The Live Lightly Podcast

Jessica (00:01)
Welcome to the Live Lightly podcast. I'm your host, Jessica Franklin. And today I'm joined by coach Josh Wood, a Tasmanian based TEDx speaker, educator and fitness expert who specializes in working with busy parents to optimize their food and fitness environment. Josh. I am so excited for our conversation today because I feel like we are aligned in a lot of our values and messaging.

Coach Josh Wood (00:25)
Yeah, thank you for having me.

Jessica (00:27)
before diving into our conversation, I would love to hear your story.

Coach Josh Wood (00:31)
Yeah. All right. Well, I mean, if we did the in-depth, it would probably take much longer time than we have. if you let's let's let's start at the beginning. So I was really young when I was born and I grew up, I grew up in the Midwest in the United States and I moved to Australia in 2008. So I was 19 years old and I'm turning 36 soon. So I've been over here for a long time. So that's why my accent is very North American.

Jessica (00:36)
Of course.

Coach Josh Wood (00:59)
I work with, with busy parents and professionals through an online coaching platform called strong for life online coaching. and it took a long time to get to where I am now and to know who I wanted to work with and what I wanted to do. You know, when we're young, we're always just trying to figure out who we're going to be. and it all kind of started with an interest in martial arts for me. Like I was a nerdy kid in high school working at a little computer shop. And one day I was like, this isn't it.

This isn't, this isn't the thing I want to do. And, I started looking into, to combat sports and kickboxing. I followed that path for a number of years, just in mixed martial arts and trying to be active and, and just embrace this physical lifestyle. And that kind of got me interested in, health. It's kind of a slippery slope. When you start looking at your own physical capacity, you start thinking, well, what, what can I do to optimize this? And my first career was in massage.

So was like, all right, how do I fix bodies? and I pursued that for, for a while. had a clinic space for about seven years. I taught at a massage school teaching the qualifications over here in massage. And, that kind of evolved into like an interest in health more generally. And I studied a bachelor of health science with a major in Chinese medicine. So traditional Chinese medicine, herbalism and acupuncture, while doing that, started.

Also studying my fitness qualifications. And I kind of came to this crossroads where I was on one side, I was in the clinical space. I was in massage and, health clinics with university. And I was in the space where people would come in and they'd be like, I don't want anything to do with modern Western medicine. I don't want to have to take pills forever. I don't want to be on all the medications. I don't want this symptom based treatment.

I want solutions. I'm like, okay, cool. you need to do this. You need to look at your activity. You need to look at what you're eating. You need to look at getting sunlight and stress reduction. Like, nah, can't you just give me some like herbal medicine? Like, can you just whip up a potion for me? And I'm like, that's, it's the same thing. You're coming here. You want a quick fix, but you don't want their quick fix. You want this quick fix because it sounds more, it vibes with you better. And I was like, it's the same process. I give you herbs. They give you pills. I can make the herbs into a pill.

But you want to take that forever instead of fixing your lifestyle. Like, no, I'm not, I'm not doing this. So I got fed up with, clinical space, with massage and with even the alternative medicine space, because people just wanted a quick fix. They just wanted the hippie version. and so I embrace the fitness side of stuff where people come to you because they want to do work because they expect work and they actually get mad at you if it's doesn't feel like enough work to them, which is hilarious. I have to kind of go through this education phase with people like.

Jessica (03:52)
You

Coach Josh Wood (03:57)
being wrecked all the time is also not beneficial. So I kind of embraced the, the fitness side of stuff. God years ago, started off teaching group coaching at a women's focused strength gym in Melbourne. and then, and then moved more into one-on-one boxing coaching and then really embraced the strength side of stuff and branched out from there. And as I got older and had my own kids and stuff, really dialed in that parents need a lot of help. And more than anything, parents are.

Jessica (04:00)
you

Coach Josh Wood (04:27)
time poor and tired and we don't have all the time in the world to figure out a whole new way of living. We can't spend the time to research everything and learn all the secrets and then how to implement it. there's 50 million Instagram influencers saying 6,000 different things each and nobody knows what to do. So this information overload and ends with what is it? A paralysis by analysis. Don't, don't know where to start. There's too many things. So I was like, all right, I gotta fix this.

And so I just kind of looked at what I did and what works for me and what works with the people I worked with for the last, you know, 12 years. So, okay, let's make a system that just sets out a framework, focused on sustainable habits and building those habits that we can direct to parents who don't want to have to think about it. So it's a system of just like, you want to get from point A to point B. Here's the roadmap, follow it. I guarantee you'll get there.

And so that's sort of where I ended up with the strong for life idea. You know, the idea of being, we need to keep going forever for as long as we can. We need to be strong for the extent of our life, but not just that we need to be strong to undertake life and the things that we want to really achieve. and that, that, ties into one of my, my foundational, parent fitness pillars. It's called the playground test. And the idea is that.

When you go the playground with your kids, if you can't play with them, there's something wrong. You should be able to play with your kids at the playground. That should be an obligation, a prerogative. You need to do it. And, you know, the idea is like, need to get parents healthy and fit and capable so they can keep playing with their kids for as long as they want to. Now we're here.

Jessica (06:15)
And now we're here. I love it. We have so many, actually so much in common with our background. I love your story and agree with so much of what you said. I actually used to be a personal trainer at an all women's athletic club back in the day. And my path eventually led me to yoga and meditation and energy work and breath work and all of that. So I have an extensive background in all of that.

But I like how it evolved from being, and mine too, mine evolved from being into fitness and being an athlete in high school and just kind of,

evolves and everybody has their own paths to discovering exactly who they are and what they are here to do their purpose in the world. And I want to talk a little bit more about, your pillars and your philosophy, you say you have a framework, could you go a little bit more into that? think maybe eating like an adult would be part of that framework. I know that was your TEDx talk. So

Coach Josh Wood (07:19)
Yeah. So, I mean, my, thing is, is very goal oriented. Like I need to get to know someone and figure out what drives them to, really figure out where we need to be. But it's all based around like, what does somebody want to achieve? And when you really dig into it, it's going to be something that improves their quality of life. So, the six habits to eat like an adult, like by my TEDx talk, you know, that that's really, you know, what is that Ted talk you get 15 minutes.

max. That's all you get. That was a challenge to try to encapsulate what I wanted to do with that, which was actually bring awareness and a system to how to be a good example around food for your kids. I'm not dogmatic about nutrition. I'm not interested in what kind of diet with whatever name attached to it you want to be involved with, involved in, whether it's paleo, vegan, carnivore, Atkins, whatever. If it's got name, I'm not interested. I'm more interested in

relationships with food and hitting foundational nutritional checkpoints. So the idea was like, right now, there's about a billion people worldwide with obesity. It's now as of 2022, actually, it was the biggest health risk, even more so than hunger, like being overweight and the health risks that come with that is a bigger hazard to world health than people being hungry, which is a wild thing. And so I was reading through all that stuff and I was like,

Okay, so out of that billion people, you 390 million of them are kids under 18, 37 million were kids under five. They're not buying their own food. They're not choosing what they get to eat. So it's like, okay, well, who's, who's responsible? We are. We're parents. It's our job to show them what to do. But if we just say, don't eat that, eat this instead, and then do whatever we want, they're not going to learn.

So it was all about trying to lead by example and creating a healthier relationship with food. The main concept that I take across all my systems is ownership. You know, we, an adult understands that their future is shaped by the decisions they make today. If you want to be somewhere else or someone else in the future, you have to make the decisions that lead there. It's like winning the lottery. People are always like, one day I'll win the lottery and then I'll be able to do this, this and this. It's like, okay.

Jessica (09:17)
Mm-hmm.

Coach Josh Wood (09:46)
How many lottery tickets have you bought? None. You're never going to win the lottery. If you don't invest in the process, you don't change the future. And so a lot of what I do with, people is, is about like these baby steps for changing daily habits. so I look a lot at the whole lifestyle picture, obviously exercise is the foundation for me, because you can't be healthy without moving your body. Bodies are designed to move, you know, so it's looking at little things like step counts or daily walking, along with, know,

Jessica (09:49)
You

Coach Josh Wood (10:16)
looking at your sleep hygiene, sleep habits, looking at your stress management, but also getting strong. You know, the one of the greatest indicators of longevity is lean body mass. The more muscle you have as you age, the healthier you age. And this is sort of moving away from a concept of lifespan being important and focusing more on health span. How long can you be healthy? No one wants to live to a hundred and spend 20 years in a hospital bed, you know,

it, they'd rather be healthy and capable as long as possible. So looking at how we, we create that future through little micro changes regularly that then stack up to being, you know, better rested, generally more active without having to think about it. It's a lot of incidental exercise, being stronger, more resilient. And then of course the, habits and, the habits and, thought process around food and food selection.

Jessica (11:15)
Hmm, yes. Well, I totally agree with you when you talk about not necessarily, it's not necessarily about living a longer life and adding years to your life. It's about quality of the years that you live. And that's my philosophy 100%. I

just want to be healthy for the amount of time that I'm here. I don't want to be in the last five or 10 or some people do spend 20, their last 20 years just not able to function and not feeling well and overall just, you know, kind of deteriorating. And yeah, that's just not something that I'm interested in. Growing up as a kid, I definitely witnessed

my grandmother who was obese and, diabetic and just struggling with a lot of things, health-wise all the time, always in and out of the doctor's office and, and my mom had MS.

And so I was always looking to study food and exercise. And that's what led me down this path. Initially. I think that witnessing other people in your life, loved ones that are struggling is motivation and.

Yeah, just wanting to kind of be the opposite is, I think, my motivation for sure. I would like to go a little bit more into detail with the food factor and going a little bit more into your philosophy of eating like an adult, because I feel like there's so many components to that that we can really

Coach Josh Wood (12:41)
Yeah, exactly.

Jessica (13:00)
dissect and break down and give the listeners some actionable tips

Coach Josh Wood (13:04)
Yeah, I'm like I said before, you know, the key factor is ownership. You know, we need to be aware of what we're doing. And so my whole concept around eating like an adult is really about bringing not just ownership, but awareness to our decisions. You know, so much of what we do and how we interact with food is based on how we were raised, what our norm was as we were growing up. But then our teenage rebellion, plays a big factor too. And so we see this a lot with people who are like,

Jessica (13:09)
Mm-hmm.

Coach Josh Wood (13:34)
Well, I'm just going to do this because I can, like I'm going to eat this because I can. I'm an adult. I could do this. I could do that. And it has a sense of rebellion to it. Like who are you rebelling against? You're an adult, you know, you're in your thirties, you're in your forties. Like you just, you're telling you what to do. Who are you rebelling against? and that kind of clings on to these habits from, from our childhood and we either go, okay, this is how we were raised. This is how I always do it. Or we go, and embrace that teenage rebellion and do the opposite.

and sometimes that, can be a healthy thing. Like I'm not going to live like that because so-and-so in my family or that was around was really sick and they were unwell and they drank or ate themselves into an early grave. Okay. I'm not doing that, but that has a healthy outcome. but we let these, these habits and these teenage rebellion feelings influence us as adults. And really like, it's kind of like childhood trauma at a certain point, you have to say, I'm not going to let that define me.

I want a certain outcome and I'm going to make that happen. And that, is the ownership aspect. You have to make a decision and you have to make the choice, which isn't always easy because first it's obviously about recognition. Do you recognize what you're doing? And so the idea with the six habits to eat like an adult is, know, how can we bring awareness and conscious decision-making back to our feeding patterns? Or, you know, not even back to you, but just.

for first time for a lot of people. And I think that the first habit is probably the most useful and the most, I want to get the most feedback on where people are like, yeah, that works for me. And if you listen to the TEDx talk, it's the very first one there, it's the Apple test. I live in Tasmania, which is an island off the south of Australia. It's a pretty cool climate, but it used to be one of the biggest Apple exporters in the world.

New Zealand takes that title now, but we used to be called the Apple Isle until like the 1950s or 60s. Massive Apple Orchard Island. So apples are a big part of life down here. And the Apple, Apple test is this idea that, you know, if it's 10 in the morning or three in the afternoon or eight o'clock at night and you're digging through your snack drawer or you're digging through your, your cupboards or your pantry and you're looking for that little bit of sugary, whatever, you know, as soon as we catch ourselves doing that.

If you stop and ask yourself a question, if you ask yourself if coach Josh was to magically appear in your house and obviously breaking and entering issues aside, hand you a beautiful ripe apple, would you eat it? Well, if you're hungry and you don't have issues with apples, then you'd eat the apple. But if you're like, no, I don't want that. I just want the Snickers bar. I just want the Tim Tams. I just want that cookie. I want that glass of wine. You're probably not even hungry.

And so you're addressing something outside of hunger. You're dealing with a craving. You're trying to manage feelings. You're dealing with a lot of stress. Maybe you're thirsty, whatever it is, but it's not hunger. And it becomes habitual, but until we break that cycle of habitual eating and start going, am I hungry or something else going on? Then we can't really stop the habit from happening, but it first takes recognition of it and then

giving yourself an alternative because then if you go, hey, I don't want the apple, I just want junk, you have to justify it to yourself. You have to go, well, you know, I know it's not good for me, but I really want it, which feeds into one of other habits, which is treats are treats. Now, if you're eating the same thing every night, calling it a treat or the same time each week, it's not a treat. It's your diet. You know, a treat is something that is earned.

It's a special thing. It's a reward or a celebration, something enjoyable that is uncommon. It's not a treat if you do it every day. It's not a treat if you do it the same time each week. That's just how you eat. Treats are earned. You don't get a treat for existing. You can eat whatever you want. That's fine. If you're aware of that, that's fine. You can make those choices as an adult, but don't kid yourself and say you've earned it just because you did another nine to five.

It's just how you're managing the stress and the emotions. And it's either sweet things or it's alcohol. You know, it fits in that basket.

Jessica (18:09)
I totally agree. Having awareness around what you're doing is the first step to making changes in any habit, right? And you have to want to, right? You have to have the willingness to see what it is that's causing you, discomfort in life because possibly there's inflammation and, that could be tied to, you know, that glass of wine.

Coach Josh Wood (18:21)
That's right.

Jessica (18:34)
dinner every night or the candy bar that you're always reaching for. So yeah, I believe that just having that mindful awareness around what it is that you're doing is definitely a really great way to start being able to shift into something new. If you don't see it, then you can't change it. So that's really important.

Coach Josh Wood (18:58)
That's right.

Jessica (19:00)
And so you work with parents mostly. It sounds like that is something that has been brought on by your own journey as a father and trying to stay fit and figure out where to fit in all of the exercise. can you talk a little bit about some of the philosophy behind keeping people fit?

while at the same time managing their busy parent lifestyle.

Coach Josh Wood (19:32)
Yeah, I mean, there's, there's two, there's two big aspects to that. the first one is, removing like decision-making and thinking around stuff. So it's a lot easier when, when I can just go, Hey, you need to do this. And they go, yep, no worries. Okay. Problem solved. You don't have to think about it. You don't have to do anything to make it happen. You just follow the instructions. And cause I do everything through an app. So I communicate through all with my clients through an app and we set everything up in a schedule. It's a, it's a calendar based system.

And they had little boxes to take. so every time they take off like, yep, recorded my food or yep, I've done my steps or yep, I've done my home workout for the day. They take the little box, they get a little dopamine boost. Everyone feels great. And then you get to see that progress over time. So systematizing things and harnessing that innate monkey brain desire to tick off boxes makes it easier and more fun for people. And then being able to track and see everything over time, because it's all in one place. Like those systems really help.

But I think the thing that works the best is the idea of just doing less. You know, like I said before, people are always in this sort of overwhelm of there's too many things going on, too many things that they think they need to do. And so they don't do anything, you know, paralysis by analysis. I'm not sure what to do. There's I need to do a million one things. So nothing gets done. And, you know, that's that's not helpful for anybody. And so.

Jessica (20:46)
Hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Coach Josh Wood (20:57)
What I always say is, you know, like think of the smallest possible thing, the smallest, the tiny, noticeable thing that you can do today that will set you on a path towards a better future. and, and I refer to this as TNT, tiny, noticeable thing, TNT. And if you got a mountain in your life, this big thing you're trying to overcome, maybe it's your belly. maybe it's, mobility issues. Maybe it's a lack of strength, whatever it is, you got this mountain you're trying to overcome. Well, how do you get rid of a mountain?

Use TNT. So you take these tiny, noticeable things. And it could be as simple as, I'm going to walk for 10 minutes after each meal. Like that's the one I use all the time. People are always like, I don't have time for exercise. You know what? guarantee you, you could carve out 10 minutes after each meal to walk. If you have to walk and eat, I don't care. You just need to walk 10 minutes after each meal, 30 minutes a day, three and a half hours of exercise that you wouldn't have gotten that week.

That's a lot. If I said, I need you to do three and a half hours of exercise a week, people be like, no, I can't do that. You break into 10 minute chunks. They can do that. Everyone can do that. And so the idea is always to do the most powerful thing that takes the least amount of effort because two months later, you're not even going to be thinking about it anymore. It's just what you do. It's kind of like when you start learning how to prep your food for the week, you know, or make meals big enough so that you have leftovers for the next couple of days.

Once you do that at the beginning, you're like, my God, it's so hard. You know, two weeks later, you're like, this is just what I do. I always make everything twice as big now, or I always do a couple hours of meal prep for the week on the on Sundays. And everyone thinks it's so much. But if you just take one thing, one tiny noticeable thing that you can do each day consistently for a little while, eventually you just don't even think about it anymore. And it's no longer noticeable. It's just your lifestyle. It's like brushing your teeth.

You know, no one's like, my god, I'm not gonna have time to brush my teeth.

Jessica (23:00)
true.

Coach Josh Wood (23:00)
Well, that takes a couple of minutes, right? But now you don't think about it. So if we ingrain habits over time, like everything you do in life is a habit. You put on your socks, you put on your pants, hopefully, you you put on your clothes before you go outside. Like that takes time. You don't complain about that because it's habit. It's lifestyle. So when you start small and stack these things up over time, you all of sudden have a whole new lifestyle that you don't have to think about, but it's really, really hard.

Jessica (23:03)
Thank

Coach Josh Wood (23:29)
verging on impossible.

Do the least you have to start there.

Jessica (23:33)
I like that. And it's so true. So, so true, because if you get overwhelmed, you're just gonna freeze up after a few days and be like, I didn't do the three things today out of the 10. And so then you kind of feel like, now I've blown it. And it's hard to start again. Yeah, it's really hard to start again.

Coach Josh Wood (23:52)
Yeah, what's the point? just won't do any of them now.

Jessica (23:56)
I used to have this really, really long meditation practice. And then I'd miss a day and then I miss another day. And then I'd be like, I just missed three days in a row or a week. And, know, there it goes. And so yeah, now I'm just like, I did three minutes. Yay. I meditated for three minutes, but I'm doing it every day. So it's much more effective that way. It does.

Coach Josh Wood (24:10)
Yeah.

to win.

And that adds up.

Jessica (24:23)
And it does make a difference. And just kind of like the sustainable tips that I teach people in their daily lives, right? Like if I gave you my guide and said, do this all today, it would feel really overwhelming. And it would not be something that I think would be enjoyable. And so instead, the guide is there for like the next thing that you buy for yourself or your household.

Coach Josh Wood (24:36)
Phew.

Jessica (24:47)
And you you make that one new choice, right? You make the swap. And then it just becomes like, yeah.

Coach Josh Wood (24:51)
Yeah, yeah. And just thinking about your guide, you know, I was reading through that reading through reading to the guide and I was like, you know, a lot of these things aren't actually available here in Australia. lot of brands and things like that. And so I was like, cool, cool. I know some of these. I don't know some of these. But was like, hey, there's a win. got my clean canteen.

Jessica (25:02)
True.

There's your win. You've got one. It looks like you've loved it.

Coach Josh Wood (25:10)
Yeah, there's my win. have I've had this one for like seven years. Basically indestructible been all over the place, but I've been using it for a long time.

Jessica (25:17)
Yep. Yeah, and that's one swap. That's like one thing, but after seven years, think about how many water plastic water bottles single use.

Coach Josh Wood (25:27)
It might even be long, or might be like eight years now or something. I've had it for so long.

Jessica (25:31)
Mm-hmm, yeah, you just kind of lose track, but like that's the new thing. Like you have that and so you use that now. You didn't have to think about it every time after you bought it. Like it just was like, that's where I put my water now and I bring it with me. Instead of just relying on, buying plastic water bottles while you're out or whatever, or just not having it on hand, which isn't great for your health if you want to stay hydrated.

So yeah, it's just like those things that you can do the one thing and then it becomes like, this is just the thing that I'm doing now. And this is just the cleaner I'm using and this is just the new lotion and shampoo I'm using. So it becomes like super easy. And there was another thing that I wanted to speak to, which is all of the fads and having, you know, just so much out there. It's kind of the same with why I wrote the guide, right? It's kind of the same with sustainability and

trying to live without plastic and toxins and all of those things, it can be super overwhelming and because there's so much out there. So to have to like sift through all of the green washing and all of the 500 product choices that you could have for just something simple like a water bottle, believe it or not, there's only a few out there that I would actually buy that I would consider to be like a truly sustainable choice and healthy. Like the stainless steel is definitely not going to have lead in it or other chemicals that are

you know, undesirable, right? So there's a lot there with the whole like, you know, trends and overwhelm and it sounds like you do something to help kind of cut through all of that as well. I mean, you've talked a little bit about that, but if you could just kind of like hone in on that, that'd be great.

Coach Josh Wood (27:17)
Yeah, mean, there's so many fads, so many trends, especially around like nutrition and stuff and exercise. You know, I just I just try to keep things simple. I try to to remove like. Again, it's like about doing less, you know, if someone's like, hey, this is the newest thing and it's going to revolution revolutionize your life. The first thing I want to say is no. It can't be.

It can't be because you haven't had enough time to see if it does anything. You know, the most basic things we've been doing since the dawn of time. You know, you eat and drink from from natural containers. You eat food that grows out of the ground or eats the things that grow out of the ground. Like it's it's simple stuff. Exercise is simple, too. You don't need to do some weird newfangled thing on a BOSU ball with a bunch of weird equipment. You just got to move like.

We're supposed to you pick stuff up, you put stuff down, you push stuff, you pull stuff, you walk, you run, you crawl around like that's basic human stuff and it applies to all domains and you know, not to get a sound bite taken out and people say, it's a naturalistic fallacy or whatever. It's like, you know, things in nature can hurt us. But if we look at the timeline of how long we've been doing things in a certain way, we can usually assume that this is effective if not optimal.

and when it comes to diet and exercise, it's like, we, we look at humans. I just, it just gets on my nerves about, about the diet stuff too, because it's like, you know, if we get an animal and we want to keep it alive in a zoo, we look at what it eats in nature and then we feed it that stuff. But for whatever reason, people look at the entire history of human eating and go, we can definitely invent some slop. That's better. Let's use all these factories and a billion acres of farmland to

grind everything up and put some goop in it and squirt it out a tube and like, look, it's the optimal human human food. No way. Why can't you just look at what we've done and how people have lived healthily forever and then apply things like modern medicine and like road safety on top of that? every time we try to revolutionize something, it usually ends up hurting people. So I just like to keep it simple as much as possible. Yeah.

Jessica (29:31)
Hmm.

Back to nature, back to mother nature, mother nature knows best, it's so true. And through all of my years and years and years of studying nutrition and health and all of the different trends and fads that have come and gone, and I've always just stayed steady with balance. Just kind of, you know.

not overdoing any one thing and making sure that you pay attention to everything that needs to be part of your healthy diet and just finding a proportional balance of each of those components. That's my philosophy.

Coach Josh Wood (30:13)
Hmm. Yeah. And I think from a health standpoint, that's usually the best. Now I do want to differentiate between health and performance. Like if we want to optimize people, that's usually a short term thing that doesn't lead to necessarily good long term effects. You know, like if we take extreme sports or things like bodybuilding or like combat sports where people have to do drastic weight cuts and things like that.

You there's a lot of stuff we can do to, manipulate the human body for performance, but it doesn't necessarily lead to good longevity outcomes. If we're looking at longevity and quality of life in the long run, a middle path is probably the most effective. A bit of this, a bit of that, you need a little stress, you need a little relaxation. You need to be kind of strong, but you don't have to go for world records. You need to eat whole foods most of the time, a good mix of things.

and to, to sort of speak to that as well, you know, I think looking at our, again, our ancestry, not just as humans, but our individual ancestry and like where our people came from and where we're living in the world should have a say for what is considered healthy. You know, I'm a big proponent of like seasonal plants, plant, fruits and vegetables, you know, I have to order.

like buy strawberries from Chile and ship it across the world in the middle of winter so that I can have strawberries to be healthy because you know, the government guidelines say I'm supposed to six different fruits today and six different vegetables. It's like, well, I live in a cool climate. It gets down to freezing in the winter. A lot of stuff doesn't grow in the winter. And if you're in North America, a lot of stuff doesn't grow in the winter. If your ancestors came from Northern Europe, very much grown in the winter. So you get like hard cabbages and some old apples.

So if you're like, the only way to be healthy is to import all these Acai berries from Brazil, I'd say, no, I don't think that makes any sense. I think a seasonal approach is also more economical. has fewer food miles as well. Like I think around the board, like if we're looking at like what's most beneficial for humans in our environment, seasonal, local, ancestral.

Jessica (32:25)
Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Coach Josh Wood (32:35)
I that's a good balance to make and it usually also ends up being cheaper.

Jessica (32:39)
and again, like you said, just going back to what people have done forever and observing that and that worked and it still works.

I'd like to talk a little bit about fitness in nature because I know that's kind of your thing and you can do that with children and still be able to, check off your box. And it's kind of checking off multiple boxes, not just your fitness box, but also a box of spending quality time with your child and getting fresh air and sunshine. So, and also what is your advice for people

who do live in climates where you have winter and you have all the, I'm in San Diego, I'm so lucky, I don't have to think about those things. But I did used to live in Colorado and it was definitely rough getting out every day, but I did it. No matter what, you bundle the kid up and if it takes you an hour to get out the door, and you're only out for 30 minutes.

It is what it is, right? Yeah, it's still a win. so yeah, tell us a little bit about your philosophy on that.

Coach Josh Wood (33:41)
still win. Yeah.

So I've always been very outdoor focused. I like outdoor things. I worked as a wilderness guide here in Tasmania for a few years. So I spent a lot of time outside and my wife runs a bush play business. So she runs a nature play, bush play, an education business. Our kids have been outside for most of their lives. Most of the time it gets, it gets cold here in the winter, but it's not too bad. The spring is actually the worst because it's really wet and really windy, really windy.

Jessica (34:18)
Hmm.

Coach Josh Wood (34:19)
so, know, that's the time of year where we're less likely to be outside much, but, otherwise, you know, like it's, essential to our health. You know, we need sunlight, we need green spaces. And when you look at the, literature, there's this, this idea of what they call like green exercise or green activity. And this is, anything that's done outside or in an outside simulated environment. So when we're looking at like exercise.

adaptation and performance. You know, they did this study a bunch of years ago on like treadmill walking or treadmill running and people had better outcomes when they had a green simulated environment. And that was as simple as nature sounds or a picture, a poster of like nature on the wall. They had better, like they're more relaxed. They had better cardiovascular outcomes like

Everything was better just with that little bit of nature like experience. And, you know, I think, like you said, if you are spending more time outside, you do take a lot of those boxes. You get the fresh air, you get the sunlight, but it's also very down regulating. Like it's very much required for our recovery and relaxation and stress reduction to be out in what we evolved in. and so like I,

Jessica (35:19)
Hmm.

Coach Josh Wood (35:44)
You know, I have a big focus on resistance training when I work with people because we need strong muscles and strong bones, but that doesn't mean it has to be done inside. You know, I've got people that myself as well, like I do most of my training in my garage, which is open. You know, it's open to the outside and I get this great view of outside while I'm there. I've got clients who train on their porches or in their living rooms with big windows. And I think that's a healthier thing and a more sustainable thing, because not only are you getting the

the feel good effect of having done hard work, you're also getting that little bit of like, this is nice. You know, it's nice. I can see the sun or I can watch the rain and you know, I can listen to it on the roof. And there's something primal about that that we need as humans. And you know, it's, like when you see people on treadmills at big fancy gyms and they now have these settings where you can actually like do a run through an area. Like they have these,

these video recorded maps where you can like run through the mountains and stuff like that. And people are doing that and that makes it more enjoyable. gives them a better experience. They have better outcomes and they're more likely to continue to do it because it's enjoyable as opposed to staring at a wall or watching Netflix on the treadmill. So there's something that's very much part of who we are. Part of our nature is nature. And the more that we can get into that, the more that we can make that

part of what we do instead of thinking of nature as something outside of us. nature is out there. It's like, no, no, no. We are part of it. And the more that we can actually integrate that into our life, the healthier and the happier we are as people every time.

Jessica (37:22)
I like that. go ahead. Go ahead.

Coach Josh Wood (37:23)
And sorry, I forgot, I forgot what your cold weather question. I was going to say that, when we went, but my dad lives in Idaho, and my wife and I, and our, at the time, our only son, I've got two now, we went to visit him in the winter. And what we did is we went and found some of the nature play schools, and, similar businesses to like what my right, my wife runs. and what I'd say is if you live in a cold place,

It's very hard to get out on your own. Go and find like a nature play group or nature school or like a meetup group and find a group of other people who are going to do it together. So you have a goal and you have community accountability because doing on your own is real hard. Like you said, with the, the rugging up with all the clothes and fighting them to get them outside. Then you're outside for 20, 30 minutes and it's cold and you get back inside. Like, well, took two hours for 20 minutes of outside time. If you have the community involvement, it's a lot easier.

Jessica (38:17)
Yeah.

And it sounds like you keep people on track. And if they wanted to work with you, wherever they're listening, it sounds like you can work remotely with people did you say you have an app?

Coach Josh Wood (38:31)
Yeah, I do everything through an app. most of my clients are international. Actually, a lot of them are in the US and Canada and I live in Australia. but yeah, location's not an issue. you can, you can find me on Instagram, coach Josh wood or on my website, strong for life dot online. And then I'll share, the link to the eat like an adult guide, which is just a free resource and the Ted talk as well.

Jessica (38:32)
Mm-hmm.

Okay.

Yeah, I'll definitely put those all in the show notes and on YouTube it will be in the description. And also, do you have anything coming up that people can look forward to? Right now we're in at the end of 2024. So is there anything in the new year that you wanna share? Sorry, I just put you on the spot.

Coach Josh Wood (39:16)
boy. Yeah, I've got. Yeah, I was just like, what am I? What am I doing? I feel like I'm always doing something. I've got two big things happening in first quarter of the New Year, so I am wrapping up the final text of a cookbook that I'm writing with a friend that will be self published. So it'll be available through my website and Amazon. If that's something that people are interested in, it is a. It is a niche.

Jessica (39:22)
Do I? Do I have something?

Mm-hmm.

Coach Josh Wood (39:45)
Cookbook so it is a more nutritional approach to traditional Indian flavors. So if you like a bit of spice in your food, come find me and I can put you on the waiting list on that. Other thing is we just solidified a very niche sporting event. So for the last few years, I've run a grip strength contest here in Hobart and I've just organized with another organizer.

Jessica (39:58)
cool.

Coach Josh Wood (40:10)
our next year's event in February, which is a grip strength competition that will be internationally sanctioned. So you can actually set world records and be on an international record board. And then that will be a qualifier for the national. So super niche, like it's, it's grip strength is, is a very small sport, but it's a lot of fun. So you have to pick up weird things with your hands and it's just, yeah.

It's one of those very humbling things when you realize how weak your hands are compared to the rest of your body. But that's coming up in February. Cookbook should be hopefully January or February as well, if I can get everything designed.

Jessica (40:41)
you

Okay, yeah, things take time when you're doing them all on your own in addition to everything else. But that sounds interesting. I like Indian food. I didn't used to like it at all. And then I finally decided to like go ahead and just dive in and try some dishes and just never smelled great. Like very off putting all the curries. And yeah, now I love it. But I had to get past the smell. And I think my son is kind of the same way I've tried one dish and

Coach Josh Wood (40:53)
They do.

I love it.

Jessica (41:18)
He'll eat it, but not really happily eating it.

Coach Josh Wood (41:21)
Yeah, well, you know, this cookbook might be a good option for your family.

Jessica (41:26)
I agree, I agree, because I would like to learn a little bit more about how to put together those flavor profiles and use those spices. It's just not something that I grew up with, but I'm super interested in learning. So I'm excited about that. All right, well, thank you again, Josh, for joining me today for this conversation. And I hope that, some parents out there are listening and can walk away with something to start doing.

in their own lives, small, what do you call it, TNT, tiny little, tiny, my gosh, tiny noticeable things, yes, TNT, Okay,

Coach Josh Wood (41:55)
Yep. Tiny noticeable things.

Thanks for having me.