30 Day Challenge Series: What Comes Next?

Welcome to the Heal, Nourish, Grow podcast. I'm Cheryl McColgan, founder of Heal, Nourish, Grow. The website, this show, and our newsletter all focus on making the science of advanced nutrition and greater overall health accessible to everyone. Buckle up for our latest episode to get ideas, tools, and practical knowledge you can use to improve your health and move towards your perfect version of ultimate wellness. The Heal, Nourish, Grow podcast shares interviews with nutrition experts, health researchers, and everyday people that have changed their lifestyle and nutrition to support greater health. You'll learn how to implement lasting change and create new habits that support greater wellness and a happier, healthier life. Please visit healnourishgrowpodcast.com for full show notes and links to our guests.

Hey everyone, I'm Cheryl McColgan, founder of Heal, Nourish, Grow, and today I wanted to chat with you about a new program that I just started, and it's actually a whole little system called the Foundation. Series. So a lot of this came about because over the years, as you know, if you've watched some of my content before, I'm very focused on habits. My background is in psychology, and I've been basically interested in health and wellness my entire adult life and have had many different kind of jobs and coaching in this kind of area. And so it's something that I've worked on for myself for a long time. It's something I've worked with other people on. For a long time, and it is the content that you see every day on Heal, Nourish, Grow all has something to do with these sorts of things. So when I thought about it more, like, how can I put this, all these learnings and all the information that I have learned for myself over the last years and practiced for so long, how can I put it into a foundational system that will actually help other people without being overwhelming, being organized, and get you to a place where you actually do these things? Because I feel like a lot of people will say to me sometimes, well, I know what to do. I just don't. Actually do it. And so part of that I think is the overwhelm of it. Part of it's just that life is so busy, you know, so many factors. Uh, but this really breaks it down into little buckets that you can focus on for a small period of time. And just again, as I always talk about with habits, just starting really slow and building on them. And so that's why I called it the Foundation Series, cuz it literally is the whole foundation, uh, foundational practices, foundational ideas that will really help you just build your life to meet your goals from there. So these very small things that you start with and creating this very strong foundation will really allow you then to create whatever it is that you want for your life, for your health, all of that. Um, so I feel like most people, again, they just don't fail because they're not trying or they don't want to. It's just, they're not really clear yet about their own priorities. Like they think that they know what's important, but you know, quite often the choices that we make every day don't match what we think are our priorities. So really identifying them and making them clear in your mind is a really a big part of that. So the first thing I started was with the health part, part of the situation, cuz once you get your health in order, once you are able to sleep well, eat well, feel good in your body every single day, that also just helps everything with your mental health as well. Focusing on these foundational principles that relate to your health that are small things that you can do every day, I think really make it a lot less overwhelming than it might be otherwise. And so these are all just daily consistency, low friction routines, creating things that are easy to repeat every single day. The very first part of the program is something that's really in alignment with this time of year, which it happens to be January 2026 when I'm recording this, and that is working on healthy habits as kind of a challenge for the new year, cuz people often make New Year's resolutions and usually by about this time, by about the end of January, a lot of those have already gone by the wayside because quite often people just take on too much at once rather than doing small things over time and consistently building. I really think that's a much more sustainable way to approach habit change and to incorporating new healthy habits into your life. So the first thing is the free Healthy Habits Challenge. It doesn't have to be the beginning of the new year. Whenever you find this video, you can always start the Healthy Habits Challenge. You just put in your email and then it'll start a series of things that you do every single day. It will send you some worksheets. There are links to research that backs up these small practices, like why they're good for you and what kinds of things it helps. And so you just try a new simple habit every day for 30 days. None of them take any more than 15 minutes, and you can always dive deeper into any of the subjects if you want. Like I said, there's research links you can read, there's journal prompts, but the minimum is just doing the habit that day, trying it out, and then noticing if that's something that you think would work well for you in your life that could really help you feel better, look better, perform better, all of those things. And then ideally, after the 30 days, 90 days is finished, you identify some of those things that you tried that you really want to incorporate going forward for the next 90 days. And so that's when I decided that I would actually create this whole other series of programs after the free Healthy Habits, because a lot of times it's like, well, what's next after you do that? You kind of, you know, it was great to try all that. And I do give direction in the Healthy Habits Challenge. You're identifying 3 to carry forward over 90 days, and then you just really try to create that consistency. But what if you wanted something that's a little bit more structured and gives you more ideas about to perform the habits that you've chosen, work towards your goals, all that. So that's where the Foundation Series comes in.

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And so the first one that I decided to focus on, and again, if you've are familiar with my content, this will not be a surprise. And that is protein, because once you get the protein foundation in place, identifying what's optimal for your body and optimal for your, your goals, and then actually integrating that and hitting it every single day, that becomes the basis then for your whole nutrition plan. So this first part, just focusing on protein, is because it's such an important building block. Block in your body. It's, um, it's not the protein itself that we need. It is the amino acids that our body breaks down that we need for muscle, for metabolism. It creates more satiety, makes it easier for you to feel full longer. And it, uh, is big in repair and recovery in your body. So having that proper amount on a consistent basis every day really just lays the foundation then for you to build your whole nutrition program. And that is the second foundation is nutrition. So that may sound, you know, we talked about protein is obviously one of the major macronutrients alongside carbohydrates and fat. But that whole thing is what really creates all of your nutrition. Like you can't live on just protein. I mean, you actually can. A lot of people do the carnivore diet these days. But for most people, that's not a choice that they're making. They wanna create something that's more balanced, that's more sustainable, that's easy to still be able to eat out. That's still easy to go to events and not feel overwhelmed. And so the second foundation, once you have your protein amount in place that you're going to create on that consistent basis, then you can start to focus on your overall diet. And so the nutrition thing really works with— it doesn't matter what style of eating that you choose, it's going to create something that's balanced and that it's in alignment with your goals. And so that's something that you'll work on through the program is figuring out, is your goal muscle, gaining muscle? Is it losing fat? Is it just maintaining your current body weight? Is it maybe reducing inflammation in your body? So any one of those goals that you have will fit into this nutrition framework. So you'll select those goals. You're gonna figure out your, the macronutrients that work best for you. The protein part is always non-negotiable. That number really never changes that much on a daily basis, unless maybe you have like a super hard workout or something, then maybe you might go do a little extra for recovery purposes. But for the most part, that number will never change. And so then it becomes figuring out how to balance the fat and the carbohydrates in a way that make you feel good, that digest well, and that work with your goals. So that's gives you a lot of flexibility. It really creates a way to think about things so that when you're in an unfamiliar situation, you're not cooking for yourself, you can still make really good choices and make things work for you. And again, a lot of this is things that people think that they know how to do or that they should do, that kind of thing. Um, but they don't actually execute on a daily basis. And so that's what the Foundation System really helps with is creating that consistency. Again, it's these small habits over time that build to help you get to your overall longer-term goals. But you gotta, to get to those longer-term goals, You have to work on the little parts of it every single day. And so that's really what this part of it is about. And then the last foundation is the strength foundation. And again, it's something that you've heard me say before, and it's something that I've come to appreciate a lot more now that I'm over 50. And that is that we really need to have some strength training in our life. And I know it's a challenge for a lot of people, especially a lot of people in my age group. If you happen to be a woman, there really wasn't as much focus on strength training when I was younger. I mean, I got kind of lucky because I was exposed to it at a young age through my dad. And then I did play sports in high school and college. So I was in the weight room and I have probably more familiarity with it than a lot of women my age. But I was in that same trap growing up in the '90s where it was all about, you know, being skinny was the thing. And so I never really had a focus on muscle. It was more just about, you know, maintaining my body weight. And I did that through running for 17 years. I kind of did almost the exact opposite of what is really good for your long-term health as far as muscle mass anyway. I mean, running and walking have a lot of great, awesome heart and cardiovascular benefits, but it's not so great in terms of building muscle. In fact, it often creates, um, a body type where you don't have nearly as much muscle. So now that I am more educated and you know, think you learn things over time. And once you learn things, it's hard to unsee the importance of it. And when you really think about muscle health in terms of your metabolism and in terms of just living well as you get older, you know, it's a slow thing, right? That happens over years that you kind of have to just fight all the time. And you don't want to get to be, you know, 70 years old and be so frail that you have a hard time getting out of the chair, that you can't do simple things like carry your own groceries in or shovel your driveway when you need to. We had a lot of that here in the Midwest just recently in January 2026. So all that is to say that I think what creates maybe a little bit of fear or something in your mind about not wanting to do it as much is because we kind of envision this thing that we have to be in the gym 5 or 6 days a week, something like that to make it work. And that you have to do a whole lot of strength training to make it work worthwhile. But after I've really taken a deep dive into this and done more studying and more learning, especially over the last 3 years focused on strength training, is really that there is a minimum effective dose of strength training. And surprisingly, you can get most of the benefits that you can get out of training on a regular basis in just doing 2 full-body workouts per week. I think twice per week is way, way less intimidating than the multiple times a week that many of us think of when we think about strength training. And it also then affords you to do many other kinds of physical activities that you might— that are more enjoyable, let's say. So if it's walking, hiking, hiking, biking, uh, snowboarding, whatever it is for you. If you know that you only have to be strength training in the gym 2 days a week, I just feel like that mentally takes a lot of the stress off and it makes it seem much more doable. And again, it's about creating these small habits. So once you get into it, obviously if you want to do more, there's a little incremental benefit of that, uh, over 2 days a week. And there's also, if you have very specific goals in relation to body composition or, um, you know, doing any kind of competitions or anything like that, then that program looks a little different. But all we are talking about is what is the minimum effective dose for staying healthy and vibrant and strong into old age and just being able to take care of yourself. And that is really a strength training program that is 2 days a week. So what I've done is I'm actually studying for my personal trainer certification right now. I haven't taken the test yet, but the 2 Days a Week Foundation, it's really about like not creating this intimidation around the gym. Cause I mentioned like for a lot of us women, especially in this particular age group, a a gym can be very intimidating, or just knowing how to use the machines or knowing what to do in the gym or going into the gym, seeing so many machines and this feeling overwhelmed cuz you're not sure what to do. That's what this program is designed to counteract. If you're more experienced, this definitely might be a little too basic for you, but this is really meant to take the person who has not been in the gym for a couple years, let's say, or even if it's been a year since you've been outta the gym, this might be totally appropriate cuz it's just going to be a program that, like I said, is 2 days a week. And it's going to be simple and it's going to have some videos to show you some things to do. The work, it works if you're, um, working out from home with just a few simple tools. So that's what this part is. It's designed to not create overwhelm and to just get you into the gym, get you into strength training, and hopefully get you to realize the benefit of it. And then from there, obviously there's so many more, more complex and more extensive programs out there, but this is really just meant for if you're just getting started again, or if you've never been in the gym before, and to create this, uh, sense of kind of knowing knowing what you're getting into, knowing what you can, can do in the gym and knowing where to go and just not having it be too many things at once hitting you, making it very simple, having a plan, having it written out. So that way, even if you go in a big gym has a lot of machines or something, you're gonna feel like you know what to do, you know where to go, you know where to find what you need, and then you can get your workout done. So that is the most of the Foundations program. And then at the very end, I have Lifestyle Foundations, and that is a one-on-one coaching program. And I haven't taken on any new coaching people for quite a while. Um, but I decided to open that up again. So really what that is, it's if you feel like you need more support, you need more accountability, you enjoy having a coach, which I have to admit, when I was doing my competitions this past year, it was the first time I had had a coach in that capacity for like a, it wasn't so much health and wellness focus as it was training and competition focused. But having someone else being able to give that over for a little bit to a process that was really new for me was just so very helpful in reducing decision fatigue and really like making it easy for me to learn how to do, uh, these things that for me were very new at the time doing. I'd never done a competition before, so of course I had no idea what to expect. And that was really nice and useful to have a coach to be able to hand that off to and not have to think about it. So, but this kind of coaching is more around, yes, we're gonna talk together about making your goals fit your lifestyle that you have now and finding time to do the things. I know that's always a big challenge for everyone, right? And then mapping it out in such a way so that you have accountability, you know what the plan is, and then starting to really integrate these habits over time so that you learn a system that works for you long term. And then at some point, the, the wish, the hope, the dream is that you don't need a coach anymore, that you just feel really accountable to yourself and that you're able to evaluate goals and think of things in a way, like, once you learn the system, if you're thinking of it in a way that that, you know, just requires a little planning. Then you don't always necessarily need somebody kind of taking you to the next step each time or, or being accountable. You can just be accountable to yourself. So, um, I do think that coaching is really useful in so many situations and for short periods of time, but I personally just don't know if it's that great for people to have a coach for years and years and years in relation to health and wellness anyway. Like I said, for other things, like if if you're in the Olympics or you're on a team or you're playing sports, obviously coaches are amazing in that capacity and you kind of need them year after year. But I think when you're working on your health and wellness, I think that the goal should be autonomy at some point. And you've learned the tools that you need to just go on and live your life well and not have to pay somebody to do all those kinds of things for you or to talk that out with. So hopefully that's making sense. Again, I, my background's in psychology and I was, um, into clinical psychology. So obviously I hugely see the value in all those kinds of relationships. It's just that I feel like you should learn to fish, right? Instead of just being given fish all the time. So that old saying, it's like, hey, if you learn to fish, you'll never go hungry, right? And so that's the idea of this program is really just teaching you new skills, new systems, new ways to think about things in relation to your health so that then you can go forward and keep creating that in your own life again and again.. So hopefully that was a great explanation of the program. As always, if you have any questions, I'm always available. You can email me. And, uh, if you want to go read the Foundations page, it kind of shows you a little bit more about what each program is specifically and like exactly what you'll learn inside of each of them. Um, but always, if you have any questions, just reach out. You can reach me on all the social media, Heal, Nourish, Grow everywhere, or you can email me at info@healnourishgrow.com. So that's it for, again, to, for today. And, uh, I will see you again next time.

This has been the Heal, Nourish, Grow podcast. Again, I'm Cheryl McColgan, founder of Heal, Nourish, Grow. You can find show notes for this episode at healnourishgrowpodcast.com. If you have feedback on today's episode or questions about the content, please email us at podcast@healnourishgrow.com. We'd love to hear from you. Be sure to subscribe. Sign up for our email list at healnourishgrow.com and subscribe to the show with your favorite podcast player so you never miss an episode. Join us next time for more information that helps you live your best and healthiest life. Thanks for listening. Content on the Heal, Nourish, Grow podcast does not constitute medical advice. Content contained in the Heal, Nourish, Grow podcast is not intended as medical diagnosis or treatment. Neither the company nor its owner, Heal, Nourish, Grow LLC, C, nor any of the company's employees, agents, or guest speakers provide medical advice. The content provided on Heal, Nourish, Grow podcast is for educational and entertainment purposes only. Please consult your medical provider with any questions about what health practices are right for you.