Episode 36
Nutritious Movement
A Most Clarifying Talk about Junk Food Movement
We’ve dipped our toes in the water before, but now let’s dive in and define “Junk Food Movement” in the way that we use it when defining Nutritious Movement. This episode is a satisfying culmination of our previous discussions on Junk Food Movement—and will leave you with the tools and understanding to be a more critical thinker when it comes to your movement diet.
DANI: It’s the Katy Says podcast, where movement geek, Dani Hemmat – that’s me! – joins biomechanist, Katy Bowman, author of Move Your DNA, for discussions on body mechanics, movement nutrition, natural movement, and how movement can be the solution to modern ailments we all experience.
KATY: That was beautiful.
DANI: Thank you!
KATY: Did you just write that? Did you just write that?
DANI: I just said it off the top of my head.
KATY: That’s amazing.
DANI: I know. I know. I’m at the top of my class in improv.
KATY: And I am not, because I don’t even have anything funny to say there. But I can talk about junk food movement, which is kind of half of what we’re going to talk about today. We have kind of a double hitter. We’ve got junk food movement/nutritious movement, and these are not topics that we’re broaching for the first time. We’ve probably talked about them many times. There are -
DANI: We’ve dipped our toes in this water before on this show.
KATY: Yes. Yes, but I think that you can’t clarify too much. My editor, Penelope, she has a really great metaphor. Of course she does, because she’s an editor – about getting an idea, she uses this metaphor relative to when we’re working on a book. The editing process – you’re taking really tangled hair, and you’re slowly combing out the tangles. So, you know, you start with one section of the hair and you get that smooth, but you get up to the next section or maybe you move over – or whatever it is – so I feel like, because this is a brand new idea, this idea of nutritious movement, the idea that movement is, like, nutrients, that there are doses and all this stuff, it’s like, a huge, nebulous, head of tangled – not quite dreads, but close. Some serious nesty hair going on.
DANI: Nesty.
KATY: Nesty. Not nasty, nesty.
DANI: Nesty.
KATY: Nesty. So we’ve been slowly trying to brush it out, so I would say that this is just another – this is to remove another tangle. This is like a clarifying episode. Would you agree?
DANI: Yeah. That’s a good analogy. Way to go, Penelope.
KATY: I know. I say, once again, it’s not me at all.
DANI: Well, you can’t just comb through it. You’ll break the hairs. You have to gently untangle it. And there’s a lot of patience involved in explaining stuff like this, which you’re good at.
KATY: Yeah, and it’s also not – I don’t think the explaining is the tangle. I think sometimes working out what is clear in my head and putting it into words isn’t easy, because it’s not like the idea comes in perfectly formed sentences. It’s in a chart, it’s in a graph. It’s a mathematical understanding, and so to have to say it casually on a podcast is challenging. It’s challenging for me just to go oh, well, that’s not really the right – and I’m not a wordsmith, as everyone who listens to this show knows. So it’s been a long many years, right? The blog is slowly untangling it, these podcasts are – every book slowly untangles it more. So – junk food movement. Nutritious movement. Here we go.
DANI: Let’s do it! And if you need some background, you can listen to – we did an episode called, “Is exercise junk food?” and we just did a cycling episode which was awesome. That was a lot of fun.
KATY: That was a great show. I listened – I actually listened to that show and was laughing, like, laughing at your jokes, even though I had already heard them, I was like, this is hilarious! I should totally listen to this show. Yeah, you’re pretty great.
DANI: Well, thank you, so are you. So are you. And we did a show on natural movement way back when in the very beginning. So if you need background or some follow up questions – but – let’s just do some more untangling. Let’s talk “junk food movement.” What is it?
KATY: Okay. So I defined it in the cycling show, but I have a less-tangled, I think, more-refined definition. So junk food – I always, I’m going to go back to junk food. This is not movement, this is just what was in many people’s Halloween bags, I guess. What was available abundantly in October. So junk food is a food that provides some nutrients, while at the same time, inputting other compounds – so like a chemical compound, in this case – that is suppressing or inhibiting or taxing your physiology in some way. So it’s – it has some stuff of value, but packaged with that thing of value are things that kind of work against you, which is different than just not having nutrition. It’s not that you are missing some nutrients, but that it’s actually packaged with something that could be said to be harmful, you know, in abundance, or with frequency. So that is – I feel like, I’m going to talk about Snickers again. Snickers is the thing.
DANI: Oh my gosh.
KATY: We’ve officially lost sponsorship from Snickers for this show. Did they call you?
DANI: No.
KATY: They’re like, I’m sorry, we are no longer funding you.
DANI: But I just have a personal favor to ask of you.
KATY: Okay.
DANI: I have sat quietly for a year and a half now, while Snickers has been your example of junk food. And that’s like, my favorite candy bar. Could you pick on something nobody likes, like an Idaho spud or Chunky or something? Like, nobody’s ever going to eat?
KATY: I’m trying to be like – well, I’m not well-versed – I know Snickers because my husband loves Snickers.
DANI: It satisfies, man. I’m going to say it. It satisfies.
KATY: Well, clearly.
(audio: Snickers commercial from the “You’re Not You When You’re Hungry” campaign featuring Robin Williams, Bobcat Goldthwait, and members of the Hawks football team.)
Player: Fourth down, Coach, what do we do?
Coach (Robin Williams): I’ll tell you what we do. I want you to go on the field, look for anything with an “O”. Let’s kill them! With kindness. Jimmy! I want you to make balloon animals. Tyler, make little tea cozies, something fun.
Player: Are you OK?
Coach: Ha ha ha ha ha! We will win this for mother Russia!
Team Manager: Coach, eat a Snickers.
Coach: Why is that, chief?
Team Manager: You get a little loopy when you’re hungry.
Coach: (unwraps Snickers, takes bite) Better?
Team Manager 2: Better. Now let’s go for it!
(Cheerleader Bobcat Goldthwait falls from top of cheerleading pyramid): Go get ’em guys! Ahhhh!
Voiceover: You’re not you when you’re hungry. Snickers satisfies.
KATY: Clearly. And as – I think, like, my son was like, hey! That candy bar – this candy bar is better for us because it has more protein. I was like, oh, yeah? He’s like, look, there’s nuts in it! And I was like, wow. He hasn’t even been marketed to. That’s the logical conclusion.
DANI: Yeah.
KATY: So clearly –
DANI: I think they actually put, like, the grams of protein now on the front.
KATY: Of course.
DANI: Right. Yes.
KATY: One point five grams of protein!
DANI: Yeah, can we pick on Clark bars or something? I don’t know.
KATY: You know, I was trying to think, like, what’s the crappiest, like, taffy? Just something – like –
DANI: Yeah. Yeah – or –
KATY: Like, what’s – is Snickers hanging their hat on the peanuts? Like, is it just like, they’re just –
DANI: I think so.
KATY: Four peanuts. Pretty soon they’re just going to be marzipan peanuts and nobody’s going to know. It’s like, we were unable to actually – we don’t want to pay for peanuts, so we just got corn oil and pressed it together to make peanut shapes. Okay, so – okay. Well, crap. I have like this whole show hinges on the Snickers data.
DANI: I’m going to just give you a pass this time.
KATY: Okay.
DANI: Just because we’re friends.
KATY: How about if we call it the Hoobidy Doobidy? It’s the Hoobidy Doobidy bar? The Hoobidy Doobidy bar. But yes, I apologize. I didn’t mean to be attacking your -
DANI: No, no, you know. I just like –
KATY: Your favorite candy bar.
DANI: Like I said, I’ve sat here and I’ve silently hurt, and now I just, you know, I feel so all alone.
KATY: What about red vines?
DANI: Oh my gosh!
KATY: Red vines are my –
DANI: Red vines are terrible. Yes.
KATY: Okay. Red vines are my favorite junk food.
DANI: Oh, gosh, well, I don’t want to do that.
KATY: Well, because they’re also straws. They’re functional, excuse me, it’s like actually saving plastic if you eat red vines, I’m pretty sure.
DANI: That’s true. So they’re ecologically responsible.
KATY: Okay.
DANI: Just go ahead and use Snickers, but I just – everybody knows how I feel now about this.
KATY: Well, I’m actually, like, red vines is really the crappiest of crap. Like, now it has all the – so, either one. Fill in your favorite junk food or your least favorite junk food to make yourself feel better. Whatever you need to do. It’s fine. So junk movement – or junk food movement – this equivalent, it’s a mode of exercise. So in this case, I’m not talking about nutrients or particular – or smaller joint angles. I’m actually talking about a mode of exercise. So a mode of exercise is: running, walking, Zumba, ice skating, cross country skiing. All I can think of are the winter stuff. Swimming, belly dancing – like, anything that you’re like, I’m going to go do this for X minutes, that’s typically a mode of exercise. So that mode of exercise provides some mechanical nutrient, some fitness benefits, but at the same time, is creating some other input that is suppressing or inhibiting your physiology in some way.
DANI: Okay.
KATY: The end. Hold on, I’m going to get a red vine. Just kidding.
DANI: I guess a key to this metaphor, and this is something that you’re super good at, those metaphors, is not seeing junk food as all bad.
KATY: Correct. So I think the word, “junk” is leading, you know, to be like, “that’s garbage!” And it’s like, well, Snickers is not a pile of garbage. There are things that you can actually eat that are garbage that would have no nutrients, but I pulled up – and I apologize; Snickers was the only candy bar – I could do this for red vines – but I think Snickers is a little bit easier because of the peanuts.
DANI: Mm-hmm.
KATY: Thank you, Snickers. Ding! If I pull up a nutritional data profile on Snickers, which I did, which is what I’m looking at right now, it lists, you know that nutrition facts that’s on every packaging – it lists 4g of protein, it lists its fiber. Fiber is 5% of your daily fiber. It lists the total fat that it has, and the sodium, and the cholesterol, and the carbohydrates. And it lists – it has Vitamin A, did you know that there was Vitamin A in Snickers bars? And that it has 5% of your daily calcium and 2% of your daily iron. So we –
DANI: You’re preaching to the choir, sister.
KATY: You’re like, stop talking about my favorite protein bar!
DANI: I know about the Vitamin A! What do you think I eat them for? No, go ahead.
KATY: Let’s see – it’s only 2% so technically, if you wanted to be really healthy, you’re going to have to eat 50 of them. To be healthy. So I think we have a selective way of profiling – we all do – a selective way of profiling something to make it fit into what we want to do. So we would look at a Snickers bar and you want to say, like, you know, if you’re super into nutrition – as a purist, you’re like, and I say, hey, but it has – you know, this many calories. Calories are good, right? If you’re starving, everyone needs calories. Energy is excellent. But you’re like, yeah, but look at the quality of it, and look at with that fat, that 14g of fat, like, we want fat – but it comes with 29g of sugar. So you know, you start breaking it down to show not only what it has, but also what it doesn’t. You could say it doesn’t have Vitamin K, and it doesn’t have Vitamin D. You can list what it doesn’t have, or you can selectively – if you’re good at marketing – list what it does have, like 4g of protein with every bar. And so all I’m asking people to do here is to do the same for their movement. To not only list what it does have – that is the good stuff – but also what it does have that’s the not good stuff, and also what it doesn’t have. That if you are going to look at mechanical inputs to the body as something that we need – and I think that everyone can understand on the baseline that if you were to put your body in bed for 15 years, I mean – you wouldn’t even have to be in bed for 15 years to be extremely ill. You’d have to be in bed for like a year.
DANI: Mm-hmm.
KATY: You know, that there are – we understand, these mechanical nutrients. We call them movements, but on a more refined level, they’re loads to the body. With your exercise I’m asking you to look at your exercise in the same way that you look at that nutrition facts. Go to the cupboard, pull something out, and look at it and see what it has, what it doesn’t have, and be really – you know, you have to know more about what it has and what it doesn’t have that’s on this label, right? So that’s the whole idea with whole foods, and then you start talking about organic foods, it’s like, it’s not going to list if it has any pesticides. It doesn’t list – it is by default, listing what it has by you doing more research about where stuff is coming from, and then you begin to go, oh, well, there’s other things that are not on this nutrition facts. There’s omissions and we’re just trying to get a really big picture with our food about chemical compounds – chemical compounds meaning the nutrients, the non-nutrient chemicals, and get a profile and compare that to what we need and then do the same for movement.
DANI: Yeah, and that’s an awesome exercise, just to have that take on critical thinking. We take things at face value. We do look at the nutrition content and go, oh, right, it has, you know, this much Vitamin A. But to have a more critical approach without becoming cynical is really wise advice.
KATY: Yeah, and also – if we took all the foods, stuff that you knew from experience did not make you feel good and you ate a lot of – you could say, I love Snickers! And then you could make an entire diet of Snickers and you could skew your nutritional facts to show the total number of calories. It’s like, I had a friend in high school and she – she was always on a diet. She was always on – this was like an eating disorder, essentially – 1200 calories a day. And so she knew that she could manage her weight if she only ate 1200 calories a day, but she figured that it could be like 4 Snickers bars, and that was what she ate.
DANI: Good grief. Really?
KATY: She subsisted – she subsisted on it. Yes, but there’s – there’s, I mean, I can speak from experience of being in these weird food places where you’ve just got these outside numbers, that you’re trying to match and reconcile, and you can make them reconcile depending on how selective you want to be. Like if someone says, you need this much fat a day, it’s like, great, but you don’t necessarily think of eggs and avocadoes and nuts, you can just kind of look at, well, this McDonald’s meal has this many grams, so I’m meeting the guidelines.
DANI: Right.
KATY: So I’m just saying that our nutritional guidelines, which I imagine a lot of people listening to this show, are already to this place where they get that, you know, the USDA nutritional guidelines or what’s required by law to be on the packaging isn’t the full representation of the chemical experience of eating the food; that there are things that are not on the list that through your own personal experience could be adjusting your physiology in some way – for the better or for the worse. So I’m saying that your movement has the potential to do the same, and that we think of all movement as good and healthy in the same way that someone without really any lick of food understanding would think of all food as good or healthy, but it’s like, well, we’ve known through experience and through science that it is not the case. And I think that the same thing is happening with movement – that – and then someone’s like, oh, I didn’t know I was having this food sensitivity, or I didn’t know that I had this particular – I didn’t even know that this nutrient was required. Vitamin K, what’s that? I didn’t know that I needed that. That’s not on my list that I got in general. I think it’s just refining it through experience, and people don’t know automatically to look at their exercise programming to match it up with the experience – the physical experience that they’re having, because movement creates, essentially, the same chemical reaction, or the – it’s not the same chemical reaction – it’s the same process of putting mechanical loads into your body as it is food loads into your body. So even if you have something that seems dietarily related, it’s all just cellular processes that are being affected by what you put in: food, movement, thoughts, air quality. All those things, you know, would have an impact.
DANI: Mmm. I’m so glad you share your work with us, thank you. It’s awesome. I would give up Snickers for you, you know that?
KATY: I was just starting to think, I was like, I was like, what do I give her in return for Snickers?
DANI: I would give up Snickers for you. Okay. Speaking of exercise, let’s do some movement break.
KATY: Yeah.
DANI: Yeah.
KATY: I was thinking this is what we could do for a movement break today. It’s like a regular old quad stretch, but here’s what I want you to do: I want you to stand straight up with your hands straight down by your side, and I’m going to have you – but I don’t want you to do it yet – bring your left foot – it’s not really your foot that you’re going to bring up. It’s where you would hold your calf, the lowest part of your calf, right above your ankle, like, real low there. Where you would hold it if you were doing a quad stretch. What I want you to do today is pay attention to what you have to do to your body in order to get into the quad stretch. So there’s a few different things: one is bringing your knee out in front of you, another one is bringing your leg out to the side so that your knee actually a-b-ducts, abducts, spreads away from the other leg. Maybe you lean your torso to one side to be able to get it, or maybe you bring it up with speed, you kick it up.
DANI: Yeah. Fling!
KATY: So all of those things that you’re doing are ways to shorten the distance between your hand – except for flinging, flinging is using momentum to kick it up beyond the tension that’s preventing it from coming up. So there’s other geometrical – any time you’re changing your position – you are trying to shorten the distance between your hand and your ankle, because you don’t actually have enough range of motion to get there. And so there’s a lot of discussion and debate on this idea of ‘stretch’ and ‘stretching,’ so many of us – imagine all 117 people who listen to this podcast – could be doing this right now, and we would – and some would be feeling no stretch to do this exercise, and some would be getting tremendous stretch. And the amount of stretch that you are experiencing would be equal to how much you had to move out of this initial positioning in order to reach your foot. That’s how much elastic tension is on your particular muscles. And so a stretch is not the process of a muscle getting longer as much as it is the process of a muscle getting longer and you are invoking its elastic properties, so we could do a whole show on that, but it’s essentially – long story short, it would be that just because you’re calling something a “stretch” doesn’t automatically make it a stretch. What would make something a stretch is how adapted your body is to not doing that motion before you do the exercise.
DANI: Long story short.
KATY: Yeah, that’s a total joke.
DANI: You’re awesome.
KATY: No, that would actually be a long story short. Thank you, once again, for modeling.
DANI: Yay! Okay. Well, thank you for that. So we’re done moving.
KATY: Yeah, do the other side, and then listen to us talk while you do the other side.
DANI: Excellent. All right. I think back in the cycling episode, where you said that there’s another category – not all junk, not all healthy – but, like food, there’s minimally processed, like, convenience foods that are healthier than junk even if they’re not as healthy as a whole food.
KATY: Right. And this is a podcast; we’re trying to teach these ideas through easy examples. So we had junk food, which are red vines, only. Nothing else, just red vines. And then we have healthy food, which is, you know, kale and nothing else. So – but really, there are different levels, different modes of exercise, modes that would have – oh, gosh, I’m trying to think of what’s – like, a really good – like if I go into the health food store and go into the bar section. So I’m not in the candy bar section, I’m what? I’m in the healthy – what do they call those healthy bars? We used to call them protein bars, but they’re not all protein bars.
DANI: Yeah, I don’t know. They’re not all protein bars anymore, are they?
KATY: No. They’re – but they’re just – they’re convenience foods.
DANI: Mm-hmm.
KATY: They are – and there’s all different macro- and micro-nutrient profiles.
DANI: Sometimes they call them meal bars, I think?
KATY: Yeah, that’s what they are. They are meal replacement bars. I call them convenience bars, but they are, essentially, blending different foods together and putting it in a wrapper so that you can put it in your purse. So it’s – it’s almost like a meal, but it’s not – it’s a meal replacement. So they’re usually, they’re more calorically dense. The fiber has been eliminated, so they’re convenient not only that it can be in your bag, but also in that you don’t have to do all that abdominal work, you know, to process all the fiber. So it only turns out that that’s actually necessary, and so – I think that that’s probably a better way to think of your exercise, is as meal replacement bars. Because there are very few truly junk food movements; most modes of exercise are probably going to be more the equivalent to meal replacement bars of varying qualities. You know, like, there are some meal replacement bars that are very similar to candy bars, and then there are meal replacement bars which are much more similar to whole foods that have just been mashed up. You know, they still have to be in the refrigerator, they’re still considered live foods. They don’t have any preservatives, right?
DANI: Mm-hmm.
KATY: So I’m not only talking about macro- or micro-nutrients, now that I’m talking – I’m talking about all those ingredients that are listed, you know, and so many preservatives, that you know, can be low-grade, antibiotics I found out through working with my people who create bars and stuff. It’s like, wow, okay, but that’s not –
DANI: Really?
KATY: Yeah! I was shocked.
DANI: Whoa.
KATY: So there are these, like, meal replacement bar food, like, is your workout a meal replacement bar? I would say that most people could go, yeah, I guess, because I don’t have time to move all day. I don’t have time to grow and cook fresh foods, so I buy convenience foods. But I try to buy the convenience food of the best quality. But you probably don’t make your entire diet out of it – or, maybe you do. But maybe you understand that if you could slowly convert your convenience food – even if it’s a good quality – again, you’re at your health food store. You’re eating, you know, your high quality convenience stuff. That particular convenience food – eaten over and over again, would not make you very healthy. And so that’s, I think, where we are with a mode of exercise. We all tend to love “our” mode of exercise. Do you have a favorite convenience bar? I like Core Foods bars. That was what I ate –
DANI: I’ve never tried those, that’s right.
KATY: And I ate a lot of them when I was pregnant and doing lots of lactation and lots of work. I was pregnant and lactating for my first child, and I couldn’t get enough calories, so it was convenient for me to reach for these bars. But it got to the point where I was like, really, I should only eat one a day, because I need to eat all of these other foods, because there was –
DANI: What are they kind of made up of?
KATY: This one was like a gluten-free oat, raisins, and nuts, cinnamon. It only had four ingredients, it had no fillers. It had just, you know, mashed up fruit and they also had a protein one but it didn’t sit as well with me. So anyway, long story short: that was what I would consider a high quality bar. But it alone would not be a good diet for me. It would not be a good, like, it didn’t have any protein in it, and I needed a lot of protein, so I just supplemented with –
DANI: Snickers?
KATY: A steak a day. Oh! That’s what I meant – Snickers and a steak a day. So again, I’m pregnant, so I walk to the beef shack, and I bought a steak sandwich every single day of my first pregnancy, and my little boy is just made out of steak. And Core Bar. So I recognize – really, through trial and error – because there was probably a few days where it would have been easy for me to eat a bar three times a day, you know, and drink a bunch of water. And I’ve done versions of that, like, if I’m backpacking or whatever, where I will take convenience food. But I would get very foggy headed if I were to eat that many, you know, if I looked at the macro-nutrient, that macro-nutrient profile: carbohydrates without any protein, you know.
DANI: Right.
KATY: Yes, there was fiber in the oats, but I am a vegetable person, for sure. Like, I need heaps of actual vegetables. So even though it was good quality, it wasn’t enough, and it’s not something that I can base my entire nutrient input into. And so with movement, we’ve got, you know, I’ll call it junk food movement only because I called it that initially to get people to sit up and go, what? What are you talking about? And it’s like, well, the thing that you’re doing – making these parts better, not nourishing these other parts – but it could also be making these parts worse. And so there’s a couple examples of that, which we’ll get to here in a little bit, but it’s just that you have a convenience food diet. Even if that convenience food is not, like, 7-11 convenience. It’s not Beer Nuts and red vines and Power Bars. It’s, you know, you’re going out of your way to package convenience foods but you can still have some nutritional deficits, even though the thing that you are eating is of good quality, you run on having all of your little holes filled with regularity. All of the nutritional pins are – you know what I’m thinking of right now –
DANI: Right, sure.
KATY: I’m thinking of Battleship. Like all those holes, it’s like G7 needs to be filled! A2 needs to be filled! And every single one of those holes is a different nutrient, and my bar maybe filled up 2 lines of it, but there was all the surrounding area that wasn’t being filled, and so I had to, you know, re-establish a better eating habit, and that’s all I’m asking people to do. Or actually, I’m not asking you to do it. I’m just putting it out there that your health, right now, is very much related to all of the areas around your movement convenience bars, or junk food movement, that you are consuming because you’re starving. There’s all these other holes that need to be filled. And just like with eating, the convenience bars, the slightly sugary stuff, the stuff that’s fun, the stuff that makes us feel good: it’s a lot easier to get. The whole food schlepping and making it, if you’re not like a chef who loves that, takes a lot of work. It’s not fun. It’s exactly the same thing as eating. But once you get – once you are mechanically nourished, it’s just again – for me – the same way that I feel when I really take a lot of time to make all of the meals from scratch, and like I just feel so satiated, and my body responds, and all my biorhythms kind of are grooving along, and so once – I just – if you can experience being mechanically nourished and having ailments kind of fall away, I think that people would be more motivated. Right now the mindset is: all exercise is good, the thing that I do is fun and it’s convenient and I like it. And it’s like, yeah, but that’s kind of the same way as food.
DANI: Wow, yeah.
KATY: That’s kind of how I feel about food.
DANI: Totally. Well, do you want to do those examples?
KATY: Well, people will be like, how can I tell if what I do is junk? It’s not super easy to tell if it was junk, so like, junk food is highly processed. It contains aspects of it that are not found in nature, right? It’s like synthesized food. It’s things that people in a laboratory have to create in order for it to actually exist. So with movement, you’re kind of, like, equipment. If I have to use equipment for it, well, it is synthesized, and so the movements that I’m doing that are being facilitated by that equipment could be said to be junk food, or at least not natural food. But I think in the first blog post I ever wrote, Junk Food Movement, I used a treadmill. So a treadmill would be an equivalent to junk food. Because it’s certainly nutritious, or has nutrients and the fact that you’ve got parts that are moving, but there are parts of you that are moving in a particular way that only happened because there’s this belt underneath you moving in a particular say. So that your response to that wouldn’t be something that would naturally occur. And then if you eat a lot of junk food, then you start adapting right to that input.
DANI: Mm-hmm.
KATY: And just as a note, if someone says, how can I take my treadmill and make it less junky? You can actually just take your treadmill walking and make it less junky by going slow and putting it up to as high of an incline as possible. So there’s a makeover right there. There’s a mechanical nutrient makeover. So if you’re like, oh, yeah, there’s this treadmill! It’s like, fine, just instead of walking on it fast and flat or running on it fast and flat, you are going to walk up it slow – maybe like 2.7 to 3.1 miles an hour on the highest setting. Because that reversal kind of of natural mechanics is going to decrease as you change some of those variables. If that’s the only walking you do, though, you can refer back to our walking – did we do a show on walking? We did.
DANI: Uh-huh. Yeah.
KATY: You know, if you’re only walking uphill, then your nutritional deficit is going to be, well, where is the other downhill part, right? That there are muscles that work in a particular way to get you uphill and muscles that work in a particular way to get you downhill. Both of those would be represented on your giant battleship board, and now I feel like – we have a lot of international listeners, so sorry, Switzerland. If you’re listening. Battleship is a game that we give small children to teach them –
DANI: Small children? I have two sets, dude.
KATY: Well, but I meant we give it to them – when did your kids start playing?
DANI: I guess as soon as they knew their numbers and letters.
KATY: Right. So it’s a game that we start off playing with small children so that we all know how to go to battle at any time as adults. I love Battleship.
DANI: It is awesome.
KATY: I do not like electronic Battleship. I feel like –
DANI: No.
KATY: There’s no way to cheat, and cheating is part of the skill. Like, if you’re going to play War you have to know how to cheat is how I feel.
DANI: I know. And you have to know how to make, you know, explosion noises with your mouth.
KATY: Right, right. Hashtag homeschool! Okay.
DANI: Well, couldn’t a person just – I mean, to really simplify it, and I guess again you have to have that broad, critical thinking, but just look at what your favorite mode is, like, say, okay, hula hoop. I like to hula hoop.
KATY: Yeah.
DANI: And then just look at what isn’t there, but that would be a good start, wouldn’t it? Because it’s just like, what isn’t there even if you’re using equipment or even walking?
KATY: Yeah. Well, and – and so like with junk food, junk food is less about what isn’t there. So it’s not really junky – like, an apple is not junk food. But there are things that aren’t there in an apple, and so yes, you can look at your mode and see what isn’t there, and that’s part of establishing a good movement diet, but I don’t know if it’s super helpful in figuring out if something is junky or not, because you could say that an apple is not a sufficient, you know, maker of a diet. But it doesn’t make it junk food. So I think with junk food it’s more about: are there any loads here that are also harming me? That’s what it is with junk food. So like with red vines, I could say, like, there is 900 calories in a box of red vines. So I could say that, wow, I’ve almost got all of my calories of the day, plus – okay, so that’s good. So you could look at, you know, the thing that you’re doing for exercise, and if you’re only looking at it in terms of your heart rate being up or intensity, that’s the same way as me evaluating my box of red vines for calories. But then I go, okay, but with this energy is this amount of blood sugar, and all blood sugar behaves differently depending on how fast it comes in, in the context it comes in – like, if it’s a bunch of sugar without anything else, because why would you need anything else if you have a box of red vines. It’s like, 1,000 good calories right there. So then, I’m going to have a crash later on. My blood just became more syrupy because of the blood sugar content, so now the viscosity of my blood is greater, which means my heart has to work harder to move it through my body, and then I have the fact that my brain is not super stoked about that. So valves are opening and shutting, and then, you know, I don’t even know. I’m not a biochemist, I don’t even know. But I’m just going, you have these organ systems that have to deal with all these different things going on, blah blah blah. So you have to look at with your food – so cycling is the easiest – it’s the easiest movement for me to go, okay. You’re getting this motion, but what also are you getting? You’re getting constant pressure on spots on your pelvis, whether it’s your pelvic floor, or your tailbone or whatever. You’re also actively flexing your spine all the way over it. There’s nothing wrong with that human movement, but practicing it as your health outlet might mean that that health outlet is probably not the healthiest that it could be. And then you couple, like, what about, you know, cervical extension? So now you’re like on a road bike, and you’re hunched forward and your head is out, and your arms are rounded in, and so your legs are moving, but your arms themselves didn’t articulate fully. So that would be what is not, but if you look at what is, well, what do I have? I have an hour and 15 minutes of compression in this particular area. The bones are adapting to all of these things. So to me, that’s more how you find junk. And you have to have more of a mechanical – I think – working, to go “what is there that shouldn’t be there at such a high dosage?” And so pushes and pulls, forces are essentially pushes and pulls. So if you can look at your movement, and look at the pushes and pulls that are being created, and then figure out which ones are unnatural inputs at a higher frequency, then that’s probably the best way to discern “junk,” I guess. If you will. But then everything else is probably going to fit somewhere in, you know, health bar region. You know, going dancing, you know, is – dancing is a category. So say you do, you know, a dance, and every time you go to dance, the choreography is varied. Well, that’s different than always going and doing exactly the same choreography, and that’s different than taking a dance class, like, in high heels. So you want to look at what makes something nutritious is how it’s affecting all of your body, head to toe. So if you’re like, okay, this is my arms and my legs, it sucks for my ankles down, which then goes around and affects my knees. Then you can have, like, a better sense of how that aligns with your current physical health. And you have to be really objective, because people are really good at going, “I’m fine!” and then, like, there’s their medications.
DANI: Yeah.
KATY: It’s like, okay, well, you just need to be really – in Move Your DNA, there’s this huge task of writing everything out. It needs to almost be private, in a journal. Things that you don’t even want to disclose to other people about how you’re feeling and what hurts, and the quality of different parts of your body. You know, you just need to get real, because then you can really, truly look at your inputs, and go, okay, it’s really not working for me. I feel good about them, but feeling good about something isn’t really the best indication – like, how you feel emotionally about something isn’t the best indication of if something is good for you physiologically or not.
DANI: That’s true.
KATY: So. You know, that’s. Anyway. So much.
DANI: It is so much. That leads us to a perfect time –
KATY: It’s always the perfect time!
DANI: It’s always the perfect time.
KATY: Is it beer-thirty? What? I’m just kidding.
DANI: What?
KATY: I don’t even drink beer.
DANI: I’m too much of a nerd. I don’t even understand what that is. Did I miss out on something?
KATY: I don’t know, I thought that’s what the cool kids used to say. It’s like, is it time to study? They’re like, I don’t know, it’s beer-thirty.
DANI: Oh, man. I missed out on that one.
KATY: And then I wasn’t invited. I wasn’t invited. I’d just hang out at the library.
DANI: I’m making a square in the air right now with my fingers for me. And you.
KATY: I’m making an L. And L on my head.
DANI: You’re awesome.
KATY: You know what? Two Ls together make a square. Or rectangle.
DANI: Or a bucket. Oh, I guess, yeah, depends which way you put them.
KATY: Right.
DANI: There you go, thinking outside the square again.
KATY: And a diamond. All right, anyway.
DANI: All right. Let’s bring out the big news. You are no longer going to be the director of the Restorative Exercise™ Institute.
KATY: No.
DANI: Is this so?
KATY: That is correct.
DANI: What’s the deal?
KATY: The deal is, there will be no more Restorative Exercise™ Institute. That everything’s closing for Restorative Exercise™, and re-opening as Nutritious Movement. So Nutritious Movement, we talked a little bit about it in the Wassup?! Show, but yes. That Nutritious Movement, I think, is the best – Restorative Exercise™ was confusing, I think – I mean, you’ve been in the Restorative Exercise™ community for a long time. Capital R Capital E, like, the brand Restorative Exercise™ and trying to go – well, we’re trying to teach movements that are not exercise, but we also still use exercise: you know, it was kind of confusing.
DANI: Right.
KATY: So Nutritious Movement is, you know, the brand – all the brands, kind of: Aligned and Well, Katy Says, and Restorative Exercise™ coming through to Nutritious Movement, where everything that we’ve talked about today is all just now on this together, laid-out, I think – hopefully – clearly and well on this Nutritious Movement website and it’ll be a very large book on Nutritious Movement, as kind of like our textbook. And that won’t be for another year and a half, but yeah – so that’s – that’s what’s going on, and by the time – when will this one be coming out? Will this be out in November?
DANI: December.
KATY: December, so all of that will have just – I think we’ll be releasing Nutritious Movement in all of the new, oh my gosh, there’s so much amazing stuff now. The website is – just after doing this for 15 years, like, exactly everything that everyone has ever asked for me to be on there, and organized well, and that’ll be –
DANI: That must feel good.
KATY: It does. It was a big – it still is, but by the time we’re listening to this, I will be on a beach somewhere on a vacation after having given birth to NutritiousMovement.com. But yeah, it’s really good because I think we spent so much time answering questions for people that now this website answers. Like, you could sit and comb through and make out with and fall in love with this website, because it will hold the answers, I think, to a lot of your questions. So.
DANI: Mmm.
KATY: Yeah, I’m happy about that.
DANI: I can’t wait.
KATY: Well, you’re going to be in Hoobidy Doobidy.
DANI: When it comes out? They have Internet in Hoobidy Doobidy.
KATY: Well, why would you go on there? I just don’t even need to go.
DANI: Because I want to see this. I haven’t, you know, people think I’ve seen it, but I haven’t. I don’t know what’s going on, I want to see it.
KATY: Well, then you’ll have to go find some Internet in Hoobidy Doobidy.
DANI: I can do that. That’s okay.
KATY: You could Doobidy it.
DANI: Hoobidy Doobidy.
KATY: Sorry. Sorry. Okay.
DANI: I’m actually not going to Hoobidy Doobidy. I’m going to a different part of the Hoobidy Doobidy land.
KATY: That’s great.
DANI: I am very excited, yes. Always good to explore new places. But I’ll miss Hoobidy Doobidy.
KATY: She’ll miss you!
DANI: I’ll miss you!
KATY: I’ll miss you, too.
DANI: Mm-hmm. All right. We got time for a quick listener question? Can you do it?
KATY: I can.
DANI: Okay. This is from Joanie, and she says – this is great. “I was wondering what alignment snacks you would recommend for pregnancy, especially for aching hips and lower back.” And she notes that she has been working and has been doing minimal shoes for some time now.
KATY: Well, Joanie is in luck, because by the time this comes out, Joanie could just go to NutritiousMovement.com and click on the pregnancy pack.
DANI: Joanie! How awesome is that?
KATY: Isn’t that exciting?
DANI: Joanie, I hope you’re listening. Go there right now.
KATY: I bet Joanie is like, why don’t they ever get back to me? And it’s like, we got back to you! On the Internets!
DANI: We made this website for you, Joanie. Please go and click.
KATY: Actually, Joanie. That’s right. I’m just going to throw it together: Joanie’s pack. Yes. She can just go – I mean, it’ll – yeah. It’s going to be fantastic. And Joanie can also click on the home page. This was due to popular request, I’ll say demand, because that’s what actually was – demand. Lots of capitals and exclamation points. But I’ll say it was a request. On the bottom of the home page are just like, 10 or 12 categories. Kids, pregnancy, footwear, living spaces, and when you click on that, organized for you are what we felt were the best 10 blog posts on that topic, 3 YouTube videos sorted and placed for you, and then 3 podcasts that best –
DANI: Brilliant.
KATY: I mean, it’s just like, there’s the Get Started one, you’re like, how did I end up here? I fell through a wormhole and now I’m at Nutritious Movement. It’s like, get started reading. Click. Wow. There’s your primer right there, and now you have a sense of like, okay, now I know more of where I want to go. So.
DANI: Exciting. Congratulations.
KATY: The end.
DANI: Yay. The end.
KATY: Thank you.
DANI: Sounds good.
KATY: Or actually, I’m going to say the beginning. And now I feel like I need to knock on wood or something. I don’t know. I don’t want to say the end. The beginning! The beginning of my vacation. I’m going to go on vacation, too.
DANI: You’re going to go somewhere warm and sunny?
KATY: Actually, probably by the time this comes out I’ll have already taken a week off, because we just put Diastasis to bed, so I’m going to the Redwoods.
DANI: Oh!
KATY: We’re taking our kids to the Redwoods to do some hiking out there. We’ll go through Big Sur and through – I’m from Santa Cruz county, so go hike up in there for a few days, and then they have a steam train. A still-running steam train, so we’re going to, you know, go do the (train noise) Toot Toot!
DANI: That sounds pretty fun.
KATY: Mm-hmm. It’s a break, so everyone out there: take a break. Even if it’s just a vacation in your hometown, just take a few days off. It’s mostly a tech break. I take a tech break every year for a week, and this will be that week.
DANI: That’ll be good.
KATY: Yeah.
DANI: Cool. All right. Do you want to take us out?
KATY: Yes, I’ll take us out. Thanks, everyone who listened – man, I am very appreciative for everyone who listens to this show, how about you?
DANI: Me, too.
KATY: Yeah.
DANI: We have the best listeners.
KATY: Yeah, I love you guys. It’s just –
DANI: High quality folks. High quality.
KATY: Come up and say hi to us sometime! I would love it if you were like, if you see us out, come up and say hi. Like that would be very cool.
DANI: Yeah. I’ll be the one with the Snickers bar.
KATY: For more information, books, online classes, etcetera, you can find me, Katy Bowman, at NutritiousMovement.com after December 1st. You can learn more about Dani Hemmat, movement warrior, and I believe employee of Snickers – I’m pretty sure that’s just now coming out. You can find her at MoveYourBodyBetter.com.
DANI: Woo hoo! Thanks for listening.
KATY: All right, have fun you guys!
DANI: Bye!
We hope you find the general information on biomechanics, movement, and alignment informative and helpful – but it is not intended to replace medical advice and shouldn’t be used as such.
SHOW NOTES:
Episode 2: Natural Movement
https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/episode-2-natural-movement/id894200695?i=316224913&mt=2
Episode 21: Is Exercise Junk Food
https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/episode-21-is-exercise-junk/id894200695?i=341432705&mt=2
Episode 33: Cycling
https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/episode-33-cycling/id894200695?i=354933751&mt=2
http://theinspirationroom.com/daily/2014/snickers-coach-robin-williams/