30 Ways to Reboot Your Body

A Complete User Manual for Getting the Most Out of the Human Body

 What’s in it for me? The healthy body you’ve always desired.

 To start pushing your health and fitness goals forward, identify which habits hold you
back.
 Begin your journey toward a healthier lifestyle by taking the time to reboot your
body.
 After rebooting your body, introduce new elements into your health and fitness
routines.
 Live to the fullest by vitalizing your body with smart exercises and solid routines.
 Final summary

What’s in it for me? The healthy body you’ve

always desired.
How healthy do you think you are? Very? Well, perhaps you don’t run a marathon every few
months. But you’re probably healthy enough, which is the category that most people find
themselves in. You might not be a dedicated athlete, but you move around enough to stay in
shape.

And that might be just fine for you. But did you know that with just a few changes, you could
easily become a very fit person, able to take on challenges you never before thought you
could achieve? These blinks showcase the highlights of the author’s 30 easy ways to become
a fitter, stronger, healthier person.

In these blinks, you’ll also discover

 how a microwave can help get you moving;

  why no exercise regimen is as important as a good night’s sleep; and
 why you need to be wary of electrical pollution.

To start pushing your health and fitness goals

forward, identify which habits hold you back.
Let’s face it: you’re not as fit as you’d like to be. But that doesn’t mean you should just give
up.

The first step is learning what can be improved. Do you eat too many processed foods, drink
too much alcohol or caffeinated beverages, or take paracetamol or other medications
unnecessarily? These are the kinds of bad habits that lead to chronic inflammation and
damage your body.

Consuming these “bad” foods essentially wreaks havoc on your gut. You might not know it,
but your gut is one of the most important systems your body has. It makes up three-quarters
of your immune system! And yet so many people don’t properly care for their gut. Their poor
diets strain their digestive systems, which leads to hormone imbalances, excessive hunger,
fatigue and worse.

It’s not just what you eat that can damage your gut, but your stress levels have a powerful
impact, too.

We accept stress as a normal part of our professional lives. But stress is dangerous. Constant
stress increases levels of the hormone cortisol in the body. When it’s produced at high levels
for extended periods of time, cortisol can harm bones and muscles, and disrupt normal
hormone regulation.

Our jobs and relationships aren’t the only sources of stress, either. Excessive exercise can
stress your muscles and joints. Many think that staying active means exercising hard and
pushing yourself to the limit. But guess what: people burn more fat by performing lighter
exercises more frequently.

By all means, keep up your heavy program if you like it! But do so only occasionally.
Regular, light exercises will help you stay fit, and they’re much easier on your body, too.

With these basics in mind, let’s move on to a more detailed fitness strategy.
Begin your journey toward a healthier lifestyle
by taking the time to reboot your body.
Wouldn’t it be great if you could wake up tomorrow and simply be healthier? But Rome
wasn’t built in a day. A realistic plan for rebooting your body takes four to 12 weeks.

So, let’s start with a solid first step: an assessment of your body.

If you’ve been avoiding a check-up at the doctor’s, now’s the time to book an appointment.
From blood tests to examining your family’s history of disease, it pays to be thorough. This
check-up will help you identify problem areas or extra precautions you may need to take.
Check if diabetes is prevalent in your family, for example, or if your thyroid isn’t functioning
at 100 percent.

The next step is to create a plan. What are your health goals? Do you want to lose a specific
amount of weight, get fit enough to run a marathon or stop eating junk food once and for all?

Define your goal and break it down into tasks you can achieve every day, from eating a
certain amount of green vegetables to exercising for one hour each evening.

But how do you stay on track? Easy! By measuring. Look at your goals and decide which
metrics would be most helpful in assessing your progress. One metric might be your heart
rate variability, which indicates how fast your heart reacts when you start exercising (the
higher the better).

Your gut has an important role to play, too. These weeks are your chance to clean all that bad
stuff out of your body. Inflammatory foods that contain gluten, caffeine or artificial sugars
have to go.

Build a new foundation for better nutrition by remembering how food gives you energy.
Carbohydrates and fats are the main sources of energy in the human diet. We tend to rely on
carbohydrates for energy, and as a result, consume more carbohydrates than we should. This
causes fat to accumulate in our bodies, and can even lead to allergies and other
complications.

So try to switch to getting your energy from healthy fats, and reduce your carbohydrate
consumption.
After rebooting your body, introduce new
elements into your health and fitness routines.
So you’ve built the foundations for a healthier body. But why stop now? There’s so much
more to gain.

Learn how to consume delicious things in a more sustainable way and take your body to the
next level. Food, after all, should be enjoyable. And eating a restricted diet, while useful
during a reboot, isn’t a long-term solution for your health.

What you’ve got to work on now is reintroducing foods into your diet. Here it’s important to
focus on only reintroducing foods with the least negative effects, and enjoying them only in
moderation. For example, a small piece of dark chocolate every now and then can still be
justifiable.

Get your fix for wheat and grains by eating varieties that are soaked, sprouted or fermented.
Quinoa is a great option. Dairy can also be a part of your diet, ideally raw or organically
raised. Fermented varieties of soy, such as tempeh, are also good. Black coffee is a great way
to start the day, and you can even indulge in a glass of organic red wine, on occasion.

Measurement is just as important in this phase as in the previous one, so keep an eye on how
your body responds to new foods. Everyone’s gut is different and sensitive to different things.
What works for others may not work for you.

At this stage, you’re also ready to start expanding your exercise routine. You’ll want to
increase both your strength and lung capacity, combining slow training and high-intensity
interval training.

It’s important at this stage to keep your activity levels high by making movement an integral
part of your day. For example, set up a pull-up bar at home and do five pull-ups while you’re
waiting for the microwave to ding! And avoid sitting down for too long. Try experimenting
with a standing desk – you’ll be surprised at how much better you feel after a few hours of
not slouching in a chair!

You can even bring movement into your social life by exercising with coworkers or signing
up for running groups. It’s a great way to meet people and prevents your exercise routine
from becoming stale.

But we’re not finished! The next stage is about making living healthy instinctive.
Live to the fullest by vitalizing your body with
smart exercises and solid routines.
If you’ve come this far, your body is performing better than ever. If you’re ready to kick
things up yet another notch, then it's time to get vitalizing.

Start by incorporating new tricks into your training routine. When you perform daily
exercises and sprint a few times a week, you’ll get tired and fatigued. But highly specialized
training can fix that. For example, you can try hypoxia, the exercise of depriving yourself of
oxygen for brief periods. You can do this by swimming 25 meters without breathing – it can
help keep you fresh and fight off your body’s aging mechanisms.

You can also test new strategies to develop stamina. In early stages, pushing your body to the
limit is not recommended; but now that you’ve achieved peak fitness, you’re ready for more.
Exercise at your utmost capacity at least once a month, and at most once a week. Just make
sure you allow your body time to recover. You won’t get stronger unless your body can
restore itself regularly.

That’s why you have to change your lifestyle, as well, like by making sleep a very high
priority. A healthy sleep rhythm is essential for maintaining health and fitness, and it’s no
surprise: sleep is your brain and body’s prime time for recovery and repair.

Eight hours of sleep is a minimum which should never be compromised – people who sleep
any less tend to develop health issues.

One trick for better sleep is to beware of electrical pollution. Since your cells’ ability to
absorb nutrients depends on their voltage, it’s critical you stay away from areas with lots of
electrical currents. You can do this by switching off your digital devices.

There’s one last thing to remember in this final stage, and it might seem surprising. If you
ever feel like “cheating” when handed a slice of cake, for example, sometimes it’s ok to give
in.

Cheating occasionally or eating something that’s not healthy is nothing to feel guilty about.
In fact, eating a calorie-rich meal can even boost your body’s weight-loss ability, as the
body’s hormone signals go into overdrive in response to a surprise treat.

Final summary
The key message in this book:
Unhealthy eating, chronic inflammation, imbalanced hormones and poor training plans
have wrecked our bodies and brains. You can change this situation not only through
more training, but through a radical reboot of your body. Only then can you enhance
your health and performance and push on to the highest levels of achievement.

Actionable advice:

Get some air!

We’ve been conditioned to spend our days indoors, sitting, without complaint. It’s time to
break the habit and learn to love the outdoors again! Getting out is a great motivation to
move. Locate your nearest parks, woodland reserves or even playgrounds. Make time in your
weekly routine to lose yourself outdoors and reconnect with your body and local
environment.

Got feedback?

We’d sure love to hear what you think about our content! Just drop an email to
remember@blinkist.com with the title of this book as the subject line and share your
thoughts!

Suggestedfurtherreading: Eat, Move, Sleep by Tom Rath

Eat, Move, Sleep (2013) offers simple tips for improving your health and well-being in some
very important ways. You don’t have to revolutionize your lifestyle to get in shape and
increase your energy levels – little changes can make a big difference, and these blinks will
show you how.