Episode 681 - 12 Months to Health
In this episode, listen or watch as Jeremy and Andrew talk about whistlekick’s upcoming event, The All-In Weekend.
12 Months to Health - Episode 681
Build up to better health, one step at a time. Everything takes time not just in training but also with health. In this episode, Jeremy and Andrew talk about the former’s newest book: 12 Months to Health. While there are tons of health books in the market, there’s something different with 12 Months to Health so listen to find out more!
Get your copy of 12 Months to Health on Amazon
Listen to this episode and join the conversation! We would appreciate you sharing your thoughts in the comments section below.
Show Transcript
You can read the transcript below.
Jeremy Lesniak:
What's going on everybody? Welcome to another episode of whistlekick Martial Arts radio. Today, Andrew and I are talking about the latest whistlekick book. But don't worry. You should know by now, when we talk about a thing that we did, we also talk about a lot of other things as it relates to martial arts, so stick around. We're talking about "12 Months to Health". Now if you're new to the show, you can go to whistlekick.com see all the things that whistlekick does, because we do a bunch of stuff, lots of stuff, why do we do what we do? To connect, educate and entertain the traditional martial artists of the world. And if you appreciate that mission, you want to support us in that mission. Here are a few things you can do. You can go to whistlekick.com and buy something, all kinds of stuff over there. We're rolling out new apparel all the time. You can use the code PODCAST15 Get yourself 15% off. You could also support our Patreon we give exclusive behind the scenes content, like who's coming up for interview episodes and a bunch more patreon.com/whistlekick but if you want the whole list, including exclusive discounts, we don't share anywhere else, fun photos, other behind the scenes stuff completely free, whistlekick.com/Family. We don't link that anywhere you got to go direct. But we make it worth your while.
Andrew Adams:
Yeah, I should find I should pick up some more old photos.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Those photos you had really good. The last ones I put up of me were a trip and a half. So am I missing anything in my notes? The Podcast gets its own website, whistlekickmartialartsradio.com separate page for each and every episode, transcripts, links. If you like the guests that we bring on go check out their page. And that's it. There's the intro. Okay. So my hope for this one was that you would, kind of like what we did for All-in weekend. I know the behind the scenes on the book.
Andrew Adams:
Yeah, you know more about this book more than probably anybody. So 12 months to health. There are lots of self-help type books on how to how to get healthy, right? There's Yeah, tons of them.
Jeremy Lesniak:
A stupid number.
Andrew Adams:
Yeah. Wouldn't you want to guess. So what makes this book different from that? It's different because I wanted to make something that worked. In what I've done with whistlekick in what I did coaching, CrossFit, and what I did coaching gymnastics, just, I've been around gyms and health and fitness, I started working out at 12. I appreciate what the human body can do. It's fascinating. And so I put a lot of time and effort into my own health and fitness. But not everybody does. And I used to think that you had to put a lot of time and effort into your health and fitness, that that was the only way and that people who were not where they wanted to be just needed to make it a priority, just needed to put more time. And that's where I was until probably five years ago. And some things started popping up.
For me as I was getting older things weren't as easy to do right. Metabolism over time tends to get suppressed based on choices we make. And to shorten up what could be a very long tangent, I started to find some, I don't want to call them hacks or tricks, but some things to focus on that if you prioritize those led to a lot of impact. The first one and the only one that I want to give away has to do with water. How many of us have heard like drink certain amounts of water or carry around a big jug lots of water, water, water, water, water, and it's overwhelming. Right? Half your body weight in ounces a day? Well, for a lot of us, that's a gallon of water. If you're someone who needs to shed a couple pounds, that could easily be a gallon of water. And if I tell someone who needs to get healthier, I want you to drink a gallon of water. And I want you to do this and I want you to do that
Andrew Adams:
It becomes daunting.
Jeremy Lesniak:
It's exhausting. How many of us have the mental space to do a bunch of extra things? And I said okay, what's a simple thing and that came from bumping into an article that said, I remember roughly the timeline on this. This was the thing that opened the door because it was something I shared with my father. Most people don't know my father was morbidly obese, like, hundreds of pounds. And I found a study that said, drinking a 16 ounces of water first thing in the morning, increased your metabolism by 15% for a period of time, that was like pretty good input versus output. The investment on that's pretty easy. And over time, I started to find more of those things. I went okay. If the hard part here is that it's we're asking people to do too much. How do we phase them in? I didn't know what the answer to that was. Until we started the two-minute martial arts.
Andrew Adams:
Oh, interesting some connection there...
Jeremy Lesniak:
Most people don't know about that. Because we net we didn't put a ton into it. And it was a project shout out to Justin. Not Martial Journal Justin, other Justin. And the premise was, a lot of people say they don't have enough time. Okay, can you find two minutes? So we came up with a year's worth of drills, and eventually it'll become a book. But he said, Okay, if you've got two minutes, and you build a habit, what can you do with that habit? And that's starting to come into my language as 1%. Right, you get 1% better. if I'm going to go to class, I'm going to aim to get 1% better at a thing. And then if I stack that over time, now 1% Better even if you go to class, once a week, that's not really sustainable. Because you're if you've been training long, you're not gonna get 50% Better than a year. Yeah. And actually, the compound interest rate that 1% is actually closer, like 78 I think percent. It's a large number. But anybody can fight off that 1%. Yeah. How do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time? So I said, Okay, before? Well, probably, I mean, it could be jerky, elephant jerky. There's a lot of ways to eat an elephant. The point being, you have to take small bites. Yep. Yep. Otherwise, it is to use your word daunting.
Andrew Adams:
Yeah, absolutely. You know, I will say, that is the word that I use for those types of books, they expect those types of health books ask you to do this, and this, and this, and this, and this. And there's all these things, change your diet and do this type of exercise, but not this kind and all this other stuff. And it is it can be overwhelming and daunting. And it's been interesting, you know, my wife and I have started doing the book, as we call it. And it has been an interesting shift in how we think about getting healthier. Because, you know, a peek behind the curtain a little bit. Each page is a couple of paragraphs. So a little bit about why what you're doing what Jeremy is asking you to do in this book, why it's better for you, and the benefits of doing that. And it helps to re solidify what it is we're doing and why. But they're but they're small increments, which feels manageable. It really does.
Jeremy Lesniak:
When you look at most of the financially successful health and fitness programs these days, they all use a single word. CHALLENGE. 30 Day Challenge. Yep. 20 Day Challenge. 21 Day Challenge 60 Day channel that applies. It's hard. It is hard. But there's an endpoint. If you want to be healthy forever, you can't do a challenge that has an endpoint. Yeah. Now you can use those as a reset like a detox like a kickoff, like something to break a pattern. There's all kinds of use for that. But if you're trying to create sustainable habits, which I think are the key, because none of us got to where we are overnight, it doesn't matter what you're talking about. It didn't happen overnight. If we're talking about weight, or blood sugar levels, or being sedentary, it didn't happen with a switch, it took time. It takes time to go back the other direction.
Andrew Adams:
And I think one of the takeaways from this I think relating it to martial arts is how many people go into whether you're an instructor and a student comes in for the first class or you are a student going into your class for the first time. And the instructor says okay, we it's your first class, we're going to work on this and this and this and this and this and you're gonna learn this whole concept today and our form and then going to do this and we're going to some sparring, the student will run away.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Because they leave Feeling like wow, look at all these things I'm terrible at. It's dauntinig.
Andrew Adams:
Exactly and it becomes overwhelming and it becomes something that they don't want to do. And I think that's the trouble with many books on how to get healthy. It's the same sort of philosophy that a student comes in. You give them one or two things to work on. And that's it. You don't want to overwhelm them. And I think that's the one of the huge benefits of this book is that it doesn't feel, I mean, yes, it's a thick book. This is a hardback hardcover book, it's a thick book..
Jeremy Lesniak:
Doubles is a weapon. Right?
Andrew Adams:
it's kind of like a day calendar, like, you know, it says, you know, day two, day three, day four, you read each day.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Did you say that intentionally because I've shared this with a couple people. If it was inexpensive, you didn't know this, if it was inexpensive to make a date, like a word of the day calendar. That's what this would have been. Yeah, because that really is more of the format.
Andrew Adams:
Yep. And so my wife and I read it at night before we go to bed. We sit, we lay there in bed, and we go, okay, what's the next day? And we read the chapter. I mean, they're short, couple paragraphs on what we're doing and why.
Jeremy Lesniak:
We did an episode... This might have been early when you were on why people struggle with things that don't have an endpoint. I don't remember wherever that episode was. But it came out of the conversation. And this is still a broad conversation, why do so many people earn their black belt in a martial arts style, and then quit? Because we give them that as the end point goal, because people struggle doing things that are daunting, that are overwhelming, that don't end like attending 2-3-5 hours of martial arts classes every week. Oh, okay. When we put this together, when Jenny and Lester and I were talking on the back end, like how we wanted to do this, I had the roots of a concept. The concept was, I wanted to give people one simple thing per month that they could do. And then I wanted to spend 30 days beating them over the head. And that was really the language I use, beating them over the head with the reasons why that simple thing was worth doing. So with the example of water being the first chapter, anybody can drink a glass of water, right? Like this is not rocket science. Some of the things that as we get deeper into the book, they're not unique, and they're not controversial at all.
But these are all very easy, obvious thing versions. It's simple, not easy. And then, okay, so let's pretend you are struggling to create this habit. We all know the power of habit, we all know that it is much easier to keep brushing your teeth, as you've always been brushing your teeth, as compared to starting flossing. Most people struggle, flossing, who doesn't struggle with flossing people who have always flossed. People who floss consistently, rarely stop flossing. Okay, and there's all kinds of science out there, I should say, research into how long it takes to create a habit. A lot of pepople identify 21 days. That is not a hard and fast rule. It depends on a number of factors. But roughly a month is a good amount of time. So you read the thing, what's the thing we're going to have you do? And then you spend the next month reading one page at a time giving you yet another reason why doing this thing is beneficial too. drink more water because it helps you eat less for the day. Drink more water, because it's better for your skin. Drink more water? Because Because because. And I expect there one of one of two reactions from people. As they read through those, they find one that really resonates for them. They're like, Oh, I've been trying to make an improvement on this symptom. I'm gonna keep going with this for just the sheer volume of why wouldn't I do this? Why wouldn't I start my day with a glass of water? It's free. Yeah, I have to do it anyway. Like, I don't think anybody out there who rejects water is being beneficial. If you do, you're probably not watching the show, because you're crazy. And you get through the chapter, you're like, alright. And so 30 days later, you've been doing it and you're probably gonna keep doing it. And then we give you another simple, manageable.
Andrew Adams:
My wife and I, as I mentioned, we read this at the end of the night. And so far, we started because we were nerds. We're like we're gonna start on January 1, because that's day one. Right? A bunch of people did. Yeah. And you know, so we're on day 21 or 22 or whatever we are. Right now as recording this. And for the month we've been doing this glass of water every morning, and the evening we read the page and nine times out of 10 She will go already knew that. And she's like why? Why are we going through these things every single day, I already know all these things. And one of the concepts and ideas I brought up to her is you know, one of the reasons that we're doing this is that, especially for us, we're doing it at night is it helps us to remember when we wake up first wake up, boom, water, because that was the last thing we thought of when we went to bed. And it helps us to remember that this is what we're going to do. And now it's not something we have to think about, because it's been, you know, 25 days now. It's just you wake up you drink a glass of water, and then you go about your day.
Jeremy Lesniak:
And I want to poke at that reaction that, you know, I already know this thing. Good.
Andrew Adams:
But I would caveat that. She will say, sometimes, it won't be a I already knew that it would be oh, that makes sense. And my response is yes, that makes sense. But it's not something that I thought of. It does make sense that having more water in your body helps your joints and your ligaments because they're lubed up for lack of a better word that doesn't make sense.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Synovial fluid is based in water.
Andrew Adams:
Is that something I ever thought of before? Nope.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Let's flip it. What if it was the other way? What if it was the type of book that everybody puts out there about health and fitness and exercise? Whatever. That throws a bunch of things at you, you didn't know. Now you have to exert energy. Thinking about it, remembering it, processing it. Yep. And buying into what they're saying. Everything in there came from a scientific study. Everything that is here was referenced, for those of you don't know, the book team is three of us. It's it's Jenny, it's myself and it's Lester and Lester does the research. Lester has done tremendous research, and we work together on Martial Arts handbook. And when I gave him this, I said, You know what, I'm looking for, here are the things, can you help me with the research? And he's pulling studies from all over the world on these things like, and some of the stuff in here, you'll get to stuff later on, it's like, oh, I do know I could do that. Oh, I Oh, okay. Oh, and some of them are going to make sense. Oh, that makes sense. Others are going to be a little more like, okay, I can see that. But as you get deeper into the book, and you start seeing some results, which guess what? They're not going to be rapid. You're not going to start drinking a glass of water in the morning and on day three, you're like, I feel amazing. Maybe you will if you were really dehydrated. But the idea is that, at some point halfway through the book, something happens and you go "hey, don't like my knees usually hurt after I go for a hike?" Or when I play with my grandkids? I feel sore getting down on the floor. Right. It's meant to be to create a lightbulb moment.
Andrew Adams:
Yeah, yeah. And one of the other things that I find interesting is if there is a page, that you talk about a specific thing, for example, we'll use the water and the joints. If I read that and say, Yeah, I don't buy that. I don't think that makes sense. You have a little footnote that says go to the appendix, go to the back of the book, and it will link I mean, not like you can't push in the book. But there will be a website that you can go to where the study has been done to show that this is the case. And I think that's really cool. You know, like I said, for the water stuff, most of the stuff it makes sense, you know, totally does. But I could see further on in the book where we get into some other thing. And I don't know what those things are, because I haven't read there yet. Like, where I might go, Huh, really, is that true? I mean, I believe Jeremy because I know him and I trust him. But I want to find out more about that. I have the ability to do that, that I can go and read the study or the research that was done on whatever it is. And I think that's pretty good. The other thing and last thing I'll say is my father plays bagpipes..
Jeremy Lesniak:
I didn't know that. Yeah, but that is the least surprising thing I probably heard about you.
Andrew Adams:
And he went to a week-long workshop a number of years ago, it was down to Florida. And he was excited to tell me about the he was going to be going to this workshop and I knew some of the instructors and they were you know, some top-level players. And I was like, "Oh, that'll be great Dad you'll get a lot out of it." And he spent the week there. And he got done the week and said it was the worst week I've ever spent in my life. Like I didn't learn anything. It was just such a waste of time. I'm never going back and I'm going to send them an email about it and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And about three or four months later, he said to me, so that workshop I went to number of months ago they opened up the registrations I'm gonna go next year. And I was like, why? Like you told me so. And he said, you know, ever since then something will come up at band practice. And I'll be like, Oh, and this is him talking. He said, I would be like, oh, yeah, they mentioned something about that at the workshop. I do remember. Oh, okay, that makes a lot more sense now. And then another month or two would go by and he would say, oh, yeah, you know what? I used to struggle with this. And I get it now. Why do I get it now? Oh, it's because I learned a little bit about it at that workshop. And I didn't realize that the time and being able to have that long term, being able to look back at something and say, Oh, I really did get something out of that. You know, my wife and I are on day 25. And we notice a huge difference in our lives right now. Not really, have there been a few things that have made me go, I wonder? Yeah. Can I attribute it to the water? Maybe? Maybe not?
Jeremy Lesniak:
No, because it's not a you know, a tightly controlled study. But it's not meant to be, because how much just drinking a glass of water morning put you out? 15 seconds. Like it's not a big deal. Now let's tie this. There's one more thing I'm going to say as we as we wind down, but let's tie this back into martial arts, we've kind of hinted at that. And most of you watching or listening can probably relate everything we're saying to martial arts, you can see that as with everything else we do, there's a martial arts approach to not only the way the book was made, but the way the information is presented. We often as students, or newer instructors, try to do what you talked about with the first you know that that example of a student on their first day, we are so passionate, that we are looking to do everything at once. I've heard from a number I get emails all the time. And one of the recurring themes is, I'm a blue belt, I'm a green belt, you know, two, three years in, and I love my training. And I want to train in this, I want to train in this, I want to train this, my school offers classes, this, this, this, this and this, and I'm going to do them all. And sadly, even those people who are training for the right reasons, maybe even at a great school, and it fits in with their life, become overwhelmed at their own choices. And they pull back. And they look for something more sustainable.
So, the irony is maybe not irony. But what I'm finding interesting is, I have in the last few months, made some adjustments to how I handle my work, I am less overwhelmed, I'm getting better quality work done, which means I'm getting more work done by not trying to do so much all at once.
Andrew Adams:
Makes sense. One of the things that I'm most proud of is I took the draft of this and reached out to a bunch of my friends who work in traditional and you know, some Western some Eastern medicine. As you might imagine, as someone who is passionate about health and fitness, I've accumulated quite a few health practitioners who have done stuff yet for me over the years, you know, they have been part of my team, I've got a pretty deep team, not as deep as it has been. But because I'm not, you know, going as hard on my body as I have been. But I reached out to a number in here, there are forwards, I think we can call them endorsements because they read the book and decided to contribute from an MD, actually a chief medical officer at a hospital, an acupuncturist, Chinese medicine practitioner, a chiropractor and a occupational therapist slash Rolfer, which if you don't know Rolfing Structural Integration, similar to massage but works on the fascial level. So here are four people from really different angles, on health. And they all get it, they understand it, some of them talk about it, they're like my patients need this. Because what you're asking people to do is simple and easy. The reason I want to say this, we have a culture in western medicine, that results should come quickly that your health, I'm going to take this pill it's gonna solve my problem going to have the surgery, going to solve my problem. That is not to say that pharmaceutical interventions and surgeries do not have a place. Sure, absolutely. But I have a saying that I've said for a longtime nobody's going to care more about you or an aspect of you than you. Nobody is going to care more about your health.
Jeremy Lesniak:
So it is my hope after hearing this, you will consider checking this It's available paperback, hardcover, Kindle. We have a Facebook group, Jenny would slap me if I didn't mention that Facebook group been a mutual support behind the scenes, you know kind of thing, you know. Because creating habits is the secret to everything. Small things done frequently lead to big results. Eating an elephant, training in martial arts, trying to get healthier, whatever it is. If people have questions, I will happily answer them, go check out the reviews, people are finding some substantial results. I'm not promising any results, because I cannot do that. But there are people who have written in, you mentioned your experience, there have been a couple things where like, I have received direct feedback from people. And I'm not going to say what the feedback has been because that starts to get into claims. And you can't do that yet. But saying I am in I'm two weeks in or three weeks in to the first month just changing drinking water. And here are the things I've noticed that are different. That person's hooked now. That person is going to go through the whole book. And they're going to get through 12 months, and they're going to go, what? And we're probably gonna evaluate six months in. Do we do a second one? I don't know. I've got most of the next 12 already in my head. I've already figured those out. Yeah. But we have to see.
Andrew Adams:
And it's great. It's available on so many platforms. The only one we're you're probably not going to do an audio book.
Jeremy Lesniak:
I thought about it.
Andrew Adams:
Let me listen to 10 minutes. Okay, let me stop.
Jeremy Lesniak:
It's not even those those paragraphs, you know, chapter 42, you know, for day 42. And I read you a couple things, two minutes, chapter 43 Wait, stop, stop, you know, you're driving in the car, it's not gonna work well.
Andrew Adams:
Awesome. Well, I hope people check the book out. You know, I am looking forward to continuing on with it. And seeing what the 12 months of 2022 will bring.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Martial arts what we learned from martial arts, martial arts philosophy approach, etc. This is why I say martial arts makes people better. If it was not for martial arts, the experiences I've had doing other things directly related in within the bounds of martial arts and whistlekick, this book would not exist. Martial arts opened my mind up in a way that I could do this. And I'm sure that there are a multitude of things out there that we owe to martial arts into martial arts. Available on Amazon. We were joking when we set this up like with the team, Andrew made can you see it's orange? This Thai sweet tea, which is really good. And I felt like we were having like a daytime talk show. And I was gonna do a different place today on martial arts reading. Jeremy Lesniak talks about his new book. Right, like, I don't know, is that is that the right?
Andrew Adams:
Yeah, sounds good. I don't know I don't listen to day time talk shows.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Alright. Thanks for watching. Thanks for listening. Whether you pick up the book or not, hopefully you got something out of this episode. Okay. whistlekick.com PODCAST15 to save money on stuff. Not this book. Because Amazon does things beautifully. We'll leave it at that. whistlekickmartialartsradio.com for the show all the episodes that we do, oh, you can get the shirts at whistlekick.com. If you want the entire list of all the things that we give to you or that you could do in support of the whistlekick mission to connect, educate and entertain whistlekick.com/family. There's a patreon, patreon.com/whistlekick, for behind the scenes and exclusive content you will not find anywhere else. To the seminars, if you want me to come to your school teacher seminar, we are still booking and it's going really well so I don't expect this to end at 2022 If you're watching in 2024 I'm probably still teaching seminars. It'll be on some slightly different subject matter at that poing. But I'm really having a good time I would love to come to your school and work with you, your students on stuff so reach out Jeremy@whistlekick.com Andrew@whistlekickmartialartsradio.com. Our social media is @whistlekick. Until next time, train hard, smile and have a great day.