Health and Wellness with Paris Heinen - Part 1

Welcome to Accountants LawPod, where accounting professionals and law firms converge, hosted by Linda Artesani, Sarah Prevost, and Steven Libhart.

Hello everybody, and welcome back to the podcast. And we have a very special guest and a very good topic, I think, for anybody who's listening, no matter whether you're an accountant or not. And I'm going to kick it over to Steve to make the introductions because it's his special guest.

Well, thank you, Linda. This is Paris Heinen. She is my wellness coach. She and I have known each other almost 20 years now. We started out at— she was a Weight Watchers coach way back when, and that's where I found her. And you had to literally get there an hour early to get into her class because it was standing room only. And then she spun off into her company, which she'll tell you about in a few minutes. And she has made such a difference in my life. And I just thought it would be awesome to have her come speak to our audience today because all of us sit on our duffs all day long and don't get up, except you, Linda. You're like a role model here. And Paris really challenges us. Like, she one time, what was it, a year and a half ago, Paris, she made us all get down on the floor and get up again. And she's like, I'm going to see if you can do that. And now because of her, I do that every day, 3 or 4 times a day. Awesome. Oh. Oh, you bet. And you know what? It's not that easy to do. But she was like, if you have to hang on to the dog, the coffee table, whatever, do it. So anyway, Paris, welcome, and we're glad to have you here.

Thank you so much. I'm so excited to be here. I'm going to continue that story for just a second. Steve actually was one of my people who said, I'll do that. I'll get on the floor. And all I told everybody was, you don't have to get on the floor and get off the floor unattended. But then he went on an Airstream with his dad, and I believe you were traveling, and you started making your, what, 75-year-old dad do the same thing.

He's 84 and I've been making him get up and down.

84, up and down. So, yes. So, well, I'm Paris and I have been a coach in the— I've been a health and wellness coach for 24 years. And as Steve said, I started at WW. I started at Weight Watchers. My journey started as I had 55 pounds to lose. And so it was— I had to find the right program for me. And that's where kind of everything has led from. So I started with Weight Watchers in 1991. Which feels really a long time ago. Steve said 20 years and I went, yeah, yeah, but there was more. So 1991, I lost 55 pounds and then I left Weight Watchers and I started doing my own thing again. And guess what? Gained it all back. So I understand that reality. I went back in 1999 and that's where my journey started, really. I lost 55 pounds. I had a very different— exactly the same 55 pounds. I had a very different attitude when I went back this time. I was going to learn. I was going to figure out myself. I needed to figure out, you know, it wasn't just Weight Watchers. I needed to lose the weight. I needed to figure it out. And I found my way. And then I was blessed to be asked to be a leader at Weight Watchers. And as Steve said, I was a top leader at Weight Watchers for 20 years. I helped hundreds of people lose hundreds of pounds. That's what I'm probably most proud of. And I loved my job. I loved the company until I didn't. And then the company changed. And in 2020, It changed all of us, right? Everyone knows that 2020 really changed all of us. And I chose to, because I didn't like the direction my company was going, I chose to spend my entire summer getting certified in every single kind of coaching you could get certified in. And so I did self-care coaching, I did health and nutrition coaching, I did goal-setting coaching.

I was like, I'm going to do it all, right?

And then My husband said to me, because I said, I think I'm going to quit my job, but I think I'm going to start my own company. And he just was like, okay. That's how my husband's always been. He's never been one that argues. He just— because everything I've ever said I'm going to do, I do. So I left Weight Watchers in December of 2020 on my 20th anniversary of being there, and I started Always On Your Side coaching 2 weeks later. And the funnest part, and I'm going to include Steve in this because, Steve, you just came back to Weight Watchers, what, a week before I was going to quit? I know.

I came back to Weight Watchers and I said, I have to be in Paris's class. And they said, she's not going to be with us anymore. And I'm like, well, then I want my money back. So I found her again. Oh, wow.

So I got together with a bunch of my clients that were with me at Weight Watchers, and I started an all-virtual. We did all virtual. We've been all virtual since day one. And I have, like I said, it's amazing. It is absolutely amazing. But my main goal was Weight Watchers works. It truly does. It works for people. But my biggest thing is that there's nobody— not every plan works for everybody. So what I did was I created what's called the Power of 13. And the Power of 13 was created because there was— there are 13 things. I didn't know that going in, but I sat down at my dining room table with a legal pad. I know you all know what those look like. And I started writing the things that I thought you have to do to live a healthy lifestyle and lose weight and maintain your weight wherever you were. And it works alone or it works with other plans. It truly does. So that's where the book's coming from. My book will be out in August. It's The Power of 13. I'm very excited about that. That's going to be fun. It's a book and a workbook.

Oh.

So it's combined the 2 things. I have to tell you, this podcast is part of the reason that I was so quick to get my book finished, because I thought when Steve told me, I'm like, well, I could be done with that by then, so I'll have something to talk about, right? So here we are.

We motivated you. Did you hit send, like, just a few minutes ago?

Yeah.

No, actually, it's been— it's been exactly— well, I had a June 8th date done because I wanted to be sure. And so then we've done all the revisions and everything else we've had to do. I know, 2 books in 7 weeks. So it was quite an adventure. Yeah.

So it is an adventure. My God, we're motivators, Steve.

Yeah. You guys had no idea. You didn't even know me until just now, and now you're like, That's pretty good.

That's awesome.

Share with them. Share with all of us how many Zoom meetings a week you have and how many private coachings you have. I mean, this lady is amazing.

So, well, right now we have support groups, which everybody's different. Everybody does things differently. Steve can kind of tell you more about being in a support group. We have support groups. I limit my screens because I want to be able to see everybody. So I do everything on Zoom. So we have 4 support groups during the week. We did have 5, but summertime takes away one of Because people are so busy. So we have 4 support groups every week, 3 on Saturday, 1 on Wednesday. And then I do individual coaching, and I do that 5 days a week. And so I have about 50 individual coaching clients that I'm working with all the time. And I coach in all different areas. Most of mine is health and wellness in general. But even the Power of 13, there's 4 things that are about food, there's 3 things that are about activity, and the rest of it's about your mindset.

Oh, wow.

Yeah. So it's not just health and nutrition. It's not just about drinking water. That's not who I am. But I also truly believe one of my standbys is Tiny Habits. I know most people know Tiny Habits. I'm constantly trying to educate people. But every time that you have a struggle, I'm going to ask you, how can you make that easier? Because that is my answer to everything. How can you make it easier for you? Not how can I make it easier for you? Because I can't do this for you.

Right.

But how can you make this easier for you?

So that's pretty—

that's, that's who I am. That's, that's where I came from. That's everything. So yay. Now, what would you guys like to talk about? Because I hear you sit down a lot.

We're in a sit-down position all the time. We have very shortened hip flexors from it. And then sometimes you hear so much, my feet will swell. And I'm like, hmm, that's not good. But I've personally discovered, and I'm I'm going to be 62 this year. So I've personally discovered that, and I've been trying to figure this out for 60 years, probably something like that.

62?

Maybe not so many, but I've been trying to figure this out. And, you know, I used to walk a lot. And I think sometimes if you just work out, for me, it's been lifting weights and doing my Total Body Blast classes. Then I put spin in there too and yoga. And I think for me, on the days that I work out with a lot of weights, I get so sore because she kicks my butt so badly that I have to get off my chair just to move because it's aching and I can't just sit here and just keep pressuring through it. I've got to get up and go get water, or I get up— just get up constantly, let the dogs out, do something every hour or so. Try to make it an hour. Sometimes you look— like this morning, it just got away from us. I don't know how long Sarah and I were sitting.

Yeah.

And, you know, she's up so early. But my biggest pillar, I think, out of everything, is sleep. I don't function well without at least 7 hours of sleep, a little bit, maybe 8 in bed, but 7 hours of sleep. And I think that's been my biggest pillar of all of this, which is ironic because in my 20s and 30s, it was always about exercise and then eating the right things. And really, for me, it's sleep.

Wow.

And, you know, every time I do anything, I was thinking about— you're saying 13 things, and I'm thinking, as a Type A, I'd be like, I'd want to do all 13 at once. And I think you're probably going to say, You need to kind of hit up maybe 1 or 2 things, maybe 1 change a week or something, and do it over the course of 13 weeks. Otherwise, it won't stick as a habit. You need to make them habits in your life. So you want to get up and go work out. You want to get that sleep. You want to go to bed at 9:00— for me, 9:30 because, you know, that's unfortunate for Sarah. It's 6:30. So she's like, up. I'm like, you know, I got to go to bed.

That's the hardest part with working with people who are in different time zones. I'm sorry that I'm making you go to bed at 6:30 PM because I want you to get up at 3:30. Yeah, I mean, it's different.

coast. And she's a lot younger than me, so she can handle being up till after midnight, whereas for me, yeah, you just can't.

Well, and Linda, it's funny because one of the power of 13s is sleep. And the funny thing about it is that it is 8 hours non-negotiable. That's exactly how I state it, is it's 8 hours non-negotiable. Because so many people always just say, oh, I get plenty of sleep. I hear that all the time. I get plenty of sleep. But then in their next sentence, they're going, gosh, I can't concentrate, and I'm so tired, and I have no energy, and I can't exercise. And I'm going, Maybe you think 6 hours is enough for you, but try 8, see what happens. So when it comes to the power of 13, and that's interesting that you say that, the reason I love the power of 13 and why I push it on everyone is because you probably do a lot of them. Yeah, it's not rocket science. It is not. There is no rocket science here at all. It is one of those things where you go, oh my gosh, I do that. Oh my gosh, I do that. And that's why I wanted people to have it, because I wanted you to be successful and see yourself successful. Looking at that, you know, I mean, number one in the Power of 13 is cut your portions in half.

Oh, your food portions.

That's one of the things that Paris really works with us on. And I have been a stubborn old mule for how many years now? I will not—

20 years.

I will not track. I just—

Well, take a picture and hold yourself accountable.

And I'll tell you, I like that.

Let me tell you, tracking those, Dean, is eye-opening.

It works.

Eye-opening.

When I was in Weight Watchers and tracked, it worked, didn't it, Paris?

Yes. Well, and I've never I've never met anybody that doesn't track their food and doesn't actually— I mean, that's the Power of 13 thing. You got to track your food and you got to track your feelings. That's a big deal.

That's a really big deal. I track my feelings. I never track my food.

I'm totally all about the feelings and not the food.

Yeah.

And when you connect the two, you're like, oh my gosh, I am eating all the time when I'm sad. I'm eating all the time when I'm bored. I'm eating— you start seeing that. It's a big deal. But the thing is, is people who have seen, like Steve said, people who have seen success with tracking and then rebel against it, that's another one of those things. Right. We had a tracking meeting. That was our support group topic last week, was, you know, and I issued a challenge that you track everything you eat, but not to punish yourself. You guys, we're not out to punish. We're out to learn. You know, like Linda said, if you write down, oh my gosh, I ate 3,000 calories today, you're like, okay, what could I have done differently? Not, oh my gosh, I'm the worst person ever. This is what could I have done differently? That's all it should be. So, Steve, why do you think you struggle with tracking?

I think I struggle with tracking, and I think that some of the people in this audience would probably agree. We work with numbers and paper and ledgers and things all day long, and the last thing I want to do is have to track my food. I get— I'm burned out with— it doesn't matter how you track. It's this block in my head. And, you know, you know.

I know.

I know. My favorite thing about my support groups and my one-on-one coaching is that people feel safe enough to be really honest with me. So if I say to you, you need to track, and you go, I'm not going to. Well, we got to meet somewhere, right? What's it going to take? What's it going to take for you to take care of yourself? And when you guys talk about sitting, and I know everybody knows this and everybody hears this, but when you're sitting for hours on end, sitting is the new smoking. And it truly is. It's just so dangerous. And so my number one thing for people who are sitting all day long is that you get a timer, whether that's your watch, because I do this because I do sit for a long time.

That works.

A lot. You set your watch for 30 minutes, you get up and you walk around your house or run around your house starting with 1 minute, but work up to 5.

Oh, wow.

So you get up and you just— so I have a thing on my watch that says 30 minutes. I hit it as soon as it goes off, no matter what I'm doing. Well, I mean, unless I'm talking to someone, I typically don't walk away from them, but I'll just reset it. But then I go and you don't ignore it. It's so easy, right? You guys have been sitting there with a timer and you're like, oh, I'll ignore that. But you pop up out of your chair and you push 1, 3, or 5, right? And then you go and you walk around the house, you go up and down the stairs, you do whatever for that. You don't just go and stand in the other room. You're moving.

Yeah.

I average between— on those days, I average an extra 2,500 to 5,000 steps.

Wow.

By getting out of my chair. One of the— again, one of the power of 13s is moving for 30 minutes a day. If you're sitting for 6 hours and you do that, you're already—

you've got your You're moving it.

You don't have to plan out, when am I going to go to the gym?

Yeah.

Linda, how much time do you get in every day?

Well, let's see. It depends on the day. Now, today I decided after being abusive to myself at the conference and the lack of sleep and, you know, Sarah and I, our eating choices were very limited. So I didn't eat my typical— I get stuck on it. Like, I'm very, very so Type A. I get a certain bunch of food and I stick to— in fact, that's in Tim Ferriss's book, which I didn't know until after I was already doing it. But you find what works for you and then you stick with that. It's very boring. Like, I like my smoothie that's got 42 grams of protein in it in the morning. I've been really working for my protein macro. And then I'm trying to figure out some kind of a lunch, which has been lately just cottage cheese and these seed crackers. It's not really crackers, but they're just seeds. And then I'll have a little something in between that and dinner. And then dinner is salmon and broccoli. And then my dessert is a Greek yogurt. So, my protein count is over 100.

Wow.

And I'm not hungry. I have to force sometimes down that, that yogurt at night.

But are you happy with that?

You know, I'm very happy with it. I'm not— I like eating healthy. I've always liked it. Like Sarah does too. I mean, I watch her eat bowls of salad and stuff, but I like eating healthy. I just— I'll get bored and I might swap something out, but it'll be something healthy. And then we go out to eat like once a week. We'll maybe go have dinner with people around here in the community. I will have maybe something, but I try to make it a wise choice there too. But I usually like break my perfect dinner, my perfect meals, but I stick to— and I don't drink my calories. Not going to waste my calories on drinking anything. I'm, you know, I'm a big— if it's not water, it's green tea. And I— the only time I ever drink my calories is kombucha. I try to have kombucha every day because I enjoy it. Um, you know, that's kind of what I stick to. But, uh, one of the other things he said too, it was about His diet, I don't think I could ever do because it's, well, it's very meat-centric and, you know, I only eat salmon or fish, but it's also sticking to the same thing. So, it works. And his is very heavy in the beans and I don't really like to eat too many beans. So, that's a hard one. But we try. We try. We were doing a competition. I use MyFitnessPal, Steve, for tracking food if you wanted to try it.

Mm-hmm.

It's the best food tracker because every food in the world is in there. I don't care what it's named. It's in there. And for Pacer. So we were doing Pacer and we're all at the proper trust. We're all tracking our steps. At one point, Sarah started a competition and we were all trying to beat each other. I try to do 7,000 steps a day, but today I was like, you know what? I was going to go for a walk because you have to go early here in Florida. And I was like, you know what?

Same here.

I'm tired. I'm going to go do a nice yoga flow. And I did that. And then I hopped in my sauna blanket and meditated.

And then You're such an inspiration.

So I gave myself that day off, right? Because tomorrow I'll be doing Body Blast. So tomorrow is a 2-hour day of exercise, but then I'll come home and I'll read a book and maybe sit out in the sun a little bit by the pool, maybe go in the pool. So yeah, I know, sucks to be me. It sounds so nice, doesn't it? It is nice. I mean, Sarah loved it when she was here. She was floating around that pool having a ball and she loved the classes because she—

yeah, I got her to go to the classes and she loved them.

But yeah, yeah. I know it's hard in the Pacific Northwest to— for year-round to be able to go out. But yeah, so my— the biggest thing when you mentioned the competition thing I was doing was just— it was in March and I was kind of on a solo trip, which I've never done, which I don't know that I'm really good for myself personally. It just was not easy. However, I just said, you know, I love walking. Every time we travel to Europe, it's just like it just suits me and my personality, and I feel best when I'm doing around 10,000 to 12,000 steps per day. I noticed that about myself. Yeah. And so I was really kind of ramping up this later half of June. Unfortunately, has not been as well, except I should check my steps from the conference because we were all over. But I will tell you, the joke is with me, I walk so fast. I didn't realize this about myself, that my watch Watch or my ring, all of these devices are like, are you cycling? Are you on a lift?

It's hysterical.

She walks fast.

Yeah.

We both have the Oura Ring too. We both have the Oura Ring. It tracks our sleep. So we're big on the gadgets.

Yeah. Yeah. But it's comical. But I will say the benefit, though, and Steve knows this about me, is with my mom, with elder, you know, the older parents. So I bring my mom and her sister with me, and I'm like, okay, ready? And we always bring our shoes and we bring our shirt. Well, they're starting to see the impact of how nice it is. And we track We're on Fitbits together so we can all share. Since we're all on different style devices, we can all share that space together. And it's been working really well. And I just noticed, I happened to look yesterday. I was like, oh, only me is walking. I better like—

Oh, because you were away.

Who do I need to call and tell? Hey, there's— look, did you guys see? I'm walking. What's wrong with you all?

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'll be like pinging out saying, okay. But yeah, anyways, it's been wonderful doing that. I personally, I'm like you, Steve. I don't want to track my food. I've done it before in the past. It's just not my personality. I've always been, you eat what you eat and enjoy it. But if you find that you, like, if it's not fitting your clothes, then you scale back. You change. That's a great idea. But I've always been a healthy eater. I've not— fast food has not in my— ever been, really, since a very young age, not been in my space. I really watch everything I eat. I've been a longtime vegetarian at this point. I do eat fish, but even still, that has also shifted. Just depends. Depends on how I'm feeling. I'm also a big believer of, like, if I don't emotionally— I'm feeling very comfortable with the food, I won't eat it because I know the adverse reaction to it. So my stomach or something, something may not go right.

So yeah. Yeah.

Are you getting flamed in the face?

She's the queen of mocktails. She can make a killer mocktail. She comes up with her own recipe of mocktails.

So, yeah, those are fun.

I like—

I love it. I look for them. I mean, I enjoy them quite a bit.

We got some pretty good ones in St. Louis.

Yeah, we did.

We had some really good ones.

So, yeah, I mean, for me, it's just a balance. I think it's more because we eat more of the Mediterranean lifestyle. We've had that so long in my My lifestyle. So I just— you've kind of grown accustomed to how you eat food. I tend to not eat as much fruit anymore for some reason. I don't know. I go in cycles. But yeah, that's—

I think what's interesting is listening to all of you and it's like you're proving my point, right? Everybody has to do it their way. That's the thing. So, you know, I have people who they're not avid exercisers. It's hard for them to get out and exercise. So we look for that. What's that specific thing that works for you? You know, you love your classes, you love your— you love to walk. I love to walk. That's my favorite thing. But I live in Colorado, and I am a rock star from spring until fallish.

Totally.

The minute that the wind blows, I'm like, oh, no, I'm much too cold for this. But you have to find— and the other thing is, food-wise, right? You have to find it. So, Linda, really interesting to me because I think that you have to figure out what works for you, what fills you up. But what you kept saying that just resonated so much for me was you keep saying, but I really like it. And it was really important because so many people will go into a diet mentality where they're like, I have to eat this, this, and this and this. And everybody that knows me knows I hate broccoli. There's not a person in the world that does not know that I hate broccoli. And so I always talk about it, and I always think it's so funny because I tell people I hate broccoli, and then they'll send me recipes to make broccoli better. I'm like, no, I don't like broccoli.

Oh, man.

But it's not like I can't tell you what to eat. I'm going to tell you, let's figure out what works for you, but also what fills you up, what keeps you full. That's where tracking comes into the game sometimes. I love oatmeal. Oatmeal does nothing for me. It is a whole food. It is fantastic. It's so good.

But you're hungry an hour later.

I am hungry an hour later. Now, if I put walnuts or almonds in there or peanut butter, even just peanut butter, boom, I'm good to go. And Linda, you said about your 100 grams of protein, the ruling is that you need to get a minimum of half your body weight. And that's something that people— in grams, not ounces. I don't know why I have to say that, I really do have to say that it's important that you do that. And people don't realize how important and how much your brain needs the protein. But the other one is, and it's another power of 13, is you need healthy fats.

Hi, La Pod listeners. Tierra here, the girl behind the scenes. We had so much fun with today's conversation that, well, we just didn't want it to end, so we thought we'd split it up into a 2-parter. We hope you join us next week as we continue this great conversation.