Let’s dig into the impact of intuition on athletic performance and optimal decision making in training.

Andrew is an evolved coach of endurance training and life, my longtime friend and triathlon mate from the pro circuit and popular recurring guest on the Primal Endurance Podcast. Andrew had dozens of wins on the pro triathlon circuit from ’86-’93, as well as some extraordinary performances as a master, including a national XTerra triathlon title and destroying the Wildflower 50+ course record with a pro-level performance even as an old dude. Andrew’s lifelong commitment to health and fitness involves exceptional dietary quality standards (along with constant experimentation and evaluation), maintaining elite level fitness in the decades after his retirement from the pro circuit, and a deep immersion into functional medicine, both as a patient and as a coach.

Andrew is a strong proponent of how mindset affects physical health and promotes the importance of being an intuitive athlete above all else, especially with our modern obsession with technology potentially compromising intuitive skills. In this show, we talk about how important it is to make health your number-one priority in life, for you can’t reach your potential, nor be of best service to others, without a baseline level of health. Unfortunately, many of us just don’t do it. We make excuses and rationalizations, we become martyrs, workaholics or overtraining junkees, we disconnect mind from body, and finally wake up with regrets when the aging process takes aggressive action. Andrew says, “The new wealth is time, not money,” and how he knows a great many affluent people, but, “I don’t know too many happy rich people.” He also observes that many people have never experienced optimum health or fitness, so they think they are “okay” without any better reference point.

How to get better and make health #1: Understand and take action with what you can control, and let go of what you can’t control. Get your physical body right (with healthy diet, exercise and lifestyle practices), and get your logistics right (sleep routines, de-stressing behaviors, healthy home environment.) Only then can you have a fighting chance at peak performance. This is the first little dose of Andrew, with more to come on the podcast. Andrew is not a big self-promoter and is too lazy to work a social media angle (#andrew yay whoopee!), but in many ways he is probably the very best endurance training/life coach on the planet. For his select group of client, he goes far beyond the narrow, dated, and often ineffective “workout planning” coaching model to become a holistic guide, mentor and voice of reason who empowers his clients to be the best they can be.

TIMESTAMPS:

• Putting your health first is the name of the game. What if you have a cold? [00:02:28]
• What is the downside of taking drugs for colds or other maladies? [00:05:07]
• Caffeine even might be a problem masking your the fatigue that you should pay attention
  to. [00:09:47]
• Napping or walking? Experiment on what works better for you when fatigued?
  [00:12:48]
• Ability to function is imperative. Pay attention to headaches, fatigue, a slogging mind.
  [00:14:38]
• The difference between what you can control and what you cannot control is a big
  distinction. [00:16:34]
• How important is mindset to health? [00:18:21]
• Type A athletes often treat themselves like robots just pushing the body so hard
  regardless of paying attention to their bodies. [00:22:04]
• With endurance sports, it is consistency over a long time that makes you better. It’s not
  just one workout. [00:25:49]
• Accomplishing all of life’s “chores” on our “to do” lists is a balancing act, and you still
  must put your health first. [00:26:35]
• As we get busier in life, the self-importance grows and grows and we lose our
  perspective. [00:29:00]

LINKS:

• John Wooden, “Pyramid of Success”: In John Wooden’s “Pyramid of Success”, Coach
  identified the essential behaviors and traits of a successful person.
• Mind Body Institute

QUOTES:

• “After decades of trial and error, I now train according to my moods instead of a regimented schedule.” – Andrew MacNaughton

LISTEN:

Brad Kearns: Welcome to the Get Over Yourself Podcast. This is Brad Kearns.

Andrew MacNaughton: “To be your best version of you, you need to be healthy. And to help other people, you need to be healthy. You think better, you make better decisions. You know, life is better with health.”

“Most people who are doing these endurance sports, are doing because they love them. So, why would you risk that fun to get in an extra workout?”

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And the Primal Blueprint online multimedia educational courses. To go primal, go keto. Get a stand-up desk going, master the challenge of endurance training. Go to Bradkearns.com and click on the links to learn more about these courses. If you’re sick of my voice on the podcast, you can now get sick of my face too on the videos. Now, onto our show.

Andrew MacNaughton, we’re talking with the record button off, and part of my mission for this show is to talk about the stuff that we talk about after we hit stop. And so, we’re going right into it, man.

Andrew MacNaughton: Cool.

Brad Kearns: We do a lot of shows for the Primal Endurance Podcast, we’re directing our comments toward endurance athletes and some of this stuff is so relevant for anyone, even people that don’t care about exercise, fitness, health. So, that’s why I wanted to pick it up and talk about this concept of … one of the things we talk in the show is like putting your-

Andrew MacNaughton: Your own health first.

Brad Kearns: … putting your health first.

Andrew MacNaughton: To be your best version of you, you need to be healthy. And to help other people, you need to be healthy. If you’re healthy and happy, it’s much easier, you’re much more tolerant, you’re much more agreeable, you think better, you make better decisions. You know, life is better with health, right?

So, there are times where it’s you are number one and you need to put yourself first, at least for a portion of the time so that you can make sure that you’re good to go and do whatever it is that you need to do, right?

We were just talking a second ago about the difference between us having colds as athletes and us having colds after our, we being athletes or of someone who is a professional – not athlete, but has a professional career-

Brad Kearns: A teacher, a busy mom, whoever it is.

Andrew MacNaughton: Yeah, whoever it is.

Brad Kearns: Like when you have to rally, and our mission was like we didn’t want to put anything in our bodies, and also couldn’t.

Andrew MacNaughton: Well, we couldn’t because there was random drug testing and at least for me, I was so ignorant on the subject, I was just afraid to take anything. And I was like, “It’s just easier not to take anything,” because then you knew, right? It’s like there’s no way that anything can go wrong if I don’t take anything except this food. That’s pretty much all I did.

Yeah, we were just talking about that and it’s like when we were athletes, we just sort of had to deal with it and let the symptoms run their course, right? And your father always sort of made fun with us. He goes, “It always takes 10 to 14 days for your cold and you can’t really hurry it up.” And we’re sort of, we don’t want that to be true. So, we’re sort of pushing it all the time.

Brad Kearns: “I think I’ll feel better by Saturday to ride that 80-mile ride.” Nah, don’t think so.

Andrew MacNaughton: And his dad’s like, “10 days or two weeks. 10 days to two weeks, somewhere in there.” Anyway, it’s something that I still fight now even now that I know that and I have that experience. It’s still like, “Hopefully it will be gone in a week,” but it rarely is.

But the difference is, is now, that I’m so accustomed to not taking anything for colds or anything, I still don’t. And we were talking earlier about what is the downside? Well, the downside with taking any drugs … and actually, let me take a little aside here.

So, interesting experience I’ve had. So, I’ve got a friend who’s a pain medicine doctor and I have a friend who is a functional medical practitioner. And it’s a good lesson on understanding who you’re asking for information so that you can digest the information. If I’m to ask my pain med doctor how much, let’s say Tylenol I can take, he will give me the amount I can take in 24 hours and not die.

Brad Kearns: Without showing up at the ER.

Andrew MacNaughton: Yeah, without showing up, without killing my liver, right? And if I were to ask my functional medical practitioner, she will tell me the amount I can take before it has an adverse effect on my gut health and therefore my immune system. So, they’re the same question, the answers are both right. But you have to understand who you’re asking this question, right? So, one is – I don’t know what it is; eight or 10 pills in 24 hours and you ruin your liver. And the other one is one or two pills in 24 hours, otherwise, you are risking health and weakened immune system.

Brad Kearns: And then a six-month detox protocol. After that, it’s two Tylenols that you took back in November.

Andrew MacNaughton: Yeah, and I could be exaggerating. I really don’t know because I don’t think I’ve taken Tylenol ever, maybe. But it’s just sort of an interesting aside I had in my head there, that I thought I’d share with you.

So, back to the original thread that we were talking about, is taking pills for masking the side effects when you’re not feeling well, that’s fine. But the side effects, if you were to ask an MD are non-existent, right? But if you were to ask a functional medical practitioner, there are side effects to taking Nyquil or whatever else you take. It’s Tylenol-

Brad Kearns: Sinus, the prescription drugs. Statins, sleep aids.

Andrew MacNaughton: Well, that’s the next step. Let’s go there in a second. Let’s just start-

Brad Kearns: Even over the counter – simple routine stuff that we take every day.

Andrew MacNaughton: Yeah, let’s start with the stuff where you don’t need doctor supervision. And these are just things you can do to yourself without thinking.

So, yes, you can take these things and they won’t kill you in the recommended dosage, right? But will they interfere with your health and more often than not, the answer is yes. So, here’s the thing, I’m not saying don’t take them, I’m saying I understand what you’re doing. Because taking them and masking the symptoms so that you can function and go to court or do day-care or whatever it is that you do for your job, is probably more important, right? Because you need to function, you have responsibilities that you need to do every day. But just know, going into it, that taking less is better as opposed to taking more, right? But you also have your own particular goals anyway.

So, I just wanted to introduce that as a thought. Depending on who you ask the question, you could get a correct answer that’s very different than someone else who will still give you a correct answer, but it’ll be very different.

And because I have two friends that are on opposite sides of the spectrum, both whom I trust very much-

Brad Kearns: They get along well by the way – homeboy and homegirl there. They’re friendly and all that.

Andrew MacNaughton: Yeah, they have very different clientele, very different clientele.

Brad Kearns: They should switch for like 30 days.

Andrew MacNaughton: Well, the guy who is the pain doc actually really loves the functional medical approach, but he can’t really do it with the people he works with because primarily, people who come to pain doctors are because they’ve done everything else and they just have chronic pain, and there’s not much else you can do except for trying to help relieve some of their pain

Brad Kearns: Or they’ve done nothing else because they could give a heck. And so, they’re just coming to the pain doc to get their pain meds.

Andrew MacNaughton: I guess if you’re listening to Hannity, then that’s what happens, yeah. But it’s probably a small portion of the population and it’s just other Fox News hosts that are going there for those drugs.

Brad Kearns: Ooh, brutal. Also, I’d like to add on that note when you talk about, when we were in that athletic realm where we weren’t allowed to take stuff anyway, because you’re getting random tested. Besides that, when I was an athlete, I always wanted to have a complete accurate window of how I was feeling in my state of readiness, recovery and wellness. And so, I was even averse to the idea of taking caffeine because if I woke up in the morning and I was feeling a little tired and groggy, and maybe not feeling like performing the session that was intended, I wanted to absorb all that information and make decisions accordingly.

Whereas, I knew that if I could jack myself up on a couple of cups of coffee, I would override whatever that fatigue was from the central nervous system or the muscle still recovering from the previous workout. And I thought that to be a bad idea. Looking at the long-term consequences, when you have a championship race coming in eight months, you don’t want to be washing down a lot of fatigue with a stimulant that hides the true state of readiness and recovery.

So, I know that a lot of athletes didn’t operate under those strict parameters. But I thought that was one of my advantages, was that I was always highly aware of … same thing in the workplace. If I’m a self-employed person, right? I’m not on the clock and disallowed from taking a nap, but if I’m tired to the extent that I notice my cognitive function declining in the afternoon when we have those afternoon blues, like we’re all familiar with, that little dip. And what happens to me is I start drifting over to YouTube videos because I went searching for one thing, found it, and then got attracted to something else and something else.

And I actually sit back and notice, “Okay, I’m losing the edge here,” and my best decision now is to go take a 20-minute nap. And I promise you to the listener of the highest level of peak performance and intensity and competitiveness in your career, whatever you’re doing, I guarantee you I more than make up for that 20-minute departure from my screen, from my control tower by coming back and being more productive and more alert, and better functioning for the remaining hours that I’m going to sit and do work. And I think that’s something that’s, it’s disgracefully underappreciated and under practiced today.

Arianna Huffington did a great job. We’re going to get her on the show pretty soon. But she’s promoting this advocacy of sleeping and napping as a priority even in the workplace. And there was a great line in her podcast and her book, where in her offices when she was running the Huffington Post, she would purposely leave the window curtains open, so people could see her napping in her office. So, that it was becoming an accepted part of the corporate culture that she could go down for a nap.

I’m sure she put a “do not disturb” on the door, but you walk by the boss sleeping in the middle of the day and it has a profound – I’m going to say positive impact on the corporate culture. But it’s so rare that people are probably horrified to even hear the anecdote.

Andrew MacNaughton: So, I would say that that’s good for most people or some people. I think that some people are probably better off going for a 10 -minute walk than a 10-minute nap, and just moving a little bit. But I think that some people who don’t sleep enough, could use the nap. I don’t know, it would be one of those things that you should experiment with yourself and see which one works best for you. Or as you get to know yourself better, don’t always choose nap. Sometimes movement is better and sometimes you’re just sick of looking at what you’re doing.

I know, for me, when I’m doing something that I’m truly engaged with, I don’t get hungry or tired ever. And I can go from eight in the morning till midnight and I have never once thought about food or water or never been distracted, if it’s something that I’m truly engaged with. And when I was doing video editing, it happened all the time. Absolutely all the time.

I would get up in the morning and I would say, “Well, maybe I’ll do something before I eat breakfast and then let it render while I eat breakfast for an hour or whatever. And next thing I know, it’d be midnight and I’ve worked the whole day without even noticing. Some people think that that’s crazy. To me, that means I’m doing something that I love, and time just goes by. And I kind of miss that right now actually. Because I find that I do need to get up and walk around a little bit.

I have a stand-up/sit down desk, so I find that I push the button a lot so I can sit down or stand up.

Brad Kearns: Fantastic.

Andrew MacNaughton: And if I sit down for too long, I find that my posture completely deteriorates. And as soon as I consciously notice that I’m “slouch boy”, then I push the button and stand up again. But when I’m just sitting down for the first time, I sit with good posture and stuff. So, it’s sort of funny and it works.

Brad Kearns: So, back to this thread where we’re talking about putting health as the number one priority. And then we did some little offshoots of that talking about the use of medications, my advocacy to want to notice everything such as a headache. If I have a headache, really anyone with a splitting headache, probably the best thing to do is go down and lie down in a dark room, right? Not continue to work or continue to do something that you’re not going to be high functioning because of the pain.

Andrew MacNaughton: Water and nap.

Brad Kearns: And failing that, people will take the dose with the nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory to get that relief and then they can carry on and do their presentation at 3:00 PM or make the board meeting at 4:00 PM. Which is, I would say, as a temporary stop gap, it’s fine. But it’s also nice to reflect like, why did I pull that headache in the middle of an important work day? Was it insufficient sleep, bad meal habits, bad snacking habits?

Things like that, where you can kind of correct course and again, be putting health as number one. Knowing that nothing’s going to be perfect, but trying to kind of change that mindset away from just the slogging mindset where you’re just there to get through the day and get through life with your health somewhere floating around third, fourth, seventh, or ninth ranked in your priority list.

Andrew MacNaughton: Yeah, so throw the word “perfect” out and throw the word “fair” out because those are useless words and they only cause problems, and just go for better. Do the best you can on this day. Do better today than yesterday or this week than last week, or this month than last month. And that’s all that matters. Is you want to go forward and do better. And sometimes, it’s not better than last month, it’s just the best you can do under the circumstances, and that’s fine.

There’s something about frame of mind that comes in when you know you’re doing the best you can. If nothing else, you feel like you’re in control of what you can be in control of in the situation, and sometimes a little of that is good. Also giving up to the things that you don’t control is also good.

Brad Kearns: Right? So, knowing that critical distinction, like being able to determine what you can control and what you can’t and then focusing on what you can control, you’re describing that you get that sense of satisfaction.

Andrew MacNaughton: Yeah, you want to feel like you’re doing your best so you don’t feel A-overwhelmed or annoyed or angry and be content with that. You know, it’s like, “Well this is the best I can do, and when I have the ability, I’ll do better.”

Brad Kearns: Yeah. I mean that’s the top of John Wooden’s pyramid of success, is the self-satisfaction of knowing that you gave your best, something like that. I think that’s pretty close. But it had nothing to do with winning, measuring the result, all the nonsense that we hear, that we’re trying to counter, especially with this show. To keep it real and realize that, hey, maybe you’ve been in Hollywood for 10 years trying to make it as an actor and get your break and you haven’t. But it doesn’t mean you’re a failure compared to the guy who just starred in the movie and then crashed his car and knocked off some people on the sidewalk.

It’s just, we need to recalibrate and define success differently. Just like that pyramid definition of knowing, “Hey, I gave it my all,” and that in of itself is all that we ever really need.

Andrew MacNaughton: Yeah, I think that quantifying it differently. I have conversations with people who have lots and lots and lots of money and they tend to quantify things monetarily. And I think there’s lots of people who are happy and they quantify things differently.

Brad Kearns: Wish we could blend them. Let’s introduce them, let’s have a party. The happy rich party. “Mingle! Go ahead and mingle. We’re going to play charades pretty soon with random assignments.”

Andrew MacNaughton: And I know rich people, but I know very few happy rich people.

Brad Kearns: Wow, wow. Yeah. Taking it back to health and you talked about how important mindset is to health. That’s a great connection here because, oh my gosh, you want to go listen to shows. We’ve done so many shows on the healthy eating protocol and the way to exercise. You don’t get overly stressed and there’s plenty of information about how to be healthy. A lot of us are falling short with those basics. And so, until those basics are covered, I think it’s not even worth worrying about these higher levels of sophistication.

But if you are making that good effort to be healthy and fit and do your yoga or put in your miles or your routine visits to the sauna because you heard how healthy that is, those heat shock proteins, the cold therapy that I’m doing every morning in the name of health. But now, when we bring that mindset component in, that’s when we really start to clarify this picture of healthy mind and healthy body and how they go together so well.

Andrew MacNaughton: Yeah, in Taos, in New Mexico, there’s the Mind Body Institute. And it’s how intertwined everything is. It’s really hard to have a healthy body without a healthy mind, although it’s possible. It’s really hard to have a healthy mind without a healthy body, although it’s possible. They are truly intertwined and it’s better to work on both of them. And peace of mind with me certainly, comes with healthy body much easier than when I’m not.

I find that when I’m getting agitated and when I’m less easy to get along with, it’s mostly because physically, there is something going on. But it could be a symptom of sleep, but there’s something physical.

Brad Kearns: Or what did you call it? Not just physical, like your left hamstring is bugging you, but practically speaking, your routine is messed up. You’re traveling back and forth excessively to the Bay Area by obligation, but that doesn’t make for someone who likes his perfect routine here in beautiful Thousand Oaks Training Center. It’s an adjustment that’s going to elevate your stress level.

The relationship therapists talk a lot about how, if life is too stressful in general, you’re not going to be able to exercise these fabulous partnership techniques because you’re too tired to lift that finger and go do the dishes when you know you should, where it’d be a wonderful gesture of support. But if it’s not there because your body is physically overrun with insulin and inflammation, that’s a great starting point.

Now, we know what we’re going to do. But then if we’re again, if we’re nailing some of those objectives of physical health, then we have to transition to being like, “How can I be maybe less self-absorbed, less obsessive compulsive about my health and fitness goals, and thereby of better service to others and maybe even more at peace every night when I lay my wonderful six-pack to sleep on my bed, but I’m full of negative emotions, negative energy and enemies in my rolodex.”

Andrew MacNaughton: I’m dry.

Brad Kearns: That about says it all right there. But really if we can get into that topic because we associate with so many … who called it type Triple-A? I think it was Ben Greenfield; the Type-A athlete. He says, “I deal with type Double-As and type Triple-As.” And I’m thinking of the battery analogy, which is so funny because people treat themselves almost like they’re robots, where they just wind up and go every day into this extreme, high-stress, high stimulation lifestyle where they’re pushing their bodies so hard. And then, you’re going to start bringing some negative energy into this otherwise, wonderful commitment to peak performance, health, productivity, fitness, all that stuff. And that’s the world we operate in largely, is this type Double-A and Triple-A. So, maybe we can speak to that a little bit.

Andrew MacNaughton: So, yeah, if you’re talking about an exercise routine, if you don’t have time to do Tuesdays workouts, Tuesdays, you don’t have them, to Wednesdays. Tuesday is gone, you move on. What I’ve found works for me and my athletes and I’ve spoken about this before on the Endurance Podcast, is that I don’t give people things to do on specific days. I give them workouts in order. And this is just the next one up, whatever day, you have time. And if you have more than one day between that workout and the next workout, then do the A-workout, not the B-workout sort of thing.

I find that that works because people then aren’t trying to do makeup and they don’t do too much. And I read Craig Lamont’s book back in the ‘80s, and he used to say that he did pretty much the same thing all the time. And then when he would try to peak for a race, he would do two weeks of work in seven to 10 days, and then he would rest and then he would go race. And so, basically, he was just doing twice as much, right? Or something like that. Then he would rest and let it absorb and then he would go and hopefully get blasted out of the cannon when the race went on.

So, that’s sort of what you’re doing there, is you’re peaking. And if this is just regular training and you’re doing your double workouts like that – not two in a day double workouts, but I mean two days of workouts in one day or three days and in two days or whatever, it’s as if you’re telling your body to get ready for a peak. So, you’re building up this extra stress and then your body’s going to wait for the rest so that it can really go or it’ll just break down.

If you’re not doing the rest afterwards because you’re not doing it as a peak, you’re just doing it as regular training and you’re trying to make up, then, like I said, four seconds ago, you break down. And you get sick or you get injured or you, whatever, something happens, right? Something that’s undesirable.

And most people who are doing these endurance sports, are doing because they love them. And if they don’t, they’re too long and tedious to do. So, I can’t imagine why you would be doing it if it wasn’t out of love. So, why would you risk that fun to get in an extra work out when you’re taking the chance of getting injured or sick?

Brad Kearns: Or bored, or fried.

Andrew MacNaughton: Or fried or whatever when you could continue to do this. And as we know with endurance sports, it’s consistency over a long time that makes you better. It’s never one workout. One workout can ruin you, but it can’t make you.

So, yeah, you keep those things in mind and I understand that it’s hard for the go-getters and the people who like to write things down and accomplish their goals. But you have to realize that when you write down workouts to do, those aren’t necessarily your goals. Those are the steps that you believe that will lead you to your goal. But if time doesn’t permit on one day, then it doesn’t mean that that step is necessary to reach your goal. It quite often means that including that step now will actually interfere with reaching your ultimate goal, which is doing better at your next race or the next one or whatever it is, right?

So, that’s something to keep in mind with busy bodies and travel for work or sick children who are keeping you up so you can’t sleep or whatever it might be – understand that.

Brad Kearns: Go with the flow, adjust. Yeah, because today, like the athlete analogy is very simple. They want to do their workout on Tuesday, they want to do their workout on Wednesday. And now, like in my life, I’m looking at my to-do list and it’s highly scattered to helping out aging parent, connecting with teenager in a meaningful way or outing or event, doing my contribution to the community, giving the talk at the library, whatever it is. And then all these business objectives that are piling up and never ending. And we have a real difficult time in general, hard driving the type Double-A, type Triple-A, difficult time saying no. Sometimes difficult time prioritizing, sometimes difficult time putting health first again to the extent that we tailspin into a spiral of fatigue, exhaustion and diminish peak performance because we’re trying so hard to peak performance.

So, that’s kind of the riddle I’m trying to solve here, is why is it so difficult for the highly motivated person to kind of have that casual attitude, that “Mon Yana” attitude like they do in other countries where, “It may or may not get done today, so don’t worry about it.” And a lot of cultures live like that as a routine. No one even thinks twice about it. They go and take a nap and the stores are closed in Spain for three hours every day, right?

Andrew MacNaughton: And don’t get discouraged if you don’t notice this in yourself because I certainly don’t notice it in myself, but it’s really easy for me to notice it in the people I work for or work with or whatever, however you want to say that. So, yeah, it’s not always easy to notice in yourself.

Brad Kearns: That was a hard one. Don’t get discouraged if you don’t notice it in yourself. In other words-

Andrew MacNaughton: Be discouraged if you notice it.

Brad Kearns: In other words, take a look in the mirror man and ask those hard questions because you probably aren’t going to notice these things in yourself. You’re just going to think you’re way more busy than the other person in the airplane aisle that’s taking up seven seconds of your time. And I know we get into that situation where the self-importance grows and grows, especially as we do get more responsibility in life to the extent that we lose our perspective.

Andrew MacNaughton: Well, sometimes with me, if I’m not around the person I’m working with regularly, I get permission to talk to the significant other and see how they’re doing. And sometimes we get on a conference call and that other person is part of the conversation, so I can get feedback that’s not from the person I’m actually working with, someone who is there all the time.

It’s good feedback. And what it helps is, it helps the person that I’m working with recognize these things. And eventually, they need me less and less, right? Because they start being able to notice these things. Now, of course, I’m aware of this stuff and I’ve been aware of it for a long time, and I still don’t notice it in myself sometimes. I get caught up in a routine because to be perfectly frank, I’m one of those people who loves routines. And I love writing stuff down and just doing it.

I get caught up and every so often I find myself saying to myself, “I’ve got to do this today.” And as soon as I hear myself say, “I have to,” then I stop. Because the answer is “No, I don’t ever have to.” It has to be “I want to.”

Brad Kearns: Right, when you’re getting heavily processed and get into this track, you don’t have to go to work. “Yes, I do.” “No, you don’t. I don’t think there’s a gun to your head.” And we can wind the person down to when those real insights come forth when you realize you’re not in as big a hole as you think. And there’s all kinds of options on a small scale, and even those big choices that you’re forced to make some times in the interest of being happy and making the most of your time here.

Andrew MacNaughton: Yeah, people who are sick, I guess is the word to say or are dealing with complex autoimmune problems, they have to change their life because their life is making them sick.

Brad Kearns: Yeah, I know. Isn’t that sad that like the catalyst, especially a lot of people in the ancestral health scene are coming here from disaster, motivated by absolute tragic consequences rather than just, “Yeah, I quit my job because it wasn’t as fulfilling anymore. Not because I had stage four cancer that I have to go into intensive treatment for…” So, like if you’re listening to this show and we want to get to that point where we can have those insights come out and those big decisions made before you’re motivated by the real problems, that would be super nice, wouldn’t it?

Andrew MacNaughton: Yeah, impending doom, yeah. Impending doom is a good motivator, but it would be nice if we could find the motivation before that.

Brad Kearns: Because we’re all impending doom after all.

Andrew MacNaughton: Well, yeah, exactly. We’re all one day closer to death, right?

Brad Kearns: That was some fun right there, Andrew. We got into it a little bit. Hope you like the flavor of the show. It’s off the rails and I appreciate you listening. This is Brad Kearns for Andrew MacNaughton in our Southern Cal MacNaughton Studios. Thank you for listening.

Let’s talk about probiotics from Entegro Health. Do you want me to sing the messages? Nah. But probiotics are an extremely important concept. Hopefully, you’re all in on the values, the benefits of nourishing a healthy gut microbiome, so you can flourish in life. And that’s the name of Entegro’s product; Flourish – a unique, extremely potent living liquid probiotic. Yes, it’s liquid form. How is it different from other probiotics we usually see in pills? This is the message from Entegro.

Microbes continue to thrive and metabolize in their own [mil-u 00:33:01]. Do you like when companies use the word “mil-u” to describe their product.? I do. These include short chain fatty acids, bioactive peptides, amino acids, enzymes, and minerals. The liquid base makes it acid stable, so microbes can survive the stomach environment and transit to the lower GI tract for integration to give you a healthy gut microbiome.

There’s 11 different strains in this thing, carefully hand-cultivated in the laboratory with precision to deliver 8 billion total CFU. Why take probiotics? Come on, do you have to ask? It’s going to strengthen your immune function, reduce systemic inflammation (the root cause of all disease), improve digestion, promote bowel regularity, relieve gas and bloating, get you going again after illness or antibiotic use.

That’s me, because I first got this shipment the very day I returned home from a Mexican vacation and had a stomach illness once again. What a bummer? So sad because I love going down south, but I needed to repair and return to action quickly. So, I started guzzling this stuff and had a wonderful return to health. I’m a very enthusiastic user, and will be over the long run because I need all the help I can get. I don’t know about you when we’re talking about our routine usage of antibiotics, the stress we put on our system and in the environment every single day.

I especially notice my gut health is compromised when I engage in overly intensive athletic training, have trouble recovering. My gut is the first thing to go. So, this is my go-to product, the Flourish probiotic in liquid form. Try It yourself. I love the delicious root beer float flavor. Just kidding, man. This stuff is no funny business. This is the real deal. It’s very potent. It tastes fine, it goes down okay. But no root beer float flavors, sorry. Take it, you’ll love it. Go look at Entegrohealth.com for more information, and to order shipped directly to your door in its unique liquid form; Flourish.

Hey, have you heard of genetic testing by now? You probably have. Yes, for the first time in history, we are able at a simple and affordable transaction to basically spit into a plastic tube, mail it off and find out what your genes are all about.

I love working with dnafit.com because it’s so simple. You get a wonderful infographic report, which is easy to understand. You don’t have to wade through a lot of science. Yes, you’re going to get a detailed printout of many, many pages talking about the interactions of the various genes that are present and expressed in your body or not and how that affects your health. But the one-page infographic, that’s when we’re really talking, because you can get actionable tips and insights that you have an elevated need for vitamin D. That you have a low tolerance for alcohol or a high tolerance for caffeine or lactose or omega-3s or antioxidants.

The most important and life-changing insight that I received from my DNAFit test, was that my genetics reveal a muscular makeup that’s 54% power and strength, and only 46% endurance. In other words, I was banging my head against the wall as an endurance athlete for years and years, training in a manner that was not optimally aligned with my genetic predispositions.

Don’t waste 20 years like I did, not knowing what your genetics are all about when it comes to your dietary habits and exercise protocol. Check out dnafit.com. You’ll learn a lot about genetic testing when you visit their website. Take the test, get your infographic, and you’ll go from there. And because DNAFit loves the Get Over Yourself Podcast, they have created a special super-duper 30% discount off of all their products just by entering the code GOY30 when you’re checking out.

And if you have already ordered the fun, exciting ancestry.com package, a great gift idea, where you can get your family involved and everyone sends in their spit sample and you can get your ancestry, “I’m 46% Ireland and 44%, England, Western Europe. I’m a pure breed.” I don’t know if that’s good or bad. With dogs, it’s bad. Probably with humans, not great either.

“But I am what I am,” said Popeye and I, and my sister and my brother and my mom and dad, all have our fun reports to look and see all this cool stuff at ancestry.com. So, check them out. But if you did an ancestry.com report, or if you’ve done a 23andMe genetic report, the new technology allows DNAFit to pull from the same central database and produce their fitness health diet, exercise, genetic infographic for much less cost because you’ve already gone through the DNA sequencing from the other sources.

So, check that out on DNAFit.com and leverage what you may have already done or get started with DNAFit and get your diet and exercise right with that awesome 30% discount; GOY30.