[00:00:00] You think you’re healthy? But the truth is you’re probably [00:00:05] not. You see, I just came off of this amazing interview on the [00:00:10] influential personal brand podcast with Dr. Helena Papa Vic, and she is a [00:00:15] leading doctor in brain health from Australia. But it wasn’t just this interview that makes me [00:00:20] say that.
[00:00:20] I have been on my own health journey for the last 18 months [00:00:25] and a very intentional. Research driven, data-driven approach to [00:00:30] understanding why I was feeling the way that I was and why I was saying [00:00:35] I’m healthy and realizing I’m actually not, you see [00:00:40] what happened is I thought because I didn’t eat sugar that.[00:00:45]
[00:00:45] I wasn’t eating sugar. And what I mean by that is I’m not a big dessert person. I don’t have [00:00:50] cookies. I’m not a heavy like, you know, sugary drink person. I [00:00:55] don’t drink alcohol, so I don’t drink soda. I, I, I did the healthy [00:01:00] thing, don’t eat a lot of processed foods. And on a, a very important [00:01:05] conversation that I had with a health coach at the time he challenged me and he said, [00:01:10] I don’t believe that you don’t eat sugar.
[00:01:12] And I think that you’re fooling yourself [00:01:15] just because you don’t eat dessert. Soda and alcohol doesn’t mean that you don’t eat [00:01:20] sugar. And I was confused and I said, what are you talking about? And so I did an [00:01:25] audit of my pantry, of his request and I learned, oh my gosh, I eat [00:01:30] so much sugar. And I didn’t know it.
[00:01:32] And it wasn’t just that if you would’ve asked me a [00:01:35] year ago, Hey, aj, do you, do you put a lot of oils into your food? I would’ve been like, no. [00:01:40] Occasionally I cook with olive oil, but that’s it. That was also a lie. Oils were in [00:01:45] almost every single condiment we had. They were almost in every single box food that we had.[00:01:50]
[00:01:50] They were in every skin product, face, product, lotion, conditioner, [00:01:55] shampoo sunscreen. If I owned it, it had oils in [00:02:00] it. And again, I’m not saying any of these things are necessarily [00:02:05] bad. But in the amount that we are taking them in as an American [00:02:10] society, our bodies were not meant to sustain them at the levels that we’re [00:02:15] consuming them.
[00:02:15] So what I wanna share with you today, I’m no health practitioner. [00:02:20] I am not a doctor, but these are five simple things that I believe that [00:02:25] you can do every single day to get and stay healthy. [00:02:30] Now if you like some of these ’cause they are free, simple and in my opinion, [00:02:35] pretty easy. Then I would encourage you to go listen to the entire conversation that I had with [00:02:40] Dr.
[00:02:40] Helena Popovic because this is not just about being healthy physically. [00:02:45] This is about internal health. This is about gut health, cardiovascular help. This is about [00:02:50] brain health. This is about doing the things today that will prolong your life, [00:02:55] not just so that you’re older, but that you live a happier, healthier life as you age.
[00:02:59] [00:03:00] So here’s the first thing. Start every day in [00:03:05] prayer or gratitude. There are scientific research studies that [00:03:10] prove that when you start your day in a gratitude [00:03:15] state, that you have lowered your cholesterol, lowered your [00:03:20] cortisol, that you have, you know, decreased the stress hormones, IE cortisol, [00:03:25] but you are actually starting your day in a way that you are positioning your mind, [00:03:30] your heart, and your body to receive what comes at you throughout [00:03:35] the day.
[00:03:35] Right. And not only that, it’s like if you start every day with the attitude [00:03:40] of Thank you Lord, for this day, thank you for breath in my lungs. Thank you for [00:03:45] eyes to see. Thank you for ears to hear. Thank you for legs to walk with. If you just remember the [00:03:50] most fundamental things that we forget in the busy hecticness, hecticness of [00:03:55] life, it puts things in perspective that already.
[00:03:59] That you [00:04:00] have been given the gift of another day that already that you have breath in [00:04:05] your lungs and you have feet to walk on, and you have eyes to see [00:04:10] and, and ears to hear the little, you know, whispers of your children outside your door. [00:04:15] And to see the sunrise that comes up. And on the days where I’m like a little grumpy that [00:04:20] I’m up when the sunrise happens, I remember that.
[00:04:22] I have eyes to see the sunrise today. [00:04:25] And when I’m a little frustrated that my kids are interrupting my morning routine, I remember [00:04:30] that I get the pleasure of ha happy, healthy children in my house. And when [00:04:35] I’m a little grumpy that I have to get in my car and drive through traffic, I, [00:04:40] I remember that I have the privilege of a car that works, that’s [00:04:45] reliable and that I have a place to go to see people that I enjoy getting to work with.[00:04:50]
[00:04:50] That’s a perspective shift. That’s a heart stance of [00:04:55] gratitude versus ingratitude. And if we’re not proactively choosing [00:05:00] gratitude by default, we are unintentionally choosing ingratitude. [00:05:05] But that’s the first thing is just start your day in prayer and thankfulness and gratitude [00:05:10] that you are alive today there.
[00:05:12] And there’s a reason behind that in that if you [00:05:15] are alive today, there’s breath in your lungs, there’s a reason. And that doesn’t mean it’s [00:05:20] gonna be an easy day, but there is purpose in the day. So that’s number one. Number two, [00:05:25] this is a little bit more tactical and I have it on right now. So if you’re watching my video, I’m gonna stick my [00:05:30] shoe up in the air and I’m gonna show you this little thing, right?
[00:05:33] This is a pedometer. [00:05:35] Yes, I know that you can have an app on your phone, but I’m trying to stay tech free. So I bought myself this little [00:05:40] pedometer and I track my steps and that is my own little competition [00:05:45] to make sure that I am moving every single day. See, I set a goal at the beginning of this year.
[00:05:49] We’re in [00:05:50] 2025 when we’re filming this to, to walk 10,000 steps a day. [00:05:55] And when I set that goal, I didn’t realize how much walking that was, to be honest, because I [00:06:00] work a lot and I’m at my desk a lot and I didn’t realize that, you know, 10,000 steps [00:06:05] could be 90 minutes to two hours of walking every single day.
[00:06:09] And [00:06:10] so I’ve had to get really creative. And I will tell you what will happen on an average [00:06:15] day if I am at my computer, like a day at today, where I’ve done tons of video [00:06:20] recordings. Here’s what starts to happen. I’m gonna stand up, so you may only see half of me, but. I do [00:06:25] this. Yes, like a crazy person in line at the grocery store.
[00:06:28] I’m marching in line [00:06:30] like a crazy person. While I’m cooking. I’m marching in line while I am drying my hair. I am [00:06:35] marching in place while I’m curling my hair. I am marching in place. I’m March in place all the [00:06:40] time. My kids just now, oh, mom’s marching again. Mom’s marching again, y’all [00:06:45] listen. Movement matters.
[00:06:47] And it doesn’t have to be 10,000 steps a day. You [00:06:50] don’t have to get a pedometer. It could be your movement of choice. But the point is, it’s like, [00:06:55] do not expect what you do not inspect. And it’s not a chore. [00:07:00] It’s a privilege that you get the opportunity to go and do these things, right? And [00:07:05] so challenge yourself to move, make it a competition, gamify [00:07:10] it.
[00:07:10] Do whatever you have to do to get yourself in the mindset to go, oh, [00:07:15] shoot. Right, because I’m right now. I’m only at a thousand steps and it’s almost [00:07:20] 2:00 PM I got a lot of moving to do between now and the end of the day. I [00:07:25] would not know that if I was not tracking it. So give yourself [00:07:30] some tools to do the things that are necessary for you to be and stay healthy.
[00:07:34] And moving [00:07:35] every day is one of those things. Number three, cut alcohol. And I, [00:07:40] I say that not because I think alcohol is necessarily evil or bad. I say it [00:07:45] because if it does not add something to your life, then why are you doing it? And to say [00:07:50] that, oh, it tastes good, or anything else is like, well, there’s plenty of other things that taste good too.[00:07:55]
[00:07:55] Don’t rationalize, rationalize yourself into something that isn’t necessarily [00:08:00] good for your long-term health. Do you have to cut it completely? Do you have to cut it [00:08:05] forever? Maybe not. But cut it for the day, right? [00:08:10] Give yourself the opportunity to detoxify your body so that you can rest without it.
[00:08:14] You [00:08:15] can think without it. You can relax without it. You can have fun without it. And so my [00:08:20] third tip would be to cut alcohol. Challenge yourself for a day, a week, a month, a [00:08:25] year. But see what life looks like without it and see what you can replace it with. [00:08:30] Water. What if for every single time that you went for that glass of wine, instead [00:08:35] you went for that glass of water, what would that do for the actual internal health [00:08:40] of your body?
[00:08:41] Number four, cut sugar. And I’m not saying that you shouldn’t [00:08:45] enjoy sugar ever, but it should be a treat. It should be something that you look [00:08:50] forward to enjoy, not an expectation that you have every night after dinner, and most [00:08:55] certainly not a hidden ingredient in every single thing that you eat and drink throughout the day.[00:09:00]
[00:09:00] And you can only cut sugar if you know all the things that you’re eating that has [00:09:05] sugar in it, which means you have to become obsessive about reading labels. Or even [00:09:10] better yet, don’t read labels. If it has a label, just don’t buy it. [00:09:15] Right. That’s a, that’s a call back to food from the Earth, right? Did it [00:09:20] grow in a tree?
[00:09:20] Did it grow in a vine? Did it come from the earth? Right? Is it a whole food? Right? What if you [00:09:25] never had to look at a label to see how many grams of sugar it had in it because there was no label? [00:09:30] ’cause it was a whole food, right? We call it our family perimeter Shopping. Right. That [00:09:35] means that you never go down the aisles, right?
[00:09:37] ’cause there’s not fresh food down the aisle. So we’re perimeter [00:09:40] shoppers. And we really challenge ourselves to never go down the aisles. And it’s, that means [00:09:45] it’s in the produce sec section, it’s in the meat section, it’s in the dairy section but it’s [00:09:50] all, all around the perimeter of the grocery store.
[00:09:52] So what would it look like for you to become a perimeter [00:09:55] shopper at your local grocery store? And last, but certainly not least. This is the [00:10:00] fifth quick, easy thing that you can do on a daily basis to get and stay healthy, is [00:10:05] to go to bed earlier, get more sleep. Okay. [00:10:10] Give your body time to rest. Give your brain the chance to rejuvenate [00:10:15] and detoxify.
[00:10:16] Let your body rest. That is a, a, an [00:10:20] easy thing. Said, not always an easy thing done. And I have two little boys at home [00:10:25] and a husband who travels and a business that is growing and a, a growing [00:10:30] team. And there’s lots of demands on my schedule, which means it’s even more [00:10:35] important that I prioritize my bedtime.
[00:10:39] Because [00:10:40] a well-rested AJ is a happy aj and everybody [00:10:45] wants you to be happy, right? And I love this quote, I think Mark Twain said it [00:10:50] that you know, fatigue makes cowards of us all. And that’s because we [00:10:55] don’t think as clearly and we’re not as healthy or [00:11:00] happy, and we’re stressed and our internal hormone levels are in disarray when we [00:11:05] don’t have enough rest.
[00:11:06] Right. A sleep deprivation is a real thing and you, [00:11:10] you may not even know that you’re sleep deprived, but if you have brain fog, if you are [00:11:15] suffering from depression or anxiety, and I’m not saying it’s only because of sleep, but a [00:11:20] lack of sleep only increases all of those things. So get to bed [00:11:25] earlier, right?
[00:11:26] Create a sleep routine that helps you go to sleep and stay asleep . [00:11:30] That is a simple thing that you can do that allows your body to rest to prepare for the day [00:11:35] ahead. So those are five simple things. Again, start every day in prayer, get [00:11:40] moving. Right? In my case, get a pedometer, cut, sugar, cut alcohol, and go to bed [00:11:45] earlier.