The Grey NATO – 274 – Fitness 2024 (Rethinking Alcohol, the Oura Ring, & More)

Published on Thu, 29 Feb 2024 06:00:00 -0500

Synopsis

Jason and James discuss their recent journeys towards better health and fitness. Jason shares how a health scare motivated him to make significant lifestyle changes, including improving his diet, exercising regularly, and training for an endurance event. James talks about his struggle to maintain an active lifestyle after moving to Toronto during the pandemic, and how he has recommitted to exercise and cutting back on alcohol. They highlight the value of having a supportive community, tracking tools like the Oura Ring, and setting specific goals. Both emphasize the different needs and challenges at various ages, and the importance of adapting routines accordingly.

Transcript

Speaker
James Stacey Hello, and welcome to another episode of the Graynado. It's a loose discussion of travel, adventure, diving, driving gear, and most certainly watches this episode 274. And it's proudly brought to you by the always growing TGN supporter crew. We thank you all so much for your continued support. And if you're listening and would like to support the show, please visit thegraynado.com for more details. My name is James Stacy, and I'm joined as ever by my friend and co host Jason Heaton. Jason, how are we doing today?
Jason Heaton I'm doing pretty well. Yeah, it's another bright, sunny, perpetual March day here, even though it's still the end of February. We've had the most bizarre of winters, and I think we've talked plenty about that over the past couple of months, but yeah, it continues.
James Stacey Yeah, it's been warm enough this week that if I can find a little hole in the work while it's still sunny outside, I've got some automotive work to do, like some light repairs on the Jeep. And for a while, I thought I would just keep putting those off. It was well into double digits yesterday here, Celsius, which is quite warm. By the time you're listening to this, I'll actually be home or on a plane to come home nearly. But I am going to New York for two meetings.
Jason Heaton Yeah. You've been spending a lot of time in New York, it seems. I feel like you've gone back and forth a few times.
James Stacey Yeah, which is fine. I mean, you know, if we're slowly moving back towards sort of what the scenario was before the pandemic, I was there a lot. I don't think I want to go to that extent. But it's definitely valuable to be down there, you know, once a month, once every six weeks, something like that. I prefer to go down for more than just meetings. Yeah. You know, I like to be able to go down when, you know, maybe Tony is in from Chicago, Danny's in from DC, we can get together, maybe shoot a video, that kind of stuff. But in this case, it was just kind of some last minute meetings that needed to come together. Otherwise, speaking of travel, I'm going to be in PA for a good piece of March break. So PA being Pennsylvania and March break being, you know, something like the week of March 11th. Oh, yeah. That may be different depending on school district and the rest of it. I don't know. But for us, it's the week of March 11th. So I did want to throw it out there that we're putting together another hangout. So this would be like a proper hangout like we did last time in the PA area. Last time we did it in a little town called New Hope at Triumph Brewing. I think that's probably what we'll do this time. I still have to call them, but There is a thread in the TGN Slack. So if you go to the hashtag meetups channel in the Slack, you can find the thread and there's a little button to click just to add to the head count. If you think you'll make it, you know, the details are coming together on that. But if you're, if you're keen and you're listening to this by the time that this comes out, there'll be probably a more solidified plan. So swing by the Slack to take a peek at that. Yeah. I think that's all I've got kind of on the, on the run. How has the last week or so been for you, Jason?
Jason Heaton Yeah. I mean, you know, I, I guess as you alluded to, I mean, every week can't be, uh, can't be fireworks, uh, for both of us, you know, sometimes it's just a normal, normal work week. And after our kind of blip, uh, camping out in the woods last weekend, we had a pretty quiet week here. Um, and you're kind of putting me to shame with the, uh, with the meetups I've I'm suddenly feeling like I should, I should host something here or, uh, put something together. I think it's a nice idea to do these informal ones. And I love to see in the, in the slack, uh, meetups channel, people just kind of doing these, these, uh, kind of impromptu meetups in the different, different cities around the world. It's really cool to see. Speaking of travel, there's a pretty good chance I'll be in England next week. It's something that came up on fairly short notice, um, to fly over to, to London and get over to Henley. Uh, some people might be able to guess where I might be going for that trip. And then I'd like to extend a few days and maybe hit the British watchmaking Alliance show in London. next Saturday. So, um, I can't promise anything. I'm still waiting to kind of hear how plans are shaping up. And so I can't really put together any sort of a meetup or whether I'll even have time for that. But, uh, yeah, if, uh, if any folks are going to that watchmaking event next Saturday, it sounds like some cool brands will be there. And, uh, I'd love to at least bump into people at the show, but again, I'm not entirely a hundred percent sure that I'll be going, but, uh, there's a good chance of it. So yeah, fingers crossed. Other than that, it's been, It's been pretty quiet. I mean, the weather's been great, so I've just been getting out and exercising a lot, and that's kind of a good lead in for today's episode, which is a bit of a follow-up to one we did a while back, isn't it?
James Stacey It is, yeah. It's been a while back. It also just kind of, you know, we touch on the whole idea of our health and our fitness, and obviously we've made some actual changes, both Jason and I. Jason, you've made some changes over the last couple of years that have kind of continually evolved, and mine are a little bit more short-term or more near-term. And we figured it would just make sense, especially after the last couple episodes. You know, we had an incredible two episode pairing of Dr. Rebecca Struthers and Karel Bashan from a barrel hand. And we thought this might give a little bit of a change of pace to that. It's not going to be an hour and a half long discussion of our, of our health and fitness and our plans and that sort of thing. But it is a popular topic. It comes up in the Slack. We have a fitness channel in the Slack. We figured it might make sense to kind of put it in one place, but we can get into all that in just a moment. Why don't we kick it off with a little bit of a wrist check. What have you got on today?
Jason Heaton Sure. Yeah. I mean, I guess in anticipation of a possible trip to the UK, I've been wearing my Vertex M60 Aqualion. Uh, for the past couple of days, actually, I've got it on the rubber strap, which is an excellent rubber strap. And, uh, it's just such a fun watch, such a great nighttime watch because of the loom. Yeah. I just, uh, just decided to pull this one out and give the, give the Pelagos a bit of a rest. Um, I think it kind of has the same general visual vibe as the, as the Pelagos, I guess. But, uh, yeah, it's a good piece and that's what I've got on.
James Stacey Yeah. Those are great. A good pick for sure. What about you? Always a treat to see that. Yeah. I've actually got on a little bit of carbon today. Thought I'd go with kind of a special one that I borrowed slash stole from the Hodinkee shop. And that's this Unimatic U1S Carbon GMT. Obvious bias here. This is an LE made by Hodinkee. I'm employed by Hodinkee, et cetera, et cetera. But those of you who've been listening to the show for a long time know that I am carbon curious. always kind of interested in the idea of a carbon doxa. And that's still on the wings for me. I'm not going to turn that one down if the right opportunity comes along. But this was a good opportunity to kind of grab one of these as a loner from the office and spend some time with it. And I really like it. It's not that much money for a forged carbon watch, but it is a lot for a unimatic. So it's kind of that weird balancing zone of like maybe they're more, they're better known for things, maybe $1,500 and less. And this is a little bit over two grand. That said, if you're looking for a GMT, you want the carbon, you like the all kind of blacked out stealthy vibe. This is a pretty fun piece. It's very much a GMT. It's a 24 hour bezel, in this case, unidirectional. So it's based on a dive bezel, date at six. Really, it is black and white. The loom is pretty solid. It's very comfortable. It's lighter than you would expect. It's certainly lighter than steel. And yeah, I've been wearing it a little bit when I travel and keeping a pretty casual sort of profile. This is a nice mix. And I saw it on, uh, my, the table next to my desk this morning. And that's what I put on.
Jason Heaton It's funny. You know, um, there, I go through these phases where I, you know, I was wearing the FXT just nonstop for months, I think some from September straight on through January. And I just thought I might as well just lock away all the rest of my watches, not wear them. And now I find myself kind of reaching for variety every now and then I've been wearing kind of mixing and matching, you know, over the past couple of weeks. And it's, it's kind of fun. I mean, that's what it's all about.
James Stacey Oh, I totally agree. And I find that if I didn't have wrist check, I would probably just wear one of three watches. It is nice to occasionally not wear the same thing every single day. I am reaching a point of fatigue where there are watches everywhere in my office. Nothing of incredible value. They're just everywhere. Any horizontal surface has a couple of watches on it. And I need to take some time to consolidate these into one place.
Jason Heaton Yeah. And the sales channel, the buy, sell trade channel on Slack is just, it explodes. I mean, every time I look, that's the channel that seems to get the most, uh, most, uh, traffic these days. And it's the one I visit the most often because it pops up and sometimes I need to avert my gaze. Uh, Tom place was selling a limited edition Zen last week and boy, I was hovering over the tempting, right? Yeah. The buy now button, so to speak, the virtual buy now button. But, uh, yeah, it's a good, good place to be. Absolutely. Yeah. It's super good. Well, we should probably move on here. We've got, uh, we've got kind of a big sort of not quite our usual topic, I guess, but as you mentioned, you know, the last couple of weeks we've had kind of some heavy duty watch guests on and it's kind of time to shift gears and, and look at something else today.
James Stacey Yeah. So we're going to be chatting about sort of our 2024 health and fitness, how things have been going. But the one thing I do want to start with, I actually wrote, wrote this down to get it right. We are not doctors. We're not health professionals. We're not even fitness influencers, though. Jason is moving in that territory and I'm here for it. I like it. The topics we're covering this episode are informed by anecdotal experiences and singular data points. And that's not to say that what we're talking about isn't necessarily accurate. It's just saying that we are not trained professionals in this space. So you're just getting an example of what might be working for us or didn't work in the past or whatever. If you plan to make any major changes to your lifestyle, I do recommend doing so with the support of a doctor or medical advisor. I think that's a fair little caveat to start with. Yeah. As this is not, uh, not a world in which you and I are certified or, or, you know, a board member or whatever. Uh, these are, you know, very much, um, not so much armchair because we're active in, in our own, but it is our own, our one and own experience.
Jason Heaton Yeah. And I, I think, you know, to follow up on that, I, you know, I think maybe what we can do, what we can contribute is a level of inspiration and kind of curiosity and kind of just getting people thinking about things. And certainly I've already gotten a lot of good feedback, advice, et cetera. There's a great health and fitness channel on slack. Yep. Um, that, that if you're not subscribed to that, uh, go check it out. And I've gotten a lot of good feedback and inspiration from, from a lot of our audience as well. A lot of people that are even better informed and fitter and more experienced than us. So, uh, we're just here to kind of keep the conversation going and hopefully inspire some other people too. take a good look at their own health and nutrition and fitness.
James Stacey Yeah. And I mean, on that point, I can actually kick it off with something very specific. I made a note of this. It was going to be later on in the show. But I do want to make it clear that the reason that I'm able to talk about this or have something to talk about is because other people spoke about their experience over the last couple of years. That includes you, Jason, and quite specifically, Tom Place, who I've traded some text messages about. And then also Andrew McCutcheon of Time and Tide. I've had, I had some conversations with him in Dubai that helped me kind of reframe my position and how I was treating myself and the rest of it. And I think it does, there is some value in people talking about it. Even, even people who may be like, in my case, I'm not saying that I'm done or like figured everything out simply that like, these are my experiences. And I think that in, in having a conversation about it's easier to keep it on your mind. Yeah. It was something I took for granted until about the start of the pandemic, like my physical health, because I was active and I was always moving and it's like once you have a certain pace going, it's a little bit easier to keep that pace going, especially if you're sort of a routine oriented person, which I typically am. And I think I lost all of that over the pandemic, became very lazy, really focused on work. We went from a scenario where a certain number of hours a week were kind of a full week And then all of a sudden we weren't traveling, we weren't commuting, everything could be done in an instant. And that didn't actually mean that we had more free time. It's we took all that time and invested it back into work. And that really ate away at sort of a mental health thing, but also like my perceived amount of time that I might have to work out or this or that. And I think I've talked about it before, but I have yet up until recently, I hadn't really found a new mode of looking forward to exercise in Toronto. used to be my favorite thing about Vancouver was I was right near a great place to run. Any weekend I wanted, I could ski, hike, climb, dive, whatever. I came to Toronto. It's not that the options are any difference, but the entire environment is very different. I can do most of those things still just to a different extent and with a different level of access. And when you combine that with more work, it just kind of slowed me up. I became... I think the term that people like is detrained. I think that's a very kind term for the way that I operated throughout the pandemic. I got a lot of work done, but I didn't take care of myself at all. And I would say that you, maybe about two years ago, really started to make some concerted changes, maybe not quite two years. Yeah. And I think that's been a good reminder for me that it's not an age thing. It's not a busy thing. It's just a question of priorities and you know, not to put too fine a point on it, but as I'm a little bit younger than you and it's nice to know that like, just because you get a little bit older doesn't necessarily mean that this stuff has to be 200% harder. You just have to be intentional with it.
Jason Heaton Yeah. And I think you're, you're starting off on a good, kind of a good jumping off point here because I think as we age, as life changes and we move around and things are, kind of journey through fitness, uh, and the attention we pay to it changes. And I think for me, it was, it was, as you mentioned, it was triggered by, I don't want to call it a health scare. It was a, it was a bit of an awakening, I guess I had was having some abdominal pain, um, that ultimately turned out to be a gallbladder that had to be removed. But in some of the scans to diagnose it, uh, they found that I had fairly uh, extensive plaque buildup in my arteries, which was a real wake up call for me because I had always been an active, healthy person, so to speak, and did a lot of exercising. I rode a bike regularly, et cetera, hiked and ran and things. And so it was a bit of a shock and it just woke me up and made me kind of think like, I need to be more intentional in the way I look at nutrition for one. That was kind of the main thing. But then, um, just fitness in general. And as I, lost weight due to all the nutritional changes I made. Um, I was feeling better exercise became less painful and more rewarding. And, and so that's kind of the route that, that I've taken. And you mentioned looking at various people and being inspired by or encouraged by, and, and I've done the same. I never used to really read about or follow or look at people or programs that dealt with kind of nutritional theory or fitness routines or, you know, workouts and things like that. And now I find that it's, it's quite fun. It's quite, it's, it's, it's almost become like a hobby. Um, and almost, it's become such a daily priority to me to fit stuff like this in. And I, I really, um, I really come to enjoy it. And, and obviously it has the benefit of, of, you know, you feel better and, and hopefully live longer and, and yeah, or just healthier in general. But, um, yeah. And I, you know, you and I have talked about it both offline and little bits here and there on the show. And, and I know that, that for you, you know, the move from Vancouver to Toronto was kind of a, a big hit on your routines and then work kind of got in the way.
James Stacey And of course the pandemic, it's always an excuse. Sure. But those are, those are mine.
Jason Heaton Yeah, exactly. But, but your journey was, wasn't, you didn't have quite the immediate sort of wake up call that I did. And so I think, you know, you've kind of come to it differently and it's kind of been encouraging to see, you know, you've been telling me lately about, you know, we'll get into it, but you know, your weighted vest and the treadmill, and then we were talking about rowing and You know, we've shared things over the years and it's, it's fun to see the evolution of that. And as I said, it's great to see also the people on the, on the Slack channel, health and fitness kind of getting, getting into it and all of that. So yeah, it's, it really becomes a community effort.
James Stacey So you spoke about the gallbladder scenario, the sort of health red flag, you, like you said, maybe scares a little bit, but it was enough. You didn't have to do the thing that some guys do where they have the first heart attack.
Unknown Yeah.
James Stacey You have a little bit of a superpower that I've experienced with you. and that you were able to cut something out of your life, even if you like it.
Unknown Yeah. Yeah.
James Stacey Just cut it out. Yeah. Yeah. Some people are good at that. Others aren't.
Jason Heaton And I don't, I don't operate well with moderation. I mean, and I think superpower might be my willpower, um, as you're alluding to, but my, my weakness is, or the flip side of that is I don't do well with moderation. So what I changed nutrition wise was when I first got that diagnosis of like, you know, you have the, plaque levels in your arteries that equal like the 96th percentile for someone your age, which was a real shock for me. And I was literally, I always tell this story, but I was like buttering a piece of toast when I heard that. And like, that's literally the last time I've consumed butter. And you know, people have different theories about nutrition and I'm not going to get into plant-based and this and that, but I largely have moved to a plant-based plus fish diet and I've given up all uh, cream and milk and yogurt and butter and dairy. Um, and have just moved to a pretty, what some people might consider a strict diet, but you know, in some parts of the world it's kind of the norm. Some might call it a Mediterranean diet or like even a South Asian diet. You know, Ghoshani being from Sri Lanka, we eat a lot of legumes and lentils and curries and things. And yeah, I mean, so it's, I don't eat fried food, uh, and that sort of thing. And I don't miss that. I keep telling, people who say, don't you miss pizza? Don't you miss French fries? Don't you miss dessert or whatever? And I'm like, you know, I had 50 years of kind of eating with not reckless abandoned, but kind of more or less what I wanted to eat. And I just, I don't miss that now. And you're right. That's, that is, uh, I guess a bit of a superpower, but also I feel like unlike you, and I admire this about people like you and Gashani and a lot of other people I know, like you can have, a beer a week or, you know, eat dessert now and then, or splurge on a burger or whatever you want and be okay with that. For me, it's, it leads to kind of weird notions of guilt and, and kind of, you know, self-deprecating behavior and whatever. And I think that that isn't healthy as well. So, um, I'd love to work on that, but on the other hand, so far I'm, I'm doing okay. And I'm pretty happy the way, the way I am.
James Stacey Yeah. I mean, I, I'm always, I'm always cautious to say, if you have something that's working, don't change it until you feel like it's no longer working. Right. Yeah. I'm also a little bit lucky when it comes to that in that I may, maybe since I was running 60, 70, 80 K a week, I don't need three meals. I just don't. Yeah. Yeah. If I went back to running that much, I might change my mind, but I really only eat when I'm hungry. And that's typically one, maybe one and a half meals a day. And that's usually like dinner. Oh, sure. Which I know anyone listening, probably not the most healthy option. Your option would be to make lunch your big meal. and then essentially go to bed without your whole system kind of jacked up by a full stomach. It comes and goes and every now and then I wake up and I'm hungry and I do bacon and eggs or whatever. I think it is kind of an interesting topic to see like kind of what your history is and then how you apply that to being a different age, being in a new environment, all these sorts of things. And the key for me, and we can get into the keys for you and I think we should, but I think we share one key. and that's a complete rethinking of alcohol in the last couple of months. Yeah, yeah, I agree. How has that been for you? So, you know, because you and I had multiple conversations, we sat, sorry to interrupt you, I do want to highlight this. You and I sat in my hotel room in Chicago this past June, yeah, and had a couple of fingers of Blanton's each and talked about how like, oh, we can give up all sorts of stuff, but really like giving up whiskey. Yeah, Like what's life about? Right? And then here we are, barely six months later, how has the alcohol thing changed for you?
Jason Heaton Yeah, I think when we met at Wind Up, I was probably in the middle of a year where I've never been really much of a binge drinker, but I was drinking quite steadily, quite regularly, and that's something we talked about. Oh yeah, me too. And I used to use this excuse, you know, people, it's kind of this glib excuse or response that I would give. It'd be, look, I've changed my diet so much. I need to have one vice and that's going to be alcohol. And I always used to say that and you know, people, people don't respond to that and whatever. And, but, but it just kind of became too steady, too regular. And then if, if people will recall when we did our episode kind of at the start of the year, we talked about doing a dry January as millions of people do. Um, which always ends up being kind of revelatory and nice, um, and a good, a nice kind of reset. And I felt so good at the end of January. And then at the same time I had planned this kind of physical challenge for, for June, this fan dance that I've talked about, um, and started kind of training for that. And it kind of dovetailed to the point where by the end of January, I just thought I'm feeling really good, like much, much better. So I'm going to, I'm just going to keep on. And here we are at the end of February, I still haven't had a drink since, uh, since new year's Eve. And you know, I'm, I'm not being, I'm not being closed minded about it. I, I, if, if the right opportunity came along and I, someone offered a beer or there was a meetup or special occasion or something, I might have a drink, but at this point I might just keep on as long as I can. And I've, I've even thought someone mentioned to me about the, the fan dance. He said, you know, good for you. A couple of years ago, I did an event in like July or August of that year. And I just decided I wasn't going to drink until after that event. And I've kind of, that's kind of stuck in my brain.
Unknown Yeah.
Jason Heaton And I might just do that. I might just not drink until after, after that event. And then, I mean, how rewarding with, would like a pint of Guinness be after doing a, you know, 14 mile endurance test. Pretty dang good. Yeah. Yeah. How about you? You've, you've stayed largely, uh, alcohol free since the beginning of the year.
James Stacey Yep. So I think at the start of the year, I said we would try for... The joke on the slack was try January, not dry. And everybody was very kind about giving me some leeway to have a couple of beers when I was in Costa Rica. Yeah. And I took a long enough time off of it that it removed itself from like, oh, it's 5 PM, I'll finish drinking coffee and switch to something else. And now I don't really think about it. It feels really good to not have it as part of my home routine. Yeah. So if I go on a press trip and I want to have a beer with the folks from Oris, no problem. If I'm in Aspen and hanging out for ice race, I don't have to be like, Oh no, I don't like, I don't drink.
Unknown Yeah.
James Stacey I would say the reduction is probably what 95%. I could go back and actually do the math. It would just be startling. Yeah. Cause whatever you were drinking in, in a normal week, I was drinking more and have for quite some time. Yeah. You can't always treat your body like you're 25. This isn't news to most of the people listening, it's just kind of new for me. I think what the other thing that really did it for me was once I removed it from kind of my routine, I also realized I didn't miss it that often. Oh yeah, yeah. Like every now and then I wanna go to a brewery and sit with Sarah and have a beer and just enjoy the beer as the thing, but as this thing that you just have in your hand as you do everything else in life, I had totally... My math was way off on the way that I had made it part of my routine. And there's been some interesting revelations in cutting back. One is that I don't miss it nearly as much as I thought I would. Two, I feel way better, which everyone says. And I coincided the reduction in alcohol with some tracking. So I have the aura ring, which we can talk about. I don't wanna spend 30 minutes rambling about the aura ring. just giving everybody a heads up. And the other thing was I committed to finding a type of exercise that I couldn't say no to. Oh, sure. Yeah. Uh, and that ended up being a $200 Craigslist treadmill and walking six days a week, sometimes seven, sometimes five.
Jason Heaton Well, you know, that, that brings up a point because I was going to ask you what, what the outcomes have been of, of cutting back and what changes you've felt. And, and you know, for me, the physical changes, you know, I've, noticing less, less joint pain, better recovery after exercise, better sleep. But what I'm also finding, and I think this might relate to your treadmill routine is, um, I've found that by changing kind of that behavior or, or it's affected other parts of my life. Like I feel like maybe it's a subconscious thing. I'm sure it is, is it's kind of led to more positive energy in terms of, yeah, fitness and working out and just, I just feel like I have a different outlook slightly. Um, and I bet a lot of people discover that as well.
James Stacey The thing that's most notable noticeable for me is my natural level of like floating frustration, the speed at which I go from at least outwardly calm to overwhelmed.
Unknown Yeah.
James Stacey That, that I have so much more latitude now. Yeah. I had a pretty daily habit, especially when it came to bourbon of like this is the end of the day, this is how I wind down and what I learned, this is the scariest thing. You're not winding yourself down or at least I wasn't. I was winding myself up. Yeah, yeah. I was taking whatever stress I still had that was like natural and okay and part of life and adding a layer that only amplified it. I put it under a magnifying glass rather than letting it dissolve and yeah, no, I think The O ring, the treadmill and taking some time to kind of recalibrate my relationship with alcohol has made a huge difference in just the general anxiety of life. Yeah, yeah. I handle problems better, I'm sleeping better, I'm less tired, I feel way less self conscious about being on camera for the job. I don't know how... I'm sleeping pretty consistently seven and a half hours a day, Yeah. And I don't know how many hours I would need to not have dark bags under my eyes. So maybe that's just the way James looks and that's okay. What are you going to do? Yeah. I look the way I look. Everything's going to be fine. I do always look a little bit tired, but I look less tired than I did a year ago, which I'm pretty happy about. I can give you some numbers if that's helpful for people. The, I didn't go into the workout scenario without some forethought because I have some experience in running. I have some experience in weightlifting. I have some experience in this world. I'm not a pro. you don't necessarily have to take my advice, but I didn't go in without a plan. I've seen a lot of people, especially as you enter your thirties, the major concerns are like heart rate variability is pretty important. The ability to just maintain the cardio system, not stress it necessarily, but maintain it is really important. And then the preservation and protection of skeletal muscle. So after once you hit your thirties, you lose about 25% of your skeletal muscle. per decade moving forward. You have to protect yourself from that. You don't get to... And that's essentially by lifting weights to a certain extent. But if you're wondering, oh, what's skeletal muscle? Well, sit down on the ground and then stand up. Whatever you just use to stand up is essentially skeletal muscle. If you're a fitness professional and you're listening, you're rolling your eyes, I get it. I'm just trying to make a simplification, but that's something you have to protect for. and I wanted to focus on one good habit at a time. So the first one for me was I needed to get back to a scenario where I actually liked working out, where I was looking forward to it. Yeah. Yeah. Cause I used to crave my run every day or my weight workout every day. Like that used to be a big thing where like I'd get home from work and I knew that was on and it was like maintaining my mood and I've gotten there with the treadmill and literally all it is is like I said, there's a $200 craigslist treadmill, had to take it apart just to get it into the basement. I think I talked about that on the show. I set it to the highest possible incline, which is ten percent, and then I walk for between thirty five and sixty minutes. There's really not a scenario in my life where I don't have thirty five minutes. Yeah, yeah, yeah, because I will definitely spend thirty five minutes at some point in my day watching YouTube and I can do that while walking. So there's now I've removed my ability to say no to this without becoming the world's laziest person, which I'm genuinely scared of how lazy I can be when I tell myself that I worked enough that day that I dealt with enough stress or whatever. and you end up taking away the one thing that would make all the other stuff easy, the exercise. I would do this at about three and a half miles an hour, and then just recently I added a 40 pound weight vest, which has dropped my speed down to about 2.5 to 2.8. I only have about six or seven walks with the vest, but I have all the data. I'm happy to share data in Slack if people want, the Oura Ring tracks all of it. You put it in recording mode and you get like a whole report from every workout. of your heart rate zones, the heart rate variability, all that kind of stuff factors in. The plan here was essentially to cruise on the high side of zone two. So zone two for heart rate is going to be between 60 and 70% of your maximum heart rate. I can put this in the show notes where you can go calculate it. Peloton has a really nice kind of very easy explainer. So to give it a wide delta. That's somewhere between an average of one hundred and thirteen beats a minute and no more than say one hundred and forty five, which would be around the ceiling for zone three. And then if I if we put this into like actual numbers at the end of November, I was around two hundred twenty two hundred twenty five pounds close to kind of my heaviest. And then as of last Wednesday, I do a way in every Wednesday. As of last Wednesday, I hit two oh one and this is the same scale in the same scenario. So I'm not saying that the number is perfect. It's a bathroom scale from, you know, Amazon for fifty bucks, but I would assume that the the the the drop is accurate, whether the top number in the current number isn't. So I'm hoping that means that maybe by the time this episode drops, I'll be at two under two hundred, which is kind of my first goal. And to be clear for people listening at that number is gonna be different for everyone. and I actually don't know that the weight number as it is as important as say certain measurements or some sort of a quantified understanding of how you feel. You know what I mean like like you kind of have to blend those two for me. I have my twenties and thirties remembering that I felt kind of the best between one hundred and eighty and one hundred and ninety. So we're going to get back there and see how we feel and if it seems to be like something that's maintainable because I don't have the greatest diet. I enjoy fried food. I love french fries. I love chicken wings. I try and keep that to a different sort of minimum than I did previously, and I like to snack as well. At times we'll see how far the treadmill and the drinking kind of gets me and then the rest could come from. The rest can come from like slowly refining the diet and that sort of thing. But yeah, I think I think that's that's I mean it's a lot of words, but that that's kind of the scenario I'm in currently.
Jason Heaton you mentioned getting on the scale. And I remember when, when I, a few years ago when I kind of changed my, my lifestyle fairly radically with the diet and more exercise, I was between 225 and 230. And then I dropped down and I think at my lowest probably a year, a little over a year ago, I was down in the one eighties and, um, you know, so I dropped a fair bit of weight enough for, for people to notice. And, I felt the immediate kind of lightness when I was out on riding a bike or running. It just, you know, it's much less wear and tear on the joints, et cetera. But again, and again, we're probably, we're probably getting into a little bit of psychoanalysis here. You, I've mentioned that I'm, I don't do well with moderation and I'm kind of an all or nothing person when it comes to drinking or diet. I'm kind of that way with, with getting on the scale. I kind of beat myself up a bit or I, it leads to kind of, I don't want to say bad behavior, sort of some bad mental energy if I weigh myself too often. So I've kind of stopped weighing myself. And I think once I, once my weight stabilized, I just decided that, you know, okay, if I'm working out, chances are I'm gaining some muscle that weighs more than fat as they say. Um, so I'm not going to really look at a number on a scale anymore because I've kind of stabilized and I kind of go by how I feel and how my clothes fit. So that's where I'm at now. And I think, you know, weight is a very, um, Easy. It's probably the easiest way to measure anything, you know, body wise, because you can see a direct correlation. Um, I think there was a time when that worked well for me and now I've gotten to the point where I'm trying to measure things in other ways. So it might come down to running distance, for instance, like I'm adding a mile to my longer runs every weekend. And so now I'm up to seven miles and next weekend I'd like to do eight miles. And at some point I'd like to kind of be doing between 10 and 12 miles for a long run in preparation for this endurance event in June. it also brings up the, the notion of motivation and what, what we're after, what are our goals and what drives us. And I think for me to, to commit to a physical challenge at the beginning of this year for something in June really boosted my motivation. It was a carrot. It was something to aim for and something that I had to hit. I was accountable to it. I announced it to, you know, several thousand TGN listeners. I've put it out on Instagram, et cetera. And I'm now accountable to that. And you know, Barring any catastrophic injury or illness along the way, I'm going to do that. I'm going to hit it. And, um, there's an aesthetic part to it too. You know, you look in the mirror and you see yourself, you know, getting a little soft in certain areas, your skin doesn't look as good, et cetera, or your pants are too tight, et cetera. We all have different motivations. And I think, you know, losing weight is a, is a good place to start. And then at some point you become like, okay, now what about performance? How fast can I climb that Hill on my bike? Or. how fast can I run a mile or how far can I run and things like that. And, and that's kind of the point where I'm at now. And, um, and then, you know, you mentioned the inspiration of, of observing different people and I've just, I've just learned so much. And again, I never used to be this way, but to, to see people out there, you know, fitness professionals or just friends that are on a similar journey has been hugely encouraging. Um, and you know, a while back when you kind of introduced in a final note, Uh, training talls, um, rowing workout, the row 20 workouts on YouTube. I started following him. Austin, uh, is his name and he goes by training tall and Instagram. Really good natured, humble guy. He offers a lot of good encouraging tips. Yep. Um, there's another guy, Jack Hanrahan, who I started following this British guy with like this Adonis physique, like just incredible physique. And he did the fan dance and that's when I first learned about him and he's He offers some interesting tips. Um, our old friend, Sean Lurwell, who was on a show a few years ago and I brought him up a few times, he's been a huge inspiration and a massive help. And I had written to him and he gave some nutrition guidelines that I follow in terms of how much protein, fat and carbohydrates I should be getting per day and how to get those. So, you know, all of this kind of merges together to become embedded in my lifestyle to the point where every day I'm thinking about, I'm building in that workout time and I'm thinking about, the protein shake that I'm going to make and have after my long run or, um, you know, the protein powder I'm putting in my cereal in the morning, things like this, that, like I said, at the top, it's kind of become a bit of a, of a hobby and it's actually downright fun. I think a lot of people view nutrition and working out as, as work or a slog or, or some of, um, an obligation, but,
James Stacey That's because the first two months kind of suck.
Jason Heaton It does. And then at some point it switches.
James Stacey And then you start to see something and feel something.
Jason Heaton Yeah, definitely.
James Stacey Definitely. I would love to know kind of like, you know, I said like my, that was kind of my plan was to get to this point. And I do think that the treadmill and when the weather's better, the bikes and being outside and kicking around the cottage will all bring me closer to this thing where you start, you stop thinking about like getting to a certain point and then you get to a certain point, you go, well, what can I do with this?
Unknown Yeah.
James Stacey Yeah. Can I run farther? Can I do a mountain? Could I do the fan dance? Like having that goal is great. And I think it's, it's lit a fire under you for sure. Yeah. But that's not the only plan. Like you have a lot of this fairly regimented. What else do you think if you, if you extrapolated a couple of things from, from all the notes that we've got here, what else was kind of, what are you getting the most value from as far as a move or a change?
Jason Heaton Kind of paying more attention to nutrition, but also structuring, uh, kind of a series of workouts and cross training. in anticipation of this very specific event that I have in, in June, which is, you know, it's, um, it's a 14 and a half mile or 24 K, uh, weighted hike, basically up and over the highest mountain in South Wales and then back again. So it's 4,500 feet of ascent overall over the 14 and a half miles. And so to do that, I've, I've kind of been. building endurance by doing ever increasing long runs, as I mentioned, and then cross training with swimming and getting on the rowing machine and biking since we've had such a weird winter and things like this. I've been on the stair climber. I'll start doing some weighted hikes when the mud gets off the hills and I can start going to some of the ski hills and hiking up and down. A big piece for me that I've discovered this year has been my A big revelation, I guess, has been my, my lack of mobility and flexibility. And I think that that's something that I overlooked forever for my whole life. And I've just not paid attention to, I've always admitted that I've been inflexible, but I've really come to realize how limiting that can be. And so I'm really trying to. Get better at that. And I'm not, I'm not there by any means, but you know, I remember several years ago, you'd sent me kind of a, uh, yoga or stretching routine on, on YouTube that you liked, and that was good, but I never stick with it. Me neither, but I started going for, I, I sort of had this weird nagging lower back injury that I got ironically from, from working on the Land Rover and kind of being bent over in a weird position for like three days in a row. And I went to a chiropractor, which I had never done. And it was kind of a revelation for me because, um, it was not just a back crack or neck cracking adjustment. It was, it was a full body sort of almost assisted stretching routine. Um, and I got some tips and then I went for, I've been going regularly for therapeutic massage at the same clinic. And it's, it's kind of, I guess, reinforced me that the value of, of things like slow movement, stretching, mobility, soft tissue, connective tissue, that sort of stuff, which I'm, that is my next kind of hurdle or goal, um, is, is just getting better at that because they're just some moves that I just cannot do. And that will lead to injury eventually, if I don't kind of get better at that.
James Stacey Absolutely. I mean, it is the key that everybody sort of ignores, I think, too. Well, when I say everybody, I'm generalizing. But yeah, I think that that's a big part. I still get some good use out of that, like knockoff Theragun that I bought. Oh, yeah. If I if I have like a tightness, if I do, you know, when I went to the vest and then, you know, kept doing these just, you know, almost fast enough to be running at or like jogging. I found like my calves got pretty tight for the first couple of days and those, the, you know, the $80 again, knock off their gun is quite helpful for that kind of thing. You know, the, the other thing that, that has kind of helped me in this is I'll try and keep this to say something like five minutes is the aura ring. And I want to be very clear. There's no bias here. I bought the ring with my own money, paid full price. I pay full price for the monthly $7 or whatever it is. I didn't even get a referral, but if you're, if you hear this and you want to go the aura ring route, drop me a slack. I have at least a couple more $50 off. A few of the crew has already jumped on that, but I did want to make it clear that like, it's not like I have a relationship with with aura ring in any way. We bought these off the website like a normal human being and my wife and I each got them. I really, really, really like them as does my wife. I will make it clear that I don't, that The value here is having some data that supports what you do every day. And I don't think that has to come from a two, three, $400 ring and a monthly subscription. For years, I use something like a Mi Band, which is made by Xiaomi and they're about 30 bucks and they do step counting and they do active heart rate and they can do fitness like workout tracking. So you can have a record of your workouts and see how they're getting easier or harder or whatever. So I would say this is more of a suggestion that if the data might lead you to enjoy this more or feel more of a payoff for the work you put in, then get something to track your workouts. Whether it's an Oura Ring or a Whoop or a Fitbit or an Apple Watch, I don't really care. Garmin is a great option and that's what I've used in the past. What I like about the Aura ring is unlike the Garmin, I'm not gonna wear a Garmin every day of the week all the time or an Apple Watch, whereas the Aura ring, it's four or five days of battery life, it takes like maybe 40 minutes to charge it from empty. The little charger is very easy to travel with, it's probably no bigger in a bag than the cable, the magnet cable for an Apple Watch or the clip cable for a Garmin, and it's just like I'm gonna wear a ring anyways, a wedding ring, so this just replaces that on my hand and I get a ton of tracking that I really like. It has made huge differences in the way that I approach my sleep. I've become a real jerk about like, well, this is bedtime now, especially if I'm out working. I just recently did a press thing in New York with Oris, and the whole time it was like I was doing what I would normally do on a press trip. You stay up, you hang out with people, you get that time in in the evening, but I had this weird background noise of like, you're blowing it, dude. Your sleep's gonna suck. It's going to be like your score is going to be in the 40s. Yeah. In the 50s. Yeah. Right. So it does kind of like reframe. It gives you things to focus on. And if you're focusing on healthy thing, you probably make healthy decisions.
Jason Heaton A question about it is, um, because I'm curious because I, um, was always kind of this person who is a bit of ambivalent about wearing, uh, the Garmin for even for working out. I, I kind of knew what my distances were for the runs that I was always doing and the bike rides, et cetera. So I just thought I'm just gonna wear my, my Pelagos or I'm going to wear whatever I'm wearing, whatever watch, cause I don't like, I don't like always switching to a smartwatch. But now that I'm, I've got specific goals when it comes to distances and I want to track my heart rate more, the Garmin has become invaluable for that. So I do swap back and forth. Does the aura ring provide those metrics as well? Like if I like the Garmin, I put it on, I set it to run, it tracks my distance. I can control my music through it, et cetera. And it's handy for that. I don't necessarily need the music. control and all that, but will it track a run for instance, the distances?
James Stacey Oh yeah, yep. So it's tracking all the time, but then you can go into the app and click like record an active workout and in the app you can do... So if you go record HR workout, outdoor running, indoor running, outdoor cycling, indoor cycling, or walking, those are the five options. I just pick indoor running for when I'm on the treadmill. And it's just, you know, they're counting it as a very slow, slow run, you know, three and a half miles an hour or something like that. It's not like the Garmin where you can say like, I'm on a rowing machine. Give me some metrics. And it's also like when it's recording, it's not showing you anything on the screen. It's really not invasive. It's not even as much as like, you know, if you have an Apple watch or the Garmin on and you're doing your workout, you might be checking your heart rate throughout the thing. You're not even doing that. This is just recording your workout and you can see the data after.
Jason Heaton I see. I see. Okay. Okay. So it won't help me with my distance. Like if I want to do a seven mile run, I won't be able to like actively check during the run. I'd have to look at, you know, some other app or something on my phone to get that information.
James Stacey Yeah. I think you'd still have to use some sort of a tracker for that. I think this is more about metrics. It's less of it. It's more about metrics, but I would say it's less about fitness tracking, more about if you do an activity like a walk, it will include it in how it kind of maths out your day.
Jason Heaton I see.
James Stacey Okay. And I understand I misused the term maths there, but you know, it's, it's constantly calculating your stress level, how well you slept, what your sort of resilience is, your heart rate variability, your blood ox. It's like constantly met, metering all these things and then giving you some idea of how you're doing. Okay. So sometimes I'll have a lower sleep score. I'll say like, Hey, today might be a good day to take a little break. Maybe, maybe don't do the big workout today. Huh? Yeah. Whereas other days you'll have all the sleep store in the mid eighties, which for me is excellent. I've seen nineties. Apparently they exist, not for me. Yeah. And it'll say, you know, today's a great day to push, to do something new, go do an activity you've been waiting on, maybe try a new thing. Like it gives you these sort of fairly benign sort of recommendations. Yeah. So I don't, it's not going to take the place of a, of a smartwatch where you'd have data right out, like running with an Apple watch or a garment is amazing. Yeah. You have your data right there, you have step cadence on the Garmin. I've done a lot of running with the Garmin stuff, it's awesome. Yeah, yeah. It's a little bit of a different scenario with the O ring. It's a little bit less tuned towards that unit of exercise and rather seeing the exercise, what it did to your heart rate and that sort of thing as part of the whole scope of the day, if that makes sense. Yeah, yeah. The one thing that I will say is startling is having this level of resolution on your hand when you do have a drink. You can have a beer and I can see that beer. I can see it on the little chart. Oh, there it is. That's amazing. That's when it hit my stomach. Wow. Wow. Cause the heart rate goes up and then it stays up and you learn like, like for me, I get about the same result from say two beers in an evening as I do from one. But the third one is a whole different world. We're talking like heart rate does not go down when I go to bed, it just stays up. Whiskey stays up. And so yeah, I would say to keep it simple, I really love the product. I love seeing how certain behaviors reflect on the sort of well being that it's capturing or the perspective of well being that it's capturing. And it's nice to have some data that backs up decisions. So if you make a decision, whether it's let's say you decide to have a drink or two, and then you don't feel that great. You can tell why it also knew that I had a bad cold coming before I did. I thought I was just a little bit congested and it was like your heart rate or your body temperatures up your heart rates a little up. You might want to consider like actually resting for the next couple of days. It's not looking good for you. Amazing. That sort of thing. Yeah. Wow.
Jason Heaton You know, we're, we're kind of getting to the end of our kind of time for this, but I just, I thought it might be interesting to close out by acknowledging the fact that, you know, in our, kind of audience, we have this, this wide range of, of ages, you know, from twenties up to older than me, of course. And I'm, I'm turning 54 in about six weeks. And in a couple of weeks you're turning 37, 38, right?
James Stacey Oh, hold on. Um, must be 38. Oh, okay.
Jason Heaton So, so you're turning 38.
James Stacey I was born in 86. So yeah, 38.
Jason Heaton Yeah. You know, you're getting older when you can't remember the year.
James Stacey It just doesn't matter anymore, man. I've, I have felt 28 for a decade. Yeah. I'm just not is the sad part.
Jason Heaton Yeah. I think I remember we were on a press trip sometime and someone said there's a point at when life at which you just stop progressing mentally. Like you're always, you're always at a certain age mentally, but we're talking about kind of physical fitness on this show. And I guess my point was we have this wide range of ages in our audience and you and I are quite a bit different in age, but I think, what you realize at the different points in your life is the different needs, um, that your body has and, and kind of the different challenges. And I think for someone at my age, um, what I'm dealing with now is this more challenging mobility and flexibility issues, as well as, as you, as you alluded to, uh, muscle mass loss. You know, I've, I've, you know, not only did I lose a fair bit of weight, including muscle mass a couple of years ago, for the first time in my life, I've actually had to consider, weight training, which is something I never was really that interested in or, or keen on or had much experience in, but I'm starting to realize that I kind of need to build that into my workouts. And I think, Oh, definitely looking back at your age, um, late thirties, I think what you're, what you mentioned earlier is you start to realize that that is about the age when the behavior of your youth starts to catch up and things start to change and you start to realize like, Oh, definitely. Um, I'm slowing down. I can't keep the weight off as much. I can't like live and eat and drink the way I did when I was 30. And so it is interesting. I think we represent two, two different points in, in aging in life of our, of our audience. And we have many more along that spectrum in our audience, but it is, um, um, you know, for you and I to present our, our different perspectives at our different ages, I think is, is really interesting.
James Stacey Yeah, and I think the takeaway, and to be clear, Jason, I have some suggestions for the skeletal muscle, but it's actually something I don't think I'm gonna put on record, simply because it will upset some people, especially those who are very deep into the fitness world. If it's something people are really curious on, I guess, drop me an email or whatever. But the thing that it comes down to for me is we are also in two different modes of what we want. Yeah. I'm just trying to undo what I did to myself for the last few years. Sure. That's all. Yeah. Yeah. Once I'm done that, I think I'm gonna head down a road similar to you. I love the idea of finding a big goal. I'm still kicking around the idea of maybe doing the route of Mont Blanc for my 40th, which would be a big hike, might push that to like 45, then the daughters could come, it'd be better. So But another big goal would be nice, whether it's a certain speed of a run or a certain distance on a bike or something, I don't know yet. It'll reveal itself to me. But I think that the thing that feels really good is one, having a space to talk about this. And I'm not saying talk about it like TGN, like for an episode. We can make anything an episode. Lord knows I love to ramble. But having the slack and the folks that came forward, like Tom Place saying that he was essentially looking to undo some of what he did over the last couple years really made me feel like I wasn't trying. I didn't need to just do this quietly on my own. Yeah. Yeah. And and I'm not saying I'm going through some grand struggle on. It's actually quite the opposite. I'm feeling as good as I felt in some time and and I'm really happy, but I do. I do have to shout out you. Like I said, you and Tom and Andrew and and really just the TGN crew in general, because the it doesn't matter if it's fitness or something else, having that space where you can just ask question. And we have 1200 plus people in there. I've never seen anyone slap back on a question that was too novice, too silly, too junior, too civilian. Everybody just answers earnestly, and it's a great place to figure out a new way of doing something. Whether that's a new way of interfacing with your hobby, with watches, or we've got guys in there that are ultra marathoners. So this is why I wanted to be really clear that you're getting data from Jason and I, not from pros. But if you want access to that kind of thing, I highly recommend. I mean, look, here's my biggest sales pitch. It's a little bit less per month to be in the slack than it is to have the aura ring. Not too bad. Not too bad. I really genuinely am in a place currently of feeling very thankful to have you and several other people kind of as part of the circle and, and to feel like just kind of good about kind of the future and feel like I've got things under control. And I find that I'm, like I said, the, the, with the changing the diet and the drinking and a little bit of exercise, the stress levels are way different. And I feel capable of doing more. And I think I've, I've had a lot of kind of like, not guilt isn't the right word, but like, um, just worry that I was at a hundred percent and couldn't find another 10 for TGN when it needed it. Yeah. Yeah. Just with everything else that life has. And I feel like I've found that tan in the last few months. Yeah. And, uh, I'm, I'm excited to just kind of stay the course, see where we land and, uh, and connect, connect with people over it as, as they want. Hopefully people, whether the storm of a 40, 50 minute, you know, episode about kind of our, the last, you know, little while of our fitness journeys and maybe some values in it, maybe some people will think like, these are just a couple of guys, you know, figuring stuff out a little late. Um, which, which may in some cases be true, but you know, you and I have been active for most of our lives, right? It's just, you move into these different phases, right?
Jason Heaton And I guess before we close out, I mean, I'd love to, we'd love to continue this conversation, whether in totally sub stack in the, in the show notes and the comments, um, or definitely on the health and fitness channel on Slack or the episode chat. Once this episode goes up, um, always great to get feedback and tips from other people.
James Stacey Yeah, absolutely. And as a very final statement to this, if this is something that people are keen about, I would be more than happy to figure out a methodology for capturing questions and bringing in an actual expert. We have Sean Lurwell. I don't know that you could be a whole lot more of an expert. I have access to a few other people in the world that would probably be happy to come on and chit chat about this kind of stuff. So if there's some interest in that, if this episode wasn't a complete bore, to some of you, then let me know. It could be an email if you're not in the Slack. I don't think this is something that would have to be behind the paywall. Let's try and make it accessible to a lot of people. So yeah, let us know if this is something that you would like to have the ability to ask a question that's maybe personal to you in either an anonymous or a sort of TGN Q&A sort of methodology, but with an actual expert. Much like we have with watchmakers in the past, we have access to people who are fitness professionals. It'd be cool to have Austin on to talk about that. There's no question that if I pull the rowing machine off of its now semi-permanent vertical position, it's to watch one of his videos. I'm such a fan and I will routinely... He's the only short I watch as well, like on YouTube. If I see that he just put something up, I watch it because I learned something. Just the other day, randomly, I learned why, probably why my calves were hurting on the treadmill. Oh, yeah. Figuring stuff out I didn't even know was wrong. With that, how about a little bit of final notes?
Jason Heaton Yeah, sure. Why don't you go first? I really like yours. I'm excited about it.
James Stacey Yeah, so Sarah and I went to a little town about an hour and a half from where we live called, the town is called Stratford or Stratford on Avon. It's like a Britishy sort of themed town. It's where they do a large like Thespian Festival each year, and we were there and kind of kicking around, and there's a handful of really cool stores, and I do wish I had made a note of what this store was called. I tried to find it on Google Maps before we recorded, but I'll remember at some point and share in the future. But in this store, it was one of these stores that had all sorts of sundries, if you will, maybe backpacks and fanny packs and stationery and and this sort of stuff. And one of the things we saw, we actually... It wasn't strictly for sale or they didn't have a display, but it was holding a bunch of product and we were like, what is that? And it was this big bag made out of a tarp style material, like the laminated tarp. Yeah. It's called the high tide tarp bag, comes in a variety of sizes. We bought the large, which is, I believe, 46 liters. They have a 70 liter. 70 liters, sorry. Wow, yeah. It's a 70 liter. which is eighteen and a half gallons for those of you still counting gallons. And I just I absolutely love this as someone who's constantly moving things in and out of the back of the Jeep, especially go to and from the cottage. We have a collection of these like semi hard tote bags, you know, where they have like a rim. So they hold their shape a little bit. It's not even a bag. It's like a tote. I don't even know what you'd call it necessarily, but we have a few of those and this holds more It's water tight, so in their pitchers, they've got people filling it full of ice and chilling water in it, putting all their fishing gear in it so it can sit on the shore and not get wet. It's just this useful universal product. It's a round bag made of PVC tarpaulin. The brand is called High Tide. I've now gone down the rabbit hole with this brand, which is a fascinating brand to begin with. They do a ton of clothing, they do a ton of stationary pens, calendars, desk items is how I would probably describe it. They've got little tool boxes and hour glasses and key chains and all this sort of stuff, but in the running of everything that they offer are these tarp bags. And Sarah and I saw it and we asked the guy and he's like, Oh, it's this company high tide and they make this thing and I guess I'll sell it. And I was like, Well, I guess we'll buy it and I loved it. It's really cool.
Jason Heaton It looks amazing. Yeah. I, I really think, I mean, there's any number of uses and I'm always, you know what I, I make a lot of use of and then they end up cracking or breaking or, or whatever is like five gallon buckets, but they aren't as accessible and they're, they're rigid and they're just, they're not as, as friendly to kind of store and use and drag around. So this is a, this is super cool. I love it for, for the garden or for the back of the Land Rover or something.
James Stacey Yeah. And I mean, the other thing is it's 46 bucks. I mean like it's not a crazy amount of money. Yeah, because I have to look, I'll report in if the thing falls apart after a year, but even but like with the extent to which we use it and the fact that it's now, if you use one of those fabric bags I was describing and let's say you put some food in it or something and it leaks, then the bag you have to figure out how to wash it so it doesn't smell. Right, right. You don't have any of these problems here. I could put a total mess into the back of this thing, take it home and spray it out with the hose. Yeah. Yeah, and like oftentimes we don't, you know, we're at the cottage. Let's say we're at the cottage at a weird time and we're not gonna make it. We're not gonna be there for garbage, right? I take the garbage home. Oh, sure. Well, now it doesn't have to possibly sit in the back of the jeep and leak into the carpet. Yeah, I can sit in this. Yeah, I love this stuff and the pricing was fair. I think I think we paid maybe 65 Canadian for it and I don't think it'll be the last one that we buy. I just I'm a fan. It's useful. Yeah, yeah, very cool little handles can fold up pretty flat.
Jason Heaton Yeah, I might need to pick up one of these. I like it.
James Stacey Very cool. So that's what I've got. The high tide tarp bag. Your mileage may vary, but I'm pretty keen on it and I dig it. So what have you got for us today, Jason, to finish the show?
Jason Heaton Yeah, mine's another podcast actually. And you know, we typically don't cover kind of current world events and things like that on TGN, but I ran across this on via the BBC sounds app. They have a, you know, live radio stations and music and podcasts, et cetera. And one of them was this podcast called I'm not a monster. And they had two series of it, two seasons, I guess. And the second season is called the Shamima Begum story. And look, this is not a revelation to a lot of people because it's been in the news quite a bit. It goes back to gosh, 2014 when this, uh, young, uh, London woman, girl, uh, 15 years old left England. to join ISIS in Syria, um, kind of without telling anybody, her parents or friends or whatever, other than the two girls she, she left with. Uh, and then she kind of disappeared from sight, um, for a number of years until she surfaced in a, in a camp in 2019 after ISIS was defeated. And this British journalist, Josh Baker, uh, had been following the story for many, many years and put together this extensive 10 episode podcast series. which he travels to Syria and Turkey and digs into how she got there and interviews her and followed her case right up until the present day. In fact, he just posted a kind of a six-minute follow-up episode last week because it popped up in the news again in the UK because the appeals court there upheld a ruling that Shamima Begum could not get UK citizenship Uh, and come back to the UK. So she remains in a camp in Syria. Um, it's, it's a complex story. It's a sad story. It's a fascinating story, but I think what struck me was the quality of journalism and research and presentation and production of this podcast. And, um, look, I'm, I'm not nearly as big of a podcast consumer as you are, James, or a lot of other people, but, um, so I don't listen to a ton, but I was, I was captivated and Gashani and I kind of just binged this. We were, we, just kind of stopped watching TV shows and stuff and just started listening to episodes of this every night. And Josh Baker does a great job and it's won some awards. I think it won like podcast of the year for 2023. So yeah, check it out. We'll put a link in the show notes. It's on, I found it through the BBC sounds app, but I think you can find it on Spotify and Apple and other places. So yeah, check it out.
James Stacey That's awesome. Yeah. Sounds like a very complicated story for sure. I can't imagine. Yeah. Yeah, it is one of those things like that avenue of storytelling, whether it's obviously true crime is one of the biggest podcast topics, maybe that's the world we should have gone into. But to tell these complicated stories that probably have a lot of different perspectives and a lot of complexity in terms of everybody's sort of thinking about what the headline is, I feel like that's one of the real zones for podcasting. So that sounds like a heavy one for sure.
Jason Heaton Yeah. Yeah. I could not recommend it enough. It's a, it's superb. Oh, very cool. On that note. Um, I guess we're, we're at the end of the episode. We've, we've covered quite a bit of ground here and, uh, I, I found it really rewarding. I found it really fun and, and hopefully a lot of other people did as well. So, uh, as we mentioned earlier, please jump into comments in sub stack or on Slack. We'd love to hear your feedback on the topic of this week's episode, but as always, thanks so much for listening. And if you do want to subscribe to The Show Notes or get into the comments for each episode, or consider supporting the show directly, and maybe even grab a new TGN signed NATO, please visit TheGreyNATO.com. Music throughout is Siesta by Jazzar via the Free Music Archive.
James Stacey And we leave you with this quote from William Shakespeare, who said, Our bodies are our gardens, to which our wills are gardeners.