How to Move More | Katy Bowman

Key Takeaway

Movement is a nutrient your body requires, not just an optional health practice. Like food, you need variety in your movement diet—not just exercise 'calories' but also the right 'macros' (cardio, strength, mobility) and 'micros' (specific movements for problem areas). Start today: identify one value that truly matters to you (family connection, productivity, service to others) and find one way to move your body that serves that value. Your motivation will shift from 'I should' to 'I want to.'

Episode Overview

Biomechanist Katie Bowman reframes exercise as movement nutrition, arguing that movement is a biological imperative like food or sunlight. She distinguishes between movement (any body position change), physical activity (movement that burns calories), and exercise (planned activity for health). The conversation explores psychological barriers to exercise and practical strategies to overcome them, including values-based motivation, attention management, and expanding our definition of what counts as beneficial movement. Bowman emphasizes that movement can happen across all life domains—not just leisure time—making it accessible regardless of circumstances.

Full Transcript

Transcript of How to Move More | Katy Bowman from 10% Happier. Auto-generated from episode audio; may contain minor errors.

Katie Bowman, welcome to the show. Thanks for having me. It's a pleasure to have you. Basic question, what is a biio mechanist? Yeah, bio is biology. Uh the mech is mechanics uh which is a field of physics which looks at the influence of forces essentially. So when you put the two together, you get how do biological systems, how are they affected by physical forces like pressure and friction, weight and loads and things like that. like that. like that. How did you get into this? That's a long story.

Um it has to do with movement. I was a physics and math student in college and I was also a very sedentary person. And as I was exploring becoming becoming becoming more active as an individual, I just found that studying those was very one I mean very still but two just very boring. There was it was a lot of very theoretical point masses and things like that. So I was thumbming through the college catalog and saw this program biomechanics and it was those things physics and math applied to a moving body.

And so I had already completed most of the curriculum as far as the math and physics had gone but I was not necessarily a big biology physiology student. So I started looking at those types of classes and then it just it allowed me to explore this these curiosities I had around my own body but through a lens that I was already sort of competent and naturally inclined towards which was the the math and physics sciences. You're a different species than than I am. I have no facility for math and science but I'm glad that you do because I have a lot of questions for you about biomechanics.

One of those questions is uh about your sort of overall thesis which is if I have this correctly movement as nutrition. Mhm. Mhm. Mhm. Can you unpack that? Right. So on on one level I mean it quite literally. You know when you think about what are the nutrients that humans need? You would list the nutrients, vitamins and minerals, the macronutrients that are found in food. These are things we have to put into our body to make sure our body works correctly. And then there are also non-dietary nutrients.

We need exposure to the sun to be able to have our physiological processes working well. And so what I mean literally on one level is movement is not really an optional input to the human body. Um it affects us actually quite similarly. When you put in a dietary nutrient into your body, what you're doing is you're putting in a chemical compound in this case, but it affects the way your cells behave. And so sunlight is another compound that when you are exposed to it, it creates cellular behavior.

And movement is the same. Like you're not really really really putting movement only into the larger tissues, muscles and bones and heart and lungs, you're also putting them into the cells of those tissues. And so in a different pathway but to a same result we're being fed the movement that we choose to do. And so in that way it is a literal nutrient to the body. We we'll have predictable predictable predictable physiological issues that arise in the absence. That's that's what the definition of a nutrient is.

Um, and then on the more metaphorical level, it would be more akin to, you know, like there are plenty of people who get regular exercise but will have some small area in their body that doesn't feel good. And you might go to physical therapy and they give you real specific doses of movement to put into your body, sort of like um a micronutrient if you will. And so movement calories, like right now the discussion, we're sort of living in a movement drought because we're a fairly sedentary culture.

So when we talk about getting the regular movement that you need, it's more akin to talking about food in terms of calories. Like just make sure you eat. It doesn't matter what you eat. Just make sure you eat something. And that is true when you don't move at all. And also it's not just movement calories we need. There's these subcategories. If you think about food again, you have carbohydrates, fat, protein. And you have to make sure there's somewhat of a distribution across those categories. It can't only be calories when it comes to what we're eating.

So when it comes to movement, you know, you might heard of general categories like we need to make sure we're getting cardiovascular exercise, we need strength training, we need mobility work for our joints. So it's this idea that we need to distribute a bit the movement we're doing over these different categories macros and then if we look at the micros you could be you know someone who gets regular exercise and you get maybe even cross trainin so you're getting different types of movements but you have one area of your body that's maybe protesting the movement diet that you are having it's not working for a particular area and again that's when we go into refine things like form and load over a very small area of your body.

And we know these things to be true. So I've just organized them into a framework that I think maybe will work for people more in understanding how to troubleshoot their own body, which is you have a movement diet. You don't necessarily have only an exercise practice or not. It might not be that simple. So when we look at what your movement diet is in the same way a dietary nutritionist would look at what are you eating over the course of a week or a month and if you said well I really only eat this one food I I only eat this one food and I only eat three times a week and I really don't eat anything else.

Then a nutritionist is going to say well we need to bring in some other food groups here. you maybe need to eat multiple times a day or not only three times a week. And we need maybe ways for you to fuel yourself that aren't an entire meal, but maybe you can slip something into your purse, 5 minutes here. And in because I think we're more familiar with the dietary framework. I'm leveraging that a little bit to uh help people realize that movement really works in almost exactly the same way.

You do make a distinction between movement and exercise. Can you say a little bit more about that? Yeah. So for a lot of people listening when I say the word movement in my head I have this very large category of things that I put into the movement category. But for many people when they hear that word really their only relationship to movement is exercise. And so if we created a diagram you could um create a big circle and write movement on the top of that circle.

And anything that goes into that circles, anything that changes the orientation of the body, changes the position, changes the location of the body, those are movements. Exercise is a subcategory of movement. So all exercise is movement, but not all movement is exercise. So it's a much smaller circle. And exercise clinically defined is something it's um about a physical activity that you are doing that is you've pre-selected a mode. You've pre-selected more or less a duration, an intensity at which you're going to um be participating in that movement.

And you're really doing it with the intention of making yourself physically better. And it's usually done in exclusion of getting anything else in your life done. It's really just isolated isolated isolated physical activity for health. There's a third circle that I like to add into this conversation which is physical activity. I've mentioned it. So if we had the big diagram movement inside that would be a smaller circle physical activity and that's any sort of movement that utilizes muscularkeeletal system enough to uh burn calories is the easiest way to say it and then exercise is a subcategory of physical activity.

So we have three nesting circles movement inside of that physical activity and inside of physical activity is exercise. So physical activity could be raking your leaves, [clears throat] [clears throat] [clears throat] but it wouldn't necessarily fit inside of the exercise category. It's still using your muscular skeletal system. In this case, it's not really in the leisure domain like exercise is. It's in the domain of household chores. It's more in the domain of labor, but it uses your body, um, your limbs, your muscles, your heart and lungs, just like exercise does, but it's not exclusively done for the purpose of your well-being.

You know, you might choose to ride your bike to work because that's going to be a mode of transportation that uses uh less fossil fuel and these are things you care about, but you're using it more for transportation. It's in the domain of transportation. It's not only to make yourself better. And for some people it might not even be to make themselves better. The fact that you get healthier doing it is sort of irrelevant. But that's how you break down these different categories. And and when you have a more fluid way of thinking about movement, you'll find more opportunities for movement in life.

Right? So that's where the rubber hits the road here with if we take a broader view in the manner in which you're describing, we can perhaps have a healthy movement diet even if we [ __ ] hate exercising. Especially if you do especially if you hate exercise because you know there's a whole um context around exercise. It's sort of been yes it's for our well-being but it's been hijacked with a lot of different messaging for a lot of folks. And then of course because it fits into that leisure domain you know there's these domains in which we live our lives sleep leisure occupation transportation and home.

So even though we have radically different lives these are sort of the car the compartments of our life even if they're not a location is sort of you know just a domain in which you are engaging. And because exercise is by definition leisure time it requires someone have a leisure time. So that can already be sort of exclusionary to folks you know um who might not have the same degree of freedom when it comes to uh leisure time or you know we're trying to get a lot of things done in leisure time as well.

So then you have competing things that you are both interested in something's always going to lose. So when you have this broader uh yes definitions framework for movement it fits into a lot more uh domains in life not just leisure. It seems like what your goal is to help us move more no matter what our life circumstances or psychological attributes or various allergies may be. That's right. Movement is for every body. You know, it's it's sort of a biological imperative. And so when you have a cultural overlay over this biological need, it gets very tricky to figure out how you're [clears throat] supposed to meet the needs in this uh more cultural container.

We have a real strong cultural definition around movement which is exercise and it's not really working for for most people. And so yes, I am trying to create more keys for people to unlock this very powerful tool which is for everybody even if the cultural overlay makes it not seem that at first glance. Okay. So you uh you've written many books and there are questions I have based on several [snorts] of uh the books, but the book I want to focus on at least for this portion of our conversation is the one you co-authored with Diana Hill um who's a psychologist who's been on this show.

Um, and the book is called I know I should exercise, but and in the book you taxonomize seven areas of uh resistance to exercise and then lots of subcategories, 44 of them underneath. I don't know if we'll get to all 44, but we're definitely going to get to all seven. Mhm. Mhm. Mhm. So, the the first bucket of resistance to exercise is I'm not motivated. Mhm. And it some of the reasons under this um under this banner include, you know, I know it's good. I don't care if it's good for me.

I just don't want to do it. I hate to sweat. It's boring. Uh I was pressured as a kid and I'm still rebelling. I haven't done it in so long. I can't start again. So, what's the antidote to this genre of um of resistance? resistance? resistance? Well, there's not necessarily an antidote to the bucket. The reason we organize it in buckets is because I think for for people picking up this book, they're thinking about like my reasons have to do with motiv, you know, like I just don't want to.

I don't feel like it or my my reasons have to do with I don't have enough time, you know, or or everyone else in my family is keeping me from moving. Those are the buckets and and that is a valid way for for people to organize it. But ultimately the psychological tools that we explore in this book you're going to see repeated no matter the bucket in general. So one of the primary primary primary ways to cut through we'll we'll put it in this bucket for now but we might see it in other containers has to do with values.

When you are dealing with something that would be considered a motivational issue. motivation, as I've learned from working with um Diana Hill, is you're you tend to either be moving away from something. You you don't you don't want to have to deal with the way something feels or you're motivated towards something. And and so aversion, you know, some of the reasons within the bucket that you mentioned, like I don't I don't want to have to feel the pain of starting exercise over again. I don't like feeling sweaty.

Um, someone else made me do this once and I don't like that feeling that came with having to do it. So, tuning into your own values is a very important tool here. Trying to do something because someone else told you to do it is not usually a good long-term motivator. So, what we're looking for is first identifying your values so that you can figure out how your your interests, your values, the way you want to show up in your life actually relate to movement as a way to overcome some of the hurdles of the aversions you have to feeling what movement brings up for you.

Another tool that will show up in buckets again and again is attention. Learning how to not focus, if your attention is like a flashlight, how to not continue to shine your flashlight on the aspects that you don't like and instead take a broader perspective and see more aspects to ultimately I think question some of the unhelpful ful thoughts that we're having around should or should I not engage with exercise. Okay, let me get to attention in a second, but I want to stay with values. Okay, Okay, Okay, I think what you're saying is if you know you should exercise, I think this is a very common situation.

People [clears throat] know that they should exercise or move in order to um maintain their health and if not improve it. I know I should do it, but I just don't want to do it. If that's you, one really helpful thing to do is to step back and do an inventory like what do you actually care about? What matters to you really? And once you have that very firm firmly, you know, articulated and it become and you can you hold it up as your north star, well then exercise might seem might seem might seem like a non-negotiable.

It might seem really obvious. Is that your am I articulating your point correctly? I think that's right. And and health, you know, exercising for someone's health. You know, the title of the book sort of tongue and cheek. You know, it's really hard to give an adult a should. We just I think naturally sort of as grown-ups don't like to be told what to do and and you know, kids for that matter. No one really likes to be told what to do in general. So when you can come up with reasons why you yourself want it and health is very tricky.

It's not working out as a strong motivator for most people. one, it takes a very long time to pay off. I mean, health is such a nebulous concept anyway. That's way forward, like so far out in in the future. It's really hard for you when you are, especially if you're still in the exercise box and you're trying to choose between two things. One has a positive payoff right now, tomorrow, in the next few days, and one has a payoff and you know, you're not going to add three years onto your life 27 years from now.

That's a real tricky way of making a decision. But if you've identified um for example, for example, for example, if you identified a value of productivity, productivity, productivity, you like to be productive in life, and you have recognized that when I do move my body in some way, it's actually easier for me to show up to be a more productive person at work, more productive person during family time. Um, if you have found that you really like to um, you want to be connected with others and that you are way less distracted, you're able to really focus on what your child is bringing to you or your partner is bringing to you once you've taken care of this biological need, then the motivation, the payoff is right now.

The payoff is today for you. And so yes, if if if the it's it's healthy for you, we all know it's healthy for us, is not working out for you, we want to find those values first, and then two, figure out a way to connect them connect them connect them either either either indirectly indirectly indirectly to movement, which is what I just did, those last two examples. It was the idea of I value being productive. If I exercise, I'm more productive. But sometimes you could do it the other way around.

Like say your value is one of my values is service. I like to be of service is to actually look for movement opportunities that allow me to act out being of service as I'm doing the physical activity. So I'm going to sign [clears throat] up for beach cleanups. you know, when the school sends out those um requests or other organizations sign those up, I'm going to see that as, you know, this allows me to be of service and I'm going to be able to physi be physically active or be outside or I'm going to volunteer at to teach PE at my kids school.

I'll be on the recess uh monitor group or I will go to the food bank and stack boxes because I can get two of my needs met at once. I can show up as someone in service, take care of that being of service, but it's doing it in a way that physically moves me, too. So, I um I think increasing the nutrient density of that period of time. Yeah. The way I think about it for myself is well, I'm I'm a mutant. I'm I'm super annoying.

I'll I'll just get this out there because I actually like the feeling of exertion. But like everybody, there are days where I don't really feel like going to the gym. I I have at least two values that I invoke. one is um I'm a Buddhist and I really believe in this idea of being of living your life for the benefit of all beings and I want to be as strong as happy and as happy as possible so that I can make other people strong and happy and it's very obvious to me that if I'm not exercising, if I'm not moving, I suck.

The second thing is I have a I'm 54 and I have a 10-year-old son, so I'm kind of an older dad and I want to be around when he gets married and has kids and so I'm very much doing it for him. Mhm. Mhm. Mhm. You know that and when I if I invoke that while I'm working out, I'll go a little harder. Um not in a way hopefully that I hurt myself, but I'll I'll give it a little extra juice. So that's what works for me.

Having said that, I admitted that I like exertion. Some people hate sweating. Mhm. Mhm. Mhm. What kind of value salience would get somebody somebody somebody sweating who hates to sweat? That's actually an one of the reasons in the book like I I don't want to exercise. I hate to sweat. And that would be in a bucket that's more about dealing with discomfort. But one of the solutions I offer right off the bat is there's a lot of ways to move that don't require that you sweat.

So, so if your definition of exercise is so narrow that to like movement rules is another thing that we are a tool that we're bringing out quite often and quite early in the book which is we have some movement rules that maybe we haven't even really tuned in yet that are real tight boundaries around um our thinking about things. And that's when we're choosing between when we think that exercise equals sweat that there's no other way that I could move my body in even a vigorous way and have it not be sweaty.

Then then there's nowhere to go. Once that excuse lands, there's there you've defined what you don't want and this thing that you need has that thing that you don't want and that's like the end of a conversation. It just shuts it down for you. But I start by listing like there's a lot of exercises that don't make you sweat. you know, you can choose um different gear, different intensities, you know, do something lower intensity. Then because we have a movement diet that we're looking for and we are in a drought, it'd be like going to a nutritious and say, I don't want any apples.

And it's like, fine, there's a giant buffet of food that could meet your needs without eating apples. So, we'll just take sweat off the table and let's build you a plate of movement that does work for you. And then also we go on to say once you've gotten yourself moving in some nonsweaty way, now let's look at your aversion to sweating so that we don't have to sit and wait until you're comfortable with one small aspect of movement that doesn't have to keep you from all these other types of movement.

And then you can start working on your relationship with sweating. And it could be not understanding why you're doing it. You know, I physiologically lay out what's actually happening. Might feel that it adds too much time to your day. You know, when we drill into what is it about sweat that you don't like and it's like, oh, so then I have to take a shower and then I have to do all these it takes up too much time. Then we could look at well let's reorganize the time of day in which you're getting your movement because then you won't have this big problem associated with sweat that you're perceiving is too big of a hurdle to overcome.

So does that bring us back to attention? You were saying something before about how sort of recalibrating how we're using our attention can be really helpful if we have an aversion to exercise. exercise. exercise. Yeah. For you know I'm trying to think of some of the excuses in the book where that was a tool. one was, you know, I would I would go out and take a walk, but my neighborhood's so ugly, you know, and I I I don't like the people who live in my neighborhood.

Um, or I would love to be able to take a class, but I'm so embarrassed because I'm the least fit person who's going to be there, or I am so uncoordinated. And so what happens is you get hyperfixated on almost a confirmation bias, right? you you look you cast your attention flashlight at the same small pieces. You're not really taking in a full clear picture of what's going around going on around you. And so to have someone in that class situation to say look at how other people are moving.

You know, instead of looking at yourself and when you're in class like this and you see yourself as the least coordinated person, you're often hyperfixated on yourself. You just keep looking at yourself and not the bigger picture. So to look around and and notice who's who's enjoying moving to the music here, who who um slightly moved this way instead of that way, you start to get more data points. And when you have a a larger data set than this big conclusion that you had come to about yourself and the appropriateness of you for movement or movement for you starts to get smaller.

And it it's not that different than like don't believe everything you think. You know, it's this idea of of taking a a bigger snapshot. You're walking around this neighborhood that you hate that's so ugly. It's like, well, could you notice the birds? Could you notice uh the flowers that are poking through? Oh, yes. You know, look at there's this little free free uh take uh zucchinis from my garden stand next to someone's house. There's a lending library. and you're starting to tune your attention into the way that I look at it is ways that help you sort of debunk these unhelpful messages that your mind is giving you.

You're you are not listening to you. I I I deem this voice Bob in our family in my own mind. This, you know, sort of muppet showed negative guys heckling everyone else up in the corner and sort of take the volume down on them and and amplify the voices of the other aspects of whatever movement situation you're in. in. in. The best B2B marketing often gets wasted on the wrong people. I can't tell you how often I'm scrolling and I get served ads for stuff I have no interest in.

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One of the reasons that falls in this bucket is that there are people who just feel like exercise is boring and therefore they're not motivated to do it. I would imagine you would argue you you might want to look around to find a kind of movement whether it's exercise technically or not that you enjoy so the exercise is boring excuse gets eviscerated. That's right. I mean again that's that really tight box around what counts. Part of the exercise that I have people do you know after you've found your values the next bit is as you were alluding to why is movement meaningful to you?

So for you it was about being able to connect with your family not just now but in the future as well. And then I also help people um come up with some movement memories of their own times when they've used their body in a way that brought them joy or pleasure that didn't necessarily fit in an exercise box. And often times people have to go back to childhood to find this period of time in which movement felt quite free. And when people start writing their movement memories, you know, they'll be like, I loved swinging on the rope and dropping into the river, you know, and they'll come up with all sorts of things.

None of them look like the exercise, the chore that we perceive movement to be now. And so when you recognize that maybe you find gardening meaningful and it's like well let's do some vigorous gardening then you know like you don't have a space let's join the community garden and start getting on your hands and knees and digging and carrying things around. So it is really important to tune in with the ways that you would like to use your body. Some of them could be from memory.

Some could be aspirational. Maybe you would like to take a trip with your family members in the future and it's not necessarily a hiking or biking trip, but you know, maybe everyone's going to go to Europe and they're going to be trekking through these museums. Maybe you love art, but you don't think that you could be on your feet for 2 or 3 hours. It's this idea of going, okay, well, well, well, what's meaningful to me is to be able to visit these spaces, do things with these people.

And then you start to find what it is about movement that you do enjoy instead of that constant narrative. I don't like any exercise. You know, it's just it's such a blunt tool that we tend to wield against any sort of human movement. And remember that that bubble of movement is giant. Doesn't have to be in the gym. It doesn't have to be these small modes that are that maybe some people really love, but most people don't really find relevant to their lives. lives. lives. My grandfather lived to 90, super healthy, super fit, never exercised ever, ever, ever, but was a really active gardener and not like in a fancy type of thing.

I mean, he did ultimately did have a very nice garden that people would come visit, but it was it was started because uh he needed to feed his family. So, this was not a glamorous thing. This is a father of five. was a middle manager at the yellow pages. Remember the yellow pages? Those huge Those huge Those huge the bibles of phone numbers that used to show up at your door. So, Robert Johnson was was a not even the boss was like a kind of middle manager at this institution that put out these thick books that showed up at everybody's doorsteps and became doors stops um and and gardened every day uh until he died while gardening, I believe.

Wow. Wow. Wow. So, there are lots of ways to to stay fit. Um, fit. Um, fit. Um, I want to just we're we've spent a lot of time in in this first chapter around uh people who are not motivated to to exercise, but I think it's the biggie. Well, actually, the first two are really the the I think probably the biggest. Um, but there's there's one there's one reason for not being motivated that I I do want to get you to talk uh to, which is I'm great at starting exercise programs, but I never stick with them.

What's your what how do you work with that issue? that issue? that issue? Right. Well, I mean that's a tricky thing about you know when you have a lot of excitement about starting something new then it quickly becomes not new anymore. I think the the actual asker of that question was really asking about, you know, I'm so good for a 30-day program, but after that [clears throat] 30-day program is done, then I don't really have ultimately uh space in your life cut out beyond that 30-day program because, you know, a 30-day program has the end built into it.

We don't really acknowledge that the 30-day program is done in 30 days. So when you're signing up for 30 days, you're also maybe effectively signing up for the end of that program. And so when it's not movement that has become distributed throughout your life very well, it's really easy to then stick something else in that particular slot. So I mean I I personally am vote im motivated by fresh starts but I find myself regularly seeking out fresh starts and so it's not so much that it has an end for me it's that it's novel and I have I have paid enough attention to myself and my reasons for doing things to know that I like a little bit of selfmastery and when I've sort of reached the amount of selfmastery that I can get do with something over, you know, a few weeks or a, you know, even a couple years that I'll be looking for that next thing.

That's just me. Someone else will have their own relationship with maybe why they are, for example, someone who likes starting new things. You know, I like the new it's like back to school. It's all hopes and possibilities at that point. And I I am attracted to that. But I have found that the movement that I tend to stick to the most often is that which is woven again not in that leisure time for me but it's in the movement habits that I started with my family the the ways that we have decided to be active uh the more um permanent modifications I've made to my home for example I've got rings hanging in my living room because I want movement to be more in the fabric of my daily life.

It's in the community that I've established for taking walks in the morning um or getting together on the weekends. And those larger structures, what they do is they make you less susceptible susceptible susceptible to the absolute possibility that something's going to come up and thwart your exercise program. So, I think what I hear you say there, I think you said a bunch of things. I want to get back to the rings in your living room, but we'll set set that aside. Okay. But I think your the thrust of your argument there was if you're part of a group, if your movement is deeply entwined with your social life, that really is a makes it much stickier.

Am I am I right about that? Yeah. I I would say if it's woven through your environment and others community is a big part of that environment. It's uh really challenging to get regular movement if you can't meet any other needs during that period of time. But if again if you can layer in time with other people and your movement at the same time, it moves it out of that leisure time category in many cases and then there's a lot more time in which you can be taking care of household tasks.

Like I choose to not outsource a lot of movement um as far as chores go so that it's woven through the day for me. So it's about modifying your environment in some ways. And then again, yes, that's community and spend a little time to take movement a little deeper. So, it's not always on the I just started this. It's more superficial. superficial. superficial. Uh it's not even woven through my calendar really. It's it's almost uh too discreet. The the volume is low and the distribution is not at all.

So, this kind of brings us to chapter two, which I think is one of the other huge I think quite legitimate issues that people have with exercise, which is I don't have enough time. enough time. enough time. And I I imagine what we've just been talking about, which is thinking deeply about your environment, both your physical environment and your social environment and actually even your calendar environment as modalities and mechanisms. uh for uh boosting your movement quotient even if you you know feel time starved, right?

So there's the very practical try to figure out ways to move while you're getting other things done and thus it's it's going to be uh more concrete in your lives. But what I learned from Diana writing this book was this concept of time affluence and that time affluence is even really a perception that we perceive that we don't have enough time. But one thing that increases your your sense of time is movement. If you exercise regularly, you're able to we'll say get more done, but it just feels like you've got more space in your schedule.

And then another thing too is recognizing you know this goes down to those the thoughts that we have. It's an unhelpful thought to think I don't have enough time. Now there is also the reality the concrete reality of just literally not having enough space in your life to do all the things. That's real. But also I would say that you have to tune in and become aware of I would say pseudo busyiness. And I'll just use myself as an example. Like I have regularly caught myself feeling overwhelmed.

I don't have enough time to do all these things. And the sense of overwhelm that I have, it starts out as a a thought and then I sort of race around, I would say, not really being all that all that all that functional that the primary thing I'm doing is sort of lamenting that I don't have enough time. Even if I have a big deadline and I'm, you know, doing quite a bit of concrete work, I'll catch myself myself myself being pseudo busy, you know, creating almost non non-urgent tasks.

And when I can tune into that, I can use that as a cue to be like, "Oh, I'm not actually getting any work done right now. this is actually a good time for me to take a movement break because I can sense that the overwhelm that I'm having in my mind about not [clears throat] having enough time to to do anything exercise aside just even the non-ex exercise things is a actually a good communication for my body that I need to move and then that's a pause [clears throat] for me and I'll take five minutes to move around and again it's it's not a workout it's not going to be sweaty um for many people right now when you have that really tight box it's not going to count towards the exercise that you need to do for whatever reason you're doing it, but it instantly connects me to my body.

Those steps, those minutes of movement absolutely count just like the 60-minute block does. Um, and I have been able to, this helps with distribution, pepper my day with more movement when I don't believe everything that I think, including I don't have enough time. What do those movement breaks look like if they don't look like what one traditionally might define as exercise? Well, I mean, I think everyone would define them as about a physical activity. You know, I might bend over and touch my toes. I might do a, you know, a calisthetic stretch.

Um, I might put myself into a yoga lunge position and go back and forth from one leg to the other. I might step outside into a brisk wick walk around the block. I might um earlier today before this um interview, I just took 10 minutes to jump in place and touch my toes and stretch my spine and go look at something far away to relax my eyes and then close my eyes for a minute and just stood. How balanced do I feel? Just to check in with myself physically.

So, I I think that all of those pieces by themselves, doing a couple pull-ups on a hanging bar next to my desk, would count as what people think exercise looks like. But exercise for many people is about it being compressed. It's about it being long enough in duration to count. And so, people regularly don't think of themselves as themselves as themselves as exercising because they didn't make it to the place. They didn't get into the outfit. they they didn't monitor their heart rate while they were doing it.

They didn't lift heavy enough. Those are then those very tight movement rules. So, I've given myself a lot of compassion and freedom about not all my movement has to look like that. And in doing so, my volume can come up um quite a bit. a bit. a bit. So, let's just be super concrete. Somebody's listening to this. They're in their car on their way to work. Uh they've got two or three jobs. They got a bunch of kids. they just really feel, and I sympathize with this person, that they just don't have time to quote unquote get to the gym.

Based on everything you just said, how could we devise and design a uh exercise or movement diet for this person? Well, if you can't, let's just say going to the gym is not going to happen today. So, all movement is not off the table for you. And again, the situation will vary depending on what your exact scenario is, but you know, can you, you know, maybe you had a a kid stay home and now it's, you know, affecting the course of your day. It's like, well, can you roll out a mat and do something for 15 minutes right there in your living room?

Um, it's not going to, again, you don't have to change clothes. You don't have to have a shower when you're done. What's the part of your movement diet? You know, when I talked about movement diet that really leapt out at you, it's like, "Oh, yeah. I need to get more walking." Um, if you're sitting in your car, you know, waiting uh for a doctor's appointment or you're waiting to pick your kids up, could you get out of the car? You know, instead of just sitting and scrolling, you can use scrolling as a cue to be like, I could change the shape of my body in some way right now.

I could I've got seven minutes. I'm going to get out of my car. I'm going to go walk over for three minutes to this far thing that I see and I'm going to walk back or I'm going to just get out of my car and I'm going to touch my toes and stretch my shoulders because this is a category of movement that we need just as much as other categories. Or maybe you have to do a last minute work project. So, you're going to take your laptop to something low.

And you're going to stretch your legs out and open up your hips and do something that feels good to your body while you're also meeting this other task that needs to be done. It doesn't have to be done in the same rigid container that you're used to doing things in. you know, picking up your kids. If it's like all you can think of is it's just a chair shape and you're not paying attention to the 17 minutes here and there that you had complete freedom to get out and move around and do something else.

And that's where you put that flashlight and that awareness. You start catching yourself where you are whittling whittling minutes through, you know, scrolling or other things that you don't necessarily value and choose something that you do value instead. New year, new systems, right? This is the time when we all look at the messier parts of our business and think there has to be a better way. And there is. Streamlining your communications is one of the quickest and easiest upgrades you can make. That's why today's episode is brought to you by Quo, spelled Quo.

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I mean, that's a big one. People feel selfish. That's a whole bucket. I I feel selfish when I take care of myself. I think we see that come up again and again. And I I think exercise can be selfish sometimes, right? If you're regularly ditching out your friends and family to get your workout in, you know, when you've made plans and you're regularly c cancelling on them. But once you know what selfish exercise looks like, then you can recognize that there could be something else where this is an act of self-compassion.

So you can be compassionate to yourself without actually doing harm to others. And this goes back to the values again. Do you show up as a better parent or a better partner or a better employee when you're taking care of your body? Then that's not selfish at all. It's the opposite. It's you not only taking care of your needs, it's you showing up to do these other things that you care about even better because you moved. You've mentioned self-compassion a couple times in [clears throat] the last couple of minutes.

And I, as I understand, it's a big theme in in the book. Mhm. Can you say a little bit more about why it's so important uh as it pertains to getting ourselves to move? I don't think we're we tend to have really great relationships with ourselves. You know, I I um once heard a psychiatrist say like you're in a relationship with the outside world, you're in a relationship with your physical body, and then you're in a relationship with your I would say your the parts of you that are not your physical body.

And I don't think that our relationship with our physical body is I'll almost use the word very good. And and what I mean by that is like we're I don't think we understand the signals that our body is giving. Like we it'd be like being in a relationship with someone but you couldn't communicate very well. One you you rarely checked in to communicate at all and when you did there's a lot of mixed signals, cross signals and I think that that's a relationship with our body quite often quite often quite often and a lot of our physical experience has to do with how that relationship is going.

And certainly I think our relationship with our physical self is affected by uh our relationship with our non-body parts of ourselves and our relationship with others. I think all of the three are affecting each other all of the time. But you know in I would say more behavioral psychology, the idea of having compassionate thoughts to yourself and to recognize to recognize to recognize when you talk to your mind like you would talk to a good friend or a small child that that is a helpful thing to do.

I think of that same way of behaving and extended out to taking care of yourself. You know, if you were a puppy, if you were a garden, if you were your own child, what what would you want to physically do? You would want to water. You would want to weed. You would want to make sure that the dog got some exercise, that the dog got some petting, you know, like that the child wasn't cooped up inside a chair all day long and and that there was someone who brought in this element of play.

And so when when you look at your physical body in that way, I think a lot of the communications coming from our physical body is I have not been well cared for physically. And not that there's not necessarily a reason for it. you know, you you got this schedule. We're living in a, you know, an arcade essentially. It's quite stressful on ourselves. So, the idea of prioritizing self self self care physically to make sure that you're meeting these biological needs to to bring down the the noise and all the other relationships, I think is really important to recognize this is this is care.

This is this is basic care for your body. It's not selfish. It's not excessive. It's the bar, you know. We're just trying to get us like just feeding our get ourselves out of this drought a bit. bit. bit. If you as most of us do care about being a positive player in the world, you do need to take care of yourself. Let me just ask um an uh some more questions about this uh about chapter 2, which is around feeling like you don't have enough time to exercise.

One of the things you recommend is is stacking your life. Mhm. life. Mhm. life. Mhm. What does that mean? Well, I've mentioned stacking a couple times. Stacking, stacking is a term that comes from permaculture and approach to agricultural growing, which is when if you look at your schedule, we tend to approach approach approach to-dos. Our to-do list is is a is a list of discrete things. You know, it's sort of back to these domains. You know, I I I have to do work right now and I got to make dinner.

You know, I got to get my kid from here to there. I got to make sure my kid is being stimulated, so I got to get him to this class. You know, it's it's all very discreet, meaning um and done in series. So, we have so many needs. I mean, we're not even to wants yet. We're just to needs that when you are only fulfilling one need at a time, it fills a lot more time. But when you are able to accomplish multiple needs in the same unit of time, I use this term before, you're increasing the nutrient density of a period of time.

So it would be the idea of uh an example that I'll use quite often is, you know, you you have to go you have to grocery shop, you you got your kids in the car, you know, you have to make this meal, you know, you need to move your body, you know, they need to move their body, but what do you do? you know, you you pull into the first parking lot at the grocery store and you know, you give your kid the iPad and they sit down and they can, you know, be quiet while you do your grocery shopping, they get back in your car and do it again.

And that all took a certain period of time. Or you could park a couple blocks away, walk hand in hand, not as quickly as you would have gotten there driving, walk hand in hand to the grocery store, pick up a bag of things. Now, you're carrying it. You're having conversation with your kid. As you're doing that, you're still accomplishing the task of getting what you need for dinner. Uh, but you're also having this bit of communication. Both of you are outside. You know, you're looking at the birds.

You're you're talking about the day, debriefing from the day, and you walk back. And and maybe if you compared that to rushing into the grocery store to get the thing, you might have doubled or tripled the time from 15 minutes to 45 minutes. But the nourishment that you get from that 45 minutes is much deeper for everyone involved and you got other things done besides just going to the grocery store. And so when you can appro approach it's different than multitasking. Multitasking is trying to do many things at the same time.

It's choosing this is about swapping a task to find a task that meets more of the needs in a unit of time. And so I'm always looking to figure out what's the more dynamic more dynamic more dynamic option here. option here. option here. Not only just for my own body. I'm usually like I said involving other aspects of community um in it figuring out if I could be of service you know whatever these these uh domains you have in your life are and when you look at it as a much broader picture you end up with I wouldn't ne time is fixed you don't get more time but you get more not even more things done you get more needs met because we're getting a lot done but a lot of the things that we're doing aren't necessarily meeting needs needs needs they're not meeting those deeper needs that we all have in common.

So, I'm regularly looking for ways to I call it stack your life of of layering in and we'll do it on the backbone of movement in this particular case. Let's keep going through some of the categories of resistance to exercise. Chapter 3 is called I'm too embarrassed. And some of the entries in this bucket are, you know, I'm ashamed of my jiggly body. People might judge me if I stretch in public spaces. cuz I used to be an athlete, now I feel like a loser. I'm in a larger sized body and I'd be judged by others at yoga.

I keep comparing myself to people in my exercise class. What are some of the ways to work with this this bucket of resistance in this bucket? Attention was a big one. And then also looking at I'm just trying to think of some disagreements like for the uh embarrassed of my body. We talked about broadening your perspective, you know, not just hyperfocusing on yourself, but looking around and and just sh looking around at all the other things that were happening to see aspects what are some aspects that I do like um while I'm here.

Also in that section was strengthening your so what muscle you know this was about like [clears throat] a you know you get embarrassed about being the least coordinated person in the room. you know, you are you are the p you got the worst clothes or whatever whatever your story is about why you shouldn't be there. Um, in addition to broadening your perspective, it's also like so what? Like what's the big harm here about being the person who's least coordinated? So, no one has ever, Diane always says this, no one has ever actually died of embarrassment, but many people will have negative impacts from the things that they're keeping themselves from doing because they're embarrassed.

So, there is benefit to overcoming overcoming overcoming these, you know, the feelings that make you burn up with shame. Um, and then also there's some, you know, back to the jiggly body is like just start jiggling your body, you know, just desensitize yourself a little bit to that. You know, get on a trampoline, just let it bounce around and and by exposing yourself to that a little bit, you realize you're still here, you didn't die, and then eventually you can get some of the payoff from these other movement things that you would like to do.

um with the athlete. That's another one that I hear quite often in just my own work where you know we tend to be really at our peak physicality I would say in our teens and 20s where we don't have that much um responsibility and you can really pursue you know just hanging out physically with your friends or athletics and because that is uh such an identity for you that when jobs come up and other relationships that keep you away from the level of training that you used to do for example, nothing else cuts it.

Everything else pales in comparison. So for that example specifically is um going back to the values a little bit, you know, did you is a thing that you're struggling with here about here about here about you not being at 49 in the same physical shape you were at 24? Like is that a a realistic expectation here? Is it about that or is it about the fact that you are not even maximizing what you could be at 49? Because sometimes we focus on the thing that you have absolutely no control over.

It's my age. I can't do anything about it. So, I will therefore continue to do nothing. But if it's a reframe a little bit where it's like you could actually be doing quite a bit right now and maybe fitness for someone who's always participated in sports is not the right avenue of pursuing movement. So instead of getting yourself to a a gym just to try to be generally fit, recognizing in yourself, I actually value competitiveness. I value camaraderie. uh I value collaboration. And so then you would want to make your movement practice look more like the things that you value if just being generally fit wasn't actually what it was all about for you anyway.

And then also there's this also checking in to make sure that you're not just, you know, sad about being 25 years older and then working through that realization of like, yeah, you might have to grieve. You might have to recognize that you are not the same as you were and then sort of move through that discomfort and then get back to taking care of this vessel. I like the so what muscle. I um joined an exercise group uh 18 months ago where I am almost always the smallest, oldest, and weakest person in the room.

And I just like I just gotten used to it. I I do I I put out lower uh lighter weights than the other guys and and women. Nobody gives a [ __ ] I mean, I keep thinking about We haven't used this term, but it's it's come up obliquely like the spotlight effect. We This is a fallacy that we many of us live with that we're in the spotlight somehow, but everybody else is in their own movie. They don't give a [ __ ] about you. And so that's that's been really helpful for me.

Um, okay. Chapter four is about another very common beef that people have with med uh with I was going to say meditation, but it's actually exercise, although I guess it would it would it apply to both, which is that it's uncomfortable. You know, I've got chronic pain. I've got menopause blues. Uh, I'd like to walk outside, but it's too cold. I'm I'm I'm in grief right now. I feel like I'm carrying around a load of bricks. Um, I'm on my feet all day for work and afterwards I just want to watch a TV show.

So, uh, what's your advice for this category of non-ex exerciser? exerciser? exerciser? So many different tools in this particular chapter for the menopause, you know, and this could go for any sort of like I'm just I I physically don't I'm not feeling exercise right now. Again, we got this narrow definition of what it is. And that advice is to uh and and I think this would work for grief as well. Not trying to move away from those feelings. Instead, try to lean into those feelings those feelings those feelings with movement.

So some of the advice in the you know when you're going through menopause for example or I would say any any I mean just the changes of getting older in general you can have a a grief that's associated with that as well that's not that different than the transition from adolescence through puberty. So it's like what were you doing during puberty? like how did you deal with all of this physical discomfort when you were 12 and 13 and 14 and 15 and 16 and 17? Because I don't think you can tell a menopausal person any more than you can tell a teenager teenager teenager what would be really good for them right now and just have them do it.

You know, like, oh, you'd feel so much better if you would just go outside and take a run. But during that period of time in my adolescence, like I recognized when looking back, like I really leaned into listening to the moodiest music that I could possibly, you know, the more melancholy. Give me some moody blues and I'm going to go walk on the beach for hours, you know, just feeling sorry for myself. But I would walk for three hours a day, you know, and then or maybe you wanted to put on like maybe you were just all about the rage metal and and just you wanted to punch things and you had your, you know, your boxing gear out and that's what you were doing.

So the idea is to to consider like how did how I've been in this space before. I've moved I've transitioned from one stage to another and how did I deal with it physically? What were some of these pieces? bring them up and then bring them give them life again. So instead of going, you know, maybe going to the gym and trying to be uh cheerful in a class isn't what you need. Maybe you need to get on a surfboard and actually not talk to anyone for a full Saturday and to spend all day floating around in the water being active in that particular way.

So it's just not trying to uh avoid those feelings, but instead leaning into them a little bit. uh for the grief person who just lost their father. I had dealt with losing my father too and it was a really hard year for me. But my father was an avid walker and so I kind of created grief rituals that base on that were based on walking and I felt like I could really connect to him in those periods of time. We even had a walking cemetery visit with all my siblings.

And so it's this idea of honoring either where you were if we're talking about life changes or if you're doing it for grief's sake, honoring this other person other person other person through something physical there. You know, there's so many pointing people to the fact that, you know, dynamic grief is absolutely a thing. the fact that we are grieving in such a quiet still way that's sort of uh counter to many cultures historically how they deal with grief. Um, and so there's many here where I live in Washington State, there's um an organization, Wild Grief, you know, where they take children who've lost siblings or parents on on these nature excursions to really I would say it's another way of shining the the spotlight on something bigger than just only feeling isolated or whatever um they might be feeling inside, but recognizing the world is out here and it's going on around me and being with other people who have been in a similar space.

So these are these are tools. Again, it's somewhat similar. And then a lot of it is also um for physical discomfort. Making sure you're scaffolding for action with small changes. Making sure that you're not trying to make giant changes. For the for the people listening who are like, I'm in chronic pain right now and I can't imagine [gasps] [gasps] [gasps] becoming an all day mover pepper throughout the day. It's like, well, we're going to find something small, doable, appropriate for your ability or your context. And then, uh, that social support is really important when it's uncomfortable.

You know, friends and others can get you over the hump, if only for redirecting your attention while you're with them. You know, a walk that might seem terrible alone, when you pair it with someone else, now you're chatting and you're and you're working on these other aspects. you've stacked it with other interpersonal connection time, being outside, maybe you're walking to get something done or to go somewhere. A lot's happening in that period of time and it becomes more doable for you. Another thing you talk about in this chapter is getting comfortable with discomfort.

discomfort. discomfort. I mean, that is, you know, you were talking about earlier, you go into a space and and you're, you know, you're the only fill in the blank. There is that emotional discomfort. That's the so what muscle is is tempering yourself. And then there is the there's the reality of physical discomfort. I mean exercise be the reason it works is because it is micro damage to your to your body. But sometimes people don't recognize that this is the the natural outcome of movement is that it's going to have some amount of physical discomfort.

And some of it is just poor poor training, poor choices. you're you are not adding movement in small enough steps. You know, you've stepped beyond maybe there's an anecdote in the book about, you know, the first exercise class I ever went to had a very motivating teacher and this was it back in my I love new things phase. And I went to this class on a 6:00 a.m. morning and and she did like a thousand lunges and and I just picked up the same weight she did and I couldn't walk for five days after that particular class.

But I didn't if if that had been my only exposure to movement, you know, I could have been like, I really hurt myself here. It's just to recognize like sometimes you can overdo it in movement and it's temporary and it passes and you use that information to make a different choice about the movement that you're going to do next time. So, it's just learning how to consider broader pieces of data and and just not doing the same thing over and over again. Seeing that the buffet for movements massive.

Chapter five is called I'm stuck to my screen. Uh so for people who feel like they're addicted to their phone and I think that's probably most if not all of us. us. us. Mhm. Mhm. Mhm. What's the workaround there? Uh some of it's quite practical. You know um reducing the friction in the questions in there uh were really around the idea of you know I I reach for my phone to turn the alarm off in the morning and then 70 minutes later I'm still on it.

you know, and that and that wasn't the intention there. So, the very practical is get an alarm clock. Don't don't use your phone as the first thing you put in your hand. And then there's all the, you know, the very practical advice of uh mixing up, you know, take your apps off your phone, noticing those types of things. And then also, dopamine is a real, it's a real thing. And you know, when you're comparing the mundane activity of going to do an exercise session over the unlimited uh stimulation that your body can get from scrolling, you're going to have to have a plan before the morning comes.

For me, having people that I meet, it's really helpful in that [clears throat] regard. This is again that weaving through of community. Like if you've got an obligation to somebody, if you're motivated more by serving others or doing things in a group, then then that's a good way to set yourself up is have someone meet you. Another thing is you need with again with the friction, you need some reminder from yourself in the past that the future you wants to do these things. So, you know, set if your alarm goes off at 6:00 a.m.

and you're still scrolling 15 minutes later, then you need a second alarm that it goes off every single day that goes on at 6:10 to say it's time to turn your phone off. You know, it's just a note from yourself and you're doing that type of thing. You can also look, it's not only in the morning. It would be the way of, you know, like gyms have had televisions above their equipment for decades. Like we know that if you can sort of entertain someone, then they're much more likely to engage in moving their body if they can sort of zone out a little bit.

So, if there's a way to put your phone to good use, I mean, what part of living in in an arcade is your phone can also find any movement game that's available. You can put that into your hands. You can put on um a five minute, a 10 minute, and a 15-inute exercise routine. Preload that onto your phone. So, if you know you get off work and you're just like, I'm so exhausted. I'm just I'm just going to look at my phone for a few minutes that you have a cue.

You develop this the psychological tool here is a cue to recognize that scrolling scrolling scrolling for relaxation. There's going to be a point of diminished return. You know, there's going to be a point at which scrolling or still being on your phone, you be like, "Ah, I can't believe I'm still here. I feel terrible. You know, I don't feel good emotionally. I don't feel good physically." You're going to let that be a cue maybe to put down your phone. Maybe that's too big of a step.

Maybe it's to click over to that five minute stretching routine that you preloaded and and catching yourself in doom scrolling mode is going to be the cue to do that five minute routine and then you're just drafting off of that little bit of momentum of that uh inertia. You've changed your behavior a little bit and you're going to keep going with that. We don't have time to get to the last two chapters. Um, people should buy the book. This is me being selfish as the interviewer here.

There was something you you wrote in another book which is called Move Your DNA. Um, that just caught my attention and I'd be curious to hear you say more about it. You point out that the human body evolved to perform specific movements like walking and squatting and hanging and carrying. Mhm. Mhm. Mhm. And yet in our convenience ccentric culture, we don't do a lot of these movements. So why are these movements important and how do we do them more frequently? Uh and what would the benefits be from doing them?

If I were to draw a a food pyramid, you know, if people can think of their government's, you know, food pyramid that has at the bottom of the pyramid the thing that you need a lot of and and then all the different food groups go up to the top to the pyramid which you need just a little bit about of the way I think about a movement diet is making sure we hit these macronutrient categories. They are varied. I won't go into what all of them are.

You name some of them. walking and squatting and being able to use your arms somewhat like legs. You know, the idea that you can hang from them or crawl around on your hands and knees to get under your house with relative ease. These are movements taken from human populations that live now that don't really have the conveniences that we are sort of used to as a culture. They have to subsist. Their days are full of physical activity and most of it's labor. So you have to one modify your environment a little bit you know and then the other part is making choices.

So using your car less you know choosing to walk any any place that's within a half a mile of my house then I try to make myself walk those places outside of circumstances where there absolutely absolutely isn't enough time. Um, squatting. I We talked about the rings that I have in my house. That's to That's to That's to create a little bit of a hanging space because hanging using your arms. Well, you know, you think of in a sedentary culture, we don't walk very much. But if you are going to get from point A to point B, you're going to use your legs.

Well, in a culture that has very little making left, you know, you think of like what what do what have human arms done for eons on that p uh that uh movement pyramid making movements is one of them. You know, the idea of processing processing and uh plants and animals into foods actually quite labor intensive with the arms. Cooking can get us a little bit there. If you play a musical instrument, you might be using your arms more. So, it's choosing the more dynamic versions of a lot of things.

Like, I will choose ingredients or food that requires a lot more chopping, for example, a lot more handwork. I I won't buy pre-graded things because those things, they're whole foods whole foods whole foods in terms of the dietary nutrients, but they're not mechanically whole any longer. You know, everything's been cooked down. If if all of your food is I mean now we just have Door Dash like now it just shows up ready to eat. You didn't have to not only did you not have to hunt and gather it.

You didn't even have to go to the grocery store to get it, you know? You didn't have to grade it or prepare it. Now it can be blend. You don't have to chew it. So there's been a slow reduction of movement in just our everyday life. So I just choose more of the labor rich versions of things. I talked about setting up um you know a computer to work low on the table to stretch your hips a little bit. I might work on getting some of my squatting in.

We have a some lower tables in our house. I've gotten rid of a lot of the high seats in the house in favor for low more meditation cushion looking things to not just meditate on but to play games in the evening with my family or if I'm going to watch a movie like we'll be on something that's lower and that way I'm getting a lot of the exercises that I might go to a specialized class for like how to stretch my hips, how to make my legs not so tight and my and my back not so tight instead of carving out time additionally to go get that in an exercise leisure time domain.

I will fit it into the flow of my day when I'm doing things with other people, getting other things done. And it's not to diminish or even have you don't even have to reduce the exercise time that you have, but it's allows you to expand and uh use your body more diversely. And you ask why it's important. Your body's like a garden. It's watered and weeded through movement. And a lot of what we do for these exercise modalities is actually quite similar there. Even though the modalities will differ, you know, there's not that much difference between running and cycling as far as the hip joint is concerned.

It's kind of going through the same range of motion. And both of those range of motions are similar to how you sit in a chair. So, I'm trying to distribute the movement throughout my body, distribute the types of movement throughout my body, including the heart and lungs, and fitting in movement throughout the day, choosing movements that don't necessarily look like our, I guess, commonly agreed on modalities of exercise is a big way to make sure I am taking care of what I what I call the body politic.

You know, your your body is a collection of tissues just like uh you know, any government and some exercises work some areas and some like you might love swimming. It's really good for your heart and lungs and your arms and legs, but your bones, they're not nourished by that activity. So then your bones [clears throat] would not vote for swimming. So then you have to do something for your bones, but maybe your knees don't like it. So you're always navigating the body politic when it comes to movement.

And when I talk about these ancestral movements, that's the situation that sort of created the the body, the body government. And so the way that I have figured out to keep nourishing all these different parts is to make sure a lot of these like ancestral movement patterns and macronutrients are being met in some way. Some exercise and some just through the activities of daily living. Final two questions I ask habitually. The first is, is there anything you were hoping we would cover that we haven't yet?

We covered a lot. The one thing I would want to add is calling back to earlier on is this idea of we won't have much time to talk about it, but I'll put it out there. In the same way we have learned learned learned how our body communicates with us about hunger, hunger, hunger, dietary hunger, that you know there's the feeling of just having a stomach that's growling for food. And then we've also maybe diversified or gone beyond that a little bit where you can maybe recognize that being snappy with people that you love could also be a sign of hunger.

this emotion that comes up can relate to you not being wellfed or being, you know, feeling tired and and blue might relate to what you ate, what you chose to eat. Like, so we're understanding that there's these signals that come from our body that are fairly complex that relate to nothing more than your nutritional diet. That the same goes for movement. We are just not as fluent in these signals yet. We don't know how our very primitive software communicates to you. You should go take a walk.

And that there's a whole relationship here that you can develop through time when you don't always assume that how you're feeling is about something more than just your relationship with your physical body. you know, like I'll just use crankiness again. It took me a long time to realize that when everyone around me was very annoying and I couldn't really I had no patience for anyone that that was actually my body's way of letting me know that I was undermoved because that when I go take a walk then everyone agrees not to annoy me and then I come back and everyone's better.

No, just kidding. But but like so our our signals are going to be different but that that is a form of communication that I don't think as a culture we've really explored at all. at all. at all. Totally agree. Last question. Can you just remind everybody of the names of your books and anything else you want us to know about? Um well the book that we discussed uh mostly today was I know I should exercise but dot dot dot 40 reasons we 44 reasons we don't move and how to get over them and we talked a little bit about move your DNA but um to I'm at nutritious movement nutritious movement is where you can dig a little bit deeper into this this analogy and also reality of movement as nutrition.

nutrition. nutrition. Such a pleasure to talk to you. Thank you for your time. Appreciate you. Thanks so much for the conversation.