About Episode
In this episode I speak with Natalie Baker, Janace Tashjian, Liam Johnson, and Mike Nichols as we conclude our initial test group. We talk about their progress and improvements throughout the program (as well as setbacks), how caffeine and sugar are addictive substances, exercise and nutrition strategies at the office, and where we go from here.
Episode Highlights
- Developing more awareness
- Caffeine and sugar addiction
- Getting over exercise plateaus
- High intensity exercise to alleviate intense stress
- Strategies to eat healthier at the office
- Making small changes in your daily routine
- How staying healthy can make your work better
- Strategies to stick with the program long term
Useful Links
About Guest
Transcript
Zack Arnold: Hello and welcome to the Fitness In Post podcast. Today I am joined by four members of my initial test group, so we have a full house. So in no particular order, I want to introduce them in Skype order. We have Natalie Baker, Janace Tashjian, Liam Johnson, and Mike J. Nichols. So hello, my test group. How are you?
Mike Nichols: Hello. Hi
Natalie Baker: Zack. Hi everybody.
Zack Arnold: All right. So the reason that we’re here today is we have just concluded our initial beta test group, and you guys were a part of that test group. And what I want to talk about is where you’ve been throughout the process because we’ve checked in quite a bit with Monica and with Dan, and I talked to to Adam a couple of times and David Dean and just spoke with Kanan and Dan again last week, but I haven’t heard from you guys in a while, so I want to get a bit of a sense of where you’ve been with the program, how it’s worked for you, or how it hasn’t worked for you, because we’re just trying to get the information out and be honest. So if it didn’t work, you can say it didn’t work, but then more importantly, I want to talk about where do we go from here? What do we do with the next 90 days? Because the whole idea behind this program is not doing your 90 days, pushing as hard as you can, eating all this food, losing all the weight, and then putting your hands in the air and saying, “Yay, I’m done! and then sitting on the couch and you know just being crappy and eating junk again. So I guess we’ll just go ahead and let’s start with Janace, since we haven’t heard from you in a while.
Janace Tashjian: Oh boy, no pressure at all. It’s interesting. I’ve been watching everybody’s progress and and following the stats, and particularly now that we’re in a place where we’re all voting for our Alpha Force winner, and so impressed with what everybody has accomplished. For me, I have a great spirit about it, but I am suffering from a little bit of mild disappointment in my situation-not in myself or the program, because it’s been fantastic. But I feel like I’ve probably spent the last 90 days getting to a ground zero, and my next 90 days are going to be very much looking like maybe what everyone else was doing in the first 90 days. I’ve had a few stumbling blocks with my health and trying to calibrate the line over which I can’t cross in terms of self injury relating to my back surgeries, and so I’ve really been using the last 90 days as a as kind of a testing ground for what’s going to be successful for me. I’m not disappointed with my overall progress. Of course, there’s been improvement, little things here and there. But if you looked at it on paper for me, Zack, you wouldn’t see a massive change. I do think that the biggest change for me, which I think is the most powerful, are the changes that occur in our awareness, my awareness. That’s been the biggest change, and also in my intention to kind of get to the root of what is going to be the most successful and sustainable. So I’m happy to say that I feel like I’m making progress on that front, even though I haven’t seen sweeping progress from where I began.
Zack Arnold: Okay, well let’s let’s talk about the progress that you have made because I’m always a big fan of looking at the bright side of things and seeing the glass half full, so rather than focusing on the things that you feel like maybe you didn’t accomplish that you wanted to, talk about some of the specific things aside from what you’ve already mentioned that you feel you have accomplished. You know,
Janace Tashjian: Well, I think my largest accomplishment is in acceptance first of all, and not trying to ignore my limitations and finding a sort of gentler approach to my overall health and well-being. I think sometimes what happens with us in the industry is we get a little bit of taste of freedom, a little time off, a little extra blast of energy, etc. etc. And if you’re my personality. You kind of maybe jump in a little bit too heartily, and what I have found for me is that that’s not reasonable for me based on my health history. So acceptance of that, but not giving up on the experimentation, has has been a powerful change. I’ve wound up ending the test group on the Akasha cleanse through the Akasha Center. So I’ve had a fairly sweeping change in my diet, particularly these last two two weeks of the program. I’m still I’m still in the middle of the cleanse, but even though I have a fairly healthy diet. Generally speaking, I’ve discovered some things that I need to change inside of that if I really want to make long-term progress. So I think more care with with my diet, my awareness, and my acceptance have been the most successful. Parts of this project, and by the way, my enthusiasm for the project. I get asked about about it regularly, and I enjoy sharing it, and I enjoy talking about not just what I’m doing, but what I’ve seen other people in the group doing, and the way the community has kind of pulled together and and supported each other, and and that’s extremely positive,
Zack Arnold: Right? And I can say, just from you and I having a very good discourse and constant conversation, and we’re not working together on a daily basis anymore, but we were when we started the program. And your your motivation and your interest and your drive to do something and to make a change has never waned at all. And to me, that’s one of the greatest victories because you’ve obviously dealt with setbacks. But to me, it’s not about failing; it’s about how you react to failure. And I feel like you just keep pushing on and keep trying to find new ways to adjust and adapt. And that’s kind of what this is all about. And we’ll we’ll get to everybody else. But as long as you brought up the Akasha clients, I would love to talk just a little bit about that. Just kind of walk the audience through what exactly is the Akasha cleanse.
Janace Tashjian: Well, the Akasha cleanse is actually is quite simple, and I’m not a doctor, even though I play one on TV.
Zack Arnold: Actually, I’m gonna I’m gonna have to stop you there for a second. You play a neurosurgeon on TV, Doctor Catherine Black. The
Janace Tashjian: Intention of the Akasha cleanse is to sort of rid your body of chemical preservative. It’s about a cleanliness approach to getting your getting yourself reset, if you will. So it has a lot of similarities with the paleo diet, although it it does not include any kind of red meat whatsoever. So essentially speaking, the Akasha cleanse is, you know, no grains, particularly no gluten. There are some whole grains that are allowed, but things like pasta and bread and all of that business is not on the list, and certainly no sugar or sweeteners of any kind, which has been tremendously difficult. But probably the the most radical shift for me on the Akasha cleanse is no caffeine, at least not from black coffee or any kind of coffee. Oh my
Zack Arnold: God, Janace has been off caffeine. I am so glad we don’t work together anymore. Oh, that scares me.
Natalie Baker: Lots of green tea now for
Janace Tashjian: Janace. Green tea is okay. Kombucha is okay. Has a little bit of caffeine in it. But truly, the first three days, I thought I was going to perish. Now I wish I had
Zack Arnold: Seen that.
Janace Tashjian: I’m. I all I could think of was I’m. I’m like a drug addict. Every minute was spent counting the minutes to the end of 21 days until I could have coffee again, and I didn’t think it was ever going to let up. It was incredibly distracting, and it’s such. And I already knew this. This is the thing. I’m enlightened to this, but really knowing and and integrating is is is the power of the success. Coffee, caffeine, coffee and sugar are have got to be two of the most powerful drugs on the planet.
Zack Arnold: They actually are. You’re not speaking in hyperbole. Sugars and caffeines are right up there with heroin and cocaine as far as things that are on the addiction list.
Janace Tashjian: You know, I’m a really good eater. I like to cook. I buy almost exclusively fresh foods and fruits and vegetables and nuts and all this kind of business. There were some interesting things that are eliminated from this diet for various reasons that I eat a lot of. Things like tomatoes and bell peppers are not are not allowed for the time being, because you know they’re, I I believe they can imbalance, or if you consume a lot, they they have some effect on your pH, your acid. You know they’re they’re nightshade, so I don’t know the science of it particularly, but there are a few staples in my vegetable side diet that I had to give up, and then on the fish side, which I love, you know, they want you not eating fish that is high in mercury. So I love fish, but you know, no tuna.
Zack Arnold: Right. You
Janace Tashjian: Know, they want only wild caught fish, right? Salmon,
Zack Arnold: Exactly. And sea
Janace Tashjian: Bass.
Zack Arnold: As far as I’m concerned, that’s something that people should stick with all the time, not just in a cleanse. I refuse to eat fish or buy fish that’s been farm raised, or deep sea caught fish like swordfish or shark or you know any of those larger fish. They’re just going to be loaded with mercury and toxins, even though you think they’re fresh. So I will only buy wild caught salmon or whatever the fish-that’s usually what I eat-is wild caught salmon. But that’s a rule I always stick with. That I learned from doing this cleanse.
Natalie Baker: Well, salmon’s like a food group for you, Zack.
Zack Arnold: Yeah, pretty much.
Janace Tashjian: It’s been, it’s been, it’s been interesting. It’s been very interesting. I’m still fairly distracted about the goal of being done. The end of 21 days, and I don’t plan to completely liberate all all of those things back into my diet. But you know, there’s a few things that I’m looking forward to. Well, what I’m
Zack Arnold: What I’m curious, what I’m really curious to see is how your body reacts once you try caffeine again. I’ve never been a caffeine person. I’ve never been addicted to it. I’ve never been a coffee drinker other than for like two months after my daughter was born because I just could not find any other options. But I I didn’t go through that. But there are certain kind of withdrawal, especially the the you know going through and not dealing with any sweeteners. It was really really tough. But I found that once I did the cleanse and I did try some coffee or tried something sweet. It was at least 10 times more potent and hit me much much harder. I actually just had that experience a couple of weeks ago. I didn’t do 21 days, but I did something that Beachbody just came out with called the three day refresh, which is very very similar except it’s much lower calorie. Basically, the Akasha cleanse you can eat, you know, regular meals and eat as much as you want. You’re just eliminating toxins and processed foods. But on the Beachbody three day refresh, well, you are meal
Janace Tashjian: Replacing. They do want you to meal replace at least one meal a day, and they have their own cleanse. But I’ve substituted it with Shakeology,
Zack Arnold: Right? Yeah, exactly. They have
Janace Tashjian: Their own cleanse pack, but you know, there’s one thing. There’s one thing that I want to say on your point that you’re making right now, which I actually think has a lot of relatability to the whole program, which is with things like caffeine in particular. You know, I’ve I’ve read various studies, and one of the things that seems to be powerful control, if you will, is that there’s an addiction to the ritual. There’s an addiction to the ritual of what we consume, and coffee, in in particular, I think, is one where speaking from a ritualistic standpoint, that thing you do first thing in the morning before you do anything else, or the first thing you do at the a sign of stress or a comfort consumption, and and that could be anything. It doesn’t need to be coffee. And I think that that ritualistic concept can be construed in a positive and negative light, and it’s the type of program that’s being built here, and and everybody working so hard to change their habits and change their rituals, is finding something that is equally comforting or enlightening or uplifting that isn’t those things that are creating a negative impact on my results. So I’m looking at refining positive rituals.
Zack Arnold: Right. Well, if there’s one thing that I can relate to, it’s the ritual. Even though for me it’s not coffee and caffeine, the way that I can relate to that is that my crack cocaine is cereal in the morning, and it’s really sugary kid cereal. And for years, well into adulthood, I might add, it was basically a sugary type of yogurt and a sugary cereal, and that was the way that I started the day. And there’s really no worse day to there’s there’s really no worse way to start your day and feel awful for the rest of it than having lots and lots of sugar and carbohydrates, and for me that was my ritual. And what I couldn’t figure out was how do I start the day without cereal, and that was one of the things that I really struggled with in the cleanse. Was okay, well, I’m gonna have to have like steel cut oatmeal, or you know, like whatever the other items were on the list. It’s been a while since I’ve done it, but after I got through the cleanse, it’s like, well, you know what? I don’t really need that ritual anymore because I spent enough time doing this. It wasn’t just a two or three day thing. Doing it for those 21 days really made a big difference. And now I don’t even want cereal. I don’t even buy it anymore. It’s the first time in my entire life that I haven’t had a box of cereal in my pantry. So now for me, it’s either some type of Shakeology in the morning, or it’s just eggs and avocado. It’s something that’s really high fat, high protein with zero carbohydrates, and now that’s what I crave because I’ve replaced that ritual and replaced the chemicals that are going into my body, and it’s completely changed the way that I feel. But I can relate to that that feeling of ritual because for me, it was always yogurt cereal in the morning. So I I know how you feel. I feel your pain.
Janace Tashjian: Well, let’s talk again in another week or two and and see if I’m if I’m over my if I’m over my coffee ritual.
Zack Arnold: Right, exactly. All right. Well, I’m going to move on to mr. Mike Nichols because I just I miss you, Mike, and I haven’t talked to you in a while. So I want to know what’s up with you.
Mike Nichols: Well, let’s see. You know, when we did this before, you had I I had said before that I normally, when I finish a job, especially if it goes on for a few months, the very first thing I did is I was always calling it fix it from post, where I would start some exercise program and get back, and then you know meeting with you and you were trying to put it in my head that. That’s kind of like a yo-yo, you know. You’re fixing something, and then I’ll go back and demolish myself again. And if I could keep with a regular program, and that’s why I was interested in this. And right before we started, I was on a roll, and I mean, I lost 14 pounds doing this, you know, on on my own. And then when I started with you, I was doing a lot of the weight training stuff, and you pointed out something to me is that hey, if you noticed after this first month that you really haven’t lost any weight, I’m like, yeah, that’s true. You you told me that this has happened to you before, so I switched. I think I did still some weights after that, but I switched and you had me do the P90X three, and I had done P90X the regular one years ago, and although after about 40-five minutes, that’s about all I could take. That’s a that’s a commitment that I wasn’t able to do, especially with working. So you get frustrated like you’re failing, but with this new one, I was actually impressed for 30 minutes that even if I hate doing it, there’s a point at where it says 16 minutes you’ve done, I’d be like, I can, I can manage that, you know. So I still keep going. It’s so quiet. Yes.
Zack Arnold: Why I was letting you speak. Well, it’s it’s funny that you bring. I have a
Janace Tashjian: Question. Oh, sure. Go ahead. Question too. No, I just wanted to know if you were doing if you were doing the Power 90.
Mike Nichols: I was. I when we started, I chose that and I ordered it when it showed up. But in addition, I would do three days a week about about 90 minutes of of weight training, like lifted weights and one for back, legs, and and arms each three days of the week. And then I would include cardio, as as Zack knows. I was doing it just about every day, but I was doing elliptical cardio, and I was just topping out like nothing was happening at that point, I was burning a lot of calories from the weightlifting. And the the the thing I will note is about a little shy of two months ago, I took on the producing editing of a film that’s playing in Chicago now in a week, and so the amount of stress has jumped super high. And I find that when I don’t do the weightlifting part of it, that seemed to help me there. Even though it didn’t have anything, maybe it has nothing else to do with the the fitness part of it. But that that ritual seemed to to help me in that aspect as a way to kind of tear through some of that stress.
Zack Arnold: Yeah, that that’s one of the the biggest reasons that I stick with these regimens now, and I don’t see them as blocks of all right. I’m going to be really good for 90 days, and then I’m going to be fine, and I’m going to go back to my routine because I did that yo-yo for years. And what I found is that the busier I get, the more I am now craving doing this exercise because it’s what levels me out and it’s what kind of cleans out the anxiety. Like for example, I have four conference calls today, all back to back to back to back, dealing with both Fitness In Post, and go far, and dealing with the upcoming job that I’m going to be doing. But I had like 30 minutes in between one of them, so I just popped in P90X3 the challenge and busted out a bunch of chin ups and push-ups, and I felt great for the rest of the day, and I didn’t feel overwhelmed by these calls, whereas before that, it was just it just kind of felt like never ending. Like, oh my god, am I ever going to get off the phone? And I’m not getting anything done. But as soon as I busted out 20 or 30 minutes of high intensity exercise, I was like, up, this is easy. So I really am a big advocate of even if you don’t have the programs, even if you don’t have a gym membership, if you’re really busy, you’re in an edit suite. Things are crazy. You have people coming in and out, but you have 10 minutes. Just bust out some high intensity exercises like push-ups or burpees or even jumping jacks. That’s going to clean your head out, and it’s going to alleviate the anxiety, and it’s going to keep you going longer. So I’m a big advocate of those short bursts of high-intensity exercise.
Mike Nichols: And I think that’s one of those things that you’ve kind of learned from years of your successes and failures of finding a way out of that, you know. And then you finally get to this point where you’re trying to share this with other people.
Zack Arnold: Yes, I’ve learned it from my years of failures, not years of successes.
Mike Nichols: And that’s where I’m like, if you ask me now, I’d be like, well, there’s I have a lot of successes, but I also feel like there’s some failures too. Where the first thing to go is keeping track of what I did. I noticed that hey, I don’t have my heart rate monitor on, and I’ll be like, “That’s all right. I’ll just do the exercise anyway. Like I was maybe missing some of that competing stuff that we kind of started out with, and then at a point when Natalie got involved, but there’s I can’t beat her. Natalie, there’s no, there’s no beating her.
Natalie Baker: Yeah, but I can lift maybe 40 pounds. Like I can’t even do the bar. Like I am not. Yeah, I’m up to 25 push ups. And I am,
Mike Nichols: I am happy now too because now that Zack kind of pushed me to do the the P 90x the three version, that that section that he just said, the challenge tends to be. I mean, you’ll complain about it, but that tends to be my favorite because I feel like I I get the most out of my day from that 30 minute workout through everything that I wanted to accomplish. And you know, when I first started, I told you how bad it was because they tell you to call out a number of how many pull ups you could do or how many push ups. And so I went okay. This many, and you get humbled really fast because 30 minutes of doing the same amount, you’re dead. So I had to keep lowering that number to something a little more manageable and realistic. But then, like you said, once you kind of do that, it feels minuscule to what maybe you could do if somebody just said, “Hey, do some pull-ups, but you’re doing this for 30 minutes, so there was a success in that. And that’s the one that I think the two for me is that one. I think I get the most benefits out of mental well-being and physical well-being, and just the whole day. The one that surprises me is the yoga, which is something I’ve never dabbled with, and that by far is probably not the best thing to start out with because it’s super hard.
Zack Arnold: Agreed,
Mike Nichols: But there are things in there that I had no idea I could do as well as I could, and there are things that I just I struggle with, and so I have to kind of cheat a little bit to go through that. But the sleep I get that night best.
Zack Arnold: Yeah, that that’s a huge benefit from doing high intensity exercise is that you’re basically forcing your body to recover, and you just kind of pass out and get really, really deep sleep. And if you keep it up and do these programs on a regular basis, and you’re doing these high intensity exercises four or five days a week, like you just don’t get bad sleep anymore. You know, I mean, so so it’s really a great way to kind of manage stress for the long term, and it’s gotten to the point where I just I know if I go more than a day or two days without it, I’m not craving coffee or craving sugar. I’m craving exercise because I miss the way that it makes me feel afterwards, and that to me is when you’ve you’ve gotten over the hump when it just becomes a ritual. Like Janace had said, the ritual is I need high-intensity exercise to make me feel like myself, but when you spend so much time working in that dark room over a period of years, you lose that sense of yourself and what it feels like to quote unquote feel like yourself again. And it takes a little bit of time to get there. But what I’ve really found through these challenge groups, especially doing the the second one that I’m working with now is that once people hit the five or the six week mark, just like they did in the beta group, they just take off. And I have people in the the group that I’m doing right now that are just completely changing and feeling amazing, and they’ve finally gotten over that hump. So really, it takes a little bit of patience, but then you hit that point, you do not want to go back.
Mike Nichols: Yeah, food and you know preparing food and things like that-it’s-it’s just always been a challenge for me. And if I am editing in that creative space, which happens a lot too, I will go into your own head, and you could just kind of stay in there. You need somebody else to sort of break you out. But if somebody calls me on the phone and wants me to switch phone carriers, I’ll just do it. You know, like I’m not completely awake, so to speak. I’m kind of in the zone,
Zack Arnold: Right?
Mike Nichols: And the things that suffer are tracking, eating, drinking water, the the things I’m trying to do when I’m staying awake. So I have to get better at that,
Zack Arnold: Right? Well, one of the things that we’re really going to focus on more, I’ve I’ve decided based on user feedback and based on the way the program is growing, it’s kind of growing much faster and much bigger than I ever imagined, and we’re only just starting. But I’m going to be rebuilding the entire website from the ground up, including a blog, which is already live. That’s going to include multiple contributors, and we’re also going to be featuring entire sections. Like for example, Natalie is going to be helping us build an entire section of really quick, easy recipes that you can make while you’re at the office and you know working in an edit suite. Like for example, you had you had said, “Well, give me a suggestion for what I could do, and I said, “Get yourself a vegetable steamer. I got it, and and it’s amazing, right? I use mine every single day, and you can do it at the office. All you need is a microwave and water, and I’m pretty sure everybody listening to this podcast has access to microwave and water. Yeah, my
Mike Nichols: Favorite my favorite suggestion that you have made is I had a magic bullet and i I don’t think that thing accomplishes very much, but mixing things faster than you could do with a spoon.
Zack Arnold: Right.
Mike Nichols: It’s just it’s nothing special. And so when you were kind of tossed around the NutriBullet thing, I still had that stigma in my head that oh yeah whatever.
Zack Arnold: Right.
Mike Nichols: But now that I got that thing, that’s incredible.
Zack Arnold: Yep, it’ll change your life.
Mike Nichols: And in a geeky sort of way, it’s kind of fun to shove a bunch of stuff in there and and chop it up. And and I’ve been making drinks more than I ever did with vegetables.
Zack Arnold: Yep,
Mike Nichols: Some were pretty bad, but I’ve I managed to find my recipes that were
Zack Arnold: Well. There’s a learning curve. There’s there’s no question about that. But what I’m hoping is that within the next one to three months, we build an entire database just of user-submitted recipes, where somebody can say, “Oh yeah, like for example, I take a George Foreman grill to whatever job I have now. I used to do it in the past, and I had never really paid attention, but now I’m using George Foreman grill and a vegetable steamer, and I can pretty much make whatever I want. So as long as I have that, I can literally have a steak and a bunch of vegetables for lunch, and it takes me 10 minutes, and I can do that at any job. So if somebody’s like, “How do I do that? they can go onto the forum, and Natalie’s putting together a bunch of recipes, and we’re hopefully gonna start put together start putting together a whole library of videos. It’s like here’s how you can make this NutriBullet in two minutes. So I’m really hoping to build up all of this information. So when somebody’s like, “Well, I don’t know what to do if I’m sitting at my desk and I need to eat healthy, bam, go to this link and you’ve got it. So it’s going to take time, but that’s where we’re going. I
Mike Nichols: Really like that because a lot of these programs and stuff-they’ll tell you, you know, they’ll throw it. Hey, you need to eat more of this. You need to eat more of that. And as soon as you just sort of read that, there’s no visualness to it. Yeah, it just feels like work. And there’s also
Zack Arnold: No understanding of what our specific environment is like and the limitations that we have with our time and with our resources. So we’re trying to do it, saying we do this every day. Here’s how we’ve adapted, and now you can try it yourself.
Natalie Baker: And what I’m trying to do with the recipes is make something, like make things that you can make at home really quickly, and then just take for leftovers. You know, like I put up a quinoa pasta and vegetable recipe. You can literally make that at the beginning of the week, and then have that for two days or three days at lunch, depending on how much you make. It’s just you know you just put it in the microwave and you’re done. So it’s so easy to take these sorts of things with you to work and to eat healthy. And I like taking my lunch anyways. Then I don’t have to think about where am I going to go. I don’t know what am I going to do. Well, I got my lunch in the fridge. It’s done. So hopefully that helps people. All
Zack Arnold: Right. Well, I really feel like we’ve just abandoned Liam. So we we need to bring Liam into the conversation. And I want to know what’s up with you, my friend.
Liam Johnson: Where do I start?
Zack Arnold: Just, just tell me how the program has gone for you. How about that?
Liam Johnson: I think I’ve been very counterculture on the program, and it’s not been intentional. I never did any of the Power 90 or P90X type stuff. I never did any of the supplements. No Shakeology. No brain octane oil. No coffee bulletproof. I tried early on. I tried multiple wristbands, but what I wanted was the Fitbit Force. And right when I went to buy it, they took it off the market. And I specifically want that one over the Flex because of the altimeter that was built into it. So I tried the the Polar Loop and ended up taking that one back, and the with things Pulse, and ended up taking that one back, and ultimately I ended up just sticking with the Fitbit app that’s actually on the phone and using my phone as a pedometer. So it works as long as I have my phone on me, and basically what I’ve been using the entire time, pretty much since NAB, and I believe we started this directly after NAB, correct? Yeah. But other than that, it’s mainly been a an idea of trying to get myself into a frame of mind of making the small changes, as you put it. For example, for me, for the work outside, I found a couple apps. One of them called Pump Up, and the other one called Seven Minute Pro, which are basically the pump up one allows me to build a how much time do I have? What kind what kind of stuff do I want to do? Do I want to do high intensity? Do I want to do strength? Do I want to do cardio? And it gives me a list of things to do in that time period, and it just goes and it actually starts it and plays it out, and I’m supposed to follow it along all the way until the end of the time period. So whether it’s five minutes, whether it’s 50 minutes, I can kind of gear something up, and I try to do that at least once a day. What my my routine had been was to basically do it for at least 10 minutes every morning, either that one or the seven minute pro. If I didn’t want to take the time to actually build a a a routine because the seven minute pro actually just starts playing automatically, and you just got to start doing what it says as it goes along. So I’ve been using a mix of those, and on the weekends I try to fire up the Wii and do the Wii Fit system, which and that’s what I’ve been using to both track my weight and do much more a much more variety of things. Like it has a whole yoga system built in there. It has lots of cardio type exercises, and they’re all fun. You’re just sitting back and having a blast, just playing this game and working out while it goes through. So that’s kind of been my main approach to things, for the most part, over the past few months.
Zack Arnold: All right. Well, then, based on the the changes that you had made, what kind of results did you see? And it doesn’t have to be measurements or weight. Just kind of the you know your overall sense of who you are now, as opposed to where you are three months ago. What do you feel has changed?
Liam Johnson: Well, I’ve mentioned this in the past. I don’t own a car, and I live in Los Angeles. And because of that, I actually already have a pretty high level of walking that actually happens on a day-to-day basis. I walk to the grocery store, which is my closest one is a half mile away, which it means it’s a mile round trip every time I go. My daughter’s daycare is a mile away, which puts it at two miles each time that I actually go and walk to pick her up and bring her back. And that’s that’s just for the for picking up or dropping off. It’s two miles in the morning to drop her off and two miles in the afternoon to pick her up if I’m the one doing both. So I, in a way, I. Try to start focusing on that more, as Mike pointed out like ages ago. Now it becomes a game, and with the fact that I was actually monitoring the stuff instead of just actually doing it, it became this. Okay, so where where am I at now, and where am I at before? And that was my problem with the other the other fitness monitors was that they weren’t giving me accurate numbers in the way that the phone actually seems to be doing. I mean, it’s a minimum of 5000 steps for between here and my daughter’s daycare. So when it’s telling me it’s only 2000 steps, or some of them actually told me 10,000 steps for that same walk one direction, it’s like I’m not exactly sure what to trust on these as much anymore. So I’ve been having a little bit of problem with the fitness monitors. I kind of want to test somebody’s out and see how the numbers line up to where I think I’m falling, and that’s why I think that the phone. I have a 5S, so the M7 processor actually keeps a solid record of these steps and the type of movement that actually goes throughout the day and for a couple weeks actually,
Zack Arnold: Right?
Liam Johnson: All at once, without. I mean, it loads up the information every time you launch the app. The I do notice a bit of more energy, but it’s not like it’s a drastic difference. And I’ve always felt like I was falling behind everyone else because everyone’s like super excited and about the what they’re doing and stuff, and I’m like, I’m happy that I’m doing it, but I’ve I haven’t been like super exuberant all the way across the board. I didn’t go into it and invest in everything across the board, so I always felt like I was the black sheep of the group in a way. But I was still trying to push along because I don’t know. I’m not sure if I’m putting the words together in the way that I want to right now,
Zack Arnold: No, I I I think I understand where you’re coming from. You know what I think is important. I don’t structure these groups so everybody has to do the exact same 10 things, and it’s like if you only do five of the 10, you’re out of the group and you can’t be a part of it. The idea is to structure something that kind of works for everybody in their own way, and you’ve done that. So if you feel like a black sheep, I mean, I guess there’s nothing that I can do about that part of it. But I hope, I hope that we haven’t made you feel that way because the whole idea behind this program is you design it from the ground up based on something that works for you, and it sounds like you’re seeing positive results from the choices that you’ve made.
Liam Johnson: Yeah, well, I’ve been my my my my approach has been to get as close to what you guys are doing as possible without the investment. I mean, I I haven’t I haven’t taken the steps to spend the the funds that are required for like a heart rate monitor or or the the Shakeology or the brain octane oil and stuff, and those seem to be the big ones that are really popular among the group. I replaced olive oil, for example, with coconut oil, which which has actually been a surprising flavor boost for a lot of the food that I for when I actually use it in cooking.
Zack Arnold: Right,
Liam Johnson: Just the little things across the board. I mean, most of my food had already been changed the way that I cook now because my daughter just turned three years old, and she eats everything that I cook. So it’s always been about making sure that was as healthy as possible for her, and in doing so, I end up eating healthier as a result. And
Janace Tashjian: That’s great. Well, wait
Zack Arnold: Before you go any further. How are you getting a three-year-old to eat what you cook. You’re gonna have to tell me how that works because I haven’t figured that out yet.
Liam Johnson: I’ve never had a problem, honestly. She she’s just been everything you would expect her or expect a normal three-year-old or a normal kid her age to do. She seems to be doing the complete opposite, and I don’t know if that’s good or if that’s bad, but I haven’t had any problems with it yet. In a way that I I foresee any problems in the future going, you know.
Mike Nichols: You know what, Zack Liam is starting a website. He would like you to be a part of the test group.
Zack Arnold: Cooking for kids in post. I’m
Janace Tashjian: Ready. I’m ready to go out to my living room and drag out the Wii Fit board. I got to check this out.
Mike Nichols: How is that, Liam? Is that
Liam Johnson: I’ve had a blast with it. I mean, my my mom was visiting, so my daughter got to spend time with her grandma over the last few weeks, and even she got in on it. So it ended up becoming this game when I had other people involved that wanted to kind of okay, you did the the hula hoops now and you’ve dodged all the soccer balls, so let me go ahead and give it a try. And we keep just switching it off, and we ended up going for hours longer than I would have in a normal workout session. So if you definitely have someone to play off of, go definitely go that route. But otherwise, even if it’s just me, it’s just a matter of throwing it on for an hour or two and doing the different routines that I set up, and it’s it’s it’s really fun, and it’s just it’s a matter of where you stand in terms of if you get that kind of enjoyment out of the games or not, or if you’re actually doing. Doing them as they have, as they tell you to do them, because if you can still make it seem like you’re doing the game, even though you’re not actually physically exerting yourself, if you know what I mean,
Zack Arnold: Right?
Liam Johnson: And one of the things that it really enforces is posture. So every time you even boot it up, the first thing it wants to do is a posture test to try to make sure that you understand how you’re holding your weight now. I’ve gone from roughly about a 40% to 60% one leg over the other, to around a 40-750 50-three. So it’s just the posture really matters, and that’s one thing that I believe is actually part of the the Fitness In Post thing is making sure that you actually are sitting up and holding your weight better.
Mike Nichols: Agreed. Do you stand at any machine name?
Liam Johnson: I do not. One of the things I’ve been trying to slowly build up to is get to that point, but I haven’t yet. I picked up a treadmill earlier this year that I don’t use as often as I would like to say that I do, but the idea is to eventually put a desk on top of the the treadmill there and make it a walking desk at the same time.
Zack Arnold: Well, we all know how I feel about that. You know that that book
Mike Nichols: From a long time ago saying about Walter Murtz stand up and editing. And and if you were to show me that, I’d be like never gonna happen, never gonna happen. And then a year ago, listening to Zack, you know, Twitter post talking about that, I’d be like, “Yeah, it’s not going to happen, and I could say for the first time, like weeks ago, I went, “You know what? I’m gonna stack some stuff up. I’m gonna try standing.
Zack Arnold: Nice score, love it.
Liam Johnson: It was killing me. I just finished up a gig at Viacom a couple weeks ago, and I was in a bay that had a standing desk behind me that was not set up, and the they were they were going to set it up as a Pro Tools workstation. But I’m like, can you just move my system over there so that I can just stand while I’m working this gig? And it just never they never allowed it to happen because that was a designated high end station, whereas I was just working as the assistant on this Spike TV pilot. So now
Zack Arnold: Let’s move on to to Natalie, who’s been long neglected in this podcast so far. So, how have things gone for you, Natalie?
Natalie Baker: They’ve gone really well. I have I have my race Arroyo Creek Half Marathon in Simi Valley on Sunday, so I’m excited about that. And I feel I feel pretty prepared for it. I’m not sure. Last time I did a half marathon, I was training for a marathon, so I don’t know. We’ll see how it goes. So yeah, I mean, when I started when I started this, I was just I was just in a place of frustration with myself mostly because I was just so. I mean, I talked to Zack about this all the time. I would say, you know, I just feel so jittery and kind of I have all this anxious energy, and I don’t like it, and I don’t, and like I can’t, but I can’t discipline myself to get up. So it’s a combination of being frustrated with being busy and then also not being disciplined, because even though I had a long drive and like they were long days. I could get myself out of bed at seven and do a quick run. Like I just didn’t want to. So now, what’s really helped is having the support and having like everybody around to sort of to be there as a group. And I actually realize what’s helpful is doing these podcasts and listening to everybody’s progress. Like I like keeping in touch with people via Facebook, but what’s actually really nice is when we all kind of check in like this. So you kind of hear that everybody’s got the same issues, no matter where they’re at in their fitness level or in the program or what they’re doing. Like everyone sort of has the same type of issues and the same thoughts and the same frustrations, and so it’s nice to know that you’re a part of something that you know. It’s not just you. It’s always nice to know it’s not just you. But yeah. But now I’ve sort of gotten to the point where I need to run. I need to get up and do my workout. You know, I’m not terribly disciplined with a schedule right now because I’m working from home, so I can go wherever, whenever I want. So that’s kind of an issue. I should just get up and go, but you know I’m doing. I’m keeping my workouts, and they’re going well, and I’m not injured, so I’m I’m happy. I’m happy with the progress, and I’m happy where I’m at mentally. Yeah, just happy to not feel stressed out and anxious anymore. We’ll see how it goes if I have my next job, but
Zack Arnold: Yeah, we’re we’ll see how well that works real soon. In about four weeks, we’ll see how that works out. We’ll
Natalie Baker: See. So, but right now, I am feeling great. I’m just going to look back on this moment and say I felt great. We’re
Zack Arnold: We’re gonna we’re gonna keep it going, which is the the next and most important topic of conversation tonight. Is we’ve gone through everybody’s progress so far, but the big question is where do we go from here? What does the next 90 days look like? And I don’t, I don’t have the answer to that. But I kind of want to talk about that with you guys because you’re my test group. So the most important thing to me is not that you’ve had results and we walk away from those results. Is how do we keep moving forwards? So just start throwing out ideas and let’s just kind of brainstorm together. I know the one thing we’ve talked about is we’re going to be beginning an alumni group, so we always have that connection with everybody that’s been in the program. But what are some other things or strategies that you guys are using to stick with this and make it lifelong, long-term changes rather than just short-term progress?
Natalie Baker: I think making a schedule, like really saying this is the time that I have to exercise, and knowing that even when you are stressed out and you have that long job and those long hours, just sort of knowing that there will be a half hour or maybe 40-five minutes or an hour that you’re going to take for you, and it’s going to make your work better. I think just thinking that what you’re doing, because we’re all you know post. It seems most of the people in this group and a lot of people in post production take their work very seriously, and it consumes a lot of their days and hours and lives. So knowing that there’s something that’s going to make your work better, I feel like is really it’s just a really nice way and a nice thought to to keep yourself motivated. Like this, I do this because it’s going to be everything’s going to be better because I do this. It’s not a distraction. This makes me better. This makes my work better. So that’s that’s what keeps me. Hopefully, that’s what I’m going to use when my next job comes around and I have long days to keep going.
Zack Arnold: Okay. Well, I love that. Who’s next?
Janace Tashjian: I’ll I’ll go next. For me, I have a lot of reasons why I want to continue to develop this, and I think the biggest one is sitting out in the other room waiting for me to get off the phone, and that’s my son, my 11-year-old son. I want to keep up with him. I want to be in good health and strong, and be around for him, and not have to hear myself say, “No, I can’t do that. No, I’m not up for it. No, I’m not well, or I’m too tired. I find it interesting that it takes so much coordination and so much effort to to do something that’s actually not a luxury, and so I think getting over the hump of leaving the luxury concept behind and knowing that it’s a necessity is the trick. So for me, I’m continuing to develop something sustainable, and I want to find that, and I want to want to do it. Discipline, I think, as Natalie pointed out, is one of the hardest parts because sometimes that extra 20 minutes in bed is all you want, or all you can think about. And evaluating the trade-offs is is an ongoing process. It’s really not cut and dried, and it’s going to be different every day. So I think you know, being willing to kind of roll with the punches and still maintain the discipline for me is is going to be a critical little puzzle to solve. Okay.
Mike Nichols: Well, no, I think it just piggybacks on kind of what both of them said, and I I think the agenda for myself is kind of what I highlighted earlier. Is I I have to try harder to make sure I set this time aside. I know sometimes where my schedule’s been, the exercise time is sporadic. I never have any one set time to do it, and that would be great if I did, because it could certainly be more regular that way. It’s the same way with eating. You know, that’s what I want to get better at. As far as even participating in this group, I think it’s been really great because I’m going to say Zack, obviously, but you know, Natalie and and Dan and Monica have really been. You know, when you’re in a bad mood or something, you feel like I don’t want to post something on Facebook because that might come through, and your positive energy and stuff is like, ah, you know what, I need to, I need to step it up a little bit. So I don’t want to lose that connection, and I understand we’re still going to keep that going. So I’m going to try to post more.
Zack Arnold: Got it. I love to hear that.
Mike Nichols: Can I add something else? Is and Liam, because I don’t, I don’t get to see you very often. But your perspective on how you’ve been following these things by not exactly using the, you know, because this is this is a beta or it’s a alpha. Zack, is this experiment? And some of these things you were suggesting things to us that you’ve used before and had success with, which is why you suggested them to us, and the tracker, I guess, was and the and the software is things so that you could actually see what we were doing and and monitor that. But I like what Liam was saying that some of these other things I would like to see you post, you know, more about that kind of stuff because the the whole idea about being able to use the phone without using the the thing, I I didn’t. I mean, it does work on mine, but I would love to. I didn’t know that.
Liam Johnson: Yeah, Adam is the one who actually pointed it out to me. I bought the polar loop just before NAB because I knew that that would be a great opportunity to start monitoring my steps. And Adam was like, “Why not just use the app? And I believe he picked up his Fitbit, the one he wears on his wrist shortly after. But before that, he was using the phone, and I just turned it on to have kind of mirror the stuff. And I used it for about a month before I just gave up on all the others and just started using just the phone. Now the problem with using the phone, though, is that it’s not always in my pocket. When I’m at work, for example, and I’m going office to office all throughout the day, my. Usually on the desk or charging at my desk, just sitting there. It doesn’t stay in my pocket while I’m doing all that little stuff, so I miss out on a lot of that tracking. But otherwise, it’s just been a great tool just to keep track of the general, just making sure that I reach a certain threshold for the day.
Zack Arnold: Well, what I can say is that the the strategy that I find works for me the best is that I no longer set ultimate goals, but I set benchmarks. And what that means is that I’m now involved with like Spartan races and Tough Mudders. And the idea is that I say at the end of three or four months I do the event, then I go ahead and I just do the next event, as opposed to I’ve now achieved my goal and I’m finished and have done everything that I want to do. So that to me has been the biggest thing. the The second thing that I want to do for the whole group, like I’d mentioned previously, I want to have an alumni group so we can all continue to chat, be on Facebook, track each other’s progress on on the Fitbit leaderboards, on the Digifit leaderboards, and all be accountable to each other. But the other step that we’re taking, that we’re starting to implement, is the people that are in these groups actually starting to create their own groups and being coaches and leading them the way that I’m leading this group and letting this grow onwards into more and more circles. So my my view is strictly focused on making sure that this lasts long term, and I’m just not integrating people for three months and then saying goodbye and good luck. It’s just this is going to be a long term investment of you know people’s time and energy and just developing a healthy attitude and moving forwards. So there are a lot of plans in place to make sure that this is much longer than just a 90 day type experience. So, for those that are interested in being in a challenge group, know that you’re you’re basically joining a family of people that are joining this revolution and deciding that they want to take back their health. So, those are some of the strategies we’re implementing to make this happen.
Mike Nichols: I like that phrase about take back your health more so than hey, you’re going to lose weight if you take this pill, kind of a thing that take back your health because that also includes your mental health and just your physical well being. Exactly, all of us need that,
Zack Arnold: And those are all things that I that I’m squarely focused on because I really feel like for people to accept that we just have to be in bad health to do our jobs in this industry, I don’t feel that that’s to me that’s no longer acceptable. We need to realize that there are ways and strategies to stay healthy in this industry. And if people are putting us in a place where we can’t implement those strategies, we need to say something. So, for example, what Liam talked about going through earlier, where they said, “Well, no, you can’t use the standing workstation. I want things like that to stop happening. I want editors and sound editors and visual effects artists to start being empowered to take back their health and say no. I’m going to work at a standing workstation because that’s important to me and my work output and my health. That’s the position that I’m in now, where I just tell people, if you’re hiring me, just be ready for my standing workstation and my treadmill. And if that’s a problem, then you don’t have to hire me because that’s just a part of who I am and what keeps me going during the day. But I don’t feel like a lot of people are at that point yet where they feel empowered enough to do that. But that’s where I want to get this entire industry. Is over the next few years we just take back our health collectively as an industry and say enough is enough. We are no longer accepting that our industry has to be unhealthy, so that’s where this is going long term.
Natalie Baker: Can start putting that in the safety video when you get your union. When you get in the union, you got to do your safety video. Start saying this is if you want a standing work desk, demand it.
Zack Arnold: But you you have to be careful because now you’re standing instead of sitting, so the distance from you to the floor is now greater, and make sure if it’s chilly that you wear a parka because it can get chilly in the computer rooms. Anybody that that’s watched the safety video is laughing. Anybody that hasn’t thinks that I’m just lost my mind.
Natalie Baker: It’s it’s like that episode of The Office when they when they go through the the factory or the work the warehouse and they have the forklifts and everything, and the and you could lose an arm and whatever in the warehouse, and then they go to the office, and they say, “Well, some people sometimes get cold. You may want to bring a cardigan or a light sweater. Yeah, that episode of The Office. Anybody seen that? That’s pretty much that’s the safety video.
Zack Arnold: Yep.
Natalie Baker: Yeah, I agree. I mean, I just, I think that you know, any any sort of you know, it it tends to happen that when you work on a hard job, you just you just go all out and you get in and you want to do a great job and you take pride in your work and you forget about you and it only becomes about the work and that just can’t happen anymore. You know, it’s just there’s there’s there’s got to be time for you, even if it is 30 minutes or 25 minutes, whatever it is. There’s and there’s got to be, you know, if you are going to be more comfortable standing or walking or anything, it’s it’s just a better way to work. If you’re sitting there squirming around and you hate being there after 10 hours. Then it’s better that you’re a happy worker than just a sedentary worker who’s not happy and who wants to get up and move around because you’re just it’s the work’s going to suffer. That’s what’s going to happen.
Zack Arnold: And that’s the most important thing I’m trying to emphasize is for people that are saying, “Well, if I want to take half an hour out of my day to be healthy, I’m sacrificing that time and I’m taking it away from my work, that to me is is the backwards way to look at it. Because if you’re sacrificing 30 minutes to be healthy, you’re going to be more efficient and feel better the rest of the day. Therefore, making the quality of your work better and the quality of your life better. So you’re not you have to find a way to get yourself to the point where quote unquote sacrificing those 30 minutes is actually investing in the quality of your work because you’re investing in yourself. So that’s the mindset that I’m trying to change. Where you say, “Oh, I don’t have 30 minutes because I’m too busy. Well, if you take those 30 minutes, you’re actually going to be more efficient and do a better job. So that that’s really what this is all about.
Natalie Baker: Yep, I agree.
Mike Nichols: This idea that about this will also create an awareness for people who aren’t participating in this, but are like the people who employ people like
Zack Arnold: Us. Yes, and that and that that’s really my next thing is I really want to not only get to the editors, but get to the people that are managing groups of editors and sound editors and anybody in post production, and realize that if you want a productive group of people, that whipping them to death and treating them like crap and feeding them Domino’s pizza is not going to get you the best work in the shortest amount of time. So if we implement healthy strategies as post producers and as you know post supervisors and whoever else is running these departments, you’re going to get better work, which means your clients are going to be happier, which means you’re going to make more money. I like to
Mike Nichols: Help participate with that. Yeah, I’m I’m
Zack Arnold: All about doing that. And unfortunately, we lost Janace on the call, but she’s the perfect example of somebody that gets this and just creates an absolutely fantastic work environment. Where even if the stress is high and the days are long, you enjoy being at work because you feel good, and she fosters a healthy environment, and that’s something that more people need to learn.
Natalie Baker: Yeah, it’s yeah, it’s exactly true. She she did a really good job of feeding us good food. We never, I mean, but we never had you know dominoes or anything like that. Even though it was across, even though it was around the corner, it was right next door. Actually, Papa John’s was right next door. We never did that, and she just she just she got it, you know. She got it, and Brian got it, and they they really understood that you have to you have to be efficient. You your body has to be working efficiently for you to be working efficiently. You can’t be running on fumes and adrenaline and and and fear. You know, you have to be running on positive energy and just good things. Even if things were really, really crazy and really insane, there was always let’s just get through it. We’ll get it done. Even when it was 11 o’clock, and I swore that one of our episodes wasn’t going to go there, she said, “We’ll get through it. We’ll do it. So,
Zack Arnold: And guess what? The entire season aired. It was all on television, and nobody knew,
Natalie Baker: And nobody had any idea. So you know, it’s that’s that that’s always just a much nicer way to work.
Zack Arnold: Well, Liam, I know you’ve got to get off, so I don’t want to to keep you any longer. I know you have another much more important podcast to be on right now.
Liam Johnson: I didn’t say that.
Zack Arnold: I’m I’m giving you a free plug for going postal because I know that you’ve got to head out now and record your other show. So,
Liam Johnson: Cheers, sir. But yeah, I completely agree. It’s I would love to help do what I can to foster the mindset and this community because we are in a dark room all day long, as little as 10 hours a day. Is actually that’s usually a short day for me. So it’s it becomes this whole situation where you don’t have very many opportunities to work out, and that’s what you’re trying to do is prove that there are still chances for you to do it in that same workday. So, yeah, I do commend what you’re doing, Zack, and I really hope that it takes off and becomes a much more a much better mindset among our post peers,
Zack Arnold: Well, that that’s the goal, and I appreciate you being a part of the the beta test group, and I’m looking forward to you being involved with more of it going forward. So much appreciated.
Liam Johnson: It’s so sad. It’s over. Oh, it’s but
Zack Arnold: It’s just beginning. That’s the whole point. It’s just beginning.
Natalie Baker: Can we still have these talks? I really like the talks. Oh, there, there will be, there will be
Zack Arnold: Many more podcasts.
Natalie Baker: I enjoy these. This is my favorite part.
Episode Credits
This episode was edited by Kristin Martin, show notes were written by Maciek Kaliski, and the show was executive produced by Kanen Flowers. We are a member of the THAT STUDIO podcast network.