Let's Talk Thyroid
Let's Talk Thyroid
A Day in My (Thyroid-Friendly) Life | Annabel Bateman | 107
With all the talk on my podcast about living a thyroid-friendly lifestyle, you might wonder, what does that actually look like on a day to day basis. Let me let you take a look into a 'typical' day in my life. Not that my life is perfect or all that interesting but sometimes it's helpful just to see what someone else does to live in a certain way.
Hopefully there might be one thing from what I do that is something you can take an try in your life. What works for me might not work for you or may be applied slightly differently.
If you've been listening for long enough, you'll have heard me say that whilst there are some common areas we all need to explore in our our journies, you will need to find your own unique lifestyle. I wish there was a formula or protocol for a happy thyroid but there just isn't.
This is simply what I'm doing at the moment, and this can and will change over time as I adapt to changes in my health or life!
The key areas I cover in this episode are:
My morning routine - exercise, breakfast, supplements etc.
My work day.
My dinner and evening routines - including food, sleep, supplements and movement.
Join the Healthy Bites Summit hosted by fellow Aussie Thyroid Advocate and Naturopath, Megan Taslaman. I'm one of the speakers along side many others talking about a range of topics connected to thyroid health. It's FREE, starts 4 September and you can sign up here.
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The information provided by Annabel Bateman and Let's Talk Thyroid in any format (including but not limited to podcast, audio, video, social media, books, courses, coaching) is not intended to diagnose treat, cure or prevent any disease. Nor is it designed to replace proper medical and health advice from a professional.
Annabel Bateman | Let's Talk Thyroid 2020-2024
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Welcome to let's Talk Thyroid. I'm your host, annabel Bateman. This podcast is here to offer you hope and strategies for your own thyroid health. I'm a thyroid coach, author and patient. I've had Hashimoto's for well over 25 years and I'm very much on this thyroid friendly lifestyle journey with you. For more information, go to Let'sTalkThyroidcom.
Speaker 1:Hello and welcome to episode 107 of the let's Talk Thyroid podcast. I'm Annabel Bateman and today you get to have a little look into my life. Not that it's wildly exciting, but sometimes I think it helps to see what other people do when you're trying to make some changes in your own life. So I thought this would be a good opportunity to dive into a day in my life, my thyroid friendly life, and just lift the hood under or open the door into my world and see what a typical day for me looks like in terms of what I call my thyroid friendly lifestyle. I know I've probably covered bits and pieces of this, obviously talk a lot about thyroid friendly lifestyle on this show and share a lot of the different things I do, but I don't think I've done a run through of my day before. So that's what this episode is going to be. So, realistically, I've made some notes. This is a pretty typical day. Like no day is ever perfect. There are some days that these things I'm going to talk about don't happen. There are probably different seasons in my life where I'm more committed to certain practices or habits than others. I think that's pretty normal. I think I'm pretty normal. So if you live a pretty normal life, then maybe you'll see just how normal my life is too by the end of this episode. So that's what it's going to be all about. I've got some great guests lined up, some good interviews lined up to come over the next couple of months. I'm going to be talking about oral health. I'm going to be talking about the science behind some of these lifestyle provisions. I'm trying to think what else I've got coming up. There's a few interviews on the horizon.
Speaker 1:So the other thing, actually, before I get into my daily life, is to tell you that I have been invited to be part of a healthy bite summit run by the thyroid naturopath, megan Taslaman, a fellow Ozzie thyroid advocate, and she is a naturopath. She's someone who I've wanted to have us a guest on. My show hasn't quite happened yet, so you'll get a bit of a taste of her if you sign up to the healthy bite summit. I will make sure the link is in the description to this podcast and it'll be in my group and on my social media as well. The idea is that she has gathered together some quite interesting people doing different kind of things connected into thyroid health and each night you'll get an email. When you sign up, each night from the 4th of September, you'll get an email, which is the interview that she has conducted with each of her guests and a free gift from each of those guests. The whole summit is completely free, so I'd encourage you to sign up to it.
Speaker 1:Get to know a few different people. She's certainly not interviewing anyone I've interviewed, so this is introducing you to a whole range of different people. For example, she's got someone talking about ice baths. Now you know, if you watch my Instagram stories, that I've been spending a bit of time during our Ozzie winter, which I know isn't super wintery for all you northern hemisphere people, but it's still cold in my pool in winter. It's just starting to get not too cold, but she's got someone talking about the Wim Hof breathing method and ice baths. She's got a voice coach on there talking about how to use your voice and I think there's something I mean you think about. The thyroid sits basically in your throat, over your voice, and there is some kind of that what's the term I'm looking for? Metaphysical connection between not maybe speaking out and expressing, being able to fully express yourself. That can be connected, at least anecdotally. I'm not sure you know what, how you prove all of that, but that metaphysical connection between your voice and thyroid health. So I think that will be a really I'm looking forward to listening to that conversation. She's trying to think she's got a range of different people speaking. I think it would be really great. I'd encourage you to support the Healthy Bytes Summit. There's all thyroid focused, just and smallish, like 25 minute interviews so you can take a listen to them. So do sign up to the Healthy Bytes Summit starts on the 4th of September, all right, so let's get into my life because you know it's so exciting.
Speaker 1:Look here we go pretty much every day, monday to Friday. My alarm goes off at 5.45. That is to get the kids up and ready for school. Weekends generally don't set an alarm. So this is my routine for a typical Monday to Friday. Obviously some things will apply on the weekends, but I'm just going to talk about the general Monday to Friday. So alarm goes off 5.45. I usually do snooze it a couple of times so I do find just takes me a little bit to wake up in the morning, maybe more than it used to, I'm not sure. That probably comes and goes in waves. We are coming just coming out of winter here in Australia, which in Brisbane isn't too dark and gloomy at all but you know, still it's a bit warmer in bed and a bit darker. So alarm goes off and then I have my thyroid medication sitting next to my bed.
Speaker 1:So I take thyroxin or which is aroxin, or your troxig or your levothyroxin as your stock standard T4, synthetic T4 replacement. I think I've talked about medication at different points in time. I have tried different alternative thyroid medications over the years, not for quite some time, but I've found that for me the regular thyroid medication works. It's kind of the best of what I have tried so far and it has to be taken on an empty stomach. So typically people will take it first thing in the morning. You can't eat or have coffee or anything else for at least an hour after you eat.
Speaker 1:Some people do take this medication at night before they go to bed. I've never tried that. Some people really swear by that. But I take mine as soon as the alarm goes off. Take it out, I just do. There's a lot of debate about thyroid medication debate maybe, but it's historically needed to be kept in the fridge. You can take a like a little blister pack out of the fridge. It will last for a couple of weeks, depending on the temperature out of the fridge, and so what I tend to do is just have one blister pack next to my bed and just go through that till it runs out and then take the next one out of the fridge and keep it next to my bed. That's sort of practical for me to do it that way. This is a bit of a switch towards unrefrigerated T4 medication. That's probably a conversation for another day. But first thing I do is take my thyroid medication.
Speaker 1:I do tend to line bed for as long as I can until I'm forced to get out of bed to deal with my kids in the morning. My kids are teenagers now and do still look. I still get up and get them breakfast. Just in the last month my middle child I've got. The two younger ones are still at school. The middle one has just in the last month, got his driver's license so he can now drive him and his younger brother to school. So that is a new change in my daily routine is not having to do the school run. So that has made a difference. But I still get up, make sure they're up and I do get them breakfast and make sure they get out the door on time, which is pretty early, because the younger one sings in a lot of choirs and he has to be at school by seven. So prior to the last month my routine was get up, get them breakfast, take them to school, come back and then the rest of my routine would kick in. But by and large, or at least for now, until next year when he's finished school, and then I'm back to doing the school run.
Speaker 1:I have been avoiding the school run lately, which has been nice. So once I'm up, look, I should say I do tend to scroll my media. Do my social media scrolling in the morning. That actually helps me wake up a little bit. I know there's a lot of mixed debate about whether you should do that. I'm sure there's lots of negative sides to it, but I do find it helps me to wake up a little bit in the morning.
Speaker 1:Once I'm up, get the kids breakfast, see them out the door and then I tend to do some exercise. So we have a gym in our house that has some basic gym equipment. It's got like a weights machine that I don't really use that's more my husband and one of the three boys uses the gym, so but I do have a range of kettlebells and handheld dumbbells and a Pilates machine and a mat on the floor and one of those big exercise balls, and we have a sauna as well. So, but I'll come back to the sauna. So that is my first thing I do is do some exercise. Usually I do some back warming up exercises. I've had lots of issues on and off over the years with my back. It's been all right for the last 12 months, which is good. But I do have gotten into the habit of doing some back warming up, which tends to be a bit of footwork on the Pilates machine, some some clams and some bridges and some just some really basic back strengthening exercises that are a combination of things my chiropractors given me and from thyroid strong, which I'll come back to in a minute. So I do my warm up exercises and then I'll do some strength based exercises. So on and off.
Speaker 1:For the last couple of years I've been using the thyroid strong program, which you probably heard me talk about before, run by Dr Emily Khyberd, who is a chiropractor with Hashimoto's. I love her program. I do have an affiliate link to her program. If you're interested, check out the link on various things. If you can't find it, let me know. I do receive then a bit of a commission, but I do love her program. In fact, this week I had a bit of neck issues and I just put something up on Instagram. Emily said you should do the moving out of neck pain video. That's part of the thyroid strong program. I did it the next day, really within before I even got to the end of the exercises. I could feel the difference. So I like actually working along to a bit of a program. So I've enjoyed that and getting into some strength based training.
Speaker 1:I am careful my back does feel often a bit vulnerable, so I'm probably not pushing it too hard. I probably could push it harder than I do, but I'd like to do some strength training. The other thing I've just been experimenting with in the last couple of weeks is. Another friend to the let's Talk Thyroid podcast is Angela Brown, who is a coach and nutritionist, one of those functional health practitioners in America, and she has been starting to share on her Instagram just some short little, lighter weight but higher rep workouts. And so I've been doing her upper body strength one for a little while, which has been a nice mix up from Thyroid strong and that's just some little Instagram reels that she's been sharing. So check those out.
Speaker 1:I am an advocate for strength training. I do think it's really important. I probably do it three days a week Monday, usually sort of Monday Wednesday, friday, tuesdays. I go for a walk with a friend first thing in the morning, but I like to get that exercise, especially the strength based exercise, done in the morning. I will walk again in the afternoon, which I'll tell you about in a minute, and then over winter I have been finishing my exercise with a five minute dip in my pool, which has been quite cold, and so I've been trying to get into that cold water thermogenesis. I'm not going to be able to keep that going in the same way over summer. Our pool just doesn't. It's not cold enough, I don't have a nice plunge. I mean, I haven't really thought through whether I want to keep that going during summer, but it was a nice little routine during winter. Definitely made me feel more invigorated and awake for the morning. So all of that is kind of done by about 7.30, I suppose.
Speaker 1:So, obviously, after I've been in the pool I'll have a warm shower and this is where you know, I think, the bathroom. There's lots of things in my bathroom morning and evening routine that are thyroid friendly, so I've replaced over time. Everything in the bathroom is low-tox products. So my shampoo actually the shampoo is probably not as low-tox as the rest of it because I do have a blonde shampoo to keep my blonde hair looking blonde. So that's probably the exception. But the conditioner is at my doTERRA conditioner. I use clean body wash.
Speaker 1:Then, when it comes to my you know personal care products, I make a facial oil with essential oils and jojoba oil which is really nourishing. I've got dry skin which tends to come with a Hashimoto's picture, and so in that facial oil which is on a base of jojoba oil it does change from time to time, but usually there's frankincense, yarrow pom, sometimes myrrh, clary sage, some often lemongrass peppermint. I do mix it around a little bit, but that to me, not only do I put it on my face, I put it over my thyroid and my a decolletage, and so it kind of doubles as some thyroid support as well. So some of those oils, if you go back and listen to I've done an episode on essential oils early on in the podcast and I did interview Scott Johnson at the beginning of this year all about essential oils for thyroid health. So if you're interested to know a bit more about that, go back and listen to those episodes. So those are really made a massive difference for me in terms of switching out low-tox products, which is so important as part of a thyroid-friendly lifestyle. So facial oil goes on.
Speaker 1:I use natural makeup. So I have a few different brands that I use. I like Raw, which is probably an Australian brand, is an Australian brand, so, but there's quite a few different toxic-free makeup brands now. So wherever you are in the world, just seek that out, because you've got to remember that our skin is the largest organ in our body and it's very, very porous. So whatever we're putting on our body gets absorbed in, and so if you're putting perfumes, fragrance in, moisturizers or even makeup or body wash, all of those things are actually going to get into your body and really not helpful for the thyroid to be exposed to toxic chemicals. So I think the bathroom is a really is a place where you can really implement a thyroid-friendly lifestyle.
Speaker 1:So it's the makeup, it's the skincare, hair care, brush my teeth. So I'm just telling you I'm a boring life. I brush my teeth, but I don't. I brush my teeth with fluoride-free toothpaste. Then I use the Joe Terra toothpaste, which has got nice immune support in it. It's got some whitening. I don't know if that how important that is or not, but it is fluoride-free, which is important because your fluoride will compete with the iodine for your thyroid. So, yeah, you don't really want fluoride, you want to be reducing your exposure to fluoride. So that's my morning.
Speaker 1:Like get dressed. You probably will have heard me talk from time to time. I like to wear I have a lot of word t-shirts and I have. You know, I think, with the way we dress, I'm pretty casual. I work from home, I live in a fairly casual city, so but I still like to look nice. I like to. I think the way we dress actually has a significant impact on the way we feel, and if you are feeling a bit flat or a bit down, then you can deliberately put on some clothes that you know you look good in or the colors really work for you, or earrings that you love. But I do like to dress, you know, for that positive mindset, some days more so than others, so, but I do think that's an important part. Again, if the lifestyle is having mindset and the way you think about yourself and the way we dress has a significant impact on that as well, then we're up to breakfast. You were 15 minutes in and only up to eight o'clock in the morning. I promise you the rest will get a bit faster.
Speaker 1:But look, I have played around this year with eating at different times, with that whole intermittent fasting or maybe eating in a window, and after doing a couple of months, or maybe two months ago, I did an experiment with a continuous glucose monitor. So that's one of those things that you stick on your arm that you might see type one diabetics use, but you can get them without being type one diabetic. And I just did a month's experiment of wearing one of these continuous glucose monitors. I was tracking my blood sugar spiking or not spiking and what I was eating and what I was doing and how that impacted it. And it was a really interesting experiment and what I found was that my blood sugar was a bit low in the mornings and you don't really want it to be too low or too high and it wasn't terribly low. Like when I've talked to friends, with family members who are diabetic they're like that's not really that low. I remember showing the graph to Ben Garriolt, who was the one that I talked to on the podcast a few months ago and was the one who inspired me to give it a go, and he said I just don't think that intermittent fasting or the not eating until later in the morning is really working for your blood sugar. And then when I went to see my naturopath recently I talked to her about it too and she sort of agreed that probably for me, eating breakfast by about 8.30 in the morning was probably going to be a bit better, for me, at least at this point in time. And so for the last month or so I've probably gotten back into eating breakfast a bit earlier than I was. I probably was holding out to about 11, maybe having my coffee or my not coffee earlier, but I've gone back to having a proper well, an earlier breakfast, because I was definitely having a proper breakfast just later, and so this is part of the tweaking of the lifestyle. So about 8.30, you shall have breakfast.
Speaker 1:I do like to have a substantial breakfast. If you remember the episode I did with Tara Thorn recently all about protein, go back and listen to that. We come up with a few different ideas there, but I do tend to aim for about that 30 to 40 grams of protein for that first meal of the day, which typically for me looks like a thin steak and a couple of eggs with maybe a handful of salad. It might look like I've been cooking up this minced beef and turkey mince with some Worcestershire sauce and some spices and just sort of having a batch of that in the fridge, and then I can just heat that up and crack a couple of eggs into the pan and cook the eggs in with the mince. Sometimes I'll scramble them in, sometimes I'll leave them to kind of fry in the mince. So it's a pretty high protein breakfast that keeps me going for quite a long time. So I'll have that and then I'll have my not coffee made on almond milk. So I do find I haven't eaten much dairy for the last couple of years and the not coffee, like if you remain.
Speaker 1:Not that I'm expecting you to keep tabs on my life, but at the beginning of this year I did go off coffee. Initially it was just for a couple of weeks to a month. I actually haven't had coffee since January and I do feel better for it. I definitely noticed a difference quite quickly. I had more energy. I felt like initially I'd lost a little bit of weight or puffiness at least. I think my adrenals really needed the break from the revving up of the caffeine and so I came across not coffee, which is not coffee, but it tastes like coffee and you can kind of brew it like coffee. I did an interview with Sillagatti not that long ago on the show about that's her product and she has Graves disease, hyperthyroidism, and so she had to come off all stimulating products and she came up with this product. So I will set and have my not coffee with my almond milk after my breakfast.
Speaker 1:That's when I tend to. I'll sit. I'll often do the wordle, maybe a little mini crossword if you're into the New York Times puzzles. I also sit and journal. I read my Bible. I kind of like to tune into what God has for me for the day. That's a bit of a grounding thing for me. That's definitely, you know, that whole spiritual life is really core and important to me. So I tend to do all of that around breakfast.
Speaker 1:I'm not racing off to a job, so I definitely have a bit more flexibility than perhaps you might in the morning to take a little bit more time to, you know, have breakfast and have that sort of morning routine Probably. I don't really get stuck into any work until about 10 o'clock and I've got some flexibility there. So I understand you might not have as much flexibility in the mornings but you can still cook yourself a good breakfast. It doesn't have to take long, like you could have that that mince already cooked up, heated up in the microwave, even for two minutes. You know, scramble an egg takes about two minutes, so you can really have a good substantial breakfast without it needing to be for a long time. But that's all part of the morning.
Speaker 1:Whilst I'm having breakfast, I'm also taking an iron supplement. I've been taking some stomach acid support recently. So I do find it a bit of a juggle sometimes. I don't know if you take many supplements, but some have to be before food or after food or during food and different points. That can get a little bit overwhelming and clumsy, so at the moment I forget to take a few things. I've got some herbal mix and you know anyways, but generally while I'm having breakfast or after breakfast I'll look at the supplements I've got to take. I do take some regular supplements, like I take the doTERRA lifelong vitality supplements, which is a bit like a general buffer, nutritional support. They're made with all natural ingredients, food based supplements, like there's nothing synthetic in there so they're easily absorbed. For me they're just a good general buffer, but I do. I usually am taking some extra liver support, iron B vitamins. What else do I take regularly? I mean, some of those things will change depending on what after I've been to see my doctor or my naturopaths, so they vary, but there's always some morning supplements.
Speaker 1:I've also started, probably after breakfast. I'll fill my water bottle up, little trusty water bottle which is stainless steel. So I always remember you should be drinking water out of glass or stainless steel, never out of a plastic bottle. Even if it's that says it's BPA free, it's probably got BPBs, not BPAs. We still have plastics in them. So really, really don't drink from a plastic water bottle, not regularly.
Speaker 1:But in my water bottle I put some powdered vitamin C and I also put some electrolytes. And so I'd realized probably 12 months ago, maybe a bit less than that that I felt like whilst I was hydrated and drinking a lot of water. Well, I was drinking water, but I wasn't actually hydrated and I had bought some fancy scales, like body scales, which could contract I don't know how well, but kind of tracks your hydration. I was quite dehydrated, even though I thought I drank a reasonable amount of water and don't really drink a lot of other drinks. And so I've started taking electrolytes, which I started off just taking hydrolyte, and then I've switched. The one I really like is the brand is Sodie, s-o-d-i-i, but I've also bought some Lakanto or Lakato or something like that electrolytes. I put a scoop of that and a scoop of the vitamin C in my water bottle. I drink that throughout the morning. I will sometimes put some essential oils in my water as well, like the Metapower Blend or Lamin or Grapefruit or one of those citrusy oils to. You know, they're nice and cleansing and, again, essential oils flavor the water nicely and you're getting all the benefits of the water.
Speaker 1:While we're on water, important to drink purified water or filtered water. You don't want the chlorine and the fluoride and all the other nasties that get added into your water. So we have a water filter system. We have actually a whole house system and then we have a system under the sink. That's really just for drinking water, but again, that's another way that you can really reduce your toxic load is to build in a water filter system or to drink purified water. So if you're not already doing that, if you're just drinking regular tap water and you can put in a water filter. It took us years of research to be able to find one and to pin ourselves down, so that's what you totally get. It's not an easy decision and it is an expense, but if you can do that, then you can taste the difference, like you can honestly taste the difference, and so that if you're nourishing your body with good quality water, I think that's really helpful for your thyroid health as well.
Speaker 1:Right, that's the morning. I know it sounds like a lot, doesn't it? But there are lots of little things, and that's the point. That's the point of a lifestyle is that it is lots of little things that add up to be just integrated as everyday part of your life. So I would say I probably start work or not the morning routine round about 10. I kind of work from 10 till 3ish and because this is my work the podcasting and running my courses and talking thyroid health I have a fair amount of flexibility.
Speaker 1:Realistically it's a part time, I don't know job slash, passion project slash, community service, which I love. I love it and I love having that flexibility and we've been able to build in that flexibility and I think that's important with your thyroid health, particularly if you are, you know, in a thyroid flare or you're not managing it very well and your work is stressful or you're working too hard. That is something you might need to look at and obviously that's not an easy thing and everybody's budgets are different and I understand all that. But as I talk to many people, many, many people actually have found that they've needed to change their, maybe their profession. I mean, I left law a long time ago and whilst it wasn't directly because of the stress I do know now if I had stayed working as a lawyer, I think it would have been compromising on my health and maybe I would have just got out of it and another point later down the track. I don't know, that's one of those who knows things, but I am glad that I did get out of law because it was stressful and I think my health probably has benefited for that.
Speaker 1:So I'm mindful, as I'm saying, this is my life that I do essentially work part-time, a part-time job with a lot of flexibility. So I'm at home. My days are often interspersed with really boring things like doing the grocery, shopping and hanging out the washing and a lot of that. I can do that because I am at home. I might catch up with a friend, I might, you know. There are other different things that I might do, but generally I'm at my computer in that middle of the day doing all these sorts of things, and so it can be quite sedentary. I often do have to make sure that I get up and go for a walk. Sometimes I do find to the downside of being at home is it can snack a bit. So that's why my office is a fair way from the kitchen. So that is good. Maybe that's why I try not to go down to the kitchen too often during the day.
Speaker 1:But while we're talking about food, I suppose lunch. To be honest, lunch is probably my least favourite meal of the day and it probably is where I probably make the most. I was going to say mistakes probably isn't the right word, but if I, it's probably the weakest link in my diet in that, because I've often had a really good breakfast, like today. I'm recording this. It's 20 to three in the afternoon. I've been waiting all day to record this. My next-door neighbour has been having their treetop down. It's been very noisy, and so I think they're almost finished. I just needed to get this recorded.
Speaker 1:I had breakfast at about eight o'clock this morning, like I said, that sort of mints and eggs. I've had a little bit of beef jerky since, but I haven't had a proper lunch. Now I'm not hungry, but I probably should be in a habit of having maybe a smaller lunch, but a proper lunch, and I tend to not do that. So that's probably an area of my daily life that at the moment needs a bit of refining. I tend to grab a handful of beef jerky, maybe a handful of nuts, and then the problem is that by the time it gets to the afternoon and I'm cooking dinner, I am a bit hungry, and that's when I tend to be a bit snacky and I do think it's better not to snack. I think my body does better when it eats just a couple of meals and isn't too much snacking. But I like to snack, so that's a constant sort of up and down thing for me. But the things I snack on because I don't actually really have lots of things to snack on, so I tend to beef, jerky, nuts there's not a whole lot.
Speaker 1:For the last few months I've really reduced my carb intake. I'm not really having very much fruit. Today I made a date chocolate bar which I'm going to share on my Instagram because it's a bit of an Instagram, I don't know trend at the moment and I haven't eaten dates for months but they've been sitting in the fridge. So that's what I'll do this day. But chocolate bark thing and it tastes amazing, but I've been snacking on it and so you know that I don't like to do that. So nobody don't really have, you know, snacky food really in the house. I might have some avocado. Sometimes, if the boys have left corn chips open or we've had corn chips open, I might have an avocado on a corn chip. Now the corn chips are not so great, not so thorough and friendly, but I'm trying to give you the honest appraisal of what I do in a day.
Speaker 1:So ideally for lunch and I have definitely done this at different points is that I'll have leftover dinner or I'll have some salad and some like hot smoke salmon or some barbecue chicken and salad, like it's pretty simple lunch. But I just haven't been In the habit of lunch, I think because I was a few months ago I was eating breakfast later, like about 11. I really didn't need any more than two meals, but so now I'm eating breakfast earlier. I've got to rethink my lunch. So but all my food, as you know if you've been listening for more than this episode is Gluten-free, dairy-free, grain-free. So most of my food really consists of animal protein salad, burying salads, eggs, nuts, seeds so that's pretty much. You know the types of food that I eat.
Speaker 1:So in the afternoon, because I've been sitting down all day or on and off all day, I do Go for a walk, often in the afternoon. So even if I've, I've done my weights in the morning. That's kind of probably what I think of as my exercise. When I go for a walk in the afternoon, it's really more about being outside. It's about movement more than it's about exercise. I don't really count that as exercise. I'm not walking super fast. I'll usually go for a walk by myself, but if Lee's worked from home I'll go for a walk with him. So that's probably usually around that, somewhere between four and five, you know five thirty I'll go for a walk, usually for about 20 minutes to half an hour. It's not all that long.
Speaker 1:But about 12 months ago I realized I really wasn't moving very much. My back had gone into a big spasm about 12 months ago and I knew I needed to keep moving and so I started setting a daily step goal which started off as five thousand steps, which is not a lot of steps. But I still find even today I Generally need to go for a walk to get that five thousand steps. If I've just been having a day like I've described at home, if I've been having a day where I'm like on the weekends maybe where I'm doing lots of cleaning and I'm in and out and I'm not sitting Down and I'm folding and washing and ironing and cooking, yeah I might get the steps up then. But if it's just a normal weekday day, I really do need to go for a walk even just to get five thousand steps, and I've. So I set that target for myself Because I wanted to be consistent and I thought if I set the goal at eight thousand, which is probably more of the ideal target, I thought I don't think I'm gonna hit it, or not very often, and then I'll lose motivation.
Speaker 1:So in the last 12 months, all but I think, three days I've I've hit my target. Now I've actually increased the target. So it started off at five thousand, then I went to five and a half, then I went to six, then I went to six and a half. I've capped it out at six and a half, although most days I get over seven. I probably should put it up to seven. But having it as Low-ish day target keeps me going because I want to see the streak on my watch. I wanted, I wanted to come up and say, yeah, you've done like how many days streak? And I was so bummed I got to up to a hundred and ninety days earlier in the year and my beautiful neighbor passed away and I totally anyway, obviously wasn't really thinking about how many steps I've got and I broke the streak and I was like, which sounds really silly, but it's funny how those things can keep you motivated. So I really think just being out and about moving Is really good for my thyroid health. It's probably good for my mental health. It's nice just to get out in the afternoon.
Speaker 1:I'll usually listen to a podcast. When I go out and about, I tend I Listen to. I don't know, probably doesn't really matter what I listen to, but I'll listen to a lot of health podcasts. I listen to political podcasts and I listen to probably Faith-based podcasts are probably the types of things I like to listen to meaty things. I'm not a very frivolous person, so I've listened to a few kind of funny podcasts. They're not really my style. I like to feel like I'm learning or absorbing or taking something in while I'm, while I'm walking. But I will listen, to put that's what I will listen to podcasts and I'm not a big music listener either, much to all my family's dismay. I'm just. I've never been a music listener, not really, so I like wordy podcasts. You may have noticed that. So so walk and podcast listen just to clock my steps up.
Speaker 1:Really that's really all I'm trying to do is add movement into my day and my kids are like that began, like when they were little I probably couldn't have done that walk at you know that four or five o'clock in the afternoon because that's when it's all action central. When the kids were little, but now they're bigger, I can go out for a walk then. Then when I've come back from my walk that's when I get dinner ready. So usually about you know, five or six leaves, home from dinner, home from work, about six. We usually eat somewhere between six and six thirty.
Speaker 1:I like to eat early ish. Probably in my ideal world I'd probably eat at five thirty, which makes me sound like a really old person I'm having. I'm just getting old. But I like to eat early. I think it's better for your digestive system and you sleep if you've had that good Three or four hours between when you eat to when you lie down and go to sleep and it just means then that overnight fasting is that little bit longer if you've eating earlier. But realistically at this point in our lives that's not realistic.
Speaker 1:So we tend to eat about six thirty and again kind of what I've said to you before we tend to eat a lot of meat and vegetables and so tonight I'm cooking a slow roasted lamb. I'll probably do. Actually I've got a whole lot of salad. No one ate too much salad last night, so there's a big salad that'll go with that. I'll probably cook up some roasted potatoes or some chips. The carbs I usually have some carbs there about three teenage boys they need a lot of carbs. So I will often add into my meal either yeah, chips in the air fryer or rice or some gluten-free pasta. Not that they need the gluten-free, they probably should. That's why I buy the gluten-free pasta is I'm just trying to reduce their gluten intake. I don't tend to eat the pasta. I'll just eat the meat and this vegetable component. So meat and salad is pretty common Dinner in our house. I go through a range of different food. You know lamb, beef, chicken, fish, you know kind of your main core proteins. But we have dinner together as a family every night. Or the old, my oldest son, is often out now he's 20 and doing a bit more of his own thing, but we do sit down to eat as a family. We have lots of robust discussions around the dinner table.
Speaker 1:Often the kids Help wash up, which is nice, and again in the kitchen, all my cleaning products are low-tox. So that's another Example where yeah, from the. Actually I've got to say the dishwasher Powder or dishwasher tablets. I'm not sold on the completely natural ones. I find that they're still not that great. But I try to buy, you know, clean-ish dishwasher tablets, definitely. Dishwasher liquid I buy you know good natural products there. Surface spray I just use, I use the doTERRA on guard cleaning concentrate which is like a tablespoon of this soap with a whole lot of you know antibacterial, anti or the good cleansing products in the oils. Top it up with water. That's my surface spray. That's really all. My cleaning product for the whole house is just that spray. So again, I'm not using you know Toxic cleaning sprays all over the kitchen benches that we're breathing in and what have you. So Another area is in the kitchen where you can make those diaphragm-y lifestyle switches.
Speaker 1:After dinner tend to be wind down time. If there's a good TV series, will sit and watch TV, usually just Lee and I together. That's my preferred thing to do at night is to watch a bit of TV together. But if there's nothing on, will tend to probably do at least been working a bit more recently after dinner, which is always the case. But you know that's probably when I'll scroll social media, catch up on what's been going on. I might listen to another podcast, I might watch YouTube, but I've switched out. It's my switching off time and I find if I don't do that I have a lot more trouble falling asleep. So that's my evening routine when I go to bed, probably going to heading to bed somewhere between nine and ten, depending on the evening, usually in bed by 9 30 and asleep probably about 10. But my nighttime routine. I have another shower. I find the showers part of my sleep routine.
Speaker 1:I know I've talked about sleep before so I'm not going to go through it all, but In terms of thyroid friendly things, I have a sleep routine. I think that's really been really important to me. Where I found sleep can be a bit elusive, I have a number of supplements again that I take at night. What else do I do at night? I take my melatonin. I do take melatonin each night. Really it's been a game changer for me in terms of sleep.
Speaker 1:I again use that facial oil that I mentioned in the morning and again at night. So again, that's nourishing my thyroid health as well as my skin. I might use if I'm feeling, if I've been out and talking or not feeling too calm, I'll really pull out some beautiful deep essential oils like Vettava or Magnolia as a nice sleep oil. So I will tend to use those oils rolled on my body usually or just inhaled if I need a bit of extra winding down, and I also use. There's an essential oil blend called a Roma Touch that I just mixed with some moisturizer on my legs and that helps prevent twitching legs. There's a few different oils I've found helpful, but that's my usual go-to. It's a massage blender that's got some nice sort of things like marjoram, which helps with the sort of twitching, spasmy kind of restless muscles that can happen from time to time.
Speaker 1:So that's part of my sleep routine. And then I just get into bed and I read, like I get, I know, a bit more social media probably not great, but that's what I do and then I'll read and usually I read myself off to sleep. Usually I'll fall asleep pretty much as I'm reading and I like generally I'm reading something fiction, something fairly light, something that's not wildly exciting, and it's just taking me longer and longer to get through books these days because I'm kind of using them as a sleep aid, which is good that it's working, but I haven't read a great kind of fiction novel for a while, because I tend to just fall asleep while I'm reading them. But that's my day. That is my non-exciting thyroid friendly day. So if you've stuck with me to the end, well done.
Speaker 1:I hope that there's something in there that you think oh, I haven't tried that. Maybe you'll give it a try, you know, or maybe the things that I do you can't relate to at all, and that's OK too, because in the end we all have our own unique thyroid friendly lifestyle. The point is is that some of these diet and lifestyle things like sleep and exercise and the way you think you know, unwinding, setting boundaries all those sorts of things have to be included in your life as a lifestyle over time, or they won't. You don't keep them going. That's just as simple as that. And because thyroid health is complicated and there is so many different aspects to eat and we are complex, beautiful people you are too it can take some time to work out a lot. You know some things for them to become habits and included as part of a lifestyle. But I know that if I can include things into my lifestyle, you can too. We all have things in our lifestyle, so maybe it's about making a few little switches. So there you have it, a day in my fairly non-exciting but thyroid friendly life.
Speaker 1:Let's just think about a couple of you know the kiss thyroid coaching questions. I'll just look straight into that. You know, is what are you deliberate about living a thyroid friendly lifestyle? And is there something that I have talked about, an element of my lifestyle that you think you'd like to try? Or, you know, is there something that you've been wanting to incorporate as part of your lifestyle for a while but that you haven't? And if there is, I would challenge you just to you know for the next week.
Speaker 1:Just see, you know, set an alarm on your phone, if you need to, to remind yourself to do whatever it is that you're wanting to incorporate. I often find setting an alarm each day for a good probably month or so really helps me to include something new into my lifestyle. So there we go. There we have it A day in my life. I hope your days are exciting and thyroid friendly and I will look forward to seeing you next time. Bye. This podcast, whether you're listening or watching, is intended to be positive and practical coaching style information, but it is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure or prevent any disease, including any thyroid disease, and it should not be used as a substitute for proper advice for a qualified professional.