Roman today I want to talk to you about why you need to control your…
Roman today I want to talk to you about why you need to control your controllables. Let's cue that intro! The big question is this. How do we use cycling as a tool to improve our health, our happiness and our longevity? That is the question and this podcast will give you the answers. My name is Anthony Walsh and welcome to the Rowman Podcast. Roman, welcome back. It's another roadman cycling podcast. Thanks for joining me again today. Today, I want to talk about a phrase that Dave Brailsford from Team Sky back in the day coined control your controllables and how that fits into this new normal or new modern area in which we're finding in ourselves at the moment. Before I dive into that, which I actually think is going to be a fascinating podcast. I've known I was prepared for it. I'm just going on a stream of consciousness flow, a trade. And because it's something I think I need to get off my chest because I'm seeing a lot of talk on social media around negativity. And I want to talk to you about how you can forget all that zone it out and focus on what makes you happy and what makes you healthy. That's the topic for conversation today. Before I do that, as always, I would urge you to head on over to patreon.com. I'm gonna have a stronger than the world, you can implore you to head on over to patreon.com forward slash Anthony underscore Walsh, sign up for the price of a beer once a month. If you're listening to this in any part of the world that's Western, you're most likely in some sort of restricted lockdown and don't have access to a pub. So you can't even buy yourself a beer at the moment. So take that beer money, donate it to the good And I'll keep fighting the good fight here and keep bringing you these podcast daily folks. The small businesses are struggling at the moment and it is important to support small businesses and that's the way you can do it on the podcast. So if you're getting some value for money, if you're getting some value from the podcast, entertainment, comic laughs, otherwise in loitening, please I would ask you to go to that link. It's patreon.com forward slash Anthony underscore watch five or a month and it'll put a smile on my face. Okay folks, Let's talk about this because we're in a crazy, crazy world. And I'm not even, I don't want to specifically talk about COVID any listeners to the podcast will know it's not a topic of conversation that I've remarked on too often. That's not one I particularly enjoy, but there's no avoiding that we're in a particularly strange place at the moment between all that's going on with COVID and, you know, whether you get to dig into how to calculate positive test figures, how they allocate debts, you know, we're getting into coal mortality, you know, do they have multiple causes of debt, but they're only reporting one cause. Just loads of good debate on are the numbers of actual cases accurate are the numbers of actual debt accurate. My beef, I'm not one of the flattered conspiracy terrorists by any means. I'm fairly central on this. What just alarms me very much. And I mentioned this on the secret podcast the other day is the lack of informed debate. I've many, many friends who are very learned at wise men with many letters after their name in professions that we all deem to be very respectable doctors, lawyers, engineers, accountants, professors and there's a good cohort of them who all disagree with and not just disagree anecdotally but evidentially disagree with a lot of approaches that governments are taking around the world But what really alarms me about all that is just a lack of informed free open public debate around that why are we not having debates around how PC or tests are calculated, 30 cycles versus 50 cycles, what's the difference?
I'm going to leave COVID there
I'm going to leave COVID there. Then more strangeness, we have like Twitter and Twitter censoring Donald Trump removing them from the platform. And I'm not very political at the best of times, even in Ireland. I'm certainly not political in the US. But it's just alarming that a social media company has that much power to just switch somebody off and they're done because if they can switch him off, they can switch you off for their business. We also have, like we've police at airports and we have five kilometer restrictions on exercise at the moment. All these things are just insanity. We're in a very, very strange world and they labeled this the new normal. And if this is the new normal, God knows where it's going next. But what I would encourage you to do is rather than getting, if you go on to Reddit, if you even talk to most of your friends in WhatsApp groups, you're going to be just bombarded with this negativity. I think it's fine to listen to one or two trusted sources on something and then leave it there. You don't need to listen to numbers getting reported daily on forums talking about this stuff, because you largely can't control it. What you can do is control your controllables. We know and this is what annoyed me with the whole pandemic. Why does nobody talk about stuff we know to prevent illness, sleep, hydration, movement, being at your optimum body weight. These are things that we can control and that's what I want to talk about today because more and more I'm seeing people talking about the COVID stone and this is just it's absolutely nonsense. Folks, you need to fucking move off. Like you don't have a tie ride problem. If you're not walking, between 20,000 steps a day, you're going to put on weight. You need to move. The one of the worst signs ever from cycling was Sean Kelly and that's stupid. Like, never stand if you can sit. Never sit if you can lie down. If you can lie down, always go asleep. That's the worst advice you can ever get for a cyclist. We need to move a lot. We need to be walking 20,000 steps. I know. Step counter. Same like there's something your granny wears. So, the error is wise, you need to be moving, you need to build habits where you're moving, taking your phone calls as you're walking, do meetings on the goal rather than sitting down. If you have podcasts you listen to move, if you have a commute to do, get off a few stops earlier or walk to work, take the stairs, not the lift. We got to move. Ancestrally, we're used to moving, we're used to moving hunter-gatherer soil all day, and now we're just stagnant more than ever. That's controllable number one, you can control. challenge anyone to go through and tick off this list and then not just feel better, happier, healthier. Move. That's number one. Start building it into your routine. Hydrate two and a half to three liters every day of water. Mixing in some good sea salt, like a Himalayan sea salt or Celtic sea salt into it. Next up, meditate. Meditate for 15 minutes every day. If you're not sure how to meditate, use a guided meditation app like I love Sam Harris is waking up app like material stuff for this idea of the culture of I'll be happy when I'll be happy when lockdown is over I'll be happy when I get that promotion I'll be happy when I have XML to the bank account that never happens that's a mirage happiness or sadness their internal things that we control and when you learn to control your mind you learn to control that happiness and sadness and when You understand that, you understand that it's very possible to be one of the happiest people in the world with very, very poor material circumstances and meditation and teaching you how to understand your brain.
It's definitely one of the most powerful things and I actually listed…
It's definitely one of the most powerful things and I actually listed it in the best things I learned in 2020. Jump on Sam Harris, jump on the waking up app, it's brilliant. Sleep, I referenced this over and over again. If I got it you're off for every time I mentioned Matt Walker's Poemie Sleep book, it's a brilliant bulky to great podcast with your og and talking about the same topic. You need to sleep eight hours every single night. You will be happier. You will be healthier. Increased chance of your sorry, decreased chance of you having like seasonal effect of disorder, sad, decreased chance of developing any sort of mental health disorders, decreased chance of cardiovascular disease, more chance you're going to be at your optimum body weight, sleep eight hours every night, non-negotiable. And the last thing you're not going to say, ride your bike. Riding your bike is such a great way to connect socially with friends, conversation flows so brilliant when you're out with friends. Go explore, like get some wind in your hair. Riding your bike is just the perfect way to round out any day for me. And if you do those things and you block out all the noise from covid, vaccines, twitter, get off your social media feeds, stop surrounding yourself with those negative people. Be really, really selective at the diet you consume. And by diet, I don't mean nutrition in the form of food, I mean nutrition in the form of information. Be selective with who you surround yourself with. Surround yourself with only good voices. You'd be amazed at how many what's up people. I just don't write back to anymore because it's It's just negativity. You know, they're friends that are catch back up with down the line, but they're in such a spiral and negativity at the moment. And you know, it's just it becomes infectious. So a lot of times you need to look after your own mental health force, put on your own life vest force, as they'd say. Folks, that's it. Control your controls. Move, hydrate, meditate, sleep, ride your bike. If that's not a recipe to be happy, healthy and live for a long time, I don't know what it is. Enjoy your weekend and go ride your bike! Hey everybody, it's Anthony again. Really quick, I want to invite you to join arguably the best thing I've ever put out inside the roadman community. It's a challenge. It's a challenge called a 14 day kickstart challenge. So regardless of where your fitness is at right now, this is going to be the catalyst for making you faster and making you the leaner. I've created this challenge to take the guest walk out of everything. It's 14 days, training plans, regardless of what your level is. There's Masters Beginner Advanced, there's Mail Plans Shopping List and even a video course holding your hand and talking you through at all. So what I recommend you do right now is just stop everything, press pause on this audio and go to roadmansoycling.com forward slash 14 day or check out the link in the bio. That's roadmansoycling.com slash 14 day.