Activity 1.1: Where Are You On Your Health Journey Right Now? Self- Assessment and Analysis

Before we start your journey, it's important to assess your current status by checking in with your current food intake, exercise program, and daily routine. Complete the following questionnaire so you can choose the best plan of action to reach your goals right now.

Name: Date:
Gender: Age: DOB:
Job title: Work hours per day (average):
Livingarrangement:
Health issues:
Height: Weight: BMI (body mass index): Body fat
percentage:

Waist girth (measure in line with your belly button, using a measuring tape):

Hip girth (measure in line with the widest part of your butt, using a measuring tape):

Waist-to-hip ratio (waist girth divided by hip girth):

Goal: fat loss / improve energy / gain muscle (Circle one only.)

Need help with deciding which step of the journey you're currently on? Think of it as a step-by-step process. If you currently have any excess fat mass you'd like to shift, start with fat loss. If your body composition (defined here as muscle-to-fat ratio) is healthy and where you want it to be, your focus should be to improve energy. And if you're a string bean, struggling to put on weight/muscle or you train at a high volume due to being an athlete, you're probably looking to gain muscle as your main focus right now. Note: eating this way should improve energy regardless after a few weeks but if you have another focus right now, make that the main focus as your energy will improve as a by-product.

Goal weight circumference, and/or body fat percentage?

If you're not sure, use the guidance in the analysis section to help you with setting realistic and health-related goals. We encourage you to focus less on aesthetics (what you looks like) and more on your health (how you feel and your health markers).

Do you currently prepare/cook any meals at home and take them to work/out with you? Yes / No

Do you have any known food allergies/ intolerances? Yes / No

If yes, explain:

Do you eat regular meals throughout the day? Yes / No

Have you made any changes to more healthful choices in the last month? Yes / No

Are you ready to make change to commit to your health? Yes / No

How to analyse your answers

If your job is sedentary, are you taking regular standing breaks to walk around the office and get some fresh air?

If you work more than eight hours a day, are you taking regular breaks to eat balanced nutritious meals and drink plenty of water?

Do you have access to a fully functioning kitchen within your living arrangements? And are you in complete control of what you eat? In other words, do you cook the food or is someone cooking for you? If someone is cooking for you, is he or she open to cooking something different?

Health issues may require you to work more closely with an allied health professional, such as a dietitian, nutritionist, naturopath, or functional medicine doctor.

BMI (body mass index)

Don't use BMI as the be-all and end-all. It's best to use this along with other health measures and markers because it doesn't take into consideration your body composition (again that is, your muscle-to-fat ratio). To calculate your BMI, take your total body weight in kilograms (for example, 65 kg), divided by your height in metres squared (for example, 1.63 × 1.63). So for this example, BMI = 65 / (1.63 × 1.63) = 65 / 2.66 = 24.4.

The healthy range for BMI is considered to be between 20 and 25, with anything less than 20 considered underweight and anything greater than 25 being into the overweight/ obese realm. Now, my opinion is that BMI cannot be taken as a stand-alone measure of health because, during the course of my time working in the health and fitness industry, I have seen healthy people with a BMI greater than 25 due to the high level of muscle they have. This means that BMI should not be the only measure used. BMI used in conjunction with waist and hip circumference measurements are essential in determining whether you're in the healthy range or not. Please see the next few sections for more information on how to assess these circumferences and use them to calculate your waist-to-hip ratio.

Body fat percentage

This is the percentage of fat mass you have compared to your total body weight. Body fat percentage is a very useful measure of how your body composition changes beneath the skin when you make alterations to your diet, lifestyle, and environment. Seeing your body fat percentage decrease and your muscle mass increase is a great way to know that your new health program is moving you in the right direction. The gold standards for determination of body fat percentage are a DEXA (dual energy X-ray absorptiometry) scan or a BIA (bio-impedance analysis) scan, both of which provide fairly accurate readings. However, like all measurements concerning the human body, they can still be affected by water / hydration level, time of day, salt concentration, sleep, stress, and whether you've eaten a higher fat meal. So it's important to understand but not be fixated on the numbers. How you feel is super important. And if you are making better choices the majority of the time, you are likely on the right track.

Eating and living for optimal health is a long-term change, not a short-term fix. So don't expect to do a crash diet for four weeks and see massive changes in your body composition at the end. We need to take all factors on board and make positive change in all areas, not just with food but also with mindset, sleep, breathing, movement, outside time and hydration. Health is a consistency game, and we need both physical and mental health to really thrive.

We're in this for the long haul.

The ranges for female body fat percentage are:

Essential fat 10%–13%
Very lean 14%–20%
Lean 21%–25%
Normal 26%–31%
Overweight 32%–39%
Obese 40% and over

The ranges for male body fat percentage are:

Essential fat 2%–5%
Very lean 6%–13%
Lean 14%–17%
Normal 18%–22%
Overweight 23%–29%
Obese 30% and over

As you can see, there is a vast difference between male and female ranges. This has a lot to do with optimising health. If body fat is too low for a female, it affects our ability to function at our best due to changes in hormone balance, brain function, mood, menstrual cycle, and so on.

Waist circumference

For a male, a healthy waist is 94 cm or less. For a female, it's 80 cm or less. Having a waist circumference higher than these numbers with respect to your gender may increase your risk of metabolic diseases.

Waist-to-hip ratio: Waist circumference / hip circumference

A ratio of less than 0.9 for guys and less than 0.8 for women is ideal. This is calculated by dividing your waist circumference with your hip circumference.

Your goal

If your goal is fat loss, follow the guidelines for creating a fat loss (FL) meal plan. For improved energy and performance use improved energy (IE) meal plan guidelines. And for putting on some size, use gain muscle (GM) meal plan guidelines in the meal planning section when you are calculating your daily intake.

If you don't currently cook or prepare your own food, you may need to carve time in your day or week for this to happen. Perhaps sit down with your family to figure out a schedule where everyone takes meal preparation in turns or everybody helps out. If your life is too busy at the moment, it's time to look at your priorities and add food preparation close to the top of the list. In order to function at your best, you have to put your health first. If you let this drop to the bottom of the list (or off the list completely), your health will suffer and you may get sick, with quality of life being decreased. It's unlikely you will be thriving or working at your optimal performance. If not now, when? Don't put your health on the backburner, you get to choose how and if you take positive steps forward today! I believe in you, now believe in yourself and you'll be surprised at what you can achieve. Give yourself permission to succeed.

Check in with how you're spending your time. An hour spent on social media might be better spent on food planning and preparation. If it's more down to working around the family schedule, commit to doing meal prep early on a Sunday morning whilst the rest of the family is sleeping so you can get some uninterrupted prep time. It's actually really nice "you" time — put on some music or listen to a podcast, then chop up and cook the veggies so they're ready for the week ahead, whilst you throw some meat in the slow cooker!

If you have known allergies or intolerances, do not eat these foods! Ever! If you know a food causes you discomfort, whether it's gut discomfort, sinus issues, rashes, gas, snoring, lethargy (tiredness), brain fog, or just a general feeling of "bleurgh," that food does not allow you to be the most healthful version of yourself and may have detrimental effects on your long-term health. For example, eating ice cream when you know you are lactose intolerant will damage the lining of your gut, stopping you from being able to absorb nutrients from your food properly. Over many years, this abuse may lead to bowel cancer or other gut issues. Listen to your body and be aware of signs and symptoms to discover which foods allow you to function at your absolute best and which should be avoided because they lead you further from your goals and further from feeling like an 11 out of 10 on your energy scale (1 being low energy, 10 being super high)!

Ideally, you should be eating at least two to three times a day, and perhaps even up to five or six times. This will be dependent on your schedule and what suits you as an individual, but we do encourage most people to start with three meals and two snacks spread evenly throughout the day so that you can find your new equilibrium, and adjusting after the first four to six weeks if needed.

If you have already started to make some changes, that is amazing. It means you are in a great headspace to start Living The Chief Life and tackling your health and well-being. You have taken action!

If you are ready to commit to making changes to your health, fantastic. If not, remember that mindset is part of your health, so we can start working on this area of your health too. Shifting mindset and getting you on your own side might be the first step to starting this journey for you. Without you backing yourself, it's going to be a much harder process to want to make these changes or even be able to stay focused on why you are doing it in the first place. There's more about this in chapter nine, "The Right Focus," which addresses mindset. For now, consider taking some time to reflect by writing in a journal; attempt to ascertain some of the things that might be blocking you from allowing yourself to prioritise your health. You have to want this.

The Basics: When, What, and How Much

I like to keep things simple. It's much better to focus on core principles and philosophies, rather than on a set of strict rules that you must follow, such as a meal plan exactly as it's written to the letter. This is unrealistic and unsustainable. What we encourage is using the following basic ideas to help guide you as to how to live The Chief Life in order to feel and function at your best.

Being 100 per cent on track does not mean following a meal plan. It means living by a code. The rule of three is that code: Eat all three macronutrients (defined as a nutrient needed by the body in larger amounts) every three to five hours, in close to a third of each macronutrient. This chapter explains this rule a bit further.

When, what, and how much are key pieces to think about when you are eating for optimal health, well-being and improved quality of life.

When

Eating every three to five hours is the goal. But your daily routine will determine when you can slot your meals and snacks in. Make it work with your current schedule so it is easier to stick to. This is a good starting point to allow your body to get used to eating regularly, keeping your hormones balanced and your body fuelled correctly. Once you have followed this for between four to six weeks, you can start to tweak it based on preferences and circadian rhythms. (Check out The Chief Life podcast episodes 40 and 75 with Dr. Michael Breus, the sleep doctor of America for more info on sleep cycles, chronotypes, and the best time of day to start eating based on your chronotype).

For example, if you wake up at 5:00 a.m., your eating schedule might look something like this:

Breakfast – 5:30 a.m.
Snack – 8:30 a.m.
Lunch – 12:30 p.m.
Snack – 3:30 p.m.
Dinner – 7:30 p.m.

Aim to have a snack or breakfast to start your day when you feel ready to eat and then every three to five hours throughout the day.

If you train first thing in the morning, you can either train on an empty stomach (preferable if your goal is fat loss) or try having a small snack before training and breakfast after training (better for improving energy balance and gaining muscle). Some people prefer to fast and eat later, around mid-morning or even lunchtime. This is fine and is personal preference (as well as chronotype dependent), but you'll still need to prioritise getting your daily energy intake of food in, even if you're consuming it during a smaller window.

Write your schedule below with meal or snack name and time:

What

The type or quality of food we eat is important, not only for getting the best nutrients for our body but to give us the best fuel and combination of macronutrients (macros). The macronutrients we need every time we eat are protein, carbohydrate, and fat, which should be eaten as a complete puzzle at every meal and snack. In other words, we need a portion of protein, a portion of carbohydrate, and a portion of fat every time we eat. If we don't, our energy levels won't remain constant due to our hormones being out of balance.

Protein foods

Proteins include any animal foods — meat, fish and shellfish, poultry and eggs, and dairy (be aware that dairy may also be a carbohydrate/protein combination food, more on dairy later) — and the vegetarian / plant-based protein options like soy, tofu, tempeh, hemp, nutritional yeast, buckwheat, black rice, spirulina, legumes, and beans. Aim for organic and whole foods as much as possible for best quality and health outcomes.

Carbohydrate foods

Carbohydrates are anything that grows in the ground or on a tree. This includes all fruit and water-based non-starchy vegetables and tubers / root vegetables, as well as less processed naturally gluten free grain options like rice, quinoa, buckwheat. (It also includes all the man-made processed stuff that we're going to choose to steer away from for a plethora of reasons, including their high sugar content, ability to cause chronic inflammation in the body, and highly addictive nature with no nutritive benefits. Think bread, pasta, cereals, condiments, and confectionary and baked goods — essentially, anything with added sugar, E-numbers, and ingredients your great-grandparents wouldn't recognise.)

Fat foods

This group is a mix of fruit and nutlike food items, including but not limited to avocados; olives; coconut (any form apart from coconut water, as this counts as a carbohydrate); oils, preferably olive or coconut for cooking, as seed oils are high in pro-inflammatory omega-6; nuts and seeds; and other oils – like avocado or macadamia – to use as dressings after cooking/plating.

How much

This will be different for everyone. It is based on your gender, size, health conditions / current health status, job, and exercise level, as well as your current goal (fat loss, energy balance, or muscle gain). A great place to start is a chief-approved plate as shown in the image that follows.

A chief-approved plate with all three macronutrients (chicken mango avocado salsa). Start making your own by including a palm-size protein, filling your plate with vegetables, and adding a spoon or two of starchy foods with a sprinkle of good fats:

[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]

Now make some notes about the changes that need to be made to your current plate to get it looking a bit more like the chief-approved plate from the photo with the chicken mango avocado salsa. Do you need less or more protein, less processed carbs and more plant based carbs, more good fats or less of the unfavourable fats?

Beliefs

Where does your current belief system around food come from? Often we learn these behaviours as kids (from school or our families) or from research we might have done later in life. However, have you ever stopped to question where your thoughts and feelings around what is good for us and what is not so good actually come from? Maybe it's time to analyse these beliefs and even start to challenge some of them A good friend of mine, Ryan Drake, brought this to my attention as he was proofreading the first draft of this book, and it made a lot of sense to me Now, when I think about the way I eat at this point in my life, I know my decisions are moulded from the education, research, and study I have done since graduating with my nutrition degree and working within the industry for many years If I think back to how I ate as a child, teenager and even university student, my habits have changed drastically for the better, and I am a healthier, happier human being because of it.