Healthzilla Weekly: Recent Episodes
Healthzilla
This podcast is all about Healthy Habits. We explore topics big and small, to help anyone build the right routines for health & wellness. Healthzilla Weekly is brought to you by Healthzilla, the Healthy Habits app.
We shared some good news recently as the creative superstar Antti Toivonen joined Healthzilla's advisory board. Antti is an entrepreneur and an award winning creative director and in this episode we dive deep into healthy working habits, how one can optimise creativity and work performance under immense stress. With close to 20 years in the business, Antti shares some incredibly valuable tips.
Topics discussed include:
- How Antti manages his time with all the various projects and his business
- Antti's golden advice on how to optimise creativity
- How to manage and control stress life
- How does healthy habits impact efficiency and productiveness
- Current trends in Health & Fitness industry from marketing and advertising standpoint
- Antti's three top tips for a healthy and fulfilling life
Make sure to follow Antti on:
- superson.co
We are living in difficult times with the ongoing world events. During these times it is especially important to keep building and maintaining your healthy habits in order to protect & develop both your physical and mental health. In this episode we are joined by Healthzilla CEO Laura Ranin and we discuss our personal 10+ health tips and hacks.
Discussion topics include:
- How to manage your health during stressful life situations
- Fresh berries as a superfood
- Flexible dieting as a great tool for overall health and weight management
- A good quality yoga mat will never allow you to have an excuse not to work out (Laura's tips: Liforme and Manduka)
- Improve your healthy habits through wearable devices
- Level up your mindfulness through Oak app's mantra meditation course
- Find one form of exercise you are passionate about and set out your goals & schedules for it
- Why to invest in good quality running shoes? (Laura's tip: On-Running shoes)
- Importance of Omega 3-supplements
- Sleep as the ultimate health hack
- Book recommendations:
- Jay Shetty - Think Like a Monk
- Matthew Walker - Why We Sleep?
- Soki Choi - Kombucha and Kimchi: how probiotics and prebiotics can improve brain function
- Ben Greenfield - Boundless
- Daniel Goleman & Richard J. Davidson - Altered Traits
One of the leading drivers of the Healthzilla team is to prevent lifestyle disease at scale. One of these lifestyle diseases on the rise currently almost across the world is Non-Alcoholic Liver Disease (NAFLD). What is it and how can we prevent it? And if we do get it is it reversible and how?
To help us dig into this very important topic from a scientific perspective we are joined by Dr Miina Öhman (PhD), who is a Physician Scientist and she has been studying cardiovascular and metabolic diseases for 25 years. She is also an MD and the Medical Advisor for the Healthzilla team.
The discussion topics include:
- What is NAFLD
- Prevalence of NAFLD across the world
- NASH, Steatohepathitits
- Risks and links between NAFLD, NASH, cirrhosis and liver cancer
- Links between NAFLD and Type 2 Diabetes
- What are the main drivers behind NAFLD?
- What can NAFLD lead into>
- How to avoid and/or reverse NAFLD?
Follow Dr Miina at:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/miina-ohman/
This week we are joined by Tatu Koistinen, founder & coach of Triathlon Suomi (Triathlon Finland). Tatu shares his unique mindset towards health & wellness from the viewpoint of a triathlete and a triathlon coach. The conversation topics include:
- Tatu's own introduction
- His current training routine
- Nutrition and triathlon
- Recovery within the context of triathlon training
- Wearable devices as tools to support triathlon training
- Tatu's top three tips for healthy and fulfilling life
You can follow Tatu at
https://www.instagram.com/tatukoistinen/
www.triathlonsuomi.com
Sometimes it might be hard to keep up with your healthy habits and routines without external motivation. Personal Trainers and Coaches can be a great support in optimising your health and wellbeing. Alec Williams, CEO & Founder of Ace Performance and a coach, is a true expert and pioneer in the arena of health and wellbeing and he joins us in this episode where we discuss variety of health and wellbeing related topics and dive deep into optimising your healthy habits.
Topics discussed include:
- Alec's own journey into sports and ultimately coaching clients
- Current trends in the society in terms of health related issues
- Ace Performance specialises in providing specialty training for clients dealing with health related issues such as acute or chronic diseases, physical or mental disabilities - Alec shares his core fundamentals in designing customised training and nutrition plans
- Role of stress in causing chronic illnesses & other health-related issues
- The future of digital intelligence in the future of personal training and coaching
- Alec's top three tips for healthy and fulfilling life
Make sure to follow Alec and check out his podcast!
IG: https://www.instagram.com/ace_performance_co/
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/info-ace/id1314776251
Making small adjustments in you daily habits continuously makes all the difference for your healthy lifestyle in the long run. The same applies very well for your food choices you make on a daily basis - both in the supermarket and in restaurants. How can we make better choices in terms of our food? It all follows nice simplicity and logic and does not necessarily need to change your world upside down. Olli Posti is a popular Finnish health influencer, author, superfood blogger and speaker. He shares valuable tips and information about food quality and how to make better food choices. This discussion is also joined by the Healthzilla CEO Laura Ranin.
Topics discussed include:
- Olli's own introduction and path to health and wellbeing
- Challenging the health and food paradigm
- Healthy living through food
- Importance of hydration - with added high quality salt
- Curbing cravings through proper hydration
- Importance of good quality salts and generic demonisation of salt use
- Improving food and food production
- Regenerative vs consuming agriculture
- New approaches to agricultural thinking
- Comparing food items - how to determine good quality?
- Vibrant colours
- Sniffing test
- Organic where possible
- Problems with "Organic" certification
- "You eat what you ate ate"
- Challenging industry and regulators
- How to make better choices in the supermarket
- Small changes are the key in building healthy habits
- Simplicity wins
- Healthy living should not be burdensome
- Supplements and superfoods
- Nuts & Seeds for snacking?
- Olli's top tips for a healthy and fulfilling life
Olli's book "Supermarket Survival" (in Finnish) here
IG: https://www.instagram.com/olliposti/
Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/user/oda83
Website: https://olliposti.fi/
Sleep - what a wonderful thing to do. In the modern world, however, the role of sleep seems to be ever decreasing as we have more and more stimulation coming from the usual culprits of social media, entertainment and work. Often times it is cool to say “I don’t have time to sleep - got to work for those dreams”. Or to drink a bottle of wine while binging on Netflix thinking you are “relaxing” and could get a good night’s sleep afterwards. Sleep is simply one of the most important aspect of your overall health and wellbeing. In this special episode we dive deep into the effects of sleep to our health with Dr Miina Öhman (PhD) who is an expert in communicable diseases and longevity.
Topics discussed include:
- Importance of sleep in the scale of healthy habits
- Social pressures and stimulus for less sleep
- Physician’s view on sleep deprivation
- Cost of sleep deprivation to societies
- Pain/pleasure continuum in sleeping context
- Miina’s own sleeping patterns and -habits
- Age and sleep quality
- What happens in our brains during different sleep stages
- Sleep cycles
- Fragmentation of sleep and its effects on the brain
- Different stages of sleep
- 1: Non-rem sleep 1
- 2: Non-rem stage 2
- 3: Non-rem stage 3 - deep sleep
- 4: REM sleep
- Sleep’s impact on memories, learning and the cognitive function
- Function of dreaming
- What happens when we do not sleep long enough or well enough?
- Sleep deprivation and diabetes
- Sleep deprivation, hunger and obesity
- Sleep deprivation and inflammation
- Sleep deprivation and ageing
- Sleep deprivation and all-cause mortality
- Sleep deprivation will decrease your HRV
- Impact of sleep for your mental health and psychology and happiness
- Physical recovery and sleep
- Shift-work, sleep and health
- Sleep medication, alcohol and sleep
- How to start improving your sleep
- Use of melatonin to fall asleep - uselful?
- Should we try not to use alarm clocks if possible?
- Sleep and the society
- Miina’s top tips for better sleep
Follow Miina at:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/miina-ohman/
Peak performance optimisation also means optimising your healthy habits. In order for us to be able to function at our peak levels both in work and family life we must ensure all aspects of our mind and body are running optimally. In this episode Niko & Tommi are joined by director, speaker, coach and board professional Petteri Kilpinen whose expertise is Peak Performance optimisation for organisations and C-level executives. This episode is full of invaluable information on how we can tweak our habits for a happier, more fulfilling and more productive life!
Topics discussed include:
- Petteri’s own introduction
- Petteri’s journey to coaching peak performance optimisation
- Practicing what we preach
- Energy levels will drop over time when we get older despite energy demand going up
- Problem of surviving your daily work and not having energy for anything else
- Managing your energy is a skill which you can manage
- How can we optimise optimise our energy and peak perormance?
- Concept of variance in energy management
- Stress and recovery must follow each other in a rhythmic way
- Detrimental effects of constant multi-stimuli from mobile phones, messages, emails
- Focus on less things at a time
- Importance of taking mind breaks regularly
- How to start building variance in your life
- Misunderstanding the concept of working more vs working more efficiently
- When you are tired you need twice the time to complete a task vs when you are energised
- Working more does not necessarily create better results - often quite the opposite
- Working too hard and too long destroys creativity
- Your brain needs breaks from intensive thinking
- Problem of setting too large goals
- The way to change yourself is to create new habits which will take you towards your goals
- Ask yourself what are your competing commitments and choose which serve you and which don’t.
- 2-3 new habits in 100 days will transform your life completely in a few years
- Concept of deep motivation (your big WHY)
- Trap of instant gratification
- Starting with small goals and setting the game so you can win
- Building lasting change in your life (BJ Fogg)
- Emotions creating habits
- Willpower is only a limited resource
- Habits turning into routines - you do not need energy in conducting routines
- Changing organisations - change starts from the top
- Surrounding yourself with the right people
- Effect of community to your change
- Demands of modern day workplace are 24/7
- Self-management skills are crucial to succeed and survive
- We can’t be at our best all the time
- Utilising data, wearables and testing in performance optimisation
- Importance of measuring recovery
- Importance of self observation and mindfulness
- Petteri’s own healthy habits
- Petteri’s top tips for healthy and fulfilling life
Links:
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/petteri-kilpinen-4aa8401a/
Website: http://petterikilpinen.com/
Latest book (in Finnish): https://www.adlibris.com/fi/kirja/varianssi-9789523501416
Modern healthcare systems across the world are very much skewed to reactive healthcare or sick-care where the system focuses heavily on curing illnesses. The cost of ill health in the world is growing rapidly and was $12 trillion in 2017 - which makes the model very much unsustainable. In this episode of Healthzilla Weekly - we dive deep into the challenges faced by the healthcare systems across the world and discuss what are the alternatives and the future development. Our special guest Kimmo Kääriä has worked in the healthcare industry as a leader, consultant and entrepreneur for over 15 years and gives some incredible insights into this topic.
- Kimmo’s own introduction
- Current challenges with the healthcare systems across the world
- Value-based healthcare
- Problems of reactive healthcare
- Government policy impact in behaviours: sugar tax
- Incentivising healthier choices and healthy habits financially
- Combining policy and incentives might be the way forwards
- Moving from reactive to preventative healthcare
- Changing the business model of the healthcare provider as an option: from unit pricing to flat rate
- Cultural impact in definition of health
- Illness-wellness continuum
- Roles of employers in wellbeing
- New sources of data as great tools for preventative healthcare
- Impact of nutrition
- Essential fatty acid balance and and how to test it
- Why essential fatty acids are important
- Changes in nutrition information is increasing dramatically
- Blood biomarkers as guidance for nutrition
- Kimmo’s healthy habits
- Kimmo’s top tips for healthy and fulfilling life
Follow Kimmo on the socials!
Instagram: @kimmo_kaaria
Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kimmokaaria/
Health and wellbeing is not all about exercise and nutrition. Often the softer side of human wellbeing and happiness gets dismissed in modern day health-talk. In this in-depth episode Niko and Aki are joined by Noora Lintukangas who is a Kundalini Yoga teacher, author, entrepreneur and a mother of three. Her wisdom and advice on building resiliency and happiness in life through yoga and meditation is right on the point and very valuable.
Topics discussed include:
- Noora’s own introduction
- Noora’s journey to Kundalini yoga
- How does Kundalini yoga differ from other forms of yoga
- Philosophy of Kundalini
- Role of commitment in happiness and mental wellbeing
- Connection between spiritualism and yoga
- Spiritualism and religions
- Being able to cope with difficult situations in life
- Noora’s morning routine
- Commitment to show up every day
- Strong routines as anchors of life
- What is the next level of meditation and is there one?
- Life is not supposed to be easy
- Resiliency and simplicity through meditation
- Definition of yoga and connection to meditation
- Obeying your inner self
- Consciousness
- Living inside your head
- Doing vs being
- Breathing
- Concept of Medivating
Noora’s personal channels
https://www.instagram.com/noora_hartejpal/
https://kundaliini.fi/
https://www.facebook.com/noorahartejpal
Blog:
https://hidastaelamaa.fi/author/noora-lintukangas/
Noora’s books:
https://otava.fi/kirjailijat/noora-lintukangas/
Kundalini Yoga in English:
https://www.3ho.org/kundalini-yoga (basic information about kundalini yoga)
https://www.karamkriya.com/ (Noora's teacher’s pages)
https://www.spiritvoyage.com/ (kundalini yoga mantra music and books)
Motivation to drive you forwards in lifeTaking care of your health and wellbeing is often linked to a wider concept of continuous self development. It is easy to compartmentalise life into different sections but essentially wellbeing is a combination of personal development in all areas in your life. In this special episode Niko & Laura are joined by the @motivaatiomies Jesse Kinnunen who has studied personal development and healthy life for years and hosts the popular Motivaatiomies -podcast in Finland. Join us is in this extra-long and in-depth discussion about personal development, health and fulfilling life!
Topics discussed:
- Jesse Kinnunen Introduction
- Jesse’s journey to self-development and healthy lifestyle
- Secret to living is giving
- What leads to unhealthy habits and unhealthy ways of thinking
- Clarity and the big WHY
- Recognising disappointment and feelings - building resiliency
- Failure and negativity is always an opportunity for growth
- Building motivational mechanisms for everyday life
- Changing lives based on desperation vs inspiration
- Subconscious seek of reasons for unhealthy activities
- Motivation Man’s healthy habits
- Balanced approach to health
- Strictness vs flexibility in healthy habits
- Key to success is sustainability in your healthy habits
- Building your healthy habits into your subconscious makes them to stick
- Jesse’s lifestyle balancing’s effects on blood biomarkers
- Morning routine to energise your day
- Intermittent fasting for the win
- Jesse’s fasting regime
- Deep ketosis dulling emotional response and increasing focus
- Understanding when are you really hungry
- Tips on how to start your fasting routine
- Variety vs routine in your diet
- Wearable devices
- Optimising your sleeping routine
- Nightingale blood biomarker measurements and why it is beneficial to get your bloodwork done regularly
- Taking control of your health
- Setting up the game of life so that you can win
- Jesse’s tips for healthy life
Follow Jesse at:
IG: @motivaatiomies
LinkedIn: Jesse Kinnunen
Podcast (In Finnish): https://open.spotify.com/show/3VYL4vk5m03VbtFcJTO7xR?si=zFxKzIrcRMyhfJpLDIsQZA
Dr. Layne Norton: @biolayne
Francesco Gatti is a true explorer of health and wellness in a holistic way. His explorations in the fields of DNA testing, nutrition, meditation and the Wim Hof Method are very informative and worth taking a note. Too often we focus only on the physical and superficial aspects of health and wellness. In this episode we scratch the surface a bit deeper on the mental and spiritual side too.
- Francesco Gatti - introduction
- Francesco’s morning routine
- Francesco’s journey to meditation, health & fitness
- DNA testing and nutrition (Alessandro Ferretti)
- Francesco’s experimentation with ketogenic diet and intermittent fasting / time restricted feeding
- Nutrition for health and mind sharpness
- Concept of “Not feeling heavy after a meal"
- Balanced approach to nutrition - why it is better not to seek perfection but a nice balance
- The Wim Hof method and how Francesco got into it
- Wim Hof experience, retreat
- Benefits of cold exposure and breathing exercise
- Experience of climbing a winter mountain with only your shorts on
- Connection between cold exposure and breathing
- Francesco’s tips on how to get going with the Wim How method
- Meditation and mindfulness as a lifestyle
- Meditation and spiritual development
- Osho active meditation
- Meditation as a path to “beyond the mind"
- Concept of active meditation
- Francesco’s current meditation practice
- Why it is important to be able to be silent with your thoughts
- Experience of silent retreats
- Francesco’s top tips for healthy and fulfilling life
www.loveosho.com
https://loveosho.com/podcast
We're back! Healthzilla weekly season 2 kicks off with a bang as Dr Jeff Lin joins us for an in-depth discussion about health and wellness through chiropractic and crossfit. Jeff's professional and practical approach to health is very intriguing and his balanced view on health will give you loads of great tips to make adjustments in your daily life.
Topics discussed include:
- Dr Jeff Lin introduction and background
- How Jeff got into chiropractic and crossfit
- How has the lockdowns impacted people’s health overall?
- Bad lifestyle habits
- Ergonomy -related issues
- Exacerbated neck, shoulders, lower back related issues
- Common issues of working from home
- How to improve your home ergonomics
- Differences between osteopathy and chiropractic
- Dr Jeff’s philosophies towards workout, mobility and nutrition
- Importance of full-body functional movements
- Nutrition: unprocessed whole-food based diet, not restrictive as such
- De-stressing through meditation and exercise
- Jeff’s journey with Crossfit
- Benefits of competitive nature of Crossfit
- Why some people get injured in Crossfit and how to avoid it?
- Story of Crossfit Urban Edge
- Importance of community to your health and wellness
- Jeff’s own healthy habits
- Importance of balance in everything
- Why is visiting a chiropractor a good healthy habit to build?
- Jeff’s top tips to improving your health and life through healthy habits
Make sure to visit Crossfit Urban Edge & Alpha Chiro's socials - especially if you are in Singapore.
https://www.facebook.com/alphachiro.sg
https://www.instagram.com/crossfiturbanedge/?hl=en
Meditation is a powerful and somewhat misunderstood tool in improving our health and wellbeing. Perhaps the challenge with meditation is that the effect can only be felt after a longer practice period which can be months or years. The scientific evidence is however there. Meditation simply is a must tool for everyone interested in their health and wellbeing.
Join Aki Ranin and me in this very deep discussion. Part 2 of 2.
0:00 - 15:00Accepting pain and emotions
- Stoicism and acceptance
- Pain
- Distortion of seeking comfort - is life too comfortable?
- Meditation as a tool of acceptance towards pain
- Meditating on hard wooden floor - no pillows or cushions - for increased awareness and acceptance of discomfort and pain
- How to turn comfort seeking into discomfort acceptance
- Emotions - accepting negative emotions peacefully
- Observing emotions and accepting them
- Separate yourself from stimulus and reaction
- Concept of absolute stillness
- Meditation gives you tools to react less to external stimulus
15:00 - 23:00 Accepting and recognising thoughts
- Thoughts are a part of the stimuli: both positive and negative
- How to accept all types of thoughts?
- Why is it important for us to get lost in our thoughts without external stimuli?
- Ruminating about good and bad things
- Becoming aware of moments when you are not carried away by thoughts
- Concept of internal movie
- Understanding the "here and now" concept through meditation
23:00 - 27:00 Meditation routine
- Checking in with sensations, emotions and thoughts
- Meditation anchors
- Raw sensory inputs and meditation
- Finding peace in the moment
- Nothing in meditation is forced
- Breathing in meditation
- Physical sensations
- Mantra
27:00 - 35:00 Long term benefits of meditation
- Monks & meditation
- Control of dream states
- Moments of enlightenment?
- Gradual increase of moments of meditation even though you are not meditating
- Meditation vs flow-state
35:00 - 43:00 Styles and functions of meditation
- Solitude and stillness without stimuli
- Guided meditation
- No one-size fits all
- Studying content about meditation
- Finding your style of meditation
- Building your meditation habit
- How long does it take to build a life-long meditation habit?
43:00 - 53:00 Top tips to start meditation
- Sources: Tim Ferris, Sam Harris' podcasts
- Testing one of the courses can be beneficial (apps like Headspace, Waking up)
- Not necessary to do retreats
- Test different methods and different lengths, including silent unguided meditation
- MARC program (UCLA)
- Benefits are compounding in nature
- Meditation as a fundamental practice
53:00 - 62:00 Thoughts of meditation philosophies
- Differences between wake and dream states
- Is there another state of wakefulness?
- Using meditation to reveal the true form of consciousness hidden from us by the society
- Meditation as a way to engage more with your own life
- Increasing self-awareness through meditation
Meditation is a powerful and somewhat misunderstood tool in improving our health and wellbeing. Perhaps the challenge with meditation is that the effect can only be felt after a longer practice period which can be months or years. The scientific evidence is however there. Meditation simply is a must tool for everyone interested in their health and wellbeing.
Join Aki Ranin and me in this very deep discussion. Part 1 of 2.
Getting started with breathing and meditation (05:00 to 16:00)* The differences between breathing and meditation * The role of thought leaders in meditation incl. Sam Harris * Differences between meditation apps incl. Headspace and Waking Up * Justifying the time investment each day
Building a meditation habit (17:00 to 36:00)* The highly subjective nature of learning to meditate * The role of guided meditation in the beginning to build key skills * Gritting through the unavoidable slumps towards a sustained habit * Relinquishing the search for peak experiences in meditation * Learning to accept meditation and reality as it happens, not as you wish * How to find the right teacher or content to guide you through the first 30 days * The difference between using meditation apps and building your own practice * Comparison between exercise and meditation as the magic pill * The importance of subjective motivations and enjoyment in sustaining habits * Stacking and layering habit cues to reinforce your habit * The difference between seeking comfort and accepting discomfort
Benefits of Meditation: Scientific research (36:00 to 45:00)* Mental performance to get an edge on the competition * Stress relief by separating external stimulus from the internal reaction * Longevity benefits through a lower stress response, hormones, and telomeres * The difference between exercise and meditation in controlling stress * Brain health and dose-dependent effect on brain waves and wiring * Managing the emotional rollercoaster of life through decreasing dependence on dopamine hits * Rewire your brain * Read more on our blog post on Meditation incl. links to research studies
Benefits of Meditation: Subjective experience (45:00 to 51:00) * The importance of short-term subjective benefits vs. scientific benefits * Being comfortable with solitude and your own thoughts * Relief from smartphone addiction and the lost art of doing nothing * Read more on our blog post on subjective experiences and skills of meditation.
Awareness of body, emotions, and thoughts (51:00 to 58:00)* Checking in with your body to be aware yet accept pains and aches * Finding physical representations of negative emotions within your body * The meditation skill of managing anxiety through acceptance * Mental check-in to be aware and accepting of persistent thoughts
To be continued in part 2!
Running is an excellent healthy habit to build and sustain. As a workout regime, running (especially long distance) can be both a massive mental and physical endeavour. In this episode our special guest is Markus Gnirck who is an investor, sustainable future builder, entrepreneur and a competitive runner. Markus' approach to life, health and career through his passion of running is simply exemplary. Markus optimises his life and healthy habits around improving his running performance and gives us some truly awesome advice and tips in terms of hacking health & wellness through massive self-awareness. Being able to self-monitor your body and mind is challenging but at the end really pays dividends when you are able to do it.
Topics discussed include:
- Running
- Vegetarian/vegan nutrition in optimising running performance
- Self-awareness and self-monitoring in optimising recovery
- Meditation
- Role of wearable technology
- Breathwork
- How to design your own running program
Make sure to follow Markus:
IG: https://www.instagram.com/mgnirck/
Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mgnirck/
https://www.facebook.com/lecka.fit/shop
How can we optimise our lives to achieve our goals in health, fitness, family and career? In order to be able to achieve high performance standards in all aspects of life we will need to make hard prioritisation in our lives and build the required mental resiliency through hard work and dedication. This week we are joined by Michael Lints who is a partner in Golden Gate Ventures, investor, philanthropist, keynote speaker and an endurance athlete competing in triathlons, Ironman competitions, marathons and cycling races. His example of how one can build massive mental resiliency and overall life performance through endurance sports is absolutely incredible.
Topics discussed include:
- Michael's journey to endurance sports
- How to prioritise correctly to achieve high performance in different aspects of your life
- How to balance between family, demanding career and high-level endurance sports?
- Impact of endurance training to mental resiliency and how it reflects to all other aspects of life
- Role of wearable technology
- Importance of sleep and recovery
We highly recommend you to follow Michael in social media:
IG: @mhlints
Twitter: @michaellints
https://medium.com/adversus
Health, performance and recovery optimisation is a multi-stringed puzzle where we tend to focus a lot on the single pieces of that puzzle alone but often miss the big picture. In this episode Niko & John discusses the topic with the man himself - Ryan Unsworth - who is the clinical director at Calibrate Health in Singapore, an experienced osteopath with tons of experience from around the world. Ryan's approach to health and wellness management is very holistic and hence the discussion was extremely valuable.
Topics discussed include:
- How to utilise physiotherapy and osteopathy efficiently for recovery and injury prevention
- Tailored approach to adjusting your biomechanics in order to reach your goals
- There is no set criteria for perfect health as this is very personal to each of us
- The importance of holistic health and wellness management as opposed to specialist approach to everything
- Importance of self-education on sustainable body management
- Role of pain in health and wellbeing
- John’s path to recovery from injuries through physiotherapy and osteopathy
- Importance of good work ergonomy
- Crimp, creep & hysteresis - the meaning and mechanics
- Concept of interoception and why is it important
Check out Ryan's services and content at:
https://www.calibrate-health.com/
IG: @calibrate.health
Wearable tech such as Fitbit, Apple Watch, Oura ring and Whoop band can truly help in supporting your healthy habits, whether to track your workouts, sleep, readiness, recovery and so on. It can be quite overwhelming however to start using wearable tech due to the variety of options and different equipment out in the marketplace. In this episode we are joined by Suzaan Sauerman, who is a global transformation consultant delivering growth within fitness, fashion, luxury and retail. She is also a tech investor, columnist and a keynote speaker. Her experience in wearable tech is vast and she could be called the Queen of Wearables. Myself and Laura had an honour to discuss the wearable technology space and how to utilise tech in supporting healthy habits and improve productivity with Suzaan.
Topics discussed include:
- Suzaan's history of using wearable tech for close to 20 years
- Data privacy concerns
- Benefits of wearable tech
- Using tech to improve productivity
- Suzaan's top tips on how to get started in the wearable space
Make sure to follow Suzaan in Instagram and Linkedin:
IG: @suzaansauerman
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/suzaan
Healthy habits are definitely a key high performance enabler. If our goal is to perform at our highest level day in day out in whatever we do in life then building and maintaining your healthy habits is very important. Kim Nystrom is a modern day adventurer and superhero: Europe's fittest 50 year-old, climbed mountains in 4 continents and just a great example of how to pursuit and conquer your dreams and goals regardless of your circumstances. Kim is also a crossfit and weightlifting coach so working out and optimising one's health is a big part of his life. This is a very inspirational episode as Kim shares his experiences and tips to reach your goals.
Topics discussed:
- How to jump from 9-5 to chasing your own dreams and goals
- Effects of surrounding yourself with inspirational people
- Kim's adventure of climbing Mt. Manaslu (8000m+)
- Falling in love with the process rather than the outcome
- Accepting the fact that it will hurt and require ton of work to reach your goals
- Overcoming your internal koala -discussion
- Making only small changes over longer period of time enables building sustainable healthy habits
- Increasing functional movement (such as taking stairs instead of elevator) can be a great and easy addition to your healthy habit toolkit
- There is no one-size-fits-all solution to health - building healthy habits is also a lot about listening to your body and doing activities which feels good for you
- Importance of recovery, sleep and workouts
- Breathing exercises as tools to improve recovery
Make sure to check out Kim's website and links. He also organises expeditions to exotic locations around the world.
https://www.linkedin.com/in/kimnystrom/
https://kimnystrom.fi/
https://vuorelle.fi/
One of the most important healthy habits in our lives is taking care of our mental health. Too often this is overlooked and shadowed by workouts and nutrition. Which are of course important as well but we cannot downplay the role of taking care of our mental health during any time of our lives - and especially during this pandemic lockdown situation where news and social media is full of COVID-19 related negativity and scary stories.
Ari-Pekka Skarp, an organisational psychologist and coach, joins us in this very interesting and in-depth conversation together with Healthzilla co-founder Tommi Ryyppo. AP's expertise and methods are very approachable and valuable and everyone of us can learn something great from his tips and advice.
Topics covered include:
- Mind as a social process
- Implications of pandemic and lockdown to mental health
- Why digital socialising is not the same as physical socialising
- Role of meditation in mental health management
- New ways of coping
- Being curious and accepting your surroundings
- Role of coaches, teachers and therapists
- Benefits of breathing exercises to your mental health
- Tips on starting your meditation and mindfulness practices
Ari-Pekka has a ton of valuable content and we highly recommend you to read his books and listen to his podcast as well:
Books:
G.H.Mead: Mieli ja minä (in finnish)
Mielen laboratorio - tietoisuustaidot ja taitava vuorovaikutus (in finnish)
LESS! Essays on Business Transformations
Websites:
www.mielenlaboratorio.fi
www.tietoisuustaidot.com
www.fractalsauna.wordpress.com
Podcast:
https://anchor.fm/mielen-laboratorio
One key healthy habit to hold on to during this extraordinary time is to keep working out regardless of gyms, sports venues and parks now being closed in many parts of the world. Designing and executing a healthy and simple home workout routine does not have to be rocketscience. Keep it simple, use your wearable devices such as Fitbit, Oura ring or Apple Watch to track the workout effectiveness and keep grinding! In this episode we are joined by our resident workout man Riku Vassinen who appears on the podcast now for second time - the first being in episode 2 from Nairobi, Kenya.
The dicussion topics include:
- how to design a home workout routine
- movement is the key - keeping everything simple
- role of habits and routines in keeping healthy and sane
- tabata
- makeshift weights
One of the key healthy habits clearly is to be mindful of what we are eating and what is the energy and macro & micronutrient content of the food we eat. Key aspect of weightloss for example is to be in a caloric deficit in terms of the food you eat vs how much you burn energy. In this episode John Caro makes his long awaited return to the Healthzilla Weekly -podcast, sharing his journey in the world of calorie counting and healthy cooking. In this episode we discuss:
- The best ways to count calories
- Apps: MyFitnessPal, Healthzilla, MyMacros+
- Why you should count calories
- What are some great ingredients to include in your diet and replace some of the energy-dense and unhealthy ingredients (such as butter, oil, sugar, flour)
- How to count for eating out?
- John's favourite recipes
A good way to analyse whether you are in a caloric deficit is with the Healthzilla app. By using the Healthzilla app in conjunction with e.g. MyFitnessPal and your Apple Watch/Fitbit/Oura/Garmin wearable. Healthzilla app calculates your caloric intake and output and helps you to keep the required caloric deficit for weight loss.
The world is facing an unprecedented pandemic caused by SARS-CoV-2 -virus which leads to the disease called COVID-19. The amount of information about this topic online and in media is immense and can be very challenging to navigate through. In this special episode of the Healthzilla Weekly -podcast we have a special guest Dr. Jussi Leinonen (MD, PhD) discussing the situation and disease from scientific grounds.
In this episode we discuss:
- seasonal influenza comparison
- R0 and the spread of the virus
- Case Fatality Rate and the challenge of measuring this
- Spanish Flu comparison
- analysis of different response strategies to the outbreak
- potential strategies going forwards
- medication and vaccination development
Interesting angle towards this is how we can support early detection of viral infections such as COVID-19 through Heart Rate Variability (HRV) with an app like Healthzilla or wearable devices such as Oura ring or Fitbit.
As we all grapple with the current COVID-19 pandemic and spend more and more time being locked indoors (#stayhome) for a good reason - there will inevitably be a change in our daily routines which might not be the best ones for our overall health and fitness. In this episode we dive in deep with the master herself, Personal Trainer Tiina Simpanen who has over 30 years of experience in the field of health and fitness and explore the best ways to maintain, build and upkeep healthy habits during lockdown or #stayhome periods. We cover topics such as:
- Nutrition
- Weight loss
- Home workouts
- Meditation
- Mindfulness
This is a very pleasant conversation overall discussing all aspects of health and how we can maintain sanity and physical fitness over these challenging time
As the world copes with more and more stress especially now as the pandemic is taking over the world, it is increasingly important to take care of our mental health and find healthy habits which support mental resiliency no matter what we go through in life. In this episode we are joined by Anna Kiukas-Pedersen, director at Kiukas Consulting who is an executive coach and has an immense expertise and experience in the field of executive coaching. Discussion topics include:
- Fear and managing fear
- Stress
- Stress management
- Mindfulness
- Healthy habits
- Controlling the controllable
In this episode Laura and Niko dive into the world of healthy habits while flying. There is a lot of misconceptions about what are the effects of air travel to our bodies. In this episode Laura and me go through what science says and share our best tips to protect our health and wellness and how to be productive during and after long flights.
Topics covered (amongst other things):
- Negative effects of flying to your health
- Cosmic radiation
- Oxygen deprivation
- Stress relief / -management
- Sleep tips
- Mindfulness during your journey
- Travel preparation
- Activities during flight
- Healthy eating during flight
- Workout after flight
Longevity is considered to be a complex topic. It does not need to be so - in the end longevity is simply the sum of healthy habits like physical activity, workouts, mindfulness, meditation, breathing exercises, good sleep patterns, active social life, healthy diet and of course, luck.
In this special longevity episode of the podcast we welcome PhD, MD Miina Ohman to the show to discuss the latest science of longevity - how to lead a long and healthy life.
Topics covered:
- Effects of communicable & chronic diseases
- Mental health
- Diet, Fasting
- Workout
- Impact of genes
- Is there any efficacy on supplements on longevity?
- Blue Zones: what are the generic themes?
- Impact of social interaction to longevity
- Sleep and sleeping patterns
There is no magic pill to longevity. Living a long and healthy life is mostly the sum of your daily habits and coincidence. Hence forming healthy daily habits which support strong mind and body with enough rest and recovery are the keys for a long and healthy life.
Weight loss - the hottest topic of them all. What are the healthy habits to achieve weight loss? So many ways of losing weight and all can be successful as well. What really is difficult is keeping the weight off. In this episode Niko goes through his own experiences in weight loss and shares his journey of losing 24kg in 28 weeks and keep that weight off now for 3 years and counting.
Topics covered:
- basics of energy balance - what drives weight gain and weight loss
- hyperpalatable foods
- energy dense foods
- effect of moving and workout
- Metabolic adaptation
- Flexible dieting
- Reverse diet
- Avatar nutrition
- Optimal food sources
- Mindfulness in terms of your eating habits
- Diet breaks
Healthy habits are not just about sleep, workouts and nutrition. There is a lot of talk about the importance of mobility and stretching in the world of health and wellness. Should you include daily mobility or stretching practice in your habits to improve your health and wellbeing? What does the science say? In this episode we dive in deep with Laura Ranin who has an extensive personal experience in this topic.
Topics covered:
- Stretching in competitive setting (gymnastics)
- Dynamic stretching for warmup and cooldown
- Static stretching
- Role of yoga in mobility development
- Functional benefits of mobility
- Stretching’s role in prevention of chronic pain
- Stretching’s role in injury prevention
- Scientific benefits of stretching
- How to build stretching as a healthy habit?
- Laura’s top tips for beginners
Living a healthy life is all about healthy habits. How to improve your health and wellbeing through healthy habits? This is the main question we are answering with Tommi Ryyppo, who is a businessman, investor and a career rocket who lives his life by taking a really good care of both his physical and mental health & wellbeing. What happens when one meditates for 20 years? How about sleep & exercise patterns? Dive in deep with Tommi and get some awesome tips for healthy habits!
Topics covered:
- workouts, exercise
- stretching and mobility
- nutrition
- sleep
- meditation benefits
- mindfulness
- health and wellness
- hydration
- stress reduction techniques
- using Oura ring for health monitoring
Sleep - the undiscovered healthy habit. Usually the last thing we actually consider in improving our overall health and lives. The complete opposite stands true as you will hear when we dive in deep on sleep science with Aki & Laura. Sleep drives almost all aspects of our health. Therefore it is one of the most important healthy habits we all should focus on. Trackers such as Fitbit, Oura and Apple Watch can help us massively in adjusting and developing better sleep habits.
Topics covered:
- Ways to track your sleep
- apps
- hardware (iPhone, Oura, Fitbit, Apple Watch, Garmin)
- Causality between your actions and your sleep
- Amount of sleep required and why
- Stages of sleep and their function
- Impact of stress to your sleep
- What does alcohol do to your sleep?
- What is considered as sleep deprivation?
- Sleep deprivation’s impacts to your health
- Weakened immune system
- Increased cancer risk
- Increased Alzheimer’s risk
- Increases risk for chronic diseases
- Messes up your metabolism
- May induce a state of pre-diabetes
- Hampers your recovery from workouts
- Significantly decreased cognitive abilities
- Tips and advice on how to improve your sleep
A very informative and detailed package!
One key healthy habit we all should be focusing on is our eating habits. Whether your goal is weight loss, muscle gain or simply health and wellness, what you put in your mouth plays an integral role in your success over the long term. Intermittent fasting as a mean to control weight and health overall has been one of the hot topics of modern day fitness media. Restricting your eating window to only certain hours a day has its benefits and can provide a more manageable and non-restrictive way to control your weight. Serial entrepreneur, digital marketing wizard and model John Caro is an epitome of "busy" and driven with his multiple business ventures and other endeavours and he joins us to share his best tips and advice on intermittent fasting.
Topics discussed include:
- Intermittent fasting for weightloss
- Health and wellness benefits of time-restricted feeding
- Calorie counting
- tips to utilise IF as means to get in shape
- different time windows for eating
Follow John @thedouchejuan on the gram!
Optimising your health and wellbeing with hard-core training schedule and busy career life can be a challenging equation. In the modern world of wearable devices such as Fitbit, Apple Watch and Oura ring we have more tools at our fingertips to monitor our stress levels and recovery.
The second Healthzilla Weekly -episode takes us to Nairobi, Kenya to visit Riku Vassinen, managing partner at Ogilvy Africa and a massive fitness & health fanatic. We spoke in length about how to recover from working out 5-6 times a week and how different aspects like sleep, nutrition and habits can impact recovery.
Discussion topics include:
- Crossfit -focused workout routine
- recovery
- stress management
- cardio
- balanced nutrition approach
- optimised sleep cycle
- healthy habits
In the first ever Healthzilla Weekly -episode we dive deep into morning routines in optimising health and performance together with Healthzilla founders Laura & Aki Ranin who share their routines and discuss how these routines optimise their own health and performance on a daily basis. They have some very interesting and eye-opening morning routines from oil-pulling to meditation. Enjoy the ride!
Instagram:
@laura_healthgeek
@akiranin
@nikoratala