5 ‘Healthy’ Habits That Might Be Wasting Your Time (Here’s What to Do Instead)

Are you doing all the “right” things—but not seeing results?

In this solo episode, I break down 5 popular health and wellness habits that might be holding you back. From fasted cardio to overhydration, we’ll unpack what the science really says—and what to do instead if you want more energy, strength, and longevity.

Whether you’re in your 40s, 50s, or beyond, this is for high-achievers who want to cut through the wellness noise and focus on what actually improves your healthspan.

🔎 Topics covered:

• Should you really be drinking a gallon of water a day?
• Do detox teas do anything for your health?
• Why meditation might backfire if your nervous system is dysregulated
• The truth about fasted cardio
• Why most supplements are a distraction from what actually matters

Ready to get expert eyes on your health journey?

Book a Power Hour consult or explore my coaching options at www.healthspanpillars.com.

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Transcript

Five healthy habits that are completely wasting your time. We're going to talk about fasted cardio. I talk about detox teas, even talk about drinking water. And these are very common. See them online all the time. And certainly some of these are people trying to sell you something that is going to make magic happen and improve your health overall. But they're ultimately a waste of time. Well, first let's think about

a vehicle. Think about your car. Maybe if you're like me, you're going to think you're going to go back a while. It's been a while. Thankfully since I've had a car that kind of spits and sputters and had problems with it. imagine that you're, you have a vehicle and you're driving around town and it kind of sounds, it feels like it's going to stall because a little bit of a sputter to it. Maybe it even has a hard time getting started sometimes. So you have some options. One thing you could do with this car of yours that's spitting and sputtering, you could

go to the car wash, you could get it detailed. You could get it vacuumed out. You could, you know, get the wheels all shiny and windex the windows and make it look, you know, presentable perhaps. And that's not bad, but it also is not addressing the main goal of improving the performance of the car. Something is still wrong fundamentally with your vehicle. It may look shiny. Maybe there's no mud on it. Maybe there's no dead bugs in the windshield.

or the bumper, but it's still going to stall at a stoplight. There's still a problem with it. And this is the same concept with these health habits that I'm going to talk about today. These health habits that are sold sometimes as a ways to improve your lifespan or improve your health overall. But it's, there's a little bit more to it that we need to talk about. Speaking of healthspan, this is Healthspan Digest. My name is Aaron Shaw. am a strength and conditioning specialist, a healthspan coach.

occupational therapist and I've been in the industry for going on 30 years now. And I love being a forever student of health and exercise and wellness and longevity. And in this podcast, I talk about the five pillars of healthspan, healthspan being the length of time within our lifespan that we are healthy, active, vibrant, not just alive, living a long period of time, but being well during this.

lifespan that we have and making sure that we're out engaging in life, doing the things that we want to be able to do, having the capacity, the durability, the resilience, the cardiovascular health and so on to be able to do the things we really want to be able to do. The five pillars that I love talking about include exercise, nutrition, sleep, emotional wellbeing, and preventative care. And my typical clients are middle-aged, have bumps and bruises, certainly maybe

Occasionally they feel like that car that is sort of spitting and sputtering, like my dare I say, my old Pontiac Fiero that I had back when I was in college that had problems and has problems and trying to figure out, I work with my clients on ways to try to figure out how to navigate these challenges. And part of that is kind of clearing out the noise because there's so much information. The beauty of this age of technology and the internet is that there's so much information out there.

A lot of it is absolute garbage, not scientifically based. Some of it's actually pretty good, but even the stuff that's good, there's so much information and so many things that it gets to be overwhelming. So we start to wonder, how am I supposed to do these 50 different things to improve my health? Because we all want to be healthier. We all want to feel good. We all want to feel strong. The first thing that we have to do, which we're going to cover today, are actions that are sold as healthy habits that are ultimately

not worth your time investing in. So here we go. The first thing, a healthy habit that is drilled into us is making sure that we drink a ton of water. Drink a ton of water, drink a gallon of water a day. And specifically drinking it without any sort of electrolytes. I'm talking just like straight up water. And I will say this as somebody who I drink water during the day. In fact, I got a bottle of water right next to me right now.

But here's the catch with this. Here's the catch with this healthy habit. Excess or excessive water intake without electrolytes can actually cause a condition called hyponatremia, which is really kind of disrupts your fluid balance in your body. It's even more so significant for those of us that are active. We're active, we break a sweat. And this hyponatremia is a condition where the sodium levels in our blood become

abnormally low. So basically, by drinking nothing but a ton of water, we dilute our sodium levels. Again, one of many ways that this can become a problem is through excess fluid intake, consuming far too much water, just straight up plain water. I will say that there are medications that can lead to this condition as well. So it's not just excess water intake,

It's something that is people do with the best of intentions, but let me give you something that you can do instead. Instead of just waking up and doing what I do and filling up this, my hydro flask here with a liter of water or whatever it is, add in some elect electrolytes. So every single morning, my morning starts with this. I coffee's brewing. I'm a coffee guy, so I will absolutely have a couple of cups, a couple of cups of coffee every single morning.

but I will also take my hydro flask and I will put in a packet of electrolytes in it and I will sip that through the morning as well. by let's say nine o'clock in the morning, I've had a water bottle full of electrolytes along with my coffee. So it's giving me hydration and it's making sure that my sodium levels are where they need to be. All these electrolytes where they need to be.

So I don't have to worry about hyponatremia, but also it's going to really help me in my performance throughout the day. It's going to help me feel really good. And it's going to give me the electrolytes I need for performance. So whether that's performance, you know, doing stuff around the house and even more importantly, making sure that I have the performance, the capacity, the ability to exercise. Cause we know that exercise will extend your health, healthspan and your lifespan.

So that's number one, the first habit we need to kind of like finesse a little bit. So I am certainly not anti-water, but during the day, drink some water, but one of those doses of water, in an electrolyte packet. And there are a billion different kinds of electrolytes out there. I've done other episodes on electrolytes and the value of electrolytes, but you may need to explore a little bit and see which ones kind of fit your palette. Well, some of them are too sweet. Some of them are too salty, but find one that works for you.

See if you can consume a packet a day in with your water. Number two, let's talk about the second healthy habit that may be wasting your time. These are detox teas. Detox is such a very real mixed emotions even about the word detox, but

truly detox teas or some people think of like lemon water as a detox, but they do not do any true quote. I'm going to air quote here, detox to the body. mean the liver and kidney, these organs handle detoxification efficiently when supported by good sleep and nutrition. So again, this is where these, concept of a detox, certainly not bad. I think it sounds good.

You know, toxification is not good. Detoxification sounds better, but we need to remember that we actually have organs in our body that do this. This is their job. Our liver and our kidneys. This is their job to do. And barring any sort of disease of these organs, if we want to so-called detox, some of the best things we can do is have good, high quality sleep and good, high quality nutrition. If you were doing that,

and you're hydrating, you are probably going to be detoxed. And I'm assuming you're not in like some sort of like toxic environment and consuming toxic chemicals or heavy metals or whatever they are. But our body is designed and does and constantly is detoxifying, constantly filtering out things in the environment. So we get the purest, the best that we can possibly take what our body can utilize. And regarding detoxes, and I'm sure if you Google detox,

you're going to get a ton of teas and supplements and all sorts of stuff. There have been no studies on the long-term effects of detoxification programs. Zero, not one. There have been no studies on the long-term effects of detoxification programs. None.

So chew on that, if you will, that while you're buying, whatever these detox things are, there has been no evidence, no true well conducted studies over reasonably long periods of time that show any sort of effectiveness of this so-called detox. Now, sometimes people will use detox teas or detox drinks, if you will, as a way to lose weight. And there have been studies with that.

I was reading a couple earlier, they were like recent as 2015, 2017 or something like that. And some of these will have an initial weight loss effect. These detoxes, these detox teas or detox diets, if you will. And that is for one reason and one reason only. And that is because there is a decrease in calories consumed. So that is the so-called air quote detox. The detox is I want to detox and lose some weight.

And they'll buy, people will buy into a program and it'll ask detox teas and detox snacks or whatever they're, whatever's in these things. And ultimately they can step on a scale in a few weeks and say, the detox is working because I'm losing weight. Well, the punch line is you're just consuming fewer calories has nothing to do with toxification or detoxification. please tread very lightly for going to be having any sort of like detox drinks. And if you are your morning detox tea, if you must.

Adjust your expectations accordingly because there's no evidence that these work at all.

Healthy habit number three, that may be a waste of your time is trying to meditate when you're not really ready for it. When your nervous system is what we may call dysregulated. And that means when you are in a super high stress or high trauma situation, either literally in that moment or in your mind is just this crazy tornado thunderstorm of emotions and you're like,

you know, a nine out of 10 or a 10 on a 10, that is not the best time perhaps to be meditating. High arousal states may take, the traditional stillness based, meditation practice may make it actually ineffective or even counterproductive. Instead, if you find yourself in a 10 out of 10,

overwhelmed the, maybe the first thing to go to is not, let me go, you know, try to sit cross legged and, you know, erase my brain and go into a deep meditative state instead, because that's probably not realistic. And instead think about a movement based practice, something that may better support the nervous system in the moment that you're in. And at least initially, so this could be going for a walk.

This could be going for a hike. It could be sometimes as simply as stepping outdoors. Maybe it's breath work. So there's this, another option to try here instead of finding you can't get into these meditative states or meditation as a work for you, despite how amazing it is sold as consider doing what's called box breathing. And there's a bunch of videos online about doing this, but basically it is a nice way. It's a very approachable way to

kind of reduce the noise of our nervous system to kind of help regulate our nervous system, our anxiety, our emotions, our stress, And this box breathing is really a pattern of breathing that is inhaling for four seconds, holding your breath for four seconds, exhaling for four seconds, holding that for four seconds and repeating that. think of it as like a square.

So it's four by four by four by four. And the cool thing with this is that you don't need to go to any fancy place to do it. You can do it sitting in the car in a parking lot. You can do it in the office. can do it anywhere. It can be done anywhere, anytime, no equipment needed. You don't need an app for it, just breathing. And sometimes, you know, meditation is for as great as it is. It's a, it's a skill and it takes time and practice and some people are just not ready for it.

either in the moment or just haven't had it. You don't have enough support. So without the right support, it can actually maybe even intensify some symptoms of anxiety and panic. So we want to tread lightly and be thoughtful if you're to try or if you have tried meditation and you feel like it's just too far, it's too, too big a step for you. Then start with some box breathing. Start with going for a walk.

Cut yourself some slack. Don't feel like a failure if you can't meditate. And if the time comes when you really want to take it to the next level, maybe getting some guidance. Help you along that journey. We'll give you the effects. But straight out of the box, if your goal is to calm down your nervous system and, you know, kind of quiet the mind a little bit, don't feel like meditating is not successful or doesn't work if you're not ready for it. So try something else first.

Let's move on to number four, the fourth out of the five healthy habits that I'm going to say, maybe wasting your time. Number four is doing fasted cardio every morning. I've talked to several people about this who feel like this is going to be the, this is going to be the thing that kind of gets them through. They're going to lose weight. They're going to feel healthier and fitter. And ultimately most people in their mind, the first and foremost thing is losing weight, but

It's more complicated than that. the chronic, fasted cardio can actually increase our cortisol, kind of a stress hormone, and actually impair metabolic adaptations that we want. we're, you know, people who do fasted cardio, we're trying to change our physiology in a way. But sometimes when trying to push through that, it can actually be pretty stressful for people. And there's without getting into the

super deep science of it when when we are exercising. The concept with fasted cardio is that since you don't have so we're assuming you just wake up in the morning like, I'm gonna go start exercising. I'm gonna do my cardio before I eat. You your body needs fuel. And so fat is fuel carbohydrates are fuel. And people often do fasted cardio thinking I'm going to burn through some fat because I'm

hungry. I haven't eaten in a while, but I'm to try to consume some of this extra fuel that I have stored. And so I'm going to go for my run or go for my bike ride without eating. We have to realize that the first go-to source for fuel is glucose, is sugar. And so you will not have quite the zip pep, if you will, doing cardio. If you are doing it fasted. And I say this

Generally speaking, and I'm sure somebody is going to shoot me an email, which is fine. says, have always run marathons, fasted, and that's what I do every day. There is going to be somebody out there that does that. But generally speaking, we want to make sure like the purpose of fasted cardio and if cardio, if the goal is to improve your cardiovascular health, maybe improve your mental health as a stress outlet.

We want to fuel for success. And really what I want us to do for those of us that are those, those of you that are thinking about doing fasted cardio is let's zoom out a little bit here. Let's look at the big picture. Cause that's really what matters most. The big picture is if you have health goals and performance goals and weight goals, it's not going to begin and end with fasted cardio. There's much, much more to the mosaic.

of your nutrition, of your physical performance and the timing of your nutrition and your macronutrients and your calorie and taking all this sort of stuff. So if your goal is weight loss, it's much more important to focus on the general concept of a calorie deficit over the course of a day, multiple days, weeks, months. So you can and will lose weight

by having a calorie deficit, which means burning more calories than you're actually consuming, you will lose weight whether or not you exercise and do cardio fasted or not. There's not nearly as much super high value to that 45 minute or one hour or whatever your cardio session is. There's not so much crazy intense value return on investment.

for those moments compared to the other 23 and a half hours during the day. Like get the, keep the big picture in mind and you will certainly get more. Not only will you get a better return on the investment, but you may actually hate exercising a little bit less. And with that, I will say that I know there are people who just because of GI issues feel actually feel much better doing some sort of cardio, even some sort of strength training.

fasted and that's fine. If that's, your GI system, that's what works for you. Great. I'm also saying if fasted cardio works for you and you feel great and you've been doing it for a long time, then by all means, knock yourself out, keep doing it. If it works for you, awesome. But there is concerned that your workouts will not be as good, meaning you will not have enough fuel in your system to actually get a good workout in.

meaning you may actually be better off having a little bit of something to eat and then working out and your net gain will actually be better than if you fasted.

And there's actually been studies that show people who have, and again, these are in studies. So, you know, trying to control as many variables as possible, but some people have less motivation to train when they're fasted, partly because they have less energy. And so we know what it's like to be hungry or hangry as we say, and they ultimately enjoy exercise less because I mean, if exercise, if exercising consistently is already kind of challenging for you, as it is for many of us adding in one more variable of

yeah, by the way, I'm also hungry and yeah, by the way, I'm also low energy, but I got to do this thing. We're almost adding more friction and more barriers to what's ultimately a beautiful thing to be doing cardio. Great. Do it. If you want to live a longer life, do cardio. If you want to have more physical capacity, absolutely do cardio, but do it well and keeping the big picture in mind. We also want to make sure you don't feel dizzy or lightheaded. again,

low energy and losing motivation where you can't go really hard and get the most bang for the buck. It's not worth it.

Moving on to number five, this is the fifth healthy habit that ultimately is a waste of your time. And I want to talk about over supplementing supplements, a bazillion dollar industry, because we as human beings want the shortcut. Give me the pill for it. I can, eat whatever I want and still be healthy. If I have this pill,

do I have to get up and exercise or I have to sweat or have to put in all this effort and be super sore and achy? Can I do isn't there just a pill for that? I mean, now, now it's just like kind of a joke, right? Isn't there a pill for that? Isn't there a pill for that? Well, supplements, you know, they really kind of they're trying to bypass the basics, the fundamentals. Supplements should not replace quality sleep. Supplements cannot replace movement, cannot replace quality nutrition.

cannot replace strength training, cardiovascular training in the very specific life extending benefits that these activities do. Supplements cannot do that. Absolutely cannot do that. And supplements can't compensate for lousy lifestyle choices. There are long-term health consequences that we feel based on our actions and a supplement isn't going to erase the board.

You know, so sort of like, know, if you're a chain smoker and drink a 12 pack of beer a day, there isn't a multivitamin in the world that's going to like, erase that. If you eat, you know, two meals a day, fast food, highly processed food, super high in sugar, and you don't do any physical activity at all. And you find some sort of combination of a detox tea and a few handful of supplements. And you think that's going to like fix everything.

We're crazy. That's not the way it works. Supplements cannot overcome our poor choices.

And the word supplement is meant to be, I always think of it as like, you know, the cherry on top, you know, the icing on the cake, if you will. And yes, cake is okay to eat and icing is okay to eat as well. That's a separate, I'll say that for a separate episode, but.

When you have a well-balanced diet, you're eating new, nutritious, high quality foods and you are, you know, well hydrated and you're well slept and you do move your body every day. And some days you do it in a vigorous sort of manner, both for cardio health and for resistance training. And your environment is surrounded by people who are loving and caring and supportive. And you get.

You know, checkups with your primary care doctor on the regular. That's the fundamentals that's going to get you 99.9 % of the way to your ultimate unique potential, your unique potential as a, in return in regards to lifespan and healthspan. And then, and only then if you've mastered everything else, you're like, yes, there is there any possible thing I can do beyond that?

then look into supplements. So supplements have its place. But I, and I said 99.9%, but I'll even give it some benefit of the doubt, say even 98 % or 95%, but 95 % of our health is based on the decisions that we make moment to moment, day in, day out. And the supplements along with other, all sorts of crazy, bizarre things that I've seen online that claimed to have

will help you live forever. Most of those things are either a nonsense or B if they do have an impact, they're just at the tiniest, tiniest, very, very end that can, that can perhaps maybe at best maybe make a difference. And unfortunately, most people focus on that little tiny, you know, 10th of a percent impact because again, we're human beings.

Because it's quick, it's easy. I'll spend 20 bucks, get a supplement and pop it in my mouth every morning and I think I'm to be healthier. No, you're not. Not until you deal with the other 98 % of the life that you're living and the decisions you're making and you get those dialed and nobody and myself included and I feel like I try to take my own medicine, if you will, no pun intended, but I try consistently day in, day out because they talk about this all day long.

whether it's my podcast or my coaching clients, there's always room for improvement in the fundamentals, in the basics, in getting things dialed. So please don't get distracted by a handful of supplements and think that it's actually going to help with your health and your performance and how you feel. You're going to get way more return on the investment of cleaning up the other pillars of healthspan, exercise, nutrition, sleep, emotional wellbeing, and getting regular checkups with your doc.

If you do those five things, you're not even gonna need to worry about supplements.

Five healthy habits that are wasting your time. These are, again, drinking gallons of water with no electrolytes, starting your day with some sort of detox tea or detox tincture, meditating when your nervous system is dysregulated and just not ready for it, doing fasted cardio every morning, and over supplementing instead of mastering the basics. These are five things.

that I see a ton of online and I have conversations with clients. I want to do consults with people that people with the best of intentions. And if you're listening to this and certainly if you're listening to it still at this moment right now, you have the best of intentions. Don't get distracted by the nonsense. Get dialed on the main points. And if there's one thing you can do today to extend your healthspan.

is to review these five perhaps well-intentioned, but misguided behaviors and decisions. If you're doing any one of these five that I just mentioned, cut one of them out or modify in some sort of way. And instead focus on an exercise routine or focus on improving your sleep hygiene or focus on the nutrition, focus on your fueling. How do you feel with, you know,

when you eat and what you eat, how is that impacting your mental clarity, your mood, your stress management, your energy levels? Focus on those things instead. You're get way more return on the investment.

So there you have it, five healthy habits that are completely wasting your time. I could have gone and probably done 10 or 15 more of these. Yes, I'm opinionated, but science is what guides us and has to guide us. And when the day comes when there's been long-term studies on some of these things that show that there is actually positive results, I will be the first to say, hey, there's a thing out there. The research is great. I want to live a longer, healthy life and I'm going to do it. But the ones I just listed, it's not the case.

If you have any other things, if any other things that are maybe you've picked up habits that you think are maybe a healthspan hack or a lifespan hack that you think really work for you, I would love to hear what they are. I'm sincerely curious about what people are doing and what your impact is. And certainly if I've listed off something that in your case, you feel like actually works for you, I would love to hear about that as well. Like I'm wide open to being a

proven wrong or having, you know, there are, are, we're all unique human beings. So certainly there could be an exception to the rule. That's perfectly fine. I actually find that super interesting. So please reach out. You can, if you watch this on YouTube, you can leave a comment. can email me directly from my podcast platform. You can check out my website, healthspanpillars.com. That's all my information on that. can contact me through that. And just a little plug for some of the coaching programs that I have on that. have free coaching programs. have super low cost coaching programs.

coaching programs. do consults for people who want just to have a deep dive conversation into their unique aches and pains, injuries, habits, nutrition, so on and so forth. I put together comprehensive plans that I deliver to people with consults. And of course I have a handful of very long-term, what I call my VIP coaching clients that I work with and I'm at their disposal at all times through my smartphone app.

You are not alone in your journey for healthspan and lifespan. I'm here to support you. If you have questions, reach out and until then make healthy decisions and have a great day.