Are you ready to redefine your perception of health and finance? Get ready as we unpack this intriguing intersection in our latest podcast, featuring Kelly, your guide on this journey who transitioned from a financial advisor to a health and wellness coach. Join us as we navigate the challenges midlife women often face, sandwiched between the responsibility of their children and aging parents. Together, we underline the significance of maintaining physical and financial health, stressing the importance of self-care and time management.
As the festive season approaches, we all grapple with staying fit and financially secure amidst the celebrations. We're here with practical tips to remain healthy, manage holiday spending, and the crucial need to schedule downtime for mental and physical recovery. Our personal experiences and strategies aim to provide a roadmap for maintaining balance and self-care during this bustling time of the year.
Lastly, we're thrilled to bring you an enlightening chat with Kelly Majdan, the brains behind Power Through Wellness. Kelly's simple yet effective approach to achieving goals and creating efficient plans is set to inspire you. Her emphasis on consistency and finding balance in health and fitness offers valuable insights to navigate your wellness journey smoothly. So, get ready for a hefty dose of motivation and practical advice on wellness - this episode is bound to leave you feeling rejuvenated and empowered to take on the world!
Are you ready to redefine your perception of health and finance? Get ready as we unpack this intriguing intersection in our latest podcast, featuring Kelly, your guide on this journey who transitioned from a financial advisor to a health and wellness coach. Join us as we navigate the challenges midlife women often face, sandwiched between the responsibility of their children and aging parents. Together, we underline the significance of maintaining physical and financial health, stressing the importance of self-care and time management.
As the festive season approaches, we all grapple with staying fit and financially secure amidst the celebrations. We're here with practical tips to remain healthy, manage holiday spending, and the crucial need to schedule downtime for mental and physical recovery. Our personal experiences and strategies aim to provide a roadmap for maintaining balance and self-care during this bustling time of the year.
Lastly, we're thrilled to bring you an enlightening chat with Kelly Majdan, the brains behind Power Through Wellness. Kelly's simple yet effective approach to achieving goals and creating efficient plans is set to inspire you. Her emphasis on consistency and finding balance in health and fitness offers valuable insights to navigate your wellness journey smoothly. So, get ready for a hefty dose of motivation and practical advice on wellness - this episode is bound to leave you feeling rejuvenated and empowered to take on the world!
Hello and welcome to Health with Fitness Redefined. I'm your host, anthony Amen. Join me today as we're taking dive into the world of health with fitness. We're going to overcome adversity, pick back perspiration and see health with fitness and a whole new life. Today I am not going to cut into our F-squared consulting company about fitness and finances, because that's what we're going to talk about in 35 minutes. I'm sure you're not going to want to hear separate out of it, but we have a guest who does the same exact thing as we do. This is how important that we think it is. We decided to come together and talk about why these two things mesh hand in hand. I'm really excited to have her on today. It's been long overdue. So, kelly, welcome to the show. It's an absolute pleasure to have you today.
Speaker 2:Thank you so much, Anthony. I'm glad that we were finally able to connect and make this happen.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's been a lot of back and forth. Both of us justtime recently has gone up in the air and hectic, but it's okay that's life. Yeah, we're here, Kelly. We just want to start because a lot of people don't know who you are, so just explain to us about who you are and how you got into the fitness and finance field.
Speaker 2:Absolutely Well. I'd like to joke around to say that I am actually a recovering financial advisor. So I spent 25 years in the financial services industry and I'm still kind of attached to it as well with what I do. But most recently I was a registered investment advisor working with corporate 401K plans. I would help set up the corporate 401K plans and I would go and do the education and the financial coaching with all of the employees that actually save the plan. So, trying to pull them all together Over the years, what I've noticed not just on my own health journey but really working with corporate employees for as long as I have is that there are two things that have a detrimental effect to your later years I don't want to say retirement years, but really your later years and it's how much you saved and how healthy you are.
Speaker 2:And if you've got one or both, both is ideal. But if you're going to lean on one, lean on your health. And that was really the one thing that really kind of turned me around and made me decide to go back to school to become a board certified health and wellness coach. So I've got all the financial coaching on the side and I've got all the health coaching and now it's just really coming back to people to help them make that strategic plan so they can enjoy their later years and really save and enjoy and actually be able to do the things that they really want to do in their later years and not have to spend all their money on health care.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's. Let's start with this kind of analogy. It doesn't matter how much money you have in your bank account. If you die before you retire, you can enjoy it Right.
Speaker 2:That's it, it's just over and you know I've got a really you know, and unfortunately a sad example. But something that really also helped push me in this direction was I had my I guess it would be my step uncle who passed away at 63 from liver disease because of his alcoholism, and he left his wife a millionaire four times over, but she would much rather have him. I mean, you know, he did the right thing wealth wise, but he didn't do the right thing health wise. So it's helping really kind of figure out how do we get you to be able to do both?
Speaker 1:Yeah, and then even the folks side caveat of that you take care of your body and your mind and you keep yourself healthy, and then you don't focus on your finances, which I feel like it's a lot more in my atmosphere in the gym world. Then you're going to live longer, right, You're going to be able to do more, but if you don't have the money to be able to enjoy the things you wanted to do after retirement because you didn't sit ask your finances, it's going to be another whole yeah. Yeah, it's very true. It's pretty, it's pretty crazy how much both of those go hand in hand. I guess my first question is what's the stereotypical person you end up working with?
Speaker 2:So, right now, working with a lot of my focus right now has been working with a lot of, I would say, midlife women, because that's where we're really, that's the struggle where a lot of us have been.
Speaker 2:We're working and we're raising families and we're raising and we're we're juggling everything and the family from a perspective. So that was the world I came from either. You know, right now I'm lucky, my kids are now high school and college, but we still, you know, you still have a lot that's on your plate and it's really helping define yes, you do have time, because I think that's the biggest thing that we come up with with, not like I don't have time to save, or I don't have the extra money to save, or is I don't have time to put towards my health. I've got to do all of this stuff, you know, for my family. And really helping people connect those dots is saying yes, you know, we're all given the same 24 seven, and it's just really about how we prioritize and manage our time and where we feel the importance is of putting that putting yourself in on your calendar, not everybody else Well, having everybody else there, but also having yourself on your calendar as well too.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and they call it the sandwich generation. Right, because your stuff, your kids, are just going into college. But then the flip side, your parents are getting older, to care of them, they need more hands on. So you kind of get sandwiched In between and I feel like the wives get it worse than the men do, because the men are usually the ones At work, and this is just stereotypical, like of course everyone's different.
Speaker 1:But then the wives are stuck like, okay, I had the kids, and then I have my parents, and then have my husband's parents and I'm driving around like a lunatic and who cares that I don't have time for myself?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I then throw those that are working as well into the mix with that. You know that's that's a really big. You know you're trying to do everything you can for your job. You're trying to do everything you can for your family. You're trying to do everything you can for your, your parents or your in-laws. I mean, we spend a lot of time with helping with my husband's parents as well, because they're close by or by his dad. We unfortunately lost his mom this year.
Speaker 2:But it's it really is. It's it comes to her. There's a lot of stress. It's managing that stress, it's managing the time that you have and it's awesome, really honestly, too, it's managing the guilt factor, especially working moms. We have this major guilt thing too going on sometimes where, well, I should be spending time with my kids or I should be doing this, and you want to kind of optimize your, your time as much as you can With those that are important to you in your life, which a lot of times are your kids and your family, right. So it's really just kind of working through that, that, that challenging, I would say, necessarily mindset but mental obstacles that we have, and Working through to help people with that.
Speaker 1:Yeah. So let's talk about time management in relation to that right, because that's a big one. It's how do you have enough time for All of those tasks? You just did a great job explaining and then taking care of yourself personally. They believe are inputting your health first right. We talked about that. It's by the most important thing, and and the advice I always get to people and I'm sure you could back me up on this is if you're not working out, firstly in the morning, you're never gonna work because everything else is gonna stack up, things gonna take longer than they do. So that should be priority. Number one is should be uncancellable. Nothing is going to make you not go do that. We're taking a step further. It's let's put our phones away, get our work out done and then we can go back and hop in to see what's going on.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and they'll be, you know and I'm gonna there's.
Speaker 2:I would totally agree with you because there's a One-point, but then I'm gonna kind of challenge that a little bit. Go for it. So, because I understand this like so, because I was a retirement plan advisor, I put over 30,000 miles on my car every year driving around seeing my clients. So or I, when I was in the office, I was in, you know, I was in the office. So sometimes getting that workout in first thing in the morning, it didn't happen. And it didn't happen because I was either traveling or we were running kids around. You know, because that was the biggest thing is that you, you're, especially when you're working, you're trying to find your spots. So when I work with women, I was really interesting to I was talking with a, I was walking with one of my neighbors who's like 13 years younger than me and we were talking about how we're in different space in life now and when I was running the kids around, we would, you know, we also had travel, my kids played travel across. So what it really is more about it's not holding yourself to such a rigid like oh, if I'm not getting it done in the morning, it's not happening, it's okay. Does that fit your schedule. Can you get up early in the morning and add that into your schedule? And if it, you can't, all right, where can you find those pockets of time? So for me, finding the pockets of time were when I took the kids to their sports, because they had an hour and a half Practice in the evenings, I wouldn't sit in my car. I would either walk the fields like it many times you saw me doing laps around the fields or, if it was a when I had like a run day when I was, I did Enjoy running and I was in the area where we could do. We had a lot of trails I would time it to where I could go run, get to the trail, run the trail and then get back in time To pick the kids up. Now there were a few times I was late. My daughter definitely made me hear about it. You know it's.
Speaker 2:It's really more of a matter of where can you fit it in your schedule. Because in an ideal world, now that my kids are, you know, like I said, my son's in college and my daughter's a senior she drives herself everywhere. I don't have I can get my workout done in the morning and I do. That's where I will agree with you, because I will let the day Go away for me now if I don't get my workout done in the morning.
Speaker 2:But I also know that there are seasons in our life and we have to work with the seasons of our life and be flexible and be understanding and Really focus in on what is it that you like to do and how can we then shift that into your schedule so it's seamless. And then how can we structure yourself so that, okay, I make sure I bring my gym bag with me, because there are a lot of times too we would pick the kids up and we would go to the rec center where they did their thing and then we would do our thing. So it's it's really more kind of working with the seasons of your life and fitting things in where you can fit them in.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and that was a great explanation kind of into getting it fit in where you want. In my eyes, I was looking more for someone working like a nine to five job. Right, you're gonna either have the before, the after work. Kids go to school programs is obviously a great one. That gives you that little wiggle room, because I I see a lot of the parents I can drop their kids off at the gym and they're just gonna sit at the front desk for the kids training for 45 minutes to an hour. Right, that's my view. My life I'm like go work out. There's like a triple right there.
Speaker 2:It is, it's, but now then that's where it comes down to choices and that's where you have to, like, take that step back and ask yourself what do you want your life to look like? And you know, I will tell you, I had a. Really there's a couple aha moments and in our life and you know, some of them are big and some of them are just okay. I'm just tired of feeling like this, like one of them was my husband did have to. Yeah, we thought I had a pineal gland cystic mass sitting in the middle of his brain in 2014, so he had to have brain surgery. So that was kind of the big aha, because there are, you know, kind of a stop you in the tracks and go, okay, where we going with our life moment, because the kids were only like seven and nine at the time.
Speaker 2:And then there was a time where, a little bit later on, when I was approaching the big 5-0, and I almost fell asleep on the Dallas Turnpike, because I'm in the Dallas Texas area and anybody who's nose or driven in Dallas, you know you do not fall asleep on those Turnpikes that's like the kiss of death, right. So, quite literally, for you and others, so it was a really big, scary moment for me that I pulled in and at least I had enough time before my next meeting. I pulled in, sat in the parking lot and went what am I doing? Like, I'm healthy, I've been working out all my life, but there's obviously something I'm not doing right.
Speaker 2:So it's, you know, taking advantage of some of those moments and just really kind of looking at your life and going, okay, what do I need to change? And then just really filtering through that to figure out, okay, what am I doing right and what's the next thing missing? And for me, what was missing was my nutrition. I really had let my nutrition fall off, and so I've done a deep dive into that and how I can get better in that respect and I can say, five years later, I feel amazing. So it just, you sometimes will go again it's the seasons of life and you'll kind of go through a few things to figure out what is it that you need to work on and you need that aha moment, but they're big or small to sometimes kick you into gear.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think the question, which is something we've really talked about almost every single episode, but it's how do you and there's not only does it answer, but how do you get someone to have an aha moment without having to go through something like falling asleep on the road or suffering from a big injury? Like, how do you get the general population who hasn't had anything happen to them be like hey, start before X happens, because you might not live through X?
Speaker 2:Yeah, you know, and I think that's the biggest conundrum for a lot of people as well too, I think, for those some you have, I don't think any of us as trainers or coaches, as much as we would love to, could sit there and shake somebody's and wake up, mike please, you're going down a bad road as much as we would love to do so.
Speaker 1:I mean the beautiful right. It's like, yeah, we're working out where it's, spending time in the gym, I'm so glad to hear and they like to throw in away their giant soda and McDonald's bag and the garbage at the gym. And you look at them and you're like what are you doing?
Speaker 2:It's. You know, I wish. I think that whoever can actually answer that successfully and can come up with it is going to be like a multi millionaire. I mean, it's just it's. It's it's human nature for us to not to want to do things that are hard. We are lazy individuals, just, but that's and I say that in a loving way, because I will tell you, believe me, I love days if I can just pop my feet up and just lay on the couch and watch movies all day, like that's like the bonus sometimes, right, but it's, and we do need those rest in down days.
Speaker 2:We know that to recover from many, especially from any intense workouts but and just stress in life.
Speaker 2:But for the most part, I think for all of us, it's just bringing that constant awareness and trying to just kind of keep letting people know why it's important, what's important to you and and how you, how you will benefit from this, because we live in a me centered world, which is totally fine, but how you are going to benefit from this by feeling better and it has to be big enough that they see OK, well, that means I do have to go through the pain.
Speaker 2:Nobody wants to go through pain and we know with intense workouts and with savings there's pain there. Nobody wants to go through that unless they see that carrot at the end that the other side that looks much better and is worth the pain to go through. So it's kind of the dopamine effect. It's a lot of trying to get people to connect with. What is that reason, why? Why do you really want to do this and what is it going to give you if you do this? I think if we can get somebody, if we can figure that one out to where everybody will click on, like I said, we'd be multimillionaires. But instead we just have to do what we can with every individual and help them find that reason within them.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and to kind of give you a little bit of insight to you know, like, why are we different, right? So this is a huge one. You mentioned beginning of the show. You worked a lot with middle-aged women. Like that's not where I'm going with our escort consulting at all In my eyes.
Speaker 1:I see the pain in entrepreneurs Like I went through that. I literally, when I first opened my gym, my first three months I worked 80 hours a week. So I've done 16, 17 hour days every day and it got to the point where I ended up getting so sick because I was like I got sick of virus, but I was so beat up. Yeah, I was out for two and a half weeks Like couldn't get out of bed, body was just like no, and that's when I had that aha moment. I can't be doing 80 hours a week. This is not healthy. So it's I see them as a place where it's let's prevent you from getting to that point.
Speaker 1:The most organized thing is because, even as an entrepreneur, like you always think you have to do more than you have to do and you always schedule too much time for what a task would make. For example, like I was just listening to Ed and my leg, like yesterday on this scheduling our blocks on meetings that are only 15 minutes and then you just blocked that whole hour. So then when I'm talking to somebody I'm dragging out that time because I'm like, oh, I have an hour, as opposed to really something like take 15, 20 minutes and there's chopping in and be like here's the back to payback, and then moving on from that and really realizing how much time you can add up, like you get 40 minutes back on every hour to do that. Three times that, that's 120 minutes. You just saved right there, so two hours in a day of doing literally anything else.
Speaker 1:So that's that's really the group that I wanted to focus on, to explain like, hey, look, there's things we could focus on, things we can work on to get to carry your health, to carry nutrition. Let's figure out what we need to do in your business as well. Like we're not going to just say, all right, screw that, and then what about your personal finances? Et cetera, et cetera. But there's a lot.
Speaker 1:I want to talk a little more about the topic. That I don't do in my company, but I think it's something that you can really reflect into it, having your experience as a financial consultant, because we talk about a lot on fitness on this show, we really don't talk about finances. So let's kind of dive into how. For the first question, and I want you to answer, is why are they related? We mentioned the big overall picture, but why, on a micro scale, are they? What do they go hand in hand?
Speaker 2:Well, I think this was where my aha moment I think we keep talking about aha moments, right, okay, I think sometimes you can't get away from those, sometimes you have to have that, like you know, light bulb moment go off. But when I would sit down and work with folks in doing financial coaching and working with them, there was always this thing that noticed it was our behaviors. It's when you see, it's the same behaviors that make your waistline fat, is the same thing that makes your credit cards fat. It's that behavior side of things where we, again, we don't want to, we don't want to limit ourselves. We like what we like.
Speaker 2:We, we don't have patience sometimes and we, we really have a hard time, also from a mental perspective. The stories we tell ourselves are sometimes, unfortunately, very negative in nature when it comes to our money and when it comes to our health. So it's really how our behaviors and our interaction with both and our beliefs that we can, we can have our health and we can have our wealth, that I am capable of doing what I need to do in order to be able to have the money that I need or have the health that I need, or both. Really, it all comes down to very similar behaviors in how we approach life.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and kind of related back to that a little bit. Just personal experiences is in the beginning it's daunting opening a business like your. Credit card debt is like holy shit.
Speaker 2:Oh, yeah, yeah, I feel it.
Speaker 1:I feel like the biggest mind shift and it took me like a solid three years to get over is when you're doing a business, it's like, oh, that's a $50 purchase, that seems like a lot. Then you start getting to like business terminology and you're like, oh, this is only $30,000. And you have to start shifting your mindset to these really big like that's how expensive. Like Jim equipment cost me $65,000 per location. So it's like wow, that's I would never think.
Speaker 1:In my own personal world, spending $65,000 of literally everything, like my car, is not even worth that. So that was the first kind of shit. But then it's hard to sit there and differentiate it Right. So how do I go from a business expense world where I'm making, okay, this is my macro business, this is how much I'm spending for my business and then bring it down to my personal world where it's oh, I can't think like that anymore when I'm out with my wife. Now I got to think about it's back to making $50 sound expensive. Where are we going for dinner? What are we getting at dinner? Like that differentiating pattern has been very difficult and it's taken me a long time to really figure out that. I don't know if you want anything to add to that or understand what I'm talking about in this at all.
Speaker 2:Now I do, because I mean, you know I work with a lot of small business owners from the corporate 401k standpoint and, being a small business owner myself, you know it's.
Speaker 2:You do you're juggling a lot more and you're juggling a lot more stress, and that stress happens to manifest itself in all sorts of different ways In the financial side as well as your health side, and you're it's being able to.
Speaker 2:It's really hard as small business owners, especially like I'm sure you do now and I do, I work out of my home, so I mean it's really being able to put in those lines of demarcation saying I'm on the clock, I'm not on the clock, and you don't want to kind of go to the clock mentality sometimes, but sometimes it's really hard.
Speaker 2:You have to separate yourself mentally so that you can recover. And I think that for entrepreneurs, the biggest thing that has the biggest impact, where we make bad financial decisions and we make big bad health decisions, is when we are in a state of stress and distress, so or duress, and that's when you like, really the alarm bells need to go off and you need to take a step back and just really recoup yourself, recover yourself and then start again but helping keep yourself that those, those clear lines, is helpful, and giving yourself time to recover and also take that time to take step backs before you make decisions is very helpful for both sides, both from entrepreneur standpoint as well as just a personal standpoint and kind of seeing the difference between the two.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and how do you like even just an individual just listening to this how do you prevent the stress of credit card debt which is hit? What do they say? A trillion for the first time ever, yeah, a couple months ago. Like, how do you prevent yourself from getting into that state because people don't even realize? Like I click on Amazon and make a purchase that comes to my home, but your credit card interest rates are from 22 to 30. I can't even tell you, people don't even know what APR means. So how do you prevent yourself from digging that hole and then end up only just paying off interest and really that gets bigger and bigger and bigger.
Speaker 2:You know it's. It's really. I think it's something that hits so many people because of the fact that one. I mean we are in such an inflationary environment. It's it. You know it gets costly to live just day by day, but in an ideal world, if you can set this up the first way, the first is to and this is why I relate it back to health. Okay, so we know, if you are eating more than you calories, than you expend in a day, you're going to put weight on. So it's really the same thing. It's that budget word. Nobody likes to hear the budget word, but you do have to.
Speaker 2:The best way to keep yourself from having fat credit cards is to manage what you spend, and I always I take folks through a lot of times like one of the first things I take them through with my program is we're going to do a wellness audit, we're going to see what are you spending your money on, and a lot of people that I take them through and because I still do a lot of coaching with my corporate 401k plans is do a credit card audit.
Speaker 2:You are so surprised at how many subscription based stuff we have, and that's where a lot of people are moving to is subscribe to my channel, subscribe to this product, subscribe to whatever, and it's really easy to get caught up and then, all of a sudden, you have all these charges and you've been eating all these cookies, so to speak, right and now you're in a place where you've got to recover from. So it's really, I think, for anyone, for anything, whether it's on your health or your wealth, you've got to create this place of awareness. You need to be aware of what you're doing and why you're doing it, and sometimes you just have to put yourself in a hole, or not. I don't say put yourself in a hole financially. I'm saying put like, take yourself away from it all and just do an audit and really understand where are you spending your money and why are you spending it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think the biggest rule I kind of set in my own personal life financially is a little like 24 hour rule. So I think I want something. I wait a full entire day to see if I still have that same feeling, instead of falling into like a clickbait of oh, at least you're not. Yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 2:And you know what it's so funny because I'm going to be launching a program but that my biggest thing there is like sleep on it. Like, honestly, all of us, all of the, the whole point of marketing is to get you like, get you riled up on your emotions, get you you know they tell you what or what's keeping you up at night. You know, focus on those pain points and so we get you were very emotional society, and so the one of the other things that is a really thing to do, and I have to do this myself too, because I'll sit there like, oh my gosh, yes, I need that. No, I don't need that. Like it's not, I'm not ready for it.
Speaker 2:So, you know, ask yourself a few questions, like you did give yourself a 24 hour rule, if you've once you've slept on it, if you still feel this will fit, or this is something that you do want, and if it's something on a product basis, or whether it's something that you want for your business or whatever, the next thing you have to ask yourself how am I going to implement it and when am I going to implement it? Because, guess, it might be what you need and what it's you or what you really. It will fill a need for you with your personal life or your business life, but if you're not ready to actually implement it and use it and do what it you, what it says it's going to do, then you're still throwing your money away. So it's really giving yourself that space and that time to think through okay, what do I need and why do I need it, and will I, am I going to use it?
Speaker 1:Yeah, and it prevents you from doing this away. Maybe it's more of a, I don't know, but like close, it takes me like 10 years to really have a new wardrobe and that's still like probably under exaggeration. I was from high school so 18 years ago like that I just don't buy new outfits, like I don't care, and that's really saved me so much money. And then when I do go buy outfits, I'm buying them on sale and most of my new stuff just comes from Christmas, which is hysterical. Like that's a new wardrobe for the year. It took me six months to buy socks. I was like, do I want, do I need socks? Like no, I really need socks, like I'm really out of socks, like they all holds in them. I think it's time for new socks.
Speaker 2:Well, you know, I think everybody's got their vice. Everybody has their thing that they spend money on when food.
Speaker 2:No, and that's the thing is that you have to understand like awareness is the biggest key to everything. It's like if you can really just take yourself, almost have an out of body experience and really watch what you're doing, and then I love it. Like if you've got kids, if and this is sometimes really bites me in the butt because I'm like dang it, kelly, is the what would I tell my children? Like, if you know, if I'm about to buy something, and I'm looking at this and I'm trying to discern my discern. Like do I really just do?
Speaker 1:it.
Speaker 2:Is it just because I'm emotionally tied right now and I really want this? Is this really going to do what I need it to do? I think about okay, take your stuff back. And what would you tell your kids? So that's always a good. Or what would you tell your friend? You know it's and it's the same, like it's the same thing they tell, like from a mindset perspective, when you're saying negative things to yourself, like would you say that to your friend? So would you say that to your kids?
Speaker 2:So sometimes it's just taking a step back and going okay, what advice would I give my friend? Or what advice would I give my other business partner if my business partner came in and said or I have a business partner, If I had a business partner many of us are solo entrepreneurs, but if, if I had someone or an employee coming in and saying, hey, let's purchase this, what would I say to them? And it's just a great way to kind of do a check in with yourself to see is this really something that I need to be spending money on, or is this really something I need to be eating, or whatever the case may be? Or maybe I should be getting up and doing my workout, or maybe I should be putting this money away into my retirement, or whatever it is. It's like what would you tell someone else?
Speaker 1:Yeah, I absolutely love that.
Speaker 1:And I kind of want to start wrapping this up, but I want to start with the little preface of this to get. I want actionable tips. We are sandwiched right between, now, thanksgiving and Christmas. We're supposed to celebrate Hanukkahs right around the corner as well. So this is the time of year. People are like everybody, let's go and everyone's just going crazy. And then they're stressed out from all the family gatherings and, trust me, the cancellations on sessions we got at the gym between this time of year is astronomical because people put the help last and it's like no, you need to do this first, you're going to get sick by the time.
Speaker 1:Christmas is over.
Speaker 2:I feel like half of the world is sick between Christmas and New Year's. Oh, there's a stat on that one. They call it a Christmas effect. Really crazy. I was reading about this. New Zealand did this study and they discovered that people and I started I totally interrupt you but 4.5% increase in heart attacks between Christmas and New Year's.
Speaker 1:I don't doubt it for a second. I bet you, there's an uptick in deaths right after New Year's.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, unfortunately, unfortunately, yes, there is Well. So to go back, and I apologize, totally interrupt but like, oh my gosh, I can tell you this stat. No, you know what? I think there's a couple things. One, if you have a workout plan, definitely stick with it. I mean, that's probably especially for most of us. That's how we release our stress and you hit on it. There's a lot of stress that happens during the holidays. So, as much as you can stick with whatever workout is, make that, as we talked about the very beginning, make yourself a priority. That just doesn't go away. Find your way to fit it in.
Speaker 1:I'm going to add to this specifically in this time of year, if you are stuck working like an eight hour shift in the day, stores do not open at 5, 6, 7 am, they're open at 5, 6, 7 pm. So you're going to be way less inclined to go. Oh, my God, I need to go shopping If you go before you go as opposed to after. Oh, I need to go pick this thing up for little Johnny kind of deal.
Speaker 2:Yeah, oh, absolutely. This would be probably a good time of year to shift to the morning workouts, if you haven't been, or at least maybe add a few in during the week, right, oh?
Speaker 1:yeah, something is better than nothing.
Speaker 2:Yeah, something is better than nothing, you know. Also, you know, for those that do work like I, have a stand up desk, so there are many times I will, you know, utilize the stuff that you have with you. If you are working nine to five my husband, I've been known to do this as well too is, if you've got five or 10 minutes, drop and do some push ups, do some squats, do some jumping jacks, like, do something that gets your body moving, especially if you know you can't get to the gym. Take the stairs, do walk, put your car. If you're going shopping, put your car in. You know, park the farthest from the door and I know, in colder climates that really sucks. But, you know, do what you can to add more movement to your day. If you don't, especially if your, if your workout drops and that's going to be the biggest thing is just keep your, keep your body moving throughout the day and in every little way will work.
Speaker 2:Because I think, I think I've come to the conclusion I've been on this earth Many, many years now.
Speaker 2:I think I've come to the conclusion that between Christmas, thanksgiving and Christmas or, just you know, remember, in December, whatever holidays you celebrate, it just your. The goal is is not to gay weight like that's not. You know, let's try to keep our just status quo as much as we can. That holidays are already as hectic as they are. So the goal really is I'm not going to, so I say that to say don't sit there and put so much pressure on yourself that you have to lose weight through the holidays, because I think that also has a negative effect to a lot of people, where they stop trying because they're like, oh, I've got to keep losing, I've got to keep on this weight loss journey that I'm doing. I'm like, yes, you can, but you can also give yourself a little bit of grace between this period and if you, just, if you just stay status quo, then you're, you're still in a good place, like I love that status quo should be the goal.
Speaker 1:100% because it's. It's even at someone that's a professional as you and I like it's tough. Yeah, the Manitoba family gatherings were going to and mom's cooking and she's like why are you eating seven popovers? I have this drink. It's like.
Speaker 2:Okay, so good at that. I think the whole guilt. Oh, come on, there's still food left.
Speaker 1:I hope, to this chest for you. I've got to have some help.
Speaker 2:Exactly, you know, but with that too, if you want to help with that one, there's a couple things you can do. First, start with smaller portions. So you know mom's going to tell you to take seconds. So start with a smaller portion to start with. Don't walk it on. If you have control of the spoon Now I, sometimes moms are really good about just plopping it on for you but if you've got control of the spoon, smaller portions start very small. You can always go back for seconds. Give yourself 20 minutes between eating. That will let your mind and your gut and your mind have that communication.
Speaker 1:Let me add to that If you're going, if you're going to holiday parties especially like at the business owner, where every networking group decides to have some kind of Christmas party this time of year have protein shake on the way in, because it prevents you from nitpicking when you're there. Oh yeah, that's the unhealthiest food in the world. Every business event it's like here's super fried food, this is all we're giving you. This is what dinner is. I'm like there's mozzarella sticks.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that, and you probably know this as well too. Make sure you're getting your like the protein shake, or I carry, like those paleo sticks or those the beef sticks.
Speaker 2:Along with me. I have, I have those in my purse all the time, so then I can just grab a quick protein bite, because protein and fat will will fill you up and say she'd you better than any of the rest of the stuff that's out there. But then again, on that standpoint, to again maybe just years on this planet. I'm just saying, you know, if there is a little something you want to indulge in, indulge Like, have a little something, because I think we live sometimes in this too restrictive environment, then we end up binging. So take the time through the holidays and enjoy some of the little things that you do really enjoy through the holidays and therefore you can satisfy that need and satisfy and enjoy it and not feel so stressed like oh my gosh, I can't believe I ate that. No, just be like you ate it, okay, fantastic, and you know what. Enjoy it. Take a moment and be like this, like we do monkey bread every year, like it's the most, that's a huge thing.
Speaker 1:It's like I'm not a fatter but everyone loves.
Speaker 2:Oh, it is so dang good it's a stuffing.
Speaker 1:My mom makes the world's best stuffing in the world. She does everything from scratch. It's I literally like. My plate in Thanksgiving is 90% stopping.
Speaker 2:So you know, take the time to enjoy those things Like what you have a live with the 80 20 rule. Try for 80% of the holiday to be really, really good so you can have 20% where you can just enjoy and enjoy it without guilt. The guilt thing afterward, I think, also kills us as well too.
Speaker 1:So oh yeah, enjoy it or want to prevent guilt. A little Anthony trick for everybody. I purposely schedule holidays like Thanksgiving, Christmas, even Christmas day, for really intense workouts. Yeah, because in my mind it's not so much like I know I'm gonna out eat when I'm burning off like duh, but the guilt's gone. It's like, oh, I worked up really hard but I'm gonna down that stuffing with no problem whatsoever. Or I'm gonna eat that pumpkin pie, Like that's that adds to it Like I've. Really I'm gonna go head first into this because I did a crazy workout on holidays. I was gonna take holidays off. I love, love working out on major holidays. It's fun when I care for things.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, like we always have like a turkey trot or something to go to on Thanksgiving or something in that respect. The other things you know, those are those feel really good in your right. You kind of like give yourself that justification I worked hard, I could do this, so I love that as well too. I have to say go for a walk. Grab the whole family after you eat and go for a walk, go outside and enjoy that, just enjoy the day. One, it helps with your digestion and two, it just gets your body moving and it's the outdoors, has this really nice calming effect. On phone.
Speaker 1:We go for walks every holiday, like it's huge, instead of sitting around staring at a TV. I'm always like go for a walk. Who wants to go? Yeah, grab like seven people and you go for a walk. Mind this, of course. I mean you're in Dallas, so you don't really have this problem, but it's like two feet of snow on the ground. It's not happening.
Speaker 2:We usually have the game going on, so it's, in between the game, going out and throwing the football around or doing something.
Speaker 1:The Cowboys play every Thanksgiving, right, yeah, so there you go. It's like a rule down there you have to watch the Cowboys play for Thanksgiving. So I totally get it.
Speaker 2:Which is so big. I'm not even a Cowboys fan, I'm a Broncos fan, but I'll still watch the Cowboys play.
Speaker 1:I think everyone does, and I think any like quick financial tips you have for everyone during holiday shopping season or anything like that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you know, it's kind of if you, if you can plan ahead, like I think some of the best things that I know a lot of banks have these are that you're like there's a Christmas accounts to where you're putting money into it as you go throughout the year and then you have your budget for your Christmas. So those things are fantastic If you, if you've got it, you know that's the planning ahead part. Okay. So if you had a plan ahead and now you're like the majority of us were worse, you know you're all of a sudden smacked into holidays and holiday spending it's. You know, try to keep yourself within a budget if you possibly can understand what you can.
Speaker 2:Awareness Again, awareness is key. Make sure you've got a budget for every person that you're you are buying for and just do the best you can to manage through and try not to over overshoot your budget. Like you know, we have, we have two kids, so we say, okay, we spend X dollar amount on each child and we keep try to keep it as even as we possibly can from that perspective. So, and then I know there's a lot of people who have to spend a lot of extra money on holidays, and I also know the grocery bill is ridiculously expensive right now. So if you're doing like a big holiday gathering with your family, see if maybe you know this is kind of it's up to you on how control of you are with the food and what, how you trust other family members with the food, but maybe do like potluck, thanksgiving, potluck, uh, christmas dinners and things like that to where it's not all on one person. If those things are possible as well, too, I love that.
Speaker 1:And then the last thing I'm going to mention, to kind of wrap this show up, is really really important. I know you're going to agree a thing is schedule downtime. Yes, season Prevent. Schedule something in either a walk by yourself in the middle of the afternoon, if you can, or in the morning or a night, even if it's 1015 minutes, and schedule and schedule down nights. Take a night off. Don't think you have to go out and do something. Just pick some time where you know you can just go and just relax.
Speaker 2:Yeah, absolutely. I think we don't. Uh, you know, I cover it. I covered this in my book about recovery, how recovery is so very important to you. It's not just, you know, recovering from something, but taking the time to recover. I think we now know more and more that sleep is really important, but just having sometimes just that, especially as business owners, like I said, it's really hard to shut the door and say, okay, I'm going to not think about my business for 24 hours. But honestly, there's been so many studies that show that if you can separate yourself and just give yourself that time to let you mentally recover not just physically recover, but mentally recover you're going to be a more effective business leader and business owner down the road. Now it does mean you have to have the systems in place where you can unplug. But that makes it even more important and why you need to have those systems in place? Because you have to be able to.
Speaker 1:Like Christmas is great, I don't. Business doesn't happen on Christmas Day. We are closed, there is nothing going on, and then obviously it's.
Speaker 2:Jim January is crazy my modeling so.
Speaker 1:I give myself permission during this time of year to kind of go a little slower, yeah, and then I schedule a vacation after January and it's like this is that that once January is over? I know it helps me get through it. It's I'm going away, my phone's going off, leave me alone and just going to recoup. You need that and that's really key.
Speaker 2:One thing you said there too, is give yourself a target If you have to power through. Like you know, CPAs have a certain period of time where they just have to power through. There's no choice. And there's gym owners Absolutely Like up until when they think. I think they said January 12th is national quit day. So you got two weeks you got to really power through.
Speaker 1:We're a little different because it's training. So we get one wave in January and then we die in February. Yeah, and then March, everyone that joined a gym that did that personal training comes running into our gym because they're like shit, I quit in mid January, so they're all. We're getting slammed again. So we have a one month buffer in February, and every evening that's because, one, it's a school vacation, in two, it's so freaking cold out here. No one wants to do anything but cuddle up by a fire for a month.
Speaker 1:So yeah yeah, everyone just hibernates in February. Nothing happens in New York, so February is a good time for us to kind of go away outside of that school week, because that's crazy expensive, but we go away just absolutely.
Speaker 2:But see, what you've done is you're aware, you're aware of that time where you can unplug. And that's the biggest thing, for businesses as well, too, is being aware of when is the time where I can totally unplug, and knowing what your business cycles are, what your waves are. So wherefore you could take, you could take advantage of that to schedule your downtime, and then that gives you something to look forward to as well, like you're looking forward to February already. You're like, okay, I can make it through, just like we're going to.
Speaker 1:We're going to Cancun, aruba, fort of Iana, someplace warm, someplace warm I can pass out on a beach with a margarita like that's. That's it.
Speaker 2:Know what you like. Know what you like. It's very.
Speaker 1:But, kelly, we went way over what I wanted to, but it's okay. Great conversation with you, so I'm just going to ask you a really simple question and just tell people how they could find you get a hold of you. I know you sent me an awesome book it was fun to look at, so go ahead and give us all the details.
Speaker 2:Yeah, sure, so you can find me at Kelly magedincom, and it's K e l l y, very simple. And then major Dan think of M a j d a? N, like major Dan, so you can find all my links and everything, and you can follow power through wellness on Instagram and Facebook, and so we'll always be putting little tidbits out there. We're trying to get better about that, so, anyway, so we're we're working on them and we're all about helping people make those plans so you can achieve the goals that you need to, you want to achieve.
Speaker 1:Absolutely Love it, kelly. Thank you for coming on and making guys feel so into this week's episode of health and fitness redefine. Don't forget, please hit that subscribe button and share this to someone that either might like it and join us next week as we dive deeper into this ever changing field and remember that this is medicine until next time.