Episode 10: The Best Exercise for Hypothyroidism - 3 Ways to Move Your Body to Support Your Thyroid Health with Physical Therapist, Justin Geissinger
Exercise is great for boosting mood, increasing mental clarity, and increasing energy levels. The challenge can be how to get consistent exercise that helps us to feel good, specifically when dealing with hypothyroidism when simply having enough energy to make it through the day can feel challenging.
In this episode, I have my first guest here on the podcast– Justin Geissinger…. my husband. He’s not just my husband- he’s a physical therapist and movement and performance coach and overall movement enthusiast.
Today we’re going to be talking about how and why we should get more movement in and what some of the best exercises are for people dealing with hypothyroidism. As always we have a few simple shifts that you can do to start making an impact in this area today.
So glad you're here,
Sarah
Resources Mentioned In This Episode:
Adrenal Dysfunction Assessment: bit.ly/thyroid-tools
Products and Tools to Support The Adrenal Glands & Healthy Cortisol Levels: bit.ly/thyroid-tools
Disclaimer: Information shared on this podcast and any referenced websites are not to be taken as medical advice or to be used as a diagnosis or treatment plan for any medical condition. I’m sharing my educated opinions & experience but nothing shared here can be taken on a one size fits all basis and we always recommend you do your own research, talk to your own doctors and practitioners, and take full responsibility for any health & medical choices you make.
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Want to read this episode instead? Here’s the transcript!
Sarah: Moving our bodies consistently is an important part of wellness in general, and not so much so you can look good in a bathing suit or have six pack abs. Honestly, how I look as a result of exercise has really moved way down the list of reasons to actually exercise as I've gotten older and also as I've managed my own health and energy levels. But moving our bodies to feel good is where it's at. Exercise is great for boosting the mood, increasing mental clarity, increasing energy levels and so many more things. But the challenges to get consistent exercise can be pretty great. Even though we know in our heads that consistent exercise helps us to feel good, specifically when you're dealing with hypothyroidism, simply having enough energy to make it through the day can feel particularly challenging. In this episode, I have my first guest here on the podcast, Justin Geisinger, my husband, and he is not just my husband, he's a physical therapist and a movement and performance coach.
He's an overall movement enthusiast. Today we're gonna be talking about how and why we should get more movement and what some of the best exercises are for people who are dealing with hypothyroidism. As always, we'll have a few simple shifts that you can do to start making impacts in this area today. Before we jump in, I wanna encourage you to head over to bit lee slash thyroid dash tools to take some of the short quizzes that I've created for you to help you assess your symptoms. There's quite a few quizzes to help you check in on some of your more subjective hypothyroid symptoms that you might be having. There's also a quiz to assess your toxic load and how your liver's doing if it needs some support in gently detoxing. And also a quiz to see how your adrenals are doing and if you're demonstrating any symptoms of adrenal dysfunction, which is super common amongst people dealing with hypothyroidism.
These quick little assessment tools can give you an idea of how high on the priority list addressing these various areas of health and wellness should be. And these are all areas that are interconnected with what's happening with your thyroid. Things like liver health, adrenal health, even thyroid health. These all can impact how you're actually feeling, especially while working through unraveling your own hypothyroid symptoms in a holistic way. So go ahead and either head to the link in the show notes or go to bit lee slash thyroid dash tools to take the quiz and see where you're at. This is also a great tool to come back to from time to time to see what gains you've made in resolving these symptoms over time as you sort of chip away and make some simple shifts in working on all these issues. Head to bit Lee slash thyroid tools to choose one of the short quizzes or all of the short quizzes that you can use to assess symptoms that are keeping you from feeling good as you move through your days.
Welcome to the Natural Thyroid Fix. I'm Sarah Geisinger, a holistic lifestyle, a nutrition coach, and former hypothyroid mom who has reversed her thyroid disease using a natural approach to thyroid health. Trust me, I know what it feels like to move through the life in a brain fog meeting, a nap by mid-afternoon and constantly be cleaning the hair you've lost outta the shower drain. Do you know what I'm talking about? If you're here, I bet you do. So if you're ready to reject the notion that this tired hypothyroid life is as good as it gets and start implementing simple natural strategies to live a vibrant symptom-free life, then this is the podcast for you. Let's dive into today's show. Okay. Hello. So welcome to the podcast today. Uh, I'm excited cuz I have my first guest. First guest. Hello.
Justin: I'm so happy to be the first guest.
Sarah: And, uh, I'm married to my first guest, but he's more than just my husband. He's actually has some knowledge and expertise on this specific topic, which is exercise and movement. And so when I was a college athlete, I was, you know, working out all the time at a pretty high level. That was a long time ago though. And since then, establishing a consistent exercise routine has been a challenge for me. Motherhood, health issues, just having other priorities. Uh, I know that story is very, very common amongst women, amongst people, <laugh> in general, but movements are important aspect of overall wellness and I'm interested in creating overall wellness in my life. And I know you are too. That's why you're here. So that is why we are talking to my very first podcast guest, my husband Justin Geisinger. So a little intro for him. Justin is a physical therapist as well as a movement and performance coach.
He loves to learn and teach people how to move well. He loves to learn about moving well, uh, himself. He can get really nerded out on the research mm-hmm. <affirmative> about movement and, um, how it impacts our overall health and wellness. He really tends to nerd out on the research in the studies and info that comes, that comes out on all of that. So it's not just he, he does do a lot of performance coaching the athletes, but he is not actually just interested in exercise for high-end athletes or like even just the super weekend warrior types. He is really interested in helping all sorts of people move better and get more movement in. And so I'm excited to talk with him about this topic specifically. Justin, can you just start out kind of telling us what your perspective in general on movement is and why movement's important?
Justin:
Yeah. There's two simple sayings that you hear in a lot of, uh, physical therapy practices, especially ones that I've been in. I know it can get annoying say it over and over, but movement is medicine and another one is motion is lotion. You know, those two things really are true in helping people to move better and feel better.
Sarah:
So like the idea that, you know, oh, my, my back hurts, I'm just gonna lay here on the couch until it feels better. You wouldn't suggest that as being the best way to heal.
Justin:
You know, that's probably not the first line of defense for that. You know, there may be some better options. Uh, because another problem that I think people have is they've heard a lot of bad things about their bodies, especially if, if they've had some imaging done by a doctor, like an X-ray mri. And I've heard it so many times that I just want to shred up that image and the doctor says, oh, this is the worst x-ray of a low back I've ever seen. Oh, these are the most arthritic knees I've ever seen. And that just impacts their, like, their, the, like their mentalness. Well, how would that Make you feel? Right. You know, it's like, I shouldn't move. I have horrible knees, don't sneeze. Right. I could like make them worse. Sure. But the reality is we are living bodies that have these capabilities of healing, but we have to utilize those capabilities of healing. So laying down long periods of time, you know, outside of sleeping, you're not really promoting blood flow. You're not promoting your body's capacity to heal. Instead you're just kind of like keeping everything still, which that brings up another saying that I use a lot is, or an analogy, I guess rather when you think about water, think of a river, you know, that's moving water that's healthy, right? That's a healthy stream. You got lots of living organisms in there. Now picture that like ugly little puddle out there by the end of the driveway.
Sarah:
It's a stagnant pond. Yeah.
Justin:
It's got like some oil resting on top of it. It just looks nasty. It smells terrible. You know, it's stagnant. It's not moving. That is not living healthy water. And we want our bodies to be a similar way living, moving that promotes the health and healing.
Sarah:
So would you say that outside of just wanting to be like super fit or had, you know, trained for a, I don't know, some endurance event, like that exercise is important beyond the people who have those sorts of goals?
Justin:
100%. And I feel like sometimes exercise and body image has been hijacked negatively because it's like there's these two extremes. Like, well, I either don't do anything or I'm gonna run a marathon, or I'm gonna have, you know, 5% body fat for this. Why? I don't, I don't know.
Sarah:
Um, I mean, and that's not, you wouldn't suggest that that be the goal for most people, right?
Justin:
No, no, no. Like if you have some other reason for a goal that extremely low body fat or to run a marathon, cool. You know, go for that. Maybe at some point in your life. But, uh, especially when you're just getting started, don't go for those extremes. The the first goal should be, can I move more tomorrow than I did today?
Sarah:
That's good. And that is a, I think an important question or an important point to kind of keep coming back to is that we are not talking about exercise as being this intense thing where you're trying to, you know, cut a bunch of weight and get super in shape and be able to run however many miles. The goal is just to move more, right.
Justin:
Absolutely. Yeah. Like wherever you're at, can you do a little bit more? Can we add some to that load? We don't have to do a couch to a marathon program or even a couch to 5K program. We're just saying like, can we just go from couch to the mailbox?
Sarah:
Would you say that in a lot? So you see a wide range of different, uh, patients and clients in your, in your physical therapy work. Would you say that the majority of people are not getting enough movement, enough exercise in their days? Or are people, from your perspective, what's the average person looking like in terms of movement? Are they doing all right?
Justin:
No. No, they're, they're not. Now you gotta understand, I'm also having a biased, uh, population here because most of the people I see are already hurt. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. So they're probably already not moving as much.
Sarah:
Did they get hurt because they were doing something physically active or did they get hurt because they were not doing something?
Justin:
Physically? No, I think that it's usually because they did something that got them hurt, but that thing was not something that would get most people hurt. And I'll use the example of unloading the laundry or they twisted their back funny, uh, unloading the dishes. You know, there's little things that they moved and it got 'em hurt, but their capacity for movement was already so low that that was just the straw that broke the camel's back. And here's another thought that I, I ponder a lot in every population that I've worked in. And as you know, we're traveling multiple states and seeing different people. I've always seen more desk workers and retirees with injuries than I have with more, uh, like blue collar workers or manual workers.
Sarah:
Oh, like, like jobs that are requiring more of your body physically.
Justin:
Exactly. You know, I always thought that was odd. And it's just those who move more on the job, and especially in diverse ways. Uh, I don't see them as often as people who have neck pain from working at the computer all day long. Mm, that's interesting. Or low back pain from sitting for long periods of time.
Sarah:
Interesting. So on the by and large movement, we're not getting enough movement. And I think there's probably lots of studies out there that demonstrate that, right? Yeah.
Justin:
Yeah. Yeah. There's a lot there. Yeah. Um, and, and, and again, you can go find that anywhere but one study I like to point out, this is an oldie but goodie, uh, it's from 1966, called the Dallas Bedrest Study, and they took six men in their early twenties, like college kids, and they put 'em on strict bedrest, and the studies were awful. The findings were awful from this, uh, in just three, they
Sarah:
Were like, they were just like healthy men, right?
Justin:
These are healthy men. Yeah. And they wanted to see what would be the effects basically on the cardiovascular system. If we said, here you go guys, you're just gonna lay in bed, watch movies, here's books, magazines, you know, you can read, do anything you want, but you can't get outta bed. Okay, we're gonna do this. And they found, I think it went a little bit longer than that, but the three week mark was really important because they found there was such a severe decline in their cardiovascular capacity
Sarah:
And it kind like dumb it down for us. What is a, you know, what's the cardiovascular capacity?
Justin:
Basically it's like, can you walk up the steps and not get out of breath? Hmm. You know, their capacity to do pretty much any kind of physical activity was declining so fast just by being on bedrest.
Sarah:
And they were otherwise healthy people.
Justin:
Correct. And then they did follow up studies, I believe it's every 10 years on these same individuals, and they found that the decline in their health was not matched at those three week, uh, at the three week mark until they were 40 years later. So they were six in their sixties. So
Sarah:
In three weeks they aged. What?
Justin:
They basically aged 40 years.
Sarah:
In those three weeks.
Justin:
Yes. Were they able to regain that now? That was going to be the next thing I was gonna tell you. So they also, I wanna say maybe around the 20 year mark, you know, life got busy, they're in their forties, they're raising families, they might have been working desks, whatever. But then they all got on a very strict, uh, exercise plan. You know, the same people put this study together and they found that in a six week period, they were basically able to reverse their ages 20 years. So now here they are in their mid forties and they were making their cardiovascular numbers appear as if they were in their early twenties again by working on this program for six weeks.
Sarah:
And was it some like super intense CrossFit type program?
Justin:
No, no. This would've definitely predated CrossFit, but you know, it did involve a little bit of cardio work, a little bit of strength training, uh, and I don't think the parameters were too extreme. Again, I don't know the exact exercises, but I think it was, uh, a five day a week plan with roughly an hour each day.
Sarah:
Did they make like other lifestyle, like dietary changes or was it simply just the addition of exercise?
Justin:
I don't recall, uh, because I was so focused on the movement aspect of it, but I know it was these people were not exercising at that time. Okay. And then they did start exercising. Gotcha.
Sarah:
And so simply by adding in a consistent exercise routine, they were able to reverse their, the markers that they had of age by 20 years? Is that what you said?
Justin:
Yep. That was the magic pill.
Sarah:
So six weeks
Justin:
Yep.
Sarah:
Of consistent work. Okay.
Justin:
It's Fountain of Youth right there.
Sarah:
Movement. Mm-hmm. <affirmative> is, there you go. You heard it here. Movement is the fountain of youth.
Justin:
Yep.
Best Exercise for Thyroid Patients
Sarah:
Um, okay. So this is, this is great. I mean, and that's exciting to, to see that, that you can so quickly by just shifting one habit, adding in movement, that you can start to reverse all the markers of age and how you feel and all of those things. But what if you are someone who does not have a habit of exercising at all? What if you are someone that right now you're like, it's been on your should do list for quite some time. What are your first steps to establishing a habit of exercising? Where do you start?
Justin:
Great question. You need to start. Um, and one, uh, saying is put one foot in front of the other. Uh, I often recommend people, uh, take advantage of the humble walk. Uh, I feel like walking is overlooked. Uh, and, and it's super powerful. You know, can you just start logging more steps? Can you start walking longer distances? Can you park further away from the entrance to the store that you're going to? Can you, uh, do an extra lap around the block just to go for the newspaper? You know, get creative. Just find a way to basically be on your feet a little bit more. Uh, I think what is the US recommended daily activity is five days a week of 30 minutes. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, you know, not saying that you just go from zero to that 150 minutes in a week mm-hmm. <affirmative>, but can you quantify it?
And that way it can be encouraging yourself. I feel like, uh, a lot of people think that it's boring to have objective measures, and I do that a little bit too much maybe. But hey, if you track it and be like, look, I was only walking 10 minutes a day and now I'm at 15. Cool. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. And so another way of patting yourself on your back instead of having this vague, oh, I think I did more, but now you're gonna definitively say, Hey look, I'm doing more, I'm doing more than I used to. And that can be an encourage in it in itself.
Sarah:
So are you a fan of things like fitness trackers, like a, you know, like a Fitbit or Apple watches that track steps and help you kind of keep tabs on it that way?
Justin:
Yes. If it's easy for real. Okay. For some people technology, ugh, that's gonna be overwhelming.
So, just having the goal of a 10 minute walk is good as instead of saying I'm going to get 10,000 steps in a day because to other people having that fitness tracker or that gadgety thing that is encouraging mm-hmm. <affirmative>, and that is like the motivating thing. So having as many, um, encouraging things in your life there to help you along the way. Right. And fewer barriers of entry. Exactly. How many hurdles can you get out of the way? Mm-hmm.
Best Exercise for Hypothyroidism
Sarah:
<affirmative>, what about the, the, do you feel like it's important for people to set aside like a specific exercise time or to just work on increasing, like, I don't know, not taking the escalator mm-hmm. <affirmative> parking, you know, far away from target mm-hmm. <affirmative> and walking from the back of the parking lot like it, which is, which is better? Does it matter?
Justin:
Again, maybe both. Right? One, yes. Can you park and few spaces away? Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. Cool. Well that was easy. Now, could you also allot maybe five minutes? I mean, we're talking small increments here. You can even call them exercise snacks. You know, if you have the time to just have an extra minute to go up the stairs, flight of stairs in your home, one more time in a day. If you can go from sitting to standing 10 times instead of one time. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, you know, what can you do to just get a little bit more mm-hmm. <affirmative> than what you did before?
Sarah:
I've heard you say talk about, um, non-exercise activity. Yeah.
Justin:
Yeah. So how can you, again, that's like how much can you put more time on your feet? Right? So instead of being like sitting in your cubicle as a desk worker, right. All day. Right. So instead of going to drive through for dinner, can you stand and prep a meal at home? Instead of sitting down to fold your laundry, could you stand up and fold laundry? You know, how many different ways could you change to have more time on your feet, basically? Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, how many little things can you do on your feet when you're not sitting or lying down? Yeah.
Sarah:
And we, we talk a lot on this podcast about like stacking habits where it's easy, you know, what are you, what are you already doing? How can you stack something on top that's gonna promote, um, like a healthy simple lifestyle shift?
Justin:
Love it. So yeah. And then you don't even have to think about it, right? Because if it's a stacked habit, you're like, well, it's a no-brainer. I'm standing here folding my laundry on Friday night while watching, fill in the blank. Sure.
Exercise and Hypothyroidism
Sarah:
Sure. Okay. So sometimes one of the challenges that people who deal with hypothyroidism have, or, or adrenal fatigue is another one, is that exercise just sort of pushes them over the edge. Like they do a workout and then they need to take a nap or they can't recover their muscles, maybe feel sore for days. And that can be a barrier to creating, uh, an exercise routine because it feels like it costs them, costs you a lot. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, um, you know, you can barely make it through the day while you're working through hypothyroid issues. You know that movement is important, but you also can't afford to not have energy for the next two days. Mm-hmm. <affirmative> or your muscles to be so sore for the next two days. So what might you suggest for a person like that? How can a person like that start to incorporate movement and exercise and all the things that you're suggesting?
Justin:
First, I would encourage looking at the variables that you can control. Sure. There are some things that are beyond your control, but what are some things that you can do? Uh, for example, you're not going to the gym and lifting a heavy weight. Okay, good. Because I can control the amount of load that I put on my body. The other thing is, are you doing the other simple things like, did you get enough to drink? Did
Sarah:
Hydration's huge.
Justin:
Right? Yeah.
Sarah:
Yeah. The physical symptoms of being dehydrated. Oh, you can get cramps, achiness just by being dehydrated.
Just a quick little note, if you uh, haven't listened to the episode I have about hydration and how that can impact our, the physical aspects of our hormones and how we feel and all that, go ahead and grab that. I'll put a link in the show notes to the hydration episode, but yeah, that's good point. Yeah.
Justin:
And I know this gets on another bigger hopping. I'm sure you covered this at another time, but what you're eating and there was this kid at, uh, high school track practice, uh, who had just come from Whataburger and pounded down like some sort of double burger with coke and fries. And he was talking about how his hamstrings were cramping. I was like, well, I think we might be able to pinpoint a little bit more what's going on here. Mm-hmm. <affirmative> and, uh, so again, control what you can control.
Exercises for Hypothyroidism
Sarah:
Sure. And so I think that's a great suggestion. And combine that with the idea of not maybe focusing on incorporating a, a major exercise routine, but just doing the little things like increasing your non-exercise activity. Mm-hmm. <affirmative> can be a great place to start. So yeah. That's super helpful. Okay. So what are the best types of workouts that we should be including for, specifically for people who are maybe new to exercise or people who are struggling with low energy levels, hypothyroid issues, adrenal fatigue, those sorts of things. What are the most important things? Because we may not be able to do everything, but what are the most important, best types of workouts that we should be including?
Justin:
So I would suggest you consider, uh, what is around you. Right. Um, cuz I tell this to everyone, it could be the most researched, backed, greatest exercise or activity in the entire world. And if you don't enjoy it at all, you're not gonna do it.
Sarah:
You're not gonna show up and do it. Yeah.
Justin:
<laugh> like for me, I really hate swimming. And if that was the only way to exercise, I'm
Sarah:
Just speaking as your wife, you're really bad at swimming.
Justin:
I am really bad.
Sarah:
It's really painful to watch Justin try and swim.
Sarah:
He's working so hard and getting nowhere. Yeah.
Justin:
<laugh>, I am just grateful to have other things that I like to do instead of swimming. Sure. So I use that as an example though. If you try something out and you hate it, well don't give up there. Cause there's a million other things out there that you could try. But in general, multi-joint, multi movement based exercise is gonna be good. Um, also doing something with others. So even if that is again, just the humble walk, do you have some way you could go walk with mm-hmm. <affirmative> and then if you can walk outdoors, get me more vitamin D, your now your habits stacking again. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, Hey, I walked outside with a friend in the sunshine, it's fantastic. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, you know, then you could maybe open up doors there to new activities. You know, <laugh>, we've seen, there's lots of fun clubs all over the place.
Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, whether it's the Tai chi club, the yoga club, the archery club, whatever it is, there's lots of flavors of movement out there. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. So again, you find the thing that you think you might like, explore that a little bit, then maybe you add it in with somebody else. And then, and, and also we're removing barriers to entry. Right? So if you had to drive an hour to go do that thing and you only kind of like it, well then maybe you shouldn't really do that, right? Mm-hmm. <affirmative> what's like right outside your door that can just help you to open up more doors into that whole new world of movement. Sure.
Sarah:
Okay. So start with the easy things just to, to kind of nail down some, some details on walking. If you were gonna start a walking habit, the humble walk mm-hmm. <affirmative>, get, put some numbers on that. What should be the goals, the goal for that? A good aim?
Justin:
The top goal there maybe would be 8,000 steps in a day. Okay. And that's a day. Right. So that doesn't mean,
Sarah: And I'm just gonna throw out there too, because Justin put a number on that it is hard to get eight to 10,000 steps in a day if you are not going for an intentional walk. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. I think a lot of times people think like, oh, I'm be able to hit that as long as I walk to the fridge or walk down to the mailbox. But if,
Justin: If you don't leave your house,
Sarah: It's real hard to…
Justin: It’s really hard to get that number. Yeah. Uh, but
Sarah: Just as a little mental marker so that you're not surprised, <laugh>,
Justin: I also don't recommend trying to get like 6,000 steps before 8:00 AM and then you'll fill in the rest. Right. Especially if you're new to it, you wanna try and spread that load mm-hmm. <affirmative> and if 8,000 is too much, okay, well then control what you can control. Right. Can you get a thousand in the morning, a thousand midday, maybe 2000 later on in the afternoon, again, spread that out. Mm-hmm. <affirmative> because your, uh, capacity then will be, uh, greater if you can spread the load so that you don't do it all at once and then you just hate the rest of the day. Right.
Sarah: Um, and then your aim, the aim should be to do that every day, five days a week. What's the best suggestion?
Justin: I think at least five days a week. Yeah. But every day is a great option. As soon as you can get to that, the more, the better.
Sarah: Okay. Great. What about strength training? Tell me your thoughts about strength training, especially for beginners, especially maybe for women, people who struggle with energy. Gimme some thoughts there about strength training. Is that something we should be seeking to incorporate?
Justin: Absolutely. Across the entire, uh, lifespan, you should be doing some strength training. Okay.
Sarah: Are you talking like, but hitting the gym and trying to become like a bodybuilder with ripped arms? Is that what we're going for?
Justin: If you really wanted, but I would say you wanna be, oh, there was another great shirt that I had a patient wear once, and I keep saying I want it, but make yourself hard to kill. If you are stronger, it is harder to get killed by the car that hits you. The falling off the horse, the lifting the laundry basket, the uh, infection, anything. People are just more resilient when they're stronger. So some level of strength training I think is super important. Uh, again, this is a relatively new thing. You think about years ago when we were all working on farms or in factories and things like that and you were just lifting all the time. Now we're not putting those loads on our bodies. So we have to artificially put those loads on our body to keep us healthy. Uh, I think the average standard there is two to three days a week. If you can get to the gym and do something like that, if you are not able to get to the gym and do something like that, uh, you can look up basic body weight exercise plans online using, uh, your own body weight to do some air squats,
Sarah: Like squats and pushups.
Justin: Elevated pushups, you know, from a countertop or wall pushups. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, uh, simple basic things like that, that are putting your body under a little bit of stress. You get your heart rate up a little bit, but it also promotes a little bit of a hormonal response in you. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, depending on how hard you go, you get a little bit of an endorphin release, which might make you feel a little bit happier for a little while. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, uh, again, and you can attract this for something objective. Can I do 10 squats? Can I do 10 wall pushups? Now I can do a counter pushup and I have floor pushup. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, you know, there's lots of different ways to grade that you can always add or take away, uh, the effects of gravity on you to do some strength training. Gotcha.
Sarah: Good. Okay. Um, do you have any closing thoughts? And before we, uh, wrap things up here?
Justin: Just encourage you to not give up, you know, that's good. Some days you're not gonna wanna feel like moving at all, but nearly every day after you do, you don't regret it. So sometimes the hardest thing is getting started. Which is another great reason if you have accountability, like a friend, a group that you're a part of. So then when you don't want to do it, they can check in and say, Hey, are you gonna come? And again, you almost never regret doing it.
Sarah: All right. Well, as we do kind of every episode, I like to make sure that I give you some simple shifts that you can do, even implement today. Uh, just small things that you can start to shift. And these aren't gonna be like the only thing, they may not have a massive impact immediately, but when we're approaching wellness from like a holistic perspective, I always like to remind you that we are, it's a, it's a puzzle piece. It's a bunch of small shifts put together over time. That's what creates ripple effects that look like wellness. And that's what we're after. And so, as Justin said, the first thing is, uh, that you could start doing today is find some accountability, find a friend, right?
Justin: Or spouse.
Sarah: Or spouse. Well, yeah. In my experiences, spouses are not my favorite accountability <laugh>, but that's not the same for everyone. Yeah. Okay. So have accountability, have a friend. Um, the second thing is, uh, you mentioned when we were talking earlier, a second thing was to have a goal. Can you talk a little bit about that?
Justin: Yeah. Uh, kinda like what we were just mentioning there with the walking, can I get to 8,000 steps? Okay, great. I did it once in a week. Can I get it to it five times in a week? Okay. Now let's say you wanna hike, there's a certain spot in your town or something. Oh yeah. I'm gonna walk from point A to point B. Uh, or then maybe you want to even load that with, uh, some sort of edible scrumptious reward at the end. <laugh>, like, I'm gonna walk from here to there and get that Sunday croissant, whatever it is that you really want. You gotta walk to work to get to it and then reward yourself.
Sarah: The third thing that you can do today is just seek to increase your non-exercise activity. Can you talk about why that's important, Justin?
Justin: Yeah. So the more time that you're spending on your feet, the more durable your body is becoming. Uh, another law, uh, in the world of movement, a Wolf's law, which shows that when you put more pressure or more load on a bone, that bone then becomes more durable and stronger. Especially as we age, especially women. Uh, when you're sitting more, when you're laying more, you're not having that load on you. You're, uh, in greater danger of developing osteoporosis. So non-exercise activities such as prolonged standing, prepping meals, throwing chores around the house, things like that, those are all things that can help to promote more load on your body, on a non-threatening way to help you build up to the next step.
Sarah: So movement doesn't have to just be hitting the gym. Correct. It's important to have it just be incorporated into regular life.
Justin: Absolutely. There's value in that.
Sarah: Yeah. Okay. And the last thing, the fourth thing, um, is to give it time. Develop some consistency. You wanna talk to that a little bit?
Justin: It's so important to remember that even small changes over long periods of time can be monumental. Uh, we live in an age of, uh, an immediate gratification, immediate any return on your investment. Uh, but through most of life, the most rewarding things take time. And this is another example of that. So if you go for one walk today and it didn't feel the best, don't give up. Or if you go for a walk tomorrow and it was amazing, great. Keep going. You know, every day you have to do, try to make a little bit of better change because when you ma again, stack that up, you're gonna have monumental rewards.
Sarah: Awesome. All right. Well thank you. Thank you. Thank you so much for your time.
Justin: Pleasure to be here.
Sarah: Excellent. Well, there we have it. So be sure. I wanna encourage you to go take some of those little assessment quizzes that I have tucked down in the show notes or at bit.ly/thyroid-tools. Lots of different things for you to help sort through what you should be prioritizing, but regardless of which area you need to prioritize, getting more movement and exercise into your days is beneficial to so many aspects of health. So you can start working on that. I hope you are able to apply some of these things and make small shifts towards feeling healthy and good movement is a big piece of that, right, Justin?
Justin: Absolutely. <laugh> movement is medicine.
Sarah: That's right. And I believe that when you start to make those small shifts towards feeling healthy and good, when you do it that way and you focus on doable lifestyle shifts, living a symptom-free life is totally possible. And I want that for you.
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