Remember that everyone has their own sleep requirements. So I can’t make a one-size-fits-all rule to say you absolutely need six hours, eight hours, or ten hours. Everyone has their own physiological needs, and you should get your own normal amount. How do you know what that is? When you wake up refreshed and don’t go through the day fatigued, you’ve got it right.
How do you do that? Below are some simple ways to help your body settle into a comfortable sleep, night after night.
Regular sleep. To encourage your body to sleep well over the long term, develop a predictable schedule for sleeping, even on weekends. This trains your body to expect to sleep at approximately the same time every night, and wake up at about the same time every morning (whenever possible).
Interrupted sleep. If you can’t sleep one night and decide to get up and do something, be sure that your activity is done in a dimly lit room. Light stimulation can prolong your wakefulness and keep you from going back to sleep.
Alcohol, exercise, and sleep. It’s odd, but alcohol and exercise immediately before bedtime are not sleep aids. Yes, alcohol is chemically a depressant, but it has the effect of decreasing your REM sleep. That’s the deep sleep your body must have to feel refreshed in the morning. Exercise makes your body tired but revs up your metabolism and sharpens your mental activity. In fact, exercise right before bed can make it much harder to get to sleep. So if you have a nightcap, make it small. And if you exercise, do it at least two hours before you’re ready to go to sleep.
Don’t Forget, Don’t Diet
Your miraculous body is its own ecosystem of moving parts: genes, cells, tissues, organs, organ systems, emotions, and intellect. All these overlapping elements do their individual jobs, but are linked together to make the entire body function well. The single parts cannot function outside of the context of the whole.
This basic biological reality must be remembered in regard to your weight as well. Thus, any approach to health must embrace the cooperative nature of all the moving parts of the body, not just one or two, or any effects you do see will be short-lived at best. This is precisely why we’ve found over the past thirty-five years that standard diet strategies fail 90 percent of the time.
The diet mentality is one-dimensional, and therefore unrealistic because it focuses on a single aspect of your body’s billion moving parts (accounting for food parts such as carbs, fats, or calories). But sleep affects your weight, stress affects your weight, and your emotional state does, too! You cannot live in this world without the help of those around you, and you cannot live a healthy life without taking care of yourself as a whole person. All these factors conspire as a synergistic unit, and none should be managed outside of the context of the whole.
So sleep well and laugh well. These are the pillars on which you’ll build your health. And healthy weight loss will follow as a result.
CHEAT SHEET: FINDING YOUR PEACE
Chronic stress introduces sugar instabilities and weight gain, in addition to the problems it causes for your blood pressure and your heart. Stress reduction comes through laughter, relaxation of body and mind, and a light playful spirit, and there are very simple breathing routines that can help you find your peace every day.
To live a healthy life every day, practice:
Getting rid of bodily tensions by taking your daily muscle inventory.
Getting rid of mental tensions by practicing your belly breathing.
Getting rid of emotional tensions by daily meditation.
The Results You’re Looking For
IMMEDIATELY
Your spirit will feel lighter.
You will find your thinking clearer.
You will be more at peace throughout the day.
WITHIN TWO WEEKS
You will find it easier to laugh, and others will find it easy to laugh around you.
You will be able to apply your breathing exercises and meditations anytime, anywhere.
WITHIN A MONTH
You will have made your belly breathing relaxation techniques a natural part of your life.
Your stress-induced eating episodes will diminish.
HOMEWORK: FOR REDUCING STRESS
Do your morning meditation for fifteen minutes, at least three times per week.
Practice your belly breathing whenever you feel stressed.
Laugh out loud every day.
Surround yourself with enjoyable people.
Sleep well.
Step 10
You Don’t Have to Go to the Gym
Lyon is France’s second largest city—sort of like the Chicago of France. And it offers everything that any other major metropolitan city offers … almost.
When I first arrived, my knee was injured and I couldn’t even run a mile without it hurting. I’d tried everything, but I had been forced to do other things such as riding stationary bikes or lifting weights. Over lunch, I asked one of the research professors who lived in the Lyon area about the local health clubs.
He stared back at me, processing the request. “Ahh, yes. You mean, like for the mineral bath or spa?”
“No,” I said, “like with weight machines, circuit training, sweaty people doing step aerobics,” I motioned with my arms. He wasn’t getting it. “You know, the banks of stationary bikes, elliptical trainers, rowing machines, free weights, a swimming pool …”
“We have swimming pools,” he interrupted, a little excited to have found a point of recognition somewhere in my torrent. I asked if he knew anyone who “worked out” there, but he just shook his head.
I ended up blowing off the gym because it was just too hard to communicate the idea. I came to find that they do in fact have their own types of workout facilities in Lyon, but they’re remarkably few. For example, if you looked for fitness centers in the Chicago area you’d have a whopping fourteen hundred choices—they’re everywhere! A similar search on the official Lyon Web site revealed that there are no gyms in that city. Another try returned four options (a mineral bath spa, a pool, some squash courts, and a skateboard arena). In fact, there are a rare few health clubs, but the majority are found in association with hotels (for tourists).
This confirms what I’d seen as well—that the French just don’t work out like crazy. According to the International Health, Racquet & Sportsclub Association (IHRSA), the total health club attendees in the United States rose 154 percent from 1987 to 2000, and more than doubled, to 33.8 million, by 2002. Contrast this with the listing for the very largest health club in France, Club Med Gym, which ended the same year with a loss of 62 millions Euros, which followed a loss of 70 million from the year before. This, according to the IHRSA, is why they were recently forced to sell up to seventy-five of their gyms.
In general, we exercise. They don’t.
This drives home yet another French paradox. Since science shows that activity really is important for low weight and optimal health, how can we explain the French loathing for sweaty, muscle-aching exercise, when they’re so healthy? The answer rests in a distinction we need to understand better—the big difference between exercise and activity. The French are very active, but are not driven to exercise. By contrast, we’ve heard over and over that you have to practically kill yourself on a workout machine to achieve any effect whatsoever for your health.
The “no pain, no gain” mentality—that you must spend your free time working out at the gym, several times a week, and feel guilty when you don’t—is a foreign concept to these thin French people. After all, they would reason, what kind of person seeks out aching muscles?
While we tend to hit the gym, for the most part the French spend their energy walking around. That’s it. And they walk because they enjoy it: going to the store, getting outside after dinner, shopping. No one has to bench press or work the rowing machine. Life is not about the sacrifice of having to work through pain at every turn. Life is about seizing the day, about finding the joy and pleasure that sits right there in front of you. The French national sport is hang
ing out and people watching (and watching the people watchers).
Don’t get me wrong, this last step is not about being a couch potato. To lose weight, you really must be active on a daily basis. You just don’t have to kill yourself doing it or, worse, feel guilty about not wanting to spend a sunny Saturday slaving away at the gym! In fact, we can even be active when sitting down. Dr. James Levine at the Mayo Clinic in Minnesota found that people who tend to fidget burn up to one hundred more calories per hour than nonfidgeters. This is known as nonexercise activity thermogenesis (NEAT), and simply means that you’re being active without exercising.
Doesn’t this sound just like every other piece of the French puzzle? You do need water, but you don’t need to drown in it. You do need fats and carbs and proteins, but you don’t need to overconsume—or cut out completely—any one of them. You do need to be active, but you don’t have to exercise.
How the French Stay Active: First Steps to Fitness
Although they don’t work out, the French do walk. And when you read this, it sounds so ordinary—everyone does it all the time. But that’s actually the best part about it. You can walk anytime, anywhere—and you should. Creatively fill in the spaces of your day with walking activities at every opportunity.
Before you get started on any long hikes, though, be sure to get comfortable shoes and a reasonable pedometer, so you can keep your feet from chafing and keep track of how far you go each day. Many people like to listen to music or other motivational CDs as they walk, and below are more sample situations in which you can step your way to fitness.
Talking
When you’re on the phone, cordless technology allows you to walk and talk at the same time. If you have something to share with a friend, or even some issues to work out with someone, take a stroll around the block together. These may be times to walk slowly, but that activity still counts!
Waiting
The elevator won’t come, your flight has been delayed, the water on the stove is slow to boil, your meeting has been postponed by thirty minutes, or the kids are in music lessons. When these delays happen, make it your practice to move. You don’t have to break a sweat, just move. Walk through the house, around the block, up the stairs. Do it because you can.
Eating
Of course you shouldn’t walk while you eat, but you should talk a walk after dinner when you can. It’s pleasant, but remember that this is not about working anything off. It’s counterproductive to your digestion to do this. This is a peaceful walk, or a grateful stroll of reflection. If this seems odd to you, that’s because you’re still thinking only in terms of “calories-in, calories-out.” That’s a very important place to start, but the French lifestyle takes you beyond that limited way of thinking.
Walk to lunch or dinner if you’re able to. There’s no sense sitting in a car when you could be moving your legs, getting steps in, and enjoying the day.
Working
Even if you work on the one hundredth floor of a skyscraper, walk up the first few flights of stairs and try this experiment. The first time, note how many floors it takes you to get winded. Then see how that number changes over the next week, or two weeks, and track your progress. Every time you extend the number of flights you can ascend, you’re boosting your heart health, priming your metabolic rate to burn more calories over a longer period of time, and losing weight in the process!
When you park in the lot, always park on the outside and walk in. Just be sure to dress well in chilly weather. Remember what the Norwegians say, “There is no bad weather, only bad clothing.”
Vacationing
Go hiking and camping whenever you can on vacation. Bring a walking stick and comfortable hiking shoes. If you are traveling in the car, always plan for an extended lunch so you can go for a stroll or play a game afterward.
Free Yourself from the Gym
Simply add an activity you love to your life, and do that instead of going to the gym.
Walk with your friends, bicycle with your kids, go camping with your honey, or garden all by yourself. Although we don’t think of them as such, these activities all burn calories and count toward your fitness goals. Engaging in an activity you love every day in lieu of working out at the gym or at home has another wonderful benefit. It prevents you from buying those expensive workout machines that you’ll use five days for exercise, and five years for a coat rack.
How to Make the French Approach Work for You: Do What You Love
The French are active, but most don’t exercise. This key distinction needs to be remembered if we’re ever going to step into a life of fitness. So if you want their fitness success, too, you first must dissect from your mind any notion that you have to suffer to achieve success. You don’t!
In fact, the very idea of grunting and straining is enough to keep many people from ever exercising to begin with. And if you do start something you feel like you have to do, you’ll either start, stop, and then feel like a failure because you couldn’t keep up, or you’ll push yourself too hard and injure yourself. Then you’ll have to stop anyway!
So just save yourself the pain, and a thousand dollars, and don’t even start unless it’s something that seems so fun you’re absolutely compelled to give it a whirl. And if you want to exercise like the French, then don’t exercise … be active. Here are just a few ideas, but you should be creative and add your own, as you like.
Dance
When you dance, you burn calories, you laugh (or cry if you have two left feet, like I do), you spend time with friends, and you improve coordination. This is an activity that you’ll want to do over and over because it’s fun and enjoyable, not because you have to log some hours and monitor your heart rate. Let go, go dance.
Get a Bike and Ride
If you’re young you might still want one of those bum-busting seats. But otherwise, get one of the comfortable wide-load, padded, spring-cushioned varieties. Remember, it doesn’t have to hurt! Most cities have bike trails on which you can cruise along to feel the breeze brush your hair and clothes. Pack a picnic with your riding partner and stop on some grassy patch for a leisurely bite before heading off again. Bike riding is fabulous for your heart (physically and spiritually) and you’ll want to do it over and over.
Pick Your Food
Especially during the summer months, get into the blueberry bushes and strawberry patches and spend the afternoon plucking and picking better produce than you could find anywhere else. And you’ll spend less than you will for anything you can find in the store. The acts of bending and reaching and walking and squatting and standing (and nibbling!) burn calories in a healthy way. Think of it as the perfect combination of nutrition and fitness.
Window Shop
This is a great activity, especially with someone who shares your fetish for bargain grazing. You can drop your cruising velocity when you close in on your favorite stores, but pick up your pace between them to get to as many sales as possible. And when you have to go up a level, never take the escalators or elevators unless you absolutely have to.
Practice Yoga
Yoga is the perfect exercise for the chronic multitasker (even the word yoga means union in the ancient Indian language of Sanskrit, where yoga originated). Most people think of yoga as simply stretching, but in practice it also strengthens your muscles and relaxes your mind. So if you’re interested in one-stop shopping for stress relief, stretching, and muscle toning, yoga is a perfect exercise.
And the other very good reason multitaskers will love yoga is precisely because of its stress-reducing benefits. You can practice yoga with a group, if you need the structure of meeting times, but it’s very easy to do in your own home as well, at your convenience. You don’t need special equipment—just a floor, perhaps a yoga mat, and a few minutes of your day.
Play Games
Try tennis, soccer, badminton, bowling … it doesn’t matter. Just enroll yourself in something you can love and do consistently. Many of these kinds of games have a seas
on or structure, so you can do it for a while before moving on to something else.
A dear friend of mine is an enthusiastic Ping-Pong player. Often when we visit, Adam and I will hang around politely until the moment we can sneak away and have a cutthroat, Australian rules, no-holds-barred “tournament.” We have great fun for an hour or so of batting a little ball around a table. This is a perfect fitness routine.
Remember that the point of these activities is fun and enjoyment. The effect is fitness. Thus, don’t make the mistake of thinking you have to be good at any of these games. You don’t have to be Tiger Woods to swing a golf club and have a good time. The point is the play.
No, these activities won’t require that you hyperanalyze your heart rate as generally recommended by some fitness experts—calculate your maximum rate (220—your age X 70 percent) to get your target rate and then take 85 percent of that number as the number of heartbeats to maintain for twenty minutes on average … whew! Who’s going to do that for long, except people so fanatically into fitness that they don’t have weight problems anyway! Being so agenda-oriented is the fitness equivalent of asking someone to diet by micromanaging carbs, fats, proteins, and calories throughout every day. You may crunch the numbers once or twice, but then you get tired of it, can’t continue, and feel defeated.
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