Dan Hyman

INSPIRING MOVEMENT FOR MENTAL HEALTH 🗣️⁣ ⁣ From my personal experience & experience working closely with clients, mental health is an incredibly complex topic. It’s individual with so many variables involved that giving generic advice is always difficult.⁣ ⁣ But one common denominator that I think applies to most is that poor mental health or periods of low mood are always easier to deal with from a place of good physical health & feeling good as a result of that.⁣ ⁣ A big theme of yesterdays discussion was that low mood often leads to neglecting exercise when exercise is what can negate low mood. A vicious cycle, & one that we should all try to avoid.⁣ ⁣ Of course these things are far easier said than done, all health improvement is, but I think action always has to start from a place of self-awareness. What you are aware of, you can change.⁣ ⁣ ⁣ Thank-you for having me down to speak & have good, important convo with your audience @pinterest @dentsuuk ⁣ Health shouldn’t be difficult to talk about, no ones goal is to be unhealthy, we are all just doing our best in the circumstances we are in.⁣ ⁣ ⁣ The biggest take-away that I wanted to leave the room with:⁣ ⁣ “Improving your physical health won’t solve all of your problems, but it will likely create a far better environment to carry out the action required to do so.”

My own health journey, & the reason why I hold it in such high regard. Natural ups & downs throughout, but honestly, so far just a long-term game of learning, discipline & fine-tuning my routine. Some of the most important learnings that I have made in this time: ▪️Health is essential. Don’t wait until it gets taken away from you or someone close to you to realise the importance. ▪️Consistency is everything. Getting healthy doesn’t count for much, the value comes in staying healthy. If you can stay consistent for long enough, you will figure it out as you go & end up in a pretty good place. ▪️Health requires effort, when you’ve decided that you are willing to bring that effort, success comes down to the direction of that effort. ▪️The ultimate goal with health routine is automisation. If it becomes your life, you will resent it eventually as it starts to impact other areas. Set it up so it looks after itself, allowing you to focus your time/effort on the other important things in life. ▪️You will set an example. Your partner/ kids/ family/ close friends will all start to become healthier as they see you do your thing. Maybe the biggest flex of all. ▪️Trends will always come & go. Good health always circles back to doing the fundamentals (nutrition, training, sleep, stress management) well & consistently.

Talking all things ‘six-packs’. ⁣ ⁣ Overrated? Underrated? Important? Not important? Who am I to judge. ⁣ ⁣ Goals are individual. ⁣ ⁣ I can’t decide what they are for you, but what I can do is set you up to achieve them.⁣ ⁣ That’s the reason @eat.look.feel exists. ⁣ ⁣ ⁣ Thank-you for the write up @mensfitnessuk 🗞

“Distractions are coming. Your job is to stay on the road” Particularly relevant this time of year. For most, this is not a time of year to focus on perfection health wise, But it’s equally not a time of year to neglect things fully. Enjoy what you need to enjoy, but create balance by doing what it takes to stay on that road.

True health isn’t loud, it’s doing the basics well consistently & the consistency that is required is only possible with adequate recovery. This is how I approach my own recovery, with the aim to put myself in a position to stay as consistent as possible. Recovery is individual & there are lots of external factors that need to be taken into account when advising; training style, training history, external stress, body composition, general activity etc. However the basic principle of balancing training~recovery is universal. You can only train as hard as you recover. Get that wrong & it will show in injury/ illness/ burnout. & nothing will slow you down quicker. Big believer in not putting myself in the bin every session, there is a time & a place for that, but sustainability always wins at a high level. The goal is to train at a level in which allows good recovery & in a position to turn up tomorrow. — As ever, this is just the way I am playing the game at the moment. This is individual to me, my goals & my schedule, & admittedly, also my weakest pillar. However this may provide insight & inspo into how to improve your own.

Client Spotlight || M, 30, London M came to EATLOOKFEEL with the goal of improving his overall health & his physique. He already had a good health routine, but he felt stagnant & lacked the direction required to unlock leaner, fitter, stronger. I changed the overall balance & intensity to his training, designing 5x sessions per week: Push Pull/Core Lowerbody Cardio/Core Upperbody M travels often with work, so nutritionally the main focus was to create a framework that he could stay consistent with when he was both home & on-the-go. No cutting or bulking, but a focus on fuelling sufficiently & creating that positive internal environment. Recovery wise, M has a good sleep & general routine when home, but loses that when he travels. We worked together on balancing the volume of his training around that travel to maintain positive momentum. The visual does the talking. M is leaner, fitter & stronger. His physique has developed & on a deeper level his energy & underlying data have both improved. No slowing down into December. Health is a year round game. —— Craving your own health progress? Fill in the form via the link in our bio. Healthier is a choice.

The Recovery~ Performance feedback loop. A common bottleneck to health progress I see is a lack of efficiency in routine, which ultimately leads to lack of progress, & therefore lack of motivation. A downward spiral of motivation because the outward results don’t feel equal to the inward effort. We have to view health progress as an interconnected system, not a collection of isolated habits. Training is 1 hour of the day, but the other 23 are as important, & ultimately dictate the how effective that training session is, the quality of the next session & the overall ability to be consistent. Every training session we perform triggers a biological cycle: training stress → recovery → adaptation. If any part of that loop breaks, progress will plateau. This loop highlights the pattern the body follows & why the 23 hours outside the gym should be taken as seriously as the 1 hour inside it. Something to think about when training hard but not seeing the progress that we expect. Good focuses on the session, great focuses on the loop.

How I set things up for myself based around my own schedule/ routine/ preferences. *not necessarily how I would set up a nutritional framework for someone else. Context is always required. The best place I have got to with nutrition is building a rotation of meals around a relatively consistent daily framework. Essentially finding 3/4 different meals for each meal time that are enjoyable & aligned to me, & within a repeatable framework. This allows for enjoyment, nutritional variety, sufficient fuelling for training/work/life whilst leaving me feeling energetic. This also allows me to automate my eating & removes the stress/thinking which frees up energy/headspace to focus on business/people/life. Something I value. — “You are what you eat” over a long period of time. It rarely lies. Eating aligned for a day or two is easy, the difficult part is making it enjoyable & sustainable so that you can live there for the long term. Which means we should likely focus less on perfecting the day, but more so building systems for consistency. It’s difficult to get right, but IMO the return on investment is huge; Improved energy, mood, health, body composition etc. Nutrition always comes back to the foundation of: Respect the body. Put good things in, in sensible amounts that align with goals, & good things will happen. — As ever, this is just the way I am playing the game at the moment. This is individual to me, my goals & my schedule, however this may provide insight & inspo into how to set up your own. Outside of specificity towards a certain goal & or medical advice, I think a balanced approach is optimal for most all things considered. As a guide: 2g protein per KG of bodyweight. 1g fat per KG of bodyweight. The remaining cals in carbohydrate. Prioritise whole foods- look after gut health. — For ref. I am circa 90kg. 6’ 5”. Not sure on BF%~ circa 10%.

The Stress- Recovery- Adaptation model. Simple model to highlight how we respond to training stimulus & how recovery isn’t optional but essential. Progress isn’t made in the gym. It’s in the recovery & adaptation outside of it. Without adequate recovery & therefore adaptation, the stress accumulates & usually comes out in stagnation/ injury/ illness/ burnout. Reaching or maintaining high-level health isn’t always about adding more effort, it’s about smart, timed stimulus/ systems & adequate recovery. Something to think about if things are feeling stagnant despite training hard. Average to good requires a certain framework, Good to great requires something different.

How I am setting up my own training currently: Using last week as an example* Sessions are circa 60-90mins & always morning. I have played around for a long time & this is constantly evolving, but my favourite & current split for enjoyment, efficiency, progress, all round health & physique. I have been leaner previously but not sure stronger or fitter, & certainly not in tandem. & my underlying data of RHR, HRV, Whoop Age (however that is calculated; combo of RHR/ training efforts/ lifestyle factors I presume) & blood markers are in a good place. The physique side of things is subjective, views differ on what’s optimal here & it can be misleading. But underlying data doesn’t lie- healthier is healthier, why I take it seriously. —— Some more relevant info: I like to set the “perfect” training week & then regress from there around travel/ work/ social. I don’t miss too often but when I do, I just make sure I hit the next session. I also put my sessions in my diary as I would a meeting. It works. I’m not training for anything specific at the moment, just body, mind & life. —— As ever, this is just the way I am playing the game at the moment. This is individual to me, my goals & the volume I am used to/ can recover from, however this may provide insight & inspo into how to set up your training week in a regressed or progressed version of. Outside of specificity towards a certain goal, I think a blend of cardio (steady & HIIT), strength work & mobility/flexibility is a good idea. For ref: I am circa 90kg. 6’ 5”. Not sure on BF%~ circa 10%. Let me know if this is of value & I can put together something similar around nutrition/ recovery/ longevity.

THE NUTRITION HIERARCHY We are what we eat. Body composition, physical/cognitive performance, gut health, hormone balance are all dictated by our nutritional choices over a long period of time. Therefore probably not something to be left to random. View this as an order to audit your nutritional intake. All levels are important but the layer above counts for more if the one below it is strong. Overall calorie intake. Daily/weekly/monthly. ⬇️ Protein intake within that. ⬇️ Meal timing & food sources (micro nutrients). ⬇️ Carb:fat ratio based on goals/output. ⬇️ Supplementation to fill the gaps. — As ever, generic ideas- context is required to give individual advice, there is no ‘right’ way, only the one that works for you. However, this pyramid is a good place to start when looking to bring attention to the right areas & optimise further. Foundations first.

How good. Health to set up life, not life to set up health.