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Health & Fitness Redefined
Health and Fitness Redefined with Anthony Amen. Take a dive into the health world as we learn how to overcome adversity, depict fact vs fiction and see health & fitness in a whole new light.Fitness Is Medicine
Health & Fitness Redefined
Thriving After 50: Fitness, Diet, and Healthy Aging
This episode emphasizes the transformative power of fitness and nutrition for individuals over 50, illustrating how a proactive approach can drastically improve quality of aging. Graham shares compelling insights from his experiences, encouraging listeners to embrace resistance training and nutritious eating habits as vital components of a fulfilling life.
• Graham’s early experiences reveal the stark contrast between vibrant and frail individuals over 50
• Resistance training is vital in combating age-related ailments and maintaining bone health
• Overcoming resistance to change and conveying the importance of fitness is crucial
• The analogy of "banking fitness dollars" highlights the significance of investing in health
• Nutrition plays a key role, advocating for the “80-20” approach for sustainable eating
Learn More at: www.Redefine-Fitness.com
Hello and welcome to Health and Fitness Redefined. I'm your host, Anthony Amen, and today we have another great episode for all of you, especially the Golden Girls. No, I'm kidding. But without further ado, let's welcome to the show, Graham. Graham, it's a pleasure to have you on today.
Speaker 2:Thank you very much, Anthony. Pleasure to be here.
Speaker 1:We had a nice little conversation. Graham for those listening is from Australia and obviously I live in New York.
Speaker 2:So I'm talking to my future and he's talking to his past. I wish my past was as handsome as you, anthony.
Speaker 1:I wish my future was going to be as handsome as you, so I'm going to win-win here man, I'll be happy. I'll take it so with that for the dude graham. I know, uh, we're gonna be talking a lot about aging after 50, working out a lot of fun stuff, but before we do that, how did you get into the health and fitness world?
Speaker 2:okay. So, uh, in my corporate, anthony, I worked as a sales manager for a retirement community retirement business and I saw people in their mid 50s that were already frail and pre-frail. I saw people in their 80s and 90s that were still traveling the world, still exercising, moving every day and fully healthy, and I saw everybody in between. When I saw, in fact, a particular guy, he was in his mid-50s, a chain smoker, quite a handsome guy actually, and he was moving into this retirement community because he wanted somewhere safe for his wife when he passed away. He's only 55.
Speaker 2:And I thought to myself this just does not need to be this way. And it just motivated me because I've been into fitness ever since I could walk unassisted, ever since I was a little boy. And I said to this guy I said you know, it doesn't need to be this way. We've got gyms and things in here when you come in and that's one reason, largely the reason why I got involved seeing people that had sat on the shelf, sat on the couch, eating ice cream and jelly for 10, 15, 20 years and had an accumulation effect because of that, and then that's hard to reverse when that happens. So I thought I can make a contribution here and I formed Renewed After 50 about well, I formed it in 2012, but actually really revved it up during COVID actually, or just before COVID in 2018.
Speaker 1:Love it. So you kind of projected right into the fitness hormone. I know obviously you're working your retirement Kitty, so that got you into. So you're working your retirement kitty, so that got you into working with that age population. So first off, I agree with your observation off the bat. I have seen 87 year olds that look better than 45 year olds, yes, and I wish that was an exaggeration, but it just kind of shows how important it. To me the biggest commonality is exercise, would you agree?
Speaker 2:I do. Um, the other thing that came to my mind as you were just responding then is the level of obesity in our world. I know that our percentage of obesity is about the same as what it is in your country, and that's because of that accumulation effect eating the wrong things for too long, but that's because of that accumulation effect, eating the wrong things for too long. So I actually believe nutrition is number one, but it goes hand in hand with exercise. One's no good without the other, because if you've got a good diet and you're not exercising, you're going to finish up with poor posture in my joints and so forth. So some weight resistance exercise with some cardio is absolutely what's required as we get older.
Speaker 1:Yeah, there's a lot of cool research coming out, especially with that population, as we get more interested in it. First and foremost, weightlifting, which was the bane of that population's existence in the beginning where I don't want to go lift weights with those 30 year olds, thrown in teenagers but it's been shown that that actually that group needs that more than the 18, 20 year olds really do. When you start looking inside of a human body when it comes to osteoarthritis, right, the cured osteoarthritis is weight training. The cured osteopenia and osteoporritis is weight training the cure to osteopenia and osteoporosis is weight training.
Speaker 1:Yes, yes, so all of these things have tied back just to simply lifting weights and adding in resistance training.
Speaker 2:Look, I couldn't agree with you more. It actually goes further than that. I think weight resistance training pushes back against heart disease, stroke, falls, falls is the greatest killer of people in the age group 75 and above. So balance is important. So if you've got a good core strength, a good base strength through weight resistance training, you push back against all of those things. Depression it's been proven that weight resistance training actually aids mental health. So all of those things are, uh, beneficiaries of a really good white training program yeah, and I know you've been saying light resistance training.
Speaker 1:Is there a reason you're going light as opposed to just general or moderate?
Speaker 2:well, with, with due respect, when, when you're 75, you don't want to be doing 100 pound or 100 kilo bench presses anymore. You nor do you want to do, you know, 15 pound, seven half kilo Reps, 20 reps of that. What, what we need to do as we get older is do more power training. So that what what we need to do as we get older is do more power training. So, uh, so that you can lift the grandchild, so that you can lift the shopping into the back of the car, so you can lift the shopping off the bench into the top shelf. They're one-off lifts, so you need to do.
Speaker 2:In fact, I have a power training class for older adults and we focus on slightly heavier training, but not really heavy training. As we get older, whether we like it or not, the recovery time takes a bit longer, the propensity to injury is greater. So we need to be a bit more careful, but still concentrating on power training. As opposed to a heavy, a um, it's a word for it as opposed to a heavyweight training regime or even a light one, if that makes sense power training.
Speaker 1:For those that don't understand, just one rep maxes kind of deal, because that's where you, that's what you're doing when you're lifting a child, right you're yeah, exactly exactly, yeah, exactly. Hold on, son, let's do 15 of these, yeah but what?
Speaker 2:what I would do is I'd work out what their one rep max is, uh in a pt session, personal training session, and then I'd wind it back to 80, because you're never going to lift your one rep max. But what you might have to do, uh is your 80 max, and and do, do that five times and not overly fatigue. You want to feel as though you've had a workout, but you don't. You don't want to have to have a workout that's going to make you go home and sleep for the rest of the day well, some people might want to, so it depends.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's right yeah, it's not time after the gym, anyway, but I just not to beat a dead horse. But cardio is great, right, we want to make sure we're doing some, especially like speed walking. Things like that are amazing for your cardiovascular system. But going back to weight training, you can do all of that through it, making sure you rotate your days with light resistance training and then going into more of a power training program. I really couldn't agree more. It's very hard to convince people in that age group that this is what they need to be doing if they try to fight you on it. So how do you overcome that?
Speaker 2:Okay. So two things come to mind. You talked about weight resistance. When you get older, weight resistance is king, followed by cardio, followed by some agility work, followed by some core work, mobility, balance. All of those things are appropriate for the age group. So how do I cope with and how do I introduce training, whatever it is?
Speaker 2:I say to my clients look, you're approaching retirement age. If you're in your mid-50s, you're approaching retirement age, and I'm not sure about in the US, but we have a system of paying in money while you're working so that you can draw down on that retirement. It's called superannuation. So our people spend their lifetime putting together a good nest egg of superannuation. So our people spend their lifetime putting together a good nest egg of superannuation.
Speaker 2:You might have stocks and bonds, you've paid off your house, you've educated your kids and you come to a time in your life where you've got all of this wealth that you can enjoy, but unfortunately you haven't banked fitness dollars along the way. So by the time you get to the age of being able to appreciate your wealth, you don't have the fitness or health. You might have one or two chronic diseases that impede you from going on overseas trips or whatever. So I give them that analogy. While saying it's never too late to start, I try and promote getting going as quickly as you can, because you need to start banking those compounding fitness dollars the same way you've compounded wealth with your actual dollars.
Speaker 1:That's true. We have a 401k, so very similar. They can build up wealth for retirement. And I just kind of add to that, we had an 83-year-old that joined four years ago, and he is now 87, and he can do a four and a half minute plank and he has no, which I think is the most impressive thing. But according to him, the best thing he got out of it is he's no longer worried about falling.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's right.
Speaker 1:He said I know I can catch myself and if I do fall, I know how to fall and to make sure I don't break a hip or anything like that, Because, like you said, that's usually a death sentence for someone at that age.
Speaker 1:Yes, yes. So it just kind of shows you can start now, you can start at 83. You can start at 85. You can start at 90. You don't have to be like, well, I'm too old to go do something like that, which is why I'm here all the time. So it's like no, no, no, you need to start now so you can draw out the rest of your life. Really interesting stat, and I like mentioning this because it's true and I'm going to reiterate If you took smoking, smoke cigarettes right and you smoked a pack a day every day for 30 years, you took that group and that group went and exercised at least three times a week. Then you took a group of people who don't smoke, never smoked a day in their lives, and don't exercise. Which group lives longer?
Speaker 2:Oh, that's a good question. Oh, that's a good question. That's a really good question, anthony, I've never thought about that one. Well, I've just got stop smoking, stop smoking in my head. But which group would live longer? I think the group that didn't smoke and didn't exercise. But the other questions what's your diet like?
Speaker 1:You know, diet. They did a whole study on this with a thousand people. Yeah, they did a group study of it.
Speaker 2:It's the opposite the smokers lived almost twice as long as the other group.
Speaker 1:Really, truly, that's amazing. But on the flip side of that, the group that, because they had a bunch of other groups in it, they had a group that exercised and didn't smoke they lived even longer. Yeah, so it shows the power of exercise that we know. Like you said, you hear no smoking, no smoking, no smoking. It was drilled in our heads. How bad smoking is it? Labels on everything right, smoking can kill you. Actually, that exercising is going to kill you way quicker than a cigarette is.
Speaker 2:Yeah, right, okay, that's amazing. That's really really amazing, because emphysema is one of the greatest killers of older adults going around. If you've been a smoker all your life and you get infocema, that's a death sentence, a slow death sentence. You finish up running out of air to breathe. In fact, in Australia, we're a population in total of about 6 million people, and 6 million of those people are older adults older than 55. And one in three people have one chronic disease and some have two or three chronic diseases by the time they get to 55, 60. And most of them don't exercise. It's only a very small percentage of people, as you would know, that have a regular habit of exercise, and the biggest reason that they don't exercise is I don't have time, um, so uh, but yeah, uh. I could not agree more, and that is so surprising to hear that, uh, the smokers live longer. Maybe I should take up smoking again the moral of it is the non-smokers.
Speaker 2:Exercises are the longest yeah, so I'll start with that, I think.
Speaker 1:I mean. But let's talk about infancy, right? So that's something you know. In like COPD, people are like, oh, that scares you, it's like you're slowly going to die and you know it's a death sentence, right? People get afraid it and it's like, oh my God, I'm sorry you have that. But then look at the conversation for that same age group, for type two diabetes people, people and maybe it's me and the groups, some people I've heard they like joke about their type 2 diabetes together. Oh, you have it. Oh, I have it too. And how much insulin are you taking? Well, look how much I'm taking. Type 2 diabetes is the same freaking death sentence as COPD is. It just kills you differently.
Speaker 1:But both have the same end result and both are slow, torturing deaths.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I agree and and Because of the addiction and maybe maybe type two diabetes sufferers are addicted in a way as well. But type two diabetes is more easily reversible than getting off nicotine, which is even more difficult than heroin to get off. So type 2 diabetes, if you get it early enough, go into a healthy diet. Recommend a plant-based diet. You can reverse that in most cases.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's interesting to think about. So food for thought today, grahamham, that's what we're talking about, right? I'm talking instantly. I'm projecting my future self. Hey, if you're gonna pick, either stop exercising or start smoking, start smoking over, stop exercising, but no, I'm never gonna do that I'm way too addicted to the gym.
Speaker 1:So, going back to the conversation, bringing in different things we could focus on as the age group above, specifically above 50, understanding we're trying to have hard conversations with them. It's a lot to convince someone in the age group that this is something they need to do now. It's more important now than it was when they were younger. In general, this is my question because I'm not in that age group, right, and you, I know, work with a lot of people and you specifically are. So it's like, okay, what is usually that come-to-God moment for people in that age group, and what I mean by that is what have you noticed in people's lives is the trigger for that that says, oh my god, and you just start working out like what happens to? All of a sudden. Then they have that doctor come to the gym okay, um, a couple of thoughts.
Speaker 2:The first one is most of my clients are women, uh, and the average age would be 60. And many of my clients have got osteopenia. So they go along to their doctor, they go and have a bone density test. The doctor says, hey, you've got osteopenia. And they say, oh my God, what can I do about that? And he says you need to go along to a gym, find a trainer and do some weight resistance exercise and build up your bone strength. So that's the first thought that comes to mind.
Speaker 2:Second one there are chronic diseases. Somebody's overweight. Second one would be people come to me and say, look, I've got this tummy, I want exercises to get rid of my tummy. And I say and they're obviously overweight. So do you have a refrigerator in your kitchen? Yes. Do you have a lock on it? No. Do you have a lock on your kitchen door? No, well, get one put on your kitchen door and stay out of the kitchen as much as you can, because it won't matter whether you come to the gym seven days a week, seven hours a day, if your diet's not right, you're going to continue to put on weight. So diet's the first place. So that type two diabetes, the doctor says, hey, you need to start moving, you need to get rid of some weight, otherwise you're going to die, and that happens in this age group.
Speaker 2:The other thing that I try and point home, anthony, is that there's a thing called senescence. Every living thing on the planet is born, it matures and there's a steady decline till everything on the planet will die. It's inevitable In the case of a human. We mature about mid-30s, around about, and then there's that steady decline. Now the people that are exercising are going to stay with a really good range of movement, health, strength, right, hopefully, to the end. You'll wake up dead one morning. That's my goal to wake up dead one morning.
Speaker 2:Other people that don't exercise will fall down gradually, go below the disability line and maybe spend 5, 10, 15 years at the end of life in some form of care or needing so, and that's the other thing I say, whether it's type 2 diabetes, osteopenia which progresses to osteoporosis, as we know, mental health, whatever it's been, and I've had all of these people referred to me by the medical profession for all of those ailments that we've spoken about. And I say that where do you want to be? Do you want to be in care for the last 10 or 15 years of your life, or five years, or do you want to be as healthy as possible, stay above the disability line, stay totally independent for the whole of your life and maybe only spend a short time at the end of life, unwell or with some disease that eventually is going to get us all?
Speaker 1:I had a guest on about six months ago at this point and you're going to love this. This is right where you mentioned. He said I want to live my life like a square and not like a bell curve. For those that don't get the reference, if you had a plot from zero to death, a bell curve is a standard deviation. Bell curve it goes all the way up. You peak and then you slowly decline. For him, peaked fast all the way alive dead 100% agree.
Speaker 2:I want to die as young as possible, as late as possible.
Speaker 1:I want to just not have to worry about going through torture. I've watched people for 5, 10, 20 years and they just look like they just want to die and I don't want that. I want it, just like you said in my sleep quick. If I'm younger, it's fine. If I'm older, great, whatever that is. That's kind of what I'm shooting for, but I want to make sure that up to like seven days before I die, I'm still like hiking out west in Arizona, right, or, for you, in central Australia in that heat, and people are looking at me like what the hell is this guy doing? And I'm like beating my grandkids like catch up kind of deal. Isn't that what life is about? We work so much, right?
Speaker 1:Most people get into the workforce 24, 25, 26, roughly. They start working 40 hours a week. They go all the way to they're about 65. So you're talking 40 years that you're really committing to your job. You restrict your travel, you restrict your free time. Job comes priority in order to make money and supply for your family.
Speaker 1:And then we have this idea that once we retire, we're going to do things. And we'd say this a lot when we're younger, when I'm 25, 30, 35. When I retire, we're going to do this when I retire, we're going to do this when I retire 25, 30, 35. When I retire, we're going to do this. When I retire, we're going to do this. And then what happens? You get to retirement age, you get close to it and you see a part of the population stop talking about when I retire, I'm going to do this, because their health has gotten such a shit and they just have given up on themselves mentally. It's no longer a thought. That's when they become depressed. That's when they become depressed. That's where you really see the mental issue.
Speaker 1:Step in here, because they just give up and they no longer are enjoying talking about when they're going to retire, when they're only a couple years out, at this point, whereas if you take care of yourself, you need to control and you really put the work into it and you had that compounding health benefits, like you mentioned before. Right, like compounding interest, compound health and you build up. Even over two years, you can turn your life around. You could be a totally different person. You could be spry, you could be mobile and you do not have to worry about going out, hiking, going out, hanging out with the grandkids. Food is a huge point which you mentioned before about diet. I'm a big believer in eating to eat, and what I mean by that is you eat 80% of your diet. Well, right.
Speaker 2:Yes.
Speaker 1:But if I'm going to retire and I'm out and I want to have a couple beers and I want to go have a fried ice cream, I'm going to do it because 80% of the time I'm good and I can compound that over so that 20% I can be like all right, I'm going to go eat whatever the heck this is. It looks horrible for me, yeah, but just to get the enjoyment out of life, I don't have to worry about the effects on my body.
Speaker 2:I hear what you're saying and I totally agree. Too many people live to eat rather than eat to live and that's why we've got the obesity problem. Yeah, portion size and what they're reading and so forth Just not right Talking about going as long as you can, going up, living the square and then crashing down at the end. When I worked in the retirement industry, as I said, I worked as a sales manager in the corporate world and I reported directly to the board of directors and one of the directors had a father.
Speaker 2:His father was in his early 90s and he lived totally independently. He'd lost his wife, still lived in his own home, rode a bike. In fact, he had only just taken up bike riding because his knees were aching, running long distances and we're talking early 90s here, by the way. So on a second or third bike ride, a long bike ride he was doing, he fell off a drop dead. Uh, on this long distance bike ride, um, and he's um.
Speaker 2:He said simon was the guy's name that I reported to and he said look, dad lived a very, very healthy life. He would have been happy going that way. He was totally independent, looked after his garden, did the shopping, vacuumed the house, did everything himself and he loved exercise. So the fact that the he died riding his bike, sure he wasn't a good look. When we found his body he said that he, he did what he wanted to right to the very end and stayed active right until the very end. What a way to go. Love that story. Yeah, so he was either 92 or 93 and took up bike riding after a lifetime of running.
Speaker 1:What a great story. See what I mean. That's what it's about just knowing you can do something like that. If it's over, it's about being just knowing you can do something like that. And then, yeah, if it's over, it's fine. Yeah, I didn't become reliant on over the counter drugs and all this fun medical shit they have to worry about. So, graham, just to kind of get the big picture of you, how do we go about changing the conversation for people? And because we're losing the obesity epidemic, just to be clear, I don't want to sit here and act like we're winning. We're totally getting our butts kicked. The obesity rate, especially in the states, goes up dramatically year on year. So how do we change the conversation to teach people what we you and I already know? We're just bullshitting about things we already know. But how do we get people that don't know and really turn in the other direction?
Speaker 2:Do you know what you and I know at the coalface, right in front of our clients? Because we see our clients every day. We know what to do at that level and if you've been sitting on the couch, as we said earlier, and developing a body that has taken you 15 years to develop, you're not going to wind that back in five weeks, so you need to be patient to wind that back. We understand what it's like on a client client, us to a client basis, but I think it goes far greater than that. I think it goes to government. Governments actually know what healthy eating is all about, yet they actually subsidize industries that provide food that we know that's not healthy for us. I don't want to be controversial, but I perhaps won't mention the industries, but there are many and those industries provide research that pushes back against any negative thought about their product. But it's funding.
Speaker 1:Let me hop in here to help you out real quick, because I have a stat for you. Most ultra-processed food companies are owned and you can look this up by the old cigarette companies.
Speaker 2:Yeah, right, so you want to talk about addiction.
Speaker 1:They are the ones that created the ultra-processed foods. If you go, look at the owners of the companies, the suitors of the old tobacco industry, because they knew they were getting shut down so they went and bought all these little companies. Go ahead.
Speaker 2:Sorry, I stole that interesting stat yeah, so let's take that a step further. In that case, if it comes in a box, comes in a wrapper, it's not natural. It, if it comes in a box, comes in a wrapper, it's not natural, it's been processed. Keep away from it. If it comes in a box and if it's got eyes, ears and feet, keep away from it as much as you can. Eat red meat if you must, in high moderation, once a week, max 150 grams. I don't know what that is in uh ounces in your language. Um, red meat, um, all meat is so, so high with um, um medications and so forth that they we're getting medication. Um, what do you call them antibiotics?
Speaker 1:we are developing resistance to antibiotics because we're eating it I'm going to disagree on that just real quick, because we had a whole podcast on it that actually comes out tomorrow, next day, this week. That's why I didn't want to be controversial. No, no, it's fine, because it's the same conversation. You're going to agree exactly with what I'm going to say.
Speaker 1:It's not the meat, it's the type of meat. It's the fact that we're going for cow, pig, chicken, turkey, right, and those are mass-produced animals. So in order to get them out, in order to come on the shelves, they have to inject them, they have to keep them in shit-living environments. But if you went and ate real meat and I'm talking more what people call gamey meat, super lean, super high in protein, super low in associated fat they're not processed in factories like most of the other animals are, so they have no antibiotics in them, they have no other resistance and it's one of the healthiest things you can put into your body because, especially as you age, you need complete proteins and the only way to get that is through red meat or any other kind of animal products. So it's not meat and that's what that study was for. It's the types. I eat a lot of elk, I eat a lot of bison. I actually ate kangaroo for the first time a couple of days ago, so going back to Australia. So it's just the types of meat we're eating, yeah.
Speaker 2:So I am predominantly plant-based these days and I found that when I was a meat eater, my joints would ache. I'd have to have a rest after a day of heavy weightlifting to rest before I could train again. As a plant-based predominantly plant-based my diet is not inflammatory, it's uninflammatory. So my joints and muscles are such that I can exercise every day. Look, I'll come clean. I'm 75 years of age and I exercise every day. I'm doing two or three hours of exercise every day. I would not be able to do that if I was still a meat eater.
Speaker 2:I get my protein. I have to be honest. I eat a little bit of fish, but I haven't eaten any meat for probably 10 years. I get my protein from tofu, nuts and seeds, all the legumes, and in fact there's protein in everything that we eat, everything. And I basically basically say we can cut out the middleman, largely the middleman being the meat. We can go straight to the source. You don't see any weak elephants, gorillas, giraffes. They're all very, very healthy and strong, and I'm very, very healthy and strong. So, um, so I respect everybody that still likes me, but I um, you know, respectfully say anthony, I try and keep away from it as much and processed meat, by the way, has been scientifically proven to be carcinogenic, cancer causing nitrates and found in like uh coke cuts probably the worst thing you can put in your body, yeah, so already I can tell you that I love you, but I and I don't want to disagree with you, but, um, I come from a different school, hey, it's all good.
Speaker 1:I have the exact opposite problem. I suffer from IBSD. So if I eat anything high in fiber, which is your seeds, your plants I die.
Speaker 2:Oh really. Well then, don't do that. Eat meat Well then, don't do that.
Speaker 1:Eat meat. So my diet is 99% meat, with very little anything added. Like I will literally just eat like a pound of elk in a sitting, wow, wow, but it's awesome. I highly recommend, by the way, if you haven't had elk, to go, try elk. It's phenomenal tasting.
Speaker 2:I have tasted kangaroo way back when Kangaroo tail soup Beautiful.
Speaker 1:Never had that, we know. Obviously it's hard to get here. The only thing I could find was ground kangaroo and I tried making it. It was leaner than elk, which is crazy, because elk is super lean and it's slightly more on the gamier side, like venison Right.
Speaker 2:Well, you find plenty of kangaroos here. They're in plague proportions down here out in the bush.
Speaker 1:I've talked to a couple of Aussies that have moved up here and I've heard crazy stories about kangaroos, yeah, and they were like what, don't go near them. I guess it's more like, uh, when you're down South in the U S, like avoiding the Crocs yeah, you don't want to piss them off on it.
Speaker 1:Total side conversation. No, but I really a lot of the things you said. I still, like I said, I full-heartedly believe and I think you really hit the nail on the head mentioning the government side of it, and I couldn't agree more actually, with you on that it's the big companies that pay for these studies, are the reason that they come out fake. And if you don't believe me, I've mentioned this about 400 times. So if you don't believe me, I've mentioned this about 400 times. So if you don't know this by now, you don't listen to my show.
Speaker 1:But back in like the 70s, the US did a study on the obesity crisis, because it started coming around by then, and they showed that it was high fats in foods that was causing the obesity epidemic. And they didn't just prove that was causing the obesity epidemic, yeah, and they didn't just prove that. For about 20 years later, like you remember, like for me growing up, it was all no fat this, no fat this, and it was actually doing a lot of damage. And then when you go look at the study, you realize it was sponsored by the Coca-Cola company. So no, shit.
Speaker 2:Look, cardiovascular health is a big one and I won't mention the name of the cardiologist number one because I can't remember it off the top of my head, but he was the head of cardiology in a hospital in New York and he's a plant-based doctor. And he went to the board the board managing the hospital and said hey, we know what's causing heart disease. We could stop heart disease. We just need to reduce the amount of fat that people are eating so their arteries don't clog. We know exactly what's required. So if we were to implement this type of diet within the hospital and start promoting and educating people around this topic, he said we're going to reduce the amount of Americans that have heart disease.
Speaker 2:The board of the hospital came back to me and said what are you mad? Are you mad? How many people do you think are going to be out of work? If we don't have these people sick, coming in, needing bypass operations, needing stents put in, you know how many people will be able to work. The hospital will lose so much revenue. How crazy is that? The head of cardiology at this great big hospital in America. He resigned from the hospital. He said I cannot work in an environment where we know the cure, we know what to to do, and yet the hospital will keep on, uh, promoting you know crap food, because they're being supported by you know some yeah, coca-cola for example, further, uh, you look at foods made here and then foods.
Speaker 1:I think australia is the same as europe, where foods that you can buy here like you buy heinz ketchup, right yes, we got it here. It doesn't matter, our heinz ketchup is different than yours, ours has like 15, 20 ingredients in it.
Speaker 1:Yours I think it was last four. Yeah, so a lot of the substances they're putting into our foods are banned in europe, australia, other, because they're known to be harmful. Bring that kind of back to what's going on now with the US politics and I don't like getting into politics because people are going- to no, that's true, it doesn't matter, this is just important.
Speaker 1:RFK is coming in and made very clear the first thing he's going to ban is red dye 40, which is a byproduct of petroleum and has been shown time and time again to increase the amount of adhd levels and anxiety in kids. And it's the one of the biggest things found in candies and sodas, because they use it as a food coloring. There's no purpose, but then just the coloring of a food. It's banned in most of europe and we still have it on our shelves, and we're not only that, we're promoting it to kids. Yeah, that I say he had this. So that is going to be interesting to see how things change here in the States, as he kind of hopefully, fingers crossed really gets rid of those things that we know are extremely bad for you. And we don't even advertise either on labels or be just different. It's just overly processed bullshit.
Speaker 2:Anyway, that's just my take on it.
Speaker 2:Oh look, australia is the little brother, the baby brother, to whatever happens in America. Whatever happens there, we do here, and we do have more strict labelling on food products that are 100 miles away from where it needs to be. It's still a long way away from being totally honest, but basically, if it has, in my view, if it has eyes, feet, ears, eat it in high moderation. Go into a fruit and vegetable store and eat anything that you can see and as much of it as you want. If it comes in a box, it's processed. Keep away from it those three things and you're going to have a pretty healthy diet. Alcohol that's plant-based, thank god. Only a little bit now and again, in in high moderation as well.
Speaker 1:So um we've talked about. You got to live right 80 20 you have to have some fun.
Speaker 1:You definitely have to have some fun. And then that's the last point, going back to checking labels, and I'm sure it's different by your opinion this year. But you look at, uh, peanut butter, and yes, just another case study. Go to the grocery store next time, read a label. So the peanut butter industry is the one that's most against trans fat, the trans fat band, than any other industry. The reason being is they use it to preserve the peanut butter and keep it smooth. Trans fat, also called partially hydrogenated oils. If you read labels and it says zero grams of trans fat, all they did was change the nutrition serving to make it 0.4, so then they can list it at zero. It's still on there if you read it and you don't even know that that peanut butter you're eating, you think it's healthy, is one of the worst things you can put in your body.
Speaker 1:Oh my God, it kills you. And you have to be smart enough to go pick and look at a label and say, okay, this one doesn't have it, this one ingredient say peanuts, so I can have that one and not the Skippy and the Peter Pan that have all these partial hydrogen and oils in it.
Speaker 2:Well, you're sending me right to my pantry to have a look at my peanut butter now. I love peanut butter.
Speaker 1:I don't know how it is in Aussie. I know that's what it is here, though. Yeah.
Speaker 2:I'll check it out.
Speaker 1:Yeah, just read that. It's usually the second ingredient. The peanut butter stays smooth. That's usually the reason. It either has partially, hydrogen and oil, or it has palm oil in it. But, either way, it should not be like that. The oil should shift to the bottom, which, by the way, hack on that. If you don't want the oil separating it, throw it in the refrigerator. It makes it a little harder to scoop, but the oil won't separate it out because of the temperature differential.
Speaker 2:Okay, okay, I'm going to check that out as soon as we finish.
Speaker 1:I appreciate it Great. All right, let's wrap this episode up, so I'm going to ask you the final two questions. I ask everybody. First question if you were to summarise this episode in one sentence, what would be your take on message?
Speaker 2:Could you repeat that please?
Speaker 1:If you were to summarise this episode in a sentence, what would be your take on message?
Speaker 2:Oh, okay. Well, privilege is the first word that comes to my mind. It's been an absolute delight to meet you, anthony, and, and do this and we've, I think we, we, we come sing from the same hymn book, so we. So that's the first thing. Privilege, we are like-minded, wonderful. Who get my message out in America, although I'm sure everybody knows it people talk about, oh yes, I know that we need to exercise and only eat well, get enough sleep, get rest, have some social interaction, but nobody does it. So let's get off our butts, get out, get active, uh, and start winding back the clock I love that.
Speaker 1:And the second question how can people find you get a hold of you, find your book? Go ahead, give it all away, okay my website is wwwallthewscomau for Australia.
Speaker 2:Anybody contact me, I'll be happy to show them what we do. They can join in on my online classes if they're interested, and we actually have an app coming out, probably February or March of next year, specifically for over 50s. We're launching it worldwide. My son and I, and so the people from 50 on, can exercise in their own home. Lots of pre-recorded exercises become part of our community worldwide, close Facebook groups, et cetera, et cetera, different levels. I won't bore you with all of that. But if anybody said, can you send me details of what you're doing next year, I would happily send them a questionnaire to get their feedback as we're designing, finishing the designing of the product, and then, when we start, if they fill out the questionnaire, be happy to give them a two-month free subscription to what we're doing. So if you go into my website, wwwrenewedafter50.comau, and contact me, I'll be happy to forward that information onto them.
Speaker 1:I love it. Thank you so much, graeme, for joining us. Thank you, guys, for listening to this week's episode of Health and Fitness Redefined. Don't forget to hit that subscribe button and enjoy this next week as we dive deeper into this ever-changing field. And remember fitness is medicine Until next time. So Outro Music.
