When you wake up in the morning, do you feel beat up, like you got hit by a freight train and you just want to roll over and go back to sleep? Is it hard to get through your day without a nap or drinking several cups of strong coffee? Do you feel like you have no energy left for your family at the end of a work day? My guest understands what this is like and joins us to talk about how you can naturally increase your energy, upgrade your fitness and improve your quality of life.Drawing from his fifteen years of experience as a competitive powerlifter and combat sport athlete, a wilderness and hiking guide, and a dad, Josh Wood has developed a holistic approach to fitness grounded solidly in the pragmatic and the natural world.To connect with Josh Wood, get coaching help or resources visit: https://strongforlife.online/Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/coachjoshwood/Special thanks to InGenius Prep for sponsoring The Fatherhood Challenge. To learn more about InGenius Prep or to claim your free consultation, visit: https://ingeniusprep.com/get-a-free-consultation/?utm_campaign=2024+Podcast+Email+Marketing&utm_content=Fatherhood+Podcast&utm_medium=Fatherhood+Podcast&utm_source=Fatherhood+Podcast&utm_term=Fatherhood+PodcastSpecial thanks to Zencastr for sponsoring The Fatherhood Challenge. Use my special link https://zen.ai/CWHIjopqUnnp9xKhbWqscGp-61ATMClwZ1R8J5rm824WHQIJesasjKDm-vGxYtYJ to save 30% off your first month of any Zencastr paid plan.Transcription - Fitness for Dads---When you wake up in the morning, do you feel beat up?Like you got hit by a freight train and you just want to roll over and go back to sleep?Is it hard to get through your day without a nap, drinking several cups of coffee?Do you feel like you have no energy left for your family at the end of the day?My guest understands what this is like and he will join us shortly to talk about how you can naturallyincrease your energy, upgrade your fitness and improve your quality of life.So don't go anywhere.Before we begin, I'd like to thank our proud sponsor of this episode and the Fatherhood Challenge in Genius Prep.In Genius Prep is the world's premier admissions consulting firmproud to be officially recognized as the country's top college admissions consultants,helping students prepare for admissions to top schools through individualized educational programsthat increase chances of admission by up to 10 times.In Genius Prep students work with former admission officers to differentiate themselves from other competitive studentsin three areas, colleges evaluate students in academics, extra curricular activities and personal characteristics.Just this past admission cycle in Genius Prep students have secured 110 offers from Ivy League schools,268 offers from top 20 schools and 904 offers from top 50 schools.In Genius Prep student success lies within the fact that in Genius Prep is an all in one consulting firmoffering every service of family needs, whether it be test prep, tailored candidacy, building mentorship,academic mentorships, the leadership and innovation lab, soft skills courses,writing courses and other customized programs to develop their application personato the most effective and authentic extent to share with colleges.Just click on the link in the episode description to book a free strategy call with one of Genius Prep's college expertsor you can visit ingeniousprep.com that's ingeniousprep.com and let them know you came from the Fatherhood Challenge.Welcome to the Fatherhood Challenge, a movement to awaken and inspire fathers everywhereto take great pride in their role and a challenge society to understand how important fathers areto the stability and culture of their family's environment.Now here's your host, Jonathan Guerrero.Greetings everyone, thank you so much for joining me.My guest is TEDx speaker, educator and fitness expert Josh Wood.Drawing from his 15 years of experience as a competitive powerlifter and combat sports athlete,a wilderness hiking guide and a dad, Josh has developed a holistic approach to fitness groundedsolidly in the pragmatic and the natural world.Josh, welcome to the Fatherhood Challenge.Thanks for having me.Okay, I gotta ask, what is your favorite dad joke?A man is out of funeral for his best friend and it's obviously a very somber occasion and he steps upand asks his best friend's wife, "Hey, do you mind if I say a word?"And she's like, "Of course, you were his best friend."And so he gets up in front of everyone.He looks with great seriousness at all the crowd and the friends.And he says, "Plessera" and steps down.And with a tear in her eye, his best friend's wife says,"That means a lot."Oh, that was good.So thank you.Oh, that's how I like to kick things off.Let's start with your story.How did your fitness journey begin?So I'm 35.And my fitness journey started when I was 17.I believe.Yeah, I was 17.So I was in Rochester, Minnesota working at a computer repair shop.And one day I'm sitting there and I'm like,"I am undersized, skinny kid, eating garbage all the time."And I just had this realization like, "I don't want to be weak and scared of everythingfor the rest of my life."And so I was like, "Okay.I'm going to learn kickboxing."Because for whatever reason that is what the first thing that came into my head was.And then I did some research and some looking around.And there was nowhere to learn kickboxing.So I was like, "Okay, well that's not going to work."But then I found a, in Rochester, there used to be, it's closed for a bunch of years now,but an old Irish family run boxing gym that was in an old auto shop, converted auto shop toboxing gym. And in the corner of that gym, there was a Brazilian guy named Mario Roberto.And he had a match on the ground.And he had a little corner of the gym and he taught mixed martial arts in Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu.And I started doing that.And I mean, I'm visiting Minnesota right now, I normally live in Tasmania.And I've known Mario for 18 years.And every time I come to town, we catch up.But that's where I started my interest in health and fitness.From there, did you feel any calling to do anything else from that? Or was that just morepersonally to get yourself kind of bulked up in a better shape?Well, the bulking up didn't happen until I was in mid to late 20s.But it was just a personal interest thing. Just like, you know what? I need to havesome physical capacity in life.I need to not be so concerned with confrontation and doing difficult things.I needed to be tougher. I needed to have more grit.And I needed to be comfortable with physical altercation.And from that, I followed that path for a number of years.I moved around a lot. So I did that for about a year.But that happened then.So then I went over to the UK for about six months,backpacking, and then came back for about six months and started up with amartial arts club out of the community college.And then moved to Australia and continued to train on and off as I moved around a bit,a little bit here, a little bit there. And it was all just personal interest. But after a bit,I was like, you know, and I need to, I want to learn more. I want to learn more about the body.And so I started pursuing a career in massage. And I learned massage and studied that inRannick Clinic, like a clinic space for maybe seven years. I ended up working at a school in Melbourneand teaching massage for about six years. And while I was in this phase of everything aboutlearning to work with the body and understand the body and treat the body, I then started studyingtraining professionally and coaching people. Because I kind of had this realization that I didn'tlike working in a clinical setting where people came in and they complained about what was wrong.But didn't want to do anything about it. I was like, nah, this is silly. And I found that in fitnessand personal training and coaching that people are in a better spot. They're there because they'rewilling to do the work to make the changes that lead to the life they want. And I liked thatside of things better. And that's what I've been doing. I started coaching group classes andpersonal training in 2011, 2012 somewhere around there. There are so many dads struggling withtheir energy levels and not having nearly enough energy to give their family the way they would liketo. How did they start that change? It's such a big one. There's one word that answers all thoseproblems and it's priorities. Wow. Have to understand your priorities because you know what? And no onelikes me to say this because the internet is full of gurus who say you can do everything, but youcan't do everything. It's impossible to do everything and you always have to sacrifice something to doanother thing. And that means you need to know where your priorities are. The next question I reallywas going to ask was about work balance for career dad. How do the balance physical fitness,family and work and do all well, but it sounds like there really isn't a way to be able to make thatbalance correctly. Well, you can do it correctly, but you can't do it perfectly. So the issue is,you know, you have to understand what has to be done now and what doesn't. And one of the big thingswith that is, you know, we, depending on what season of fatherhood you're in, you know, like I'vegot two young kids, but when they're old enough to sort of go off inducing on their own, you havemore time, but when you're in the trenches with babies, you have to sleep, you have to eat well,you have to do the minimum requirement to stay functional, but you're not going to, and that,you know, everyone's different, but you're probably not going to pick up a new sport when you have anewborn. You're probably not going to start training for a marathon, but if you can eat well andsleep as much as you can, so you're functional and healthy, you're going to be winning. And then whentime starts to open up, then you start investing more into the areas that are most important to you.So it really starts, it has to start first with you, your, your basic needs, good nutrition,eating well, water, all of those things, getting as much sleep as you possibly can, depending onif you're in the early stages, you probably aren't getting much, but getting that figured out as bestyou can. And then work in your way out for outward from there, because really it sounds like if youhaven't made your own health and wellness the priority, you're not going to really have much to giveyour family. Bingo. Like this, this is, this is the truth of it. And you know, to someone who'salways had too many things going on. And like I've always had a skill or athletic goal that I'vebeen working towards, you know, I competed in, in boxing for a number of years and powerlifting,and I've done a bit of strong man. And last few years has been traditional archery. I used tospearfish a lot like, you know, through seasons and things that I like to do. But when you have thattime, you could do that. But if you're not getting enough sleep, all that is not worth your time.If you're not eating well enough to avoid the 50 pounds that new dads tend to put on,you're, you're not prioritizing right. And you know, the first thing is sleep. If you're getting fouror five hours of sleep a day, and you're like, oh, but I'm not getting to the gym every day. It's like,yeah, well, you need to prioritize and sleep is number one. And if you're eating garbage becauseyou're exhausted and stressed out all the time, the gym is the least of your worries. Preparing forsome sort of athletic endeavor is the least of your worries. Hit the basics first. Get your sleep right,get your food right. Make sure you can recover. Make sure you can do what you have to do as a dad,because that's priority number one. And then you can add stuff in when you have the capacity. And ifyou're working a high demand a job or yourself employed like me, you know what? That's what you needto do. Take care of your family. That means that has to take priority in most cases. But you can't dothat if you're not sleeping well and you're not eating well. So it also comes back to a quality oflife. If you're not healthy, if you're not where you need to be taking care of yourself, it's reallyhard to fully appreciate your family. I mean, if you are around your family and it's in that'ssupposed to be quality time, but you feel all the time like you've been hit by a freight train,you can't really enjoy that. So that's incentive enough to want to make a big change. And sometimesthat might mean pulling back on everything else to be able to get that. But man, I mean, I would askdad's listening, wouldn't you want that full experience to be present and not just feel likegarbage when you're when you're around your family? Yeah, it's and this is coming from a guy who'salways picking up too many hobbies and things to do and has been self employed. He's almost mywhole adult life. It's hard when you can't be as productive as you want to be and can't beaccomplishing all the things that you feel like you need to do as a man. But and this, you know,take taking me two kids to figure this out that you have to really understand your priorities andunderstand that your first priority is your family and you are going to have to take a backseat in someaspects for a little while. It's not forever, but it's for a little while. What does good nutritionlook like for for dad? Let's just say somebody that needs to make a change right now and they'regoing into their next meal and they need to start now. What does that look like? If we're getting intospecifics, it would be making sure you hit your protein goals above everything else. There is no realgoals for fats and carbohydrates for someone who's not athletic or someone who is not looking forhigh performance. Most dads, most average dads do not eat enough protein. They do not feel like theyare being nourished and they tend to then overeat garbage and snack and drink and things to makethemselves feel better. But if your body is nourished, you have a lot less of those cravings.So the very first thing you should be doing is making sure that every meal you're hitting your proteinrequirements. At a bare minimum, you can look at the size of your palm. So the width, height, thicknessof your palm, I think I need to have at least one to two servings of protein about the size of mypalm with each meal. And when I talk about protein sources, I mean dense lean protein sources, things likechicken beef fish, you could do low-fat Greek yogurt. Eggs are a really quality protein source,but they're not a high protein source. So if you're going to use them for your protein needs,you probably need three to four at a minimum. And just focus on making sure each meal is builtaround hitting those minimum protein needs. Because not only does that help you feel fuller andhelp maintain good blood sugar levels throughout the day, but it helps you maintain lean muscle mass,which you need to be functional. I know so many dads that are either type two or type one diabetic.So if we really follow the diet like this, like you just described, we could curb so manychronic illnesses that are centered around diabetes. Absolutely. Let's move on to caffeine.Is caffeine good or bad for fitness? For fitness, it's great. It's one of the most researchedand common drugs in the Western world. And we've had research from almost a hundred years ago onthe effects of caffeine. It's a great, ergo genic aid. It makes you perform better and makes you workharder when we're talking about exercise and fitness. It's a very handy legal performance inhand-sing drug. From a health perspective, if we look at the literature in almost every case,and I'm talking about caffeine coming from things like coffee, like there's a lot of highly sweetenedgarbage drinks that have caffeine. And that the effects of those are not necessarily related tothe caffeine, but if we look at caffeine from coffee and caffeine in general, the people who consumecoffee more up and till about four cups a day tends to have more beneficial health outcomes thanpeople who don't drink coffee. So we find that caffeine and things like coffee tend to be beneficial.But there's the individual component. Do you get anxiety? Do you get the shakes, the sweats? Howmuch are you drinking? Is it affecting your sleep? If we keep our dosages under four cups of coffeeworth a day or a cup or two in the morning and you keep caffeine ideally at least 10 to 12 hoursaway from sleep, it shouldn't affect your sleep too much. And it's a net benefit not just forhealth outcomes but for performance as well. So I think it's a very useful thing. I think thethe literature shows that it's actually a healthful thing as long as you don't have awhat a poor reaction to it. Because some people are chronically anxious. And if you're stressed outand you're anxious adding caffeine to the mix is a detriment. The other thing is if you have to havelots of caffeine to function in your day, you think that might be a really clear warning side thateverything else is is really really out of balance. Like we're not talking caffeine to work out toenhance your workout routine. This is like I've got to have four to eight cups of coffee in the morningwhen I get a just a function just to be able to get going. If I don't do that, I'm crabby and I can'tfocus. I'm sleepy all day, I yawn all day long. I'm just so is is that really a warning sign?Yeah, absolutely. There's there's the issue of it being you know it is it is an addictive drugand you become habituated to a certain amount. And if you want to feel like you used to afterhaving cup of coffee, you have to have two cups of coffee and then you adapt and habituate to thatdose and then you have to have more. And so we do have this this ramping up addictive effect ofcaffeine as well. But like you said, like the big thing is like this is a warning sign of somethingand you know what if you feel like you need that all the time it's probably because everythingelse your life is falling apart and you need more sleep. And this is where we come down to priorities.It's like you know what if you have to get up and you've had a crappy night sleep with a new bornbaby who's keeping you both up all night. Well you know what if you have to have two three cups ofcoffee to get to work, get it done. It's another season in your life you got to do what you got to do.But if you have the ability to say not stay up late watching Netflix because that's your you timeand I deserve it. And you know I'm doing this for me and whatever whatever excuses we giveourselves if you just go to sleep earlier or and this is the thing I talk to a lot of young parentsabout two is know when you have babies in the house you are not working on you know an eight to tenhour sleep schedule anymore you're working on a 24 hour sleep schedule so your goal for you and yourpartner. Your wife is to get the required amount of sleep over 24 hours you know if you need eight hoursto function you might not get it all at once but if you can take some naps you're still going to get it.So learning how to adjust your sleep schedule and your attitude around going to bed earlyand around naps you're going to deal with a lot of those issues better so you know like I always sayyour adult take a nap you can do that fine time taking nap fine time or try to get the bed earlierif you know you have to get up at five don't stay up till 10 30 watching TV if the kids are in bedif the baby is asleep you go to sleep that's a that's great advice I've heard the whole sleep thingdescribed as like a bank and it completely changed the way I thought of sleep I thought of sleep isthe so if you only get four hours of sleep well that's it once you're up there is no making that upit's gone and so your only way of of recovering whatever you lost from that is by the nextnight getting a full eight hours so what you're saying is if you only get four hours you get you onlyat four hours but at some point during the day if you have three hours to go and take a three hour napthat may not be realistic or maybe break it up into two hours here one hour there you canthat still counts towards your eight hours absolutely it's not ideal because sleepingconsistently for a longer period of time tends to be better but this is actually something thatwe we see in how professional athletes manage their recovery you know if we look at what athletesneeding so high level athletes typically need around 10 hours of sleep a day but they're busy toothey might have night games they might have early morning games they have travel and stuff like thatso the idea is to always get their 10 hours approximate sleep across the day so they might besleeping on the bus or on a plane or taking a nap before they go to training that kind of thingit's on a 24 hour schedule and if that's what you have to do that's what you have to doand it might help to reframe it in terms of you know what treat yourself like a professional athleteso for that person that really has trouble getting to sleep they're anxious their mind won't shut offthey're they're just fidgety they just can't get settled in and get to sleep quickly or when theyget to sleep they're up maybe once or twice during the night is that often a sign that they're notgetting enough exercise and can exercise fix a lot of those symptoms uh can be so it could be anexercise thing and that they're not actually inducing enough fatigue across the day but it could alsohave to do you know with lift life stresses but also sleep hygiene you know if you've spent the lasthour before bed staring at your phone that blue light continues to stimulate the production ofcortisol which is the hormone that wakes you up uh sleep hygiene and the systems you have aroundgoing to bed will affect not just how long it takes to fall asleep but your quality of sleepyou know caffeine some people like I could drink a cup of coffee before bed and go to sleep like coolyou can fall asleep but everything we know about how caffeine affects sleep tells us that itdecreases the depth and quality of sleep even if you're technically asleep so you're havinga poorer sleep even if the length is the same by having caffeine before bed you have aharder time getting to sleep if you've been exposed to a lot of stimulating things like blue lightscoming from screens or like stimulating TVs and movies and things like that so having a system ofreducing exposure to blue light you know keeping less lights on using warmer tones to your lightsreducing screen time within the hour before bed uh you know maybe not eating a whole lot beforeyou go to sleep keeping your caffeine 12 hours away from your normal bedtime like all those thingscoming to how well and what the quality of your sleep is so we're having a discussion the generaltheme is is fitness I never expected to spend a good portion of this conversation around sleepwhich just that by itself should say everything we need to know about how important sleep is to yourhealth why it matters so much so let's go out and look at a broader perspective of things so from what Iunderstood about fitness there is a there's three components to it there's there's a physical there'sa mental and there's also a spiritual component to all of this what does that look like when they'reall in harmony and why are all of those important for dads that's an interesting one so a lot of peoplejust do exercise because it's good for them but if you're finding and this is what I want to say to peoplea lot and you know new clients and things like that is the best workout you do is the one that you dothe one that you can continue to do for a while it's not about the perfect you know optimal sessionin the gym it's about what can you do forever and I think when you find a style of movement that youenjoy that is physically rewarding that keeps you mentally stimulated but also excuse me alsofulfills that aspect that brings you joy you know a lot of times it's things like martial arts or yogathings that cover all those bases you know find something that you enjoy and is stimulating andgives you the physical benefits and you put all those pieces together you're going to do it foreverand the most important thing you can do is stay moving forever that's a completely different take onon fitness I think a lot of dads are scared or maybe not scared as the word but they are justanxious about getting started because they think that on day one they they have to bleed in the gymI mean they have to really just just you know they have to get shredded in a month and if they aren'tseeing that kind of results in a month well they're not working hard enough and they're like Ijust got off the couch how am I supposed to to bulk up like that and in you're sayingphysical fitness is is not limited to just bulking up it's just it's a matter of getting off thecouch and and just getting moving doing something most average men don't need to bulk up I have toomuch bulk as it is and this is a discussion I have with a lot of new clients too isif you've spent the last 20 years doing nothing and adding non-functional weight to your bodyyou're gonna probably need six months to a year for each year that you've been sedentaryto reverse it like this is not a quick fix situation you spent 20 years putting yourself in the statehow do you think it's just gonna disappear in a month or six months or even a year that's absurdand you know what what I usually start people with is you know this might be my blows of minds hereit's it's pretty cutting edge stuff but when I get people that I've been sedentary for a long timethe very first thing we focus on is walking if you're not walking there's nothing I can do for youlike it's the most basic form and easiest and healthiest form of exercise you can do is walkingand if we can get people hitting in step count is a pretty popular way of looking at this becauseeasy to measure but if we can get people moving more regularly every day weights just gonna fall offthey're gonna feel so much better and then we focus on building the body and building the strengthand building the physique that people want but if you just go into the gym and like you said a lotpeople go in and they smash themselves and they just burn themselves out on their first sessionyou know that's how often can they do that not often most people do that and they're sore for twoweeks and they come back two weeks later and they're sore for two weeks and it's just a not a productiveor sustainable system I'd rather have someone go in at 50% effort two three or four times a weekand do that consistently because you will get better results if you're working at 100% once every twoweeks that's only like a 50% effort averaged across those weeks but if I get you in going 50%four times a week where you're not hammered where you're not broken after every session well 50%four times a week is 200% you know that's a much bigger amount of total work and potential gainsacross time than just going and hammering yourself I know for me this would be something that would beI you know you might be able to outline it for me on paper or whatever but I would get much betterresults from actually having a coach having someone guide me through exactly how do I do thisand I think there is a vital accountability component that a lot of people starting to work outroutine or regiment absolutely need so this goes into my next question I mean how can a dad get ahold of you for help or coaching or to learn more about what you're doing well you hit the nail in thehead so because I work with a lot of men and dads you know the number one issue we get into is as guyswe think we can figure everything out and do everything on our own but I know a lot of guys in their40s and 50s who've been saying that for 20 plus years and just happen to be getting worse every yearthis the issue is accountability someone to not just give you the plan give you the answers to thequestions that you have but keep you on track in the long run and that's that's so important so ifanyone is interested in can contact my website is strongforlife.online my business is strong forlife online coaching I work with people all all over the world you know us Canada Indonesia IndiaEurope got a guys in Ireland New Zealand Australia like everywhere because with online coachingit doesn't matter where you are so strong for life.online if you have questions I got a lot of freeresources I've got a guide on there that's just about going to the gym for the first time it's calledthe beginner gym guide you know that's that's a free sort of free thing I've got my eat like anadult guide learn the basics of creating a healthier relationship with food that's free like there'sso many free resources on my website or on instagram at coach Josh wood uh you know you don't have topay for anything you could just get all the free resources and you're going to be in a better spotjust to make these easier if you go to the fatherhoodchallenge.com that's the fatherhoodchallenge.comif you go to this episode look right below the episode description I will have all of the linksthat Josh just mentioned posted there for your convenience and Josh as we close what is your challengeto dads feeling discouraged and struggling physically or emotional to take those first steps take aminute sit down get a piece of paper write out all the things you need to do and number themin order of how important they are you have to understand your priorities if you don't know whereyour priorities lie you're gonna keep trying to do everything at the same time and everything youdo is gonna suck you need to understand what's most important and nail that get that right firstand then move on to the next one Josh it has been absolutely an honor having you on the fatherhoodchallenge thank you so much for being here and encouraging dads to step up and to take those firststeps thank you thank you for listening to this episode of the fatherhood challenge if you wouldlike to contact us listen to other episodes find any resource mentioned in this program or findout more information about the fatherhoodchallenge please visit the fatherhoodchallenge.com that's the fatherhoodchallenge.com[NO SPEECH]Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/thefatherhoodchallengepodcast/donations

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