Episode #584: Breaking Leader Bad Habits - The Struggles of Health, Fitness, and Stress We All Face

Are you sitting too much and for too long at your desk every day? Are you eating too much every meal because your mother told you when you were a kid to finish everything on your plate. Are you hitting the booze after work with your mates or at home to rid yourself of your stress? Are your kidneys and liver in good shape? Are you carrying around too much meat and making your muscles and organs work much harder than they should? Is your blood pressure elevated and too high every day? Are you constantly thinking about all of your troubles at work? Are you having trouble getting good quality consistent sleep? Are you promising yourself to get to the gym, but don’t make it as often as you need to in order to make any progress?

Well, I have pretty much described myself here. Knowing about it and doing something to fix it are two universes separated by infinite space. Intellectually I know what I should do, but practically I struggle with a lifetime of negative habits which all need work. I do a lot of pontificating in my content about what to do and how to do it, so I can imagine I can come across as Mr. Goody Two Shoes pseudo perfect. This time I will use myself and my failings as the mirror for you to think about yourself and what you are doing if you share these same attributes.

Ironically, as I sit here writing this, I have been sitting at my home desk writing my weekly blogs for the last three hours and haven’t once stood up. I know just sitting is bad, but I get into a concentration zone and I forget to stand up. Right, I am going to use a timer with an alarm and set it so that I stop what I am doing and stand up and walk around at set intervals, a bit like the pomodoro method of twenty-five minutes work, five-minute break and then after four pomodoros take fifteen minute break.

Eating less is a choice. Leaving parts of the meal unconsumed is a choice. Another irony. I am sitting here in Tokyo writing this blog and we have the “hara hachibu” tradition here in Japan of only eating until 80% full. This idea originally came from Okinawa and they are one of the longest lived peoples in the world. I have to break that habit driven deep into my mind by my Mum and not feel compelled to eat everything on the plate. I had lunch the other day with my mate Tak and I noted he left most of his chicken uneaten, which was quite a feat, as the main meal was chicken. Growing up in Japan, maybe he didn’t have to break free of the gravitational pull of “finish everything on your plate”.

Roughly once a week, over a meal with my wife, I like to drink Australian wine at home on Fridays after my hard toil at the Dale Carnegie Siberian Salt Mines. I used to finish a bottle between us, but actually I was drinking most of it. Today, I am down to a single glass to give my blood pressure, kidneys and liver a rest. This is extremely hard because I want to keep drinking. It is a weekly battle with myself to stop at one glass.

At one point back in the 1990s, when I was working in Nagoya, after many months of wining and dining and being wined and dined, my weight blew up to 90kilos. I didn’t notice it, because it was gradual. After one event where we were having a meal sitting on tatami, some kind soul sent me a photo from the evening. It was taken from the side, so I got a full appraisal of the profile of my massive girth. I was so shocked. Today, my weight floats around 82-83 kilos at the moment and I need to get it floating around 80—81, and those last couple of kilos seem so hard to evaporate. For reference purposes, when I was competing in karate competitions, I was fighting in the 75-80 kilo weight division, so getting close to my fighting weight is a good goal for me to have.

Switching off from work is a pain. I think about my problems at work all day and night, and that black monster is always sitting there in the darkened corner of my mind. Lately, I am also adding to my woes by not getting good quality sleep. I am not sure why that is, but I think part of it is not enough exercise. I need to be more tired at night so that I drift off to sleep quickly and smoothly. I was walking every morning, then I caught a cold with the change of the seasons, so I took a break. Then I tripped on the stairs at home, smashed my toe into the stair rise and it is a miracle I didn’t fracture it, but boy has it been sore. Consequently, no walking in the morning.

I need to get back to that routine of awakening at 5.50am, get out the door, walk for an hour while listening to podcasts and then get off to work. Getting to the gym regularly is a difficulty because I am often at networking events at night, but I know I can do better. What about going to the gym on the weekends? I can do better.

One item you may note that is prominent by its absence is smoking and the quitting thereof. Both my parents died of lung cancer and my father at age 51, so I have never smoked. If you are a smoker, then I haven’t got much to say from any personal experience. I have read that as soon as you quit, the body starts to rebuild and you can repair the damage you have been doing to your lungs and broader health. Apparently, after a year since you quit, your risk of heart disease is halved and after five years, your chances of a stroke and cervical cancer are the same as a nonsmoker. Worthwhile thinking about I would say.

Everything I have talked about today is within my grasp, if I choose to grasp it. I don’t need a Life Coach, a Personal Trainer, Ozempic or anything else but will, determination, consistency and making some decisions and sticking to them. How about you?