_04 18:26

Yeah. There's a lot of fish at breakfast.

SPEAKER_01 18:28

But but we actually had to make that make uh complain at school because when our kids had uh mackerel and tomato on top of their beds, some other kids started building them because it smells, you know, smells it smells uh you guys had the fishy smelling kids at school.

SPEAKER_06 18:46

But now they have six pack abs as young adults because they're friggin' ripped. Well, the other thing was the bread too. One of my most favorite recipes and one of the most special nights we shared at your house in Oslo is that you make probably every couple of days, especially because you're feeding so many people, you make a fresh loaf of bread. Nothing is store-bought with your bread recipe. So why don't you explain to the masses why this bread recipe is better for you, healthier for you than the bread that we get at the store here?

SPEAKER_01 19:19

Yeah. Uh fiber, that's uh most important thing. And I know you say proteins, but uh we are on a big protein. I mean, that's that's been going on for a long time. But uh what's a really deficit for Americans and also for some Norwegians, if you're not uh watching what you eat, is uh uh fiber. It's very important to have a healthy digestion uh system and a lot of the vitamins they get lost. The natural vitamins I'm talking about, not the added ones. Yeah, they get lost when you're only eating wheat, fine wheat bread. I think that uh the big issue here is a hyper-processed food. The food industry wants you to keep on eating that hyper-processed food with lots of sugar and fat, very little fiber in it, and then of course you get this problem with obesity, uh not nutrition uh enough food uh to to be a healthy person. And maybe that's uh a bigger issue, right? If you have uh whole uh food uh if you use uh whole food uh instead of hyperprocessed food, you'll get uh much more of what you need.

SPEAKER_06 20:33

You told me a story about the kids that dumbfounded me because broccoli is a very natural from the earth vegetable to eat as a side for a dinner. And I think the first time you came down to Florida and you went to um, we'll call it a very magical theme park. Tell me about that experience taking those kids to eat all the great American food at the theme park.

SPEAKER_01 20:57

When we are here, we think it's uh harder to eat healthy. We talked about uh hyperprocessed food and snacks. It's a lot more snacks variants and uh what do you call it, fast food.

SPEAKER_06 21:10

Yeah. Our fast our fast food is is an epidemic, and my that's my personal biased opinion.

SPEAKER_01 21:16

We got to this restaurant in the in the amusement park and they had steamed broccoli on the menu. And my kids they uh got so they were so happy because uh they had had so much American fast food style.

SPEAKER_06 21:31

Fried food, all the sugary fried food during the day at the park.

SPEAKER_00 21:34

Yeah, steamed broccoli, let's get it.

SPEAKER_06 21:37

Which said no kid in the United States ever is like excited for broccoli.

SPEAKER_01 21:42

We started out when they were babies and uh we gave them broccoli and they were eating the broccoli, so they uh they get used to eating uh broccoli from they were kids.

SPEAKER_06 21:53

You develop their palates when they're young to crave and want fish and broccoli.

SPEAKER_01 21:58

So when we got kids. like fine tuned what we uh what we ate because we want to have healthy kids so we gave them all in the healthy stuff and uh Leander he didn't even like when he was in birthday parties gave him soda pop and he couldn't drink it because he didn't like it. Too sweet and uh the bubbles up his nose oh it's tickling in my mouth.

SPEAKER_06 22:25

Would he at least eat the cake?

SPEAKER_01 22:27

The cake he could eat if it was homemade. Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 22:30

Yeah okay so they were happy at dinner at the theme park they got broccoli.

SPEAKER_01 22:34

Yeah they got broccoli and then they started they started eating it and they started to cry what's happening now and then we tasted the broccoli and it was this sweet sweet sugary uh taste we excuse me we sent it out uh can we have some regular broccoli we don't want sugar on uh kids broccoli and the waiter came back uh sorry we all our broccoli is treated with um corn syrup that's wild to me when you told me that story even to get our kids over here to eat their vegetables we're putting processed sugar on them you got that sweet tooth I mean you everything has to be sweet and I think also this has to do with with the bread I want to make the bread on my own because then I'm sure what type of uh whole rye is in it whole wheat and only what I want yeah and you do put sh some sugar in your bread yeah to make uh the yeast the rice yeah it's a little bit of sugar and salt of course you need that but when you have that much fiber you will stay full for much longer and then you want to eat some chocolate bar or uh whatever it's so easy to get there. You had a cookie bar on the uh on in the kitchen bar you had a cookie jar do you remember a cookie jar cookie jar with uh it's a dog or something or it was maybe a huge when I was little you remember that yeah it was a Dalmatian cookie mom cookie mom and and even right before dinner cookie mom yes okay now do that yeah I forgot about that cookie jar thought so a white big dog yeah it was a Dalmatian cookie jar but I mean that's uh because you were hungry I mean you you you hadn't you didn't have that fiber so you got hungry very quickly all the time yeah yeah and then there's a cookie there okay give it to me and then you get that sweet tooth more and more sugar more and more fat yeah yeah and eat more and more unhealthy things and my body reacts to carbohydrates I don't know if it's just like hormonally and my age and everything but if I were to eat as much bread as you guys I would gain so much weight so quickly.

SPEAKER_06 24:51

On that note with your bread when we came back from Norway visiting we started making your recipe because when we were in Norway brother's bread oh great how do you say it in Norwegian br bread brut bread I'll practice um we were you eat what four pieces of slice minimum four slices your bread every day we got used to that eating with you for two weeks in Norway and it was great. So I made your bread here and started eating it like we normally do. It's a little more coarse we started gaining weight on your exact recipe with our ingredients and it's because of our wheat. When I was eating bread over there I didn't feel I felt like comfortably full like I ate a good meal because we were eating it you know combined with with veggies and fish and everything else. When I was eating your your recipe I made with United States ingredients and I was just bloated feeling.

SPEAKER_01 25:54

Because I I I always bring flour from Norway when I come here because it's so hard to get the right quality of uh flour of the flour it's more fine grained much more fine grained and um I don't know if they ours is more fine grained? Yes I don't know if they take away more of the what you call the outside of the husk of the grain. I think maybe the more of the husk is removed here. Okay so they can break it down yeah and the husk is that's what vitamins and fiber is in the husk so if they remove that uh you will you may have that result. Okay. Yeah I think it's possible to to get the flour if you special order it we had a look at the internet yesterday and uh it seems like uh it's possible to order it Norwegian and Swedish type.

SPEAKER_06 26:52

How how often do you look at labels in Norway?

SPEAKER_01 26:56

Uh food food labels I don't look at food labels very often then again I don't I don't shop very much hyperprocessed food so if it's uh like whole type of food like olive oil is anything in a can I there's no food label on a tomato.

SPEAKER_06 27:15

Smart Alec but you still cook with olive oil you still get seeds that probably come in like your sunflower seeds and pumpkin seeds in a bag are you looking at those bag labels or the what the olive oil is made out you know where it's made at do you look at any of that?

SPEAKER_01 27:37

Hardly because you know the regulations are very strict and we have a lot of trust in our government so they won't really uh let anyone sell anything that's unhealthy. It was an issue with the the fat a few years ago um what's the name of that fat that's really dangerous? Trans fat trans fat yeah it was an issue with uh trans fats uh some years ago when they found out that uh some of the hyperprocessed uh like uh cookies and um cake mix and that sort of stuff that it w had trans fat in it and immediately the government uh changed it so uh trans fat uh wasn't allowed to be in in your processed foods to be in the processed food because it's that's dangerous for the heart and blood circulation even though I eat tomatoes too and I know that they don't have a label but uh we still have to buy some of our foods and that are had that have been through a process.

SPEAKER_06 28:42

My big problem is we are inundated with so many options. We are a country of abundance we have 50 types of olive oils for example. I was getting so defeated trying to pick out well which olive oil is real olive oil because there's some that are you know kind of olive oil and some are that are 20% olive oil and some that are mixed with another oil and some are cheap and some are expensive. And so I've got an app that I that has helped I can take a picture of the processed foods or the aisle foods we'll say uh of ingredients that I'm if I need like canned tomatoes for example for salsa or um candy jalapenos is a kind of our our treat. We have to look at the labels and so I'm now trained and it's a it's a constant to be looking at added sugar, trans fats and you're just set up for defeat before you even try to start a health journey.

SPEAKER_01 29:38

But I suppose it can uh it it's possible to do some research about uh which of the products you want to go for that are clean and not with additives and everything. Yeah once you can find them and then keep stick to them.

SPEAKER_06 29:53

Once we find something that we like then it it's a lot easier. We take out the guesswork, we streamline and simplify the candy um yeah we we shouldn't mention any names but uh we found out that the red 40 and the dyes in EU they are connected to allergies and uh to uh ADHD ADHD and uh bad behavior most children which is become we're becoming aware of that in the United States and they are in the process of making good changes which is which is fantastic and we all just feel so set up for defeat which is why we're having this cultural conversation over wellness that it's just it's naturally built into your um daily movement. It's naturally built into trust of your food and the way you guys eat and um even fish. You told me about the salmon was so pink here.

SPEAKER_01 30:54

Yeah I tried to get some salmon hair uh like smoked salmon and I was like you lots of options and uh um one was called Atlantic salmon and also uh it looked um red nice color and uh when I took it home I found out that both the plastic was a little bit red to make it look redder tinted tinted plastic oh okay and also I I I think if I'm not mistaken that it was also added uh colour to the meat itself. So that was a failure because if it's not uh pure salmon yeah and and the colour is not good from start the the product is of very low quality. Yes and then I add these things that are unhealthy for you and try to fool you with the tinted plastic on top I wouldn't eat that.

SPEAKER_06 31:59

So now I'll re-ask the question because you do have a house in the United States and you spend some time over here when you come to visit from Norway what are you looking for what do you have to subtle changes do you have to actively make over here in order to best align with your practices and the way you live in Norway?

SPEAKER_01 32:20

We do a lot of home cooking in Florida uh we don't go out to eat very often. But you're taking me out to eat tonight though right but then we're gonna do it in Norwegian way.

SPEAKER_04 32:33

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 32:34

So how do uh we order like uh a portion of food that's for two persons. Because the portion size here is double or triple than the portion size at Norwegian restaurants.

SPEAKER_06 32:51

So tonight you're taking us to try what is it Peruvian food and we won't all order our own we'll order the Norwegian way which is not just ordering our own whole meals. We'll split it and create kind of a family style right sit down which would be great. What else do you change or have to be mindful of in the US? The the sugar the sugar tooth I mean the sweet tooth sweet tooth yeah yeah because do you develop a sweet tooth when you come here?

SPEAKER_01 33:28

Yeah I can do that soda for instance so easy to to drink a soda here and you go to the restaurants you go to family restaurants they have this it's almost free yeah to buy a yeah soda uh fountain drinks and all of that yeah right do you guys not serve like Coke and and Pepsi and things only one small bottle and then you have to buy another one for a high price.

SPEAKER_06 33:52

Oh so the refill thing like you get free refills. Yeah so I stick to water we stopped at a cafe after biking and walking on the beach and our waiter yesterday was trying to sell us bottled water and you weren't having it why right so you got mad yeah because we asked specifically for tap water yeah we all ask for tap water. So I uh I know that the quality here is good in Pompano I know there has been issues with lead pipes and everything but you have actually looked at the stats for the areas that you visit in the US as to the water quality.

SPEAKER_01 34:38

Right and here the water is good.

SPEAKER_06 34:41

It's good water in the tap is there common website or how how do you go about looking up the water quality for a location? It's in the city city website?

SPEAKER_01 34:52

Yeah okay so we we ask for tap water and this guy who said he was from Hungary started telling us that the water quality here in Pompano is not good so he would recommend bubble water which I know is not true. And then we said no we want tap water and then he came back brought bottled water anyway so you you you have to be more strict there because they will always try to sell upcharge upsell upsell upcharge right speaking of bottled water our eyes are being opened um pretty widely right now in the US about how how microplastics mimic hormones in the body we're trying to mindfully make subtle changes in our homes to you know instead of using baggies we are using glass containers for leftover storage we're no longer buying bottled water out on the road we're actually bringing our metal um containers are being aware of microplastics or drinking out of bottles a big deal or not very much yeah and in normal for me it is yeah yeah um that's why I that's also why I uh didn't want us to to drink bottle waters uh water yesterday because of the microplastic and you get it from everywhere talking about plastic bags that's so funny how you have free plastic bags here and you can they're very poor quality but uh they just give away maybe 20 30 uh plastic bags oh at the at the uh stores yes and in Norway now they uh charge you a dollar per bag per plastic bag yes because you're not supposed to use plastic bags at all so do they offer a paper option or are you required to bring your own bags they can sell you uh uh like a cloth bag like a reusable bag so if you forgot to bring bring it back is your problem then you have to buy either either a new cloth bag or uh a press throw your money away from plastic bag for one dollar I think in what is it Colorado all of the state of Colorado I'm pretty sure at this point you have to bring your it's like BYO B bring your own bag.

SPEAKER_06 37:02

Yeah uh slowing down in life is also something I think I learned in Norway and uh I'll probably butcher it but I'll try to say it is Utpatu Aldresud out on a trip and never angry. Is that good?

SPEAKER_01 37:15

Utpatur alder suit yeah yeah it was perfect.

SPEAKER_06 37:19

All right uh that's one of my favorite sayings and I whenever I'm traveling for work on flying places and stuff or out fly fishing and all that I always just say it because it just makes me feel good and it brings me back to the moment of um slowing down and being mindful. The true the true feeling of actively being mindful in everything I do down to the simplicity of going grocery shopping creating my list knowing what brands are the healthy brands I want to buy for that day remembering my bags so I don't have to waste with plastic there's a quip over here calling people crunchy or granola and you're just all organic. That's not realistic for some the purpose of this show even is to learn the tactical information to create practical tools that fit and implement into your daily lifestyle. Ultimately what I what I want our listeners to get from this episode in particular which has been so special for you to be here with me and and discuss our cultural differences is um I want to talk about borrowable defaults. This conversational goal is to stop overcomplicating wellness. We already have to look at labels for our food we have to actively join gym memberships. We have to be so mindful about our meal prep it becomes exhausting what I would like to do is implement things that can be more seamless. All these stories you've told me in Norway and the way that I watched you guys live visiting for two straight weeks it was all built in it was all built into your community it was built into the to your commutes to and from work it's built in from the ground up how you raise your children it's built into your food habits, your choices even dare I say limitations is actually kind of a blessing because of the strictness that your government does put on on food. It's better for you overall for your health what are some habits we can borrow without fully changing our lives over here that we can implement on the daily we have been talking quite extensively about food.

SPEAKER_01 39:33

I think uh I think that uh start buying more whole products and never anything hyper processed. Need some fish, some vegetables, some potatoes, sweet potatoes but it's also uh an element of cost in this and I've noticed how the prices here have skyrocketed lately especially the groceries it's uh and to to buy enough uh of fruit and vegetables to have the fiber that you is expensive yeah and I I think that's will be hard for the salary that regular people make. So that's again I want people to eat better bread and more bread and take control of the bread themselves by making it. Slowing down and making starting to make their own bread stop eating this ultra process it's so easy to make your own bread because you do it before you go to bed. It needs to raise for at least eight hours and you put it in the oven before you go to bed and you all ovens have almost all ovens have a timer function. So you can start it about two hours before you get up. Yeah and and it sits for one hour in the oven and it sits for one hour to just cool down and then it's ready when you for breakfast ready for breakfast yes and it's fresh and it's uh still a little hot and a little warm and uh we will link probably in the show notes and one day in a future cookbook we will have my brother's bread recipe from Norway. So then then so then then then you start your day in a very good way because you need some quality food that's not too expensive to get you going for a long time. And then uh secondly it's important to have some sort of exercise before you go to work. So I don't know uh if it's possible to walk or bike but you can maybe maybe you can you can try it out a little bit um or even what I like to do if the weather is really really bad I find a staircase in some high-rust building and do my exercise like interval training high intensity training the stairs why use the lift or the escalator if it's a working staircase?

SPEAKER_06 42:12

Yeah I've saved up for years that I finally got a new car and now I'm that old lady that is so scared someone's gonna ding my car I will park the farthest parking spot away a so nobody hurts my b my new baby and B so I can do the same thing. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 42:32

Yeah they they have cameras all over so we find out if they didn't know if someone touches your car.

SPEAKER_06 42:38

We can talk a little bit about daylight. Yesterday morning we got up and you guys immediately went outside and you're like we need the sun in our eyes because you guys have polar night right now in Norway. So vitamin D, you guys have to eat more foods to get vitamin D. Yeah you have to possibly take supplements if you are D deficient. So getting vitamin D, just getting the sun in your eyes first thing in the uh in the morning is a great way to get vitamin D.

SPEAKER_01 43:06

Yeah um um cold liver cold liver oil you do that don't you take cold liver oil?

SPEAKER_06 43:14

Yeah I take a fish oil fish oil yeah it is from Norway it's I didn't choose it just because my brother lives there but Norwegian did yes it's a Norwegian fish oil and it's in a like a dark opaque glass bottle because that fish oil can spoil and you want to make sure it smells proper you keep it in a cool dry place. Um I I personally I don't eat enough fish. I live in Texas I love a good steak I eat more red meat than I probably should. We're big on steak and chicken. We don't nearly eat as much fish as you guys.

SPEAKER_01 43:47

So thus I take a fish oil supplement to try to get my cobbler oil and my my vitamins but we were talking about uh some people they are taking a lot of supplement Supplements here. Even some of the food has added vitamins in it. Flour, for instance, has added vitamins here. So then it's very easy to uh to lose control over how much vitamin you get.

SPEAKER_06 44:15

So if we're eating too many and then we're taking supplements on top of that.

SPEAKER_01 44:19

Some of the vitamins uh are getting poisonous if you take too much vitamin D. Yeah. That's kind of scary, I think, when you take so many supplements and you don't know exactly what's in it.

SPEAKER_06 44:32

Um, which is why I choose to get like private labs, do my blood drawn, so I know what's in my system and then I know what I need to supplement. So for example, I'm actually getting my labs drawn twice a year, January and June. The labs will divulge what you're deficient in, and the goal is to get it from food first and then reintroduce the supplements that are necessary to take it. Or we're quick to jump to the supplement instead of actually um trying food first, researching what foods foods we need to eat to get those, which I thought was really interesting about your doctors' visits. Your doctors are more apt to adjust your diet for a couple months before they will prescribe anything for you when you're ill in some capacity.

SPEAKER_01 45:22

Right. They always tell you to uh wait for a week and come back if you're not better. You won't get any medicine unless it's life-threatening. Right. It's kind of annoying sometimes, but uh in the long run, uh probably the human body is best to repair itself if you give it time and rest. But it's a heavy pressure here. That's what I'm noticing uh when I'm here. The pressure as a consumer is so heavy and intense all the time. And you can't even watch the news on the TV because it's you have this commercial break all the time and and uh they turn the sound up and they're like really intruding. You never you you always have to buy something that you don't need. Let's first take Norway. You can uh the commercial breaks are not that intrusive at all, and they're not the commercials are not that often either.

SPEAKER_06 46:23

So maybe another borrowable default that we can take away is we're mindful of what we consume in our bodies, like with food. We need to be more mindful of what we're consuming visually and audibly in our in our brains.

SPEAKER_01 46:36

So what I haven't talked about is the corkey example uh or or Yeah, this this weekend is a a beautiful prime example.

SPEAKER_06 46:45

The AWA collective team and I. We chose as a trio to come to Pompano Beach for an AWA retreats kind of weekend, and it's a beautiful prime example of US um defaults versus Norway defaults, and you were gonna take us to the beach, and we talked that you were like, Oh, we have a bunch of bikes and scooters and blah blah blah. We're getting our shoes on, and I have the keys in my hand, and you're like, What's in your hands? And I was like, Well, we're going to the beach, and you're like, with what car?

SPEAKER_01 47:19

And so didn't didn't we talk about this so that we were biking? Uh right.

SPEAKER_06 47:24

And but then Amanda was like, Oh, you want to take you wanna take the Tesla? We have to move our car to get to your car, and you're like, We're not taking a car, we're biking to the beach.

SPEAKER_01 47:35

So it's your mindset.

SPEAKER_06 47:36

Yeah. Oh, it's car, car, car. Changing changing the mindset um is hard.

SPEAKER_01 47:43

Because in Norway uh it's much more common to to to to walk uh if it's say less than a mile, and you know the beach here is less than a mile. Yeah. So it's uh and also it's a nice area to to walk or bicycle.

SPEAKER_06 47:59

If you can try to normalize a different way of commuting, try it. Just try it. And then if it's dangerous or too much, that's okay. We you can implement movement in another way. If you're in a big city and uh working in an office building, then stairs.

SPEAKER_01 48:14

And we discovered a lot of other things that we wouldn't have been seeing or experiencing from a car. The birds, the sound of the birds.

SPEAKER_06 48:23

The parrots, there was a huge flock of parrots that were migrating, right? And they stop here once a year to rest, and we saw these beautiful green parrots with red beaks just squawking at each other. We never would have seen that if we drove.

SPEAKER_01 48:36

And and uh the smells, the scents, uh um the weather, the climate. We met the cat and uh um all these small important things that makes you slow down and stop and smell the roses, as we would say.

SPEAKER_04 48:57

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 48:57

Or uh Jamie Peterson uh he has his twelve rules. I think they're kinda neat, and uh the twelfth rule is if you see a cat stop and uh pet it. Because it gets you like grounded and uh sets your mind on recentered to the present. Yes, yeah, more important things and your stress and your daily problems. Mindfulness, mindlessness, yeah. Yes. So maybe you should uh do something with the car keys so make make them harder to get to something.

SPEAKER_06 49:30

Yeah, yeah. So my favorite pastor, she or one of her sayings is where the mind goes, the man follows. And when your your mind is constantly on driving, that's where you go is to the keys. But if you can change the easiest way to break a habit is to replace it with another one. And the first 90 days to create that habit, you have to be mindful of it before it becomes mindless to do. When you visited us in Texas, we would always walk after dinner. And Blaine was like, that's just such a weird thing. Like, I'm tired, I'm I'm full, I'm happy, I'm tired. And I'm like, that's the purpose of walking. So I gotta stop picking on Blaine. He's actually doing we're doing fantastic in our wellness journey. But it's because we are having conversations like this and being open to cultural differences, debates, even if we have to, because that's how you learn and grow.

SPEAKER_01 50:21

To walk uh after you have eaten is very important for uh digestion. Yeah, but also for your heart and your your blood system, everything. Uh, there's a study now uh in Norway they have also been using American participants, and only if if if you uh uh walk 15 minutes more a day, your life expectancy may rise up to eleven years.

SPEAKER_06 50:46

No way. Fifteen minutes a day increases your life ex expectancy eleven years.

SPEAKER_01 50:51

Eleven years, yeah.

SPEAKER_06 50:52

Well, I think we should go for a walk after this.

SPEAKER_01 50:55

Yeah, let's do that. But I mean uh uh walking is the first thing a small child is doing. It starts walking and exploring the environment and and it's also the last thing you should do as an old person to keep on walking. So very important.

SPEAKER_06 51:15

And if you if you do the stairs on top of it, even better for your 10-minute walk or 15-minute walks after meals, um daily outdoor light, if you can get sun in your eyes first, just like walking outside the fresh air for me in the mornings is what wakes me up. Uh simpler plates with fewer ingredients. Uh protecting your sleep and your rest is a non-negotiable. It's important just as much as uh movement, it's equally as important to rest.

SPEAKER_01 51:44

When when you're aging, it's uh it's more important that you can't really exercise, you or you shouldn't really exercise that hard after say six or seven in the evening. In the evening. Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 51:55

Because it'll keep you awake.

SPEAKER_01 51:57

It will influence your sleep quality. So trying to get when I was younger, I never thought of it, and uh I don't think it was a problem, but uh I think this is something to to be aware of. Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 52:10

I I prefer to work out in the mornings if I work out before bed. I can do yoga or a meditation, uh or even a walk before bed. If I choose to do like my boot camp classes in the evening, I do find myself having a much harder time falling asleep because my endorphins are up.

SPEAKER_01 52:27

But another thing that's very different uh in Norway is um uh the tradition of being out in nature, exercising, or it's not actually exercising, it's just doing something together. Which is your Sunday ritual. Yeah, that's a Sunday ritual.

SPEAKER_06 52:41

We go to church, your church is nature.

SPEAKER_01 52:43

Right, yeah, you know. Many families have uh cabin in the mountains that they go to during the weekends, and of course they go skiing or hiking in the mountains when they're they are there. But if they're not going, there's a lot of uh places not far from where people live, which I think you would call nature reserves.

SPEAKER_06 53:04

Yeah, we skiing. We have good nat national park line, and I like to find uh national parks to go hiking and exploring with our dogs and stuff. We don't get to do that every week.

SPEAKER_01 53:14

Right. But that's a tradition in Norway, and and that's di that that's different. That's what we use uh our Sundays for.

SPEAKER_06 53:21

And your family. It does.

SPEAKER_01 53:22

Yeah, yeah. Some people want the shops to be open on Sundays. Then the people said, Oh, what about the Sunday trips? People uh can't go to their Sunday trips, so uh the shops will be uh closed in the future, it seems like that is almost a holy thing to the Sunday, go go on a Sunday trip. Slowing down. Yeah, and you bring some packed lunch again. You don't you're not eating out, you're bringing packed lunch out in nature.

SPEAKER_06 53:50

Because the restaurants are closed on Sundays. All right, so um a lot of habits we can borrow from the Norwegian culture that if we work at it and tailor it to your regional location uh looks different everywhere. Texas, I might not be walking to work or biking to my job, but we do have access to some great uh parks. Everywhere has parks, there's little inland lakes, and then our food choices simple if we're active at keeping our food choices simplified, and then our rest as a non-negotiable. I think our daily lives could be seamlessly better after actively putting some Norwegian culture into our American ways.

SPEAKER_01 54:32

Um and uh stop, stop let the that consumer culture influence so influence you so heavily.

SPEAKER_06 54:40

Something so we're gonna de-influence the influential culture is what we need to do.

SPEAKER_01 54:45

Can you skip the commercials on the TV?

SPEAKER_06 54:48

I I will mute them when they're on because they're they are so loud. I will pay for no ads. And I think in the long run, as Sarah behind the scenes said, you actually save money by paying more for the no ad version because you're not watching the ads to consume whatever they're trying to sell you. So girl math is a win-win. Um, well, I can't thank you enough, Kenneth. I know this was obviously a very special interview for me. And I get to share my big brother with the world because even at almost 40, my big brother's still teaching me uh amazing things. And at the end of each show, we do like to ask our guests a very simple question. The answer can be big or small. What are you currently going all in on?

SPEAKER_01 55:32

Actually, I'm currently going all in on uh chin-ups because uh I had uh a frozen shoulder and now it's getting better. And we have this um internal competition at my work. So in June, we're gonna run two miles, we're gonna do chin-ups, we're gonna do plank for several minutes, jump from 10 meters.

SPEAKER_06 55:57

So you're going all in on chin-ups.

SPEAKER_01 55:58

Yeah. Because I I haven't been able to do chin-ups for a long time, and now this competition, so I'm gonna start trying to do it again, see if the shoulders can hold it.

SPEAKER_06 56:09

Loosen it up. You and me in our frozen shoulders together. We are kin. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 56:14

And I'm not a power, so that's not the reason for me having it.

SPEAKER_06 56:18

I'm glad I got to hang out with my big brother this weekend so I can become a little more like him in his Norwegian ways. I love you.

SPEAKER_04 56:25

Thank you.

SPEAKER_02 56:26

We hope you enjoyed this episode of the All-in-Wellness Approach. If the show resonates with you, please rate, review, and subscribe. It helps us reach more people who are ready to live all in. Join the collective on Instagram at AWAP podcast. That's at AIWA Podcast. For tools, insights, and inspiration and catch every full episode on YouTube. Your support fuels this mission and keeps the collective moving all in. This podcast is for educational and entertainment purposes only and is not intended as medical, psychological, or professional advice. Please consult your doctor before changing your lifestyle.