Get Better Sleep, Lower Stress & Feel Incredible Without Extreme Dieting with Jennifer Hanway Part 2
Jennifer Hanway explains how sleep is the foundation for stress and health. Prioritize morning light, cool dark rooms, and no screens at bedtime. Skip crash diets and do two-week tighten-ups before events instead. Add fermented foods and the right probiotics, magnesium, and vitamin D.
Questions this video answers
9:00–9:30 PM
After about 1:30 PM
Saccharomyces boulardii
Four‑point salivary cortisol test (spit into tubes at four times of day)
Chapters
When I am not feeling good or I eat a lot, or I'm in a, you know, maybe I've been drinking too much. It's almost like I'm not feeling connected spiritually anymore.
Universe, God, consciousness, whatever we're calling it, it's not going to give you opportunities if you're not ready for them. I think it's a give and take relationship of you do everything that you can to get ready, and so when the opportunity arrives, you're then ready for it. But if you're not ready for it, why is the universe going to give it to you in the first?
I want to dig into sleep for just a hot second because, you know, I, I have a friend who literally has been trying so many different things for like, losing weight and getting healthy, but sleep is so not dialed in. It's like six hours a night up on the phone, not able, like in a, in a really not great pattern, you know, in wondering why the bod's not changing. So can we talk a little bit about sleep, hormones, mood, all of those things for women and why it's so important?
Yeah, I mean, it's so important for everybody. And I'd say, really, if you're listening to this podcast, you're like, oh my goodness, I am so overwhelmed by all of the things I'd say that actually sleep is the first thing to nail down because it's going to affect everything else. So most people think it's nutrition. And, you know, I'm a nutritionist. I love food, I love to talk about food. I love the power of food. You know, you're not going to make great food choices if you haven't slept well. You're not going to be able to get up and go for a walk or go to the gym if you haven't slept well. So I think sleep is that underpinning foundation. And thank goodness the rhetoric has changed from sleep when you're dead and we think about finance, bros sleeping under their desk and things. I think the rhetoric has changed, but the practicality of what people are doing maybe hasn't caught up yet. So let's start at the beginning, which is actually your sleep and stress are affected by how you wake up and when you wake up. So a lot of people will think, oh, I'm going to manage my stress when I finish my work day, six, seven o' clock at night, when they've had a super long, stressful work day, it's too late. We're not going to be able to bring down our cortisol to up regulate our melatonin. So we have to think about what do we. How do we wake up first thing in the morning? So I actually came to this work through. It was actually through a. It was a conference on sleep for athletes. And I was like, well, if athletes are doing this, why can't everyday people and high performers do all of this? So that's where I took all that work from. So really, we want to be thinking about our sleep health, our sleep hygiene from the moment that we wake up. We do not wake up with our phone as an alarm clock. Phone should not be in the bedroom, screens should not be in the bedroom. So I like to tell people, and it's such an easy hack, a daylight alarm clock. So they're like 60 bucks from Amazon. And what it does is that it creates the light. We wake up naturally. So that light hits the pineal gland. We stop making melatonin, we start making cortisol and adrenaline, which is the hormones that wake us up. We wake us up nice and naturally. So if you think about what an alarm clock does, an alarm is like that beeping, horrible sound and we wake up and there's that spike of cortisol and we're already on the back foot. So waking up with a natural light can be really, really important. Then again, light is one of the regulators of our circadian rhythm. So we want to wake up and we want to get as much light as we possibly can. Now, obviously, if you sleep with someone else in the room, do that once you get out of the bedroom. But those people that kind of crawl out the bedroom and they've got one eye half shut and they keep all the blinds down and they don't turn on the lights and they're like, I wonder why I can't get going. You haven't told your body it's time to wake up. So really, our circadian's rhythms are still set from when we were Paleolithic people, when we were cavemen and cave women and cave people. So we need light to tell us it's time to get up. So I live on the east coast, we don't have particularly long days. So I'm going to get up, I'm going to put all of the lights on, I'm going to open the blinds, I'm going to get as much light as I can. So that's kind of number one. Now, if you can get outside, I would love to be that person that gets up with my cup of coffee in hand or my water, my electrolytes and goes outside in the daylight and grounds with my feet on the ground and stuff. But we live, you know, there's other people around and they would think I was crazy. But I'm going to get up, I'm going to hydrate, going to have light, I'm going to have temperature, I'm going to eat. Within about an hour of waking up, I'm going to get my exercise in, I'm going to move my body, I'm going to ideally do that outside if I can. But really thinking about the beginning of your day is the start of your best sleep. We don't want to. Ideally we're not starting the day with looking at our phones or checking our emails. I try and read something inspiring or a business book or self help, I'll try and do. I'm not a big meditator because my brain just doesn't like it. You know, maybe I'm listening to, listening to intentions or something a little bit more so my brain has something to do. But what I want to be thinking about is how can I manage and mitigate stress throughout the day? We can't not have stress. We're going to have stress all of the time. Our body reacts to it in a way that it shouldn't do. So our bodies are made to have a quick stressor, an external stressor and then bring that stress down really, really quickly. So, so that's our fight or flight mode. What we have now if we were like that all of the time, fine. But what we have in our modern day life is these elevated chronic stresses. We were always waiting for the other shoe to drop.
Yeah.
Now that elevated, that low hum of cortisol is going to be really impactful for our metabolism, for our brain health, for our gut health, for our mood, for our immune system, for our skin, for all of those things. So it's that low level of cortisol. So where can I find moments in the day to help me mitigate and metabolize my cortisol? So if I get stressed out, can I just take a moment to do a big deep breath? Can I get outside for a second? Can I hang out with my cat or your dogs or something? Just taking a moment to manage that stress because that's going to mean that by the time we get to the evening we're not going to have these super high cortisol levels. And if our cortisol is super high, we're not able to make melatonin which is our sleep hormone then we have to be so, so Protective of our sleep hygiene and our evening routine. So that means no screens in the bedroom, that means no scrolling before you go to bed, that means no social media, that means no emails. It's really hard. It's really hard for people. It's really hard if you are trying to get something going, if you run a busy business, if you are working with different, different time zones. But honestly, if you can protect your sleep hygiene, no screens an hour before bed, eat as early as you can, do not take your phone into the bedroom. If you wake up, no scrolling, be so protective of that time because that is going to pay you back in so many other ways.
I have started, I mean I have never actually brought my phone in the bedroom unless my husband's gone. Then I have the phone in the bedroom and I tend to like scroll while he's gone. But it's so rare because I notice a difference immediately. I'm like, oh yeah, I noticed my brain is firing, my eyes are like wide open and I'm like, yep, there it is. Yeah, can't sleep. And I think now that I've gotten into just having the business that I have, the stress level is a lot higher. So I am aware that my sleep is even more important. I won't be able to do this business if I am stressed out all the time or not getting sleep because I know I have to have maximum amount of energy in order to do this business. And when I talk to these high performing women who have a big company or something that they know they have to show up for, it's like we have to do everything we can or you can't, you can't manage the stress. You won't be able to hold it down, you won't be able to hold onto the blessing that is going to come onto the other side, all of the things. So I love the like no screens. I know it's hard but like replace it with a book and I promise you you'll be like, oh, I'm sleeping in 20 minutes of reading this book. After just a little while.
You train your body, no, your body. Like my body will. Even if I'm not that tired, when I open up my Kindle at night and I've got my lavender oil on my pillow, my body's like, yep, I know it's time to go to sleep. And I think the big part is understanding that sleep is a really active time for the body. We, we're not consciously aware of that. So we think it's something that we can easily skip. Oh, I need more hours in the day. I'm going to eat into my sleep. But when we sleep, our body is doing so many detoxifying and repair and growing processes. You know, if you are trying to put on lean muscle mass in the gym and you're not sleeping well, the sleep is the time where you're going to repair and grow that muscle tissue. So I think it's understanding that sleep is actually a really active time for the body. It's not just something that is a nice to have it if you can.
Sleep is one of my favorite things. So that's great. I love hearing all of these things and I actually am so aware that at the end of the day, if I'm feeling like lost in my plan, my nutrition, all the things a lot of that comes down to, I'm like, oh, my sleep is a little off. Let me just focus on this for a week.
Yeah.
And then it's almost like things can start falling into place because if you are rested, if you focus on what you know, good sleep, which also means you're probably focused on not eating late, which also means you're probably focused on a little less phone time. And all of these things really add up. So like if you're feeling overwhelmed, I think out of everything in this podcast, I think the first place is to be like, what are some things I can do to optimize sleep? And then I'll look at something else after that if you know you're not.
A sleeper, but it's just going to make everything else easier the next day. So if we don't sleep, it messes up our hunger hormones. We're more likely to crave high sugar, high carbohydrate foods. If we don't sleep, we're going to have, it's going to be harder for us to work out. You know, last night I flew in from, you know, I did the east coast to west coast. It's a long day, but my sleep is sacred. So I'm doing my eye mask, I'm doing my earplugs, the air conditioning is on freezing, I'm mouth taping, I'm doing all of the things because then I got up, I had a protein rich breakfast. Breakfast. I went for a walk, I went to the gym and I feel cognitively switched on to see you now. Had I not looked after my sleep, I would have been a hot mess today.
I love that you said that. I just want to add one more thing is what you just said. When I travel or even at home, I'M like, eye masks have changed my life because it's dark and I end up. Not if you're waking up in the middle of the night because your room might be too bright. You might have all these little lights on. And I have earplugs because my husband snores or any outside disturbance. I kind of just want to be able to block that out. Keeping the room really cold so you can sleep better. Like, some people don't realize that there are these little hacks that can keep you asleep longer. They can help you fall asleep faster. A nice cool room. So this is the argument between couples. I love it, like, freezing cold as well. So does Chris, thank God. But all these little. Is there any other. Any other things that you would say for something that people don't know for sleep optimization?
Okay, so what do I do? So no screens. Eat as early as you possibly can. Have a routine. So really have a sleep routine and a sleep ritual. Because then if you're traveling a lot, you can do exactly the same. My sleep ritual when I'm traveling is exactly the same as it is at home because my body's like, yep, okay, I know what's happening now. I know what you want me to do. So eye mask, earplugs. I go to sleep a lot earlier than my husband, so I had to be in a deep sleep before I go to bed. I love my husband, but he's 6 foot 2, 200 something pounds. It's like getting in bed with a whale. Like, he's flipping over. So I have to be. I have to be fast asleep. A cold room not only helps you get into deeper sleep, but it's more restorative for the body as well. So we definitely want. We call it a bat cave. Keep it dark, keep it cold, be hydrated, but not too hydrated. So we don't want to get up to pee. Now when I travel, I'm traveling with my eye mask, my earplugs, my mouth tape. The room is cold. I'm doing all of those things. And it's that sleep ritual, that sleep routine that really is the basis for everything.
I want to talk about just a caffeine cutoff time too. Like, you guys don't realize how long that lasts. And recently I'm like, super on a matcha kick. Like, I just started really loving Matcha. I was. I was kind of anti Matcha before. I was like, I did not like it. And now I found, like, some great places that make great Matcha. So I'm obsessed, but with that said, Matcha, actually I noticed my cutoff time has to be earlier than coffee.
Like I'm interesting awake.
If I have it after like 1:30pm, no joke. I'm like, why am I staring at the ceiling?
Yes.
So some people say it's like a little more sustained energy throughout the day. So I have noticed, like, oh, this affects me more. So you kind of have to know what affects you. Some people, it doesn't affect like that.
Yeah.
But if I go after a certain point for caffeine, I'm absolutely gonna be like, my brain is gonna be going. So I think that's another big one is know your cutoff time or you're gonna. You will be awake staring at the ceiling.
Ye think a really good rule of thumb to know if your caffeine is affecting you. If you're someone who just before you go to bed, like you're getting sleepy on the couch or like your, you know, your eyes are closing as you're watching your show or whatever. And then you get into bed and you lie in bed and your head hits the pillow and your mind starts racing. You've had caffeine too late. So bring it back as early as you can in the morning. Like for me, if I'm having a really long day, I might have something after about lunchtime. But really 11, 12 o' clock is probably my castle time.
Yep. And that really should be mine as well. But. Yeah. And bedtime for me is 9, 9:30pm Like I am just in bed. I have my routine. I have my ritual. And it's changed my life. It's really, really changed my life. If you're gonna go to dinner with me, I'm probably booking dinner for 5:30 or 6.
Me too.
Because I do not want to mess that up. And I'm a very social person now, especially here. Now that I live in Newport Beach, I just find like, it's been easier for me to be healthy and social here.
Yeah.
Maybe because everyone is early and they kind of all have the same lifestyle as me. That's been really big too. That's a hack. Yeah. Finding groups of people who have the same lifestyle as you, who don't laugh at your 5:30 reservation. They're like, thank God. Yes, let's go. Because I still want to be in bed at 9 because I am a high performer.
Yeah. And we are. Me and my husband were exactly the same. If I go back to London to see my friends there, they live very different lifestyles. They have kids. I'm like, they're booking dinner reservations for 8 o'. Clock. I'm like, I'm in bed.
I'm winding down. Like, my brain is winding down.
Yeah. Yeah. If I was to go out for dinner at 8, I'd have to go to bed for a little bit first, take what we used to call a disco nap, and then come out again. But I just. I can't. I can't do it. It messes everything up. And for me, it's not worth it. Invite me to breakfast. Invite me to brunch. I am. There. I am. Let's go for a green juice and a reformer Pilates class. I will be the life and soul of the Pilates after 7:00'. Clock. Nope, don't invite me because I won't come.
Yeah, I don't even like to break this on the weekend, you guys. Like, some people might think that that's like a stick in the mud, but truly at this point, I'm like, look, if we're gonna do something on a Friday, Saturday, like, it's gonna stick to this, because I do not. I. We went to a birthday party. It was a pretty big birthday party. So I'm not gonna. It's not like I'm not gonna do something.
Yeah.
But, oh, my God. I noticed we were up until like midnight and it really messed with me through, like, Sunday for sure. It was a Saturday. Saturday night. Sunday for sure. And then like Monday, I was like, oh, I noticed that I'm off. Like, I had food late, cocktails late, and then slept late.
Yeah.
And you know, your body wakes up still at the exact same time. So I was like, okay.
Yeah.
So it's really knowing. I think coming from, like, such a nice dialed in routine to not doing that in a while.
Yeah.
It did make me realize how other people are functioning, trying to run their businesses.
How.
And I was like, no wonder they're not getting the ideas or getting things done. Like, I just felt like I was dragging, like, emotionally and physically and everything. And that was like, one night. So. Yeah, it's huge. It is huge. And people, I think we want to pretend it's not like that because we don't want to give it up.
Yeah.
Because it's hard. I get it. I was like, such a Midwestern, like, party girl for a very long time, and that is a hard joy to replace. But I promise you, it does get replaced and it gets better. You have to find people who, like, live a very different lifestyle. Start maybe doing more like, hobbies in the morning. I found, like, really falling in love with like Pilates or pickleball or walks or surfing or going to the beach, like finding more activities that you can really fall in love with during the day. Help you not look forward to like nighttime stuff so much.
But I think you've made such a good point there about who are you surrounding yourself totally as well? Because it is so much easier to stick to these things and stick to these routines and get up early and go to bed early if you are surrounding yourself with the right people. And that doesn't mean that you should cut people out of your lives. But if they don't understand, maybe you do cut them out of your lives. You know, I have, as I said, I've got friends that I've been friends with since I was 12. They know not they'll invite me to dinner, 8 o' clock if I'm back home in London, but they know I'm not going to show up, but they're never going to give me a hard time about it. And I think that's, I think we hear a lot in the self development world about, oh, if someone's different from you or they're not in this high achieving world, you should cut them out completely. And I don't think that's quite the truth. But I think if they don't support your goals or they try and derail you, then maybe it's time to cut ties. So my friends that I've had for years, they totally get me. They're never going to comment on the fact that I'm not drinking or that I'm not coming out 8 o' clock at night. But I've had new acquaintances who just haven't been able to cope with the fact that, no, I don't want a glass of wine. And that brings up something in them that maybe they don't like reflected in themselves. And that's not a friendship that I'm willing to pursue. So we've talked about what we put inside our bodies, but the environment, the company that we keep, even the TV shows that we're listening to, the podcast that we're listening to, that's such another form of nourishment that that's so important as well.
Oh my God. I think it's one of the most important because there's a quote that I love. It's your environment is stronger than your willpower 100%. And I, you know, when I lived at home, I could not get into growing up. I grew up in an environment where, you know, my parents were loving. But the Habits were really horrible. Yeah, the food habits were horrible. The mindset habits were not good. It was very much like, you know, we're poor, we have bad genetics. Rich people are bad. This is how our lives will always be. You have to work hard and then you die. Like, that was literally the things that were set in the mentality. And when I was at home and trying to get fit because I was really depressed that I was getting made fun of all the time. And as a teenage girl, like, getting made fun of that you're fat or overweight by boys is like, you're, you're.
It's.
It's literally the worst because that's your whole. That's like your whole life is your friend and your friends and boys. And it truly was like, okay, I'm going to try to do this diet thing. And all I did was diet from. Literally. I was on my first diet at 8 years old, and I could not, you know, lose weight to save my life. I started, like, lifting. So my body started to change a bit, but I could not break the food habits because I could not break the habits of the people around me. And if that, when, you know, 7:00pm comes, when your willpower is gone for the day. Yeah, you're going to eat what's in the house. And if. If all I have in the house, even if I have my little healthy section in the fridge, like, if there's pizza on the way to the healthy section or people are eating and saying, why aren't you eating this? Oh, come on, this isn't going to hurt you. Like, I would cave every time. Maybe I could stick to it for a week or two weeks, but I would end up caving, going back to the beginning. And it's because I could not out, like, out good habit, a bad environment, or an unhealthy environment with different things, you're. You're going to succumb to that. 2026 is the year you launch your business. It's the time that you finally stop thinking about that big idea and you actually put it out into the world. There is no better time than fresh, new energy, when people are excited and they're excited to learn more and buy what you have. You guys, maybe you have that idea that you can't shake. Maybe it's something that everyone tells you that you should do with Shopify in 2026, that's when you're finally going to make it happen. Shopify gives you everything you need to sell online and in person. Millions of entrepreneurs have this leap from household names to first time business owners just getting started. And you guys, my company glossy is among them. 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The brand provides amazing support and lift, but I don't feel like it's suffocating me me at all or cutting it anywhere. So I don't know what kind of magic they put in this fabric, but it's like nothing I have ever felt. It's buttery, it's soft, it's beautiful. I love the colors. Shop Skims Fits everybody collection@skims.com after you place your order, be sure to let them know we sent you select podcast in the survey and be sure to select our show in the dropdown menu that follows. That's Earn your Happy. And if you're looking for the perfect gifts for everyone on your list, the Skims Holiday Shop is now open@skims.com are you looking to take your business's marketing to the next level? Meet Brevo, the all in one marketing and CRM platform designed to help you connect with customers, drive engagement and grow your business. 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Yeah.
From the mindset, from the beliefs, from the food, from literally everything. I went for two years of my life hardly talking to them. And I think this is a tough thing for people to hear because they're like, well it's my family or I can't leave them. I understand that, yes, if it's your husband or your kids, like that's going to be tough. But that means you're going to need to sit and have some come to Jesus moments with them, ask them for support, see how much they can support you on this journey and why is it important to you. And then also if you're not going to get that support that you need from them, you have to go and build it outside of your home. And yes. Maybe see them. See like your maybe spend a little less time with your husband, a little more time at your workouts.
Yeah.
Or you know, a little more time at your business networking group so that you can try to break those habits because you are who you're around most and if you can kind of fill, you know, your plate with better things as well, that is going to highly influence what you're doing and it's one of the most challenging things. So to people hearing this, I know that that is hard and I know that that's going to be something that's going to be like one of the hardest things you have to look at. But it's, it's the truth.
It's, it's everything. And I don't think. But I also believe in how you do one thing is how you do everything. So I couldn't imagine being with my husband if he was eating pizza and not working out. Now we are outliers. And the fact that I met him when he was a professional strength and conditioning coach, he's now a professor of exercise science. He's studying for his PhD in health and human performance. So we are, you know, we are outliers. But we've never had to have an argument about one of us wanting pizza and the other one wanting have a salad. Or we've never ever said, said, no, you can't go to the gym. I need you to spend more time with me. Or why are you spending so much time on this when you could be spending time with me? And so that is so supportive. And if people really, truly love you and care for you, they should want the best for you, even if they don't understand why they should want to see you thrive. And if you're like, this is important to me, then they should understand that and respect that. But I also think, you know, when we come back to high performance, how you do one thing is how you do everything. So if you're not looking after your health and your well being and your nutrition, your sleep and your stress, that means that you're not prioritizing the best life for you. So it sounds harsh, but I do think how you do one thing is how you do everything. You don't ever meet anyone with a really tidy house and a really dirty car or you're not really organized in one area of your life and not in the other. So if you're not prioritizing your health and well being, where else is that showing up in your life? And again, sounds harsh, but we are talking about high performance here. And if you want that next level, there are priorities and sacrifices.
I agree. I mean, we're probably going to weave that portion throughout all of these podcasts because it truly is, you know, one of the biggest pieces. It's. And it doesn't get all cleaned up right away. This takes a lot of time. The relationship portion is probably one of the toughest things to dial in. But when that gets cleared up, you become who you're around.
Yeah.
And I'm telling you, when I started to become friends with other high performers and people who are really into health and wellness, you're just not doing the same stuff. Like, you are going to dinner at 5:30 Y. You're sitting across from someone who just ordered probably a salad and maybe no cocktails or one cocktail, and then they say, oh, I'm just having one, and then I'm going to do whatever. Like, it's very normal for people to kind of like, tell you about their routine or what their boundaries are or what they're going to do or what they're doing, not going to do, and they just don't care. They don't. They don't let the other person's, like, choices really impact them.
Yeah.
So what happens is when you're around these people who are really dialed in, you're just like, wow, okay, well, I guess there's not a need for this appetizer before dinner. Okay. Because they don't want it, you know? Or there's not a need to drink because they're not drinking. So I guess I could order a non elk as well. Or, oh, they're not getting dessert. So I guess I don't need dessert either. And if I want something, I can have it at home. But it's just like, like, it's just a very different lifestyle when you start hanging out with people who are very active because you stop going for, you know, it. Where I grew up and the people I would hang out with, it was, okay, well, let's hang out. So what we're gonna do is we're gonna go grab a coffee and a snack.
Yep.
So we go to the coffee shop first, and then we're like, okay, let's talk about where we're gonna go get dinner. But since we've got, like, a little bit of a leg here and we have two hours to burn, let's go get a cocktail at this spot. Okay. All right, well, let's go to dinner. Let's get. Go early because let's get a cocktail. Oh, let's go to the ice cream shop after dinner. I am not kidding you.
Yeah.
It was like the whole experience revolved around food, and now with higher performers, it's okay. How are we going to move our bodies?
Yeah.
Oh, let's take a nice walk in between.
Yeah.
Oh, yeah. We can stop and get a coffee, but you're probably not having a snack with it. Like, this is very real.
Yeah.
Or experience.
Let's go and take a class together. Or let's go for a walk. You know, let's walk and talk. Let's go and take a class together. We can go for a coffee afterwards. But it is. It's so interesting. And I think even you and I talking, you know, there's still a next level. So I work with. So my husband and I both know Dr. Lyon, and he's done some work with her, and my doctor is her doctor. So I. My doctor is at her practice, Dr. Lisa Hunt. And we were at her conference in April, and Tim and I were getting up to go for our flight from Houston to Boston. Like, we had to get. It was like. Like three. I don't know. It was like three or four. It was an ungodly hour. I wouldn't get up to train at this. This time of the morning. And we get up and Tim and I are in the elevator going to get that Uber. And my doctor is in the elevator at like 4:30 in the morning because she's going to get her workout in.
Wow.
And I'm like, oh. And she is. So we both know Gabrielle. She's very. She's quite outgoing. She's a little bit larger than life, even though she's tiny. Dr. Hunt is completely the opposite way. She's very, like, I don't think she would mind if I called her introverted. She's very quiet. But she's there in the elevator at 4:30 in the morning. She's like, what's the only time I'm gonna get to work out? And I was like, oh, time to raise my standards. But I think those are those moments when you're around those high performers, when you see that you need to raise your standards a little bit more. And then when you get there, that's your new baseline. So I think they're really fun things to do as well, like getting that next standard. I love it. Because then that comes the baseline. Then it's like, okay, what's next?
Yeah. And I think if this sounds awful to people, they're like, that's crazy. I don't even want to get there. You know, you have to remember that there's rewards for all of this.
Oh, yeah.
Like, there's. There's a reward that Dr. Lisa.
Yeah.
Is getting.
Yeah.
By getting up at 4:30.
Yeah.
So it's not like, oh, she's just getting up and putting herself through something miserable and she's exhausted. Like, there is probably an energetic reward.
100.
There's a mental reward. There's something where she's going to be speaking or teaching, like she's gonna perform a lot better. Her head's gonna hit the pillow and she's gonna feel better about the day. The performance, like recall on stage. That's a very real thing.
Yeah.
So it's not that they're just torturing their, themselves. There's a major reward that you don't understand that you get after a period of time. It's like when people are like, where's your motivation for working out? I'm like, because I know how I feel when I don't do this consistently.
Yeah.
You know, it's like, like how I end up feeling when I am consistent for long periods of time. It's also like you do get to have a new identity and there's some real pride in when you get to a place where you're not negotiating with yourself anymore.
The integrity piece of it is so important. And almost this time last year, like last October, I went to a, I went to a clinical training and they had a body composition scanner there. I was like, great, I'm going to give mine a try now. I knew that I hadn't been as dialed in as I wanted to be. But that was 43. And my weight on the scale has not changed for. And I tell people this all the time. My weight on the scale has not changed for about 10 years. I go into, anytime I ever weigh myself, I go into the doctor's office and I'm usually, I can guess, I'm usually with about half a pound. And I did this body composition scan and my body fat was, is a lot higher than I wanted it to be and my lean muscle mass was a lot lower than it wants to be now. I had been ticking the boxes. I'd been eating okay, if eating okay for me. You know, I had been going to Reformer Pilates and doing some workouts at home, but not really strength training the way that my body needed to. And I was like, it was a real wake up call. And I needed that wake up call as well because I wasn't being integrous to all of these women who, I'm saying, no, you have to optimize your diet and strength training three to four times a week, week. And I wasn't doing it and I even, I needed that wake up call. So I think we can, you know, we, we are human. But how I feel now compared to almost a year ago when I really went back and I dialed things in again. I started working with Dr. Lisa. I did all of the things. It's a huge, huge Difference. And yeah, I think it's. We reap so many rewards from strength training, protein, early nights, not drinking alcohol. You reap them in the moment and you reap them long term as well.
Are you a. Are you into spirituality, manifestation, any of the things?
Yes. So I think I read my first self help book. It was an author, Fiona Harold. When I think I was in my early 20s, I did my first ever guided meditation in Tulum in Amansala. So it's always been part of my life. I didn't grow up with that at all. I come from very non spiritual working class background in the uk. I didn't grow up with any of that. But it's just kind of found its way into my life and everything from me and my husband have done. Unleash the power within and we've walked on fire. Yeah. So I think, you know, manifestation, spirituality, it plays a huge part in my life now. It comes, it ebbs and flows. I think it does for all of us. Sometimes we need a little bit more, sometimes we need a little bit less. We did Unleash the power within post pandemic, which was why, like you didn't see anyone for two years. And then we are literally, you know, hugging and jumping around strange. 9,000 strangers in a convention center in Florida. And that was a big change for both of us. For me and my husband, we both got two very different things out of it. He had a career change. It really went for the career that he wanted. And then very shortly after that, I was diagnosed with a benign tumor in my face place that I had to have operated on. And Tim says to me, I'm really sorry you had to go through that straight after. Unleash the power within. I'm like. He's like, I'm sorry you didn't get a chance to like jump on that energy. And I was like, well, no, without that I wouldn't have been able to get through the surgery in the way that I did. So yes, I dip in and out of all of the things I like. Mimi Bouchard's activations right now. Meditation, I find challenging. Yeah, definitely. Definitely a piece of that. But I do believe that. But things don't manifest without the hard work.
I totally agree. You know, I think for anybody who is like into anything, spiritual, religion, God, God, spirituality, manifestation, I think that if you are not dialed in your health, I think that that does not come as easily because I think your channel is blocked. I think you're just like not connected and you can't when I am not feeling good, or I eat a lot, or I'm in a, you know, maybe I've been drinking too much or I just got back from a vacation and I was like, oh, my gosh, too many cocktails, too much food. It's almost like I'm not feeling connected spiritually anymore.
But also, why is the universe, God, consciousness, whatever we're calling it, it's not going to give you opportunities if you're not ready for them. So it's not. The universe isn't going to say, here's this amazing opportunity, but if you don't have the energy, the time, the motivation, the clarity to be able to take.
Yep.
You know, you have to get yourself ready. And then the universe will say, here's that opportunity for you. But then you have to then work for it as well.
I totally agree.
So it's. I think it's a give and take relationship of you do everything that you can to get ready. And so when the opportunity arrives, you're then ready for it. But if you're not ready for it, why is the universe going to give it to you in the first place?
I feel like when people are like, I'm, I'm, you know, I'm not getting ideas to solve these problems or I don't know what to do. I'm like, okay, well, you probably need to clean up, like, everything you're doing.
Yeah.
So that you can think better.
Right.
You can get the energy.
Yeah.
To get yourself out of a hole. Because there's a lot of people who feel really stuck right now in business or people who are like, this isn't working anymore. That's not working. My launches aren't working. I'm like, what happens is, unfortunately, it's a vicious cycle where when you feel like things aren't working, you tend to start going back to your old comfort. So maybe like, food, not. Not feeling as, like, healthy, you know, more sugar drinking. What are you watching? What are. You're probably numbing out a little bit.
Yeah.
And what happens is then you start hearing, oh, things aren't good. You start tuning in more to people who are saying, launches aren't going well. Things aren't going well. When there's a whole world of things going. Amazing. But because you're kind of losing some of those habits, maybe you're not sleeping as well. Like, it's this vicious cycle that just kind of. It's a downward spiral for people. And I think when you start with your. That's why I'm so passionate about Like, I want to start talking about health and, and food and all of these things again because it gets you on the path to solve problems, to get in contact with the people who are still winning, to get in contact with the ideas, to feel connected back to God or spirituality or whatever that is, to like, get you back on an upward spiral. So I feel really passionately about all of those things.
If things are going bad, if it is the most stressful, the most busy, the most tired week, month, year of your life, you lean in even more. And I think this is something that people lean out and oh, no, you know, things are so busy, my company's failing, whatever it is, I'm gonna, I don't have time to do the health and wellness things. No, you don't have time to not do them. Yep. That's when you have to lean into them even more because it's going to give you the physical and mental strength and resilience to get through those tough times. And I think, you know something, that high achievers, I see a mistake that they're making is they're bouncing between all or nothing. So I remember having a conversation with someone who's like, when they're not about to do a. And she was a business owner, but she was a very well known business owner dinner. And if she didn't have a big event coming up, or a red carpet or a keynote or a presentation, her healthy habits just went out the window. And then she would be like, oh, my goodness, I've got two weeks to get into shape. I'm going to do all of the crazy cardio, I'm going to do all of the juice cleanses, I'm going to do all of the fasting, and it's this awful all or nothing now that's so bad for you mentally and physically, long term. But then you're not going to be able to show up as your best self for that red carpet, that presentation, that keynote, that conference, because you're going to be drained and depleted. So we have to stop this all or nothing. And we have to stop, you know, people are like, where can I buy back time from? Oh, I won't go to the gym and I won't sleep that actually, no, you're taking even more time away from yourself.
Okay, so all or nothing phase. We're talking about fit for purpose protocols for people who are like, let's say you have something big coming up. Or let's say you're like, oh my goodness, you know, I really want to get in great Shape, like mentally for a launch that I have coming up, or like you said, a red carpet. Or maybe I need something just for a lot of energy that I'm going to have to be doing. Can you kind of tell me about some of the people that you've worked with? I know you can't name names, but some of the types of people.
Yeah.
And then what are some of the things that you do for different events?
Yeah. So I think fit for purpose or protocol for purpose is a really, really good way of thinking about it. So these are number one. We want to have our foundations dialed in. So we have done our testing, we've got all of our results back. We know that there's nothing going on with thyroid or iron or any of those things. So we have a really good foundation. Then we want about this, think of this concept of two weeks out. So you understand this from your, your fitness days. You know, you're two weeks out from a competition, you're two weeks out from a photo shoot. And what that means is that your standard and your foundation is really high. So you're doing all of the things 90 to 95%. Then all that means is that we need two weeks to tailor things. So let's say that is a red carpet. All we need. We don't need to go on a crash diet to get into the dress. We don't need to be doing crazy juice cleanses and detoxes and colonics and all of those things. We just need to tighten up for two weeks because we can do things that are slightly more extreme for two weeks without a long term effect on our health. But if we do the extreme things for a long time because we haven't got the foundations, that's when we get things messed up, up and mentally, that's when you get mentally, it's, you know, mentally we're like, oh, I can do this short term fix, so why am I gonna give up the cocktails and the fries and things? I'm just gonna go all or nothing all of the time. Now in our 20s, we could get away with that a little bit more than we can now. But it has such a long term impact on emotional and physical health. So two weeks out, we want to be 90 to 95% of the time we are on track with everything. And then two weeks out, maybe let's say it's red carpet bit, so we know we've got a dress to get into. So that's when maybe we might do a little bit more lean meat, fish, chicken, lots and lots of green veggies. We might then think about, okay, let's say red carpet. We want to make sure our skin's looking great as well. I just always think of the glam bot when I think of this. So our skin and our skin and our hair. So are we upping our protein so we can make the collagen? Are we taking collagen supplement? Are we maybe doubling our liposomal vitamin C so our skin makes more collagen? Are we getting a ton of healthy fats in there? So we get those really plump cellular walls for our skin so our skin's glowing and then maybe a little closer to the time, maybe that's something that you do do, you know, a lymphatic drainage massage on the day. But we want to be thinking of this concept of two weeks out. So when we get to that big event, we feel full and we feel glowing and we feel radiant. We don't feel drained and depleted, which is what we're going to have done if we had to do like a week of a juice climb sense. So that's something like a red carpet. So two weeks out, tighten up for the last two weeks, do the fun things like the lymphatic drainage and, you know, I can create a, you know, let's say someone's got a last minute photo shoot. We might do a couple of days of a skin promoting smoothie. We might do a soup with a ton of bone broth and healthy fats and lots of polyphenols in there. But we only want to do that for short term. We don't need to do that for long term. Now let's say someone has a. Okay, let's think Tony Robbins. We've both seen Tony Robbins speak, right? Okay, so the man is genetically different to the rest of us anyway. I do feel like there is a next level of evolution and he is one of those people that is that next level of evolution. But we're talking energy and we're talking mental cognition. So then maybe we might have an energy boosting smoothie. It's going to keep our blood sugar balance, but it's going to have things like maca in there for energy. It might have blueberries in there for our polyphenols. It might have beets in there that help with our circulation and it might have some oats in there to keep our blood sugar balanced. So really, what can we think of in terms of cognitive function? Another thing is looking after our nervous system. So I worked with. It was funny. I was in Boston and it was a British client and it was a colleague of mine that I'd worked with before. And she said, my client is coming to Boston to shoot a movie. Would you be happy to work with her? And I said, yeah, absolutely. And when I heard shoot movie, I thought it was a producer or a videographer or something. But no, it was a. She'd been in a very famous show. It was probably the biggest show of the 2000 and tens. It had dragons. That's all we're going to say. And she was coming over to Boston to shoot a movie and I was doing her training and her nutrition at the time. Now the movie was very violent and very physically demanding. There were lots of fight scenes and it was quite dramatic. Now my job there is not to whip her into shape in the gym or to get her to lose a ton of weight. My job is to make sure she is strong enough physically through training and through nutrition and emotionally to get through these really complicated fight scenes. They were filming at night. It was really, really stressful for her. So for her, I was looking at building her up and keeping her strong. So we're not going to kill it in the gym. We're going to work on really, really functional strength training. We're going to make sure that her nutrition is dialed in. Really, really nutrient dense diet. But how are we also adding things that help keep her feel calm and grounded? So she's not doing low carb, we're putting in complex carbs there. And even at that point when I'm working with someone like that so intimately, I knew that she needed someone to help with her, with her emotional and energy. So I sent her to my Reiki healer. So it really is that word holistic that I have in my job title. It really is 360. So for someone like getting someone ready like that when they're shooting a movie is very different from getting someone ready for a red carpet and again, different for a keynote or a big conference. Okay.
So a topic that I love is taking risk. Because as an entrepreneur you really have to put yourself out there all the time.
Yeah.
You have to do big bold asks. You have to take big risks and handle a lot of stress that comes with taking a risk. Sometimes when you take risks, it fails massively. I've never met an entrepreneur who has not failed massively multiple times. And that comes with a lot of stress. But actually taking those risks, risks demands a different level of just like clarity and stress management.
Yeah.
So I would love to know, like, what's the connection between physical health and the ability to take bigger risks in business.
Yeah, I think the word here is resilience because that first risk you take is probably not going to pay off and then the second one and then the third one and then maybe the 53rd one. So you need to bounce back and you need to bounce back stronger and you need to be able to learn the lessons from that. That when we take big risks of so many things that we can't control, what do we have control over? Well, we have control over what we put in our mouth, we have control over what we do in the gym, we have control over our sleep, we have control over the inputs that we bring into our lives. So A, it gives us a sense of control and I think that's really, really important. Two, it gives us energy. So you know, we have long days. There's no getting, there's no getting away with it. Yeah, ideally we'd love to have those lovely eight hour days and have our huge evening routines and things. Sometimes we have to do really long days, really long Trav. And if we don't have the energy to show up as our best selves, we're not going to be able to. I know. Let's say you have to fly from the west coast to the east coast to see an investor for Gloce and or you do the red eye from so you do the red eye from LAX to New York and you know that you have to then go and have an investor meeting now. Okay, you might be a little bit tired from the flight, but you've been eating well, you've been hydrating well, you've been doing all of the things, you're two weeks out, you've been doing all of the things running up to it. You're going to have the energy, the mental function, the cognitive function to be able to show up at that meeting. If you show up at investor meeting for a skin and gut brand, you know, it's an aspirational brand. We're talking about energy, we're talking about showing up as our best selves and you're tired, you're dehydrated, you're cranky, you might be a little bit, you know, you're not feeling comfortable in your body, you're not going to be able to get, get the big money there.
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So I think it's an energy piece of the puzzle. It's a brain health piece of the puzzle as well. We all know that if we haven't slept well, we haven't eaten well, our brains don't function as well. And it's that's not just through the food we eat, it's through the exercise that we do as well. So we know that strength training, high intensity interval training helps us make something called brain derived neurotropic factor which helps us literally grow new brain cells. Which I don't know about you, but in business I feel like I need to grow brain cells all of the time.
Yeah, there's very like complex big challenges all the time.
You have to be able to stretch. So mentally it's helping your brain as well. And then physically there's always so much going on. As a business owner, I don't want to be worried about my joint health. I don't want to be worried about my bloating. I don't want to be thinking about all of those things. I want to be in thriving mode, not surviving mode. So I think there's that internal feeling of confidence, but then there's also an external feeling of confidence. If you feel strong in your body, you know, if you want to step up on a stage and you feel strong, you have good core strength you have good posture, your skin looks good, like you look healthy. There is a confidence that comes with that as well. So I think we do need to think about that as a tool in our toolbox for high achieving business risks. When we feel secure in certain things, we feel secure in our health, we feel secure in our energy, we feel secure in our appearance. It gives us the confidence to take bigger risks. If we're in survival mode all of the time, if we're worried about our heart health, our gut health, we're not going to feel like we can take bigger risks. And then also coming back to how we started our conversations today with the gut health piece of the puzzle, if we're not making those neurotransmitters that make us feel confident and remove the anxiety and give us that confidence, that feeling of joy, that being able to manage the overwhelm, then we're not going to be able to do it as well. So it, it's everything we can't make. We can't take big risks from an unhealthy body.
And, you know, an interesting piece is people don't want to take a big risk on you if you're not healthy. And there's studies around it, like, literally people not even realizing there is a bias because what they do is when they think of wanting to invest in someone and maybe they see someone who's not healthy or someone who is overweight. And this is, this is an actual fact on studies, you guys, they go, I don't know if that person's going to be able to go the extra mile.
Right.
Because they might be too tired. Or maybe they, if they don't have, in their mind, if they don't have the discipline to work out, then they're associating that to maybe not having the discipline to do what it takes in their business. And you may not like this, but it is just facts. This is like studies of what people have found with, who people invest in, who people bet on.
Yeah.
Who people want to work with, who.
Want to partner with. Yeah.
Who you're attracted to.
Yeah.
And so, you know, no matter who you are, this is not like a, oh, well, you know, that person was born that way or they were lucky. These are all things that we do have some control over.
Yeah.
So I think instead of feeling upset about it, because I could have felt upset when I was younger and when my family literally told me that I had no choice in the matter and it was my genetics and I would always be overweight, I literally was told this from my aunt sitting around at a table, and they said, good luck. You'll always be fat like us.
Oh. And you say.
And I was like, very impressionable. And that set something off in me. And I was like, I don't believe that. So I hope that if you're hearing this and maybe you have that belief that you decide with all that you have, like, you don't believe that either. That maybe what you've been told or even diagnosed with. Yeah. Is maybe not the truth and that you have more control if in. In. I hope that you find a place where it's like, if you're not doing all the things that we talked about, that it gives you hope to go. I could work my way up to that. If it's not this year, maybe it's in two years, maybe it's in five years. This journey's been so long for me. I know it has been for you, too. It truly has been a journey since my. Since my first died at 8 years old. Like, this is going to be something that's going to probably take some time for you. It's going to take three years, it's going to take five years, it's going to take 10 years. But you're going to be able to live out those years so much happier, so much healthier and feeling so much better. So, you know, I love that you touch on the confidence piece because I've absolutely done a keynote where, like, keynotes where I haven't felt confident.
Yeah.
Where I'm like, I did not take care of myself.
Yeah.
I did not feel good on that stage. I feel like I wasn't able to. I do believe there is a, like, a bit of, like, channeling that can happen when you feel really good about yourself and you've taken care of yourself on stage. And when you don't feel good, I'm kind of like, where you at? God.
Oh, I didn't sleep last night.
Oh, I drank. Really, like, oh, I. You know, maybe I drank too much or whatever that week, and I just feel cut off from that. So, you know, let's really touch just a little bit more on stress resilience, because I think as a high performer, that there is more stress than I think people do realize. What are. Are there some things that we can do? Like, is walking something really huge for stress? Like, what are some things that people can do to. To do better stress management?
So I think people will separate. I call them the four pillars of wellness. So you've got your nutrition, your supplementation, your Fitness and your lifestyle, your stress and sleep. And people will separate these things and think that their diet doesn't have anything to do with their stress. Now, if you have, have poor blood sugar regulation, if you're not eating your protein, if you're still eating your sugar, your cortisol levels are going to go up and down. So number one is I know how much calmer I feel if I have a meal with a lot of good protein in there, a lot of fiber in there, a lot of healthy fats, helps me feel calm, helps me feel grounded. So if you are bouncing from sugary coffee and a pastry to a burger for lunch and a pizza for dinner, that's also going to give you higher stress levels. So that, that's, that's number one. Number two is that exercise is a great de stressor. So we know that when we work out, our cortisol levels goes up. That's a good thing. I think again, something we hear myths on social media is that your cortisol needs to be low or balanced. That's absolute nonsense. We need to have higher cortisol in the morning. Gives us. Cortisol is not bad. It's when it becomes dysregulated, that's when it's damaging for the body. So we want to have higher cortisol in the morning, then we want to see it curve off and go down towards the end. So exercise can help us regulate our cortisol, our fight, flight or flee response. When we have a stressful event, our cortisol level goes up because it prepares us to fight or to run. Now if we don't do anything about that, that's going to cause health issues. So if you do have a really stressful event, one of the best things that you can do is go for a run for 10 minutes, get in the gym and throw some weights around because that's actually going to help metabolize your cortisol. So that's really important. It's not not separating, oh, I've got stress management over here and I've got diet over here and I've got fitness over here. They're all so integral to each other. So those would be kind of the two things. Going out for a walk is, you know, I've never met a walk that I've regretted. If I, for me, my walking is my mental health number one and everything else second. It's like if you get really strung out, nothing's working. Double checking your emails, your bank balance, keep refreshing your Instagram post, it's not Going to change anything. Put your sneakers on, go out for a walk. You're going to feel a hundred times better afterwards. And then really thinking about what else can we do during the day? And also making your stress management fit for your lifestyle. I've been in and out of a meditation practice my whole life. Sometimes I can do it, sometimes I can't. I would love to go to a Joe Dispenza retreat. I just don't think I can do it for five days and 18 hours a day. But what works for me is listening to a great podcast and going for a walk. What works for me is maybe just putting on some really great music and dancing around the house. What do I love to do? I love to go get my nails done or my eyelashes done. Eyelash extensions are one of the best things you can do because you have to lie there with your eyes taped shut for at least an hour and you can't move. So that's going to make me calm down. So I think it's really finding what works for you. In terms of stress management, there are some great adaptogens that can help. Ashwagandha is fantastic. Lavender oil has been clinically proven to help reduce, relax, to help with relaxation and reduce stress. So it's what really works for you. Because I know I've got such hard charging clients, if I told them to go and lay in a, you know, one of those flotation tanks for 20 minutes, it would drive them crazy and they would get even more stressed. So for them, their stress, their stress management might be going to do a boxing workout for an hour. So your stress management has to work, work for you. And I think the biggest key is that stress management and sleep go hand in hand. If we don't sleep well, we're more stressed the next day. But energy and resilience, those are things that we. You can't pay for energy and resilience, you can't get that from AI. Those are things that are intrinsic to us, but they're the biggest keys for taking bigger risks, for achieving more things in business. And really it is that whole nutrition, supplementation, fitness, lifestyle, sleep, stress, it's all going to help us build more energy and have more resilience.
Okay, so you had mentioned the high cortisol in the morning and how that's, you know, cortisol can be a great thing. And I know that I get my blood work done quarterly, so it's just I get to see like, all the different, you know, cortisol levels. But with that said, I, back in the day used to do like non stop hit training. Can we just talk a little bit about. Because you had said that, you know, if you go and do certain training like it can help eat up that cortisol. That, that happens. What happens when we do like hit training every single day though?
Yeah.
Is that a good thing, a bad thing? What does that look like?
So let's backtrack and talk about how we measure cortisol. Okay. So when we have our blood cortisol levels done, it's a moment in time. Time. So really what we want to think about is what are our cortisol levels doing at different times of the day?
Yeah.
So in the morning, cortisol is the hormone that wakes us up. So we want cortisol to be higher in the morning. If I sometimes I will look at lab results and functional medicine testing and I'll see that cortisol is low in the mornings. That means we've got to the point of burnout. We want to get before that. So we want cortisol higher in the morning, higher around lunchtime and then it is going to drift off. Now if you're getting your cortisol done through a blood test, it's only telling you one point of the day. So maybe like 9am in the morning, you don't know what the rest of the day is doing. So we want to do something called a four point salivary cortisol test, which is really gross. You have to spit into a tube four times at four points a day and then you mail that off and then it tells us what our cortisol level is doing throughout the day. So we want to see that nice cortisol curve. Now, just like any hormone. And this is such misinformation on social media, there's no such thing as hormone balance balance, it's hormone optimization. So and for women, I think we understand this a little bit more because we have a 28 to 35 day cycle. With men, they're really just looking at a 24 hour cycle. With women we have a 24 hour cycle and we have a, you know, we have our menstrual cycles as well. We have our longer cycles. So we want to be thinking about when do we, when are we producing cortisol and when we are not. So I think back to the heyday of boutique fitness classes. So like the 2010s friends and everyone was going to the soul cycle class at 7, 38, 30 at night. That's like going to the club. You wonder why you're doing your. You have this really, really busy day in the office and then you go to your soul cycle class at night and it's pounding music and flashing lights and the instructor hyping you up and then you think you're going to be able to go to bed at 10:30. It's not going to happen. So we have to think about when do we want those cortisols, when do we want cortisol to be released? So for example, if we're HIIT training or we're doing cardio, ideally we want to do that first thing in the morning. It's going to give us that spike of cortisol and then we're going to able to mitigate and metabolize that during the day. Do I like HIIT training? Yes. Do I want my clients doing that 8:30 at night? No. Let's do a yoga class. Let's go for a walk. Let's calm down. Now. HIIT training has been, and my husband speaks better on this than I do, but hiit training has been bastardized. The use of that word, hiit training actually has very specific exercise parameters. So within certain rest to work periods. So if anyone's saying to me they're doing a HIIT training class for an hour, they're not because they're not getting into those correct work to rest ratios to get the benefits from it. So it's very, very specific. Specific. But going back to your question, should we be doing HIIT training every day? No. If we're stressed out, should we doing HIIT training? No. When you are more stressed out, you want to dial back and do the foundations and do the things that are going to ground and calm you. So if I have my clients and they're super stressed out, do I want them to do HIIT training? Yes. Especially for women, it's fantastic for burning fat. We actually do see it has some impact on belly fat and on visceral fat. It's also hit training helps us produce more collagen in our skin. But it can be really, really stressful for the body. So you get back to your foundations. You strength train three to four times a week. Then if you're feeling good and you've got a ton of energy, then let's put our HIIT training in because it's still a stressor for the body. So we just have to think about how many stresses are we having and what those stresses are and do the pros outweigh the cons? So if I'm having a couple of Weeks where I'm not traveling anywhere. It's kind of a calm over the summer for me. It's always quite quiet. So that's when I might put more hiit training in. Because my body is like, like, oh, I can handle that stress. I can find something good from that stress. That stress will rebuild me. Whereas if I'd woken up this morning after a day of travel and not eating right and sleeping in a hotel room, and I'd done hiit training, that's gonna produce more cortisol that my body doesn't need. So again, it's those fit for purpose protocols of, yeah, hiit training is great, but do it when you are not stressed out.
This is reminding me of so many. You know, I've been through so many workout evolutions in my career. Like, literally, I've done it all. All. But for years and years, especially when I was competing, I did not realize that, you know, it was like I'd go do a hit training or I do a bunch of cardio and it was like I was in such a fight or flight all the time in my workouts that it was also making me starving.
So, yeah.
When I started working out a little less.
Yeah.
And started doing some lower impact things and became really became a walker, I noticed like, like, wow. I. This is offsetting. It's. It's doing the opposite. Like, I thought working out less would actually be worse for my body. And I noticed that I actually got leaner, which is interesting. This is not for everyone, but I had to find this balance. I got leaner by, like doing less and lower impact. Just like, not as stressful of things because for how starving I was, getting, lifting super heavy or doing like hit training all the time, I was just, I. I couldn't control my eating. I was starving all the time. So for me, I had to, like, strike this balance of, okay, what does it look like to strength train, but not a ton. Like three times a week.
Yeah.
For a little less time. And then maybe do some walking on those off days or yoga or light things. And that just felt so counterintuitive to me from what I had learned and the culture that I was in. And that can be hard to find the balance because you get really addicted.
Yeah.
To thinking that a certain way of working out is giving you results. Because maybe you did get a lot of results in the beginning.
And also it's the. You are conflating effort with results as well. And we all know from being in business, from being in, like, there are certain things that you put more effort into and they get really good results. And then sometimes you can put all of your effort in the wrong place. And yeah, women will come to me and they're doing, you know, they're doing the cardio, they're doing the hit training, they're doing, you know, the Barry's or the F45 or the Orange theory, all of these. These. There was a real. And it was actually when I got out of the fitness industry, there was a real movement to more is better, harder is better. If you're not crawling out of the, the red room in Barry's or whatever it is, maybe that's 50 shades of gray, I can't remember, get those two confused. But if you're not, you know, on the floor, depleted, crawling out of your workout, it wasn't a good workout. And there was. I really feel that we saw that in like, like 2000 and tens and on for about 10 to 15 years. And that's absolutely not true. And we are just depleting our bodies. It's about smart exercise. It's about doing the things that really move the needle for women. That's strength training, that's walking. We can throw a little bit of hiit training in there if we're feeling healthy. But those weeks where you're super stressed out, you actually do want to dial back on the things that are going to increase the cortisol.
Okay. So we're going to kind of end where we started just talking about gut health, because you have in here, you aren't what you eat, you are what you absorb, which you did mention. But I want to talk to people about what, like, type of foods they can kind of be eating for their gut. Because we did talk about how it is mood, energy, and not just foods, but skin as well. So gut health became kind of a big thing in talking about, like, okay, why do we need probiotics now? And because, you know, gloce has a probiotic in it. And I feel very passionately about all the ingredients that are in glossy. And also just talking about how important it is is to be eating for your skin. I don't know if you know the story, but, like, when I was in fitness and I would shoot covers, yeah. They would always email me before I would go and shoot and they would say, hey, we want to make sure you're eating for your skin, not just like for being lean or, you know, having a day. Because they said, you know, a lot of times girls will show up and their skin is terrible. And we have to do a bunch of airbrushing, and we don't want to do that. We don't want it to look unnatural. So we try to do the least amount. Amount of airbrushing for a couple of the magazines I always shop for. And so they'd be like, make sure you're eating for your skin. Make sure you're hydrating. Don't do what people are telling you to do. And, like, cut out the fats.
Yeah.
So they would send me, like, lists of food night. That's when I started to learn, oh, my God, what you eat will show up on your skin or not.
Yeah.
And so, you know, I met so many girls in the fitness industry whose skin was terrible.
Yeah.
And they aged so quickly.
The aging part.
The aging part was insane. So that's really was a huge part of also what we did with Glo. Like, okay, how can we make sure people understand this is so much about what you're absorbing? So let's talk about a little bit. Just about, like, you know, back in the day when we were eating fermented foods, what that does for our gut, and a little bit about how we.
Can eat for our skin. Yeah, I love back in the day. As if we were back in the.
Day thousands of years ago. No, hundreds of years ago, you guys.
So why do we. And this is. This is a great question. In terms of supplements in general, do we need. Need supplements? Can't we just get everything from our diet? Unfortunately not. So we. We have depleted all the minerals in our soil, so we're not getting the ingredients, we're not getting the nutrients from our soil. None of us are eating an ideal diet. Me, you, as much as we try. And then we have so many environmental and external stresses. So we're not getting probiotics in our food unless we're really, really focusing on it. So in terms of fermented foods, we're thinking of things like. Like Greek yogurt. We're thinking of kefir. We have maybe probiotic cottage cheese. We have sauerkraut. We have kimchi. We have foods that are fermented foods. Now. They're wonderful, and they have probiotic bacteria in there, but they're not really enough these days to create a good. An effect in our body. What are we trying to create in our body? We're trying to minimize the bad bacteria, and we're trying to nourish the good bacteria. Now, adding fermented foods is a great way of doing that, but if we want to optimize that, that's when we need to add, add probiotics in there. So probiotics are different from fermented foods, as in they're clinically studied, they should be clinically studied. We know where they're going in the gut. And these days we really want to be thinking about lots of different types of probiotics. So different probiotic bacteria have different effects. We even know that the type of probiotic, the type of bacteria you have in your gut can affect things like your cardiovascular health. So they really affect, affect everything in our body. So again, going back to that diet, if you're eating a fantastic diet but you're not absorbing all of the nutrients, then A, that's going to cause an inflammatory response, B, you're going to get bloated and C, you're not going to be getting all of those nutrients from the diet. So really, if a client is willing, and I will always kind of push them in that direction anyway, we want to start with gut health. One of the best things that we can do for gut health is to take a clinically studied probiotic that is actually going to nourish that good bacteria in our gut. Now that is, as you well know, that is a minefield. So I very often will have women come to me and they will state the name of a very well known brand of probiotics. Now what happens if we take the wrong type of probiotic or we have gut dysbiosis, an imbalance of good and bad bacteria. When we take the wrong probiotic or we take too many probiotics, we're growing everything in there. So people will be like, I don't understand. I took this really strong, for want of a better word, probiotic, and I ended up even more bloated, constipated, et cetera, et cetera.
That can happen.
That can happen. It happens a lot. And I'm like, well, we need to think about, let's manage that good and bad bacteria, let's stop feeding the bad bacteria and let's nourish the good bacteria. So I think probiotics can be a minefield. Looking for clinically studied probiotics is really, really important. What are we looking for when we're thinking about a good probiotic? Is it still active when it gets to the part of the gut that it needs to be? So we think about, oh, probiotics help gut health. Well, gut health really is everything from, you could argue the brain, but definitely everything from the mouth down to the anus. So we have tons of different bacteria in different parts of the gut? Is the probiotic actually going to get there and still be live and still be beneficial? What form is it coming in? So a lot of people with poor gut health, they think, I'm going to start them off with a ton of supplements. I'm actually like, no, we're going to pare back. We're going to do lots of liquids, we're going to do lots of powders because they're a lot easier for your body to absorb. So finding the right probiotic is really matching it to that person and their needs as well. And also, is it going to be something, you know, what is the supplement we should take? What is the workout that we should do? What is the diet that we should.
Should.
We should stick to? What's the one that you're going to do and the one that you're going to enjoy? So, you know, for a long time, we only ever had refrigerated probiotics. My clients would never take their probiotics because they're like, well, it's in the fridge and I have to think about it. So something that we can take daily when we may be not having to think about an extra step that can be really beneficial. I like to do probiotics. You know, we get different types of probiotic foods or probiotics in our fermented foods, but then making sure we're taking a probiotic a day. Personally, I have one or two glossy a day, and I do another probiotic on top because I know that my gut is nice and balanced and it likes to have a lot of probiotics.
Do you. What's the other probiotic that you like to take? Is it a certain strain? Like a strain for something else?
So I take something called saccharomyces boulardi, and that just helps to keep the. It's good at helping. Keeping the bad bacteria low and still nourishing the good bacteria. So I do that. I do that all of the time because I have had gut health issues. But I do like people to do that after they've been taking an antibiotic or during taking an antibiotic, or if they're traveling or a time of stress or GI dysfunction. So we can cycle our probiotics. And again, that's getting into. We can test for that. We can do a poop test, which is exactly what we think it is, and we can see what strains of bacteria we have, what we need to nourish, what we need to bring down. But I think for most people, starting with a good. Good with some Fermented foods. Not too many with a probiotic they're going to take every day. That's a really great starting point for their gut health.
Okay, well, we'll finish off with just a couple more supplements because we've talked about probiotics, we've talked about, you know, kind of nutrients, proteins. Let's touch quickly just on, like, omega 3s, B vitamins, magnesium.
Yeah.
Because I feel like those are important.
Yeah, yeah. So I think. I think again, we want to, when we're thinking about supplements, is ignoring what's going on on social media, which is so, so hard. What does our body actually need? So, number one is, what does our body need? What are we deficient in? So are we deficient in iron? Are we deficient in vitamin D? Are we deficient in magnesium?
And we're going to find this out through our tests.
We find this out through. Yes. So mostly through testing. Now. Now there are some things that we can say. You know, I always have to say, you always want to check with your medical provider first. But we know that most of us are deficient in magnesium. Magnesium is used in over 300 metabolic processes in the body. When we get stressed out, our body uses more magnesium. You know, we're not getting a lot of magnesium in our food because it's not in our soil anymore. So we can be pretty sure that most people are magnesium deficient. Most people in the US Are magnesium deficient. So magnesium is something that I'm always going to say, say, let's put some magnesium in now.
I actually feel like just because glossy has magnesium in it, I always feel like, because a lot of people are like, wow, I feel better even after a week. I'm like, you were probably magnesium deficient. Like, because it. People don't realize, like you said, the 300 different things, it's everything. It affects so much that I. That was why I was super like, okay, if we're gonna make people feel better and look better, but they're gonna notice such a difference when you just start taking a great magnesium.
Yeah. And. Exactly. A great magnesium. So, you know, my clients will come to me and they're like, well, I'm taking magnesium. I don't feel any different. And they're taking, you know, no shade Trader Joe's, but they're taking like a Trader Joe's off the shelf, awful kilo of magnesium, and that's not going to do anything for them. So a really great quality magnesium. It's going to help with. It's going to help with your Muscle strength, it's going to help with your brain health, it's essential for nerve conduction, it's essential for heart health health, it's essential for skin, it's essential for stress management. So magnesium is a pretty good bet for most people. I haven't seen a lab test in either the east coast or in the UK that has been a good level or an optimum level of vitamin D. So most people, most people, if they're not taking a supplement, they're probably going to be vitamin D deficient. Again, it's a really simple, easy blood test. So people are going to say, you know, do I need to take vitamin D? Yes, but let's find out how much you actually need to take. Are you at the really low end or are you at the optimal end? Again, I think vitamin D is a really good one to test for because we can take too much vitamin D. It's a fat soluble vitamin so it can get. We just want to make sure that we're taking the right levels there. B vitamins essential for energy. If we're having a good amount of red meat in our diet, we might not need a B vitamin. But definitely for our vegans and vegetarians, if they want to make energy, B vitamins are really, really important. Fish oil. If we're not eating three servings of fatty fish a week, we probably need a fish oil in there. It's one of the most clinically studied. We want to make sure we're doing like a wild caught, really, really good quality fish oil. So important for, we know, for cardiovascular health, but also for our skin health as well. Whenever we're thinking supplements for skin health, we want to be thinking collagen, vitamin C, antioxidants, polyphenols, but also the lay, every cell has a layer of low fat phospholipid bilayer. Now I work with a lot of women in their 50s, 60s and 70s and they have done those low fat diets of the 80s, 90s, naughties. It ages them very quickly. Just like you were saying with in fitness, you know, in the modeling and the competitors. When you're having that low fat diet, it really shows on the skin, you're not plumping up the skin cells. So I think fish oil is a really good one and we can look at lab tests to see omega 6 to omega 3 ratios. If you have a lot of inflammation, fish oil is a really good one. For me, if I'm talking in terms of gut health, I'm always going to do a probiotic. If I'M talking skin health. I am going to say a collagen peptide and I'm going to say a liposomal vitamin C. So when you say.
A collagen peptide, what does that look like? How do you get that?
So collagen, we want to be thinking collagen powder. I tend to do a collagen powder rather than a collagen supplement, like a tablet. A, I love. A lot of my supplements come from liquids and powders because they're so much easier to digest. Digest. B, we're going to get a bigger serving of collagen if we're doing it from a powder rather than doing it from a capsule. Now why do we need to add collagen back into our diet? Well, we have processed it out. So collagen, there's no such thing as plant based collagen. We can talk about that another time. But there is no such thing as plant based. Actually there is. There's one in the UK that has the same amino acid profile as a collagen. But collagen is coming from animal foods. It's coming from, from. It's kind of gross. But skin and tendon and bones and all of those parts of the animal that we have processed out of our diets. I don't know about you, but I'm not sat at home making my own bone broth. I'm not sure eating the bone marrow, all of those things. So we're going to supplement it with our collagen supplements. So good quality collagen supplement. We know that a marine source is more bioavailable to the body. So again, we want to be making sure where that's coming from. Is it sustainable, is it coming from a clean source? Marine collagen is great. You can also do a bovine collagen. But if we're doing collagen, then we want to also make sure that we're taking vitamin C. So vitamin C and zinc. So vitamin C essential cofactors for our protection and our synthesis of new collagen. So if you're taking your. Let's say you're putting collagen in your smoothie, but you haven't got a source of vitamin C in there. You're missing a trick to help your body make that collagen. So no supplement vitamin mineral lives on its own. There's so many different CO factors that we need to support the growth, the synthesis of all of those metabolic processes.
We have zinc and vitamin C and Glo C. So that's. Take it with your collagen it's perfect.
There you go.
There you go. Put it right in there.
