Strength Training: The “Metabolic Medicine” You Can Do From Home

Welcome to Calgary's 11th Walk with a Doc 0:00

The Calgary's 11th Walk with a Doc. I cannot believe it's been almost a year, so thank you to all of you for making that a reality. And I'm also very proud of all you individually just now. Thank you coming out in the freezing cold, but still to do an indoor walk, prioritize your health, get your steps in, and of course build our healthier community together. Most of you know me, I'll give you the full intro for the new faces. I'm Dr. Hussain Kimji. My mission is to help people with three things, become your happiest and healthiest self, manage, prevent, and reverse chronic diseases, an optimize mental health and emotional wellbeing.

A little bit more important than that, that I am also a human in progress, so I like to do these walks with you rather than telling people what to, do and it is my privilege to host the Calgary Walk with the Doc. We actually recently learned that we have crossed 700 chapters around the world. When we started here last year, we were around 600. So there's been amazing growth.

Introduction to Dr. Hussain Kimji and the Walk with a Doc mission 0:53

Again, thank you to all of you. We always start with a health talk. Today's talk is going to be about strength training and resistance training. Any of your doing that or not doing? Good. Great. Okay. Strength training, what is it? It involves purposeful movement of moving the muscles in your body. The key word for me though is the resistance training part. So you're still using your muscles, but you are pushing against an external force. Does that make sense? The resistance is what helps to damage the muscle so that you can build and repair it and then grow it.

Okay? We want to do more and more of it. Lately, for some reason, I've been talking to patients and clients more about it and people often feel overwhelmed or it can be frustrating or feels like I tried to sign up for a gym or sweaty sessions, heavy lifting, expensive fees, fitness memberships. It doesn't actually need to be that way. So I think about things that you can use at home. Kettlebells, dumbbells barbell, medicine balls, those can very effective. But let's say you have no gym equipment.

Use things in your home. Milk jugs, soup cans, water bottles, backpacks, grocery bags filled with objects. These are all ways that you can still move against resistance. Still with me? My favourite one is using your body weight. That is still resistance training when you pair it with gravity.

What strength and resistance training means 2:06

At home, anywhere, right here, you can do squats, lunges, push-ups, planks. I know some of those are not fun, but they're the easiest ways to get into strength training without needing to overwhelm yourself or feel like you need a bunch of things before you start. Make sense? Okay. Are those the activities you guys are doing or you're doing maybe more or different things? Yeah, yeah, in fact, so Jenna and I were talking this morning about shoulder pressing your baby. But even for practical day-to-day activities, right?

So if you need to reach for something on a high shelf, take out something from a cabinet, if your going to lift a basket of laundry, a lot of us do this, but what we really want to do is to be able to this. Which is the practice of squatting, and your then building the muscles. And your gonna save your low back a lotta pain as well. Groceries is my other favorite example. If you do a Costco run or a regular grocery run, you've got to lift the heavy groceries. First to your car, then out of your garage, than into your house, and then putting it away.

So strength and resistance training actually makes your quality of life better. It makes you ability to do your day to day things easier. Good? There are a million benefits. We started talking about them already. It will improve for women, improves your experience of menopause, so you have less symptoms or a better experience through it. it can boost your metabolism.

Simple ways to train at home without gym equipment 3:28

What that actually means is the more muscle that you carry on your body the, more energy your, body burns even when you're not doing the workouts. So great for obesity and weight management as well. If you have diabetes or you wish to prevent type 2 diabetes, your muscles will soak up glucose. So you'll have less circulating glucose, better regulated blood sugar. Another really good benefit for strength and resistance training is your mental health. Mental health, a better mood, and better sleep.

If struggle with anxiety, depression, you can manage those better or have an easier time getting through those. And with your brain, it prevents cognitive decline. So strength and resistance training is the number one thing you can do to prevent progression of Alzheimer's disease and reduce your risk of developing it and stay sharp. Does that all make sense? There are millions of other benefits. It improves your balance, your core strength, the things at home we talked about. The guidelines, what do they say?

At least a minimum of two days a week for adults, ideally more if you can, and for children and teenagers, at least three times a weak. The rest of the days in the week, it is important to be doing cardio or aerobic training, but also to have rest and recovery days because your muscles need time to rest in recover so that they can grow properly. And of course, optimal healthy nutrition to build the muscles, okay? Any questions so far? No, still good? Yeah, go for it.

Everyday strength for daily life and injury prevention 4:52

Yeah, so this would be it. That's an excellent question. So the more muscle you can add to your body, or a lot of people I work with, just any human actually, generally develops osteoarthritis, wear and tear of the joints, which causes people a So the idea is you want to take the load of your weight or your body off of the joint. The best way to do that is to build up the muscles around the joints. So it brings joint stability, reduces the risk of, the risks associated with falls as we get older.

You can even increase your bone density. And when you strengthen the muscle around, you take load off the join, so you have less pain. But it would still be this, muscle strength and resistance training. Yeah, awesome question. Yeah, yeah, oh no. Yeah. Totally, totally. And this is actually the last thing I wanted to share with all of you, is it doesn't need to be that way. Those programs are good, and if they work for you awesome. But it does need be so intense. What matters more is showing up every day, even if it's little by little.

So the low bar I talk to people about is, can you do 10 squats while your morning coffee or tea is brewing? Can you five or 10 lunges after you brush your teeth once or twice a day? Could you push ups, could you a plank before your shower?

Health benefits of resistance training 6:12

These are again all things you can do, no equipment at home, As you get into them, it becomes easier and easier to do 12 reps, 15 reps. But you can build it over time. So we really want to focus on building the micro habit, winning the micromoment, and then letting those results stack up in your favor. Sound good? Any questions about anything at all? No? Yes, yeah. Planted question. Okay, fine. Good question! So I think you guys know this from the blog, but recommended daily amount to avoid a protein deficiency is 0.8 grams per kilogram.

Now, if you wanna build more muscle or maintain that muscle, it would recommend a little bit more, 1.2 to 1,6 grams for kilogram, some people online will even say two or 2.5 grams or kilogram or more. Unless you're doing like a bodybuilding competition or working towards a specific goal, that is a lot of protein. I think another important thing to share just on protein is that we're told a lot lately to chase protein and eat more protein. Please remember the whole food package that your protein comes with.

So sometimes people will tell me, hey, I'm eating a ribeye steak and I am getting my protein, and you are 20, 30 grams of protein but you're also getting a load of calorie density, extra calories from the saturated fat intake in that same steak.

Training guidelines, recovery, and joint support 7:34

Find the risk of colon cancer and other things. It's not just the protein itself. What else am I putting in my body with it? Good question. I can't fault you for that one. in terms of like quality or how it is for the, that's an excellent question. I would say no and the American College of Lifestyle Medicine would also say, no. So we generally recommend a whole food plant predominant eating pattern. We know for sure that all plant proteins have all this nine essential amino acids. In fact, amino acid as you know are the building blocks for your muscle to grow and build and repair them after the exercise or strength training.

So you get all of that from plants, so think like tofu, tempeh, seitan, beans, lentils, edamame, those are all excellent plant sources of whole protein. The other big advantage, like we just talked about the steak, in the flip side, plant proteins are prepackaged with fiber,

Micro-habits for consistency and protein nutrition Q&A 8:27

not saturated fat. So the other recent thing is eat more fiber. Now here's a way you can get protein and fiber and low carb and health and muscle building all in one. Plant proteins would be predominant for sure. Animal proteins are still good options if that's what you're eating or if you can access but try to limit the saturated fat intake. Lastly protein powders, protein bars, of course there are other ingredients in them. They can disrupt the gut microbiome but at the same time they can be quick, easy, on the go, convenient things.

A lot of us are living practically in North American life. It's very fast paced. From wherever you came from today to here, likely you passed many fast food places, or many foodplaces. To have a convenient option, if you end up choosing protein powder over McDonald's as an example, it's relatively better, right? It's not the powder, its how much protein you take. And also how water you drink. Your kidneys are a nice filtration system. Yeah. Okay. Good? We'll do our usual walks. We walk for about 45 to 50 minutes.

Will do as many laps as we can. There's no rush though. Walk at your own pace. If you want to power walk, if you wanna slow walk benches, washrooms, and we'll take a photo and then we get started. Sound good? Okay, let's come together.