#141 - Increasing Your Health with David Greenwalt

In this episode of the Morning Upgrade podcast I talk with David Greenwalt about his morning routine, how to increase your health, having passion for your work, pursuing your interests and more. 

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Announcer 

Welcome to the Morning upgrade podcast with Ryan cote where we feature casual conversations with entrepreneurs about personal development and growth.

Ryan 

Hey, David, welcome to the Morning upgrade podcast. How are you?

David

Hey, I'm doing well. Thanks. Thanks so much for having me.

Ryan 

Yeah, I'm excited to talk to you, you know, wellness and fitness are our specialty. So we're gonna weave questions in about that. But as we always do on the show, let's start off by telling my audience of morning upgraders, who you are, what you do for a living, and then something you're grateful for right now.

David

But I'm David Greenwald's wife and I am forever Ian an Illinois resident. I'm a 30-year health coach helping people transform with a specialty in weight management and obesity management. And I'd say something I'm grateful for is we just traveled quite a distance by car. And I'm really, really grateful that we had fantastic dry clear weather and that our travels really were safe.

Ryan

It's good. That's really good. Yeah, we're talking about traveling before we started recording and mold adventures that we've had with our kids and just, you know, taking trips. And same with you. So that's really good. The question around wellness. I'm just curious. I want tips. But I have a question first. Since you're a wellness expert, I'm assuming you have to keep yourself looking good, right? If you're selling it. So do you feel that pressure? Like do you feel guilty? If you eat a bad meal? Do you feel the pressure of looking a certain way? Or is it just a lifestyle for you at this point, and it just, you didn't give it a second thought?

David 

Honestly, it's the latter. It's, it's a lifestyle for whatever reason, fitness has been in my DNA since I was a little kid. I don't know why I was not a great athlete. I was a BTN. C-team kid, I wasn't going to be a starter on traditional sports. But even at an age like 1011, I, back then, it would have been, you know, 1975 1976 77. For me, I wanted the President's Council on Physical Fitness award, I wanted an award. And I still have the patch and the sticker in the certificate I got you know, when I earned it, and I don't know why I wanted it. I have no idea. But I was interested in fitness. And I seem to excel at fitness, not traditional sports. So I don't know why. But don't ask me why I no longer really question it. But it's just, it just is. So it's really a lifestyle for me. And I have zero guilt. If I have something that is an indulgence.

Ryan

Got it. I think everyone's got their thing. Like I'm very much into, like personal development, personal growth. Going back to when I was in my 20s the books that we read, and I don't know why I just gravitate towards that kind of stuff like podcasts and just morning routines. And it's fun for me so that if it's your thing doesn't feel like work. Right?

David

Right. Yeah, it's, you know, I'm so passionate about it, as I talk to people about, you know, business over the years that, you know, I've been in business in one way, shape form, or another since 1987. And what I say is, I'm incredibly passionate about what I do, and to be able to sustain, you know, we've been, I've been doing what I do virtually since 1999. You know, in the very early days of the Internet, there was it was dial-up, and there was no fast internet, I built our first website, with dial-up getting disconnected every two minutes. And you know, you couldn't even be on the telephone and the internet at the same time. Yeah, I remember that. And I was so passionate about it. And I still am. And I only say that for this, you have to be passionate to be able to have the sustaining power it's going to take to start, run, and endure all that you're going to endure. As a business owner, you have to have the passion. If not, you're you're gonna you're gonna check out of the business, you're gonna say, You know what, let me do something else. Let me go work for someone else. Let me do something else that doesn't necessarily require so much intrinsic motivation and persistence. And again, whatever that is, I seem to have that. But I know that a great part of it is my why. For this business it for what I do for helping people is just incredibly strong. So that's really in a nutshell what drives me.

Ryan

Yeah, on the topic of passion is interesting, because I've had to, so I'm in marketing with my family, and I don't know if I would say I'm passionate about marketing, and I have an interest in it. I understand it. So it's not like I don't like what I do. But I always am passionate about marketing. But what I've come to realize is that I am passionate about running a business with my family, helping clients trying to find clients working with the team, growing the team, and all that stuff. And so it took me a little while to realize that because you hear about like, follow your passion. I'm like well, I might not follow my passion because I don't really I really don't like not really passionate marketing. Right, I am passionate about the other stuff that is involved in it and so took me a little little while to figure that out.

David

Yeah, you know, it's funny, he just made me think of this. I say this frequently. The people that are close to me have heard me say this a number tof imes over the years. My kids were poking at me just a week or two ago when I think the big lotto whatever it's called Powerball was over a billion dollars. And you know, my kids and family have heard me say if you dropped $20 million into my lap tomorrow, and I've said this for more than a decade, if you dropped $20 million into my lab tomorrow, I would just continue to do what I do in a bigger way. Amazing. So my kids were poking at me and powerful and they're like, Dad, what about this billion, 2 billion now dead? Kids? What do you think I'm gonna remember, they're grown and gone. Now? What do you think I'm going to do? And they're laughing? They're like, you're just going to keep doing what you're doing? You're gonna, I said, Yes, I am. I, I love what I do. It's not about me wrong, you want to be paid for, you know, for your worth and value and what you bring. But it's not about that as the primary for me, I love helping people get from someplace heavy or heavier than they want to be and less healthy than they want to be, perhaps, to someplace leaner and lighter. And I love seeing what happens with them. I love seeing the transformation inside and out. And ever since I started doing it, it's just been something where you know, I didn't know early on. I mean, I was fitness me. But I didn't know early on that transformation coach was what I was destined to do, but it was

Ryan

excellent. So we're gonna come back to wellness because I want to, I want to get some Meteor nutrition tips from you or not that we're giving medical advice at all in the show, but fitness tips or wellness tips or nutrition. But first, let's talk about your morning, how do you start your day,

David

I wake up, I don't use an alarm clock. Fortunately, I'm I've been a remote running my virtual business for over 20 years. So I but I still get up between five and 6 am. And I'm going to be a plain black coffee kind of person, a couple of cups sometime in the morning. But I'm going to get up and do the normal morning routine. I'm not going to take too much time. Before I am at for at least a period of time before I'm at my computer, checking on things and just going through kind of a morning routine there taking care of clients and looking at things that clients might have left me in messages over the night, things they may be in need for. So I you know often refer to with my wife as I'm taking care of my kids. That's how I think of my clients. But I'll have a cup of coffee, get that going. But it isn't going to be too long. And I'm going to have a good breakfast the breakfast is going to have gonna be high protein and vegetables. I'm going to have that that's almost without fail. I only probably have two or three breakfasts in 30 days. That's all the variety I have. But you can bet that my breakfast is going to be high in protein and vegetables in some way. You know, that's it, I will because I am in the virtual space. I am going to take a little bit of time in the morning to see what's going on on Instagram what's going on, probably not on Tik Tok at that point, but what's going on in Instagram, maybe what's going on Facebook, just to kind of see what's going on there. I don't spend a ton of time on social but I do feel because I'm on social and we are a business in that sphere. I like to keep tabs on that. Of course, it's you know, wife, greeting hugs, got a Maltese dog he's going to be taken care of. So it's just, it's just things like that. I will meditate at a different time in the day. I don't necessarily meditate in the morning. Some people do it in the morning. Some people do it in the evening. I will meditate some time during the day. But it isn't necessarily then I don't have an ice bath thing. I don't have a sauna thing. It's not that I'm against them. I know some people have built that into their routine. I don't have a problem with that either. But I wear a shirt Ryan and I do it. Because it's I feel like it's really who I am. And it's what I really the lifestyle I try to live but it just says live simply. That's really true of who we are.

Ryan

Simple as a good thing. I'm the complete opposite of that right now with my kids being young. Fleet opposite. Yeah. Eventually, I'll get there.

David 

You will be here. It'll be here before you know it.

Ryan 

What's your go-to? I'm just curious, what's your go to workout routine.

David

So I trained six days a week. I haven't missed more than two weeks in a row since 1982. I think one or two days off every week. But I haven't taken more than two weeks off since 1982. So I will do some kind of strength training. I don't want to get into the details because our time is short, but I will do strength training workouts. Four days a week I will do pure cardio workouts and two days of strength training. One of those is kind of a Metcon metabolic conditioning where I'm going to build in some strength movements with a lot of heavy breathing. And so it's kind of like three traditional strength training workouts, one metabolic conditioning workout to pure cardio workouts. And that's going to take me through six days of training my workouts are only about 35 to 50 minutes. That's a walk in the door till the time I'm leaving the gym. I may train at home but I have Arthur Bing fitness you know, I have three gym memberships. So I do that because there are certain things that certain gyms that I just liked better than others or I like the leg press over here this one or this one has kettlebells that are better than this one or whatever. So it's yeah, it's six days that's almost without fail. I might be might shake it up a little bit if we're traveling or something like that. But I just, it's just what I do. And and, yeah,

Ryan

yeah, I mean, there are some fitness tips in there. But I want to ask you one more question around that around the topic of wellness let's let's cater it to like people over 40 That's me, is there small hinges swings to big swings a big door like something that my audience can do? That's maybe it's drinking water or something like that, that can improve their wellness or their fitness. Does anything come to mind? That big level? Yeah,

David 

absolutely. You know, here's one of the things that I would say I can't honestly think of anything bigger than this. Now, start where you are, take little baby steps. Don't interpret what I'm about to say is all or nothing, please don't do that anything we do is more about striving to become exceptional, never perfect. So even if the pinnacle is exceptional, I don't want anyone thinking, oh my gosh, I've got to do that tomorrow, or I got to do it at all. So just think baby steps. But I'd say the greatest thing people can do is to shift what they're eating to close as close as possible to 90% real food. Over the last 6070 years, we have transitioned from real food to ultra-processed food and more are sitting in the United States at about 60 to 90%Ultra-processed food intake as adults, we want to flip it back, flip it back to the way we ate for hundreds of 1000s of years. And not exactly like that. But flip it back to real food. All we're looking to do is reverse what's happened. And what's happened has gotten us as a society at 43% obese and projected to be 50% obese by 2030. I absolutely see that happening. I don't see any reason why we won't be 50% obese by 2030. But as individuals, we don't have to continue to be obese. As for the people listening to this podcast, as individuals, you don't have to go along, you don't have to be a stat for society. And one of the greatest things you can do is to begin shifting to more real food. Real Food is whole or minimally processed, edible parts of plant animals, right, they're usually single ingredients, where if anything's been added to it, it's only whole or minimal, minimally processed, ingredients commonly found in kitchens, put it simple is typically going to be a single ingredient, plant or animal based food, where if anything's been added to it, it's going to be something that is whole or minimally processed and commonly found in kitchens. So instead of trying to turn a package around and figure out, you know, is this what is this, you know, does this ingredient, okay, is that ingredient, okay? Bottom line is, if it doesn't, if it doesn't start with a single ingredient of a plant in an animal that we all know. And if the other ingredients aren't things commonly found in kitchens, then it's likely an ultra-processed food. And I would just stress that just do what you can, little baby steps to move in the direction to eventually get to the way we ate for hundreds of 1000s of years. It's not crazy. What's crazy is the way we're eating now. Go back to that. And there are little things that can be done, obviously, to kind of make that happen. That's kind of like a big, big hinge. But the steps to get there can be though at that little hinge like you said the swing a big door.

Ryan

Yeah, that's powerful. And you can tell you're passionate about it, because your voice tonality changes when you started talking about it. Yeah, I

David

just I can't help it. I just know it's that way. I've heard myself on some of these podcasts. And I just like I really, really am because it will make such a huge difference. And not just in the physical health, not just in weight, but in energy and mental health and mood, and future dementia, and joint pain and Alzheimer's. And I mean, and you know, and autoimmune disease. I mean, it just goes on and on and on. Right for that. That's a huge thing, what we eat, but just move in that direction. Just eat more real food.

Ryan 

Yeah. Yeah. Excellent advice. Excellent advice. So let's look at let's go to business for the entrepreneurs listening. You've had your business for a camera, how long have you said 30 years?

David

I've been a coach for 30 years, and I've had this business. I've been doing it virtually for 24 years.

Ryan 

Have you done that? Most businesses look like the past five years. So what comes to mind? Yeah, so

David

I started very early on when the internet was just coming in, I created this coaching program. And again, just through my passion and just wanting to help people. It's been primarily a word-of-mouth business. And so clients that have been with me have told someone else and they've told someone else and they've told someone else. We just continued so I don't want to in any way, shape, or form make it sound like it's just been smooth sailing. Like any business, we've had. Are UPS we've had our downs, we've had blood, sweat, and tears. I've had the frustrations, I've banged my head against the keyboard, and I can't tell you how many times I'd have not been able to figure something out, why isn't this marketing working? Why isn't this message working? What's going on here? What's going on there? You know, we're very normal in that regard. And that's why, you know, I said early on, for a business to sustain like ours, 24 years, as you said, most businesses five years, they're out, they just aren't gonna make it. And even if you have the passion, it doesn't mean you're gonna make it. So I'm not making this up. Like, if you have the passion, you will make it No. But for you to continue to be the leader of the business, which I do, for someone to be able to continue to work in the trenches, which I do, I'm not checked out sitting in an office somewhere, just directing traffic, I still work with clients every single day, I love that, and then direct other assistant coaches and so forth. But for that to happen, you've got to have the passion. So that is an absolute to be able to sustain. Now some people come into the business or like my whole my whole model is to get in, have an exit strategy and get out alright, fine. Again, they didn't get into the business because they were passionate about the business. They're passionate about making money, are passionate about building a business, and getting out. And I get that that's different. In my business, in this type of business, where you are going to do it, where it's the thing you do, you've just got to you've got to be passionate about it, because there are going to be so many roadblocks and potholes and things that are going to test your will that if you're not, you will be doing something else.

Ryan 

Excellent advice. Couldn't agree more perfect way to end this awesome conversation. Thanks, David, for everything you shared. If someone wants to learn more about about you, your coach, or your health coaching, where should we send them?

David

You bet the name of the company is leanness lifestyle, university. And the website's a lot easier. I realized that's a mouthful. So the website is just l l university.com. And there you'll find all the links, our social media links, everything's there. So I just like to keep it simple and just say just go there and you can find me. Perfect. Thanks, David. Great job. Thank you so much.

Announcer  

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