Are You Trading Your Health for Your Wealth? 4 Patterns to Avoid

You're not consciously choosing to sacrifice your health for your career—but it's happening anyway. And the real reason isn't your schedule. It's a subconscious belief you don't even know you have.

In this episode, I break down the 4 invisible patterns high-achievers fall into that slowly trade health for wealth—sleep deprivation, meal skipping, chronic stress, and ignoring symptoms. More importantly, I reveal the subconscious beliefs driving each pattern.

What You'll Learn:

• The core belief driving all health sacrifices
• 4 patterns of trading health for wealth (and how to know if you're doing them)
• What happens in 5, 10, and 20 years if you do nothing 
• The subconscious beliefs behind each pattern
• Why acknowledging these patterns threatens your self-image
• How to break the cycle: examine beliefs, pick one pattern to shift

This episode is for you if: ✓ You set your alarm for 5am after going to bed at midnight ✓ You skip meals because you're "too busy" (or not even hungry from stress) ✓ You're always context-switching, never fully present ✓ You ignore symptoms and self-medicate with caffeine, ibuprofen, or Tums ✓ You tell people "I'm fine, just busy" when you're clearly not

Connect with Kait:

• Website: feelgreatwithkait.com
• Email: kaitlin@feelgreatwithkait.com
• Instagram: @feelgreatwithkait

Does your calendar dictate your nutrition? 

• Grab The No-Time Nutrition Blueprint: http://store.feelgreatwithkait.com/ntn

Ready to stop trading your health for your wealth?

• Apply for coaching with Kaitlin: https://tidycal.com/kaitlin/apply

Transcript

**Kaitlin Borncamp:**
So you might be trading your health for your wealth, but how would you know? In today's episode, I'm going to be unpacking four juicy patterns of how high achievers are trading their health for their wealth.

Welcome back everyone. I'm your host, Kaitlin Borncamp I'm a CPA nutritional therapy practitioner, and I love to help busy executives and high achievers optimize their blood sugar, support healthy cholesterol levels, and start to die younger later in life.

Kaitlin Borncamp, CPA, NTP (00:38.488)
so that they can perform at their peak and die young as late in life as possible.

Today we're talking about the four invisible patterns of how even the smartest people inevitably end up trading their health for their wealth and how you can determine if you might be doing any of these. All right, let's dive in.


Kaitlin Borncamp, CPA, NTP (01:20.258)
Listen, I know we're all busy, so I wanna jump straight to the punchline. Okay, so when we are talking about trading our health for our wealth, what's actually happening is that you're not making a conscious decision to do it. No, it's an underlying pattern that's running in your subconscious mind that's tied to your identity. And the underlying pattern is that you are tying your worth to your output. Okay, every pattern that we're gonna be talking about in today's episode stems

from this core belief.

Kaitlin Borncamp, CPA, NTP (01:54.36)
So the four patterns that we're going to be going over are sleep deprivation, meal skipping, chronic stress, and ignoring symptoms in our body. So here are the beliefs that are going along with each one.

Kaitlin Borncamp, CPA, NTP (02:11.446)
If you are somebody who is cutting yourself short of quality sleep each night, you might have the belief of, approve my worth by outworking everyone and getting more done each day.

Kaitlin Borncamp, CPA, NTP (02:28.204)
If you were chronically skipping meals every day, you might be telling yourself,

If skipping meals is a common thing for you, you might have the underlying identity that you're worth.

Kaitlin Borncamp, CPA, NTP (02:45.504)
If you are skipping meals every day, you might have the underlying belief that you actually don't need to eat like other people do and that you're more productive using less resources.

Kaitlin Borncamp, CPA, NTP (03:03.852)
Or if you're somebody who's become a cortisol addict and actually normalized chronic stress in your life, your underlying belief might be something like, I prove my worth by handling more than others can.

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Or if you're somebody who's been ignoring symptoms for a long time, you might have the underlying belief that you prove your worth by never being weak or never being seen as broken.

Kaitlin Borncamp, CPA, NTP (03:37.46)
We're going to chat more about what these underlying beliefs mean in our life and how they actually show up to our conscious mind. Because again, when something is unconscious to us, we aren't able to identify it within ourselves directly. So we need to use some other things, use some other patterns in order to identify if that might be the pattern for you.

But before we jump into that, wanted to lay out for you what happens if we keep doing nothing. What happens if you keep doing the same things for the next five years, the next 10 years, the next 20 years? Well, here's what the research shows us.

Kaitlin Borncamp, CPA, NTP (04:16.598)
In five years, it might show up as things like your doctor telling you that you have a slightly elevated A1c and that you might now be creeping into the pre-diabetic range for your blood sugar. Maybe you're being told your blood pressure is increasing since the last time you came in.

You might feel like your energy is lower than it used to be.

Maybe over the last few years you've gained 15, 20, 30 pounds, but just steadily over time until you're not realizing it, until you actually look back.

Kaitlin Borncamp, CPA, NTP (04:51.905)
Or maybe you what, you check in and you think, wow, I am a bit shorter with my family. I am feeling more foggy in the mornings on some of those client meetings than you used to feel.

Kaitlin Borncamp, CPA, NTP (05:06.476)
If you do nothing over 10 years, what it can look like is now you're in full-blown type 2 diabetic range for your blood sugar. Your doctor is actually recommending multiple medications for you for diabetes or high blood pressure. Maybe you've started to develop chronic headaches.

or chronic back pain from the high inflammation, chronic stress, and sedentary lifestyle.

Kaitlin Borncamp, CPA, NTP (05:34.86)
Maybe you wonder if you actually just are somebody who has anxiety or somebody who has depression because you've suppressed your emotions for a decade and you're not sure what is even out of balance now.

Kaitlin Borncamp, CPA, NTP (05:48.088)
But the scary thing is you guys is that if we continue to trade our health for our wealth for multiple decades, so for 20 or more years, that's when the serious consequences start to catch up to us. This can show up in things like heart disease, even potentially having a heart attack or a stroke. Chronic inflammation and poor sleep can increase our risk for dementia.

Or maybe you've developed something that seems totally unrelated, like an autoimmune condition, which is your body's...

which is your body attacking itself from years of stress.

And unfortunately, eventually it may even lead to complete loss of independence. So you're not able to travel as much with your spouse. You're not able to play with your grandkids and you're not able to enjoy retirement the way you thought you were.

And the biggest one of all, maybe there's even years, potentially decades actually cut from your lifespan.

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It's important to bring up these severe consequences because that's the reality. Those are the realistic consequences of us trading our health for our wealth.

Kaitlin Borncamp, CPA, NTP (07:14.87)
Now you are probably thinking, of course that's not me, Kaitlin. I would never do that intentionally. Why would I ever consciously make a choice to make myself feel worse or to even at the most extreme cut years off of my life? We just don't think like that consciously. And so that's why in today's episode, I'm going to be unpacking those four common patterns that I see even the smartest, most astute professionals falling into of those subconscious patterns.

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falling into that ultimately end up leading to them treating their health for their wealth.

Kaitlin Borncamp, CPA, NTP (07:59.212)
The biggest one I see is sleep deprivation and it comes along with this mentality of I'll sleep when I'm dead or I'm not lazy, really feeling like an overemphasis on your days and your production. Really an overemphasis on the amount of things that you can get done in a day in this internal drive that forces you to just go, go, go.

It may look like you set your alarm at 5 a.m. even after going to bed at midnight because you know you need to get up and do your workout and you still need to have time to get all the things done for your job and for your family.

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Or maybe you actually end up skipping your wind down routine that you know helps you sleep better because you just need to get that one little thing done.

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Maybe you think to yourself, you'll just check a few emails while you're laying in bed to fall asleep in order to just get ahead of tomorrow. You just want to be on top of it.

Kaitlin Borncamp, CPA, NTP (09:11.118)
So the surface rationalization that we are telling ourselves in this moment is that you'll sleep more when X happens. You'll sleep more when you have more time. You'll sleep more when things are less busy. Maybe you'll sleep more when you make partner, you know, like if you actually achieve the goal that you're so intently on working on.

Maybe you're telling yourself the story that successful people don't sleep that much. Success takes sacrifice, right? Maybe you're trying to approach your life like David Goggins.

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Or maybe you feel a subtle hint of scarcity in the sense that if you don't work this hard, somebody else will come in and take your spot.

Kaitlin Borncamp, CPA, NTP (09:56.194)
Or perhaps the worst one of all is maybe you're rationalizing it because you're telling yourself, I'm young, I can handle it, I don't need much sleep.

Kaitlin Borncamp, CPA, NTP (10:14.99)
But again, each one of these rational thoughts almost always come with a deeper subconscious belief and is the real reason why you feel like you're sacrificing your sleep in order to get more done. So tell me, which one do you think resonates the most with you? So take a listen to these and reflect on which one I...

Kaitlin Borncamp, CPA, NTP (10:42.264)
So as I list out some of these common subconscious stories that might be running in your mind, really start to feel into which one could or which ones are the most applicable in your life right now. We've touched on the first one, which is my worth equals my productivity. If I rest, I am lazy, I am weak, or I'll fall behind. Sleep is for people who aren't ambitious enough, or I don't deserve rest until I've proven myself.

So the core fear here is that if you slow down, you'll be irrelevant, you'll be a failure, or maybe you'll even be replaced by somebody else who's hustling harder than you. And so what's really happening here at a subconscious level is that sleep can actually feel like you're surrendering, like you're giving in. And in a culture that glorifies hustle, sleep means that you're losing. That's what you feel internally, and that feels like a threat. And so if your identity is wrapped up in being the person who can, quote unquote, handle it,

or doesn't need the sleep, then admitting you need sleep to yourself actually feels like you're not tough enough.

I know oftentimes I speak about what I call the high-performer conundrum, which is all around how the same traits that make us good at our jobs and productive in life are actually the same traits that work against us in our mindset and lead to added stress. And this is the same thing, meaning your internal drive to get more done, to be really good at what you do, and to take pride in your work actually isn't a bad thing, but it does have a consequence. It does have a dark side.

and this could be the dark side for you.

Kaitlin Borncamp, CPA, NTP (12:24.62)
Okay, and why this matters so much is because we know that lack of sleep or even just getting poor sleep has negative health impacts, including 25 % reduction in cognitive performance of just one hour.

including a 25 % reduction in cognitive performance after one week of six hours of sleep each night, can actually decrease your insulin sensitivity by 25%.

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weakens your immune system to the tune of becoming three times more likely to get sick.

and it worsens our decision-making process and has us increased.

Kaitlin Borncamp, CPA, NTP (13:09.088)
It worsens our decision-making process, making us think more slowly or making bad decisions.

Kaitlin Borncamp, CPA, NTP (13:18.318)
Okay, so really think about if your sleep is lacking right now, what are the logical reasons? What's the rationality behind it? And then also reflect on what are some of those underlying subconscious beliefs that might be running for you?

Kaitlin Borncamp, CPA, NTP (13:44.566)
Okay, the next common pattern I see for people who are trading their health for their wealth is skipping meals. This might show up as just rushing through the morning because you had a really important deliverable that came up last minute, or maybe you just think that you can survive on coffee and you'll be good until lunch.

Kaitlin Borncamp, CPA, NTP (14:12.598)
Maybe you're telling yourself, I'm just too busy. I need to get more work done. How will all of this work get done?

Kaitlin Borncamp, CPA, NTP (14:25.046)
In its most extremes, you might not actually even feel hungry because cortisol suppresses our hunger. So really tune into what are your stress levels like during your normal eating times around maybe 8 to 10 a.m. Are you actually not hungry, truly, or are you not hungry because you're chronically stressed?

Kaitlin Borncamp, CPA, NTP (14:48.99)
Or at its most severe, are you telling yourself, is the rationale you're telling yourself that you don't even need to eat because eating is a waste of time? Believe it or not, I've actually heard that one very often around hydration. So we could probably include water intake here in this category as well, which is, do you feel like you have time to go get water and to go to the restroom? Is staying hydrated viewed as productive in your mind or is it viewed as a waste of time?

Again, this goes back to what are the underlying beliefs? So those were the conscious things you might be telling us, but really unpacking what are the underlying beliefs. So for this one, some of these subconscious stories you might have are if you stop to eat, you're actually not working hard enough. Or maybe your needs don't matter as much as this deadline. Taking care of yourself is selfish. When others are depending on you, ooh, that one's a good one.

Or do you think of food as really just a distraction from what actually matters most, which is on the conscious level, the task at hand, but really on the deeper level is your overall success.

Kaitlin Borncamp, CPA, NTP (15:56.672)
One core fear is if I take a break, I might miss something, you might lose momentum, or you'll fall behind. And so what's actually happening here is that skipping meals is a control mechanism. When everything else in your life feels chaotic, denying your body's needs feels like strength. I know this was me for a long period of time when I had disordered eating patterns, and really controlling what was on my plate and when I ate was my biggest sense of control in my day.

Kaitlin Borncamp, CPA, NTP (16:35.198)
And while you might be thinking, hey, Kaitlin, isn't fasting really healthy for you? Well, yes, intentional fasting can have its benefits and it does have a time and a place in healthy lifestyle. That's not what we're referring to here, okay? If you are somebody who, again, is skipping meals because you're not even hungry due to high stress, that chronic stress can be damaging your body and you can be missing out on the opportunity, there's actually an opportunity cost, of skipping meals in order to get adequate nutrients that your body needs.

Kaitlin Borncamp, CPA, NTP (17:06.05)
Alright, so maybe that leads to extreme hunger later on when you finally give yourself a chance to slow down later on in the day. Maybe you just are so ravished that you overeat processed food or things that you know are unhealthy for you. Maybe it leads to late night binging because your body is just so hungry later in the day.

But also to what this really speaks to you from a nutrition perspective is that your body is running on chronic stress and that depletes critical nutrients including vitamin C, B12, iron, magnesium, and that can actually cause more fatigue. So it really is a balance between adequate eating windows. It really is a balance between optimal eating windows, which include things like fasting, as well as getting in enough of the nutrients that your body needs in order to remain healthy and resilient.

Kaitlin Borncamp, CPA, NTP (18:01.804)
Because if you do this over time and you aren't getting enough nutrition in with the meals you are actually eating, your body can actually start to break down your muscles for fuel. It can actually lead to things like hormone dysfunction, even things like taking your thyroid, lower sex hormones, increased cortisol. And it can also, as we know, we've talked about this before, it can lead to glucose volatility and driving up your average blood sugar, which is a whole host of other problems.

Kaitlin Borncamp, CPA, NTP (18:35.874)
Okay, the third pattern of how you might know if you're trading your health for your wealth is chronic stress or being addicted to cortisol, right? I know this was me. It took me a while to realize this one where there was days where I felt so calm, right? When I would wake up and then without a doubt, I would find myself habitually rushing to the first meeting of the day. And I was like, what is going on? I am so on top of the rest of my day. Why am I always in a rush? Why do I always feel behind for that first meeting of the day?

Until finally I realized that I actually enjoy it. I enjoy the rush. I enjoy the thrill of needing to hurry, needing to hustle, feeling like I'm a little bit behind because it gives me that extra jolt. Well, unfortunately, that extra jolt of energy was cortisol. And what was happening, I realized, is that in the mornings, I would have this huge rush of cortisol because I was rushing. And then in the evenings, my energy would tank and it would dip later on.

So a couple patterns that might indicate if you're, like I was addicted to the cortisol, is you're constantly context switching. You're never fully present in the current meeting or the current task that you're working on. Maybe this shows up as you're always bopping around between your different apps or different browser tabs through your email, your calendar app notifications, right? That's your brain constantly looking for new stimulation or something to be concerned about.

Kaitlin Borncamp, CPA, NTP (20:04.174)
All right, some other symptoms of this is that maybe you're really short or snappy with your family members when you're done with work because your mood is lower.

Kaitlin Borncamp, CPA, NTP (20:14.648)
A really common one I hear from high achievers is that they have racing thoughts at night. That's a very, very common symptom that your nervous system is on overdrive and that you might be too stressed out during the day.

Kaitlin Borncamp, CPA, NTP (20:32.258)
You might be thinking to yourself, I'm just going to check my email just in case. You're constantly worried that you're going to get behind. And every time somebody asks you how you're doing, you immediately answer with, I'm good. I'm just busy. You're perpetuating that busyness feeling internally.

Kaitlin Borncamp, CPA, NTP (20:53.932)
And so some of the subconscious things, and so some of the conscious things you're telling yourself if you are addicted to chronic stress is that this is just what success requires. This is how my work has always been. Everyone at my level is like this. You're normalizing it. You're rationalizing it. Maybe you actually are telling yourself that you'll relax when you retire, which newsflash is a really bad strategy. You don't have time to deal with feelings or that other people have it worse than you. So again, you're just

at a rational level, you're just normalizing it. But what's actually happening, because again, we know that there are underlying beliefs that are truly driving our behavior, the subconscious story for this one would be around your value is around how much you can handle, that acknowledging stress might mean you're weak. Maybe you think that if you slow down and feel your emotions, it'll be too painful or too hard and you might fall apart and never recover. Wow, that one hits deep.

Maybe you're telling yourself, maybe you feel like you're only lovable or worthy when you're producing or being productive.

Kaitlin Borncamp, CPA, NTP (22:03.19)
And that, and depending on what time era you grew up in, you might think that emotions are not productive. So what is the point of stopping to feel them? The core fear here is that if you admit that you're struggling, other people will realize that you might be a fraud, that you're not good enough or that you're replaceable. And so what's happening here is that stress has become part of your identity, right? It's become just who you are. You enjoy it even like I noticed I did.

And so that you feel like, and because you feel like emotions are dangerous and that they might reveal the truth that you're actually unworthy, that you don't actually want this life. And so you stay busy in an effort to actually avoid feeling or reckoning those emotions.

Kaitlin Borncamp, CPA, NTP (22:53.08)
Okay, I'm not gonna get into all the negatives about stress here, because we've talked about this before.

Kaitlin Borncamp, CPA, NTP (23:00.248)
So just a quick reminder, right? We know that chronic stress is bad for us, but why is that, right? The elevated cortisol causes damage internally. It also drives insulin resistance and it can increase bloating, reflux and other downstream issues. It can also make us feel worse. So brain fog, fatigue in the afternoons, like I was feeling racing thoughts at night lead to poor sleep. Ultimately, it is your nervous system being stuck in fight or flight. And when left unchecked,

will lead to burnout you guys. So we definitely need to support this pattern.

Kaitlin Borncamp, CPA, NTP (23:39.03)
Okay, so the fourth pattern on how to know if you might be trading your health for your wealth is ignoring symptoms or telling yourself, I will just deal with it later, or maybe minimizing it like it's not that big of a deal. So some of the things that you might experience on a day-to-day basis is that when you wake up, you actually feel very exhausted, but you just cover it with more caffeine. Maybe you have some stomach pains or acid reflux after meals, but you just are popping more tums.

and you get right back to work, like anything to get that band-aid solution in the moment.

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You have a headache or you have joint pain often, but you just pop a couple more ibuprofen and move about for your day.

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You're too tired to make dinner after work, so you just order takeout, not even stopping to question if your energy levels are normal.

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Your doctor or other health physicians might be warning you that your symptoms are worsening and that your metabolic markers don't look good, but you just nod and kind of push it to the side for later.

And again, the rationale behind this that you're probably telling yourself is, I'm just getting older. This is just part of aging, right? Everybody feels this way. Maybe you think to yourself, I don't have time to be sick. So you just consciously don't let that be an option to you that something else might be going on underneath.

Maybe you're telling yourself, can't afford to slow down. It's just not an option right now. And so what's going on in the subconscious mind, some of the underlying beliefs that are driving your behavior would mean that acknowledging your symptoms could mean that you're broken or defective. You might think that if you go to the doctor, they'll find something wrong and your whole life would unravel. Do you think that you don't deserve to prioritize your health when others are depending on you?

My body is a machine and it should just work. So the core fear here would be that if you stop to address this, you'll lose momentum in your life, in your job, and your identity as the person who can handle everything. So what's really happening is that by ignoring the symptoms, it's a form of thinking. If I don't acknowledge it, it doesn't exist. And it's also an identity protection mechanism because if this is you, your self-image is

that you're strong, you're capable, and that you're never sick. So it would mean that admitting something is wrong threatens your identity. Plus addressing those pesky health symptoms is inconvenient, but more deeply, it actually acknowledges an underlying vulnerability.

Kaitlin Borncamp, CPA, NTP (26:29.166)
So those are four of the patterns and I know oftentimes you probably are listening to health content like mine in order to get some of the science and to get some of the physical things that are going on. But I have really been called and believe that most of the things that are going on within our health and our habits all really comes back to our, you know, our psychological.

all really comes back to our thought pattern, all really comes back to our thought patterns and our underlying beliefs because those are the things that are driving our actions and those are the things that get us the results that we have or want. And as I like to say, we will always be limited by human nature, not by nature itself. So here's what I want you to understand that trading your health for your wealth, so here's what I want you to understand that you are not actually trading your health for your wealth consciously.

you're trading your health for your identity. So the belief that my worth is my output is slowly leading to the unraveling of your health over years and decades. And the good news is that you don't have to choose between health and success. You just have to examine the beliefs that made you think you did. So quick call to action from today's episode is just pick one area to start with. Pick one pattern that you notice within yourself.

and start to question the underlying beliefs and the rationale that you're telling yourself.

And I know that there are so many more of us out there that are trading our health for our wealth and may not know it. So call to action here would be to share this with one person in your life who you know needs to hear this.

Kaitlin Borncamp, CPA, NTP (28:11.286)
Alright my friends, until next time, stay healthy.