Change Your Brain Every Day - How to Do What You Ought to Do and Deal with Your Excuses with Kathy Smith

Episode Date: January 9, 2017

Alibis, excuses, whatever you call it, at some point in our lives, we all had our own reasons for not doing the healthy things or the good things eventhough we already knew its consequences. Why we do what we shouldn't do and not do those that we ought to do, that's the million dollar question.  In today's episode, we'll discuss about this with Kathy Smith and she'll share with us her insights and personal experience and hopefully we'll all learn something to takeaway to help us stick to what we should do for our health. 

Hi, I'm Donnie Osmond, and welcome to The Brain Warrior's Way, hosted by my friends Daniel and Tana Amen. Now, in this podcast, you're going to learn that the war for your health is one between your ears. That's right. If you're ready to be sharper and have better memory, mood, energy, and focus, well then stay with us. Here are Daniel and Tana Amen.

Welcome back. We continue our discussion with world-famous fitness trainer and teacher, Kathy Smith. She is coming to us from Park City, Utah. And today we're going to talk about the excuses that you have. So I actually remember some of your teaching in your videos about, you know, why aren't you doing what you know you're supposed to do? And I used to love that empowering message you used to give. So I think that's a big part of who you are, the strength you exude. And as a woman who also likes to give an empowering message, I'm drawn to that. So we're excited to have you here and talk about this. We need more women like that giving empowering messages. Well, thank you. Well, you know, excuses again, you know, as I mentioned before, a lot of times we get into the, the facts and the prescription. And so, you know,

the prescription is you need to get 150 minutes or whatever of cardiovascular movement per week, and you should be strengthening all your larger muscle groups, you know, twice a week, dah, dah, dah, dah, dah. And, and then like you hand the person the prescription and think, okay, job done. Why is it not happening? And yes, I understand. If it was only that easy. And so, again, this idea that as I was going on, you know, when I first started going around the country and touring and book touring, I would get up in front of people. And as I mentioned before, and I would just walk on stage. And many times a voice coach, a UCLA speech coach had me practice this. And it was really embarrassing for me at first, but you know, I'd walk on stage and I'd look at the audience and I just say, okay, what's your excuse? And then I go, I need everything I'm going to tell

you right now. You know, you know, you're not supposed to like, you know, eat as much sugar. You're not, you're supposed to not eat late at night. You know, you're not supposed to you know, you're supposed to exercise more. Why are you not doing it? And then I would say, I'm going to run around the audience. And if you can give me an excuse, I have not heard before, I'll give you a free book. So that's what I would do. I'd jump off the stage and then people, their hands would shoot up and you know, it became a game. So then the typical ones are, I don't have enough time. Exercise is boring. I have some part of you, you name a body part, my back hurts, my knee hurts, or some sort of

physical problem. I don't know what to do back to, I don't have enough time back to exercise is boring. And then, but then there always be somebody and, you know, I, you know, and then I would say, we're going to address all these for that one, heard that one, but then there's always somebody in the audience. And it's just, it's heartbreaking. I have a mother who has Alzheimer's. I have to drive two hours each direction every night to help her. I have four kids at home and they would go through the list and you'd literally be going, oh my God, they don't have enough time to exercise.

But then I would also, I would think that I wouldn't say that because I would help them through. We can find the time. Let me show you how exercise is cumulative. Let me show you how you could just do 10 minutes in the morning. When you, before you jump in that shower, before you go, you know, you could do a quick 10 minute workout. And that's why I have 10 minute DVDs. You can do it before you get in the shower, you know, because from a female side, there's a point where somebody doesn't want to sweat. They don't want to mess up their hair. They don't want to mess up their, you know, outfits and whatever.

So they need to get it out of the way in the morning. There's other people that are complete crab apples in the morning. And unless they have a cup of coffee or they have something to get them moving, then if they start and set a new year's resolution of I'm going to exercise 30 minutes every morning, but they're not a morning person, they will set themselves up for failure. So my trick with each person was let's go through and let's look at your day. Let's just get, let's go into a little self analysis here of how can you, you know, what's holding you back from finding the 10 to 30 minutes of structured exercise. But then I would move into, well, let's get out of this structured stuff because, you know,

that's kind of being a little overrated and especially the latest findings. What are you doing for the rest of the 20, well, of the waking hours, whatever, whatever the 18 hours of the day, how are you spending your time? And right now the three of us are spending it sitting down. We don't really have to be sitting down. It's just that our studios are set up this way, but probably I would say within the next year, both of our studios might be set up a little differently and the people at home listening don't have to be sitting down. So one of the things that I'm trying to always encourage people is how do you find more movement in natural ways through the day legs so that, that, and it's interesting because you just shifted your body back and forth. Just that thing of shifting.

And I'm a shifter too. Like, and literally like I'll be on the phone. I'm going, but you know, and I'll, you know I like to bust people's excuses. So I practice martial arts, so I like to break things. So I like to break people's excuses. But I love this idea when people say they don't have time. As somebody who's been really sick, really depressed, and who is incredibly busy like you are, I usually try to help people flip that around. It's like the busier you are, you don't have time not to because of the benefits that exercise gives you. And if you can really help plant that idea. And also, I love what you said. I like to help people think of it. And I always tell people, make your life work for you.

So, you know, I, believe it or not, I see VIPs. I see you wearing your workout jacket. I see VIPs in my workout clothes and that's my life. And I keep a stick of deodorant in my drawer at work and I keep a clean t-shirt. I come to work sweaty. That's my, if you don't like it, I'm sorry. I love you, but you know, that's how it's going to work for me. So you have to figure out ways to make it work because if you're busy, we'll go through the benefits of exercise later, but you can't not make it work if you really want to be productive and have a healthy brain and have a healthy life. And I even have a treadmill desk. So when I'm doing interviews or I'm answering emails,

I just, even if I'm moving at a slow pace, I've got to be moving. So we call them the little lies that make you fat, depressed, and feeble-minded. Many years ago, I coined the term ants, automatic negative thoughts, the thoughts that come into your mind automatically and ruin your day. And that's what you're helping people with. Think clearly, think lovingly, think in a way that is helpful. So you are sort of what in my daughter's 13-year-old vernacular, you're like my spirit animal. That's what kids call it today. Everything you're saying, I'm here. Yes, yes, yes. So the most common excuses, time, pain, motivation, or finding something that's interesting. When we did the Daniel Plan, the big project at Saddleback Church, that now we have thousands

of churches engaged in health. The guy that actually called me up to ask me to help, he's like, well, I don't like exercise. It's boring. And I'm like, everything is boring? Well, we figured out he loved playing ping pong. And he could do that for hours at a time. And there's actually very few exercises where you sweat as much as if you're playing table tennis at a high level. That's my sport. That's what I like to do. I don't like running. It's just, it's boring. But I can get that same benefit.

Right. And I like hitting things. And you like hitting things. Right. Whatever you love to do. As long as it's not me. But if you love to do. As long as it's not me. But if you love doing something. And early on, and you were talking about your daughter, but it's really so important to expose children to a variety of activities.

Because what I found, and I remember once, you know, Bonnie Blair, who was an ice skater, and she won some Olympic medals, but she wasn't a very good athlete. And, you know, her, her parents didn't look at her. I mean, she wasn't great at baseball and hand eye coordination and all. And if her parents would have given up too early, she wouldn't have found her sport. I think the main thing is expose your kids to as many things between dance and table tennis or whatever, and let them naturally find things that turn them on. So that's the biggest thing of how do you find something that turns you on? Right. And we got pretty frustrated. Well, Daniel didn't. He's the yin to my yang. So I got frustrated at one point with our daughter, our 13-year-old, because I felt like

she was giving up on things too easily. And we would put her in different sports. And she didn't feel like she was good at it. So she wanted to quit. So what you're saying is right on. Because she has a little bit of a perfectionist. And she's not that coordinated. But when she found dance, now we can't keep her out of the studio. It's like 12 hours a week she wants to dance.

So you're right on. Part of the story was really interesting in that we scammed her. And when we scammed her, the obsessive part of her brain was pretty lit up. But her cerebellum was really low in activity. And that explained why she wasn't as coordinated. And so if you really like to be perfect, but you're not really good at it, you give it up. And when she saw that if she did coordination exercises, it would actually help her brain, then dance really took off. But we went through six or seven things before she finally found the thing she loved. So I applaud you for saying that and encouraging people to not give up on their kids, to stick with it. And on themselves. And then for adults, what I find is that somebody will go take a yoga class,

for instance, they go, oh, I hate yoga. And I say, well, why don't you take a few more classes? Because within every discipline, be it martial arts, be it, I'm not sure about table tennis, but I'm sure it is. But between yoga, there's different instructors, there's different approaches, there's different methods. And what I have found is that when you can connect, when you can make exercise, get it out of like measurements of like waist, hips, weight, BMI, and get it into, this is my social outlet. Part of it is, and you're going to a class, like I have to tell you something great. I have fun that I'm doing, and I want to get into new year's resolutions, but I'm going to ride across America in 2017. So I've set a goal to ride my bike, not, not a, not a car, my bike across

America in 2017. So to do that, there's a doctor up here. His name's Max Testa, and he's worked with Lance Armstrong and tour de France and whatever, But he's got a program that you go in and you get your ear pricked and you get your lactic acid thresholds and then you train. And the point being, as I'm going to just put this out there, this was something that I thought about. I procrastinated. I got nervous. Everybody was saying, have you bought your bike yet?

I mean, I literally set this intention probably 12 months ago and I kept, and then, but each, as I set the intention and I spoke it out to the world, Max came into my life. He goes, you got to come to my class. I got my bike. I did this. I have my training. It is unbelievable the way that I feel. I just got back from my one hour, that's an indoor, because they're called, you know, they're called copy trainers. You put your bike on it and they, they gauge your heart rate and everything through this. What my aerobic capacity that has increased, you know, in the last, you know, 12 weeks has been incredible, but it's also this confidence building of what I'm going to do. And why am I doing it? You ask, even though you didn't.

It's because I turned 65 about a week ago. Wow, you look amazing. December 11th, you know, my turn 65. So I'm officially on Medicare. So if I, but here's the thing. But you look 20 years younger. We start to limit ourselves as we, in an entire life, your daughter at her age, you know, I see people in their twenties. It's like, we limit what we think we're capable of doing.

And, and not just physically. I mean, it's like, you know, so it, you know, it's about, well, I'm too old to, I'm too old to take up a sport. I'm too old to go back to school. I'm too old to learn a new language. I'm too old to learn a new instrument. I'm too, you know, or I'm too, or I'm not good enough. I was never good at music. And people always have, you know, those sort of limiting thoughts. And so my thing is, you know, the world is so big and there's so many possibilities. And for me, it's about storytelling. So my thing is doing a documentary telling not my story, but other people's stories about what is possible, what is possible, and look at the possibilities.

That's awesome. And clearly your lifestyle shows because you look amazing. Thank you. I just want to tell you that. Absolutely beautiful. The more we engage with our life, no matter what our age, our brain grows. But when we stop engaging in life, our brain dies. And people go, well, because I'm 63 this year. Or when people are 65, it's... I have a new program I'm working on called Memory Rescue.

And it's around this mnemonic, bright minds. So the way you prevent Alzheimer's disease is you prevent all the risk factors. And bright minds spells them out, blood flow, retirement aging, inflammation, and so on. But retirement aging, the subtitle is when you stop learning, you start dying. And so your story, I hope you'll come back and give us an update on how you're doing so that we can share it with people. My dad, two years ago, almost died. He was 85, had mold in his house, had a heart arrhythmia, then heart failure. And he's an interesting guy. He used to say, I don't get heartia, then heart failure. And he's an interesting guy used to say, I don't get heart attacks. I give them. So that's what I grew up with. And but one

day he looked at me and he said, because he'd never do what I'd ask him to do. He said, I'm sick of being sick. What do you want me to do? And he had the old person's speech. Stop bothering me. I'm too old. I'm too tired. What's the matter with you? I'm 85. But when he changed, because he's so stubborn, he did everything Tana and I asked him to do.

Over six months, he lost 40 pounds. He's back to work full time. Oh, he's a beast. His energy has soared. And last Sunday. He's lifting weights five days a week. He's 87. Last Sunday, he and I together lifted over 20,000 pounds when we counted the weight and the repetition.

But he's a beast now. Because now, and the promise to him is you will feel better at 90 than you did at 60 if you do the right things. What a great story. It's never too late. Oh my God. I love that. And it just, it makes my heart so happy because I know if he would have died two years ago, I would have been sad for the rest of my life because I had something that could help him and I didn't have the right way to tell him. But, yeah, it's a huge joy for me. You know, it's interesting, though, you say that. It's the right way to tell him. But it was also, I wonder what shifted, because he was ready, as you mentioned, to listen.

Pain is a great motivator. What does Pastor Warren say? People don't change when they see the light. They change when they feel the heat. Ooh. That's a good one, right? Pain's a great motivator. That's great.

So it's sad, but true, you know? All right. So we have talked about excuses. When we come back, we are going to talk about body image. I think that's so important. So I have no body image problems because I've never expected myself to be durable. The Meghan Trainor song is perfect for you. Me too. You've never heard that song. You have to listen to it. Yeah, that's my theme song. All right,

stay with us. We're going to be back with Kathy Smith. Thanks for listening to today's show, The Brain Warrior's Way. Why don't you head over to brainwarriorswaypodcast.com. That's brainwarriorswaypodcast.com, where Daniel and Tana have a gift for you just for subscribing to the show. And when you post your review on iTunes, you'll be entered into a drawing where you can win a VIP visit to one of the Amen Clinics. I'm Donnie Osmond, and I invite you to step up your brain game by joining us in the next episode.