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Episode 3a - The Body as an Ecosystem: Movement, Nourishment, Recovery & Rhythm
10 Plays1 month ago
In this episode of the Body Evolution Podcast, we shift the way we understand the body — from something to control or fix, to an intelligent ecosystem that’s constantly adapting to our lifestyle. After laying the foundation with identity in the previous episodes, this conversation explores how the body responds to movement, nourishment, recovery, energy, and rhythm. We explain why symptoms are often signals rather than failures, and how the body reflects the inputs it’s given over time. Instead of fighting your body or chasing isolated fixes, this episode invites you to work with your biology — supporting it through intentional movement, proper nourishment, rest, and aligned rhythms that allow real health to emerge naturally. In this episode, we explore: - Why the body is always adapting, not malfunctioning - What it really means when people say “the body remembers” - How lifestyle inputs shape physical responses over time - Why health breaks down when we treat the body as isolated systems - The difference between movement and fitness — and why both matter - How nourishment goes beyond calories to support hormones and recovery - Why recovery and sleep are essential for adaptation, not optional - How stress and lack of rest disrupt the entire ecosystem - The role of energy, rhythm, and connection in overall health - Why working with the body creates better outcomes than forcing it This episode is an invitation to release judgment and build understanding. When you stop fighting your body and start supporting it, health becomes a cooperative process — one grounded in rhythm, nourishment, movement, and trust. 🔗 Connect with Body Evolution - https://linktr.ee/body_evolution
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Transcript
Introduction to Body Evolution Podcast
00:00:03
Speaker
Welcome to a space for movement, mindset, and sustainable rhythm. This is Body Evolution.
00:00:13
Speaker
Welcome to Body Evolution podcast, where we make health simple, sustainable, and human.
Simplifying Health: Fitness, Nutrition, and Lifestyle
00:00:19
Speaker
I'm Elliot Berenguer. And I'm Corey Repp. We break down fitness, nutrition, habits, and energy through one lens, what works in real life.
00:00:31
Speaker
Today we're gonna talk about the body as an ecosystem and how the body responds to movement, nourishment, recovery, and rhythm. So let's do this.
00:00:45
Speaker
Elliot, um as we get into this conversation, gonna ask you a question.
Understanding the Body as an Ecosystem
00:00:51
Speaker
Why do you think it makes sense to talk now about the body right after we've talked about identity?
00:00:57
Speaker
So it's very important because as we said in our our last episode, when we were talking, identity is one of the foundations to begin to do any transformation that we have. And identity is what sets a little bit our direction.
00:01:16
Speaker
We're talking and it tells you where you wanna go, where you wanna get. So it sets the direction and then we can start working the body to go into that direction, to express and to get to that point where we want to get. and This is the best way, the best path to move forward in our conversation about health. So once we have the foundation set up, then we can start talking about the body. And we have to understand from there, because sometimes we will come with some judgment and everything about our body. And we have to understand that our body is just living and adapting to the lifestyle we have been going through.
Adaptation and the Machine-like Body
00:02:03
Speaker
So everything we have been living, everything we have been doing, has an effect in our body. And our body is always constantly trying to adapt to that lifestyle we're having. So depending on how you're eating, moving, resting, going through life, the stresses, your job, lifestyles that have been changing, your body is going to constantly keep on adapting. It's a machine in some way to see it. The body is like a machine that is always trying to save energy, always trying to improve and adapt for what we are demanding with our lifestyle. So it's very important to have in advance to
00:02:46
Speaker
understand that our environment, our lifestyle, the actions we take, the way we behave, the way we socialize, the way we to go through life.
00:02:59
Speaker
When you go to work, and the movement you do every day if you're sedentary, if you're active, the way you eat, the way you communicate with others, all these have
Signals and Intelligent Body Responses
00:03:13
Speaker
effects.
00:03:13
Speaker
So that's why identity is always so fundamental because we set the direction we want to go in our lifestyle. What is the lifestyle we want to have? And then we can begin to work in the body to express, to take us to that So if you understand this, in a simple way to say a little bit is that our body has been communicating with that and it's very intelligent and it's a way that he has always trying to say to you things in the way it's adapting. So it's a two way communication. So you change your lifestyle, you change something, you send a signal and your body is trying to respond to that. So the body is super intelligent. a big it's all intelligence it's the muscles that the heart the god everything have a big intelligence of how to adapt it's depending a little bit of the lifestyle you're having right now
00:04:14
Speaker
And we have to understand that sometimes we judge that our body has been like is breaking apart, that it is not working well, but we have to understand that a lot of times, the majority of the times is that we are not going through a lifestyle that supports the body to behave in the way you would like it to be.
00:04:40
Speaker
responding. now It's responding because it's adapting. So if you want to shift from being fighting with your body all the time, you just have to focus on your identity, the direction, the left lifestyle you want, and then begin to work from there.
00:04:58
Speaker
And this takes me to another part that I wanted to ask you and is why some people or when the people hear that the body remembers what do they really mean and how we can explain this without making it negative Corey right um' well it's just as you're explaining our bodies adapting to our lifestyle And so it's all those inputs we give it, the the movement, the food, the the rest, ah ah the the interaction with life, that the energy, and all those things that we're to kind of discuss today.
00:05:40
Speaker
Our body's just reacting to all of it. And so it is it is adapting and learning about its environment. It is an adaptive, like you said, like um an adaptive a machine where it's... it's it's defining its environment and responding in kind. And so it remembers all the inputs that have come in the past.
00:06:00
Speaker
And that kind of lives in your body. It learns the patterns of your lifestyle, of the inputs it gets from the outside. which includes your thoughts and your, in your, the stories you tell yourself and everything else affects your body. And and so it's not like your body's holding a grudge against you. It's not that negative of thing. it's It's that your body's saying, okay, this is, this is how I have to adapt to survive. This is what the environment I'm living in. So I'm closing down this system and, and, saving energy here and you know that's where we gain fat things like that it's it's adapting it's it's learning what it needs to do and so when the inputs change the the body will adapt again and sometimes you know some adaptation adaptations are faster than others so sometimes it's going to happen quicker than others but it's all about the body adapting and and and it's sort of learning a new pattern and so it remembers
00:06:57
Speaker
all this past stuff and sort of it's a reflection of that.
Impact of Small Lifestyle Changes
00:07:01
Speaker
So what we want to do is like try to make that adaptation intentional. That's why we start changing our behaviors. And that's why we do the the the lifestyle changes we want to do like between you the diet stuff and whatever we do for fitness and whatever we do, you know, the the little stimuli that we do to to treat our body in into a specific way or to kind of train it like the exposure to red light or to, you know cold plunges or you know sweating in a sauna. All these things are triggers for our body to behave in a different way.
00:07:36
Speaker
I love it. so I love what you're saying. And I wanted to add one thing because it reminds me. One of the things that I began to do that it was like a little change, no? A little adaptations I was put in an input. It was when I began to start fasting.
00:07:55
Speaker
and the beginning, we were like, oh my God, this is gonna be so hard, not taking a meal and everything, but... It was a small shift that I did and it have a big repercussion.
00:08:07
Speaker
My body was more energized. I was feeling good. And because when I was starting, it was just a small input, but have a big response in adaptation, helped me to lower a little bit inflammation in the body and it becomes more energized. So I just wanted to at that point because it reminded me how this little adaptation, this input was so good on seeing how the body was responding to it.
00:08:34
Speaker
Yeah. And it's, it's, and this is a great example you give as well, is that, that the little shift of how hard you thought it would be versus the, the response your body gave to it, but also is that what, what I want to ask you, cause I know how how it worked for me, but I want to ask you when you, how did you get beyond that?
00:08:56
Speaker
This is going to be so hard to skip all these meals. I'm going to be hungry. and What am I going to do? It's so hard. What, what, what did, how, what shift did you make to get through that? So I realized, I cannot explain exactly how, but I realized that it was a lot of cultural construction in my mind.
00:09:15
Speaker
I have to eat at this hour, yes or yes, and you have to have so many meals, yes or yes. And the first time, let's say, yes, I did it with willpower and I have to do this, it's gonna be hard. So there was a little bit of, my body was my myself, my identity was pushing off, like, are you crazy? wow How are you gonna do this? No, no, no, it's not good. I said, like, hey, I have been reading, i know this. So I was convinced of what I was learning.
00:09:46
Speaker
And I said, it's an experiment. So what helps me to go through was taking it like, hey, it's a small challenge, a small experiment I'm going to do, and I will see how it reacts.
00:09:58
Speaker
And it's true that the first days was a little bit hard, but then it becomes part of me. Now it's part of me. And when i feel those changes,
00:10:11
Speaker
Oh, this is amazing. And I saw nothing bad happens. I didn't starve to death. I was not, I need to eat. And I realized, oh my God.
00:10:24
Speaker
is easier than i was thinking you know but at the beginning there was this moment of adaptation mentally and on my body sometimes i was confusing hunger with more emotional and hunger it's like i need to eat at this hour and it was not true it was more emotional yeah Yeah, and and that's it's it's a good lesson because I learned the same lesson is that think it is going to be so hard. But then once you get beyond just over a little bit of a hump, you that little, that hunger in your stomach and that little lack of sugar in your blood that your body is making that adaptation. And it's like, it's used to this.
00:11:05
Speaker
and But once you get over that little hump, it's a lot easier than I thought it was going to be. And yeah, like you said, the benefits are amazing and that's sort of a lesson and in so many things that we we think we are scared to do for our health. if But we've learned the benefits of it and learned that a lot of other people do it just fine and we'll survive it too. So, but in general, you know, to serve in summary of that section, so you were basically talking about that your body isn't getting it wrong.
Holistic Health and Interconnected Systems
00:11:36
Speaker
It's just doing it exactly what it's been taught to do through our environment, through what we've done, through our own behaviors. So exactly as we get into that, we look at the body as is an ecosystem, right? As this whole thing that works together. so
00:11:59
Speaker
Why do you think that health health doesn't work when we look at it just as isolated systems in the body? Oh, this this I love it when realized it and when i discovered that is the body is a whole.
00:12:16
Speaker
it's it's ah It's really an ecosystem. is We cannot treat the parts like they don't affect one and another. They work all together. it's like It's like a business or it's like a machine or anything.
00:12:31
Speaker
There are different parts and we need all of those parts working well so it doesn't block, it doesn't stop functioning correctly. So we have to understand that when you do only nutrition, let's say I only going to focus on my nutrition.
00:12:51
Speaker
Perfect, good. You focus on your nutrition, but you are not resting well, you are not moving enough, you are not taking time to lower your stress levels in your mind, you are not changing some aspects that you need in your lifestyle, but yes, only the nutrition.
00:13:09
Speaker
Yes, some things are going to improve, but because the rest is not improving, it's going to be sometimes blocks and there are going to be moments that is not going to be working correctly.
00:13:21
Speaker
So we have to understand that even when we think about movement, how movement, and we talked this a little bit in the last episode, how movement affects your mood.
00:13:33
Speaker
When we were saying dancing, you begin to move your body and you begin to dance and you begin to do, and the mood goes up. When you jump and do jumping jacks, you're like a little bit drained, you're like this, but you stand up and say like, oh, I need to activate, like to energize my body.
00:13:52
Speaker
You give him a little bit of movement, boom. goes up, you're more moved, you can be more focused. You can see how the sleep is one of the most important to regulate your different states of mood and everything because a bad night's sleep, it can derail the whole day.
00:14:11
Speaker
You can feel dragging through the day, having hard moments. Maybe you are very irritable that someone talks to you and you react in a bad way because you're in a bad mood. So sleep is so important and it can trigger you to have more even emotional eating.
00:14:30
Speaker
And you begin to eat more because you're not resting well. And not only that, it's like, look what happened to a lot of people in their job, stress.
00:14:41
Speaker
A lot of people who suffering big chronic stress because of their job or can be family issues or something, or they don't eat well because they don't feel hunger because they are only stressed or their digestion is completely disrupt.
00:14:59
Speaker
It's really affecting. So it's an ecosystem. And this is where we talk always about holistic. Holistic is common term as a whole, and that's how we have to treat.
00:15:13
Speaker
But it's not only the body we were talking last episode, it's the mind. and the body. that work The two works together. So it's the whole. And the body has a lot of different things. It's like a car. You cannot take only care of the wheels. Oh, it's running not good. It's not not not the wheels. No, you need the brakes. You need the motor. You need all those different. You need everything to work.
00:15:39
Speaker
together to work really correctly. And to take, if you want to perform better, if you want a computer to perform better, you need that the RAM, the memory, you know, everything is well connected, synchronized, so they work together. Sometimes you can see them, some computer or something, you have the best graphic a card, you have like the best RAM and everything, but because they're not well synchronized,
00:16:09
Speaker
You are not taking the best out of it. So you need the synchronization and this is making the work to the body working together. So when you work nutrition, okay, if you work fitness, okay, but if you work nutrition and fitness together, then you are giving the proper amount of protein. So now your muscles can repair correctly. And if you sleep correctly, now I have the time where they do all the repairment. So the tree, if you want to build more strength, you need the tree working together. You cannot only work in one of those.
00:16:48
Speaker
If you only work the fitness, no sleep, no nutrition, It's going to be so hard that you really get stronger. So hard. So we have to work in our body more seeing that there are, that people see like symptoms and it's bad and everything, but no, you have to see it as a system. And we were we have to work in our body as a system.
00:17:16
Speaker
And that's that's the way it works. So it's an ecosystem and we have to treat it like that. And when we think about like this, I don't know if you have any situation that you have seen where this works really well in this way. Yeah. Well, it and just, you think about people when they try to isolate something, a system like like people who have joint problems and they have inflammation in their joints. So they try to treat, I'm going to ice my joints. I'm going to try to take that inflammation down, do medication that's going to reduce inflammation generally in my system. And then that's how I'm going to treat. And it's treating a symptom, but it's it's also just treating one system of your body, just that biomechanical part, thinking that my joints are not healthy.
00:18:05
Speaker
yo okay But you go back and I've had... a friend of mine did all kinds of discovery with achy joints and in in not feeling well and having problems.
00:18:17
Speaker
And even going to the doctor and getting, you know, medication to try to target it and then not feeling well with it. But then she discovered that it was a diet thing, that she had an instant insensitivity to a specific type of food.
00:18:34
Speaker
And she was able to discover that. And she found, she took that food out of her diet oh, wow, that that alleviated some of those problems. so So now she knows the interaction between her diet and her physical health and her joints. And so that's one sort of prime example. I'm sure a lot of people have heard similar examples to that, but there's ah there's ah there's all kinds of things how our our systems interact and our our thoughts affect our body and and stress affects our physical reaction as we've discussed in the past. So yeah, it's it's it's all good. i mean, and it's all something that,
00:19:10
Speaker
that you can work with to to figure out that it's a big web. It's a big interconnected thing that has to coordinate.
00:19:21
Speaker
I love it. I love that example you gave me. And it's beautiful the way you explain it because it's it's beautiful when you see this and the reaction of the person like, oh my God, I have been always trying to do this, but it was another part of your ecosystem that was not working well. And this made me a little bit curious and I wanted to ask you,
00:19:46
Speaker
When did you see that the body is it's not something that you have to control? When did you find out it's not about controlling your body?
00:19:59
Speaker
Well, yeah, we talk about giving it inputs to to get better outputs. that leads us to believe that, okay, I work out, I get bigger muscles. If I diet, I get smaller, right? yeah So we're trying to like force these changes and control how our body becomes. and And we have this sort of some vision of what we should be.
00:20:23
Speaker
And so we try to control that and mold it directly. and And sometimes the outputs aren't exactly what we think we're gonna get from the inputs.
00:20:35
Speaker
so So we get disappointed that this that ah we're we're not in full control of this thing. So what i I kind of gradually, i guess your question was, when did I stop when did i sort of discover that you know it wasn't something to be controlled?
00:20:51
Speaker
It was a gradual thing because as I got through my life and and realized that I'm not going to be, my dog's helping me here. I'm not going to be,
00:21:04
Speaker
perfect I'm not going to be bodybuilder. I'm not going to be this. I can't control some things in my butt, but I can be the best that I can be. And it's so it's like, what am I meant to be? What is my best?
00:21:17
Speaker
What does my body want to be? in in in its best version of of what the body can become. And each body is different. We all have our own model of body as it were. If it were were a vehicle, we'd have a, yeahll you know, some people are little electric vehicles that are really efficient. Some people are big trucks that that have a lot of power and and need different types of fuel, all this kind of stuff.
00:21:43
Speaker
but they all take a specific amount of you know care to get to their best, to the perform in their best, to look their best. And so we have to work with work with and cooperate with this body and and to bring it to what it's meant to become, to nurture it to that. And you can use the analogy of you know nurturing a plant.
00:22:07
Speaker
And you know we have one tree here, one tree there. One's an oak tree. The other is an apple tree, you know, and if I'm trying to control this oak tree to where I'm going to get apples from it, i think it's probably pretty futile.
00:22:23
Speaker
But what I can do is nurture that oak tree to be the best oak tree it can be. And I'm not going to be able to shape every branch, and you know but it's going to become what it's going to become if I give it the right fuel, the right care, the right the right inputs, so that the outputs are what its best version is going to be. And that's our bodies, too. they can only be there We have some genetic limitations as to what we're going to become.
00:22:50
Speaker
And that is our, it's it's great that we have a uniqueness and we can celebrate our body's uniqueness. We can celebrate the best version of ourselves.
00:23:01
Speaker
And so we would need to still nurture it. And instead of, instead of, ah you know, getting this intensity and trying to force it, we get in rhythm with it. We get into the nurturing it. We get in cooperation with it.
00:23:14
Speaker
So we we support this biology that we have instead of trying to force the outcomes. i really i really like what you're saying right now. And I feel that is the the right way to move forward. It's always to work with your body and have in mind what you were thinking about.
00:23:34
Speaker
how to see the lifestyle you want to have and how to take the body to express in certain ways. Yeah. Yeah.
Core Lifestyle Pillars: Movement and Nourishment
00:23:43
Speaker
And so we've talked about the body as kind of a machine that that responds, but it's a learning machine. So the body isn't really a machine to control into where we have all the levers to control every little aspect of it, but it's an ecosystem to nourish. So we look at it as a different thing. Let me talk about it. We described it as the ecosystem with all these interconnecting parts and pieces and systems.
00:24:04
Speaker
and And so it's something that's too complicated to control completely, but we want to nourish it to what it can become. So describing all that and through we understand the body as ah this interconnected parts.
00:24:20
Speaker
So what are the, within this body evolution and how we look at the body and how we look at the levers we can pull to nourish our body, the lifestyle things that we can do.
00:24:34
Speaker
we We've come up with some pillars on on this, it some basic categories of what we want to do. And one of the biggest ones, obviously, is movement and fitness. And so the physical things we can do, the actions we can take with our body that will make a difference for our body.
00:24:51
Speaker
and so when we talk about movement and fitness, some people sort of conflate those two things or not don't really understand. So what what would you describe the difference between movement and fitness and and why do we need kind of both of those things in our lives?
00:25:06
Speaker
Okay, so... Movement and fitness, sometimes some people confuse the difference between one another and it's it's really to relate that movement or functional movement is is the basic, it's the foundation, it's what we should be doing, all of us, yes or yes, that is walking around when you get down to pick up something, when you need to push something, like these natural activities,
00:25:38
Speaker
that we do daily, that is the movement. And we we have to be able to run if it's needed, to jump, to climb, to go up the stairs. This is natural movement. And everybody have to be doing those things because are foundational.
00:25:57
Speaker
And this having an active lifestyle, that is the foundation, being active, moving around, standing up, You know, that's movement. And that is really, really the foundation of everything.
00:26:11
Speaker
And then we have fitness. And fitness is more about an intentional adaptation of the body. And what I mean this is when we talk about fitness, what we're looking for is how to adapt the body for an outcome that we're looking for, an adaptation that we're looking for, for what we want to achieve. So if someone wants to...
00:26:37
Speaker
trained for a marathon, they will have to work in a specific way. They will have to adapt the body in a specific way. So they will train in different areas to adapt the body for that a specific outcome they want.
00:26:54
Speaker
But if you're going to do only a marathon to train more about running and some maybe plyometrics and some other movement in your legs. But if you're going to do a triathlon and you have to swim, then you have to train a little bit to the part of swimming a little bit more your upper body. If you're going to be a bodybuilder, then you will train completely different.
00:27:19
Speaker
So training is to adapt the body. So the fitness is we will adapt is intentional adaptation that we want for outcomes. But here, generally we're talking about being healthy. So there is a part of fitness we need because In the past, we'll thousands of years ago and hundreds of years ago, we will see that we didn't need the gyms, like essential gyms to train in a specific way because people in their active lifestyle, they were doing a lot of, already a lot of effort. They needed to cut the wood, bring the wood all that heavy, hunt animals, bring it for kilometers back to the tribe, bring in the water, liters and liters and all this. And so we already were doing like a lot of physical effort that was, you were not needing exactly to have a gym to train very intentionally.
00:28:16
Speaker
your body will be adapting to those activities you were having. Today, we have a more sedentary lifestyle. We work with not that much effort. There are works that you will see that yes, they are very active, but the majority, each time we have more works that we do it being sit down the whole day.
00:28:36
Speaker
Like we're doing right now, we're sitting down, we're having a conversation, we're not doing all this effort. So it's very important to these days have this fitness pattern so we adapt the body better.
00:28:50
Speaker
And to being healthy, you will train in a specific way. to be an athlete, then you will train in another way. So it's very important this difference. So we need the movement because it's the foundation, is what is going to support our biology biology and it's gonna support our body, it being active.
00:29:13
Speaker
But the second part is that we need to do a little bit more effort and a little bit of more stressors that help adaptations. So when we do fitness, we bring some stressors, good intentional stressors to the body to adapt.
00:29:30
Speaker
Can be cardiovascular, can be power, can be strength, can be speed, can be jumping higher, can be more in the legs, more in the upper body.
00:29:42
Speaker
ah can be for different situations but generally would like to work a little bit the whole system all the group of muscles and everything to create these adaptations can be flexibility and then you do a little bit of more of like yoga or stretching so each training is an adaptation and the body have different adaptations and we usually should need to go through all of them in some levels to keep the body healthy And then if you want to go farther, then you have to do more intentional adaptation. And I will say too, that our supporting our our biology and our body, but we we need to do it with rhythm and not intensity.
00:30:29
Speaker
So it's very important that we focus more in creating the rhythm for the adaptation of the body because it takes time. You don't go to the gym tomorrow and you build all the muscles. Some people have this, you know, this misunderstanding. So it happens a lot with some guys and women. It happens a lot. No, I don't want to go to do heavy weights because I don't want to look like those women looking like this huge, like,
00:30:56
Speaker
do you know how much training you need to get like this? you can be It was so easy. Everybody was going to the gym one day a week and they will be already like this. And it's not, it needs time. It's adaptation.
00:31:10
Speaker
I don't know if you want to share some perspectives about this. I think that, The way you describe it is is great. And the that fitness is that intentional adaptation it is, and that we need it in these days to have that that functional movement to that ability for the functional movement that is that is our standard movements in life so that we're able to, as you know for longevity of movement, so that I can get out of the chair when I'm 80, so I can climb a set of stairs when I can get up and down from the floor when when I end up having grandkids, some hopefully someday, that
The Joy of Movement and Physical Activity
00:31:42
Speaker
kind of thing. and so
00:31:45
Speaker
that longevity piece is, you know, the fitness is necessary to get that sort of functional um buffer, if it if it were, so that that extra in the bank, so that I'm strong enough to leap up the stairs right now so that when I'm 80, I can walk up them comfortably, you know, and that's that's the kind of that that added functionality that we want to get through the functional exercise. But then I also wanted to highlight that the movement Movement can be joyous. Movement is like sort of dancing and you get have fun, go out and play sports, go out for a hike, because you just move your body.
00:32:23
Speaker
It's not about you know movement as just, I have to go for a walk and move my body so that I can be healthy. Yes, of course, that is, you know if you're sitting on the couch, of your the sedentary lifestyle is the most unhealthy thing you can do. So movement in general is necessary, but it can be the most joyful part of a healthy regimen. And, and, and,
00:32:43
Speaker
Yes, you know, it crosses over with fitness when you get into like intense sports that really are a workout within themselves to increase and adapt your body to get in better shape.
00:32:54
Speaker
But movement itself just exercises the functionality of how everything works together. We talked about the body as an ecosystem and movement triggers all of these things to work together as it needs to. And if you're not moving parts of your body to sort of disconnect and your whole ecosystem then fails. And and so that's, i just wanted to highlight that, the yeah, the movement can be just a joyous celebration of of experiencing life in so many ways and get out and move the body as a joyous celebration of being alive as much as you can. And and sometimes, you know, it feels more comfortable to sit on the couch. Sometimes that's your joy is just like, ah,
00:33:38
Speaker
relax and watch TV. But so sometimes it has to be intentional so that you don't have any too long a periods of just comfort and relaxation, but movement in regular sense is part of that whole health picture.
00:33:54
Speaker
i love it. And it's that movement is vitality and it's so important for for us. And as you say, to express Maybe as an older person being able to stand up from the floor without all this pain and all this effort work to pick up your grandchild and put it into the air to play with them, to run with your kids and to not get fixated because you run five minutes and your kid saying, Papa, what is going on?
00:34:25
Speaker
We just been playing like five minutes. Like I wanna keep on playing. You're like, I cannot do it anymore. No, so it's so important because it brings, as you say, joyfulness. It brings a lot of joy in your life. So movement can be completely a moment of having a joyful experience.
00:34:45
Speaker
Dancing, sharing with the family, playing with the kids, going for a hike with friends, when you visit and you have to look walk these long hours because, oh, I'm going to Paris and I want to walk around and you have to walk kilometers and the whole day.
00:35:04
Speaker
it's to have that so you can experience other things. Now that we understand the pillar of movement and fitness, I wanted to bring you to another pillar and it's about nourishment.
Nourishment Beyond Food: Holistic Approach
00:35:18
Speaker
When we talk about nourishing the body and here, Corey, I wanted to ask you, why is nourishment so much more than just eating for energy?
00:35:31
Speaker
ah That's a great question, Elliot. I mean, nourishment is, is of course how we get our energy. So getting food, i mean, one equals the next, right? We have to have food so we can burn it, so we can live our lives. And that's sort of the most basic look at diet and nourishment.
00:35:52
Speaker
But food isn't just energy for us. Food is our building blocks. It's how our body is created. And our are body uses food as signals as well in terms of creating how the functions work in the body. All the cellular little cellular interactions are results of the nourishment that we give our body.
00:36:17
Speaker
And so when we look at, you know, we can get just a little bit into the details, we'll get into whole episodes about each of these pillars later. But if we look at food in general, the proteins and the fats are the nourishment for our body.
00:36:33
Speaker
And they're micronutrients in some of the vegetables. And so the micronutrients as well, that you talk about vitamins, minerals, all that kind of stuff, some phytonutrients that are in the plants. But the building blocks of the body are the fats and the proteins.
00:36:46
Speaker
And the carbohydrates are only energy. And so when we talk about these macronutrients and people sort of saying that the carbs are the enemy or whatever, it's not that. It is just that they are only energy.
00:37:04
Speaker
They are not building our blocks or building our body. They are not creating functionality in our body like the other nutrients can. And so when we have extra of those, we have too much energy as we end up storing it.
00:37:17
Speaker
And so you the other ones are necessary. The proteins and the fats are so necessary for our survival. and And those can be turned into energy. um The carbohydrates are only energy. So that's why you know people say carbs are the enemy. Well, carbs are not the enemy as long as we're not providing too much energy for a body that we're not going to use because then it's the storage and it's the overburdening to our systems, the energy systems of our body. and so we We want to eat to support that repair, that regeneration of our body when we're when we're sick or when we're stressing our body intentionally through the through exercise or something that we need to nourish those things, nourish the responses to those stresses that that help our body grow and adapt.
00:38:03
Speaker
And that's what the nourishment really is. So we need to be intentional about the things that we give our body in that sense that we are allowing the further those adaptations and being intentional about this nutrients that ah we're putting in our body so that we get the results that we want when we want to make a change. When we talk about nourishment and nutrients but also the the lack thereof um so that we need our body to take a rest from having too much energy it like said when we're feeding it to carbs all the time it's like too much an overload of energy sometimes we need to write to give our body a complete rest from that energy push that that this nourishment gives us and like that's where the fasting comes in so as we get that natural regeneration with fasting and and
00:38:50
Speaker
and And so that's part of nourishing our body too, is knowing when to give it a break.
00:38:57
Speaker
I love this part that you were saying about giving the break because it's true that when we keep on not leaving the space to the gut or the liver or other parts of our body to take a rest. So I i think that one of the most important things when I started that input that I was saying before about fasting is that, is giving that break to the body when it comes to nourishment, to give the space. and our body is built for that. So I love that.
00:39:29
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. So not only, know, we talked about the difference between energy and what nutrients are versus beyond just providing energy for the body. So, but it goes deeper than that, doesn't it? So tell us tell us how, you know, that our relationship with food and everything and that what we intake affects our hormone and our brain and everything else.
00:39:52
Speaker
that That's a huge part in the nourishment and when we eat, we have to understand that one of the things that we need, as you were explaining about fats, proteins and everything, we need proteins.
00:40:09
Speaker
Not to confuse everybody, but proteins, people is thinking as one thing, and we have 20 amino acids. It's what compounds different proteins. And the each of these kind of protein that is an amino acid, each one have different functions in our body.
00:40:27
Speaker
Some are for taking care of our skin, our nails, our hair, like collagen. ah We need some proteins that are for supporting our hormonal balance because a lot of our hormones, the foundations are the proteins. So we really need to be aware that when we nourish our body, what we eat will affect our hormones and our hormones affects our mood and how we express in life.
00:41:03
Speaker
So a lack or a big imbalance in our hormones can create a lot of different symptoms or can make you feel sick or can put you in a bad mood. So we really need to understand that We need all the macronutrients and all the micronutrients too. So we need the minerals, we need the vitamins, but yes, we need these proteins that help us to support all the tissues and everything. And the fats, as you were saying, are super important for our brain.
00:41:38
Speaker
So it's true that our brain works a lot with carbohydrates. It wants a lot of glucose. Give me, give me, give me a lot of energy because it consumes almost the majority, it's the organ of the body that consumes more energy in the whole body.
00:41:52
Speaker
But it needs to be healthy. And for the that being healthy, it needs fats. Especially one of those is omega-3, an anti-inflammatory fat that the body needs to be healthy. So it's super important to intake these.
00:42:09
Speaker
Sometimes we're taking a lot of fats, but not the correct fats. So we need the balance. Sometimes we're taking some protein, but not the whole a pack of amino acids. So sometimes we're eating some kind of protein and we're really reaching some amino acids, but we don't have the other ones. So it's very important about this and not only as we were saying the proteins and the fats and the carbohydrates for your brain, for your hormones, so there is a good balance and in the future we're gonna we can go deeper into these things because there is a lot to explore there.
00:42:47
Speaker
but the micronutrients are so important for other aspects like neurotransmitters so we need a good balance of magnesium a balance of a lot of these beautiful magnesium is one of the minerals that our body juice very very like in so many functions hundreds of functions are being driven by magnesium and we need the magnesium for the recovery of the muscles. So we need the proteins, but we need the magnesium too, so it works together. So it's so important for our health that we give nourishment. And that's why we say nourishment and not just eating. Because if you just eat, you can be eating chips the whole day and it's going to give you energy and you say, oh, I have been eating chips only during the last five days.
00:43:42
Speaker
and I keep on moving, yes, you have the energy, but if you don't give that nourishment and what your body needs, there's a moment that is gonna be in balance and you're gonna have symptoms.
00:43:53
Speaker
You're gonna have signals, your body telling you, hey, give me what I need because this is going wrong. And if you don't give me this, I cannot do these actions. So we need everything to protect your brain, your hormones, to keep your body working well and it's so important.
00:44:11
Speaker
And that stress of not giving the body what it needs is, as I was explaining, it's going to result in issues.
00:44:22
Speaker
What we would say, symptoms, issues, it signals. It's the body telling you, hey, I need minerals. You're not giving me minerals. You're not giving me vitamins. But it's not only that nourishment comes only from the food. When we say nourishment, there are other things like the sun. We need vitamin D and the best way to get it is to be exposure to the sun.
00:44:45
Speaker
These days we are always protecting and hiding from the sun because it's very bad. No, we need. a good level, not extreme, but we need that for our vitamins. So this is nourishment, it's water, it's drinking enough water to keep it rotation. at The water is one of the give us more minerals constantly to the body that we are all the time using. So it's really good.
00:45:11
Speaker
to understand this and sometimes because you are not nourishing the body correctly there is a lot of stress in the body and sometimes ah when we add these foods that are as you were saying carbohydrates one carbohydrate that doesn't bring nothing of nourishment to the body is sugar It gives a lot of energy, but it doesn't have nothing to nourish really the body. So it works for the energy, but not for the nourishment. And we have a lot of part is the emotional eating that will come from that.
00:45:51
Speaker
we have a lot of, like if the body is not well nourished and your mood is not working well and your gut is not well supported, you can begin to eat by some stressors, emotional eating, things that are happening. And sometimes even do think you think you need to eat more, but it's not eat more. is Your body is asking for some nutrient that you are not giving it. So it's triggering you, hey, I need food, I need food. No, what it wants is,
00:46:20
Speaker
ah wellbalanced a that you balance that. So a good nourishment will support a good sleep. It will support your fitness levels and your your movement. It will support your focus and your brain health. So it's super important.
00:46:37
Speaker
And that that relationship that you have with your food have to be to nourish your body and not just for pleasure. Because sometimes we we're so focused on eating for pleasure oh what I like, what I don't like, but we're forgetting about, hey, what my body needs.
00:46:56
Speaker
And I don't know if you have anything to say about here that you can share with us. Yeah, that's how there's just the old phrase of you eat to live or live to eat?
00:47:07
Speaker
And the answer really has to be for the most part, you eat to live. You think about the nourishment your body needs. Of course. food can be very pleasurable and you should enjoy food when you, especially if you're going to indulge in something that is not healthy for you, then make it count.
00:47:28
Speaker
Really enjoy it because pleasure. And, you know, we've talked about the positive energy and in the reaction your body has to positive energy. so, and we'll get into that even in, in one of the later pillars in terms of our, our, you know, the positivity of our energy, uh, that,
00:47:44
Speaker
that ah eating eating good food can be that, you know, but you have to be intentional with it. It is not just only eat, I only eat for pleasure and I end up eating enough food to supply my energy needs, but And like you said, your body's going to be responding with missing some of those pieces that it needs to really have you to this whole ecosystem. when Do you have a story about your personal relationship with food when you just sort of discovered a different attitude toward your eating?
00:48:16
Speaker
Yes. So I was eating only for pleasure for a long time. And in this relationship, I didn't realize that I was trap.
00:48:27
Speaker
I was trapping. i was I have a lot of addiction with sugar, sweet tooth, and with different things. And thinking that I could not, for example, have a breakfast or have some foods like in that specific, like my toast with jam or things like that, well, like no what I'm gonna eat, you know, if it's not cereal, if not that.
00:48:52
Speaker
But when I began to break that emotional connection that I was having so strong with the food, I began to be more free and I began to enjoy more and more different foods.
00:49:06
Speaker
My taste changed when I began to be all the sugar, less things, and I began to change. So that was a big moment that I began to change.
00:49:19
Speaker
But my anxiety levels for eating all the time, they changed. I was 105 kilos. Believe me, I was eating a lot of things that were no good for my body.
00:49:30
Speaker
But when I began to nourish the body, I began to have less hunger. Why? Because I have less trigger, less, hey, give me, you're not giving me this. I was eating a lot of some things, but not others.
00:49:45
Speaker
And when I began to have a more variety, more vegetables, more different kinds of proteins, more different kinds of fats, and focusing in the healthy fats, in the healthy proteins, in the healthy carbohydrates, maybe all these vegetables and having a little bit more harmony, I was less triggered to eat.
00:50:09
Speaker
And it even improved my sleep.