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Merry Christmas everybody. We are back on the podcast. It's been a little bit while I've been taking care of a things, but I want to talk about this awesome holiday coming up and what are the top 10 healthy Christmas gifts that I think are the best to give?
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So I wanted to frame this around the six kind of foundations of health. And those include enjoyable fitness, tasty nutrition, restorative sleep, social connection, stress management, and avoidance of toxins. So that way you can kind of have an idea of where we're going. The enjoyable fitness, let's get into some of my favorites. I love doing things like CrossFit. And I started out
just with a set of dumbbells, a weight bench, and what we call a rig or a rack. And one of the first ones I started out with was what's called CAP, C-A-P, dumbbells. And they were just the basic hexagonal coated dumbbells that, you know, had the nice little form grip, the chrome handle in the middle. And now they have some really cool options on Amazon.
So on Amazon, they actually have Cap Barbell C-A-P and I'll put some links down below. It's not any affiliated links, just normal links. And they have three types. There's the comfort grip, which is kind of more straight across, chrome handle, and then they have black handle. So black handle looks really cool and I'm probably gonna order some of them just to check them out. So one of the first gifts you can give is a Cap Barbell Hex Dumbbell weight.
And that's way it's spelled in Amazon. It says barbell, but it's dumbbells. And what you can do is for women, you can give 12 to 15 pounds. And then for men, you can give 15 to 20 pounds. And this will start somebody off on their journey. And so you can be the catalyst that helps them kind of turn their life around a little bit. Now, I should caveat this by saying that they have to be
kind of ready for it. They have to be ready to change, in other words. And a simple change model is what's called the trans theoretical model of change. And this involves pre-contemplation. So they're kind of thinking about it, then they're contemplating on it. And then they're getting into preparation, like they're preparing to do it. And then,
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Finally, they're kind of taking an action on it. Then this is followed up by maintenance. So they continuously reinforce the idea that they want to change and keep this habit.
Now, the next thing I wanna talk about is getting somebody, so we talked about the strength exercise, like the strength component, but now let's talk about a little bit of cardiovascular component. One thing you can get them is some really nice running shoes, and you can take them to either what's called a fleet feet, F-L-E-E-T, F-E-E-T.
And this place will actually size them up and then like use a laser to check out what size they wear, what shoe fits them best, watch them run, do all kinds of things like this, and then fit that shoe to their foot.
So you could surprise them by taking them there and checking this out. Now the next thing you can do is get them a treadmill and not just one that is, and you get like a really simple one actually. You can get one that doesn't require any plugging it in, nothing like that, just a stand-up one that can do maybe like an incline. And there's a really good one called Sunny, S-U-N-N-Y treadmill and it's a very simple one.
to use that they can just set up and move themselves, put it under the bed, pull it out, and then do 10 minutes of walking. And so what, you know, maybe you give them this and they don't know exactly what to do. Well, there is a really cool book by Mike Matthews called, I think it's Bigger, Leaner, Stronger. And so Mike Matthews is a fantastic author and you can look him up.
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and he has also a year long challenge for men and women. So I think that his other book is like, slimmer fitter stronger for women or something like this, or maybe it's leaner fitter stronger, but Mike Matthews is his name and I highly suggest you check him out. And this book will actually lay out an entire year's worth of strength training and how to progress, how many sets, how many reps, things like this.
The next category we can talk about is tasty nutrition. And really cool and easy thing to do here is get a fruit bowl and put some fruit in it. Or get a fruit bowl and then, yeah, put some fruit in it and wrap it up, right? It'll be kind of odd. It will look funny. It won't be the normal kind of square or rectangular present. It'll look a little bit different. And...
this they can put on their counter and it'll be constant reminder that, yeah, I should eat some fruit like once a day, twice a day. Myself, I love eating just blueberries by the handful. We have a fruit bowl in our house with bananas and apples and actually avocados in it. And so this can be a really nice reminder that, hey, eat a piece of fruit. The next thing you can look at is
30-Minute Mediterranean Meals. And this is on Amazon as well. Really cool book. And it's very, pretty easy to follow along. Pretty popular too. And the Mediterranean diet is something that really focuses on making a big portion of your plate of fruits and vegetables, as well as very lean meats like chicken and fish, olive oil, things like this. Lower on the carbohydrates.
but still very, very tasty. And overall, you know, basically need, just think about it. If you take three meals a day, right? And you just kind of say, okay, I want high protein in the morning, maybe some eggs and some lean bacon, as well as some fruit like apples, then in the afternoon, chicken and seasoned Brussels sprouts with.
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some oranges, right? And then the evening, some salmon, easy salmon with some sweet potato and blueberries, right? Something, I mean, it sounds odd together, but it works out very, very well and it's very healthy for you. Then of course, sticking to water and coffee before noon because I love my coffee. Now.
The next category is restorative sleep. The most complimented gift that I give is nice pillows. And they are Ralph Lauren. I get them from like Marshall's. They're Ralph Lauren pillows that are the feather pillows and are very super soft and malleable. They're about like, I would say soft to medium level support on the neck. And then of course,
full cotton bed sheets. So these, I don't know why, but my friends, my family tell me, yeah, I can't believe you got me a pillow, that's exactly what I needed. And then if they have those, or they maybe got those, then you can go for some blackout curtains. You can say, okay, here, here are some curtains, we're gonna go, let's measure your window, right, take a little bit of extra stout, measure your window, and then we'll go over to Home Depot.
and get some blackout curtains. Or, you know what, Home Depot will come over and measure it for you and they'll measure all your windows for free and then you can buy as many blackout curtains as you want, however many rooms. So they will do this for free and come out. The other thing or the last thing for restorative sleep would be some magnesium. So you can get some magnesium over the counter and.
take a little bit of it at night or some melatonin. I like to start melatonin, five milligrams. That's a decent level. And take this and it will help you get to sleep. Now be careful with the magnesium because there's magnesium citrate which works, but it can give you diarrhea. So you do not want that, go easy on it the first time. Now.
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The next one is, the next pillar is social connection. So this is one of my favorites. It's why I got into family med. It's because I like talking to people and really getting to know their story. And this can be really hard in today's society because we're always looking at social media. We have our own family to take care of. Or maybe we're just never taught to be social when we're growing up. But if you...
have a partner, know, who's your lover, one of the best things you can get, and this is by far the best thing we have in our house, is a massage gun. There is nothing that I love more, that my wife loves more, for us, you know, being kind to each other and just doing the massage gun at night. We do it about once or twice a week. I'll do it on myself. It goes into my recovery plan.
before and after CrossFit sometimes. And the one that we use is called Hydra Gun, H-Y-D-R-A-G-U-N. And this is a fantastic gun, little massage gun that works really well. I think it's about 300, but there are multiple ones on Amazon as well. So I highly recommend getting it. And it's really easy, just, know, start at the back, work down to the feet.
Now, if you have friends and you're like, I bet you they could work maybe on their social connecting. Well, you could buy them months worth or a couple dance lessons. And I used to dance salsa from like Thursday to Sunday morning in Houston, Texas. And that's how I learned how to speak Spanish. And doing salsa lessons is one of the cleanest ways to meet people.
because it's actually people who are out there to enrich their mind, enrich their body. Salsa dancing, you can easily burn 200, 300 calories at night, like super easy. So that's one way, that's with dance lessons. Another one for social connection would be sign them up for jujitsu. I completely love jujitsu. I've been doing it for years now and I've met so many friends.
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One of my absolute best friends does jiu-jitsu with me. So I highly suggest checking out. It will improve everything, their confidence, their ability to go to sleep at night because they've just exhausted themselves throughout the day. It will help improve PTSD as evidenced by research done by the army for their own people. So.
I highly suggest one of those dance lessons or jiu-jitsu to help improve social connection. Now the next one is a little bit more out there. It's called stress management. It's newer than most of the other ones. And we're just kind of understanding that this is occurring in society. It's been around, I mean, for 20, 30 years. And so you have to understand that this...
is now just being introduced into elementary schools and as well as colleges and now we start to see it some in like high caliber sports. So the absolute best kind of crossfit athletes, they do this as well as things like when they go and try out for the Navy SEALs. If you look at Josh Bridges plan, he's a Navy SEAL as well as a CrossFit game six time.
CrossFit Games competitor, which is brutally hard to get into. So he does mental preparation as well. And this is something that I've been trained in, I've done with my patients, and it is absolutely amazing. And you may have heard of it, it's called mindfulness, but the original kind of name was, let's see, MBSR, is a mindfulness-based stress reduction class. And this has been done.
for several years at Brown University. And one of the main professors of this is Dr. John Cobbett-Zinn. And he met with the Dalai Lama and said, the Dalai Lama told him, you need to teach this to the Western world. And Cobbett-Zinn was like, what if, you know, the Eastern monks and everybody get angry at me? And the Dalai Lama said the most amazing thing he said.
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who are we to hold this information from everybody else? And that was like, it was mind blowing. I was like, wow, that's pretty damn cool. Then, so he has a book called Full Catastrophe Living, which is a little bit introduction into mindfulness and just accepting that the world unfolds and throws things at you, right? It really does just.
throw wild and chaotic things at you sometimes. And we see this a lot in medicine. The next thing you can do in under stress management is give them a journal with a nice pin. Like the number of times that I write things down and I reflect on them and look at them and go, I need to change myself and my approach around this thing. Or, this is a good idea. Let's expand on it. And how can I include it into my own life?
And you draw the little bubbles, you connect the dots. And you can also just write out your thoughts so that way your brain's like, it was worrying about something, but now it sees, that's on paper. I can just kind of move on here because it's over there. I can always go back to it. But now I can move on and go to sleep. That's the other one. And a journal can significantly decrease PTSD too. It's Army has done several nice studies on this.
that it shows that a journal can help a whole bunch and really kind of help you vet out in your own mind. Now I always say everybody, like everybody should either do mindfulness training or go to a counselor, like at least once in your life, if not both. Both of them can have really good effects on you and the rest of your life. So the last one, the last one is,
avoidance of toxins. And this is probably the most sensitive area besides maybe fitness or nutrition. know, those are a little bit lighter subjects. Avoidance of toxins is we are trying to decrease our addiction to something. And this falls into a little bit of stress management and I mean, it falls into everything, but
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The two main things that we discuss is smoking and alcohol reduction, right? So how can you help them with this? Well, one is you could buy them a book. It's called Alan Carr's Easy Way to Quit Smoking. And this book is phenomenal. Basically, you listen to it and by the end of it, you really do not want to smoke anymore. And you'll see the reviews on Amazon.
thousands and thousands of reviews. Patients have told me they used it. I've subscribed it to patients. They find it very helpful. Get the audible version. Don't get the book itself, get the audible, right? So they can just listen and listen and re-listen. And this can really help them out. Now, if you don't think that that will help them or you wanna get them something extra to help them quit smoking, well, there is Nicorette Gum.
So you can get them nicaric gum as well. There is also, and ask the pharmacist, say, hey, which nicaric gum would you recommend if my patient smokes, or my patient, if my friend smokes X amount of cigarettes per day? You can also ask your own doctor, right? Now, that's a really good thing to get them, but just be prepared that they might be a little offended because,
And addiction is something so embedded in somebody that they think it is part of them. Meaning you are literally like ripping off an arm. But if they're ready for it, then they're ready for it. And then they also might have a little bit of a, you know, social kind of barrier to it where they just, meaning they won't express how they actually feel. They'll just say, thanks a lot. You know, I'll keep this in mind. Now, what if the...
drink alcohol and they're trying to cut back. Well, there's a really good book called This Naked Mind and it's called Control Alcohol, Find Freedom, Discover Happiness and Change Your Life. So this naked mind. And this is one of the first books that I read about alcohol and I drastically cut back my drinking because I was like, this thing can actually take over and control your life.
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Right? In other words, there's another ship master or another captain at the helm that is now controlling you and pushing you into a certain direction. So really thinking about, okay, alcohol is like everywhere. It's ubiquitous, right? It's paired, like if you think about a steak, what do you pair it with? You pair it with a red wine. And if you think about chicken or fish, what do you pair it with? You pair it with a white wine.
And why is this? Well, it's marketing. Most of the things that we do that are not the best for us is marketing. Somebody somewhere thought that this was a good idea and they made a commercial about it. Also, if you think about football or I just saw the other night on the UFC fight that they pair it with, so UFC paired up with gambling, right? I was like, wow, that's...
That's interesting take. I know there's a lot of money to be made there and that's probably why they're doing it. But not the best choice.
The other thing you can do, and if it's really advanced, you can say, hey, I'm gonna go to an AA meeting with you, Alcoholics Anonymous, and you can say, let's go there, let's check it out, okay? And this requires being a very, very best friend. So this topic may be a little too deep for somebody just like, hey, what kind of Christmas present am I getting my friends? But these are just little books, right? You can get a book, they can unwrap and go,
I get the message, I see something here. You may help them change their life. And if you think about their future, where they're headed and where they're gonna end up, you could be the person that gives them a Christmas that they will remember forever.
