Physical Habits
Tova and guest Omari Bernard discuss the importance of healthy physical habits.
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Host: Tova Kreps, LCSW
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Guest: Omari Bernard
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TRANSCRIPT
00:25 Welcome to wellspring on the air. I'm Tova co founder and president of wellspring counseling and today's program is going to be about physical habits. It's the new year and we're going to talk about habits and we want to talk about today, specifically our habits of our body, fitness and health and nutrition and our physical habits. And with me today, have a very special guest. So I have Omari with me. Hi LRA and this is Omari Bernard and he is a certified exercise physiologist and just an expert in so many ways. Can you just tell us a little bit about your background so we can know what a great guest you are on this show and why we're asking you to talk about.
00:59 Of course. What I, I love long walks on the beach though. But seriously, I'm from Miami, Florida. I and I moved to California back in 2010 to work with a show called the biggest loser I was actually on. Oh yes. I think we all know it pretty well. And I was worked at their sister facility, so pretty much mirrored the same thing they did there. People didn't want to be on the show or if or if they didn't get on the show. So I was a head trainer and exercise physiologists there and I was there for a couple of years and then I started traveling home with the clients after they lost all the weight because we realized that they had trouble keeping it off when they went home. So I think that's the real struggle. Writing habits. Exactly. So I'm a home with them, live with them for three months at a time. Oh my gosh. Yeah.
01:47 I can't imagine that lifestyle of living with people for three months, helping them coach them.
01:53 Right. It was interesting. It was interesting, the different dynamics. I think God has placed me in that for a reason because I grew up, if I can get personal hair, I grew up, I didn't have my father and my life and I didn't see the dynamics of having like a husband and wife or father and mother in the house. So I was able to see that and see like maybe arguments and knowing that they're not getting into divorce for and simple argument cause I didn't really know so it was beautiful. Looking back now we can only connect the dots looking backwards and I realize that, yeah, I never realized that like God really placed me there to realize that it's okay to argue with different people. We have different,
02:31 so you were helping these people and coaching them in their lives and their shuttles, but the truth is God was doing an extra thing in you that you needed a little bit of reparenting we would call it where we get to see what that looks like. Then what a wonderful privilege. God, it's amazing how he orchestrates these things together. So your work now is, you still do that kind of work. Right?
02:49 Right. So I don't travel much anymore and said I tried to get clients to come here to Miami, Florida. I think it's a tractable place to good place and I'm an accountability coach, so I work a lot online. So I work with clients if they're in whatever country they are or even if they're here in Miami and we speak on the phone once a week and I create workouts, programs for them, check up on them daily and maybe bug them if you will, and just make sure they're being accountable to the things they want to achieve.
03:17 And you've worked with some pretty famous people, some stars and that kind of thing happened to you.
03:21 I have, I've worked with a few people in the limelight, if you will, some Olympic athletes as well and some well known people around there.
03:29 That's great. Well you obviously have a gift towards helping people. What do you think makes you good at helping them?
03:36 Oh, that's a great question. You know, I think it's just the fact that like I truly, I truly care and I really care for the person and being intentional and helping them reach their goals. Growing up, I had a lot of mentors in my life and I am where I'm at today because it was a village, was privileged to go to a great school. I went to this private school here in Miami, um, grew up with some great teachers who really cared about me and I saw the effects it had on me growing up. And I just want to like pay forward and do that as well to others. And I'm actually coaching at the high school where I went. So
04:10 what school is that? Just out of curious Christians. Florida Christian is a very good school there. There you go. There you go. Well, good for you. Um, it's just, it's just great. You're kind of like what we do in therapy, coming alongside of people and helping them be the best self they can be and who God designed when the be. So it's a privilege to do the work we do, isn't it? All right. So let's talk about physical habits. So first of all, it's the new year and this is the time of some of us take stock of ourselves, do an annual assessment, start new, start fresh, begin with new goals and things like that. I'm actually one of those people. So every year I do take my annual review and set some goals for the year. But let's talk about what do people do with the new year's? What's that about that goal setting and all that?
04:53 Yeah. You know, everybody says new year new me, right? And I think it's, I think it's great that people assess. I think it's a great thing that every time we take, whether it's a year or every three months, so we just take a step and look back and see where we're at and see where we're going, you know? So I think that's a part of like knowing like first of all, where do I want to go? What do I want to do? And then sit down and say, am I in alignment to the things I want to do? And I think like a beginning of the year is a perfect time to really put your alignment together with your goals and the things you're trying to accomplish.
05:28 Yeah, I actually believe very strongly in this and that we are having our healthy habits seminar. You're going to be on it with us and I'm excited about that. But uh, we now it's our third year doing it and it's been very successful and we do at the end of January, right when people have started, but they might be struggling and um, because Socrates, the unexamined life is not worth living and if we don't make the truth is without planning and without intentions, our natural state, without any of that, without assessing, evaluating or planning, we actually don't that well because our natural default is kind of slopping kind of lazy. At least mine is. But I know I'm not alone in that. No, no. So, so taking stock and setting goals and the, and whether that's, like you said, once a year, once a month, once a week, you know, ideally we kind of watch all along. I know for me, I is the annual at the new year and then in the summer I usually get to go to the beach once in the summer. And that's like I sit at the ocean and dr Godon figure out how far along I'm coming in, all the many things that need to be reinvention. So it's a good time of year for that. And I think it's common for a lot of people to set those goals. So what do you want to say about those goals? What makes those successful or not?
06:33 Well, you know, first I would love to mention that I do love goal setting and everything, but resolutions. I think sometimes we get a little bit overzealous of the things that we want to do. Absolutely. It's like we have a list from a to Z of the things we want to accomplish, right? So it's important if under here, throw out some statistics here. Okay. By January 15th, two weeks after new years, 50% of us, um, have already given up on our goals
07:00 given up on our goals. 50% of us. Alright, that's up. So the goals were unrealistic. Correct. Or they weren't planned carefully. Right. So maybe it's realistic to do it, but there wasn't a strategy there you go for how to do it, right. Bite size, measurable success. Full opportunities to do it.
07:22 Exactly. Yeah, exactly. That's exactly what it is. And after two weeks, the third week I from Johnny on January 21st another 25% so 75% of people I've already dropped off there and user solutions and just in three weeks and by the end of January 92%
07:41 so we do our habit seminar on January 25th which is just the right time. Oh it's perfect time. It's perfect timing to say don't be discouraged, don't, don't give up. There are actually tricks to succeeding.
07:53 There is, and there's research even shows that if we stick to one thing, if you focus on one thing, we have an 80% chance of actually accomplishing that goal.
08:01 All right, so talk about that for a minute. Let's this, that's our first success tip. Focus on one thing. What does that mean?
08:06 So we just pick one thing and stuff. Having like 10 things that we're going to focusing on focus on. So if your goal is to say lose weight, right, I think that's a popular one here and you say, I'm, I want to lose weight. So what are the actions behind it? Because losing weight, there's a thousand things we can do. So let's focus on creating better habits. Let's say I'm going to walk every day for 10 minutes because really you only need 10 minutes a day. I know a lot of times we think we need this hour, hour and a half and we're like, I don't have the time for that because I have all these other obligations and things that I have to take care of. But all we, if you're intentional, all we need is really 10 minutes a day. So I'm going to commit to myself 10 minutes a day to workout and do something, whatever. That's something is I am going to do that.
08:52 So it's bite size. It's doable. Yes. Which is one of the things we talk about in, in have any habits just to make it really small. So it's successful. You can, once you develop the habit, an automatic habit, then you can increase the intensity, the duration, but we have to start small enough to succeed. Right,
09:11 right, exactly. And you have to be able to have the confidence to do so because if we're thinking they were going from zero to 100 we can get very discouraged easily of things that we have to do. Especially if we put our eyesight on other people. Like we'd say, Oh my next door neighbor does this and this and this, so I need to do that type of diet. I need to do that type of workout. And it's not true. You just need to do take a step and you build on that. And that's a success rate that I've been working with my clients now is the journey may take longer to lose the weight slightly longer than maybe a drastic a hundred pounds that I would see in three months. But it's sustainable and they keep it off and they're successful
09:51 cause they've changed the lifestyle. Exactly. All right, so do you help people set those goals? You sit and talk to them and say, what's the one, what's the number one?
10:00 Yeah. So every week we talk about, okay, what are we focusing on this week? We have the end goal. So we focused on that end goal, but we have every week we focus on working on bettering that. So every week that's what we do. Yeah.
10:14 All right. So, um, how long does it take people to change?
10:17 You know, you hear his studies all the time. 21 is like a popular study, but a new research study. One days. Yes. But a new study came out and said 66 66 days. I don't know how they get these 6,000
10:30 last one I saw said 40 it was 28 and then it's 40. I was like, Oh, where did that stat come from? So I hadn't heard 66 yet. But clearly it takes a little while.
10:41 It takes a little while. I mean, Rome wasn't built in a day. Right. It took us a long time to get to where we're at now. So it's really trying to re wire that and kind of change the patterns that we've created in I had, and I think that's the biggest, although
10:54 to bring it a little bit of brain stuff here, I do think it's interesting to know that our mind is very fast to catch onto a new habit. So I got a loaner car because my car was in the shop and they gave me a loaner while I was getting repaired and it had different mechanisms like the door open differently, the radio that you and the gear shift work different. And I'm really, I had it for a week, one week and the next week I got in my car and I was doing it all wrong. I had to run. So why brain very quickly adjusted to a different gear shift in a different whatever, so that I had to kind of relearn. It took me about three days to read, just know my regular car. So it's kind of interesting that our brain is, we're not even conscious of it that very quickly we are adapting to some new routine and our bodies are trying to memorize it. Our brains are trying to memorize things so they don't have to think about them again. Our brains want to create habits and simplify. So I think the 20 days is a pretty decent one for starting at least the thought of a habit if we make it small enough to succeed.
11:59 Right, exactly. I agree. And you know to piggy back on what you said, I have the new iPhone and I had to take it in the shop cause I broke it, I dropped it and I had to use a loaner and it was one of the older versions and I could not figure out like, and that's the one I had for the last four years. I was not ready. I did not want to get the new one. And then I had the older version and I had no idea how to even like there was no home button and I was like confused. Like where is this? What am I doing? But it took me some time and when I got my phone back, I was all like up again. So thank you for bringing that to light.
12:33 But we can do that in the physical realm when we're trying to develop physical habits, especially if we make them very consistent. So sleep habits, what we eat and when we eat it, you know how we fix it, what we do with our exercise. So again, going back to your, just do 10 minutes. If you do that 10 minutes at the same time every day, that becomes an automatic thing, right? Right. But if we're doing it different all the time, it's much harder to develop a habit and a positive routine.
12:59 Right. And you said that the brain wants that and descends neurological pathways in the brain. I'd be like, alright, this is what we're going to do this like eating, we eat the same thing in the morning when we wake up. If we're not eating, the body's like craving it. The muscles stomach starts to churn as like, okay, you usually feed me at this time. What's going on?
13:18 All right, so at that part we're going to take a quick break. Uh, this is Tova with Omari Bernard and with wellspring on the air. And today we've been talking about physical habits. It's the new year. We're talking about how to develop some of those physical habits. So we're going to come back after the break and talk about some very practical things, maybe some workout type things. We can do some very practical physical things and maybe what keeps us from succeeding. So if you just joined us, you can listen to the beginning of this podcast on wellspring, on the air, on your favorite podcast channel, or you can find us on our website@wellspringmiami.org and we will be right back.
13:50 Ready for a new you. You can create healthy new habits for your mind, body and spirit dwells spring counseling presents the science and art of healthy habits seminar. Learn to change habits of food, exercise, organization thinking and more. Their website is wellspring, miami.org to register and for more information on the science and art of healthy habits seminar.
14:13 Welcome back to wellspring on the air. This is Tova and I have a special guest with me, exercise physiologist, Omari, Bernard. I again, thanks for having me. If you're just joining our show, he's just a great expert. He's a coach for people. Really a life coach in terms of habits and physical habits, helping people lose weight, have healthy habits. And um, so we're just glad to have you here. And you're a Christian too, right? I'm a believer. And how does that relate to what you do in your work?
14:39 It's my foundation. I think knowing there's a site, there's a my God out there that's watching over me and I share that. I share that comfortably with my clients, even if they're not believers as well. And they respect that. And I even pray for my clients as well.
14:53 No, that's great. Well, we're Christians. It actually integrates in everything we do. Right. And I'm sure it helps you love them better, your clients, which is what makes it work. So patient love is kind, right? That's right. That's right. And we see the best in people, we see who God's designed them to be and help them try to try to get there. All right, so we're talking about healthy habits starting in the new year. We've talked a little bit about having bite sized pieces for your goals and resolutions and not giving them up in the first few weeks, which we do, but we're going to move now. Let me just ask you some practical workout routines or healthy things that we could start with if we wanted to get in physical shape.
15:30 Yes, so perfect example of what I get all the time is what workout to I need to do. And I pretty much, and I know this may sound this cliche, but just do what you love doing. So if you love dancing, take Zoomba classes. If you love working on the gym, go to the gym. If you love riding bike, go ahead and take spinning classes or go outside and ride a bike if you can. If there's a time of year, just do what you love doing because you will have more success doing that. It's being consistent and committed to yourself. And that's the biggest take home message because a lot of times we do things that we don't want to do and we feel that resistance and it's like, why do we have that resistance? And there could be deeper things of course, of course. But the level of the superficial level, if I can say that, it's really just about like, okay, what is resisting me to get up and going outside could be fear. A lot of times what it is is I don't want to do this. I don't enjoy this exercise, but I enjoy dancing or I enjoy walking.
16:30 That's good advice. I have to tell you, I actually don't enjoy going to the gym, but that is actually what I make myself do. So there's a part of me that thinks maybe I should switch to something else, but it is actually working for me because what I've realized is what I really love is how I feel when I walk out and how I feel the rest of the day. So I have to kind of, I always have this inertia, this, this stopping and going like, Oh, I don't want to go. But I, I now have done it consistently enough to say, but I love the results. I love the feeling afterwards. You know, I like walking down the stairs out of the gym. I hate walking up the stairs. I should find something more enjoyable problems.
17:08 No, but that's great because after you leave, that's the best feeling of thing. Knowing that you accomplished doing something. Even there was resistance there. So like your body sends like serotonin and dopamine and all these feel good hormones that you start to crave. Right. It's a good thing to crave and stuff. Other things are unhealthy. So you start to chase that feeling.
17:29 But I haven't gotten to where I just love doing it. My husband loves going to the gym. I just not there yet. It's a happy place for him, you know? For me, it's not a happy place. I don't even happen when I leave, but anyway. All right, so practical workouts, do something you love. Anything else you want to say on that?
17:46 Yeah, I mean biggest thing is do something you love and find a partner. Find that accountability. You have 67% chance of achieving your goal if you have accountability partner.
17:57 So I'm gonna ask to go with you or just someone you tell that you went to both okay
18:01 with you or and but something you had to pick one a person. That's good cause we could have that person like Hey let's skip that and let's just go eat somewhere instead. Right. So make sure you're picking, somebody can really like trust and really is there to do. You're there in alignment right back to the alignment and alignment to what you want to do.
18:19 All right. I'm going to see how I can apply that one. My daughter's an athlete and she's home for the holidays and she's totally messed up my routines cause I want to exercise with her but then she wants to go to a different time and I didn't want way and decide it's really messed me trying to be with her. But she'll be leaving in a week. I'll get back to my routine. I'd rather work on my relationship. But, but who those partners are are important. Who we're talking to and who we have cheering us on. Somebody who says way to go. You went. My husband tears me on. He's really happy. I've gone to the gym. He knows I'm a happier person. His life is better when I actually saw. Exactly. Exactly. And he pushes me to be happy by going to the gym. So, all right, let's first talk about people who are stuck and don't start at all. What do you have to say to people who, who say, I'm just too old. I'm too having, I'm too out of shape. I'm too in too much pain. I'm too, I don't know what all our reasons are, but we have reasons that we don't do it at all. What do you think? Those are nice.
19:14 The lies that we tell ourselves. It's the fear of moving forward and sometimes we get comfortable in where we're at and it's, it's a comfortable of the known and that's w the we fear the unknown, stepping out even when we know if it's good for us. So it's the fear and the lies that we tell ourselves that keeps us like bondage to where we are.
19:34 I think that's really true. I think that we can be afraid of failure too. I'd rather choose not to try then try and fail again, feeling
19:43 and even the fear of success. I've had many clients who we work with that I work with that talk about that they just fear the success. Yeah. So it's, it's,
19:52 and I know women who are afraid to lose weight because they've had maybe abuse issues and so their weight protects them from the world. So that's a very deep seated fear that probably needs a little therapy to come alongside of the efforts to be made. You know, so we can have fears of a lot of things. Here's the be known being seen, being successful. There's a failing, failing. Yeah, exactly. I think depression, um, actually comes in where there's just this fatigue, um, overwhelming sense of lack of, uh, wanting to engage in life at all. So maybe again, that's an area where someone's too depressed to begin to work on their body or those things that may need therapy to come alongside or come before. I don't know if you think that's true. No,
20:37 I agree with you completely. I think it's hand in hand and we've, we're not prepared mentally. That's why we self sabotage ourselves because we know we're supposed to eat right and move more, but we don't do it right. And it's a, it's a subconscious and the conscious mind and the subconscious is, there's no logic. It believes anything we say. So if I say I'm a bad Walker or I'm not great with computers, or I start something, I never finish it, our subconscious believes it. If we keep on telling ourselves that we'll get stuck in, that becomes true. It's hard to, it's our truth, right? It's our story. Then we tell ourselves. Yes.
21:16 Well I think that's a really good part to start on to talk about is that what we think is what we get. And I know that when we teach the habit stuff, part of that is I say, you gotta see it to be it. If you can't envision yourself fit healthy, feeling good, you know, being at the weight that feels comfortable to you, if you can't see it, you literally cannot do it. So if you see yourself, I'm in self-sabotaging ways, I'm a failure, I'll, I'll give up, I know all quit by the third week of January, et cetera. Um, then we, we fulfill that belief. So we have to start with our thinking. And do you do that with your clients?
21:50 Oh yes, of course. How do you do that? Exercises. We do mental imagery, closing them by closing our eyes and this breathing and believing that they're already there. So it's really believing that they're already there. So psychologically and mentally for telling ourselves, you're already here, you already exists, you're already being that person you want to be. The body will start to like, and the mind will start to connect and respond to that. So you start acting differently. And I know that some of the research on habits
22:19 development is that you envision it and before you start that, the renew routine, you need to see it, envision it, but you have to see it to the point that you actually begin to have emotions around it. Like, I'm so excited, I'm thinking about how I'm going to feel or do or just so that you actually have an emotional response to the new image and that at that point that's where you start to have it.
22:39 Yes. So I have every morning my clients looking at themselves in the mirror and they say they are or mantra or affirmation and they, they stay there for however long as it takes maybe a minute to three minutes and really feel the things that they're saying. You and I are in total agreement on that. That means we read the research and we didn't have stage and this guy's listening. We haven't had this conversation yet. It's
23:05 really, really true. That is actually what works. Okay. So, um, people who are stocked need to change their thinking. They need maybe some therapy, they may need some other things. Ellis, I'm envisioning what they want. Stay there, think about it until they're excited about it. I also think one of the things, I don't know if you agree on stuck is that they need to, in that preparation for a new habit is to review the old. So where do they fail before? Without judgment, where do they fail? Um, and where have they succeeded? Because if we can build one new habit on an existing good habit, uh, so a place or a way we succeeded before. So maybe I succeeded at some other skill by having a partner or maybe I succeeded by some other skill by putting my money down first because money would make me show up at the gym cause I prepaid. It's a big motivator. Or maybe I succeeded at some other habit because I started small or because I made it public, you know, and I put it on Facebook and now, you know, my pride made me do it. If there are things that make us succeed and we need to look at what helped me succeed in the past, in some other arena. And how can I build on that? Right.
24:11 I think the, going back to the first thing you said was about not judging and just observing. So we have emotions cause we all are emotional beings. So sitting there and not seeing in the space of judgment and really observing, Hey I, I observed that I'm feeling this way towards what I did in the past. And once we can observe it, there's a detachment to that and we able to find our power and then we're able to take action. But it's when we judge ourselves, we connect to those emotions and the emotions override us and we feel not empowered.
24:42 That's exactly true. I believe that 100% are having a nonjudgmental attitude towards ourselves gives us the capacity for success. And actually statistically if we are critical of ourselves, we are much more likely to fail. Um, and so we really do need to observe what we've done in our failures and analyze them without blaming, self shaming. All of that. That's the realm of Satan. That's where he beats us up. Um, and it actually predicts that we'll do more of that. It doesn't actually help us, it, it actually totally sabotages it. I think it's just important to know that. And, and I, I think that because we're believers, we get to do that better than others if we do it well, because Jesus already paid the price for all of our sins. So there isn't anything we can do that separates us from his love that makes us dirty. We're already white. We're already pure. We're already sanctified. We're already loved no matter what. And so from that stance, we don't have to judge ourselves. We can notice and learn, but we don't have to live in shame and guilt because we're forgiven. We're already pure. Right,
25:49 right. And knowing that this were imperfect beings, and knowing that we will make mistakes and know that like it's not going to be perfect moving forward and know that if it does, something happens. Oh, well I made a mistake and we move on and we just don't beat ourselves up.
26:03 Yeah. We're just in good company, right? With Paul who says, you know, why do I do these same Romans seven why do we do these things that I know want to do and don't do the things I want to do? And we're, we're all in that same boat, which is why we need to save your, why we have a savior is that so he took care of all of that. So we can just live in the present and please him. And then tomorrow's a new day and we start over again without giving up. Right. We have to wrap up your pretty quickly, but do you have any last comments on helping people overcome their failures or obstacles once they start and then they get hit an obstacle and Ian's on that. Yeah.
26:37 Well first get out of your own head, right? Just get out. Cause I think we just end that cycle. We overthink everything of how it should look or what it needs to look like. So get out over our head and just move forward and just take action. Now nobody house small. The step is this take action. And even if it's a call to a friend and just moving forward, just keep swimming. Yes.
27:02 Right. Just do the next, right. Yeah.
27:04 For the next right thing. Exactly. And I know it's simple. It's may not be easy, but it's simple. And if we just stick to simple tasks, uh, and you said build on the things that we're doing right, from what we saw from our past, we will have success moving forward.
27:20 We will, let's, uh, let's put a few scriptures here that talk about this. Uh, first Corinthians six, 19 to 20. Do you not know that your bodies are temples of the Holy spirit who is in you, whom you receive from God? You are not your own. You were bought at a price, therefore honor God with your bodies. So our bodies are how we honor God. It's how we worship God. It's how we live out our obedience to God. And it's deeply, intimately connected with our minds and our spirit. Right? And, uh, you know, love God with our heart, soul, mind and strength. Our bodies are a piece of that and we can't separate them from that. So a lot of our spiritual warfares battled in the physical realm and our bodies, right? And so we need to present our bodies to God as a living sacrifice. But we can do that one little step at a time when a little day of obedience at a time without judging and moving forward. Right? Any last thoughts?
28:09 God, he's a gracious God and every day it's a time. Every moment that we have, we can change our thought because the devil will attack us in any moment. He seeks to attack us and post away from God and his grace and you said it that we have, we're just being aware that we have grace and our perception is our reality. So if we stick our and put our eyes on the Lord, everything the Lord is filled with love.
28:34 He, he loves us. If we focus on him, we feel his love and we can love ourselves, love others and live well because of it and make good choices. All right, well it's time to wrap up. Omar, it's been great to have you with us on the show. Thank you so much for coming. This is Tova Kreps with wellspring on the air because hearts and minds matter