Running Doubts And Big Promise

SPEAKER_02 0:00

So you're thinking about running, but not sure how to take the first step. My name is Brian Patterson, and I'm here to help. Welcome to Brian's RomPod. And on today's Brian's RomPod, we've got a really interesting conversation lined up because if you've ever followed a training plan, copied what another runner's doing, and even advice from AI, I thought, why isn't this working for me? Well, this one's for you. I'm joined by Rachel Marks, founder of AllActive, a personalised health coach with over 20 years' experience helping people understand that no two bodies respond the same way. Originally from Britain, Rachel made the move to New Zealand around two decades away two decades ago. And since then she's built a career around one simple but powerful idea that no one size fits all approach to fitness, health, or even sleep. We get into why the perfect workout doesn't exist and why going to bed early can actually make some people more tired. And I agree with that, definitely. And how runners can stop guessing and start understanding what really works for their own body. This is a fascinating one, so let's get into it. Welcome,

From Flight Attendant To Coach

SPEAKER_02 1:35

Rachel, to the podcast. How are you? Great. Just to uh get back to the starting point to find out a little bit, um like I do with most people, as to how you got to going into the space that you're in today. What's that story?

SPEAKER_00 1:55

So interestingly enough, even though I'm a personal trainer and a health coach, and most people assume because you're in that line of work that you were really sporty as a child and really good at competitive sports, and I wasn't. I'm one of these kids that never got picked for the team at school. Right. And I've I I'll use the word I was pretty useless at sports, particularly like exercise. And I remember my dad dragging me on walks, telling us that we're just gonna go on a short stroll and you know, ten miles later. Yeah. And I think I complained the whole time.

SPEAKER_01 2:27

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 2:28

So I definitely didn't have um, you know, the kind of fitness kind of it didn't feel like it was in my genes or part of who I was. Um and I started my sort of career, work career as an air hostess. Oh right, interesting. And um I was there for about nine years and I got really sick on one of our overseas trips. We went to the Gambia.

SPEAKER_02 2:52

Oh right, okay.

SPEAKER_00 2:53

Um, and the normally we stayed in nice hotels, but this particular hotel they had emptying sewage by the pool.

SPEAKER_01 3:01

Oh no.

SPEAKER_00 3:02

And um, yeah, things were just really unhygienic. And uh cut a long story short, I got sick. In fact, a lot of the crew got giardia.

SPEAKER_02 3:10

Oh right.

SPEAKER_00 3:10

And I got giardia and I was pretty ill when I got home and it just didn't go away. The I can go back to the doctors, and um for a long period of time lost a lot of weight, and then I was diagnosed with um inflammatory bowel disease.

SPEAKER_01 3:24

Oh no.

SPEAKER_00 3:25

Which um I now know is is it often can be caused by parasites.

SPEAKER_01 3:30

Oh right.

SPEAKER_00 3:30

I ended up with three months off off work, yeah, very weak, in a lot of pain because I was on steroids and uh Yeah, yeah. And I needed to get some strength back in my body, so I joined a gym.

SPEAKER_02 3:42

Oh, right, okay.

SPEAKER_00 3:44

There I met um wonderful guy who gave me an exercise program and I really took to it.

SPEAKER_01 3:51

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 3:51

And I really was like duck to water considering I didn't come from that background.

SPEAKER_01 3:55

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 3:56

And I just progressed so much, got so much stronger. And he said, Oh, you should do this for a living, you're really good at it. And I kinda Oh right.

SPEAKER_02 4:04

That was it. The floodgates opened.

SPEAKER_00 4:08

Um but then 9-11 happened and um flying wasn't fun anymore. And I decided, okay, this is what I'm gonna do.

SPEAKER_01 4:17

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 4:17

So I I changed career, became a gym instructor, personal trainer, and uh the rest is Can I just go back?

SPEAKER_02 4:23

What what is Giardia? What I mean, what's the parasite? Is it parasite, is it?

SPEAKER_00 4:29

Um Yeah, it's a parasite. Normally it comes in I believe in water or contaminated food. I mean, um correct about that.

SPEAKER_02 4:37

Yeah. But so um so you had sort of going to the gym even when you're in, you know, in your previous incarnation as a hostess, had that not just sort of crossed your mind, or were you kind of a little bit reticent about going to or did you think, you know, gyms were for other people?

SPEAKER_00 5:00

Yeah, I I don't think I was a gym fan.

SPEAKER_02 5:03

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 5:03

I hadn't really been introduced to it. I think I did use to bike. I did actually bike quite a lot growing up.

SPEAKER_01 5:09

Right, right.

SPEAKER_00 5:10

So um so I did do that that sort of movement. And being um a flight attendant, um eye hairstyle, however you want to call it, yeah. It's obviously a very physical demanding job. You're on your flight for hours hours. Not that that necessarily makes you fit, but you're definitely moving all the time.

SPEAKER_01 5:26

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 5:27

Um, so yeah, so I d I didn't do I don't remember doing a lot. Maybe the odd kind of um you know, watching a YouTube video or whatever it was in those days. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 5:39

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 5:39

Following a little programme in my home. But um, yeah, it was the the joining the gym that was really a game changer for me.

SPEAKER_02 5:47

So there must have been, I mean, for uh uh yeah, sorry to interrupt, but basically that must be quite uh good for them because I know some people feel it can be quite intimidating gyms. So when they do go to um, you know, and that's kind of what what can put them off. So it must have been quite good for them that they obviously they've they made you quite welcome.

SPEAKER_00 6:11

Yes, and and very much so. And I have to stipulate that I don't think it's the gym that changed everything for me, it's exercise. Yeah. It was lifting weights and doing structured exercise that made the difference. I think if I'd done that in my own home and I knew what I was doing, um then that would mean so it's not saying that everyone has to go to a gym.

SPEAKER_01 6:32

No.

SPEAKER_00 6:32

Um we'll get to that. In my line of work, I actually go to people's homes. Right. So I'm not in the gym. I'm not in the gym at all. And um very much most of my clients see me because they're not comfortable in the gym environment.

SPEAKER_02 6:44

So um, I mean, let's kind of move on from there. So

Why Gyms Intimidate And What Helps

SPEAKER_02 6:49

you've started on the personal training route, your plan. So what were those early days like for you? Um did you know, were you once you've done your qualification? I remember doing the personal training one, I think I did it through the YMCA. Um, but did you go straight into working for a gym or did you decide to go alone?

SPEAKER_00 7:15

No, I did I did a l initially, I I just went and got a job, a job in a gym. Um this is in Beckenham, um I lived.

SPEAKER_01 7:23

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 7:24

And I I thought I thought, I'm gonna change the world. Just know knowing how to teach people to exercise to move right, I'm gonna change the world. Everyone is gonna get these amazing results.

SPEAKER_01 7:34

Right.

SPEAKER_00 7:35

Um, and you know, you really think like, you know, everything just looks so wonderful and you know, and everyone's gonna get some and some people did, but I learned that there was many more elements that factored in to get people bitter, healthier, and so forth.

SPEAKER_02 7:52

What was the name of the gym in Beckenham?

SPEAKER_00 7:55

Then it was called Fitness Exchange. Oh, right, okay. Yes, it got bought bought out years later. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 8:02

Oh right.

SPEAKER_00 8:03

I can't remember the name um it it is now, but yes, Fitness Exchange.

SPEAKER_02 8:07

Oh right. Because I used to work for a well, this isn't aside. Um I used to work for a company called Amida. And they had a gym they had a gym in Beckham. It was a kind of a like a big Oh. But they they they and then they built another one here in Twickenham. Anyway, we'll we'll we'll we we digress. So you've you've obviously carved out this uh you know, you you you found your calling, as

The Myth Of One Best Workout

SPEAKER_02 8:36

it were. So let's kind of get into the into the crux of uh the the podcast. So um we're saying that no one workout one workout sort of suits everyone. Is this something that you came across w you know after a f a few years of giving people sort of like prescriptive workout programs and you're thinking that maybe some people are saying, well, this isn't for me, whereas other people are saying, well, I'm really enjoying it, or some people are saying, well, then they're not really too too sure about it. You know, what sort of came or got you to arrive at this conclusion?

SPEAKER_00 9:16

Well, I was noticing that even though, you know, I'd give a client a program, you know, some of them were doing exercise with me and doing some stuff outside of our sessions, but I noticed that some people were getting really good results and some weren't. And of course, I questioned, is it me? Am I not a good trainer?

SPEAKER_01 9:36

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 9:36

Bearing in mind I also I'm qualified as an NLP practitioner, which is all the mindset side of things, which is really, really important in any, you know, health endeavor. You you want to improve your health and fitness, it really starts with the mind. Um, so I I realized there was something missing. And um about seven or eight years ago, I so I presented a fitness conference in in Auckland and New Zealand. Most years I I present, and it's it's a fitness conference for the whole industry, and we get presenters coming from all over the world. And during that conference, I can also go to other sessions. And there was one particular session um which blew my mind. Um, I don't think I'd heard anything so incredible, yeah, so thought-provoking, yeah, that gave me so many answers about what was going wrong. And that was the guy, um his name was Dr. Cam McDonald, he was the C CEO of of PHP 60, which is a personalized health program. And he explained the different structures of bodies and how one person can get results from the from the same workout, and someone else can can get completely opposite results. Right. And but so much more than that. It just it showed how we're all so unique, we're so different. And after I walked away, okay, I've got to do this course, this is what I've got to do, this is the missing part. And indeed it was. So that's how it started. I I very much, okay, I'm gonna implement this, I'm gonna do the course, took the course, and then I'm gonna implement this into my business.

SPEAKER_02 11:17

And

Epigenetics And Body Structure Profiles

SPEAKER_02 11:18

so so what was that the structure of that course? So, you know, how did it kind of approach this uh particular dilemma?

SPEAKER_00 11:27

So the course, I mean, I'll try and keep this brief because there's a lot to it.

SPEAKER_01 11:32

Yeah, sure.

SPEAKER_00 11:33

But it it talks about um so this this particular program, yeah, um, and it's based on epigenetics, and epigenetics is you know what genetics are, you're of course epi is what's happening around your genes. So your genes are not fixed, they're turning on and off all the time. Right. So our DNA is fixed. You know, what the DNA you're born with is fixed, but how your body's reacting to the environment is not fixed and it changes all the time. So we're not the same as we were even yesterday or the week before. We're constantly changing.

SPEAKER_01 12:05

Oh, right.

SPEAKER_00 12:06

So that's part of it. And this this program brings together 15 different sciences, and I didn't need to know in-depth science to understand the system.

SPEAKER_01 12:16

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 12:16

And then it uses an assessment, which um I take my clients through in this assessment taking measures of the body to decipher what their structure is, and it helps actually reverse engineer how it develops in the embryo, which is no, really.

SPEAKER_02 12:32

Well, that's quite fascinating.

SPEAKER_00 12:34

From the embryo, it's all your structure has already been determined by the layers and of growth in in the in the embryo, and because of the environment and the um um epigenetic genetics, the environment is what makes different layers develop. So from very early on, your structure is determined. Right. Um so these measurements help you understand, well not you, the program, which is basically an AI.

SPEAKER_02 13:00

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 13:01

This AI has been around for 20 or 25 years.

SPEAKER_02 13:04

Okay, before we started even talking, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 13:06

Yeah, very, very early on. Yeah. Um so bringing together a questionnaire to understand which what is the body that's in front of me and what does this body re need right now? What's the best time for this body to go to sleep? What's the best time for them to exercise? What kind of food should they be eating? Who should they be socializing with? Do they need more alone time or need big crowds? Oh, right. This stuff helped me with each client um understand what they needed to be healthy or to, you know, to lose weight or manage a medical condition or whatever it is they needed.

Timing Training For Your Chronotype

SPEAKER_00 13:41

Right. Um to give to give you an example, yes, there was a client that been me with for years, and I was I was seeing her at 7 a.m. in the morning and 1 p.m. in the afternoon on on a Monday and a Wednesday.

SPEAKER_02 13:53

Right. Okay.

SPEAKER_00 13:54

And she was really sore the day after, and that's not a given. Just because you're having a session with a personal trainer doesn't mean you have to be so sore the next day. That's not always the case.

SPEAKER_02 14:04

You don't have to have DOMS.

SPEAKER_00 14:06

Well if they're sore.

SPEAKER_01 14:08

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 14:09

And she wasn't getting the results we'd expect. And once we I took her through the assessment, that was just a massive aha moment. I suddenly understood this body is not designed to train in the morning.

SPEAKER_01 14:22

Right.

SPEAKER_00 14:22

When you put this body for a workout in the morning, it stresses them. So since then, and I still work with her, she she trains at 4 pm in the afternoon, and it's it's just monumental the difference it's made to her health, her well-being, how her body feels. And you know, simple things like that.

SPEAKER_02 14:42

Because I know for me, um I'm not an afternoon person, but I kind of it's like for instance, I went out for a run yesterday and just tried to f really focus on trying to keep it like a slower pace. But I just really, really enjoyed it, you know, and I could have gone on forever. I mean, this is only a very simple case. But I know I find that going doing workouts in the afternoon after work, A, I'm quite tired, and I just don't have the motivation. So I suppose in a simple way, you know, if I could get up early or do, you know, go out and do uh early mornings workout, that that might help I'd find more maybe more benefit from that. But I know that's just in a very simple case, and I haven't gone through a questionnaire or anything like that. But yeah.

SPEAKER_00 15:28

And and what's really interesting is there's a whole of um, you know, a night owl or early bird. So some people can see night owls.

SPEAKER_01 15:37

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 15:37

They're naturally designed to get up later, stay up later, or the early birds like me can wake up at six and leap out of bed and feel really, really good. And then there's the people that sit in the middle. But because we live in a society that expects us to be, you know, in some companies, you have to be at work at eight.

SPEAKER_01 15:56

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 15:56

So we've been taught, we've been taught that you're lazy if you're not at work early and you have to come in and perform. So that's conditioning. So it doesn't mean it's what's natural for you. It's just we've been taught to do that. So that's the whole nature versus n that nurture. Yeah. So people swear to me, oh, I'm definitely a morning person, and then we do their profile and go, actually, you're not. You do it yourself.

SPEAKER_01 16:21

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 16:21

Um, so that's what's really interesting is the body can do, but the body can adapt to anything and be anything. Yeah. But it doesn't mean it's not putting it under stress.

SPEAKER_02 16:31

Yeah. So just thinking is that even something doing something, this kind of uh questionnaire, so you can generate this, you know, and and get results from this algorithm, this A AI, it can sort of provide better productivity in some companies. Have you found that?

SPEAKER_00 16:50

Absolutely. And I am actually um working with some corporates at the moment. And um and part of that is to help them understand if you've got a per a a person that's um a night owl and you're driving them to do really hard mental lifting. So for for a night owl, stress can come from heavy mental lifting or from exercise. It's not just exercise, it's still the same effect on the body. And these people actually you'll get much more productivity out of them later in the day.

SPEAKER_01 17:21

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 17:22

And um, so it that stuff is just again a game changer. But of course, and not in all, you know, you can have the perfect real world where, you know, everybody goes does something at the time that's suitable for them. But obviously you can't always do that. No, exactly. You know, make the changes in the areas that you can.

SPEAKER_01 17:43

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 17:44

You know, where in the areas where it's more realistic to make changes.

SPEAKER_02 17:47

All right. So you talked about someone, we gave an example there of let's say someone who uh was exercising in the morning but really wasn't they weren't really a morning person, and if they did exercise later, are there any other tweaks that you found that helped enhance other people's sort of uh exercise regime?

Sleep Recovery And Wearables

SPEAKER_00 18:10

Well, of course, um I do way more than just exercise. I look at all areas, and obviously sleep is a big one. I know you've had um sleep experts on here.

SPEAKER_01 18:20

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 18:20

And if you're not sleeping well, it doesn't matter if you're doing the best workout in the world even at the right time. Sleep is when you're recovering. Actually, the sleep is more important than the workout.

SPEAKER_02 18:32

Yes, that's true. That's true, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 18:38

That you're not getting recovery, which means you're not going to get the results. Um and people sometimes think they have an amazing sleep, but they don't necessarily know how much deep sleep they're getting, how much REM sleep they're getting, um, you know, or they're having disrupted sleep. So there's so many elements that come into play. Um, and of course, what they're eating before sleep. So there's so many, um, there's so many variables.

SPEAKER_02 19:02

It's you know, and also it like you said, it's just as much, you know, as as important as the workout itself, because basically the workout is just breaking down the muscles, and then the sleep and the recovery is helping you to rebuild it. What's your thoughts about the various apps and um monitoring our sleep? Do you find I've I've heard had some people who've said it it's not great, and other people who've said it really helps them in terms of monitoring their particular training and you know it gives them a little bit of an indication of how how their sleep's been going.

SPEAKER_00 19:40

So you're talking things like the Garmin Watch and Fitbit?

SPEAKER_02 19:43

The Garmin or Apple Watch or um yeah, that kind of thing, the apps on there.

SPEAKER_00 19:50

I think some are better than others. Um I've just got a Fitbit, I don't have anything sophisticated.

SPEAKER_01 19:57

No.

SPEAKER_00 19:57

Um and I take I do take some of the results with a pinch of salt.

SPEAKER_01 20:01

Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 20:03

But some of some of them, you know, some of them are better than others. And I really t um look at something called HRV.

SPEAKER_01 20:10

Oh yeah. Yeah, I've heard that.

SPEAKER_00 20:15

But again, you know, you have to kind of question the accuracy. Um, but and I base that on if I don't have with HRV, the the higher the score the better. And it's also about the pattern over time. It's not just one day. Right. But um I use that as a side and also look at what my watch says, um, how much intensity I'm going to put into the workout that day. Because if my body's really tired and exhausted, it might just need something more gentle.

SPEAKER_02 20:43

Yeah. Well, I I I have touched on that briefly before uh with someone else, HRV, but could you give us a my audience a bit more of an understanding as to what HR HRV is and then how it helps?

SPEAKER_00 20:57

So HRV plans for heart rate variability, and it's actually the the gap between your heartbeat. And I believe it's been around for decades, and I think they were using it on astronomers. Oh, sorry, astronauts, not astronomers.

SPEAKER_02 21:16

Astronauts, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 21:16

Um astronauts, not astronomers, that would be so but it's not widely known, as I said, you have to get really precise monitoring to get really, really good data. Yeah. And I'm pretty sure it's certainly it's not my expertise, but it's something I'm interested in.

SPEAKER_01 21:33

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 21:34

Um and I'm pretty sure all the top athletes would be using HRV and their their coaches would be seeing what their recovery is like.

SPEAKER_02 21:42

Right. Okay.

SPEAKER_00 21:43

So And all sorts of things can affect HRV, including the stress you're under as well, and obviously what kind of workout you've had.

SPEAKER_02 21:52

Oh, right. So if your HRV is low, is that good? Or if your HRV is high?

SPEAKER_00 21:59

As I said, we You you don't take um you don't take one number, it's all about an average over a period. So usually it kind of goes up and down.

SPEAKER_02 22:09

Right. Okay.

SPEAKER_00 22:10

So it's really, you know, over a period of time is your HRV staying cons consistently low and it's going up and down. It's all usually going to go down a a bit after after a workout or a day after a workout. Um but again, you you have to be careful, just a bit like the sleep data that you get out of these apps to just check what the accuracy Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 22:32

And it's all about uh a a trend over time.

SPEAKER_00 22:36

Um, definitely the key because otherwise you could just start, you know, getting really concerned when you have a paranoid.

HRV Trends And Smarter Intensity

SPEAKER_02 22:44

I know you're an NLP practitioner. Um I remember doing talking about that quite some time ago. Um but um what's NLP and how can this help with our fitness?

SPEAKER_00 22:59

So it stands for Neurolinguistics Programming, which normally makes people go to sleep because it's such a heavy term.

SPEAKER_02 23:06

Yeah, it's been around for a while.

SPEAKER_00 23:09

Yeah, it has been around for quite a long time. And um the person probably most well known for using NLP in the public eye, and he's sort of made it into his own, is Tony Robbins.

SPEAKER_01 23:20

Oh, okay. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 23:22

Uh you know, public speaker, he's just amazing in front of big crowds with his motivation. And um and I I did the course two years after I became a personal trainer because a friend of mine I was talking to, who's actually a a a sports psychologist lecturer at Kenfree University.

SPEAKER_01 23:39

Right.

SPEAKER_00 23:40

And I asked him, um, I wanted to do some more courses. What about doing nutrition? He goes, you know, you know, you knew what you know about nutrition, you know that's that's good enough. Go and do NLP, and I didn't know what it was.

SPEAKER_01 23:51

Right. Okay.

SPEAKER_00 23:53

It's basically, you know, if you're advising a client, um, say you're helping them with weight loss and they're doing exercise, but they're still eating all the chocolate, and just as a very raw kind of example, if they're still eating the chocolate and nothing's gonna change. So an NLP helps down, helps you break down the programs that we're running in our head. Maybe you had a bad experience one as a child, okay, and you started eating chocolate as a as a safety mechanism because of something that's happened. And we would just carry so much with us over the years.

SPEAKER_01 24:26

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 24:26

And you know, at the time, our behavior is the best that we can do for ourselves to protect ourselves, but sometimes the things that we carry for many years is no longer protecting us, it's it's actually um preventing us from being the best version of us. So with NLP, it's kind of a coaching mechanism and it it just helps people, if they want to, they have to be open to it. Yeah. But it helps people um have resources to more tools to help them overcome things that are getting in their way, you know. And a common one is motivation, um, negative talk, all that sort of thing. Oh, okay. We're all guilty of of doing at some points. I I don't know anyone that's motivated every day all their lives.

SPEAKER_02 25:13

Oh, okay. So it's kind of like a uh Yeah. Because I know when I did it, they um I remember talking about mirroring. Mirroring, so you mirror the matching and mirroring. Match, matching and mirroring that that that that kind of thing.

NLP Tools For Habits And Mindset

SPEAKER_02 25:29

Basically