Sarah Angus | Qualified Sports & Exercise Scientist, and Clinical Exercise Physiologist
Hi guys, Sarah here, and this is my third podcast. I've already spoken to you guys about getting ready to rumble in those early preparation stages and getting yourself into a health and fitness routine.
My last podcast was all about finding the momentum. Now that you've found the motivation and you've done your research and you know where you're headed in terms of goals. My last podcast touched on the finer details of finding your confidence in the gym, choosing a good outfit for yourself, finding a workout buddy and trying different things. It's all about incorporating variety into your workouts, trying group workouts or getting outside instead of just doing everything inside.
So a bit of a background on me quickly if you haven't heard one of my podcast before. My name is Sarah Angus, I am a sports scientist and exercise physiologist, and I've gone through a bit of a journey with my fitness personally. I was very active as a child, I was very healthy as a child, but I fell out of love with fitness after I finished my 2 degrees at Uni. I put on a whole heap of weight and I moved to Queensland from Sydney. So, from there I had to find the motivation within myself to start a fitness routine and improve my health and nutrition, and then really find the power to keep it going, to stay fit, to look more into my goals and to make what I was doing related to me. That's a bit about my fitness journey and I touched on it in my first podcast. So, if you haven't listened to the first two podcasts make sure you jump online and have a listen to those as well.
Today what we're going to be talking about is keeping that movement. So, we have started off our fitness journey and we've found the momentum, and now we want to find our rhythm and keep our movement in terms of both motivation and within your body. So, I guess we'll start with energy.
I think one of the things I do struggle with quite a bit is energy from day-to-day. You do need to find that happy medium and find what works for you, whether it is using supplements to help gain that extra energy kick before a workout or to power you through an entire day; choosing the right food to fuel, you to keep you feeling full, to satisfy your nutritional needs but also to help with that active recovery post-workout. Energy is the big one. You know with that energy your motivation goes - if you feel tired, if you're restless, if you know you just want to sit on the couch because you've had a big day at work you're not going to be motivated to go to the gym and workout, you're just not going to want to get up and do anything other than kind of lounge around because you are just lacking motivation and lacking energy.
For me, I do take 2 supplements each day to help with my energy. I do have an involved job, I'm on my feet all day, I'm running around like crazy, and sometimes I workout in the morning if I wake up in time. So, if I do a workout in the morning I usually crash around 2-3 p.m. So, I do need an external source of energy to help me through. Every day I start the day with a scoop of HydroxyBurn Shred. At the moment I'm digging the Watermelon flavoUr, it's a favourite. I like the Super Berry flavour! So, I take a scoop of that with water, I have some brekky, and then 2 hours after breakfast I'll have my HydroxyBurn Clinical.
So, this is a new product that I've been introduced to and I find that it's helping with my focus throughout the day as well as prolonging my energy when used in conjunction with my HydroxyBurn Shred. But the good thing about this product, the HydroxyBurn Clinical, is it reduces your cortisol levels. So, you know high cortisol levels have been linked to a range of things - and I'm sure we can link you to a couple of studies about that as well. I've found that taking the HydroxyBurn Clinical at the moment (which is usually around 9 o'clock… so I'll wake up have my HydroxyBurn Shred at about 7 AM, have brekky straight away and then have the HydroxyBurn Clinical tablets at 9) it kicks in for me at about 10-10:30, it pushes me through my workday, it makes me feel super productive but also it gives me that extra little bit of focus. I feel like everything is fine-tuned and everything is a lot clearer for me. I have a second scoop of HydroxyBurn Shred at lunchtime and those 2 supplements together really power me through my day and prepare me for my workout that I'm going to do in the afternoon. I prefer to workout in the afternoon I find it helps me sleep better, so I do need that extra little kick to help me get through the day.
I think also it's important to note that if you are struggling with energy, you do need to look at the foods that you are eating. Booking in with a nutritionist or a dietitian can help you find that balance that you do need when it comes to your food so that you have that organic energy to push you through your workouts as well and give you energy to recover because recovery is one of the key things to a good health and fitness regime.
We just talked quickly about the supplements that I take every day. I do take a range of supplements to fill different gaps in my diet and to help aid my exercise and recovery routine. Another one that I use at the moment, especially since I've been a little bit sick lately, I've been using the Clean Greens by Body Science. I pop them into my smoothie, which I usually pop a scoop of protein powder into it as well. You can have that for brekky or I can have that after a workout but it's a good way to get that immune system boost as well. Getting that extra serving of greens into my diet I have found that I haven't been susceptible to the common cold and flu that's going around and when I do get sick it accelerates my recovery. I'm no longer knocked out for weeks anymore, it's a couple of days and I'm back on my feet. So that's been a staple in my diet at the moment.
I have also been taking the new Apple Cider Vinegar capsules that have been released. I tried to start ingesting just apple cider vinegar; I tried mixing it in water, I tried putting it into my smoothies, I tried just having a spoon full of it, and it's terrible. I just can't deal with the taste and I just don't want to have to not enjoy what I'm having every day. So these little tablets are good for your gut lining, for your hair, skin, and nails, and just your general health and wellbeing. So, I open them up and I pop them into my smoothies every day and it's a good way to get that little extra helping hand behind the scenes as well. And then I'll take a multivitamin as well, and if I'm feeling a little bit sore will have some pure glutamine as well to help with that recovery process as well.
Speaking recovery, sometimes stretching it is more important than the workout itself. What is the point in doing a workout if you're going to have a couple of days off after feeling super sore due to feeling overworked? Your muscles are going to be contracted. We know that stretching and foam rolling can help accelerate your results and it can prepare you for your next workout. So, for me, I don't love stretching. I don't know anyone who loves stretching, but I do dedicate and plan in time every workout to get stretching and foam rolling in. I have a foam roller in my living room and I will roll out my quads, my calves, my hammies, my back, and my pecs every night whilst watching TV. And that's just to help me maintain the flexibility that I have gained from working out, from stretching, and to maintain the mobility that I do you have at the moment. We see older generations now just being so immobile and so contracted and I just think if we're working on it every day, if we make a habit of stretching and rolling each day, we're going to be so much better off in say 30, 40, 50 years. And we're not going to be so contracted. Instead, we're still going to be completely mobile and completely flexible.
Recovery in the form of stretching and rolling is quite important but then there is the simple thing of sleep. And that's sometimes something that I have to plan it, you know to plan a bedtime so that I am getting enough. I know I work well off about 7 hours asleep, and if I don't get that 7 hours of sleep I'm going to miss my gym session in the morning, I'm not going to want to get up, I'm going to feel drowsy all day and I'm just going to put myself a step behind in my process to finding that fitter, that happier and that healthier me. So sleep is part of the recovery process and you need to make sure you are getting a restful night's sleep. So, whether you do need to start taking a magnesium supplement to help with cramping or to help you kind of relax into a good night's sleep that's something that you can try and see if that works for you as well.
I think finding balance is the key to my success. So, for me when I started working out it did feel like a bit of a chore, I felt like I was doing something that someone else wanted me to do and I just didn't enjoy it. It just wasn't something that I wanted to do. When I started seeing results I fell madly in love with exercising and I went overboard - I was working out 2 or 3 times a day, I loved the feeling but I wasn't stretching, I wasn't recovering, I was replacing my social time with time in the gym and working out didn't feel like a chore to me anymore but I did lose the little other elements that I had in my life.
So, finding balance is difficult because you want to be working out enough but you want to make sure that you are enjoying your life. Working out and being fit, being healthy, being active, being nutritionally sound is something that you should enjoy. You should be social also, so find friends who have the same goals as you, find friends who have the same motivation as you, and make that your social circle. Make the people around you your motivation but make the people around you your balance. You'll know when it's okay if you listen to what your body is telling you. If you wake up one day and it's sore, it's tired, you don't want to get out of bed; your body is telling you to rest, so rest.
At the moment it annoys me when I see this on social media, and I see it quite a bit. Every Monday people will post about don't miss a Monday workout because that will set you up for a bad week. It's not true. If you don't feel like working out on a Monday, don't work out on a Monday. Go for a gentle walk, do something a little bit active, stay active but just because you missed a Monday workout doesn't mean that your whole week is going to be tarnished or tainted. Start on a Tuesday, add a little Sunday session in. You can still have a successful week without having that day one as a perfect structure.
You know finding the balance is very individual and it's something that you need to work on for you. So, everything that I've mentioned, all 12 tips that I have gone through to find your fit, to find your happiness and to finding your healthy, is individual - it's all about trial and error. I hope that everything I've spoken about over these last 3 podcasts is helpful and I hope that you'll be having to form your health and fitness routine from this and that it does work for you. So, I look forward to hearing your stories, and if you want to share them back with Body Science I'd love to know.
