Welcome to the Full Circle Wellness Newsletter
Let's Dive Right In
Hello and Welcome
Welcome to the Full Circle Wellness Newsletter.
Each week, I will be attempting to provide some insight into various topics across the sphere of ‘Health and Wellness’ and hopefully provide you with something useful. If nothing else: a reminder to focus on and take care of yourself. Because you can’t help those around you if you don’t take care of yourself first.
My goal is to help you sort through all of the noise and take a level approach to information, dissecting what parts you need and what parts you don’t. I spend most of the time that I am on social media moving across and discovering different pieces of advice, tips and tricks to help you improve overall health. So what I hope to do is find the information - no matter where it comes from - worth talking about and not only give it to you, but hopefully in a way that you understand why and can implement it into your daily life.
I have been an athlete my entire life, and I have tried a wide number of things to make small improvements to my own lifestyle fitness, nutrition, and overall wellness. I have always felt the urge to educate and help others, which led me on a path to becoming a high school teacher and coach. It seems unfortunate to me that we don’t spend enough time talking about things that really matter when it comes to our health. While more discussions are arising about mental health, it is still an essential aspect of our wellness that I feel still needs further discussion. All of these things matter when it comes to wellness, hence the name ‘Full Circle’.
Nothing I recommend is something I haven’t tried for myself and I am not shy of giving my honest opinion on things. I have thrived eating a vegan diet and failed trying to go vegetarian. All I really want to do is share and educate on the things I have taught myself and learned over years of experience, research, trial and error.
A few examples of that and topics I will be discussing include trying a plant-based diet (slightly less convenient) and switching my shoes to a more foot-friendly brand and style of shoe (much more convenient).
Focus of the Week
Food.
There is constant debate about food. What is good to eat? What is not good to eat? Depending on who you talk to you could get some very different answers. Some people consider their very identity to revolve around what they eat and how they eat. Others take their culture heavily into what they eat. There is no denying there is a problem with the way our food system is set up. We have an excess of ultra processed foods available to us that provide no actual nutrition, access to foods banned in other countries, and a massive amount of wasted food that is actually a large part of our global carbon emissions according to some studies.
For now, I will just focus on what we eat. Although I am neither a nutritionist nor do I have any expertise in the realm of nutrition, I don’t believe it should be that complicated. My wife recently cut out all added sugar from her diet (including honey and maple syrup), which reminded the both of us how many things sugar is added to, and simply by proximity I cut out a lot, but not all of the sugar in my own diet. I noticed that when I did eat sugar, I did not feel good. Conversely, when I stopped eating sugar, I did feel good most of the day and my sugar cravings went away. I stopped buying “snacks” and therefore had less options of processed things to snack on thus forcing myself to eat more protein and whole foods. This is also a foundation of creating good habits and highlights the importance of having the right people around you. By not buying snacks, the only way I could get snacks was to make them myself. When I did that I would not only enjoy them more, but they were better options that I could feel good about because I was in control of the ingredients.
So what should we eat?
Having gone vegan or plant-based for almost three years, I have to say I feel better when I eat more protein. That can be harder to do on a plant-based diet and anyone who does choose that lifestyle should consider carefully how they are getting adequate protein. I saw a fascinating video of a study done on twins where one was instructed and allowed to eat animal foods where the other was instructed to only eat plant based. There is a difference between vegan and plant-based which mainly involves the latter restricting ultra processed foods. Interestingly at the conclusion of this study, it was determined that the most important thing to do is eat a variety of foods up to 30 different plant foods a week. It’s important to enjoy what you eat, try new things and experiment with different ways of cooking. All of which I will discuss further in upcoming editions.
Here is a link to the video I mentioned above.
3-2-1
Behind the 3-2-1 Idea
When I was struggling mentally trying to do too many things at once I found the book Atomic Habits by James Clear. The clarity and relief I felt when reading that book was incredible and it allowed me a chance to acknowledge a lot of my bad habits and start to create a plan for fixing them.
He also writes a newsletter, and I would recommend everyone read his book or listen to the audio book. You can subscribe to his newsletter here:
In his newsletter he has a 3-2-1 structure that doesn’t change. I thought it would be fun to take that idea and mix it up a bit depending on what I was writing about or how I was feeling each week.
So this weeks 3-2-1
3 Exercises
The Pull-Up, Push-Up, and Squat.
Every Memorial Day, Crossfitters take on the challenging Murph workout that consists of 100 pull-ups, 200 push-ups, and 300 squats with a mile run before and after all while wearing a weighted vest. This is a memorial workout to honor a fallen Navy Seal. While I didn’t partake in the workout this year, this is the extreme end of a variation of a workout I always come back to when I have fallen away from my exercise routine. This keeps it simple, focusing on form and getting in as many repetitions as I can. Stressing form and proper engagement of the core in each of these exercises is essential.
2 Foods: I was way behind the cottage cheese train. I had never tried it until about 2-3 months ago. I bought it for a high protein option to add to breakfast after my wife discovered a pancake recipe that included it. Adding more protein to breakfast was a challenge for me and I wasn’t appreciating how important it actually was.
Cottage Cheese Pancakes: 1.5 cups flour, 1 cup cottage cheese, 4 eggs, 1/2 tsp baking soda, ½ tsp baking powder, cinnamon to taste. (We add 2 chopped dates for natural sweetness) [They freeze super well also]
Eggs: There are so many options for eggs at any grocery store it can be overwhelming. How do you know which to choose?
The best type of eggs you can buy at the store are pasture raised eggs. Out of 4-5 different places to buy eggs, I have only found consistently good pasture raised eggs at Whole Foods. Pasture raised eggs are meant to be dark orange in color due to their proper fat content and balance, and I have tried pasture raised eggs from other stores and was massively disappointed to see cartons full of yellow yolks. I will go into this a bit further another time.
1 Final Thought:
If you made it this far, thank you for sticking with me. I have been writing this in my head and planning and wanting to put this out for almost two years. I can’t even count how many yellow legal pads have been scribbled on, google docs have been opened and deleted since then. I hope you found something useful or enjoyed reading this. The most important thing I hope you get from this is to remember to focus on yourself and your own wellness at some point today and each day.
Stay Well.
Brad
best newsletter
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