Looking for Motivation to Exercise? Active Grandparenting is your new BFF

Quick heads up before we dive in. Enrollment for the Flipping 50: The Stronger Way is open all month long, and you can still save $100 on annual membership. That's a total savings of $379 compared to paying monthly. Inside, you'll find 12-week strength training programs, plus dozens of yoga, Pilates, mobility, balance, stability, core, corrective exercise, agility, power, and recovery all designed specifically for women in midlife and beyond, all evidence-based and waiting for you no matter what life is throwing at you in this moment. This isn't just about longevity for someday later. It's about feeling stronger, moving better, and having more energy today. The link is waiting for you in the show notes. I'd love to welcome you inside. If I say the word active grandparenting, what do you think of? I think immediately if I were to close my eyes and think about that, I think about sitting cross-legged on the floor and playing and maybe not cross-legged, but legs up, throwing the ball back and forth. I think about being in the swimming pool and I don't mean in the zero-entry wading part. I mean in the deep end teaching. Dean, at this point, how to swim. What is it for you? Well, we are going to unpack that big time here. We're also going to talk about your culinary skills, so don't go away and don't run, really, if you think you don't have any. We'll turn you around on that. You're in perimenopause, menopause, or postmenopause, And you're not slowing down. You're just getting started. But the old rules don't apply anymore. The workouts that worked before, they're working against you now. The advice you've been given, incomplete at best. I'm Debra Atkinson, and I'm the founder of Flipping 50, the pioneer in fitness for women in midlife. For more than 40 years, I've been in the trenches with women just like you. And for the last 12, right here on this podcast, and, and the founder of Flipping 50: The Stronger Way app and membership. Welcome to Flipping 50: The Stronger Way, where science meets strength, where you'll find the tools, research, and real talk to build the body and the life you want in your second half. Each week, you'll get evidence-based exercise and nutrition strategies, conversations with leading experts, and honest answers to the questions your doctor didn't get answers to in medical school and doesn't have time to answer in an appointment. This is your show. Let's get stronger. So here's the truth about this episode. I wish I had thought of it first, but I didn't. So as soon as I stumbled acron, Kristen Cofield's social media content, I knew I had to share it with you because I selfishly wanted to meet her. She's done something brilliant for possibly a part of the 80% of us collectively who are not exercising as consistently or finding those health habits as important as other things in our life. If you are not a grandparent, don't have the possibility of becoming one, stay with me anyway. And here's why. This episode has two functions. One is the Active Grandparenting movement, but the other is probably the business building, the running a business and how that fits into your lifestyle if you're a woman over 50 or over 60 or closer to 70, as my guest is. And my hope is that you are seeing a video clip of this episode. So if you happen to be a regular, you're simply downloading this on your phone and going for a walk. First of all, I love you for doing that, but I also would love for you to come over to my timeline or hers and get a good look at her, stalk her, because she's worth it. And the Pardon my French, but this shit works, and she's proof, and I think you're gonna want to see it. So, because if you are a grandparent, one thing is for sure: you now have a different motivation. Your sons or your daughters may have been your whole world at one point, but move over, someone better share with them that there's a new king or queen in the palace. Am I right or am I right? The funny memes about all all the money and the favorite status going to the grandchildren. They're no joke, really. The change in behavior when they want a toy or a treat compared to your parenting response, right? It's crazy. There's a whole lot less, "Because I said so," and a whole lot more, "What do you want, sweetheart?" Right? Just from my research, of course, these are my findings. So finding your why, has always been the way that I coach to help someone with commitment to exercise get to that point where it's not about motivation. But because it's not that and it's not willpower— and I mean, I loved being a mom and I loved parenting and I loved being married, but it takes both, takes commitment, right? It's not always easy every day or everything that you do. It 5:30 in the morning getting somebody to basketball practice in the middle of winter when it's pitch o'dark hundred and you'd really rather be in your jammies. So motivation is so fleeting. Commitment is constant, and it's the one thing that helps you be consistent. Consistency matters most. No one is motivated every day, and it's a red flag if you hear somebody say otherwise. Now Off that tangent, let's jump into this episode and learn about active grandparent Ting and over 50 women committed to a business idea that has the potential to change our relationship with exercise and/or with nutrition. Maybe if you are listening, it's you that we're changing. My guest today is Kristin Cofield. She's the visionary behind The Culinary Cure and Active Grandparenting. She's empowering a new generation of grandparents and active agers to seize what she describes as the limitless potential of their most vibrant years. An advocate for owning your longevity and wellness, Kristin teaches how small strategic daily habits start with high hydration hold the key to longer, stronger, and more energized life. She's the author of How Healthy People Eat: An Eater's Guide to Healthy Habits and creator of the 21-Day Active Grandparenting Wellness Reset. Kristen shares her expertise across top media platforms, including ABC 7's Good Morning Washington, Fox 5's Good Day DC. Through her work, she inspires others to cultivate Vitality, resilience, and joy, proving that the best years aren't behind us, they are right now. You're gonna love this one. Stay tuned, buckle up, tie your shoes, let's go. Kristin Caufield, thank you so much for being here.

Well, I am thrilled to be here, and I'm looking forward to a really interesting conversation today.

Well, as am I. So I'm fangirling over here, everybody. So this is actually how she landed here, just And just true to form, she landed in my timeline somehow on Instagram and I thought, this is brilliant. I wish I would have thought of it and I didn't. So she's here to talk a little bit about it. So your background kind of precedes itself. We talked a little bit in the quote unquote green room about your background, but that was one of my biggest questions. Was, was active grandparenting, we'll get into the definition of that and how you stumbled across this is kind of my umbrella, I'm gonna call it this. But I wanted to know, have you been doing this before? Tell us a little bit about your background in wellness coaching and as a chef.

Yeah, I kind of fell backwards into active grandparenting because my background is culinary. I'm a women's culinary wellness coach. And in my 50s, I went through a series of life— real life challenges that left me feeling as though I couldn't be the only woman who was experiencing these simultaneous joys of perimenopause, menopause, becoming an empty nester, struggling with some financial realities, dealing with aging parents, and then being diagnosed with cancer myself. So that all happened. Yeah, it was a devastating decade. And during that time, I now know I was probably clinically depressed. When I look at my struggles, I'd wake up every day and my first thought was, how the heck am I gonna get through this day? And then I'd get into bed at night and I couldn't sleep. I am a thyroid cancer survivor. So anyone out there who has struggled with thyroid knows thyroid affects everything. So when you're going through perimenopause and menopause and you have some stressful life situations, it is literally a perfect storm. And doctors will tell you, oh, maybe you need a beta blocker or, you know, a sleeping pill or something like that. So in my 50s, after I discovered the power of hydration, and I am the queen of morning lemon water, every single one of my wellness programs starts with getting the practice of hydration right, because most people drink water. They don't understand that hydration is actually a practice that everybody needs to be doing if they want to make any other health changes. You've got to start with hydration. All of those things led me to create The Culinary Cure as a roadmap for women who were experiencing any of those things. The Culinary Cure has always been my culinary place where my recipes— there's over 200 recipes on the website. They're all very healthy. But when I became a grandparent, 4 years ago, I posted a video on Instagram, and I thought my Instagram was doing great. I had 25,000 followers, and I had a very engaged audience. And I posted this video of me holding my grandchild and sitting on the floor, and then I stood up while holding said grandchild without using my hands. And I hashtagged #ActiveGrandparenting, and I also said, if you're a grandparent, you need to be able to show up physically for this. This job of grandparenting is not sitting on the couch watching your grandkids. It is a high-contact sport with small people, and you need to be prepared for it. Well, that post went viral. 1.6 million views.

Wow.

Thousands of grandparents showing up in my comments saying, hey, I want this. This is how I want to show up for my family, for my grandkids. And the fascinating thing to me, having been a women's wellness coach for decades at that point, really almost 20 years, was that The, the information has always been out there for people. Information's not the problem. Access is not the problem. The problem is always motivation. That deep, I'm not going to stop, I'm going to make this happen motivation. And grandchildren are the motivation.

They change the game. Yeah, but I would say this. So I love that you've said that. I would say that our clients probably call it motivation, but would you agree it's actually not motivation because that wanes and waxes? It's commitment. Our willingness to commit.

Yeah, well, it motivates us to be willing to commit, right? And it is this thing where, especially for women, because so much of how we're wired is doing for others, being all things to all people, our children, our grandchildren, our parents, our relatives, our community. And this just falls right in there. It's in the sweet spot of you're doing for others by taking care of yourself. And one of the unspoken truths about becoming a grandparent is First of all, the physically active grandparents who can show up capable get more time with their grandkids. The parents have to know that you can keep their children and yourself safe as a grandparent because it is very physical. You might have to get a stroller out of a car. You might have to put a child in a car seat that's located in the third row of a minivan.

Right. Although, I mean, are you not like, I want to go back and do a mulligan because like the strollers today and the car seats today, I am like, you guys have it so easy.

Are you kidding me? It's easy. It's so much more complicated because there's so much more information. There's so much more technology. You can't be afraid of technology. You've got to be open to learning new things. This is why it's the ultimate wellness hack, because you're, you're doing all the things. Yeah. That help you live younger, longer, and better. We encourage people to be active agers, to take responsibility for your aging, to biohack your little daily habits because they add up to your resilient wellness and what it looks like. I mean, who wants to ask for help getting up and down off the toilet? Feel it. No one. Exactly.

Not putting our hand up for that one. Okay, so what is your definition of active aging?

Um, active aging is— I'm 67, and for me, active aging looks like a couple of things. It's your mindset that you can, if you are open to it and if you are willing to change some habits, you can change the way your aging happens. You know, dial down inflammation, stay well hydrated. And again, I always talk about hydration. It's no joke. If you're underhydrated for an extended period of time, guess what? Your bones are more brittle. Your muscles look like beef jerky instead of beef tenderloin. And that's going to make any kind of exercise more difficult. And you're going to feel it afterwards. It's going to make you stiff and sore, and that's not going to motivate you to keep going. It's going to affect your mood. You're not going to have the kind of energy you want. So if you want to be an active ager, it starts with hydration. I have a hydration quiz on my website that I always tell people, just take the quiz, see where you are. I have a 14-day hydration training. It's the cost of 3 lattes. Like, it's amazing how people will avoid something that's free that they can do that's free in favor of something they have to pay for. If I told you I had the most amazing supplement, it is going to make your skin plump and juicy and glowing and your muscles are going to move better and you're going to have a better mood and you're going to have more energy and your sleep will improve. You would be knocking down my door trying to get this thing. And then when we talk about it as—

I know it's so sexy.

Hello. As we look at the water bottles, it is a practice. So active aging is really taking control of your habits so that they automatically biohack your health. And biohacking is just aligning your habits with your biology so that everything works better. And when everything works better, you're not walking around inflamed. You're making better food choices. You're prioritizing your sleep. You're moving more. You've got more energy. So all of that just comes naturally.

Beautiful. And you're such a poster child for what you're doing. So number one, if you're listening only to the audio, you You need to go find a clip at the very least, and you need to follow Kristen on her timeline for Instagram because she's walking the talk and she's like right here playing for you. This is what it can look like. But back to your point on hydration, you know, I don't think— and totally agree with you, it's like right here and it's really easy, but they, they often have a list of Well, I don't want to do that because they'll have to get up and pee more. There's a reason why. But 1 to 2%, we're talking if you're just 1 to 2% dehydrated, coordination, balance, fatigue, all of those are compromised immediately. And 95% of people walking into a gym to do a workout are already dehydrated, not walking out afterwards. Before. So there's a lot of us walking in that we need some more hydration for sure.

Yeah. Yeah. And it really is a practice. It's how you start the day. It's how you hydrate throughout the day. And people do get all caught up in, oh, you know, I don't want to have to get up in the night and go to the bathroom. Well, that's because you shouldn't be drinking 60 ounces of water at 5 p.m., right?

Like catching up.

There's a real way that you do this, and it's nobody's fault that they don't know how to do it. Because nobody taught them how. And if it wasn't part of your family culture to drink water consistently throughout the day, you've got a little bit of a learning curve. And anytime we have to create any sort of new habit, it takes a couple of weeks. It doesn't— you don't just do it one day and then you've got it. It's the things we do over and over, the 43% of what we do every day is habit. We don't think, we just do. And when I talk about active aging and active grandparenting, what we're talking about is making sure those habits support your big picture goals.

Mm-hmm.

Amen.

I love it. And I want to kind of— I'm going to play on two sides of the fence here. So we have a lot of health coaches and trainers who are struggling right now. There's, you know, been an explosion in the market for coaching and fitness instructors. But it's because there are more coaches, not because they're busier. And so they're looking for a way to attract people. And I think this is why I was so drawn to the term active grandparenting, because of what you've done and described.

It's—

it, it hit the emotions for most people of, okay, this is my why, even if they are not realizing that's what they've done. But I want to ask you What— how does this fit in? You're 67. How does this fit into the lifestyle that you personally want to run this business? And/or do you call it business, or is it a movement? What is this to you? This episode is sponsored by the Flipping 50 Menopause Fitness Specialist. It is the framework that we designed our entire membership and program based on. Since 2013, I've been developing that after 30 years of working with Women in Midlife. That was born, and in 2018 we rolled out the Menopause Fitness Specialist to train other fitness and health pros on how to actually prescribe exercise. Here's where we're going next, in case you want to get started now, that we're actually training physicians on exercise prescription, knowing they get very little of it in medical school, and hoping that it also bridges the gap for you who may be a fitness or health professional or want to be who works with women in menopause, because there is so much demand and so much room for you right now. If you are working with women in menopause but not getting all the results, don't have a reliable, predictable framework that gets you results over and over that people know, like, and trust, come and talk to us. We'll put the link in the show notes for today. That's the Flipping 50 Menopause Fitness Specialist. And if you want to head on over to fitnessmarketingacademy.com, it's where we have all of the content dedicated to you, health and fitness pros?

Well, it's absolutely a movement for modern grandparents. And there's some really interesting components to this because boomers and Gen X had an opportunity to tap into all the fitness movement. And we are living longer. But we are becoming grandparents later. Our kids are getting married later, they're having kids later, and many people are becoming grandparents for the first time in their 70s. Mm-hmm.

You know, that's so funny. I'm gonna draw a parallel right here because I keep reflecting on this. You've just put into words like the easy and obvious. But I am the youngest. And so my mom was 48 when she— or I'm sorry, 38. I really embellished there, but that was still not sexy at her age when she did that. But I had my son at 30, and I keep comparing, and I'm like, why am I the same age as she was? And it's because of the delay in, you know, getting married and pulling it all together. And it is interesting, it's like we got to hold ourselves together a lot longer, right?

Well, we were— we are actually wired for this. And there's two things. There's the Grandmother Hypothesis and there's the Active Grandparent Hypothesis. And they both really talk about the fact— and this is particularly interesting for women with the Grandmother Hypothesis, because there's sort of this train of thought that, well, once your childbearing years are over, you're kind of like, your job's done. But that's not true. Culturally, when the childbearing years were over, the grandmother had a role to protect her daughters or her children's children and keep them alive while the parent could keep reproducing. So from a DNA standpoint, we are wired for this role. This was an evolutionary role that grandparents would step into, caring for children, keeping children safe so they could mature and go on and, you know, procreate. And here we are. The interesting thing, one of the things I find so interesting is that the nuclear family kind of came apart, right? And grandparents, you know, kids moved away and grandparents retired somewhere. And the role of the grandparent really changed. When I had my kids, nobody came and helped me. We lived in Washington, D.C. My parents and in-laws were in New York and nobody came. And help me. My husband right now is at our daughter's house. She had her third child. I was there until Monday, and we were there for 10 days after she had the baby, helping with the older kids and just being, you know, support staff. But we also want to be there, and she wants us there. Mm-hmm. So there's a lot that's changed. There are a lot of long-distance grandparents now. I am going to have grandchildren on the West Coast. Our other grandchildren are on the East Coast where we are. So we are going to be bicoastal grandparents. Mm-hmm. So there's a whole new world out here for active grandparenting, and it means a lot of things, a lot of different things to a lot of different grandparents. Mm-hmm. But whether you're a local grandparent and you're doing— you're in the trenches, maybe providing some childcare, helping out on a regular basis, or you're a long-distance grandparent, you're traveling, right? That you've got to be able— if you want to be a part of those grandkids' lives, you've got to be able to travel. And grandparents really have a window with the grandkids. It's about 10 years, because after that, kids' lives get so busy And think of it this way. Our grandkids are small right now. We have a 4-year-old, a 2-year-old, and a new grandchild. The 4-year-old and 2-year-old seem to think we live with them and then we travel. So they're always asking when we're coming home. Home. It's so sweet. But they think we just travel and we go away and then we come back. But their world is so small right now with— they don't do, you know, a lot of activities. Their world really revolves around the family.

Yeah.

So our role in their lives right now is very big. And this is when grandparents have this opportunity to establish their relationship, reestablishing their relationship with the parents. Because you're going from like this top-down parenting to this side-by-side partnering.

Yeah.

With your own children. And that's what modern families want. They really don't want you. You might as well just hold your thoughts to yourself because that's not what they're looking for. Yeah. And interestingly enough, we have so much in common with our kids that we did not have in common with our own parents. We listen to the same music, we wear the same clothes, we like to do the same things. I go to visit my daughter, we work out together. So we have this— in many ways, we are like this one big generation.

Interesting. Wow, that's a mic drop right there. Very cool. So what will it look like when now we are a multi-generation and those, those grandchildren are 10 and 15 and 20? What will what would that look like?

And that's where it's so important to have done— laid the groundwork for this future relationship, this connection. You've really got to know what they're doing and what they're interested in for them to not just tolerate you. Because kids today have a very— they have distractions we did not have. My own children didn't have. My own kids didn't get phones until they were in high school. There wasn't the whole screen life. And these young kids, this is our opportunity to give them what their own parents try to give them but have a hard time. The parents are in it, right? They're just in it. It's, it's the grind. Every day is like the day before and you go through the routine. But the parents, the grandparents can give grandchildren the undivided attention, the, you know, thousand-watt focus, you know, just the sitting and the interacting that is so crucial for the development of these little humans. Because all the statistics show that children who get that kind of interaction, that kind of active grandparenting interaction, they're more confident, they're less stressed, they don't have the anxiety, they are more courageous, they're more curious. And the flip side of that is grandparents who are actively involved live younger, longer, and better.

Yeah, amen to that. Love it. Talk a little bit about— and I'm going to kind of flip gears, but I don't want to ignore The Culinary Cure. Can you tell us more about that? And is that— are you teaching us how to cook for ourselves, those of us who are not really interested in doing that, and the rest as well?

If it's not delicious, why would anybody want to eat it? This is true.

I—

our family, we love food. We live to eat. This is what a family vacation looks like. We're sitting around, we're sipping our coffee, our lattes, nibbling on something, and we're talking about where we're going to eat lunch and what we're going to eat for lunch. And at lunch, we're talking about dinner. And at dinner, we're talking about, are we going to get the chocolate croissant or the plain croissant? You know, it's— we love to eat. And food is everything. It's culture, it's community, it's connection, it's love, it's family, it's friends, it's writing, it's math, it's science. It— and it unites us. It brings us together. So it's not just what we eat, it's how we use food to support us, to stop— and we got to stop thinking about food as calories because that was all bad information. That whole focus on calories, was the worst information that ever came out there. What we have to focus on is nutrients and how do we make those nutrients delicious. And I am— listen, I'm a trained chef. I started working in professional kitchens as a teenager.

Wow.

I have had multiple catering companies of my own. I am a hostess who entertained on the scale of Martha Stewart. And I think food should be simple. It should be delicious. And that nobody should feel intimidated by being a good assembler. You don't have to be a good cook to turn out delicious meals. Seasonal, local, simple cooking techniques. That's what we need to get back to. And that's what we got away from. We sort of told people Oh, you know, cooking is hard. It's complicated. It's fussy. You need a lot of steps. I can look at a recipe that comes in my Food Wine or my Bon Appétit, and I can be like, there are 6 steps that really aren't going to make the end result that much better. How could we make this more simple, take less time, and be just as delicious? So I love to create recipes that hit on all the things. It tastes delicious. It's not hard to prepare. People are going to love to eat it. And it is nutrient dense because we need to be counting nutrients, not calories. And we need to look forward to meals and we need to teach the next generation that sitting down, even though it takes longer to prepare the meal than it does to eat it, we need to be having that time where we sit around the table with kids and we talk, we talk about our day, we talk about what we're grateful for. I mean, practicing gratitude is really important. Agreed.

So tell me what you think of this. I already think that I know, but I want to address this because I find I've got friends and we don't often— I don't, I don't cross that boundary and work with my friends as their coach because that's just— it's bad, it's not great. But I clearly let them know what my opinion is, but that's different than coaching, and that's why we don't coach together. But I have a friend who's just hired a coach, and we were talking about it yesterday, and she's like, well, she wants me to eat this and eat this and eat this, and I don't want to eat those things. And, you know, I think right now everyone would be convinced that they need to be eating cottage cheese, first of all, and lots of it. I'm, I'm so sick of that one. But it's like meat everything, high protein. And I'm not against building around protein, but I just would love to know, as a chef and as a wellness coach, you've kind of You've got a really unique perspective. Where do you stand on the messaging about what to eat, how much of it to eat? Is all that is going out telling women they should, and now they can't figure out what at all to do.

Yeah, it is called wellness overwhelm, and the struggle is real. There is so much information out there that it's hard to know what's the right thing for you. I love to create hacks, and I coach— I do. I take on a couple of clients each month who are committed to wanting to lower inflammation in their bodies and get the hydration practice in place and find a starting point for creating that future wellness. So I, you know, I always put that out there because I'm not interested in the person who's like, well, I don't want to eat that. I don't want to do that. There's like 7 foods you can't eat. You know? But there's 7 million you can. And when you stop thinking about food as something you eat and you start thinking of it as the most important supplement you take every single day, it really changes your perspective. Unfortunately, many of the foods— and, you know, we're kind of getting into a bigger topic here, but let me talk about protein first, because I think that's really important. It is important to get enough protein. It is essential as women, as we age, to get enough protein that we can continue to build muscle. We have to lift heavy. I'm sorry, grandchildren are, are heavy. Bags of mulch are heavy. Groceries are heavy. You're putting your suitcase in the overhead bin is heavy. We have to lift heavy. We have to continue to build muscle. Muscle muscle helps us burn calories and keep our metabolism going more effectively. Muscle also helps protect our bones. Bone loss is a real concern for women. And if you're cutting calories and not getting enough protein, you are jeopardizing the scaffolding of your body, which is your skeleton and your muscles. So we've got to get enough protein. Does that mean you should be eating a ton of cottage cheese and a steak for dinner every night? Absolutely not. There are some really easy ways to get bioavailable protein in your diet throughout the day. Here's another big mistake that women make over and over and over again. Fasting. What about fasting?

Oh, gosh.

Oh, my gosh. No, no, no. Fast like a girl. It's all wrong. I actually created a reverse fasting program because I was so concerned about the number of women who wanted to fast. I'm like, it's fine if you want to fast, but don't do it that way. Don't wake up and not eat until 11, 12, or 1 o'clock. You are going to create a hormone tsunami. Your blood sugar is going to be a nightmare. And then when you do eat, your body is going to pull those calories and store them as fat. And you're going to wonder how you ever got— how you ended up gaining weight down the road when you stop fasting and your body is all jacked. So you start your day with fiber, fat, and protein. Non-negotiable, ladies. Mm-hmm. Got to eat the first meal. Yes.

Oh, and I'm so glad you brought that up. So I wanna ask you though, specifically on fasting and protein, let's talk a little bit about overnight fasting, snacking between meals. Let's, cuz we're right on that topic. So let's just go there too.

Yeah. Well, reverse fasting is you start your day eating and then you stop eating at whatever time, you know, 3, 4, whatever. It is much easier to fast while you're asleep. And if you're properly hydrated, it's not going to be such a drama for you. You'll get used to that really quick. And then you wake up and you get to, like, eat this wonderful breakfast that contains, you know, eggs and bacon, and you can have butter on your toast, and, you know, eat like a normal, a normal person. Um, I think where it gets tricky is getting enough protein, because if you eat too much protein at one time, it can have the negative effect of creating inflammation. So we don't want to create inflammation. So like hydration, you want to parse your protein out through— throughout the day. And one of the best ways to biohack the protein is bone broth. And you're not going to get a lot of calories, but you're going to get protein. And you can add some bone broth protein powder to that. So I have, you know, I have a couple of hacks that get women 50 more grams of bioavailable protein a day. Without having to eat a lot of food. So eating a good amount of protein, a chicken breast or a nice, you know, piece of meat the size of circle drawn on your fist, snacking on things that are high in protein, nuts, seeds, beans, lentils, things like that can, you know, can really enhance how you get your protein in a multitude of ways.

Do you like to use a continuous glucose monitor?

I like to work with women in a way where they shouldn't have to.

Good answer. What about a bioimpedance scale?

I don't even know what that is.

Oh my God, a smart scale.

If I say like that, I don't like any scale. And I'll tell you why. Maybe that scale tells you more, but it is hard to know when you get a number what is bone, what is muscle, what is water weight.

That's what a bioimpedance scale will do. Yeah. Yeah.

And that's it. Yeah, go ahead.

Just was going to say, I think that helps with the evidence of we can catch a mistake before it goes too far and we can see right away, you know, before you do that you know, biannual or annual DEXA scan again, you know, what's happening with muscle. Because if it's happening to muscle, it's probably happening to bone, even though we can't see that. Yeah. So, and, and good answer. I think away from this scale is great, but I think at some point, if you're struggling with bone density and/or muscle mass is a problem because overfat or or just under-muscled and being really small is a challenge. Both can be beneficial. But I think it comes back to what you've said. It's the relationship with food, in the end, I think that's harder for more women than the exercise piece. Would you say that in your experience is true as well?

Absolutely. I work out. I do a bunch of different workouts. I do hot yoga, I do weight training, I do Orangetheory, and I see the same people every morning at 5 AM. And you— I can tell by looking at them that their inflammation is a problem. But what's really fascinating is over the years, they— their body mass doesn't change. They're at the gym every day. They are working so hard. Yeah. And exercise is like 20% of the equation, and food and your habits around how you hydrate and what you eat and drink are like 80%. And then of course sleep matters because that's when your body reboots itself. And but yeah, it comes down to it matters what you eat, when you eat, how you eat. A lot of people are eating foods that are engineered to be delicious and addictive. And then when they taste food in its natural form, it doesn't really satisfy them. So I have a program called the 21-Day Wellness Reset, and it's, it's an elimination diet that really gets rid of those 7 things that create all that inflammation. And I tell people, you know, you're really not going to like me on day 3 if you've been drinking caffeine. But by day 10, you're going to be really excited about how you feel and the energy you have, and you're going to notice your sleep is improved. And by day 10, you've been hydrating properly for 10 days and you're starting to see the difference in your skin and you're starting to feel the difference in how you move and your mood.

And sleep.

Yeah, the sleep is a big one.

Yeah, yeah, I love it. So of the two, I mean, are they, are they coexisting together, the culinary cure and active grandparenting? Are they coexisting? Do they exist in, in isolation with each other? And what about the men?

Are we, are we getting them by the ripple effect, or are you also seeing men One thing I have always known being a culinary wellness coach, when I work with a woman, it impacts a whole family.

Amen.

I do get men, but through the couple.

Yes.

And every January I do my 21-day wellness reset as a group coaching program, and that's where I get the men, husbands and wives doing the program together.

Tumbling together.

And what's really interesting is that I only do it that one time as a live group program. I work with private clients the rest of the time. And when I do that program every year, I have people who come back because they're like, yeah, it's like a gym membership. We just— we do this in January. We get out, we start our year right. And the thing that's really funny is that the men get such incredible results. Incredible. Really? Yeah. So you're giving up caffeine, you're giving up alcohol for 21 days. Like, if you can't do that, you got a problem.

Truth.

You're getting rid of processed foods and artificial ingredients and you're eating a largely plant-based diet. But I have a lot of recipes. My banana mug muffin is a game changer for people who are are carb addicted. And the men, I have— the thing that has been so exciting for me is that a couple of these guys, they're people I've known for years, and one of them was a sales rep for a pharmaceutical company, and he's been on one of those, um, like a Prilosec for years because he had terrible acid reflux. Well, he developed pre-Barrett's esophagus, which is a precancerous condition because you're— the way your esophagus works, it's like a little, you know, it closes when food goes down. It's not supposed to open and let the acid back up. And when you take something like a Prilosec, a proton, you know, proton pump inhibitor or whatever those things are called, it it basically reduces your stomach acid. Well, your stomach acid has a very important job. It is supposed to break down your food so you can absorb the nutrients more effectively. And when you reduce the amount of stomach acid, your stomach just creates more acid. And those products were never designed to be used as a daily—

long-term—

long-term. It was supposed to be for 2 weeks, get the inflammation down, and then you make lifestyle changes. But if a pharmaceutical company figures out they can make it a maintenance medication, then you're on it for life.

Yeah.

So he's on this proton pump inhibitor that he used to sell. So he feels, you know, a real kinship with this product. And I say, well, don't stop taking it while you're on the program, but maybe take it every other day. Let's just cut back a little bit. End of 21 days, 70 80% improvement in his hip.

Nice.

Amazing. He had not felt that well in a long time. Another guy was saying, "Yeah, I think I need a hip replacement. It's really affecting my golf game," and yada, yada, yada. And at the end of 21 days, he's like, "I guess it was just inflammation because I feel great now. My golf game's doing great." when we get ourselves back to our factory settings. Yeah, we take out the things that are interrupting the messaging from our gut to our brain. And the gut is the second brain. It calls the shots. It signals to the brain all day long. When we get rid of the bad bacteria that thrive on sugar and refined carbohydrates and artificial ingredients, the signaling changes. Now you're working with your body. Now you can make lasting change because once you feel good, you want to keep feeling good.

That is exactly right. And I think that's— that is the big thing right away. It's— I'll go back to commitment. I think for a short time you have to commit. You have to commit to, I am going to give up the Diet Coke. I am committing to giving up the alcohol even though I'm not as motivated to do that. I'm committing to do it. And then once you get there, you're like— quote from a client— feeling good feels good. Why would I ever want to stop this? That's the gold. Kristen, it has been such a pleasure. Thank you so much for being here. Tell everybody listening who hopefully is walking or lifting and not commuting where they can find and follow you.

They can follow me on Instagram at Kristen Coffield. And my two websites are The Culinary Cure and Active Grandparenting. And my book, Active Grandparenting, comes out this year, so I'm really excited for people to go ahead and preorder it. And you can find all my Active Grandparenting resources and free resources at ActiveGrandparenting.com. Amazing.

Thank you so much.

Thank you. The pleasure was all mine. I love what you do.

The information shared on Flipping 50 the Stronger Way is for educational and informational purposes only and not intended as a substitute for medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Always consult your physician or qualified healthcare provider before beginning any exercise program, making changes to your diet, or adjusting any medications or supplements. Individual results may vary. Debra Atkinson and Flipping 50 are not responsible for any injury or adverse outcomes resulting from information presented on this podcast. If today's episode reminded you that it's time to put yourself back on your own priority list, don't wait. Join me inside Flipping 50: The Stronger Way and save $100 on your annual membership. You'll get year-round access to progressive strength training programs, mobility, yoga, Pilates, balance, corrective exercise, and so much more. All created specifically for women who want to stay strong, active, and independent for decades to come. You can join monthly if you prefer, but the annual membership gives you the biggest savings, $379 savings compared to paying month by month. The link is in the show notes. Come train with me. Your strongest years don't have to be behind you. They can absolutely be the ones you're living right now.