“5 Non-Intuitive Lifestyle Tweaks That Will Dramatically Improve One’s Wellbeing”, with Dr. William Seeds & Jeremy Bagshaw – Thrive Global

Setting app timers on your phone to limit social media use. This can help with limiting your time spent looking at your phone and being lost in social media. By doing this it can help prevent the trap of being on social media at night which can cause you to stay up late at night, preventing you from getting a good night’s sleep. Sleep is so important for muscle recovery, especially if you’re training regularly.

I had the pleasure of interviewing Jeremy Bagshaw. Jeremy Bagshaw is a Canadian international champion swimmer, known for his formidable swimming times and megawatt smile. Training at Berkeley University, Bagshaw swum for the California Golden Bears Men’s swimming team, helping bring them to many victories. In 2014 he was named team captain, and the Bears brought home the NCAA’s championship. Bagshaw is currently training for the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games. While day to day training takes place in his hometown of Victoria, British Columbia, Jeremy still has the opportunity to travel worldwide for training camps and competitions. He is currently the fastest 400m freestyler in Canada, holding the time of 3:48.88, which makes him only one of four Canadians to ever go under the 3:50 mark in the event. Jeremy is the Senior National Team Captain for the Canadian national team, providing guidance and mentorship to the younger generation of swimmers. He has recently completed his masters in exercise physiology. In and out of the water, Jeremy has a natural talent for showing his best side. His happy-go-lucky personality shines on camera and in interviews. Jeremy’s passion for reaching his own goals as well as helping others achieve theirs is evident in everything he does.

Thank you so much for doing this with us! Our readers would love to “get to know you” a bit better. Can you share with us the story about how you first got involved in fitness and wellness?

I have been a high-performance swimmer for over a decade, competing at the Pan-American Games, Commonwealth Games and World Championships. I have an undergraduate degree in integrative biology from UC-Berkeley and a masters degree in exercise physiology.

Can you share the most interesting story that happened to you since you started your career?

I have had the opportunity to travel to over 25 different countries during my swimming career for international competitions. This has allowed me to interact with people from countless different cultures and to build a vast community of like-minded individuals.

Can you share with our readers a bit about why you are an authority in the fitness and wellness field? In your opinion, what is your unique contribution to the world of wellness?

I have been training at an elite athlete for the vast majority of life. This involved training and keeping my body as fit and healthy as possible to compete at the highest of levels.

None of us are able to achieve success without some help along the way. Is there a particular person who you are grateful towards who helped get you to where you are? Can you share a story about that?

My high-school coach Randy Bennet. He taught me so many things about work ethic, perseverance and resiliency that I apply to my life outside of sport. These lessons have allowed me to achieve some great things in swimming while also pursuing academia.

Ok thank you for all that. Now let’s move to the main focus of our interview. We all know that it’s important to eat more vegetables, eat less sugar, exercise more, and get better sleep etc. But while we know it intellectually, it’s often difficult to put it into practice and make it a part of our daily habits. In your opinion what are the 3 main blockages that prevent us from taking the information that we all know, and integrating it into our lives?

· The biggest blockage is the difficulty of breaking preexisting habits. The best way to make these changes is to start with something small. Make one small change in your diet, physical activity regime. Once one change occurs making other small changes come much easier.

· The accessibility of things that we know are not always the best options for our health. It’s much easier to eat out, or eat prepared foods. Because of this accessibility it makes the healthy choices much more difficult.

· Time consuming: it takes more time to eat healthy, go to the gym to exercise more.

Can you please share your “5 Non-Intuitive Lifestyle Tweaks That Will Dramatically Improve One’s Wellbeing”? (Please share a story or an example for each, and feel free to share ideas for mental, emotional and physical health.)

· Setting app timers on your phone to limit social media use. This can help with limiting your time spent looking at your phone and being lost in social media. By doing this it can help prevent the trap of being on social media at night which can cause you to stay up late at night, preventing you from getting a good night’s sleep. Sleep is so important for muscle recovery, especially if you’re training regularly.

· Online Grocery Shopping. This can help prevent you from just roaming around the store buying impulse items that are not part of your healthy diet. It takes away the temptation, and ensures you get only what you need to get for the week.

· Meditation. This is very good for mental health. It can help you refocus during a busy day and help disconnect from a hectic week. It is a good way to help learn to be present and focus on your own mental wellbeing. Sometimes it’s easy to forget about the mental side of health and just focus on the physical, but all good athletes understand the importance of mental health.

As an expert, this might be obvious to you, but I think it would be instructive to articulate this for the public. Aside from weight loss, what are 3 benefits of daily exercise? Can you explain?

· Mental health: there have been countless studies that have shown that daily exercise improves mental well being while decreasing the symptoms of mental illness. So not only are you getting the great physical benefits from exercise, you might also find that your mindset changes in a good way.

· Chronic disease prevention. Exercise is the best form of medicine for certain chronic diseases; and is the best preventative medicine for diseases with high morbidity rates. It decreases the prevalence of cardiovascular disease, metabolic diseases, general illnesses and musculoskeletal skeletal diseases. And we all know prevention is sometimes the best cure.

· Social groups: going to the gym is a great way to socialize with new people. It’s a good way to expand your social group and make friendships with people you might not normally interact with. It also helps with keeping you accountable to your exercise goals, if you have someone else working alongside you.

For someone who is looking to add exercise to their daily routine, which 3 exercises would you recommend that are absolutely critical?

· I would recommend starting with either going for a walk or a run depending on your starting fitness level. It’s usually the easiest to incorporate since you don’t need a gym membership or expensive equipment. Just a pair of runners and you’re all set!

· Planks, they are a great way to strengthen your core and are great, especially if you are sitting at a desk all day for work.

· Yoga- there are many easy classes you can take, either at home, following a video or going to a studio. They incorporate meditation, stretching and strengthening exercise all which are helpful to improving your overall well-being.

In my experience, many people begin an exercise regimen but stop because they get too sore afterwards. What ideas would you recommend to someone who plays sports or does heavy exercise to shorten the recovery time, and to prevent short term or long term injury?

Stretch after every workout, it will help reduce the amount of soreness you might feel the next day, as well as giving you a chance to see how your body is feeling after the workout.

Do a proper warm-up. Usually when you are sore from a previous workout, doing a good warm-up will help relieve that soreness you have from a previous workout.

There are so many different diets today. Can you share what kind of diet you follow? Which diet do you recommend?

I don’t follow a specific diet. Since I train 6 days a week, I have the luxury of being able to eat larger amounts than most, but I practice mindfulness when making my choices. Eating a well balanced diet that is 60% fruits and vegetables 20% meat and 20% carbs, I eat in moderation. There’s no point in following a diet if you’re not happy. Eat what you like but just do so in moderation.

You are a person of enormous influence. If you could start a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger. 🙂

The exercise is medicine movement. I believe that it is the best form of medicine for anyone. It’s cheap, accessible to anyone and has the ability to help with a wide variety of illnesses and diseases. This is a movement that needs to be more present in the medical community, rather than just prescribing different medications as a “quick fix”.

We are very blessed that some of the biggest names in Business, VC funding, Sports, and Entertainment read this column. Is there a person in the world, or in the US whom you would love to have a private breakfast or lunch with, and why? He or she might just see this if we tag them.

Bill Gates. I have always admired his drive and passion for whatever he is working on. He is always fully invested in whatever project he is working on whether it is his business or his philanthropy. Bill is someone whose brain I would thoroughly enjoy picking and asking about over lunch. I would love to see how his brain works and the different ways he processes things and solves various problems.

What is the best way our readers can follow you on social media?

On instagram @jerBagshaw

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Jerbagshaw/

Twitter: @Jeremybagshaw

Swimming Canada: www.swimming.ca/en/swimmer/jeremy-bagshaw/

Thank you for all of these great insights!