Healthy Living by Willow Creek Springs
A podcast about practices to promote healthy lives featuring experts, businesses, and clients: we gather to share our stories about success, failure, exploration, and so much more. Our subscription episodes feature some personal and vulnerable, real-life stories that are sensitive to some of the general public.
Healthy Living by Willow Creek Springs
Built to Last
What if everything you thought you knew about fitness was missing the most crucial element? Despite billions spent on gym memberships, supplements, and equipment, global health continues to decline. The answer may lie not in what we do, but in who we do it with.
In this enlightening conversation, David Amerland—chemical engineer, martial artist with 47 years of experience, and author of "Built to Last: The Ultimate Guide to Sustainable Fitness and Longevity"—challenges conventional fitness wisdom. Drawing from science and personal experience, he reveals why social connection might be the missing ingredient in your health journey.
Amerland explores the fascinating paradox of blue zones—regions where people live extraordinarily long, healthy lives despite lacking fancy gyms or expensive health products. These communities share two powerful commonalities: strong social bonds and consistent movement integrated naturally into daily life. By contrast, westernized approaches often treat fitness as an uncomfortable add-on to already stressful lives, explaining why 85% of January gym-goers quit by May.
The conversation delves into the neuroscience of motivation, exploring how our brains calculate effort versus reward and why emotional connection to our health goals fundamentally changes this equation. Amerland offers a refreshingly practical framework: make fitness personal (meaningful to you), possible (easy to implement), and persistent (something you can do daily).
Whether you're just beginning your health journey or looking to maintain vitality as you age, this episode provides actionable insights for creating sustainable fitness practices that evolve with you. Discover why one-minute workouts might be more effective than hour-long gym sessions, and how understanding your unique needs creates lasting change where cookie-cutter programs fail.
Subscribe now and join the conversation about building habits that truly last. Your future self will thank you.
Intro for podcast
Here is the link for Sunday's 4 pm Pacific time Zoom meeting
Well, hello and welcome back to the Healthy Living Podcast. I'm your host, joe Grumbine, and today I have a very special guest. His name's David Amerlund, and David is an author and much more than that, but he's got a book called Built to Last the Ultimate Guide to Sustainable Fitness and Longevity the Ultimate Guide to Sustainable Fitness and Longevity and, if you know, this podcast, we're all about sustainable fitness, longevity and health and all the ways that we can get there, and David and I had a conversation a little while ago that I just thought we've got more than just an interview here. We'll probably be working together for a while. So, david, welcome to the show. It's great to have you here.
Speaker 2:Joe, it's great to be here. I'm actually really excited about this conversation and curious to see how far it will take us.
Speaker 1:Oh, absolutely. As always, the sky's the limit. We can go wherever you know. Let's just get started first about this book. Obviously, anybody who takes the time to take their experience and put it to paper, if you've ever authored a book, it's a lot of work, and not just in gathering your thoughts, but refining them and editing them and having them reviewed and all this stuff. It's's a big project. So this clearly was an important, uh, passion project for you. Why don't you tell me about you know what? What caused you to go this route?
Speaker 2:yeah, thank you for that and you're absolutely right. I mean, a book essentially is structured thinking, so it's taking all the things which we have in our head and all the things we can find out in the external world which corroborate our thoughts and our theories, and actually making all that make sense, and that's an endeavor in its own right. It's always very difficult, but it's also very enlightening. And the reason, you know, I never intended to be honest, never intended to write a book about fitness ever. And the reason I would never, I was never intending to write anything like that is because fitness for me is something which I do personally for myself to help keep my head clear and my brain thinking okay and my emotions emotions in control.
Speaker 2:And I've been training fitness since 13. I'm a chemical engineer by um. I have authored books on search and digital marketing and trust and decision making and intentional living, and in all those different books the thread is us people. How do we behave? Why do we do some things in some contexts and then we don't do the things which we should be doing in the same contexts. And every time I go looking for answers and peel back the layers of human behavior, well, obviously I encounter wonders, but also I encounter things which are very functional, which we can actually learn from and apply. We all have an operating code inside us and the more we understand that code, the better we can become at who we want to become. But back to the question of why I didn't want to do a book on fitness is because I've been training in martial arts since I was 13. I'm 60 now, so I've been training for 47 years.
Speaker 1:Nice you might know what it takes you right.
Speaker 2:In that period. I have never had a day when I didn't do something in my life and I competed. I've got a black belt in three different martial arts. I'm a second degree black belt in taekwondo. I'm a certified black taekwondo instructor and I competed nationally and internationally for 10 years between 1991 and 2000. And the reason I never intended to do anything on fitness professionally is because every time somebody asked me, you know what should I do to get fit? You know what should I do to be healthy? I would always think, well, how can I possibly tell you, because you're different from me, Whatever works for me isn't going to work for you. And being prescriptive, creating sort of a formula which makes everybody sort of shoehorn themselves into it, is never going to work, and we know this for a fact. I mean, we have hundreds of thousands of fitness books telling you to do something and they don't work.
Speaker 1:And they all work for somebody, but not necessarily for you.
Speaker 2:Absolutely Well, this is it, isn't it? So, statistically, they will work for some people, but they will not work for others, and those people will not know why they don't work for them. It's the same thing with diet books Some diets will work for people and some will not, and I've even had studies where, about 10 years ago, high-intensity interval training HIIT was really a big fad and everybody was doing it because it helps you burn fat faster. It helps accelerate your fitness. If you're trying to get fit, it's the only viable shortcut that actually exists.
Speaker 2:It does a lot of good things for a lot of people, yes, and then there were studies of people who tried HIV and they actually put on weight Exactly, and it's like staggering right.
Speaker 2:And since then, yeah, we found so many things since then. So why this book now? Because this is what happened. The pandemic happened and we all got locked up in our houses and you know, I sort of created a gym for myself in one of the rooms of my house and I have a friend who has his own home gym and we get together once a week and we train. And if you train with somebody else, this is what happens. The intensity goes up because you don't notice it, You're with another person, Right?
Speaker 1:You're both pushing a little harder yeah.
Speaker 2:Exactly, yes, exactly. And then there's a social element. You talk right, right. He would bring some sort of article he'd seen in a magazine or he would tell me some kind of thought he came across, and I would come back with some study and we'd discuss it and out of those discussions, over a period of two years, the seed for this book was born. So that's how it actually came about.
Speaker 1:I love it, I love it and you know the dialogue. Coming back to this, whether it's a group or just an individual, a relationship is where the growth generally comes from. You only have so much in your head. You go in these loops after a while and if you don't get out of it with some other stimulus, you just keep looping, and that's where these conversations are so important.
Speaker 2:Yes, I mean, I'm so glad you said that because it's very wise what you said. Inside their own head, the stupidest thought sounds brilliant because it's our thought. So we need to bring it out and say to somebody hey, I'm thinking about this, and they'll say this is stupid. Or they might say this is brilliant, but we won't know until we share it. I think even worse than that.
Speaker 1:The stupid thoughts get more and more brilliant, because you polish them and you're like, wow, if they could only see this. And then you just keep shining the same spot and you didn't realize there was just a dull rock and you're trying to make it shine and it will never do it absolutely.
Speaker 2:I love your example, absolutely. This this happens all the time inside our head. And and there's another thing happens from a neuroscientific perspective the moment we start talking with somebody and it doesn't matter if it's a remote conversation, a face-to-face our brains begin to synchronize, our brainwaves begin to synchronize, and this is one of the fundamental ways that the brain has of recalibrating itself to reality. So if we were to take ourselves off on the most fantastic holiday in the world for a year where we didn't meet another person, I can guarantee you that by the end of the year, we're going to come back and be extremely eccentric and a bit polite.
Speaker 1:No, no, you're 100% right. Why do you think solitary confinement is the most extreme punishment? Because works.
Speaker 2:It destroys you yes, absolutely unravels your identity. You're absolutely right. All the layers of who you are, all the ways where your behavior is normalized, all the things which you use to collaborate, um, how you should behave, they're gone and suddenly you have no, no guide, so you're on your own. So, yeah, discussion is absolutely amazing and obviously, in the exchange, what happens and I sort of give that example always when we talk to another person, we're accessing a database. We're accessing their wealth of experience, their knowledge, their memories, their wisdom, all those things that make them them, so they're enriching us just by talking.
Speaker 1:And by doing that, you receive this catalyst, which is the desire for more and the engagement, and because if you find some value in it, then you're going to seek more, and that's the thing that really propels us.
Speaker 2:Yes, absolutely. And we know also and this is something which I mentioned in my writing as well, but we know from studies that the social component is one of the inescapable pillars of health and longevity. Um, there are across the world, there are five areas called blue zones where people live to a long life and in their lifespan. They're also incredibly healthy and obviously they've been studied extensively. People looked at their diet, they looked at their exercise, they looked at how physical, how active they are every day and they looked to see if they have enough stress, their socioeconomic conditions. All those things. And all those things are different, right, because some are in the islands of Okinawa. There's one in Greece, in the island of Ikaria, one in California.
Speaker 2:And one in California.
Speaker 1:That's right, yes, exactly so they're so different Social element is and movement. Those are the two common threads that I see in all of those blue zones is they all have strong family community and they all keep moving yes, they're all active, as you said, and the the one thing which is common across all of them is a strong social structure.
Speaker 2:Yes, they don't feel alone and and they all experience stress. They're not in very wealthy socioeconomic socioeconomic conditions. Life is not easy. They don't have access to massive resources, but because they can connect with other people, they mitigate the long-term impact of stress on their bodies, which then is expressed in an increased health span, which is absolutely fantastic. Just the sheer fact that we belong somewhere and we feel that we belong somewhere and we have people to talk to allows us to live longer.
Speaker 1:That epiphany that is available to everybody would be the focus of health, and yet they keep focusing on drugs and products.
Speaker 2:Yes, I think there are a lot of. You said something which is very simple and it's really really informationally dense. We need to unpack it a little bit. Certainly we tend to focus on that because from a cultural perspective, that's what appears accessible to us. Nobody tells us about the social element. We don't understand the impact at a neurochemical level, a neurobiological level, a physical level, so we're not educated enough in that kind of aspect of our lives.
Speaker 2:And also there is an incentive for the world around us, right for us to, to spend money to try to become healthier by taking, you know, a pharmacological approach perhaps to to good health, when it's not really necessary and we could do something else.
Speaker 2:So all that takes us down a path where and I mentioned this in countless sort of opportunities we ultimately have to become responsible for us, for ourselves, because no one is going to come and save us. No one really ultimately cares for us once we get past a certain productive age, ultimately cares for us once we get past a certain productive age. So we need to be responsible for us and we need to say okay, we have a right to be happy, we have a right to be healthy, we have a right to feel in control of our body. And the moment we say that to ourselves, then we have to ask what can I do within the means that I have, within the resources that I have, to actually help me enjoy that right? And that's when we become responsible, that's when we start thinking okay, it has to be more than just a pill I can take which costs money. It has to be more than just doctors around me which will keep me living longer even though I'm not healthy. So that has to come from us.
Speaker 1:I'm not healthy, so that has to come from us. You know it's interesting. I've been going through this crazy journey of health and what happens when you are faced with something dire is you start to prioritize and you start to see the truth. And when you see the truth, accountability is the only way forward and it's the place where you can begin to heal. And I think once you take account for your own health, your own life, your own joy, your own happiness, whatever, you realize that you can have it. And then you realize that you have to put an effort in order to make that happen. You can never accomplish any of these things without an effort, whether it's just a mental effort Usually it's all of these things but frankly, that's where the journey begins. You got to make that effort.
Speaker 2:Absolutely, and you know you're a hundred percent correct and it has. It's not easy. It feels more difficult than it should be. Usually there are no clear guidelines on how we can go about it and normally there aren't many people that can actually help us and by by pointing us in the right direction. So we have to sort of figure it out for ourselves and it feels huge. But, like you said, the moment we make that emotional connection to something we want to achieve, then the effort required gets recalibrated in our head. If we're feeling okay where we are and somebody says you know, wouldn't you like to be a little bit fitter, a little bit healthier and perhaps lose some weight? 100, everybody will say yes, sure.
Speaker 2:And what do we know from the figures? Every jan January the gyms are packed. By mid-February we're down to about 45% of the people. So 55% dropped off. By mid-April we're down to 35%. By May we're down to 15%. So 85% of the people have actually dropped out.
Speaker 2:And it's not for lack of access. They've go to the gym, they pay money, they. And it's not for lack of access. They've go to the gym, they pay money, they spend the money to buy the equipment, to buy the courses to buy the time of the personal trainer.
Speaker 2:We know that globally we spend almost a trillion dollars a year on fitness. We know that in the US, every year the entire population if you average out the cost of the money spent we spend $133 for every man, woman and child on fitness. And yet the World Health Organization tells us that by the year 2050, 50% of adults in the world are going to be overweight or obese. So something else has to happen, something more than just access equipment clothes, trainers, sneakers, shoe union, whatever it is. It needs more than just that. Because we are willing to spend the money. We have mostly access to some kind of course or knowledge. We live in gauge of information. We have plenty of podcasts, youtube videos, books, documentaries on Netflix, tv. All those things are around us, and yet we don't actually put them into action.
Speaker 1:And so true. These areas that you talk about, these blue zones, most of them, are not wealthy places. They're not places where you got a 24-hour fitness on every corner. And yet you know, these people find a way. And here, in the States and wealthy areas, you can't drive a mile without seeing some fitness, something. And, like you said, we've got more health problems than any place on the planet.
Speaker 2:Exactly exactly, and usually there's always a multiplicity of reasons that keep us in this sort of not happy state of affairs, but one of the fundamental ones and you hit upon it a bit earlier is how we make that emotional connection between where we are and where we want to go. For you, it was a wake-up call which was health-related. For many people it's like that. I've spoken to other people and it's usually the early death of a loved one which actually made them realize that they don't want to experience the same situation. So that emotional connection is actually what allows us to to do it, and I will explain in scientific terms why this helps.
Speaker 2:Now, exercises exercise is a stressor, you know, hands down, we're going to do it, and I will explain in scientific terms why this helps. Now, exercise is a stressor, you know, hands down, we're going to do something physical, we're going to get tired, we're disinclined to do it, we're going to waste energy, we're going to get sweaty, all those things In. I had is a calculus which is designed basically to help us survive, and it's a very ancient mechanism and what it does is it factors in the effort we're going to undertake for something, and then it tries to ascertain the value of what it will give us back. So this is why, for instance, if you're really hungry and you're presented with perhaps a donut and something else which is about the same weight but not as rich in calories, you would straight go for the donut Because you think, okay, this is something which will give me immediately the calories which I need to survive. So that calculus goes into effect in everything we do. You know, if we're tired, for instance, and you take out the trash, like me, you find yourself sort of having to to to talk to yourself like can I can, it can last until the morning, because you know you don't want to walk 25, 30 paces to take it outside right, because you're tired and it's not like you physically cannot do it. I can do it, anybody can do it. But sometimes I sort of find myself having this dialogue like, oh, will it be okay until morning? What if I just compact it down a little bit so I can actually use it in the morning and then take it out afterwards?
Speaker 2:When we are tired, we have to kind of make the calculation all the time, and we're conscious of it. When we're not tired, it still goes on, and we're conscious of it, but we're not tired. It still goes on and we're not really conscious of it. So when it comes to exercise, for instance, if we have an emotional connection to what we're doing, then that calculus in our head gets recalibrated. The effort required now doesn't seem so hard compared to what we're going to achieve. It's like I don't know, if you had perhaps I'm going back to my example of taking the trash out If you ever had a mouse infestation in your house because you didn't take the trash out, you're going to take the trash out every single night, it doesn't matter how tired you are, because you don't want to have mice back in your house again. That's the emotional connection. If you have had a health scare, suddenly you know what you're actually working for. So the effort required to get you into a fitter, healthier state doesn't seem so hard anymore. Your brain has recalculated it.
Speaker 2:And to make that emotional connection, what do we need? We need two basic things, and they're also difficult. We need to sort of strip the layers of who we are to understand who we are underneath, and then we need to understand a little bit better why we do the things we do. It's your who and your why. Any kind of business course will tell you that. Any kind of psychological course about the meaning of life and finding a direction will tell you that. It's the same with fitness If you don't understand who you are, are and it doesn't have to be some kind of deep epiphany you just need to do a little bit of work and find the reason, and your reason will always change as you change. You know what? The reason I was training when I was 20 is different to the reason that I was training when I was 30 and 40, and it's entirely different to why I'm training now and I'm 60 I think that's a very important thing.
Speaker 1:People get stuck in a rut, and sometimes their motivation stays stuck, and yet we're always moving, and, whether we like it or not, we're either going forward or backwards, one way or the other. The world's spinning. You're either going or you're going the other way, and as a result of that, though we live in this such a dynamic, everything's changing all the time. How could you think that your goal of a year ago, five years ago, 10 years ago, would apply to your current situation the same way it did? But we do. We hold on to these things that you know drive us, and yet maybe we lose sight of the fact that, well, here I am today. Maybe I need to rethink or rejournal, or recalibrate, and I don't know. For me, I think that's been one of the biggest lessons of my life is to keep assessing. You got to keep taking, taking account of where you are and what you want to be.
Speaker 2:Absolutely, and again I mean you're 100% correct. This is what we should be doing. We don't always do it because it's uncomfortable, you know, asking yourself all the time who you are and examining how you have changed and why you have changed, and then re-examining why you're doing the things you do and are you heading in the right direction. It's not easy, and some of us don't necessarily have the headspace or don't want to create a headspace for that, because it feels uncomfortable. But by doing it, however, this is how we grow. If we think that our role in life is to be the best possible human beings we can be, then we are duty bound to try and do that for ourselves and where we can then help others, do it because they also need to grow. So it's. It's always a change of perspective. It's always a framework that we use to see the world.
Speaker 2:If we just stay locked inside our head, we're only conscious of our own particular needs at a surface level, we don't go digging too deep, and then we are constantly being reactive to our reality. Our reactive situation is not always the best one to be in. First of all, our anxiety levels are up. Our stress levels are up because the external world is constantly making demands upon us. Chronic stress is not very good for long-term health. It's not very good for longevity. It's not very good for long-term health. It's not very good for longevity. It's not very good for critical thinking, because the brain tends to panic and shut down the higher centers of the brain that carry out analytical thinking in order to save resources, because, from the brain's point of view, we are under attack and it has to go into a survival mode where we're ready to fight off flight. So these are the things we need to keep in mind.
Speaker 2:And the world is obviously very complex all the time. So life doesn't get any easier and there are a lot of layers which make demands upon us all the time Other people, situations, bills to pay, you know, health worries of those around us, us the whole thing is always going to be there. So in order to manage all that, all of it, the primary thing we can possibly do for ourselves that will give us a semblance of control in the moment. We have that control, then a lot of the anxiety gets dialed down inside us, a lot of the stress becomes more manageable and we can think about things a lot more clearly when what we can do is control our body, learn to move it at our will, learn to improve it at our will, and if we do that, then a lot of other things happen as a result. It's a cascade of effects I love it.
Speaker 1:So your book Last. You know, you obviously have this wealth of experience and you could probably write a PhD level book on any number of these topics that we're talking about. And yet just the name of the title itself? It isn't, you know. Build a bodybuilder body. It isn't you run a marathon, it isn't, you know. Lose a thousand pounds. It's built to last. That is a very impactful, powerful title that really talks about health and longevity and well-being. But who are you writing this book for? I mean, you know, you've got brand new people, you've got experienced people. Who's going to get the most out of this book?
Speaker 2:um, potentially everybody, but absolutely off the off the bat it's people who are thinking of going, of becoming fitter and healthier, and they don't know how to start. People who are thinking of improving their health as they begin to age. People who are already at a certain age and they're thinking what can I do to maintain my health so it doesn't deteriorate? And the book isn't prescriptive in any way. It doesn't go into fad diets. It doesn't give you anything extreme to do. It's fairly complete that also has workouts that you can follow which are customizable to your level if you don't know what to do, and some of them like just a minute long. So if you you know, if you have a minute in your day, you can actually action on the workouts and it will benefit you.
Speaker 2:But the entire premise of the book is that every chapter is a little bit of a blueprint, like a step which allows you to better understand how to make your life include fitness without a lot of effort. And this is where we stumble most of us. We can all imagine a situation where we have to go and get a membership in a gym and get some fancy clothes and whenever we have to go there, we get home, get changed, go to the, the car, drive to the place and all these are obstacles, right? These are energetically expensive things to do and they cost money, which is an extra expense, and this is one of the reasons, one of the primary reasons why we don't stick to things for very long. They are an add-on to our life that makes life a little bit harder than it should be, and it's hard enough already.
Speaker 2:So the premise of the book is fitness shouldn't be like that. It should fit into your life naturally and it helps you understand, through examples and science and also questionnaires which will make it customizable to your particular situation on how to actually make that happen in a step-by-step basis. And if, if you do that, this is what happens. First of all, fitness doesn't seem so daunting. Secondly, doing something every day seems very, very possible and thirdly, as you do those things, you actually begin to feel the benefits and that becomes a sort of gateway to other things.
Speaker 1:Wow. Well, there's a lot to unpack there. I am actually looking forward to reading your book myself. So, that being said, I'm assuming we've got a lot of interest. The listeners that I know are highly in tune with this. How would somebody get a hold of this book?
Speaker 2:Amazon can find it at Barnes, noble, pretty much anywhere that books are sold. If you support your local community and you have a bookshop, if you order it through bookshoporg, then you can pick it up from your local bookshop and also make some money, which is good. Or you can order through your bookshop, your local bookshop, and get it in a couple of days for you.
Speaker 1:Beautiful, beautiful. Well, I'm very much looking forward to this and, david, this is hopefully the first of many conversations we have together. I see that there's a lot to discuss and the more we talk, the more I like what you have to say, and it's been a pleasure. Obviously, you know time is always a constraint. Is there a parting shot you have for everybody here?
Speaker 2:Yes, absolutely, I'll say. When it comes to fitness, there are three things you can do Make it personal, make it mean something for you, make it possible, make it easy to do and make it persistent. Make it something you can do every day, it doesn't matter what it is. If you apply those three things, it will actually help you.
Speaker 1:Excellent. Well, thank you so much for joining us today, and I hope to see you again soon.
Speaker 2:Joe, absolutely. Thank you so much for this. I really, really enjoyed it.
Speaker 1:Beautiful. This has been another episode of the Healthy Living Podcast by Willow Creek Springs. Thank you for your support and we will see you next time.
