First published 10 June 2019 on Your Best Year Starts Here with Nigel Risner.
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Nigel ambushed me on this one. I opened the show saying we'd do something a bit different, and he jumped straight in to say he was doing something even more different, because I didn't know about it.
He'd been sent a list of ten things healthy people do and read out the lot. Sleep, exercise, water, less sugar, staying teachable, forgiving first, clearing clutter, random acts of kindness, not biting at negativity and gratitude. When he got to letting negativity go he hinted at a song. I said it was turning into an episode of Frozen.
We were meant to be talking about something else. I binned that and made the whole episode about the list, because plenty of people know me as the health guy (the juicing, the ultra-marathons) and right then I wasn't living up to it. I'd done my ankle in about three years earlier, couldn't move for a while, and the old cravings crept back. Nowhere near where I was a decade ago. Not where I was at my fittest either. So I called myself out.
Nigel turned it into a score. Mark yourself out of ten on each one, then work out how to go up a point, because five to six is a big jump in percentage terms. My sleep was a six or seven, mostly because I get ideas late and end up posting videos near midnight. Nigel's new rule is nobody wants to watch anything I put up after 10pm. Exercise for the last few weeks was a zero (he gave me one for getting out of bed). At half two that afternoon I'd done 957 steps. He'd done 4,459, thanks to Alfie.
So I signed up for 10,000 steps a day plus something purposeful three times a week, a water bottle with me instead of all that coffee at Nigel's, no added sugar, and getting rid of one thing every day. Nigel's random act of kindness is paying for the car behind him on the M6 toll, then driving off faster so they can't catch him to say thanks. Half the reason, he admits, is he finds it funny.
At the end he told me I'd scored roughly 52 out of 100. I asked how, since I hadn't given a number for all of them. He'd made it up and hoped nobody would check.
The short version
- Mark yourself out of ten on each of the ten, then work on getting one point higher.
- Steps on a tracker aren't proper exercise. Add something purposeful three times a week.
- Working from home you can go a whole day barely moving. Plan the walk.
- Go to bed at a sensible time. The midnight idea can wait.
- Be careful saying zero sugar. It's in nearly everything, so no added sugar is more honest.
What we wanna do is go from a five to a six, 'cause that's a big increment in percentage terms.
Nigel Risner
Gratitude is not just a feeling. It's something you have to do.
Neil Martin
