From Screens to Green: Raising Active Kids (And healthy parents) - SE3EP19 - Josh Wood

Today, we're joined by Josh Wood, an educator, online fitness coach, and public speaker who brings a unique perspective to the table, blending his passion for fitness, wilderness exploration, and personal development. Born and raised in the heartland of America, and having spent considerable time in places as diverse as Melbourne and British Columbia, Josh has a rich tapestry of experiences that inform his approach to fitness and life. Now calling Tasmania home, Josh embodies the spirit of adventure, whether guiding through wilderness or coaching in the fitness world.

Josh is also the founder of "Strong for Life" an online fitness coaching organisation.

Today, we're eager to explore how parents can harness the principles of health, fitness, and the great outdoors to enrich their family lives in this digital era.

Connect with Josh Wood

 ⁠https://strongforlife.online/

Sponsored by Skill Samurai - Coding, Maths and STEM Academy | | www.skillsamurai.com.au

AI-generated transcript:

Introduction

Jamie (00:00.586)

Hello parents and welcome to Parenting in the Digital Age, the podcast where we delve into the unique challenges and opportunities of raising children in today's fast paced tech -driven world. Each episode features conversations with experts and thought leaders who provide actionable guidance and practical insights for navigating life as modern parents. Today we're joined by Josh Wood, an educator, online fitness coach and public speaker, to bring his unique perspective to the table blending his passion for fitness, wilderness exploration and personal development.

Born and raised in the heart of America, having spent considerable time in places such as Melbourne and British Columbia, Josh has a rich tapestry of experiences that inform his approach to fitness and life. Now calling Tasmania home, Josh embodies the spirit of adventure, whether guiding through wilderness or coaching in fitness. Josh is also the founder of Strong For Life, an online fitness organization

Jamie (00:54.742)

Today we're eager to explore how parents can harness the principles of health, fitness, nutrition and the great outdoors to enrich their family lives in this digital era.

Interview

Jamie (00:00.898)

Josh, welcome to the show. Thanks for joining us. Before we jump into things, why don't you tell us a little bit about what you do and what you're passionate about.

Coach Josh (00:09.077)

Ooh, sure thing. So I, God, what do I do? Professionally, I run an online fitness coaching business. I manage a few coaches and we have a nutritionist and we work with people all over the planet. I'm helping them with their health and fitness. And really our target demographic is busy parents and professionals. People who just don't have the time and energy to try and figure everything out on their own. So we figured out for them.

Outside of that, I partake in Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu. I stay pretty active when I can. Bit of traditional archery here and there, and I'm really fond of playing Irish music.

Jamie (00:54.862)

Okay, that's interesting. And is that on an instrument? What sort of instruments do you play with Irish music? Ah, fantastic. Well, that's a first for the show. Thank you, Josh. I appreciate you sharing. Now, tell me something. How does a young man, you grew up in Minnesota and Nebraska. How does a young man from Minnesota and Nebraska end up living in Tasmania? Now, for our listeners who are overseas, Tasmania is an island state of Australia. So like we're kind of neighbors, Josh. How did you end up here?

Coach Josh (00:58.225)

Yeah. Flute.

Coach Josh (01:05.309)

Yeah. Yep.

Coach Josh (01:24.149)

Oh boy. Well, I left the US when I was 18. That was back in 2007. And I went backpacking. And I went over to the UK and I was over there about six months and I met this nice Australian girl in a hostel. And so that year I moved to Australia in 2008 when I was 19 years old. And she's my wife now. We've got two kids.

Yeah, we just we checked a few places out in Australia. A handful of years ago, we went and lived in Canada for a couple of years. Got a two year visa, lived over there on Vancouver Island. And after living on Vancouver Island, like we were living in Melbourne before that for about a decade. And I was like, just there's no more city life for us. We got to go where the mountains meet the sea. And Tassie was it. We're like, OK, that's the place to go. We're going to go there. We're going to settle down, start a family.

That's what we did.

Jamie (02:25.562)

Excellent. How are your kids? Can I ask?

Coach Josh (02:28.462)

Uh, my oldest son is three and a half and my youngest is four months.

Jamie (02:35.018)

Okay, nice young family. And for those who have never been, Tasmania is a tremendous place filled with history from our first nations people. And of course our later British history, but just the most breathtaking scenery anyone's ever seen. So if you haven't been there, get down there and visit Josh. Now tell me a bit about this online coaching program, because most of us who have a traditional view of the world think, well, okay, if I have a personal trainer, I go to a gym and they sort of beat me and...

you know, work me into fitness. Well, how does online coaching even work?

Coach Josh (03:06.781)

Yep. Well, it's just remote beating of clients, you know, just now it's, um, so I worked in gyms for, uh, I've been training people since 2011. Uh, so I started working in gyms for the first time and basically, uh, I kept running into this issue where most people can afford to see a personal trainer about once a week. And these days it's around a hundred bucks, a hundred bucks. You get an hour, you can't do anything in an hour.

That's going to change your life. You can't account for the other 167 hours of the week. You can do 30 to 40 minutes of exercise. And if you're lucky, that PT is going to be taking a look at your food journals or your nutrition, giving you some things to do outside of that. But it's kept running into this issue. It's like, I can only work with so many people one-on-one. You run out of hours very quickly. And you can only do so much with someone. You're like, man, no, we need to be looking at your sleep.

You know, you're not sleeping well. That's why you're having these issues. Oh man, no, we gotta be taking a look at your food more regularly or, you know, it's your stress levels. Let's start putting together some stress management strategies. Couldn't do that an hour a week. And so moving to an app based system, because everything's an app these days. Uh, I've created these systems where I can, myself and my coaches that work under me, like we can be in your pocket, like a live in coach every day of the week through technology.

And it ends up working out, you know, about the price of a one hour PT session here in Hobart, a little bit cheaper than what I was charging, but still it's approximately where it's at. And now we can manage people's whole lifestyles, start looking at their food more consistently, start putting together plans for managing stress, give them their workouts whenever they need them with instructional videos and coaching videos and much more back and forth and sort of daily touch points to make sure people are staying on track. And it just

moved up the accountability level to a thousand.

Jamie (05:07.762)

Yeah, yeah, that's interesting because, you know, living that abundant life or that healthy lifestyle is more than just going to the gym once a week or even five times a week. There's a lot more to it. And, you know, you mentioned sleep and stress and work and routine. There are a few things, but I think there are many parents listening that may be new to fitness, you know, maybe have, you know, gotten caught in the rat race. They, you know, studies, careers, children, maybe.

Well, not maybe, many parents put their kids in life first and they think they have no time for fitness. So, you know, for parents that are new to this sort of fitness journey, what are some ways that they can maybe start, you know, or start to integrate physical activity into their daily routine with kids?

Coach Josh (05:55.621)

Yeah, that's, I mean, that's always a hard position to be in. And I mean, I'm back in the trenches with a four month old. I understand time, time issues and sleep deprivation or whole family does. But, you know, the most important thing you can do. Is something so many people think they have to do everything and then they get overwhelmed and they don't do anything. Just walk, just go for a walk every day. I start a lot of people out with 30 minutes of walking a day, but they have to be accountable for it.

which means they have to be consistent. And a lot of people are like, I don't have 30 minutes. It's like, great, you got 10 minutes. You know what? Take 10 minutes after every meal and go for a walk. That's 30 minutes. Across the week, that's over three hours. You know, like if I said we need to walk three hours a week, most people go, oh, what? I don't have time for that. It's like, well, you got 10 minutes after each meal. I can guarantee it. Okay, well, there's what, three and a half hours? A week? Easy peasy. And the thing is just find the smallest,

most impactful thing you can do and just nail that every single day. 10 minutes of walking after a meal is game changing. And I, and I call it working, working with TNT. It's all about these tiny noticeable things, these itty bitty things. And you just stack them up day after day. These tiny things you had 10 minutes here, 10 minutes here, all of a sudden you're almost four hours of extra exercise a week that you wouldn't have done. You know, and it's, it's TNT that moves mountains. It's just those little things day after day.

Jamie (07:24.534)

Yeah, I love it. I love James Cleary's atomic habits and finding those triggers and then building those habits on top of those. Like I love that notion of, you know, every time you eat, go for a walk for 10 minutes. It's a simple starting point. And, you know, for those parents that, and when we make excuses, I make excuses, you know, we all do it. So that's a great piece of advice. You are, you're still a young parent. I'm an older parent. I've got four kids and two grandkids.

Coach Josh (07:42.81)

We all do.

Jamie (07:52.414)

And maybe this is only new, but you must be thinking about the balance of screen time and outdoor activities in your household. So how do you currently balance, or how are you going to balance the screen time slash outdoor activities in your household?

Coach Josh (07:57.951)

Oh boy. Yeah.

Coach Josh (08:06.825)

Yeah, it's interesting. So outdoor activities is easy for us. My wife runs a nature play business. She runs nature play groups, bush play groups for young preschool age kids and runs like postpartum mothers groups with babies. It's all nature based outside because she's an educator by trade. So my kids are outside most of the time. My firstborn, he'd be outside.

20 hours a week every week since he was born kind of thing. But we had to do a trip about this last Christmas with the one before to the US. Went back for Christmas so that my family could meet my kids, meet their grandkids. And of course, a 24 hours of travel and a single 14 hour flight is a tricky thing to do with a two-year-old. And so that's when we started screen time. He didn't see us.

screen really until he was at least two. And we said, Oh, this is this is the time we're going to introduce it. And so we got to play with the little screen on the back of the airplane seat and we had an old phone that we downloaded some I remember what the shows are some random stuff and some little things you could watch that were you know, educational but age appropriate. And then it's been part of his life ever since. Now, the big thing for us

and how we manage screen time is, it's a tool. You know, it's not something that is required. It's not something that is necessarily on everyday thing, but it's a useful thing to help manage a child who cannot regulate themselves. Like my older son, Theo, like he's wild. Like he just goes, goes until he can't.

even stand up straight and he's running in the walls and bonking his head on stuff like, dude, you need to sit down. He's like, I can't like, I gotta build. I gotta play with these imaginary airplanes or whatever it is. Like it's always, it's just go, he can't regulate himself. Uh, and it was kind of like, let's just sit down. We're going to have some quiet time. Watch, uh, he's really into octonauts right now, which is from ABC kids. And it's, it's fun. It's educational. There are 11 minute episodes. You know, it's one of those things like, okay.

Coach Josh (10:29.905)

We got a baby. I work full time. My wife needs to manage the baby sometimes, needs to do other things. So we use it as a tool. It's a thing that doesn't, we never do it in the morning, we never do it in the evenings. There's a set time in the afternoon that if we're gonna do TV and we're home, that's when you have to choose what you're gonna watch. That's the only thing that you get to choose. If it's a longer show, that's the only one. If it's a shorter, like 11 minute episodes, we go, well, how many do we have time for today and what were we gonna do?

around it and if we've already been outside doing all the fun stuff, we don't really see a big issue with it. It's a period of rest and time for parents to sort of figure out what to do next. Take care of the baby, put the baby down for a nap, clean the kitchen, sort out some work stuff, whatever it is. So we see it as a tool. We have one TV in the house that's in the living space. We don't do handheld or mobile devices. I know some

Some people will say use like an iPad or something, but from a posture point of view, like being hunched over that little screen, well, that's not good. So he's on the couch, you know, he's about four meters away from a TV on the wall. That's slightly up so that you could sit there and he's not stooped over. And so we're trying to manage it because you can't not have screens in this day and age, like it's going to be part of life at some point. And so the thing that we're trying to instill is that it's not a given.

It's not an always. It's a treat. It's an enjoyable thing, but it's not something that you have free rein of. So structure.

Jamie (12:08.546)

Yeah, that's some great wisdom, some great advice there, Josh. And sometimes the cards are definitely stacked against our kids. And as we try as parents to regulate screen time and balance, provide balance or model balancing for our kids as well. Sometimes these apps and shows even, these pieces of technology and software and gaming are all designed to attract their focus and retain their focus for the most.

extended periods. That's how they incentivize these apps, right? So it can be quite hard for us. One of the things we do in our own business, the Skill Samurai, is we teach kids how to program, how to code. And part of me as a parent coming into this business was about, you know, how do we help kids develop a healthy relationship with technology? How do we help kids regulate themselves with technology by fostering a love? You said it, right? Screens are all around us. Technology is, it's imperative. Like,

Let's teach kids what's behind it. Let's teach them to innovate it. Let's teach kids the leadership resilience aspect instead of being this consumption or this passive bystander or consumer of technology. And that's really helped many, many parents in our communities. One of the other things we like to focus on is resilience. So I wanna ask you about resilience for a second. You'll have your own experience. You've probably seen this in Jiu-Jitsu and other avenues in your career, but building resilience is critical for kids.

But how can they foster or how can parents build resilience through physical activities or outdoor activities? Got any tricks or hacks for us there?

Coach Josh (13:44.089)

Oh man, just make sure that those things happen. The kids need to have a level of freedom and they need to learn risk management from the get-go. You need to let them hurt themselves playing out in nature, get scratches, get dirt in their butt, bonk their head on stuff. Like they have to experience that to learn risk management. And resilience comes through

having lots of small incidences that you can then brush off. And that's actually that's the terminology we use. You know, if you fall and scrape your leg or bump your head or scratch yourself on a stick, just brush it off and get something now. Now I'll be like, oh, geez, buddy, are you OK? And he's like, yeah, I'm fine. I'll just brush it off. And it stands up and he brushed dust off his little knees and goes about business. But because from the get go, he's been out there, he's been rolling around in the dirt and crawling. He was climbing.

stuff before he could walk and learning that risk management. You have to put them in situations where there is a level of danger that is acceptable to you and of course safe enough that they're not going to be permanently injured, but they have to get the scrapes and the bumps and the bruises and the dirt in the face and they have to eat the mud and things to learn how to navigate life. And it teaches a lot of like, again, risk management, like understanding what risks are worthwhile and what aren't.

but through that process of learning that, you're building resiliency because you have to survive all these little micro events that lead to the scrapes and the scratches and the bruises and eating things that are gross and all that stuff.

Jamie (15:25.734)

Yeah, yeah, it's important to let our kids fall even from a young age and so many times and you know now with our young granddaughter we babysit her every Thursday and when I'm not working I love to take her to the park and you see so many yeah I'm not the

bunching young parents up into a single basket, but running to protect or running to stop another kid from hitting their kid or stopping, you know, so their kid doesn't fall. And I get that you want to protect your kid. I've got four of my own, but sometimes you gotta let them get hit and teach them how to deal with that. You know, let them fall and teach them how to brush it off. So some great advice, wise advice there. Now in your own podcast, in your own speaking events, you talk about

Coach Josh (15:52.989)

Yeah.

Yeah.

Coach Josh (16:05.834)

That's it.

Jamie (16:11.958)

the wilderness being moments away from your doorstep. So for city slickers like us, how can urban dwelling families create a sense of adventure and appreciation for nature within our own environment? Or do we just have to get in the car and drive there?

Coach Josh (16:27.301)

You don't. God, there's so many things you can do. I mean, if you're living in a city, especially a city in Australia, every major city has wonderful parks. Wonderful parks. Take your kids just in yourself into places that have lots of greenery and foliage. I know they're structured, and they're within the city still. But just being in that space and allowing free play

just explore weird textures and things that grow and sticks and rocks. Like everything's so sterile these days. You know, all the playgrounds are covered in rubber and bright colored paint. My, my son Theo, he just, because he grew up being out in the yard, like it doesn't necessarily have to be out in the bush, just be under a tree, play under a tree. But he, we take him to parks when he was younger in playgrounds and he'd run around and check out all the equipment. And then after a while he'd go.

I need a bush walk and you'll go and like sit in the shrubs, like the decorative grasses and stuff. I just sit in there and be like, I just, I just need a bush walk. And like, let's go like take himself out and sit in the scrubs. Not nowadays. He mostly just goes over and pees on them. But like, it's still like parks, man. They have so much. Available exploration, like get outside the playgrounds. And if you got a yard, just throw your kids out in the yard and let them make.

Jamie (17:43.754)

Yeah.

Coach Josh (17:58.609)

Make adventures, you know, play with sticks. They become everything. Play with rocks. They become everything. Get in the dirt. Like, it doesn't matter. Like, I've lived in big cities. I've lived in Melbourne, and I've been to a lot of big cities. But there's always a place where you can have some adventure. You can find some unstructured space somewhere. You can find a green lot that hasn't been sold yet, and it's overgrown with grasses and weeds. Like, you don't ever have to go that far. Not here in Australia, not most places I've been in the US or Canada either.

You know, you don't have to go out bush for a week. You don't have to go camping overnight. Just start spending time in whatever green spaces you can find. And then just build up from there.

Jamie (18:42.958)

I love it and you should be pretty proud there, Josh. It's seeing your son there able to self-regulate and be able to say, I need a bush walk. Like how cool is that at such a young age? Ha.

Coach Josh (18:51.665)

Yeah, it's so funny. Like he's been doing that for so long and he'll just like be done with the playground. Be like, yeah, I'm just gonna go like pick up sticks in this little decorative shrub area. And he's more interested in playgrounds now because he can do more on them because he's a little bit bigger and he can climb and jump and use all the contraptions because he's very into mechanics. He likes things that move, but he still will be like, all right, I'm gonna go climb that tree now.

Jamie (19:22.411)

Yeah. So apart from your amazing talents with the flute playing Irish music, is it called a flute? What is that instrument called? Just called a flute.

Coach Josh (19:29.553)

Yeah, that's a flute. Yeah, I play the penny whistle as well, but this is a flute. Yeah.

Jamie (19:36.194)

Okay, so apart from those amazing talents, you're a fan of Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu. And as much as I work with kids in a classroom, I'm a big fan of getting kids involved in team and sports and physical activity. So tell me how something like why should parents consider something like martial arts or Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu for their kids? Why is so important?

Coach Josh (20:00.413)

Yeah, I've been involved in combat sports basically my entire life since I was 17. I've been involved with kickboxing. I've competed in boxing and jujitsu, like always in that stuff. Worked with some of the kids classes and there's just.

Especially for young boys having that space where they just get to be wild and intense with, with some structure, but also in like, it's a padded room or you're wearing protective gear. Like you don't get to do that out in the real world. And, uh, not only is that a great space for unleashing those energies, it teaches both respect and consequences. Like nothing else.

Like you learn very quickly, like if you do certain things, someone's going to punch you in the face. Someone is going to throw you to the ground. Someone is going to roll you in a ball, depending on the sport that you're in. Those very real consequences in a pretty safe environment teach that resilience, teach you how to navigate certain situations, but give you confidence. This is that.

A concept I talk about a lot is contextualizing your life. You know, if you grow up in a sport that involves physical contact and it evolves, you know, being hit, kicked, uh, wrestling, rolling, grappling, whatever it is, like anything full contact, everything else becomes pretty easy and simple. You're not going to be seen there worried about homework.

being the worst thing in your life, because no one's gonna hit you in the face. You know, like you're not gonna be stressed out about little things that give people so much anxiety in life. Oh geez, I need to make sure I get this thing done or the world's gonna end. It's like, well, it's not. Also, no one's hitting you in the head. Also, no one's trying to choke you. Also, no one's trying to wrestle you to the ground. Like things could be worse, things could be tougher. And if you undertake difficult things voluntarily, all the other stuff you do becomes easier.

Coach Josh (22:13.405)

And that's a lesson that I think is really valuable for children, but also that, that resilience and then understanding that not only can you handle certain situations, you can survive so much more than you think about, and that builds confidence too.

Jamie (22:30.09)

Yeah, and it teaches kids how to lose. You know, it teaches kids how to lose. One of the biggest things we see with young kids coming into our classrooms, they don't know how to lose gracefully. They don't know how to handle defeat. You know, they're really challenged emotionally by the concept, largely because many of the parents don't allow them to experience competitive environments.

Coach Josh (22:43.709)

Yeah.

Jamie (22:56.958)

And I think it's extremely important that kids can go into a competitive and like jujitsu when you're rolling at the end of the end of the night or at the end of the class, you know, you might roll five times, you're going to lose three times, you know, in quick succession and that it's okay to lose and that we grow from losing and, um, you know, some people don't like that word, but life is about losing, you know, you're going to come second at every, almost everything you do as a human, you're coming second. Right. And.

Coach Josh (23:23.889)

If you're lucky.

Jamie (23:25.106)

if you're lucky. So I think it's one of the best things about things like jujitsu in particular. It teaches kids how to lose and how to be really, really great sport and, you know, as you said, build resilience, right?

Coach Josh (23:38.089)

Yeah, absolutely.

Jamie (23:38.514)

So let's talk for a second about nutrition. I know that's something you're passionate about. And you got young parents like yourself trying to navigate nutrition. What do I feed? How do I feed? When do I feed? How do you deal with, I know it's a terribly broad question, take it where you wanna take it. How do you approach nutrition in your family?

Coach Josh (23:57.865)

Oh boy. We keep things pretty simple. You know, we're not real strict on you must eat this thing that we've made or you must eat a certain thing. It's more like, well, when it comes to meals, we make a thing. This is what's on the menu tonight. We always have sort of like a safe food, which is usually like yogurt and fruit. But everything is anchored around a protein.

You have to eat your protein before you get other things. My oldest son Theo, like he's just, he's got a sweet tooth. He's got a sweet tooth. And so he'll be like, can I have toast with jam and honey and maple syrup? I'm like, no, that's not food. That's just candy. No, you can have some toast and jam if you've eaten a protein with it. Or like last night he wanted to have blueberries, frozen blueberries. We're like, okay, cool.

Jamie (24:44.128)

I'm out.

Coach Josh (24:55.761)

We can have frozen blueberries for dinner, but you have to have a protein with it. And so it's usually like he's big on yogurt. It was like, okay, so would you like to have that with yogurt or would you like that on the side, um, with, with some cheese, you know, we still got, I mean, this morning he woke up, he's like, I want, I want non bread and buttered chicken and buttered chicken and it's like, okay, well we have leftover buttered chickens. Like you can have some non bread if you eat the buttered chicken too. Um, it's always comes down to you gotta eat your protein and then everything else is accessory and if you're a three and a half year old who never stops running, I'm not at all worried about.

how much you're eating, just worry about the balance of it. Because we got to make sure that you're getting what you need for your body and brain to develop, which is good fats and proteins. And then everything else just becomes fuel for that endless engine. So everything is just really focused around making sure you get those building blocks. You got to have a good protein with each meal. You can have, and everything else is pretty much whole foods. So I mean, whether you want to have some sourdough toast with that or...

Fruits or whatever. It's like he's got some He's got some leeway But you know if we have a meal that he hasn't had before he's like I don't like that It's like well, you haven't tried that if you don't like it. That's fine. You don't have to eat this We'll have you can have yogurt and fruit you can have leftovers from last night, but you have to try it and then tell me So we just base everything like anchor all the meals with protein give them some options with that. I'm really boring with my own food

I just sort of eat the same stuff all the time, except for the occasional dinners, just because it's easy for me. I'm not too fussed, but the rest of the family likes a little bit more pizzazz. So we just have some options. We have some safe foods. We eat a lot of yogurt, a lot of yogurt, cottage cheese. And then Theo's really big on chicken and fish. So, you know, we used to keep some fish fingers in the freezer.

We usually have some sort of chicken dish during the week and there's leftovers. And so it's like, you have to try this. We don't like it. Fine. We have something else you can have meals and everything has to be based around protein. You can't just eat toast with honey and maple syrup and jam, but you can have some of that as long as you've eaten the essentials first and just anchoring everything like that keeps things pretty well balanced.

Jamie (27:14.882)

Great family advice there, Josh. As we start to wrap up and wind up the podcast for today, there's one question we like to ask all of our guests. It's a bit of a fun question, but if Coach Josh were to go back to your younger, let's say 12 year old self, what's one piece of advice you'd give to your younger self?

Coach Josh (27:34.805)

12 year old me eat more and go to the gym. 100%. I was just scrawny my whole life. I didn't put on any meaningful weight until like my mid 20s. And it was so much work. I just I never took me too long to figure out the eating side of stuff and the exercise side of stuff just especially going into high school early puberty. It would have been like man just

just eat as much as you can and start learning to pick up heavy things. It'll make your life so much easier.

Jamie (28:10.591)

Yeah. Great advice, Josh. Thank you for joining us on the show. Before we wrap up, how can our listeners reach out with you, connect with your online training? How do we find you in the internet?

Coach Josh (28:20.166)

Oh, yep.

Yeah, you can find me on Instagram, Coach Josh Wood, or through my website, strong for life dot online. If you Google coach Josh Tasmania or strong for life, online coaching, you'll find it.

Jamie (28:35.842)

Coach Josh, thanks for joining us today. Appreciate the advice, wisdom and generosity. Hope we cross paths again soon. Cheers and bye for now.

Coach Josh (28:43.082)

Thanks, Jamie.