This week, I'm excited to welcome Jai Forster to the podcast. Jai has a background in sports science with over 20 years experience in the fitness industry, and two times triathlon World Championships under his belt. He's also the founder and coach of Life Logic, a personalised health and fitness framework that empowers individuals to unlock their innate potential.
In this episode, we discuss how Jai transitioned from burnout to his multiple triathlon wins. He also shares his client's most common roadblocks and reveals the biggest misconceptions in the health and fitness industry.
I am delighted to welcome Jai Forster to the podcast. Jai, how are you, mate?
Jai
Stu, thank you very much. Pleasure to be here.
Stu
No, pleasure to connect, because I know that you've got lots to share with our audience today, but first up, for all of those that may not be familiar with you or your work, I'd love it if you could just tell our listeners a little bit about yourself, please?
Jai
Yeah, sure. I suppose to start with, if you were to say the tools of my trade, I would probably say that I'm a personal trainer at heart. So if I was to get back on the tools, that would be my thing.
Currently a 24/7 gym owner. I've got two Anytime Fitness gyms. I'm into a supplement store as well. We're just about to open. So a few little bricks and mortar businesses in the health and fitness area.
For me, growing up as a kid, I was always into sport, triathlon, athletics, basketball, things like that, which led me into study a Bachelor of Applied Science In Human Movement.
And I suppose the thing for me there in my background was being able to apply what I learned at uni as I was finding my feet in the triathlon world, was to be able to put some of what I was learning in lecture theaters out onto the road, and actually feel that physiology coming into play there. So that was a little bit of my background there as far as what got me into the health and fitness industry in the first place.
(02:55)
Stu
Okay. So for all of our listeners, now, I personally know Jai, and the reason that I was really keen to get him on to share his story is because with all of your knowledge and all of your training, and all of the experience that you've had, did suffer a burnout, right? And that burnout then led you to dig deeper. And then you had a radical turnaround, which led you into winning two World Championships for age group triathlon.
So I was really, really keen to learn a little bit about where it went wrong, how you figured out it was going wrong, what you did to address it, and what your learnings are now for perhaps everybody that might be in a similar boat? And so, my first question for you is burnout, now, it's kind of different for everyone, but what did it look like to you?
Jai
(03:54)
It's a tough one to... Well, it's an easy thing to look back on now, but at the time, I didn't necessarily attribute it to burnout. I just thought that it was something around... my heart wasn't in it. Yes, I was tired and fatigued and it was such a struggle, but I just took that as submitting to defeat. Like the triathlon world had beaten me and I was going back to do other things, which in my mind, I convinced myself that it was to do bigger and better things and to impact more people.
(04:26):
But ultimately, I was fatigued, I was burnt out. It looked like getting up in the morning for a training session. So you come off of a sleep, you get up, stuff whatever food you can into your mouth, get on the bike. I remember sitting on the bike, staring down at the asphalt, just like a zombie half-asleep.
(04:48):
And you're 20Ks into your 180K bike ride for the day.
And you're just getting started. And you're like, "I can't even fathom the energy to get about here, and I've got a big day ahead.
That was session number one, two more to go." You're just driving yourself into the ground...
and what it looked like was someone else's programming impacting on my physiology, I suppose, which is sort of this light bulb moment that I got to at the end of it all. It was then getting home, eating. And ultimately, I just wanted to go back to bed again, to sleep, to recharge in order to try and train again.
(05:27):
So after just day after day, month after month, after finishing university and having an understanding of human physiology, and then going to what was probably the best triathlon squad in the world, on the Gold Coast, we had eight out of the top 20 Olympic distance athletes in the world at the time, I couldn't handle it. It was too much for me, and it wasn't enough in terms of what was I doing this for? For me, I was thinking of the Gold Medal like, "Do I really want the gold medal at the Olympics?" And I couldn't buy into that.
It was hard to make ends meet as a triathlete back in those days, sponsorship dollars wasn't as big as it is now. So early mornings and pushing my body from the outset really wasn't resonating with my system, with my biology. And after doing the study in human movement sports science, I got to the point where I just had to quit... I didn't even last a whole year of full-time triathlon professional. My professional triathlon life didn't even last 12 months.
So that's what it looked like for me, just fatigue and burnout. I remember we used to go out on a Thursday night, because Friday was our day off. So I forced myself out to be social.
Because that's what makes us human at the end of the day, right? It doesn't matter how much of an elite professional athlete you are. You still need to socialise and connect with people, and you sit there with that one beer, and you can only just lift it up to stay awake.
If you're not training and pushing yourself, there's very little else. I had energy for. That's what burnout looked like for me.
(07:09)
Stu
So where did the change come from, and what did you do? What was the first thing that you did to try and address that fatigue?
Jai
At the time, I didn't recognise it as burnout or fatigue. I think it's only upon reflection of... So what I did was I quit. I moved back to Melbourne and started personal training. I just wanted to move back to Melbourne, see my mates. And I didn't even know where I wanted to work or what I wanted to do. I ended up getting a job as a PT. Which was great. Upon reflection, fast forward, seven years later, winning two back-to-back age group World Championships on my watch, was only then able to go back and look at what I was doing when I was trying to race and train professionally, the difference I suppose, and having that comparison of going, "Well, clearly I was burnt out because I was doing things the wrong way around. I was doing it upside down." I was doing someone else's triathlon program instead of training my body.
(08:30)
Stu
So how did you find your own program if that was the case? Because I'm guessing you go to somebody who's imminently qualified in any given area. They write you a wizbang program. Or cherry picker program perhaps, and go, "There you go. Doesn't work for you." So what do you do?
(08:50)
Jai
Best squad in the world, literally, for Olympic distance triathlon, without a doubt, at the time. So they know what they're doing. So I quit triathlon, moved to Melbourne, start as a personal trainer, forget about triathlon, didn't want anything to do with it.
Started Personal Training, training other people, administering my own training programs for others, and seeing that different people responded to the same training or the same trainer. I was able to witness it from the other side.
So now I'm going, "Well..." Because as a PT, I had some great mentors and they all spoke about being able to leverage, but personal training is so individualised and so circumstantial. So not only would you be training the same body, but someone might walk in after a bad night's sleep, or they haven't been eating or hydrating well. So you've got to adapt on the fly and train the person on the day, train the human on the day inside the body, not just train the body based on the program.
(09:50)
So all these coaching philosophies and great mentoring came in, mentoring was talking about systemising. So I would come down and I would apply a program across my entire database to see the result, and people got different results. So people who otherwise meant well and were quite disciplined, would get different outcomes based on their unique physiology.
So there was something coming up here that I was thinking... and these hints were coming along throughout my PT career. I was a personal trainer in Melbourne for 10 years, and I started to see for myself. So what I did in experimenting, my mate gave me a call and he said, "Hey, guess what? World Championships are on the Gold Coast." And I said, "Oh, what sport? What are you talking about?" And he said, "Triathlon, what do you think? Come back, let's do it."
(10:37)
Well, I had to qualify. It had been seven years since I've raced. So I turned up to club races, but you had to be in the one, two or three-
On the podium to qualify immediately, but you also then needed to be within the top 10% of the finishing time for half a dozen races for the entire season to qualify for Worlds the following year.
I was way off, nowhere near. So I actually wrote this pleading letter to Triathlon Australia to consider me for the World Championship team. They were full, but they got me a spot. So I was finishing sixth and eighth, and was way off the pace. So I wrote a little bit about my background and did this big grovel. I pleaded with them. My mate qualified, he got in as well.
(11:24)
So then I had from May to September to train. So I put my head down for two or three months... Oh, sorry. It was probably May, June, July, August, September, four, five months. Properly, trained like a full-time athlete, but I still had my PT studio. So getting up early in the morning meant that I was not pushing my body, but I was helping people and coaching them.
So I was able to maintain my energy levels in the morning. And during the day, when the sun was in the middle of the sky, I would go out and train to my own rhythm. So I was training solo between clients. So from 10:00 AM till 2:00 or 3:00 PM in the afternoon, I had all these hours to train myself.
I still wanted to train in the squad for swimming and things, but running and riding. Not only did I do that, because of my personal training studio, I lived above the gym, I would do my strength training. And I had this massive belief, and I still do, that strength training is like a biohack as a foundational principle for physiology. Regardless of whether you're building endurance or power, or speed, you need this underlying foundation of strength, and that needs to be balanced for all human beings.
So I based my swim, bike, and run program off my gym training. So I was gym first and strength and conditioning first.
So if I was doing heavy bench five by five, five by five squats, and five by five seated row, I was on the bike with just two fingers on the handlebars, in the big chain ring, riding up the biggest mountain I could find, or a strength set on the ergo, just grinding out big, heavy gears.
(13:08)
So everything in that phase was dense strength, and my body felt heavy, but off the back of that, I was able to develop power and speed into the World Championships to win it, after just being able to qualify. So I was able to win that World Championship, and now the only problem with winning a World Championship is, in age group triathlon, that you automatically get entry to the following year's event which was in Budapest.
And same thing again, I was immediate entry. So yeah, we flew to Europe and backed it up for a second time around. And the only two people that went to Budapest were me and my mate who had to write letters the year before-
To represent Australia. And yeah, so I was able to win that one as well. [crosstalk 00:13:55] and based it off strength training. So I think what was happening, if we get into health types, which is sort of my new business-
And where we're moving into with epigenetics, there's a bit of a lesson there, is the realization of burnout wasn't only the fact that I was getting up early and pushing my body. It was understanding why epigenetically, that, that was so important for my health type.
Stu
(14:22)
So run us through that, because I'm really keen on epigenetics and personalization, whether it be nutrition, movement, mindset, all of the above. So what were you doing... What did you do to be able to win the World Championships twice, that you weren't doing previously?
FIRST THING I CHANGED:
Jai
(14:42)
First thing that I know now to be important is chronobiology.
Stu
(14:49)
All right. What's that?
Jai
(14:50)
So it's the timing of your biological sensitivities and preferences.
So for me, if anyone knows the... somatotypes, ecto, endo and meso. I'm between ectomorph, skinny, lean, beanpole, longer, leaner, slimmer hands, but I'm actually quite thick set through the middle, so I'm between an endomorph and ectomorph.
And there's different hormone sensitivities and different genetic lineages where we've come from around the world, genetic predispositions are passed down to us over generations. And from what I understand now is that, I've got a longer, slower digestive system. So, it takes me longer to get through a large meal at night. And when I wake up in the morning, my system is telling me to slow down because, hey, we're still working on that meal from the night before, can you just take it easy. If you're getting blood flow out of the gut and into your working muscle, you're going to feel like shit. Your system is going to say, hang on a minute, I can't be sending this blood flow everywhere else, we need to focus on digestion.
So subconsciously, my second brain, the gut, is telling me, slow down buddy, take it easy. The other hormone sensitivity is serotonin for me where it's the happiness hormone. If I'm not looking after myself early in the morning and building up momentum throughout the day to conserve my happiness hormone so that I can be happy in the afternoon, my system's going to throw up an early red flag and say, don't do too much too early. Don't get too many stimulants. Don't get too happy. Don't get too excited because you need to be firing on all cylinders between 3, 4, 5, and 6:00 PM in the afternoon and then look out. Stay out of Jai's way because he's like a steam train that's built up the coal throughout the day.
So, what I was doing in looking back on winning the two World Championships was getting up in the morning. Yes, it was early, but I was still training other people. So my mind was still quite calm. I did this for 10 years. I was able to coach people, but conserve my own energy. And then come midday, like I said, when the sun's in the middle of the sky and I'm training through 11, 12, 1 and 2, that's when my system's just starting to fire up and warm up, when it's most receptive to the strength training as well. I was smashing out heavy training sessions when my body was completely alert and ready. So, it was quite literally just the timing, it was the most important factor. And in our coaching with the business I have called, Life Logic, Stu you've been a witnessed to that. You've done your assessment.
(17:39):
Every human being's preference, like Maslow's hierarchy of needs, we've all got this base layer of having shelter. Base layer of human epigenetic principle is chronobiology, so we look at the timing. Don't change what you're eating, don't change your exercise, just change when.
Because the sun rises and the sun sets, and we've all got this rhythm, and we all resonate at different frequencies and levels. So, if we can just focus on resonating with our own biological systems based on the sun rising and the sun setting, we can come into our own without changing anything else. That's the biggest factor. That's priority number one.
SECOND THING I CHANGED:
So then the second thing for me being, it's called a diplomat in ph360 language, which we'll get to in a second as well, off the back of this assessment is that, we work really well off strength training. Now this isn't one's requirement, unlike timing. Timing's for everyone first. My body type responds really well to strength training. But I only found that out after doing this health assessment, but through experimentation, trial and error, and being a PT for 10 plus years. And having a bachelor of applied science and human movement, I thought I'm going to do strength training first to lay this foundation of physiology before I try and develop my endurance and speed endurance on top. So I think that combination of those two things is what [crosstalk 00:19:20].
Stu
So, prior then to your new learnings, you were getting up at the crack of dawn, flogging yourself with endurance exercise, and subsequently feeling like crap.
And then essentially, you still got up at reasonably at the same time, but you didn't smash yourself. You were a PT at the gym. You moved your exercise to the afternoon and you focused on strength training as a priority to build, I guess, bigger engines, and that worked a treat for you. It sounds like.
So and then I was going to talk about the other tenants like nutrition and recovery and whether you did anything different with those two pillars as to what you were doing previously?
(20:12)
Jai
Yeah, a little. I was eating more natural foods, a lot more plant-based foods. I was making, you'll be proud to know, making my own energy bars. So, I was actually getting whole coconuts, this is how natural I was trying to be. I was going to the supermarket and buying those juvenile coconuts and actually getting the machete out, chopping the top off them, using the coconut water for my hydration, taking the meat out and chopping it up and putting it into a bar with some cinnamon and-
Stu
(20:44)
Oh, delicious.
Jai
(20:46)
cacao and different things, dates. I would mash it all up and put it in foil and chuck it in my back pocket and go for my ride for the day, so I was working off good healthy fats.
Stu
(20:54)
Yeah. Wow.
Jai
(20:55)
I was probably also just guessing, I was big on micronutrients. I just thought if I can get an even spread and eat the rainbow, I was big into getting, and this was lessons from my personal training clients. I would say, "Try and get 20 different colours slash food sources from a different variety, that are from the ground or from a tree."
So, no human interference, 20 different foods. Now I just call it a micronutrient spread of 20 different foods from the ground or from a tree. So I was trying to do that as well. So just trying to eat a wide variety of colour, a wide variety of plant based stuff with a small amount of protein. And obviously I was supplementing with multivitamins and things like that.
Stu
(21:43)
Fantastic. So, I'm keen to dial into the technology then that you use, which you now utilize in your Life Logic business. But I'm very mindful that it can be, there's a lot to it. So I guess what I'm trying to say is, if I got into an elevator with you tomorrow and we had say 10 floors to ride up and you had to give me the elevator pitch, on this technology, which I have tried and think it's fantastic. How would you sell it to me?
Jai
(22:21)
What's that quote about a fish climbing a tree? If you asked a fish to climb a tree, it would live the rest of its life believing it's stupid.
So, instead of putting you, the fish up the tree, I'd rather just put you in the pond so you can be yourself naturally.
So, we look to find ways for people to find individual empowerment, using the lessons from nature, in order for us to nurture.
(22:58)
Stu
So what does that mean?
Jai
Well, there's lessons and nature is aggressive, but it's also very fluid and friendly. There's white, fluffy clouds, but they can also strike you with lightning or sharks are deadly and koalas are cute. We are part of nature. So, biologically we're all different and a bird gets scared and flies away before trouble strikes, whereas the bear, will just sit there calmly and swipe you and knock trouble out of the way. So are you the bear or are you the bird?
Stu
(23:32)
Oh, right. I see what you're saying. So yeah. Different health types. So then, tell me how do you determine someone's health type?
Jai
So what we do with Life Logic, we've partnered with ph360, and ph360 is this massive database, 10,000 different data sets, and we put your personalised measurements in this washing machine or melting pot, and what is at the other side of this assessment, which can be done in 20 minutes is your health type. Now, it's a 360 degree wheel, every five degrees around the wheel will be a different number from zero, five, 10, 15.
I'm a 290 Diplomat, but there'll be, within each five degree notch, there's also pretty much an infinite number of varieties because of the 10,000 data sets. And we measure your jaw, we measure around your head, we look at your eye colour, hair colour, skin, the nails, the striations in your nails. Do you have any white spots, which might show a zinc deficiency, things like that.
All of that goes in. So, it's an outcome of your genetic lineage, but it's measuring the environmental impact. So what epigenetics is, is your genetics mixed in with your current or your recent environmental impact on those genetics. So, a way to describe that would be, if you look at a house plan and you look at this two dimensional floor plan, that looks great on paper but it's two dimensional. You need to see what the house looks like after 20 years of wear and tear and weather and renovations and different paint jobs to really understand the house and see what it is and what it needs today. It'd be a very different thing to just the genetic blueprint.
(25:36)
Stu
Got it. And so I've taken the tests, and I'm speaking from experience. So you take all of the measurements and you perform that and you load them into the system.
What would the user expect in terms of guidance with the results?
Jai
Yeah. So, our coaching with Life Logic is the nurture part, where we look at your results and guide you through your priorities. So we work with you because there is a lot of information like you said. Like going to Google and saying, how do I keep myself healthy?
But instead of going to Google and getting everyone else's opinions, which is my gripe with the industry. We're all putting ourself imposed beliefs on other people. You're on your own individual journey and you are biologically unique. It's going into your Google search engine for everything that's concerns you. Like where you came from, where your grandparents came from, where you live in the world, the availability of food in your area, the climate, it brings in the likelihood of pollution and the quality of the air to work out your toxic load.
And then, it puts things into lists like exercise and movement recommendations. So for me, I should be doing heavy weight sets and reps up to about 80% max. Don't push yourself too hard because I've always got the happiness hormone in check. I need to keep my body and mind happy. If I get an external force pushing me into doing something, I'm going to repel against that and subconsciously fight it. Whereas yours Stu, might be endurance. You are the natural race horse, so you'll need more hard intensity endurance sets, go, go, go, push, push, push. Here's the time I want you to hit, here's how many times I want you to hit it and here's the information around what you need to do and why? So you are informed, because you are of the race horse that thrives off data. So, your information will be presented completely differently to mine.
So, the ph360 database filters out movement, nutrition, not only just your mindset but also your genius and when you're able to do your best work. So, the chronobiology around mindset, movement, nutrition, probably the three are three bigger pillars, and then there's all these other fun things like environment. I know this looks like a messy room that I'm in right now for those watching this broadcast rather than listening to the podcast, but this is genius right here. This is genius.
(28:16)
Stu
No. I was going to say, yeah, absolutely. For everyone who can see this on YouTube, that's a place where I'd want to be. You've obviously got infrared sauna in the back, you look like you got a rack and some weights, a ton of literature. I think you mentioned that you had a nice bath. Oh, there you go, you got a bike in there as well. Yeah.
Jai
(28:33)
Yeah the ice bath it's just outside and the big flat screen TV here for watching the NBA as well, just to satisfy those man-cave moments.
Stu
(28:41)
That's awesome.
Jai
Yeah. For me, in order to be happy, we thrive off environment with the diplomat health type. We're very into nature, and that allows us to keep this sense of calm, to allow us to digest the food, which obviously is not very easy, and keeps us happy. So, once we're happy in our environment, we're able to focus on the work at hand because it can be one less thing we need to worry about.
Yes, it does sound like a large swimming pool of information when you go in there for the first time. Our job at Life Logic is to decipher that information and just focus on one, two, maybe three things at a time, in order for you and your biological health type, which is only unique to you. So, Stu on our first meeting, what did we talk about? We looked at timing, first of all, for yourself.
(29:34)
Stu
Timing for training, absolutely. That was the big one for me. Being busy with work, makes it interesting but I have absolutely tinkered and tried different times and I feel pretty good.
Jai
The hardest part is like you say, if you've got work being the priority and I understand right now you've got a lot going on. So as a coach, for us it's about... We'll find the next best time.
But if it's an hour or two... like I said, my actual best time is 3:00PM but I start training clients three and 4:00PM in the afternoon when I have my PT studio.
So I was training around 11, 12 midday, sort of 1:00PM, but that's better than 6:00AM when I'm still trying to digest last night's dinner.
So as coaches, we're not there to dictate terms or right or wrong you. It's facilitating, filtering out the information that's inside this amazing database because you want it all and you want it now, you want the answer, you just need the information that's most applicable right now. That's what we do as coaches is step you through that.
(30:50)
Stu
So it sounds like intuitively, through trial and error, you kind of found your... I guess health type, married that up with your [corona 00:31:04] type and made that work for your triathlon training, for your sport at the time.
Jai
And this is the thing where you and I have been able to connect socially outside of work and how we met each other, was at a friend's barbecue I think an hour and a half past, and we didn't really talk to anyone else.
Ultimately, I was in health and fitness, uni, personal training, full-time triathlon, it's my livelihood, I think, eat and breathe this stuff, I wake up at night thinking about it and I know you do.
Stu
Yeah, absolutely.
Jai
We are constantly in trial and error, and for anyone else listening to this that's not working in the health and fitness industry, you're walking into a dark room and stumbling around for ages because you've got other things to think about, family, your work, you don't know where to start. There's a lot of myths and misconceptions out and in and around the industry and there's good reason for that because it's not catered to you and your biological needs. The information's not filtered down for exactly who you are today and what you need right now, should you be eating broccoli or cauliflower? This app will tell you literally to the tea, what you should be having for food, when you should be going to bed, when your power hour is, mine's two to 3:00AM because the most important thing for me to do is to digest my food.
So I need to be in a deep sleep. If my daughter wakes up and I'm awake at two or three o'clock, I'm so angry sitting on the end of the bed in her room, waiting for her to go to sleep because I know I'm not going to be digesting my food, so tomorrow's not going to be a good day.
(32:39)
Stu
It's going to be sluggish. And you mentioned the word misconceptions there, and I'm keen to understand, based upon your learnings then with this technology and perhaps the coaching of many clients that have used your tech, what might be some of the biggest misconceptions regarding health and fitness than in that industry knowing what you now know with the personalization at hand.
Jai
Some of the biggest misconceptions...
Stu
And I'm thinking, people say you can't out train a bad diet or it doesn't matter just to smash yourself at the gym, don't worry about sleep, get up and do the bootcamp, that's going to be more important than anything else. Those types of things.
Jai
Yeah. I think a large part of it comes from, I touched on this earlier as well is, you want the information now? So a large part of the misconception comes from our consumer based demands and I think the market have self-generate a lot of these misconceptions because... or the industry has for sure. If we want to sell personal training, how do we get through and cut through the noise in order to sell PT? Or if you are looking to sell a tub of protein powder, or a packet of your protein powder ... It's all about... I think you've talked about in a lot of many other podcasts technology and all these things give us answers to what we need right now so that's our mentality. So the misconception is that we can get what we want now in health and fitness, if we choose to, if we do the right things, if we do this and this and this, if you listen to me and do my training program, you'll get the results you want in just 30 days. All sort of stuff that we can have it now, want it now is the misconception. So I think a lack of awareness and not focusing on nature and how it really works is potentially where we're going wrong.
If you look at nature, it's so diverse and if you understand that each health type or each of us have a unique piece of biology and you can look to animals as the analogy... Like the bird, it wants to run away before a fly, its flight will kick in very early flight system. I'm the buffalo, so I might take a little bit to get going, but once I get momentum, I can move fairly quickly like a herd of buffalo are pretty powerful.
The bear will just sit there and say everything's cool but then if trouble really strikes, it'll swipe you out in one foul swoop. You Stu, you are the race horse, you could fight, flight, run that crusader type. I'm going to lead the charge and following me everyone and just bolt. There's the leopard or the big cat, which is the agile one.
They thrive off risk, they're probably the ones going towards the trouble. So while the bird's flown away before the trouble has even hit, the big cats seeking it because they thrive off that risk. So I think the misconception that one size fits all is part of this. If one size fits all, then we can all have it now, we can all get immediate gratification because we're all the same. So I think if we really truly understand, have some awareness around that we're all different, we then start to understand all right or what does the truth look like for me in my own health and fitness journey?
(36:36)
Stu
Yeah, no, that's a good... You make a good point and I think... and that leads me into to the phrase, where's the magic pill? Because like you know, like I know, there's no magic pill, there's no quick fix there's determination and time. And once you've created more I guess healthy habits and ingrained yourself into new routines that foster those healthy habits. It's just time in the water, right? You do the hard yards and it will come to you.
Jai
For you, for example, let's look at 180 nutrition, you are doing a... You are selling protein products and healthy consumable... your latest collagen powders, and things, and bars, and powders, but you are on a podcast providing great information for the listener so that they build trust and value in your brand to buy more product.
Stu
Yeah. Look, you make a good point and it's a very tricky industry to be in because there are... I mean it is the wild west out there in terms of people can and will and do push questionable products that have again very questionable and skeptical marketing claims, fact blaster here, burn this and stump your appetite and green tea extracts here there and everywhere doing all of these crazy things. But ultimately, what we try and do is just make people curious about wanting to make change and talk about the power of whole foods, the whole food approach to eating and how that can be so radical for your health.
When you step away from the ultra processed foods, the refined carbohydrates and industrial seed oils and things like that, and when you start to feel better, more energised and invigorated, you start to look better for whatever goal you may have, then you become more curious. And then I think that light bulb goes on in the back of your head as well, "I've made these small changes, what else is there?" And then our audience typically then starts looking at their environment, or how am I sleeping? What am I thinking? Am I attached to my device all day long? And it is really it's a rabbit hole. And once you go down there, you realize that there are so many things that you can do and I guess all of these things could be on the 360 degree wheel that you spoke about that you can micro adjust and you get these radical results.
Jai
(39:13)
Well, the assessment that we do allows you to sniper it in one fowl swoop.
Stu
(39:18)
Yeah, that's it.
Jai
It takes out the guesswork and allows you to get it with pinpoint accuracy and it tells you exactly what to eat when, and... It ultimately... what I was getting at there with the misconceptions, is that the magic pill doesn't exist in nature and in health and fitness because at the end of the day, we're all training human body-
And we're all looking for this euphoric, healthy mind, healthy body, wellness, longevity in order to live not only physical but also mental health. When it's all in check at and it's well rounded, then we're going to get to that point of realisation and or awareness where we're able to go, "I'm happy with my life, I'm a great father," or whatever the other life elements are that all come together and if you're not happy within your own body, it's very hard to achieve a lot of those other areas of life.
So the magic pill thing is an interesting, it just twigged my thoughts there ... you are not saying to people ...like a doctor prescribes medication, you're unwell, you feel like crap, what do you do? You go to the doctor, you write... (this is what I say to my personal trainers), he writes a prescription.
What do you do with that prescription? You go straight to the chemist and you've just paid the doctor $180 for two minutes of their time to write on a piece of paper that you need the magic pill, you buy it from the chemist, you spend another 60 bucks. You've just spent $280 on two things that were medically prescribed as a magic pill to make you feel better. The ultimate subconscious red flag was that, "I feel like crap and I need to be fixed."
So we don't have a script, we're unable to provide this matter of urgency for the alarm bell that's going off in people's minds. 180 Nutrition and Life Logic are very similar in that we're provide people a multivitamin, not a pain killer.
What we have to do is educate people in the long game to change their habits over time because a multivitamin is something you need to take daily in order to have a great, healthy spread of micronutrients, so that you are healthy and happy in the long term and in developing habits is really what our game is. We need to provide good quality information so our people in our community trust us and then by building healthy habits, they're able to be healthy in the long term and get great results. That's what we're here to do.
(41:59)
Stu
Yeah, that's good advice. So I'm just thinking about... we've spoken a lot about personalisation but if we take that out of the picture, what would be the common denominators that you could confidently prescribe anyone with the mindset that they will improve, they will feel better? And I'm thinking about things like moving to a whole food diet over a processed and packaged and things like that.
Jai
(42:34)
Again, coming back to Maslow's hierarchy of needs, we've almost... I think I need to create this life logic hierarchy of health.
There's some base layer of foundation things that all human beings need.
So yes, it's getting adequate sunlight, drinking, filtered, purified water, getting enough sunlight and vitamin D. So if you're not getting enough sunlight, if you're living in a colder, darker climate, a long way from the equator, then maybe look at vitamin D supplementation and looking at the best options for that. As you would know, Stu, the other things that branch off the back of a healthy vitamin D, which are really important, your magnesium uptake and things like that, how they all work in with one another.
Sleep, it's funny that longer you stick around within an industry, like I'm in fitness, over 20 years, I've presented at FILEX the fitness convention in Sydney, to with 200, 300 fitness professionals from around the Southern hemisphere and people come into the industry wanting to claim victory and do all these quick fixes and I've got the best program and train with me, I'll push you the hardest. Give them eight years or six years plus and they start talking about, I just read one this morning. I've been in the industry now 13 years, I should read it out word for word. I got it on my phone right here. I was like, "That's interesting," and it's just popped up in this conversation.
I've been in the industry 13 years now, and if you're not getting enough sleep, if you're not hydrating... So everyone goes back to these simple wellness principles because we really truly and on a hand on heart realise that without these base layers of the simple things, your performance measures are useless. So I used to have a daily readiness questionnaire and it would actually be just written up on a iPad type, like a Google one. What were they called? Like a Samsung on a Spreadsheet, and they'd put in their numbers and give themselves a score out of 10 and they would walk up to their trainer at the start of the session and say, "I'm a 14 today," and the trainer would know there's a stress score.
There's an algorithm based on how much water they'd drank, how stressed they are at work, how they felt 20 minutes after waking up. We could add, "Did you walk barefoot today. So, some of the things that I do, I try and spend as much time as I can barefoot. I try and get some sunshine on my back every single day, ideally in the morning and the sunrise close your eyes a little bit, let it soak into your eyelids. I put lemon water and Himalayan salt into my water every day to increase absorption and replace some minerals. So, just those base layer, basic things that I probably take for granted now, that I don't even think of, is really what you need, right?
(45:28)
Stu
It is. Yeah, absolutely. It's good advice. And it is essentially, the fundamentals and for us sleep, is the most important pillar, because I think without sleep, everything else starts to crumble and you don't feel like exercising, you don't feel like socialising. You make poor food choices, and then it spirals on from there. But, like you said, you cover the basics, you've got shelter, you get sleep, you get access to food that offers good nutrition- As opposed to just a hyper palatable ultra processed snack-
Which you want more of 10 minutes later, then you actually managed to feed your body, which is a big plus. Now, you- [crosstalk 00:46:10].
Jai
(46:10)
Always used to have the saying, "I use movement as a vehicle for high performance. And that would be in business life, because I've done some mentoring for people in the fitness industry, but also for my clients and their personal health. So, it doesn't matter what element of life you're trying to improve. If we look at movement as... Because, that was what my trade was, movement, getting people to move. So, I looked at that as the anchor.
And everything else branched off that. In our two gyms, we've got a saying, "Bodies in motion, for healthy minds and happy hearts." ... Off the emotional side and also happy hearts means, we're emotionally stimulated, because we build community. We're getting people together to put bodies in motion. So, if your body is moving, after a good night's sleep, of course.
So, yeah, things like that. Just daily movement, actually removing the word exercise from your vocabulary.
(47:14)
Stu
No, I think that's a good idea. Because, oftentimes exercise has connotations of something that you really don't want to do, because it's hard. And we use the phrase, "Motion equals emotion." And oftentimes, when you're feeling low, it can be as simple as getting up from your desk, walking around the block, which exposes you to sunshine and nature and movement as well. That, nine times out of 10, you feel better for it. So, I think, we're definitely-
Jai
I'd say, "Emotion is emotion, and emotion is motion." There's another saying. And there's another exercise I get people to do.
Stu
(47:53)
Yeah.
Jai
So, if you are watching, or listening and you're in a private space and you're able to stand up- ... Let's do this exercise live right now. Stop what you're doing. I want you to make a fist, put your hands down by your side and think like you've just had the worst day of your life. You are so angry and your partner's just left you, your pet died yesterday and you've got no money in the bank and you just don't know where to turn to next and just grit your teeth. And we're going to do a simple squat, just squat down. If you're standing up, just do a slow squat down.
And standing up. Oh my hand actually just cramped.
What the awareness is, did I tell you how fast to squat? But, I'm guessing you squatted pretty slow.
And how did that squat feel? So, if we have the awareness of the feeling of that. All I did, was tell you to put yourself in an emotional state. So, that was emotion and trying to move with a certain emotion at play. Now, if you were to shake that out, literally shake your hands and your legs out. You've just won a million dollars in the lottery. The love of your life and everything's hum-dinging. And we're just going to get ourselves a little bit of space and we're going to just jump around little bit and get really happy. And we're going to do another squat. Ready?
Okay. How'd it feel?
Stu
Faster.
Jai
Faster, more fluid, free flowing.
Did I say to squat fast?
Stu
No, you didn't. Yeah, it's funny, isn't it? It's certainly a trigger and your emotions do dictate the mechanics a lot of the time.
Jai
So, we think about, if someone walks into a personal training session, or if you're not in a very good emotional state, it will manifest physically. So, people who are depressed over a long period of time, are going to have-
Bad shoulders-
Because, that manifestation of the emotion of the slouch.
Stu
Yeah, withdrawn. Absolutely.
Jai
Or, we could focus on the physiology first and link it back to emotion, like what yoga does. Sun salutations and things like this is movement first for a happy emotional outcome. So, if we open up our palms to the world and roll our shoulders back and open up our chest upward and look up, it's going to feel like we're opening up to the world and we've got nothing to hide.
Stu
Hmm. Yes.
Jai
So, you actually change your posture to change your emotional state, but also your ability to resonate and connect with other human beings, because you're opening up to them, welcoming them in. So. It can be movement first, in many ways as well.
Stu
Boy, oh boy.
(50:43)
Jai
Have you heard of the study Stu, where they looked at the effect of people's mood on digestion, or the effect of food?
Stu
I've had a few conversations about that for sure. And especially, with what we're doing nowadays, in terms of the distractions that we often have when we're eating. Many of us glance at our cell phones and we are scrolling through Facebook, or social media. We are not concentrating on eating at all.
Jai
I heard about that talk that, they did a case that where they let... They had a control group.
Just, and they had a control group of eat and just watch anything on TV.
And then, they gave the group comedy, standup comedy.
And you had to sit at the dinner table and watch standup comedy.
The families that ate dinner while watching comedy, had the best digestion and absorption of the food, because of the mood they were in while they were eating.
Stu
Wow.
Jai
Their body was more receptive to be able to take on the food.
(51:45)
Stu
Yeah, it's fascinating, isn't it? So many different areas I think, to tackle, that can be so profound on the way that we feel. And we we're just coming up on time there. And I wanted to ask you a couple of questions, before we shake hands and go our separate ways. One of them is based on the daily non-negotiables that you personally do, that you practice and follow each and every day, in order to win a day. And you may have touched on that previously, in terms of water and movement and sunlight on your eyes and things like that, but just run us through what those practices are for you, that will totally reshape the day, if you don't do them.
Jai
It's interesting now, because I've got my secret weapon, the pH 360 knowledge.
And I think what's important is, don't take my lessons as your personal takeaways.
Because, my advice, Obviously, this is not a one-size-fits-all approach.... Because, I'm not the one-size-fits-all guy.
(52:54)
Stu
Yeah. No, you're the opposite.
Jai
And for me, in order to win in the day, it's so funny, because I've got so many. And here's the struggle, for me, as a young entrepreneur, I wanted to get up and win the day from the morning, morning routine.
Aubrey Marcus' Own The Day, the book, he tells you what to do first thing in the morning. "You need to do this. You got to get up and..."
Stu
Yeah, he was hydrate.
Jai
Yeah, morning cocktail.
Stu
Yeah, hydrate, sunlight, movement. I think, those were his three tenants.
Jai
And Tim Ferris has got his routine and they all go on about the, "Win the morning, to win the day."
Stu
Journaling and things like that, I think he does.
Jai
Yeah. So, I do the pH 360 Assessment and build this business of Life Logic and it tells me, "Don't do anything in the morning." I get a notification on my app at 9:00 AM that says, "Have a cup of lemon tea, put your feet up and relax. Don't do anything." Because, if I did the blood flow would come out of the gut, you need to focus on let your body digest the food.
Stu
Yeah.
Jai
(53:59)
And when everyone else is crashing at 4:00 and 5:00 PM, you are hitting your straps, that's your time. So, what I need to do in order to win the day, is to start slow and take it slow for as long as I can, because my mind starts to fire up. I've got different businesses to run. And without having that knowledge, I think I'd be pretty anxious, because I'd see everyone winning the morning to win the day.
And I had massive FOMO.
Stu
Yeah, of course. Yeah, you'd think, "Boy, I feel lazy. Everyone's crushing it. And here I am stirring my lemon tea."
Jai
Yeah, exactly. So, now [inaudible 00:54:36], that's so much more beneficial, when you work out your own rhythm.
Stu
(54:39)
Got it, got it.
Jai
(54:40)
I also have a little Ayurvedic principle that I do, still to this day, which is scraping my tongue in the morning. I developed the i28 Challenge. I've got a 28-day challenge and I introduced this as one of the things you can do for 28 days.
Scrape your tongue three times with the Ayurvedic scraping, Tongue thing. It's like a U-shape hook. And then, I'll have my morning cocktail, which is from the Aubrey Marcus book. I put lemon, Himalayan rock salt in there.
And a bit of apple cider vinegar and I've got the water filter and purifying system on the bench. Ultimately, I'd love to have a big juice again. I'm still in that micronutrient focus. So, I will just throw as much stuff in there as I can and I'm not able to do that. My juicer is broken at the moment. So, yes, coffee, this is against my health type, but-
It's tough for me to get going without a nice, big bulletproof coffee in the morning. So, apart from that, it's just focusing on that micronutrients. And like I said earlier, getting some sunshine on me, walking barefoot whenever I can.
Stu
(55:47)
Fantastic. Great advice. So, for all of our listeners there that want to find out more about you, read more about your journey, dial in perhaps, to the learnings of Life Logic and pH 360. Interested in personalised assessments and things like that. Where can I send them?
Jai
The Life Logic side of the world is at lifelogic.co. So, on Instagram, that's the Instagram handle lifelogic.co.or, if you go to the worldwide web, it's the same URL as well.
The fitness business is www.unlimitedfitness.com.au. You'll find us over there.
So, those two are linked. So, Unlimited Fitness uses the principles and learnings from Life Logic, in administering movement for people, based on their unique epigenetic profile. And Life Logic is the all encompassing wellness site for longevity and online coaching.
Podcast ends
(57:11)
