Welcome to the Listening Time Podcast.
I'm Connor from polyglossa.com and you're listening to episode 20 of the Listening Time Podcast.
If this is your first time listening, welcome.
I'm glad you found this podcast.
It should be a useful tool to help you improve your listening skills in English.
The way this podcast works is that I choose one or two topics each episode to talk about, and I talk about them in a normal, natural way, without reading any script.
I don't prepare anything in advance.
I'm not reading anything.
I'm just speaking as the words come to my mind.
So it's natural speech.
However, the one difference is that I speak a little bit more slowly and a little bit more clearly than the average native speaker speaks.
So this podcast is designed to help you eventually reach the level where you can just listen to normal podcasts made for English speakers.
So also remember that you have the transcript available for each episode.
So just go to the details part of the episode and you'll find the link to the transcript there.
And the way I recommend listening to each episode is to listen to each one multiple times.
For example, you can listen to the episode the first time without the transcript and, And you can just listen and try to understand.
And then maybe you can listen to it another time with the transcript to try to understand all those words and phrases.
You missed the first time.
And then, if you want, you can listen one more time without the transcript to see if you can understand all those words and phrases without reading the transcript.
So this should be a good tool and resource for you as you try to practice and improve your listening skills in English.
So today we're going to talk about the topic of healthy lifestyles.
Okay, living a healthy lifestyle.
This is an important topic so it's good to talk about and it should be Good topic for you to listen to while you train your listening skills.
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Okay, let's get started.
Are your ears ready?
You know what time it is.
It's listening time.
Okay, so today we're going to talk about living a healthy lifestyle.
So first of all, let's talk a little bit about food and nutrition, right?
This is one of the pillars of our lifestyle.
And so the word pillar means that it's one of the structural elements.
It's one of the base things, the important things to support the rest.
So our nutrition is a pillar to living a healthy lifestyle.
It's foundational.
It's very important.
So first of all, let's talk about a couple different theories when it comes to nutrition.
This is one area in which many people are in disagreement about, so there isn't a consensus on nutrition.
When I say there isn't a consensus, I'm saying that not everyone agrees.
Not all the experts agree with each other on this point.
So some people promote a diet that is more rich in protein and fat, for example the keto diet or even the carnivore diet.
And other people promote a more vegetarian or vegan type of diet, where you don't eat any meat or maybe any animal products.
So there are many debates about this subject.
Some people always promote keto and carnivore diets and other people always promote their vegan lifestyle.
I don't fall on either end of this spectrum.
I'm kind of in the middle.
I like to eat everything.
I eat a balanced diet, as we call it in English.
I'm definitely not vegetarian or vegan oriented.
I love meat.
I love animal products.
But I'm not the type of person that only wants to eat these products.
I also like vegetables, I like fruit, so I eat a pretty balanced diet.
One important thing to note is that the word diet in English can be used to refer to the type of food that you eat.
It doesn't always mean that you're restricting your food.
Of course, we use the word diet in this way sometimes.
We say, I'm on a diet.
This means that I'm eating some special food or I'm restricting my calories or something like that.
However, if I just say I have a balanced diet or I eat a balanced diet, I'm saying that I just eat balanced food.
I'm just talking about my food in general.
So we can also use the word diet in that way.
So one thing that I really do believe in is eating organic food.
So, no matter what you eat if it's meat vegetables fruit, whatever I believe it's always best to go with the organic option, if you can.
And so the benefits of eating organic food are that you don't get all the harmful chemicals and things like that that the food contains if it's been sprayed with pesticides and things like that.
And organic food is also GMO-free, so it doesn't have any... genetically modified organisms in it.
So non-GMO food is better in my opinion.
So those are some of the benefits of eating organically.
Also the quality of the food usually much better.
The taste is different.
It tastes more real right, if you eat organic food, and of course there are some difficult things about wanting to eat organic food and primarily the accessibility And the other thing that's a little bit tough is paying for this organic food.
When I say the word tough, what I mean is difficult.
So we can say, that test was tough.
In that sentence, I'm saying that that test was difficult.
It wasn't easy.
So the price of organic food is usually higher than the price of non-organic food.
And in some places, it might be much higher.
So this is one of the hard things about trying to eat organic food.
But in my opinion, it's still worth it and I'm willing to pay more money for better quality food.
So now let's talk about food that we should eat in moderation.
When we say in moderation in English, we mean that you don't eat a lot of this food.
You eat it in smaller quantities.
For example, it's good to limit your sugar intake.
So your intake just means how much you consume.
So you shouldn't consume a lot of sugar in your normal diet.
So I'm not saying that sugar is evil and you should never eat it, because I definitely eat sugar but it's important to limit the amount that we eat.
For me, the easiest way to cut down on sugar, when I say cut down on, I mean reduce the amount.
So the easiest way to cut down on sugar for me is is to make sure I'm not drinking sugary drinks.
For me, it's kind of hard to cut down on sugary foods, but drinks are okay for me.
I can just drink water.
I can just drink other healthier drinks and not drink soda or juice or things like that.
So that's one tip I would give you.
If you want to cut down on your sugar, Start with the drinks.
It's usually easier to cut down on those things.
And of course, junk food in general, right?
Junk food in English refers to food that is not really food, right?
It's processed snack food like chips and things like that.
So these junk food products have a lot of things in them that we probably don't want to put in our bodies in large amounts.
So it's good to eat these things in moderation, right?
Just from time to time, but not all the time every day.
So that's something that you can do to help improve your nutrition, cut down on sugar and junk foods.
And of course that means that you can increase the amount of healthy food that you eat.
If you're hungry, instead of eating junk food, Right.
So cutting down on sugar and junk food doesn't mean that you're restricting your calories a ton.
Right.
You can just replace your junk food with some kind of healthy food.
Right.
Okay, so now let's talk a little bit about exercise.
This is another element that's very important when it comes to living a healthy lifestyle.
So, of course, there are many benefits to exercising.
For example, if you're overweight...
Obviously, exercise can help you lose weight and reach a healthier weight.
And losing fat in general, right?
It's not good to have a lot of fat accumulated in our bodies.
This is not healthy.
It can cause all kinds of issues.
So exercising, working out, this will help you reduce the amount of body fat that you have.
The word workout in English can be a verb.
So we usually use it just as a verb like I like to work out or I work out three times a week.
But it can also be a noun if we combine the phrase into one word.
So my workout, for example, that can be just one word.
And in that case, it's a noun.
That workout was very hard.
So you can say exercise or workout.
They're both the same thing.
So another benefit of working out is that you increase your strength, you get stronger, right?
So if you don't do any type of exercise, then your muscles are probably not very strong.
You probably can't lift heavy things or you probably can't do a lot of cardio work for a long time, because you'll get too tired, right?
Cardio just refers to some type of activity or exercise that uses your heart, right?
Where you have to keep in motion, stay in motion for a long time.
That is called cardio in English.
So you can say, I did cardio at the gym today.
So, yeah, one benefit is that your muscles are stronger, your heart is stronger if you exercise.
And then one other exercise or sorry, one other benefit is that if you exercise, it helps your mind.
Right.
It helps you relieve stress.
It helps you just feel better.
It helps your mood in general.
Right.
Usually when I do some type of exercise, it puts me in a better mood.
In English, when we say the word mood, or I'm in a good mood or bad mood, we mean that you feel good or bad emotionally and mentally.
If you're in a good mood, this means that you're happy, right?
If you're in a bad mood, this means that you're mad or sad or upset or something like that.
So exercising can help your mood.
It can help put you in a good mood.
So what are some types of exercise that we can do?
Well, we have running.
This is an exercise that i do sometimes.
I like to run at the park.
I definitely do not like running on treadmills.
The word treadmill refers to the machine that you run on indoors.
I hate running on treadmills, but I like running in nature, at parks or on trails in nature.
For me, this is fun.
It puts me in a good mood, but I'm not very good at running.
I definitely can't run long distances, so I just run a little bit just to keep my mind and my body healthy.
And I only do it a couple times or a few times a week.
So I'm not a real runner.
And another type of exercise is weightlifting.
So if you want to get stronger and you want your muscles to be bigger, you can go to the gym and lift weights.
This means that you use your force to move objects, heavy objects, right?
So lifting weights is a great way to get stronger, because you train your muscles to lift more and more and more weight and your muscles grow and gain more strength.
So there are also types of exercise like CrossFit, which are very dynamic exercises, right?
There's a whole routine and many different movements and many different body parts are involved.
And many people really like this type of exercise because it's a full body exercise, right?
You exercise many different muscles in your body.
And one other exercise that's really good, and this is my favorite one, is walking.
So I love walking.
I do it almost every day.
And I don't walk really long distances, but I walk a little bit each day, or at least I try to.
And this exercise is good because it's easy to do, right?
It doesn't cause injury usually.
Injury means some kind of problem with your body.
If you get injured, that means that you are hurt, right?
You can injure your arm.
You can injure your knees, for example.
So when you walk, it usually doesn't cause injury.
And it's easy to do.
You don't need to buy any equipment or a gym membership or anything like that.
You can just go outside and start walking.
So I really like that aspect of it.
And my favorite thing about walking is the fact that you can enjoy the outdoors.
You.
You can just look around you and notice the things that are around you the nature, the stores, the people.
Wherever you're walking, you can enjoy the scenery and it's kind of fun.
It's not just exercise.
You can look around, you enjoy where you're at and you can walk with other people and talk with them at the same time, because you're not too tired to talk, because walking doesn't take too much strength or energy.
So that's my favorite exercise.
I love walking.
Okay, lastly, let's talk about mental health.
So usually when people think of healthy lifestyles, they think of the food that you eat, they think of the exercise that you do.
But one thing that people often overlook is mental health.
So the word overlook is refers to the action of not considering something.
You don't really think of something.
You forget about it.
You overlook it.
So people often overlook the area of mental health when they think about living a healthy lifestyle.
So what are some of the things that you should do to stay healthy mentally?
Well, one thing is to reduce your stress level.
Obviously, it's impossible to completely eliminate stress from our lives, right?
We have stressful lives as adults.
We have stressful jobs.
We have stress in our family life.
We have stress in many areas of life.
So we can't avoid stress completely, but we can help relieve stress.
So you let the stress go, right?
You don't allow it to stay with you.
So if you can relieve stress during the day, this will help your mind to be healthier.
It will help you to be in a better mood and it will help your overall health, right?
So one way that you can relieve stress is to exercise.
When you work out, when you run, when you walk, it helps lower your stress level.
Another way that some people lower their stress level is to read.
Maybe reading books helps you forget about all the stressful things in your life.
That's another way of reducing your stress.
Also, interacting with the people that you love.
That's a great way to relieve stress, right?
Talking to your family, your friends, hanging out with them, doing activities with them.
This is a great way to relieve stress.
So another thing that we can do to make sure we are healthy mentally is to do mental exercises.
For example, language learning is maybe the best one.
Thank you.
Thank you.
So it's something that I think everyone should try.
Even if you're not a huge fan of foreign languages, learning one foreign language in your life can help your brain stay healthier and more active when you get older.
So another thing you can do is learn a musical instrument.
This is another exercise for your brain.
It's something that can help train your mind.
And then just doing puzzles in general.
A puzzle is some type of activity where you have to put pieces together to create the whole product to solve the puzzle.
So we call these things puzzles.
And one other thing you can do for your mental health is to get good sleep.
If you don't sleep well at night, if you sleep just a few hours each night or you have a very irregular sleep pattern, This can also cause you to be more stressed and less focused and can cause other health problems.
So maintaining a good sleep schedule and trying to get to bed earlier this can help your overall health and help you live a healthier lifestyle.
So we'll stop there for today.
I hope this topic was interesting for you.
And hopefully all of you are staying healthy.
So, of course, remember that you can access the transcript for this episode in the details part of the episode.
And make sure to give this episode or this podcast a like, a rating, a review, if you can on Apple Podcasts.
And of course, share this podcast with anyone else who might find it useful.
And make sure you sign up for our $1 listening practice seminars at polyglossa.com.
Well, thank you for listening to this episode.
And I hope you'll come back for episode 21 of the Listening Time podcast.
