Why Health is Your Ultimate Business Strategy

In this episode you can learn why high-achieving professionals must prioritize exercise, nutrition, and sleep as a high-ROI strategy for performance and family life, not “time away” from work. 

I'm chatting with Health Coach, Brian Prana, who has over 23 years of experience and who has trained thousands (including elite athletes), 

We're talking about identity and environment changes, social support, and accountability, plus time-efficient movement (frequent walking breaks) and scalable CrossFit-style strength circuits. 

Brian is sharing many client stories where his coaching led tomajor lifestyle changes. He outlines nutrition basics—prioritize protein and fiber, planning/prep, moderation—and sleep foundations including routines, limiting screens, and mindset, ending with the guiding question: will this choice move me toward or away from my health goals? Tune in to learn more.

You can reach Brian at: https://thecalltorise.com/

00:00 Welcome to 9 to 5

00:29 Health Is ROI

03:19 Meet Brian Prana

05:10 Rocky Inspired Fitness

07:02 Family and Social Training

09:19 High Achievers Health Costs

15:01 Identity and Support Systems

22:07 Time Efficient Movement

24:32 Action Before Motivation

28:07 CrossFit Time Efficient Training

29:31 CrossFit Defined Simply

31:24 Class Structure And Results

33:27 Scaling And Smart Coaching

36:19 Case Study Drake Turnaround

41:50 Nutrition Protein Fiber Planning

47:22 Culture Carbs And Food Environment

49:24 Sleep Duration Quality Routine

54:59 Where To Find Brian

56:27 Parting Question And Wrap

🌟 🌟 🌟 If you liked this episode and would like to learn more about wellness training and workshops offered by 9 to 5 Wellness, email us at info@aeshathair.com. You can learn more about our programs at:  https://toneandstrengthen.com/workshops-trainings/. 🌟 🌟 🌟

My passion is helping organizations create a culture of wellness, and I do this by setting up health programs that prioritize the most important asset they've got – their employees. Cheers to a healthier and happier journey ahead!

🌟 🌟 🌟 You can learn more about ME- the host at https://www.aeshatahir.com 

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https://www.instagram.com/tone_and_strengthen/

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Transcript

 Welcome to the 9 to 5 Wellness Podcast, a show about corporate wellness solutions with innovators and forward-thinking leaders who are at the forefront of the workplace wellness movement. I'm your host, Ayesha Tahir Hello, and welcome to the 9 to 5 Wellness podcast. How are you guys doing? Thank you for joining us, we are talking about a very important topic today because I feel like I talk to a lot of, like, people in exercise industry, and then I work with, executives and business owners, and they're like, "You know what? We don't have time. We don't have time to take care of ourselves." And I understand. Like, as a high-achieving professional myself, I understand. It is, overwhelming to even think about it, that, oh my gosh, I have to find time to exercise? I have to find time to pay attention to what I'm eating and how I'm sleeping and what? And in all honesty, though, it's easy to treat your health like a nice-to-have or something to deal with only, once things will settle down. And a lot of my clients and patients keep telling me, "Well, you know what? I'll take care of it when I retire," or, "I'll take care of it when I have time, when my business reaches, , , milestone," or the, that goal. But here's the reality. If you are the engine of your business, a breakdown isn't just a personal inconvenience. It's a major liability. And let's not even talk about your business. Let's talk about your family. Let's talk about people who love you. Guess what? If you're not there for them, that whole, circle, family, I say is also an organization, that whole organization is gonna not work well either. So today, we are diving into why prioritizing exercise and nutrition and other pillars of health isn't really time away from work. . But it's a high return on investment strategy to boost your decision-making, your stamina, and mental clarity. And this is one of the things I really wanna get across in my podcast because every single day, I meet so many patients. I'm here in New York City and I attended a bunch of Tech Week events, and a lot of founders and entrepreneurs were there like me, and this is exactly what I heard: "We don't have time." So we are gonna break it down, and I have a very special guest with me today. My guest today- has over 23 years of experience. So you're in for a treat with this episode. Stay tuned, okay? Our guest is Brian Prana. He has helped busy professionals improve their body, energy, and day-to-day habits while still leading at work and leading at home. His coaching is built around practical nutrition, training, sleep, and accountability with a plan tailored to the person in front of him. I love it because we all need customization. We need plans that are for us. So I'm super excited to learn from him, and this is not all. I wanna tell you more, because Brian has helped thousands of clients through his work as a trainer, CrossFit gym owner, and online coach. And you know what? He has coached Olympic silver medalist, a two-time Olympian, and a CrossFit world champion. And I'll tell you from experience, my experience working in exercise industry, this is no small feat.. So Brian, how are you doing? Welcome to the podcast. Thanks so much. I'm so excited. I've got lots of energy today, and I'm ready to drop some value bombs for our listeners so they have key takeaways on what we're gonna talk about so that they can prioritize their health a lot more than they currently are. I love that. Love the energy, and I am just gonna tell you that I am as excited as my listeners are, okay? So we are gonna dive right into it. Tell me a little bit about yourself, how... What got you started in the exercise, industry? How did you get into health coaching, and then the clients you work with. Yeah, definitely. Well- this, this song. You, you probably know it. I'm gonna hum it, and it's, it's, sometimes when you hum, you just like, "I don't have any clue." But this song you'll know. It's Rocky, right? And Rocky Balboa was in my youth , in the '90s. That's when I was, like, 10 years old. And that, the training montages and the, the fight against the villain, whether it's Mr. T or the Russian, and and all this. And I just fell in love with the training. I love those training montages that they did there, and the music and the hype and everything. And so that, that helped me become, to fall in love with the training aspect of exercise. Then coming from my youth, I was in baseball and basketball. I can't even tell you how many shooting, hoops in my backyard I've done by myself or with my buddy across the street. And then that, that turned into... A, a friend of mine, I actually saw him today. I've known this guy since middle school. Dan is his name. Nice. He came over and we worked out in this barn here today. We did back and biceps and then we just talked and acted like we were still in high school again, even though we're both 43. , And it's our time together, and it's time that we schedule to stop what we're doing. He has four kids, I have four kids, and life can get really busy, but we prioritize exercise together because, you know, what else are we gonna do? You want s- "Hey, Dan, you wanna go hang out at the bar or you wanna w- just watch a bunch of basketball or something?" We do that occasionally, but our prime time together is to exercise and take care of ourselves so then we can bond there. But he challenged me to run. He's, "Come on out to , the cross-country and track team." And there you go. And I started running with them, and that was my high school career, was running, and then I turned into being a marathoner. Funny enough, my 16-year-old, my oldest is 16, to 10, three boys and a girl. So if we wanna talk about how busy things are, four kids keeps you really busy. But my 16-year-old Levi, he challenged me to the Akron Marathon. So I am re-digging into my youth around some of my roots around endurance and I did 11 miles today. So going back, it's always, it's unfolded of I just take care of myself. That's my identity, and it, it's gone from running to running marathons, triathlons, CrossFit, basic strength training, and now back to marathons. That's some of the, the initial love of, of training and exercise. Oh, I love this. You're setting such a great example for your kids, and I'm so glad- that your oldest, I take it he's your oldest, the 16-year-old- Yes. Yep ... got you into- ... marathon training again. Yes. Marathon- He's- Yep, marathon himself ... he's like, "Why don't you do it again?" And I was just like, "I don't know. It takes a lot of time." Yeah. Which is what we're talking about today. Yeah. And then- Yeah January, I just said, "Okay, I'm gonna do it." Why? Because in my mind, this is an exciting opportunity to spend with my son. My second son, Everett, so Levi's the oldest, Everett's the second. He's running cross country and track, and so we are working out together. He actually ran half of the 11 I did today. So I'm spending time with those that I love and those that I care about. Dan worked out with me, , and that's how I have created social opportunities in my life to two birds, one stone. Again, sure, we can go to a game and we can go do other things occasionally, but the prime, "Hey, let's hang out once or twice a week," it's gonna be exercise-related. Absolutely. This is great because you're, you are setting an example for your kids, but you're also showing them you can actually socialize while moving, while making movement a priority, too. You don't have to always, go to a bar to hang out, right? Although nothing against it. I think- there is time and place for that. Yes, exactly. S- so here's the thing. This is what I keep hearing from a lot of executives, I work with, and most of them are men, which is great, but What I've observed in my practice is that it's very common for high-achieving men to put their careers and families first. Yeah. And their health takes a backseat And you are helping men of exactly that demographic. So How do you think neglecting health impacts busy high achievers' lives? I'll give you three examples. Three guys came into the program, my Call to Rise program. It's 100-day fat loss challenge to help guys start to take control of their health, their identity, their mindset around how to make this more of a priority. And they know they need to do it, and most of the time, probably you hear it a lot, is, "I know what to do, I'm just not doing it," right? Basics of maintaining good healthy body weight or losing weight are move more, eat less, right? Let's have whole foods and drink water and sleep, right? That's the core four that I undertone in messaging that I have. Let's move. Let's eat good food and use science around nutrition, not weird diets or let's just not eat for a given amount of time. That's weird food behavior. I only eat at this time and this time. That's weird food behavior. Let's not do that. Drink water, 100 ounces or more, and let's get ideally, definitely six, but ideally seven. Because you and I both know that the less that you sleep, the more cortisol, the more inflammation, the more stress you're putting on your body. The longer you're up, the more likely you're gonna put food in your mouth. So we go back , Like highly palatable food, like- Oh, yeah ... food, food rich in fat and sugar, because your body is looking for that comfort. Your brain is actually looking for comfort and high energy foods, so that's what's happening there. Yes. How many people are like, "Oh, I'm craving this"? You didn't eat the first half of the day and it's like 4:00, so you're going on the food blood sugar rollercoaster here with whatever you can get your hands on, and that is a self-sabotaging move and pattern of behavior that we need to change. So there's three guys that are in their 60s, and, the first one, these are just random names, but we have Fernando, we've got Andy, and we have Tim. Tim and Andy both have stage three chronic kidney disease. If you talk to them, they're , just , "No, I don't," basically. But their blood work came back. They're at healthy body weights, and they are active. There's exercise equipment at home. They go outside and they're active and all this stuff, but they both have stage three chronic kidney disease. One has statin for cholesterol. The other one is got some other blood panel issues going on. The, there's another guy, has type 2 diabetes. He's morbidly obese, like 270 pounds, and he needs knee surgery because he, his knees are so bad. This is in your young 60s. Guys, you- average male expectancy on this earth is 76 years old. That's not a good It's not... where are we landing this plane on this runway here at the end of , our life? And it's, , they've worked so hard. They've tried to set themselves for up for a great retirement , and all that, but now they're dealing with these chronic illnesses that take medicine, which nobody wants to take. They take a lot of time and energy. You have to go to the doctor. You have to get your prescriptions filled. You gotta get on phone calls with the insurance thing because they mess something up, and they take your energy because it's always in your mind and your brain. And I will just... The reason why I bring these three guys up, this is why you have to prioritize it somewhere in the busyness of your 30s, 40s, and 50s, because the end road is poor health, chronic illness that you could have avoided by doing basic things and prioritizing them one way or another when life is crazy in your 40s through 60s. Absolutely. Those two decades of life where you've kind of like set a good solid foundation as far as, your career is concerned, but at the same time, you still have added responsibility. Then you have, younger kids with you, just like you mentioned. Aging kids, aging parents, aging responsibilities. You got your house, your cars. You got investments- Yeah ... to worry about. My, my financial guy's "Hey, you need to save, like, 800 a month from 43 to 50 a month so that we can check that box and say, 'Okay, you're good by retirement time.'" I'm like, "$800 worth ok- okay. , Just gonna add that to the list of all the bills that keep coming out." And I'm 43, and I'm feeling the pressure of and understand why the midlife crisis is a thing because it just- Yeah ... over with. And then we add inflation on and we add all the challenges that are coming up, and it's very stressful. And I could only imagine it being even more if you're dealing with 30, 40 pounds overweight, or you have your doctors warning you or has told you that you have a disease that you need to take medicine for, that you don't want- That's so true. A lot of, , people in this demographic that I work with, as well, what I come to realize is that they're really not happy with the status quo. They're not happy with how they look in the mirror. And you've touched upon a few things, a couple of times here, and I wanna highlight that and really dig into it, that taking care of your health can become your identity, right? You mentioned that for yourself. So give me some examples here on how can someone, a male who is between 40 to 45 years of age and hasn't been that active in the last decade of their life, but now is feeling the weight coming on. When they look in the in the mirror in the morning when they're shaving, they're like, "Oh my goodness," , "What's going on?" How do I reverse this? Like, they're thinking to themselves. What would you tell them? Yeah. Even further abou- about their identity, and they should be pretty ingrained in their career path or in their family path. And at this point in time, they are the person that they will be the next, at least the next five years, right? And certainly life can always change and throw curve balls at us or job change or whatever. Lo- location change, right? That happens, and you c- uh, if anyone... Listen up. If anyone listening in does not like what is happening right now in their life, their health, their relationships, their career, you have every right to change today. You can put your two weeks in. You can break up with a relationship that isn't mutual and serving. , And you can, you can change what's happening to improve, bring new people in, or bring new ideas at the very least. And, , and then sure, let's... If we have... You're married, let's not break that up. But let's step up to a higher level of demands for you because if you go somewhere else, you're still gonna have the same problems, different face So we're not talking about breaking that type of relationship up, but the people, your social circle, your friends or anything, you can change those. So I just wanna point that out. All right? So what you're saying, Brian, I do wanna, dive a little bit deeper into this. I think you make such a great point that our identity is, associated with also people around us. Yeah. Right? Which circle are you going to? Are those the people who will support you on your health journey or not? Yeah. Are you asking your long-term life partner for that support? Are you actually taking those steps in order to shift that identity? Because at the end of the day, we don't operate in a vacuum. None of us does. No. Right? Can you go to your manager, or maybe you're a manager yourself. Can you go to your boss and say, "Hey, I wanna come in an hour late on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays because that's my hour of strength training." Ca- can you just say that? Yeah. You probably could if you open up that conversation, that communication line. Or even with your partner or spouse, if you communicate what your needs are, chances are you will be able to open up a conversation and a dialogue to be able to get more of what you want or need and restructure things around. "Hey, babe, on this day and this day can I do this, and on these days you can do that?" A- and we just negotiate. I mean, that's what life is anyways. With anything is a series of negotiations to, We're human, we're all selfish, so we're always trying to win for ourselves, but we have to be selfless in a lot of different relationships as well, especially being a , spouse or, and a boss to employee or employee to boss or coworkers or friendships. There's always this ongoing negotiation around having it a mutually beneficial experience for all parties Absolutely. So sorry to cut you off there- No, you're good ... but I wanted to make sure that, everybody understands. Yeah. But okay, so someone who's looking in the mirror and is not happy with what they see- Right what do they do? Back to identity. You have to have a hard conversation with yourself, and I think that's what the 40s and 50s are a lot about, is having hard conversations with yourself, most importantly, but those around you. So you stare at yourself in the mirror, and is this the image, the co- professional congruency, the relationship congruency that you wanna have moving forward in the next five years? 'Cause that's the immediate future, or even in the next 12 months. And if it- you're okay with it, then okay. I mean, success or body weight or self-image is all relative to single person, so I'm not here to say to one person over another. In my line of work, I have identified for myself to be successful with the people I work with is I'm not dictating where their results should or shouldn't be. I am actively listening to understand what they want to accomplish, and then I align with those goals to then create those opportunities for them to do so, like scheduling workouts and shifting s- social circles, in a sense. Lucas from my program, he lost 30 pounds. He moved from Knoxville to Cleveland, Ohio. He just fell into a social circle of his buddies at work, and because of proximity, right? The people closest around you. Tony Robbins says it. The five closest people around you have the biggest influence on you. And so those guys enjoyed h- doing the guy thing on the weekends and going to the bars and whatever, and that's fine. But for Lucas, he was 240 pounds. It was not fine. So we started working together. Lost 30 pounds in 100 days, and he actually joined a running group, and he has a whole new social circle to the point where he's gonna run a marathon this year. We talked about it. We have a schedule, and in late September, October, he's gonna be marathon-ready for his first one, and he's so excited, and he can't wait to accomplish something so big that he never fathomed doing before. But because his identity changed with meaning that I think this way and now I act this way, and I have these type of people around me to support me, then all of a sudden we can then move forward to then get more of what he wants out of life. Yeah. That is beautiful. Just love it. I just love how you explain that because I think a lot of times we are not deciding that for ourselves. And that's probably the very, very first step. Yeah. Then you'd start talking about, talking to other people around you, right? Time is of essence for everyone, and it's a rare commodity in today's world. So how can we make our workout schedules and taking care of just our, body and health, time efficient? Yeah. Well, number one is let's not just sit for eight hours at work all day, right? Let's get that point. You are a human being. You're not a machine. You're not ChatGPT or whatever AI thing's coming out tomorrow. You are a human being, and to sit in one thing, one place doing one thing, your efficiency plummets. So by default you're not productive. You're not gonna be focused. It's just the human behavior. They even have the pandam- Pomodoro timers. 25 minutes of work- Pomodoro method, yes ... yeah, yeah. 25 minutes of work, five minutes of not. Or w- whatever arrange- 50 minutes of work, 10 minutes of rest, or on the hour I take a five-minute break or whatever. We can stop. We can get up and move our bodies. So that in the very least we... A- and I find that my clients that have the most success take smaller chunks, find slivers of time where they can do more activity and work to be able to- to work and means moving their body, and all of a sudden they get off work and they have 5,000, 8,000 steps instead of 1,000 or 2,000 steps, and they automatically feel better from that. They, the movement helps with blood flow and brain activity, and you get your heart rate up and- and moving, not like we're trying to break a sweat or anything, but you get up and go walk around the block or something and come back and work. You will be more efficient. So if you had these planned times or, hey, you just had two long meetings in a row, you should be guarding your time to have a debrief time there, and maybe in that debrief you can stop, you can go walk, and you can think about what just happened so that then you can reflect and then be able to come forward and move in the direction that is needed from the meetings. And this is just smart behavior. And I'm not asking you to do anything except walk, move your body. And so we can start with the basics of something as little as just moving your body, walking, and then we start to then facilitate other things of, okay, I want to exercise, and exercise can mean a lot of different things to a lot of different people. I know that you probably agree with that, is number one is what does this person enjoy doing the most? Okay, let's start there, right? Absolutely. And then from there we're going to then allow that to start to build the motivation, 'cause a lot of people, they always like, "Oh, I ca- I- I gotta get motivated." Nope. No, You don't wake up every morning to show up to work on time, to get there and do everything because you're motivated. It's not- Yeah, none of us is, is motivated to do that. No. Yeah. No. We start with these things, and, we find the commonality, we find the desire, we understand why they wanna do something, and then we start taking action. And, , the phrasing I love around this, an age-old question that I always throw out there to people, but you can lead a horse to water but you can't make it drink, right? Nope. , How can you actually get the horse to drink the water? How? , It's a question for you Just start it. I, I feel like you're right on where you said the motivation point. Yes, you can't make anyone drink it. Like, they have to decide it for themselves. But- Exactly ... take action. Even if it's five minutes, take action. Right. I've been telling my patients, "Hey, motivation comes second- Yes ... action comes first." Right. Take... Start taking action no matter how small. Oh, yeah. Once you start seeing those wins, and those will come, those will come. I don't know if it takes four weeks or six weeks or eight weeks, depending on- Patience ... where that person is starting at, right? It, it could be a virtue for you. Yeah. But the results will come, and they will start showing. It, they will be small. Once those results or small wins start showing up at your doorstep, guess what? Then the motivation will come. Right. Right. Yeah. But, but the first step is the hardest- Hardest ... which is you decide- Yes ... that you're gonna do this. Yep. I agree. Yeah. The decision has to come first before anything else can happen. And so we go back to that question of you can lead a horse to water, but you can't make it drink. Well, you can. How do you do that? You can't... Th- people say, "Oh, just put the horse's head in the water," and yeah, then it'll just lift its head up because it's way stronger than you, right? Yeah. But if we salt the oats that it eats before we take it to the water source, it's going to be thirsty when it gets there. So we go back to everything that we just talked about. We're not relying on motivation. We're finding the underlying reason of why it's important for them to do the activity in the first place. Then we start to latch onto the things that they enjoy doing, and I... So for exam- I've worked out for years. I, I could work out today by myself, but I'm not motivated to anymore. I invite my friend over to work out and spend social time, and I'm like the Hulk all of a sudden. I can lift as much weight as ever. But if I were to work out by myself, I'm half there, and I'm thinking about what I have to do next and all this. So I can create this environment that I can then thrive in and maximize that opportunity of using the time in the first place and get what I needed to out of it Absolutely. So accountability partner or a friend to work out with, or finding a group to, work out with is important Getting a coach. Getting a... Yes. Working with a coach To keep you out of your own way. Yeah. Working with a coach. So, I also wanna highlight something because it's , kind of like fresh in my head. Time-efficient training too, right? Yes. There are ways to go about- Love this thing. Same here ... time-efficient training. We both are CrossFitters. Let's dive into it. We do, like, 15, 20-minute WODs or sometimes- Yeah ... 10-minute WODs, and we are, like, exhausted, right? Yes. So okay. Let's talk about time-efficient training. Yes. CrossFit, I love CrossFit. Back in the day when I was a personal trainer, back in... I got a degree in exercise nutrition in '04, and then I got... I'm- immediately went into a job. My network was... allowed me to do that. And then I, so I was, sitting on the fitness staff, and I saw the personal trainers standing around, having a good time exercising their clients and making twice as much money as me over here cleaning a treadmill and bored out of my mind behind the desk, wondering what I can do next. And so I quickly took that jump and said, "Oh, yeah, I'm definitely gonna do this." So then for years I was a personal trainer, and I still do some minor personal training with a very s- few select people that I've actually had relationships with for, I think the youngest is seven or eight years, and it goes to my longest client that I've worked with, I see her once to twice a month, Stacy. She gave my 16-year-old an embroidered blanket when he was born. So I work... The only people I've gotten into my fold and stayed there for personal training have been, relationships that I have created and done, so there's about five people. But, , regardless of that- So we go into , the time-efficient workouts, and that's where CrossFit came in. I said, "Oh, how can I get the best results for my clients?" And that's what I absolutely love about CrossFit and the whole mentality. And let's take a quick timeout. CrossFit, defined for everyone here, that you may or may not have a good or bad or indifferent or even know about that type of a relationship with CrossFit, but CrossFit, when you break it down, by definition is a strength circuit. That is it. It's just a circuit that you do exercises with. And they like to do constantly varied functional movements at high intensity. That, that phrasing was burned into my brain many moons ago. We have to- have a respect for the potency of that exercise form. Just like running a marathon. Absolutely. That's a very strong, potent form of exercise. You're doing a massive amount of aerobic conditioning, and the likeliness of putting yourself at risk of getting injured is there. Just go run or do any one thing too much. Play tennis too long, to walk too much. Your feet might hurt. Like it's just a part of the process, and you have to be smart about how you do this. So let's go back. So just wanted to put a timeout was, if you respect CrossFit, you will fall in love with the time efficiency, the, the, the, uh, hormone release, the, the community bonding that it offers. And that was some of the favorite memories that I had from doing five years across two different gyms, and producing , a personal training client to become a CrossFit world champion at the age of 60, Betsy Finley. And it was- That's wonderful ... an amazing experience. So we got to that time efficiency workout, and that's the name of the game. Even going back to what we talked about, finding these slivers of time to get up and move your body and walk, that's just time efficiency exercise and movement, and it can show up in 1,000 different ways. But in this situation, we get up, we... , and all the best CrossFits quickly cr- created this type of a container environment or workout. You get a dynamic warmup that loosens up your body, gets your body prepared to do the work, and through active stretching and all. We do a strength training so you get stronger. Then you do the MetCon or metabolic conditioning or the WOD, the workout of the day, and it usually gets your heart rate up in usually 10 to 20 minutes, sometimes less time, like five or less minutes. And sometimes the whole class was a chipper, which is just a bunch of exercises done in a circuit for 30, 45 minutes or so. And then you do an active cool down to roll out, stretch out. And that's where the beauty of an hour of a CrossFit class was super effective and efficient and producing phenomenal results quickly. We've had all sorts of people lose all sorts of weight, knee pain vanish, like chronic illness disappeared, all this stuff, because they, their identity around who they were when they stepped into that gym, they were empowered to take better care of themselves because of the atmosphere that they surrounded themselves with, a higher level of thinking and mindset around this whole identity of just being a healthier person. Absolutely. I love it how you highlighted CrossFit. And, I mean, I am a CrossFitter, but What I really love is first the community aspect, and we talked about it, like you need a community. So they are, are really big on that. Second, it's, it's the most functional form of workout. Yes. Not that there aren't other modalities. Of course. A lot of other modalities have come up, , and everybody has to be able to, scale to their level. Scale real quick just means that if it says that you're supposed to do 100 pounds, maybe you do 75 or 50. Cool. You're still doing the workout. You're still participating. You're still pushing yourself to the level or degree that you are capable of. That's all that mattered. When we did it, we had three different levels. We had RX, we had, we had R, which was the basic really, i- i- in quotations, easier or less. We had RX, which was supposed to be normal, and then we had R plus. In CrossFit terms, when you would to go to what they would call main site, crossfit.com, and they would post the workout of the day there, that was considered RX. , In our gym, R plus was RX, and then we scaled everyone down from there knowing that the general population of our gym was just average, everyday people that worked and had families and didn't want to be so sore they couldn't sit on a toilet for a week or something like that. So we s- naturally scaled, and because we had relationships with these people and we were like their second home in a sense of, of that community and that relationships and all that stuff of working toward a goal of betterment as a whole unit of the gym, then we were able to, uh, make sure that people did an appropriate amount. Or sometimes like, "Hey, we're actually gonna do this today because of what's happening." And that's just smart coaching and smart, advocating for your client to be successful. Absolutely. I couldn't agree more. I want to ask you if you have a recent, , client or an example of a professional who you have coached who travels a lot or has just a very chaotic schedule, and you've prescribed, a time efficient training for them or coached them through it. What does it look like? What are they looking for? So the reason I'm asking you this very specific question and I need some specifics as far as training goes, is because that is one of the most asked question in my DMs on Instagram from- from the listeners, because they're like, "Well, as you know, we don't have hours. If we just have 20 minutes- Yep ... what do we do?" Right. And also if you can go into frequency per week, where do they start? Maybe we can progress them to three days a week. But what- what would you suggest for someone? Yeah. Give us an example. That would be great driven for Health, here's a shameless plug. Driven for Health. This is my actually first logo. It's modified since then. It's, uh, improved, I hope. But episode 50, I have a story of Drake. This guy came to me, 29, 270 some pounds, screaming high blood pressure, 160 over 110. You know what those numbers mean. Walking heart attack, right? He walks into his doctor's office, "You have to go on medicine immediately or you're gonna die. You're gonna have a heart attack." And this guy had a, a 250k or more career paid job. He was managing, I think it was nine or 10 figures worth of a- architectural assets in Tennessee. So a crazy amount of stress to manage that amount of wealth , and responsibility. Wow. And his job was killing him. And he said, " give me 30 days to start to turn this around, and if I can't do it, then I will then take medicine." So he found me, and we started to do the work, and he came to me very humble. "Brian, I need help. I don't know what to do. I'm very successful, and help me take the next steps to be successful in my physical health as well." We started with 30 minutes of walking broken up throughout the day. Why? Because he wanted to go to the gym. I said, "No. You cannot go to the gym right now. Your blood pressure's so high your head's gonna pop off if you start trying to bench press or something." No. So we started simple, and as the weight came off, as his blood pressure normalized, as his motivation and energy grew because of him eating healthier, getting the basics of eating healthier, drinking water, getting sleep. He actually quit his 250, 300K job. He sold his Mustang Shelby GT, , convertible that he had because I asked him one day, I s- it's like, "That's a pretty cool car. Do you like it?" And he's "Well, if I, if I get a flat tire, it's like a $500 tire fix. And if I have to, an oil change costs over 200," and stuff. So you could just hear the expense of the maintenance of the car because there's always that type. The, buy a Ferrari, get ready for, , four to five figures worth of repairs every time you take it into shop. That's just the cost of ownership, right? That's the pay to play for that. So he said, "Brian, I don't... the car's fun, but it's not me." Three days later from that conversat- he sold it and bought an F-150. He said, "Brian, I'm a truck guy." In the next conversation that we had, the energy that was beaming from him. Why? Because he was more in alignment with who he was. He was getting caught up in this lifestyle of the rich and famous or whatever, and , the demands of this career and the people he hung around with and it was, there's a lot of friction because he was dying in a sense. Way overweight, way high blood pressure. And as things normalized, then we got a gym membership. Then we started working out and doing weights. Then he had more time because he took a six-week sabbatical, , or longer to deal with his health, because that was the most important thing to fix. And you can hear that in the episode that we talk through on Episode 50 of Driven for Health, going through these things. So it then progressed into, okay, we're gonna work out three days a week. We're gonna start with the basics of machines and dumbbells, and then we can... if they do it, there has to be a level of adherence, right? You know this. If they do the thing, you give them a little, and if they do it, then you can give them more. And by default, then the frequency changed. They st- he started working out more. We had more complex workout routines by the time. And so when he's under 200 pounds and he is in a better financial and career position, and he has a relationship that he actually... He called me, he's like, "Dude, I'm getting married and I'm buying a house. This is so wild." Is, and he's just grateful. And , I was way over the moon, , filled with gratitude that because he decided to take action- He found me and allowed me to be part of that journey and we co-authored it in a sense, , in this journey together, walking next to each other to better his life. And it was just such a full circle moment when he called me like a year and a half later of accomplishing all these things. So we go from really bad state to building in intensity and volume and desire and motivation and all this stuff to, to create a healthy body that he can be happy with and serve his wife and serve his family and his career and clients and all this stuff Wow, wonderful. I love the story. Starting with the basics is key as far as, , exercise is concerned. Yeah, absolutely. Just starting out with basic strength training. Strength training- is probably gonna be the best thing that, most, of the people can do if they haven't been active or they're crunched for time. , Because we are looking to build muscle mass, and muscle is your metabolic sink. Yeah. Okay. Let's talk about nutrition a little bit- Yeah ... uh, here. Let's talk about- Can't outwork a bad diet. Nope. Nope, nope, nope. So any tips, any tips for our listeners? Yeah, definitely. I use science-backed information applied and implemented into the everyday life. So I think of it like this: nutrition is the education, the understanding, the application of the diet, the foods that you eat, to create the look, the body, the feel, the lifestyle that you want to live. And that's how we do. We do top-down. We use the basic principles of nutritional science and distill it into the easiest possible outcome for my client to take action on. Okay. We all know that you should have three, maybe four balanced meals in a day, and I always educate on two basic questions of when it comes to picking the food out. Where's my protein? Where's my fiber? Because when we ask those two questions first, then you frame your, your brain to seek out those choices first, which they are higher volume, lower calorie, more filling, better to digestion, better for blood sugar balance, and consistent energy over the course of time, like in your day, and you're not crashing at 3:00. When we do that three or four times a day and we do PPA, plan, prepare, act, because if you have it planned and you're prepared, it's easy to act. And you do this in your work life around meetings or important things that come up or quarterly reviews or whatever. You do it in work, so why don't we do it in our health journey? And then we have what I call MBF, moderation, balance, flexibility, because that's where the rubber meets the road. All or nothing is a fallacy. You will burn out and not be able to do it. Avoiding a whole food group, "I just don't eat carbs." O- okay, if you like that. I don't know. Anyone I've ever talked to likes carbs, and they're everywhere, always. So how about we have a better relationship with our, how we interact with carbs or alcohol or sugar or any of these things that are on the forbidden food list? We can have all that stuff, but again, moderation, balance, flexibility. We have to have some give and take in here. So this is the premise of having eating majorly whole foods, having lots of lean protein and lots of vegetables, a little bit of fruit, a little bit of starch, a little bit of fat, and be better organized around how it's planned or prepared or grocery shopped or any of... Oh, I don't have time to go to the grocery store. Good. Don't. Let's Instacart or delivery or whatever and have it sent to your house at a convenient time that you can actually do something with the food, prepare it or even put it into your fridge or freezer so that you can be more organized at the home front around these foods. So tho- those are the basics. And if we wanna even drop, say, calories or macros or something, most guys are gonna have anywhere from a 400 to 600 calorie meal. And then we go that moderation balance where I say, "Oh, Brian, I've got a client meal," and okay, that's fine. How many calories do you think you need to, to fulfill on the experience at that time tonight? It's a, it's a valid question to ask. Oh, I think I need 1,200 calories, or 1,500 or 2,000 or whatever. Okay. H- then let's just do simple math. If you're supposed to eat 1,800 calories in a day to lose weight, and you need 1,500 calories to fulfill on dinner tonight, hmm, you're probably having a protein shake and an apple at noon and, and hope you don't get hungry the rest of the day, because that's basic math. And then maybe when you realize that, huh, I'm gonna be hungry pretty much most of the day. Maybe I can make other decisions at this meal so then I'm only having 800 calories instead of 1,500 calories, and now I can eat breakfast today and feel more normal and do more normal food behavior, uh, patterns around, n- more normal patterns around your food behavior. There we go. That's what I'm trying to say. And, this is, it's just, it's logical, and it makes so much sense, but in the time we have emotion, and food is love and happiness and sadness and excitement and all these things that throw us humans off base, and next thing you know you have too much and you over consume and you gotta do a lot of work tomorrow to burn it all off because you, you ate 500 or 1,000 more calories than you should have today because you didn't plan or you weren't prepared enough or you didn't act on the plan that you set for yourself. Absolutely. And you know what? , I wanna underscore something you just said, that, oh- What if, that one meal is taking your whole day's worth of calories? It's time to think about it. Can you pause and, you know- Not put so much food in your mouth? Yeah, exactly. But I think food also... Food means so much more than just nutrition to us, just like you said. And I think you put it just beautifully, like, it's emotions, it's, it's love. Yeah. It's connection, connection to our culture. Uh-huh. Right? Yeah. Sometimes if I have someone that isn't, say, American food culture, th- they say they're from Asia, or they're from India, or from Europe, or Africa, or so- wherever. They're Spanish or whatever, and they have strong ties. They're Colombian. I have two Colombians right now, and they have ties to their culture. Okay, cool. But- And that food is so important to them ... important to them. Yes. But you can't have all the rice, all the beans, and all the fried plantains in every single meal that you eat. It's not gonna work, I'm sorry. Or who doesn't love tortillas or tortilla chips? But we can't eat so many of them that it takes up all the calories of that meal. Or rotis, same di- or pita, right? If, if we just look at all the cultures around, m- a lot of them are circular things of, of wheat or corn. Carbs, yeah. Pita. Grains and carbs, yep. Tortillas, rotis, and, everyone loves them because humans love carbs, because it's an energy source. Yes, it's an immediate energy source. And it served us really well you know, our ancestors did really well on it because they were so active. Active. They were working in the fields. They were, like, going hunting. Yeah. We, we don't- If you weren't digging in the dirt today, you might not eat tomorrow. Yeah. We, we don't, we don't do that anymore, so. No. Today, you and I both can wh- within a, a... Especially where you're at, you're in, uh, NYC. Yeah, New York City. You just step out on the street, and you're immediately surrounded by 100,000 calories that you can buy. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. And they're not all gonna m- most of them probably aren't gonna be that good for you, right? They're all- crinkly packages that have labels of ingredients you don't understand what they are. Yeah, absolutely. Hyper-palatable, ultra-processed foods because that's marketing, that's money, that's capitalism at- Maybe it's worse. And it's playing to our evolutionary, programming too. Oh, totally. So there we go with that. Okay, sleep. Let's talk about sleep. Yeah. We j- did touch upon it a little bit earlier, very early on. Most of the high-performing, men over 40 are not getting enough sleep. They, they just can't. . What can they do? Episode 110 of Driven for Health went over sleep, and there's a couple findings that , we talked about with a colleague of mine. But, number one is that we have a duration of time, right? We think of, oh, we need six to eight hours of sleep, or some people can do more and better with less, and some people need more. So it's about knowing your... y- the amount of sleep that you actually need. It's about understanding your sleep cycle. I would love to go to bed at 10:00 every night, but my wife would love to go to bed at 2:00 AM in the morning every night and sleep till noon, and that's her clock. She's a night owl, and I'm not necessarily, a early riser, but in school hours I'm the one who has to get them to school, so I'm up at bice- before 7:00 every day. So I have a hard wake-up time, so therefore if I want adequate amount of sleep I need to go to bed ideally around 11:00. But when you have four kids, you're self-employed, and she's got two businesses, it's a lot going on at any given time of the day. So we, we got duration. We've got the quality of sleep. How do you actually... What's the environment? Is it h- too hot? Is it too cold? Is the mattress too soft, it's too firm? Is it too light? Is it too dark? Is it too noisy? Is it too, quiet isn't really a thing. It's, th- that's, that doesn't really happen, right? But the, some of , those type of things of the quality of sleep can really define what happens when you actually sleep. For example, we do, we have a dog and we have four cats too, so there you go. I'm pretty busy dealing with a lot of life in my house. But we put up, "Alexa, play ocean music," and it plays crashing waves for us all night. Why? Because it helps buffer the, the noise of the other creatures. I'll throw kids, my kids into that bucket too, the other creatures of the household and making noise or doing whatever. 'Cause my son, he's waking up at 5:00 something to go do s- summer swim practice 6:00 to 8:00. He's getting home after a two-hour practice before I'm even waking up some mornings and stuff, so there's noise, so we put that on. And for the dog to not... we have coyotes around our area, and so they'll they sound like hyenas in the middle of the night. Yeah. And he starts barking and you're like, "Ow, geez," and then you get woken up. So that. Then we have the routine, the actual sleep routine, and the behaviors that come around sleep. There are only two S's that the bed should be known for And do we know what those S's are? Sleep and sex, right? Not screens or whatever other S you wanna throw in there. We should not have a screen in our bedroom. Yeah. You should not be on your phone. I purposely make my clients put their phone across the room. Yeah. Or even in another room because we need to break that relationship from this device that you've been attached to all day anyways, and not have it next to you to wake up and scroll when you shouldn't be, to wake up in the middle of the night and pick it up, and next thing you know, you're in it, or you're doom scrolling, or you're Netflix and chill for too long, and now you stayed up too late. Yeah. Or your sleep is disrupted that way. So we have sleep behaviors before, and then when you wake up, that we should have a better routine around. And lastly, throw one more thing in here, is how you relate to sleep. And I found this to be the most interesting out of all that. All those things everyone knows, right? Oh, I should, , go to bed earlier, and whatever, right? Calm, cool, quiet, dark place to sleep in, right? I need to get eight hours of sleep, but it's impossible. Whatever, right? But the, how you think of yourself as a sleeper can have a huge impact on your quality of sleep. Meaning, if you have self-identified as a poor sleeper, you're doomed. I'm just gonna say it. You're doomed because in your brain, you lay your head down on the pillow and then race, y- instantly start racing. Why? Because you've allowed that space in your life, the bed, to be open to letting your mind wander, or letting worry, or all these things because your sleep routine or your boundaries around how you lay down to bed are broken or whatnot. And so then you... I- it'd almost be better to stay up longer to work through the worries and stressors to then lay down when you're actually tired and your brain is clear, 'cause then you'll sleep higher quality. Yeah. But if you are worrying and you lay down, and then the mind races and you can't go to s- you're staring at the ceiling, or even wake up in the middle of the night and you're like, " I always wake up and I'm up for two hours," , there has to be a routine. There has to be a sequence of events that allows you to stay calm, quiet, cool, collected, to be able to go back to sleep in a reasonable time. So those are some areas of sleep. Yeah. No, that's wonderful. That's wonderful. Where can our listeners and viewers find you? You have shared so much- Thank you ... wisdom, and, really good tips for people to start taking care of their health and sometimes also, continue the journey if, they got lost somewhere in, in the middle. Well, we got brianprana.com. Uh, it has my o- two offers of how I health coach and, and then I have a men's 100-day fat loss challenge for men 40 and over. That's gonna be The Call to Rise. So if you need help, accountability and s- and almost... A- as much as I can guarantee, you're gonna lose 20-plus pound. I just win. I like to win, and if you, we're working together, we're gonna win, and I have countless examples on the Driven for Health podcast of people losing 20 to even 30-plus pounds in those 100 days because we work on all these things that we talked about and make it work in your lifestyle. So there's that, and then I mentioned some podcast episodes on Driven for Health. 110 was sleep, Drake was 50, and then I'll throw out one more, which is episode 70. It's five high-protein breakfasts so you can start your day off on the right foot, and that's gonna really give you a really good, strong start in not only just, burning body fat, but being productive mentally and, physically and emotionally to manage the day 'cause you started off with good food. Great. Awesome. Any parting words for our audience? Yeah, definitely. There's one thing that I th- I find... All the tips and tricks and the things that we talked about are important, but , the best tool that I can give you is a simple question because this question will get you to align with what your goals are. And the simple question is this, is, , will this move me toward my health goals or away from my health goals? Before you do anything , drink water. I've drank water a couple times. Will this move me toward my goals or away from it? Probably toward, right? If I'm gonna go to this event tonight and they have this type of food, is, does that move me toward or away? And I'm not saying you have to avoid all that food, but we talked about it, the 1,500-calorie dining experience versus the 800-calorie dining experience. Those offer two different paths that you have opportunities to move toward your goals or away from your goals. So this is a very pressing question that you can carry with yourself to keep you course-corrected because if you're listening and you're not happy with where your physical or, your health state is of your body, or you have chronic illness or are overweight or whatever, you've made millions of decisions, micro decisions, over a very long time to get here. And just doing a fast or a cleanse or all this stuff isn't just gonna wipe the slate clean. We have to start making a equally or equivalent amount of steps over, choices over the next foreseeable future to get your health back on track. Yeah. So that's a good overall way to lead this- Yeah conversation. Yeah. I love it. Love it. , Ask yourself, "Is this, , bringing me closer to my goal or taking me farther away?" Great. Awesome. Thank you so much for sharing- ... so many great examples, these are the major ones if, if you start dialing those in- Yeah ... and start working little by little on these three pillars, you're gonna be in control of your health. You're gonna change your biomarkers. You're gonna see so much more improvement in how you look and feel, and how, you can increase your productivity. We keep thinking that, we are all grinding and working more and more because we want to be productive, but guess what? I mean, the more you actually take care of your health, the more productive you are. Agreed. That's the key. That's how it's done. So I love it. The good news is that reclaiming energy, metabolic health, and confidence is entirely possible, no matter where you are on that, life scale. absolutely. You can create that structure for yourself. You can find that time-efficient approach, and Brian is here to help you, so reach out please and listen to his podcast. Sorry, I'm, blanking out on the name here. . Driven for Health Podcast. So thank you so much for sharing all the tips again, and also for highlighting the podcast episodes. Please listen to his podcast and follow him on Instagram and LinkedIn and- I took that ... reach out. If you like this show today, please share it with your friends and family members and don't forget to subscribe to our show so that you can get fresh episodes every week