March 17, 2025 • 41 mins
Health and wellness shouldn’t feel like a full-time job—but for busy professionals, it often does. Between work, life, and everything in between, fitness and nutrition are usually the first things to go when schedules get tight.
But what if staying healthy didn’t require an extreme overhaul?
On this episode of No More Mondays, I sit down with Nolan Cunningham, a strength and conditioning coach who’s all about making wellness work for real life. We dive into practical strategies for improving your health without restrictive diets, crazy workout schedules, or gimmicky fads.
From habit-stacking and small daily wins to avoiding health media traps and outlandish claims, we cover how to build sustainable systems that keep you feeling and performing your best!
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Angie (00:01):
Top of the morning, it is st Patty's day around here,
everybody.
Unknown (00:08):
Yeah, happy Saint Patty's Day.
Angie (00:10):
No one's wearing green to celebrate. And this is no more
Mondays here. We do not havegreen beer because is 10am where
we live, and also because we'regoing to talk about health and
nutrition, and I'm not surethat's on my plan. However, I
want to welcome you to the show.This is a program where we
believe you can have a thrivingcareer or business and an
amazing life on your terms. Andwhat I do is bring you guests
(00:32):
who not only prove that fact,but have great advice to help
you live and work authentically.And our health is a huge part of
our overall well being,entrepreneurship, leadership,
high performance careers, we allhave one thing in common,
demand, demand on our time,demand on our energy. Heck, even
life freaking demands a lot ofus these days and when things
(00:55):
get busy, guess what's the firstthing to go our health. We skip
workouts. We get takeout meals,maybe a hungry man, which we
talked about a little bit in thegreen room. Green Room. Too much
coffee. Amen. It's not exactly aformula that has longevity, has
good health benefits or even issustainable. But what if you
(01:16):
could build a sustainablelifestyle and be healthy without
feeling like it was another fulltime job that was super
restrictive, and today we arecutting out the noise with Nolan
Cunningham. He's a strength andconditioning coach who knows
exactly how to make health andwellness work for you and real
life. Nolan has coachedCrossFit, yay. I finally get to
talk about CrossFit on thisshow. He's trained high
(01:38):
performance professionals, andhe even has a background in
software development, sonaturally, he is about creating
efficient, process drivensolutions for busy people. He
makes fitness and nutritionsimpler, and he's going to make
your life better with somefantastic tips and really sound
advice coming your way. Sowithout further ado, let's get
into it. Nolan, welcome to nomore Mondays.
Unknown (01:59):
Love it. Thank you. Thanks for the introduction. I'm
excited to chat.
Angie (02:03):
Nolan and I have had many a question. We've known each
other for a while. We've hadmany a conversation about
CrossFit and food and soap boxesand all kinds of things when it
comes to trying to livehealthier in a world that just
continues to consume, consumethat health and kind of disrupt
and take take away from it. AndI'm curious Nolan, as we kind of
(02:24):
kick this off, why is this sucha struggle? Why is it so hard to
prioritize our health? You know,we're super high achievers. We
can do so much well, but forsome reason, this is something
that we sacrifice and we don'ttake great care of our bodies.
Why is this the thing wesacrifice? Why aren't we good at
this?
Unknown (02:42):
Totally? Totally agree with that too. I think it's a
great question, because highachievers are always thinking
about how they can one upthemselves, how they can get
that extra 1% especially intheir business. Can they up
their numbers in their businessor in their career? But
oftentimes that's at thedetriment of what we're doing to
(03:02):
ourselves, and it's easy to putit on the back burner, because
we can still maintain thatprogress in other facets of our
life, while running on empty,while having a spare tire on
your back left axle of your car,You could still drive all the
way to your destination, butyou're kind of putting something
(03:25):
on the back burner, and sooneror later, those issues are going
to start to manifest in prettyserious ways. So I think the
short answer is, because we canget away with it in the short
term, but if we have a long termview, and as business owners,
high achievers, we all shouldhave a long term view, it's a
little bit more challenging tomaintain that unhealthy
lifestyle for years and years
Angie (03:47):
well, and even the car that's got the the thing
dragging in the back eventuallyis going to break down, end up
on the side of the road, or endup in the, you know, in the
shop, which is tends to be whathappens when we push ourselves
to the nth limit. You know, wedo irreparable damage and end up
way further in a hole than wewould have if we just tried to
keep things in check over time.Totally.
Unknown (04:10):
Yep, there are small things we could do day in and
day out that don't reallynecessarily take too much out of
you, but they'll move the needlein a really positive way for
your health and wellness, and itwill keep you out of to like
damage and really hit theanalogy on like even more, to
keep you out of the auto bodyshop. You're just doing the
(04:32):
small habits that way you canstay out of the shop.
Angie (04:35):
Absolutely, I think there's this assumption. I
thought This isn't me, also,just so you all know most of the
questions I have asked apply tome. So I am not a hypocrite over
here, I will fully tell you. Andalso, we got noble, and I am
repping. I am repping runningfor CrossFit, because Hi Scott
and Laurel. She listens to theshow. They're great friends of
(04:56):
mine who own our gym, and it'san excellent community, which is
a. Piece of the support systemthat kind of keeps me going,
because I think there's this,there's an assumption, or this
is, this is something I can fallinto, which is this idea that,
like, you have to completelyoverhaul to to be good at this,
right? I have to eat exactlyright? Perfection. We fall into
that perfection trap, and don'tfeel like there's a way to do
(05:17):
this, maybe, like, well enough,this feast or famine doesn't
serve us. Talk to me a littlebit about that mentality.
Unknown (05:25):
Yeah. And you're a fan of The Pareto principle, right?
Oh, I love, I love a good 8020rule, yeah.
So basically, for yourlisteners, Pareto Principle, 80%
of the effects or outcomesreally only come from 20% of the
causes or inputs. So if youcould change 20% of your inputs,
you're going to get a huge bangfor your buck. You do not have
(05:46):
to be perfect, but coming fromsomeone who was kicking
themselves when they were notgetting perfect scores on my
exams back in school, I canreally appreciate the
perfectionist mindset, buttruly, you can move the needle
very far, just changing a coupleof small habits, and you kind of
hit the nail on the head too.Having a support system and
(06:07):
people who embrace that progressover perfection mindset really
help you recenter when you'rejust going, going, going, trying
to be perfect time in and timeout.
Angie (06:18):
Well, and I feel like we talk we perfectionism comes up
on no more Mondays a lot,because perfectionism rarely
leads to no more Mondays,because it puts these boundaries
and our expectations onourselves that we're just never,
ever going to reach. And perfectexample is if I eat too much
gluten free, probably a two ordairy free cheese pizza, because
I have so many food issues, if Ieat too many, too much pizza on
(06:41):
a Saturday night. At one pointin time, I would have said I ate
a whole bunch last night. Mightas well just keep going and you
eat the whole the thing the nextday, because you had this one
quote, unquote, slip up. But ifyou stop thinking about it that
way, and you think about it asthe opposite of the 8020 the 20%
I'm allowed to be flexible onit, kind of starts to change how
you look at this whole system,
Unknown (07:01):
totally. One of the things I love working with, with
some of my clients, is on thefive days in the week, you're
setting a routine. You're kindof doing your thing. You're
moving and grooving, going towork, or logging online,
whatever you're doing. You canreally systematize those five
days throughout the week, andyou can even on the weekends,
(07:22):
give yourself a rating, A, B, Cor D. You don't have to have
perfect days on your habits tokeep moving the needle forward.
You can do have some B and Cdays, have some cookies during
the holidays, like have a pizzaon Friday night, and you could
still, in the aggregate, keepmoving forward in a really
positive way.
Angie (07:44):
As my math teacher dad used to tell me, these are good
grades, but I never got thembecause I was too much of a
perfectionist that needed theA's, but if you're getting F's,
you ain't gonna graduate people.So I'm curious. Here's some
here's some things that I knoware common in the health and
wellness as far as, let's say,myths are things we tell
ourselves, I don't have time, Ineed to spend an hour plus at
(08:06):
the gym, which goes back to Idon't have time eating healthy
is too expensive. How do you getpeople to rethink all of that?
And kind of, how do you debunkthose? Maybe myths slash
limiting beliefs
Unknown (08:18):
totally. So a couple of pieces. One, everybody's out to
sell you something, andsometimes they're adding value
to their lot to your life.Sometimes they're not. They're
just retract detracting fromyour life to make a buck for
themselves. And health andwellness is rife with these
examples. A lot of these aretruly are myths that you were
(08:41):
talking about earlier. There area couple of really easy ways to
think about whether or not whatyou're seeing, hearing or
consuming is actually based onmerit, or if it's someone who's
just trying to sell you somesnake oil. But in the grand
scheme of things, pulling backto the 30,000 foot view, you can
(09:04):
eat healthy, and you could eatjust some fresh veggies, some
rice and beans, and you couldhave a very healthy meal. You
don't necessarily have to dothat every meal, but that's
super cheap terms of time. Youcan get some serious progress in
by going for micro walks, couplewalks a day, instead of spending
(09:24):
an hour and a half at the gymevery day. There are some really
easy, sustainable habits you canestablish without spending a lot
of your resources, time, energyor money.
Angie (09:35):
Oh, by the way, stick a pin in snake oil. We're going
back to that. But before we do.You mentioned this idea of,
like, systematizing the week,and now we just talked about,
let's say, habits, habitstacking. How's that fit
together? Give us an example ofhow all of that might look
during the five days that we'rein our system, versus the other
two days where we maybe areflexible in our system.
Unknown (09:57):
Totally. So couple ones I'm. Just going to go through a
couple of pillars. One Pillarthat we should all be
considering is movement. How arewe moving? Some folks like to
wear wearables. They'll have,like an Apple Watch that'll
track how many steps they takein a day, or how many times they
stand in a day. You can stackthat movement with walks while
(10:19):
you're answering emails. Forexample, you could take a walk
around the block. Another easystack is when you're getting
ready in the morning and you'remaking your coffee while the
coffee maker is running. You canchop up some apples, just really
simple stuff that when you sayhabit stacking, it means you're
just putting two habitstogether, and you kind of
(10:39):
associate them with one another.So it's almost like classical
conditioning. I know you're apsychology nerd like I am. When
one thing happens, you do theother thing, I'll drop into a
deep squat when I'm brushing myteeth, for example. Bunch of
habit stacks that you just stickin throughout the day when
you're already doing somethingelse that just is a more
sustainable, healthy habit, andthe time's already wasted, so
(11:02):
you might as well stack it ontop of it.
Angie (11:05):
This might seem like, really, like, seriously, two
squats while I'm brushing myteeth. Hopefully you're brushing
your teeth for longer than twosquats. Makes a difference. But
I think this goes into somethingthat's like the 50,000 foot
view, which is like,systemically, as a society,
we're way too sedentary. Sothese small things actually can
make a difference, because it'sjust taking one less sit down
(11:28):
away from us
Unknown (11:29):
absolutely and in the kicker is these aren't small
things, because they snowball.You're going to start small for
sure, but they're going to startto build on themselves. You're
going to start to get addictedto dropping into a deep squat. I
promise you're going to start tospend more time trying to fit in
walks here and there, becauseyou're loving the fresh air, the
(11:50):
sunlight on your face. This isgoing to start to snowball into
something bigger. And they soundsmall now, but if you're
consistent with the small stuff,they build on themselves into
something that's supersustainable and really moves the
needle
Angie (12:03):
well. And what I think is really interesting here, here's
the big thing is, it seems likea chore at first, then it
becomes a habit that you kind ofcan't do without, because you
realize how much better youfeel. And that's all over,
physically, mentally, youprobably are in a better mood.
You have more energy. And so ifyou can, if you can get through
the initial lift, it all becomeseasier.
Unknown (12:26):
Totally, yeah, and I don't want to go too far down a
rabbit hole, so pull me back ifI do, but it's all a system,
like you talk about howphysically, when you're moving,
it also impacts your psyche.Mentally, you feel better. Your
emotions are turned around. Yousleep better when you're
hydrating. You get to performbetter when you're out for a
walk or when you're eating yourmeal, and you get better sleep
(12:49):
and rest. You're more focused.And then they just feed on each
other. It's a self feedingcycle. So it's all a system that
to your point, as you work onone the other ones feel better
too.
Angie (13:00):
Yeah, that's a good rabbit hole. I like rabbit
holes. Yeah. And speaking ofrabbits, we're going to go back
to snake oil. Oh, yes. So we'retalking about systems and
processes that we can use to Idon't love the word hack, but in
a way, because it's not you'reyou're creating habits. But
we're talking about some systemsand processes and just ways that
(13:21):
we can adopt things that makeour lives healthier. But the,
you know, what Nolan brought upearlier, was this idea of, like,
there's a lot of claims outthere about systems and
processes that can make yourhealth better, but really, that
isn't what they are. So, youknow, side note, I am a child of
the 80s, and which is when thefad diet became a thing, and so
(13:41):
there's a there's differentversions of the fad diet. Now,
in these, you know, Magic Bulletlose 40 pounds, magic food
delivery type things, or theworkouts, right? There's lots of
claims out there, but we need tobe aware. Talk to me about this.
Totally,
Unknown (14:00):
yeah. Another. Another way to see it is, if you just
look on a bookshelf at a usedbookstore, the health and
wellness section, oh my gosh,all the recipe books that take
out all fat. It's like, well, weneed fat. So
Angie (14:17):
if you, if you are a woman who grew up in the late
80s and 90s, you know all aboutthe low fat diet. You know,
clearly a low fat Twinkie that'spacked with more sugar is better
than just eating the damnTwinkie. Not that you need to be
eating Twinkies at all. But thatis exactly what the late 80s and
early 90s were all about. Andthen it came Atkins. Oh, sure,
those are the big ones Iremember absolutely.
Unknown (14:40):
Yeah, they they all come in different flavors,
depending on the year, I'm sure,and we have them now, they're
just in a different format,oftentimes, and Instagram ads or
podcasts, but they're all of thesame ilk of trying to sell you
something. Because it's a veryemotional and personal
(15:02):
experience, especiallynutrition, but generally health
across the board, like workingout, eating, sleeping, we're all
looking for easy solutions,right? Because we're busy
people, we like mental shortcutsand stories are really
compelling to us. So as a socialcreature, we want to hear the
(15:24):
stories and the anecdotes thatmake a lot of sense in our
brain. And we also want to feelbetter like that's human nature.
That's natural. There are acouple of different things that
I like to do to take the emotionout of the equation when I'm
consuming some of this content,just so I know that I'm not
buying into my biases or mymental shortcuts, because we all
(15:48):
have them, making sure that I'musing an objective approach when
I'm faced with something that istrying to inform or persuade me
to Change my health habits.
Angie (16:01):
Oh, I feel like there's a system coming here. But I want,
let's, let's, let's peel backthe onion a little, and we're
just going to call spadesspades. We're This is that we're
talking about the health and themedia claims that we we see in
social media, for instance, is abig one. I'll give you a very
perfect example. I am now amiddle aged woman in my middle
(16:22):
40s, which means I get lots ofads about take this hormone, and
you will magically have nobelly, and you will lose 40
pounds. Or Nolan and I weretalking about the V shred guy
before we came on, and he'slike, Oh man, I hate that guy, I
just outed you, but just these,it's these extremist things that
(16:44):
I think you have to be very,very cautious of, because there,
unfortunately, in health, thereis not a magic wand.
Unknown (16:53):
Totally, there's not a magic wand. But you can move the
needle pretty far with small,sustainable habits, like we were
talking about earlier, but amagic bullet, magic wand,
whatever you want to call it,that doesn't exist. There is no
true hack. It takes consistencyand a little bit of effort, but
you can do it totally. Anybodycan do it. It just takes a
(17:16):
little bit of time and effort toconsistently chip away to meet
your goal. That's that's justthe end of it.
Angie (17:24):
And before we I want to talk a little bit more about
this, like, how do we evaluateclaims, and how do we know what
we're buying is legitimate andhealthy and not a scam? I want
to, I do want to talk more aboutthat, but something's on my
mind, specifically as I'm takinga walk down memory lane in the
fad diets of the 80s and 90s,those like it took a long time
(17:44):
to undo the psychologicalimpacts that kind of stuff had
on me in very formative years asa little short Italian with a
big butt growing up in Kate Mossland, for any of you who know
wafe time of modeling, that'sexactly what It was. And so,
like, I still sometimes think,oh, less fat is better, or the
(18:05):
low carb thing is better, butultimately, those are core food
groups that give us energy, andit's all about figuring out how
to balance them. And this isactually a place where balance
comes in, right?
Unknown (18:16):
Totally. No, I appreciate that lead in too,
because I was thinking aboutthis earlier, you really jog my
memory. This is all emotional,like we're in our formative
years. We're brought up acertain way with our parents,
right? And we like interact withothers in society. We intake all
these images and videos and whathave you that kind of inform who
(18:37):
we are, how we view the world,and what we define as success,
right? And just on a baseline,what is success? What is good?
And a lot of the times, it'spositioned counter to what would
actually be helpful, extremelyskinny. For example, some people
(19:00):
are naturally extremely skinny,which is their body type, which
is awesome. That's great. Lovethat some people are not
naturally skinny.
I'm not one of them,
but that being put on a pedestalfor everyone to see that's not
necessarily the best way toposition success or value for
everyone in the world, same withthe way we act with one another.
(19:25):
Some people are very stoic andnot emotive at all. They don't
show any emotion. Some peopleare better at expressing their
emotions. If anyone's been in along term relationship, I'm sure
they can relate to the fact thatbeing able to express your
emotions is really important, sobeing the stoic, stone faced
(19:46):
person isn't always the best wayto approach that dynamic, even
though that's what the mediakind of portrays it as. So this
is all pretty emotional, and itties to our identity, and it's
pretty deep rooted, like yousaid,
Angie (19:59):
which. Which ends up meaning this, like, essentially,
when it comes back to this,like, media type stuff, the
fads, they're predatory, right?They're play. They're preying on
emotions. And, you know, I'lltake a minute and get on, I'll
get on the soapbox that's nextto Nolan, because I see this,
you know, he, he sees thishappening in the health and
wellness space, and that's kindof preying on every human's
(20:21):
emotion to want to feel and lookbetter. Even if they've already
got a six pack, they probablywant the eight pack, right? We
all have a thing when it comesto, like, our connection with
our physical self. I see this injust the general coaching space,
with the same kind of, like,predatory, broad scope. Hey, I'm
going to fix your business, orI'm going to help you make a ton
of money. But again, it comesback to this idea that there is
(20:43):
no replacement for process andsome hard work and some
commitment, and that's reallywhat we're talking about here,
and why you have to be carefulof these claims that say you
won't have to put in the hardwork, the process or the
commitment, because that's justsaying how it works. Totally.
Unknown (21:00):
No, I think you had an example before one month,
$300,000 or something like that.Turn your business around. Yeah,
Angie (21:08):
we've all seen it. Oh, yeah. Here buy my $5,000 program
and I'll help you build a sixfigure coaching business in 30
days. Like, okay, maybe 10 plusyears ago, when there were a lot
less coaches out there, thatcould be the case, maybe. But
certainly not now, just like me,taking, I don't know, a good
belly vitamin or whatever theheck ad I get for the women's
(21:29):
hormone multivitamins isn'tgoing to make me lose 40 pounds
in eight days,
Unknown (21:34):
right? Right? It's triggering your emotions. It's
there's a part of your braincalled the amygdala, and it's
taps into your fear and anxiety,and that's exactly lizard dude.
Yeah, the lizard brain, Yep,yeah, the lizard
Angie (21:47):
or the cave, the caveman brain, who's reacting to things
that we don't actually have inour environments anymore, right?
There is no saber tooth tigerwho's chasing you down so that
you have to run away from thecave. But unfortunately,
evolution hasn't caught up withthat fact. So what we can do is
use the brains we have to bediscerning about these kind of
things. And so here, here comesa framework. Here comes
technology, Nolan, with a littlebit of a process on how we can
(22:10):
assess whether or not we shouldbuy in to a health claim or a
health process. So what's thislook like? Totally
Unknown (22:19):
preface, before we jump into the framework itself. We're
in the context of engaging incontent that we want to learn
from. Like sometimes I'll throwon some brain candy on YouTube.
Honestly, when I just want itrelaxed I don't want to learn
from that. I might switch into acontext where I do want to
learn, and then I'llsubconsciously initiate this
framework. But sometimes we justconsume just to turn off or be
(22:42):
distracted for a while. This isin the context of when someone
is trying to persuade us, orwe're in the context of wanting
to learn about health andwellness, or someone's trying to
persuade us about health andwellness. First thing I like
thinking about is looking at thecontent itself, assessing the
claim itself on its merits, isthe health and wellness claim
(23:03):
based on scientific evidence?Can I look up that science? Does
the person delivering it give meaccess to looking up that
science? Is it just an anecdote?Is it based on peer reviewed
studies? Is it a meta analysis?You know, we can get really
nerdy if we want, but basically,how strong is the evidence for
(23:26):
this claim? And
Angie (23:28):
is there any, if any? Yeah, a
Unknown (23:31):
lot of times it's just a story about how their brother
in law, Billy did this one thingonce. So everybody should do it.
It's like, okay, well, I don'tknow if that's exactly how we
should approach learning how totake care of our bodies
Angie (23:47):
or in general. And actually, you know,
Unknown (23:50):
I'm going to get
Angie (23:53):
dangerously close to a line here. I think this applies
to any type of of informationconsumption, media consumption,
on any sort of topic, especiallyin the current day and age where
we live in confirmation biasesand in information vacuums and
and fake, fake and lies, right?You have to be careful to you
(24:15):
have to, you have to use thefreaking brain in your head and
evaluate the merit of a claimperiod, whether it's lose 20
pounds or whatever the otherstuff floating down there in the
world. And I'll actually addanother layer to this is, you
know, the idea of doing that isalso an aspect of our health and
wellness, and being intentionalabout what you consume and when
(24:35):
you consume, because we overconsume, and that is not good
for our health. Absolutely,
Unknown (24:41):
there's a term I love, called Media hygiene, like,
what? What are you consuming?And are you cleansing your
timeline? Are you making surethat you're getting rid of
interactions that are notbenefiting you in your psyche? I
mean, we talk about consumption.Of food that you have
consumption and media too. Isit? Is it a clean diet, or is it
(25:04):
a pretty dirty, maladaptivediet? Second piece here, once
you take a look at the claimitself, another layer is to
assess the delivery. How is itdelivered? Is it positioned
within a broader context. Or isit taking kind of more as an
overwhelming universal truth,regardless of circumstance, like
(25:28):
in all cases, everybody shoulddo XYZ? Or is it positioned
within like certaincircumstances that would make it
more reliable? Is it based onsupport that it's helping us
trigger that emotion, or is itless about emotion and more
(25:49):
about facts and data? A lot oftimes, like we were talking
about earlier, it's going to tryand prey on your emotion. And
you use the term, you put a nailin the head. It's predatory.
Sometimes it just wants to getus to react and to make sure
that we are safe. Even thoughwe're in 2025 by and large,
we're all pretty safe. We gotshelter. We got safety. We're
(26:11):
just trying to help. No longerneed to start a fire and run
away from the saber tooth tire.Nope. Another way to look at the
delivery. Is it packagedalongside potential counter
arguments or pitfalls, Nuancedownsides, or do they just
(26:32):
deliver that claim as if it werethe be all, end all, and they
don't necessarily talk about howit could be wrong or how there
are some limitations to thatclaim itself. Specific example,
in certain circumstances, it maybe good to get some sunlight
throughout the day, butsomeone's saying you should
(26:53):
never walk in the sun. Everytime you go out in the sun, you
should wear SPF 75 I mean, itdepends on the context. If
you're not getting any sunlight,it'd be good to get some vitamin
D. Good to get some vitamin D.You don't necessarily have to
wear SPF 75 every
Angie (27:06):
time. When is it? Is it as SPF over 30? Kind of
pointless. But this is, this isthe kind of stuff like, how
outlandish or, like, shockingare they trying to be in the
delivery in order to get you tonot question the claim, which
comes to a third part that I'mguessing is the WHO involved
here. Yes,
Unknown (27:26):
so trying to avoid talking about the who first.
That's why I started with theclaim. You don't necessarily
want to attack a person beforelooking at the content they're
saying, but also understandingthe context that that person is
living in. Understand the persondelivering the claim and their
intentions. What's what aretheir values? What is their
(27:46):
objective? In particular? Dothey have any incentives, like
money, influence, power, evenprestige or attention? Any
incentives to make thisoutlandish claim outside of just
delivering data, if they have anincentive, your your antenna
should probably go up a littlebit, just to be a little bit
(28:07):
more unawares, just tounderstand, okay, what are their
incentives? Would theynecessarily want me to believe
this? Because they could benefitfrom me believing this. Another
thing to think about with theperson delivering the claim is
if they're exhibiting logicalconsistency. So a good example
of this is, do they hold a claimfrom someone else to a very high
(28:31):
evidence standard, but they havetheir own claim. It's not
subjected to any rigorwhatsoever. They just speak it
as truth and gospel. Are theylogically consistent in how they
approach problem solving.
Angie (28:44):
So here's the thing, we are talking about this in the
again, talking about this in thecontext of health and wellness.
But I would, I would go out on alimb and say that what Nolan's
talking about in this idea ofevaluating claims, merits
delivery, and the people of anoffer applies to anything that
you might buy in the service andknowledge space, because
(29:07):
there's, there's lots of woolbeing pulled over eyes out
there. And not to like be, youknow, be negative about it, but
make sure you are getting realstuff. And in general, here's
what I here's how I wouldsummarize the idea of like, does
the claim have merit, and is itdata backed? Is, does the does
the delivery make sense, anddoes the person credible? If
(29:30):
it's too good to be true, itprobably is. Yep, absolutely.
So. Anyhow, some cliches arestill true. Well,
Unknown (29:39):
they're all They're all rooted in some truth, right? So
Angie (29:43):
I usually say cliches or cliches for a reason, and
usually it's because it's true.And so I want, so I want to kind
of take this back to the bigpicture, because we talked
really specifically about how tonot fall into traps and empty
promises, especially when itcomes to our health and
wellness, because that's, Ithink, where that happens when.
Really significantly, becausethere's the clear emotional
trigger in order to prey onpeople who want this change
(30:07):
really rapidly. And that's whereI want to go back to this big
picture of we've establishedthat there isn't this thing
that's going to magic, wave amagic wand and make me a size
two. It just ain't going tohappen, right? And I have
finally come to terms with that.And I just go to the gym a lot
to deal with it. But how so? Soin thinking about these things,
that most things, most results,come from hard work, a process
(30:30):
and consistency. How do we wrapour heads around that? And how
do we lean into that? And how dowe get started
Unknown (30:35):
to create it? You get started by just crawling before
you walk. That's that's the bestanalogy I can think of. I don't
want to belabor the auto analogyanymore, so we'll get rid of the
car and we'll talk aboutcrawling. You just start really
small. And I like thinking aboutit just because my system's
brain is the way it is. I likethinking about it in a couple of
(30:57):
different buckets, bucketsrelated to health and wellness.
I mean nutrition, hydration,movement, sleep, recovery and
then mindset. They're allinterrelated. This is one big
system like we were talkingabout earlier, that is self
feeding, self informing. Sotaking care of one is going to
have benefits on the other. Butbefore you even start
(31:22):
considering thinking about one,just know where you're at. Just
take a small assessment. Howmany steps do I get in a day?
How many ounces of water do Iget? Do I know what types of
foods might be better for methan others? How's my sleep? And
asking those questions toyourself, establishing a
(31:42):
baseline, and then from there,you could take very small, micro
steps that accumulate over time,each week. Once you know your
baseline. Here's an explicitexample. I know that I'm only
drinking 64 ounces of watertoday, for example, I want to
get that up to over 100 so I'mgoing to jump from 64 to 75 I'm
(32:04):
just going to add a little bitmore, and then maybe the next
week, I'll add 10 more ounces,and if I meet that habit, seven
days out of seven, I'm going tojump on 10 more ounces. Is a
really simple example, but it'sillustrative of the process
itself. Amongst those fivepillars that you can start small
and it's just going to build onitself, and it's going to be
(32:25):
self feeding. That's the awesomething. I keep on coming back to
that when you drink more water,you're going to sleep better.
When you sleep better, you'regoing to be able to have more
energy to go work out, play withyour friends. Go for walks. Play
with the kids rather, go forwalks, things like that. So
starting small, and it's goingto snowball very quickly.
Angie (32:43):
That really is that ecosystem. And a couple things
that pop into my mind are, Ithink, you know, to go back to
this idea that's like feast orfamine. We think about it in the
long term. There's a book calledThe one thing that, for some
reason, feels very applicablehere. Whereas instead of
thinking, oh my gosh, I need tolose 10 pounds, so I'm going to
have to go to the gym three daysa week for the next three
(33:04):
months, and I'm going to haveto, like, cut my calories. Just
think I got to go to the gymtomorrow, or I get to go to the
gym tomorrow, because you are anable bodied person who has that
privilege, versus looking at asa chore and just that's the next
thing you have to do. Instead oflooking at the entire ball of
wax, there's this idea of, like,the first domino that will push
all of the others over is justthe one thing, and it's less
(33:28):
it's less onerous to think aboutit that way, instead of, like,
what's that term that I hateeating the whole eating the
whole elephant one bite at atime type of thing? And so,
like, that's the the perfect,like, the water example you used
perfect for that sleep I thinksleep is the thing most of us
overlook. I am a I am I guess Ican't say it anymore because
(33:49):
that word has different term.But I am a very, very rigid
about my sleep schedule. 15minutes, if you, if you don't
like your sleep schedule, changeit by 15 minutes a day, a night
for a week or two until it'swhere you want. So it's just,
it's little things that canreally add up. You do not have
to change your entire life atonce. It's like quitting smoking
(34:10):
cold turkey. How often does itwork? Yeah,
Unknown (34:13):
not, not very often, right? Thinking about bringing
it all together, to thinkingabout start of a conversation.
CrossFit workouts, chipperworkouts, you know, you're just
chipping away. I'm not thinkingabout the 100 pull ups I have to
do later in the workout. I'mjust thinking about getting
through these 25 air squatsright now, and then I'll do 25
(34:33):
more, and then 25 more just did
Angie (34:35):
you have to go? Murph, with that thought? Sorry. Also I
hate I have, actually, I haven'teven told you this, I have
actually been doing zone twotraining in order to try to make
my as Jim calls them, little,tiny lungs, work better on
uphill mountain bike climbs andso do. Training is wildly
different than kill myself atzone 12, high intensity kind of
(34:59):
CrossFit work. Workouts thatjack your heart rate, especially
at high altitude, but find thething that you enjoy. You know,
for me, I kind of, I would say,gamed the system a little bit in
a way, by creating forcedaccountability of finding a
place where I could go, wherepeople would ask me if I don't
show up. And now, after fiveyears, it's a habit, it's a
(35:20):
habit, and I willingly go, evenif I'm alone. But for several
years, I needed to know thatsomebody would wonder where I
was if I didn't show up for morethan one morning.
Unknown (35:28):
That's awesome. Accountability built in forced
accountability. I love that.Yeah, yeah.
Angie (35:34):
Same thing with in your house. Take the junk food out of
the house, right? Just setyourself up for success. And
those are small things. So thatgoes back to this big whole
thing. And again, we just, youbrought it all back together.
So, so well chip away. You know,whether it's 100 pull ups or
putting the chips away, makethese small changes. Is dad
(35:56):
joke. You gotta love that. Thisis not this is you've heard this
a million times. We just don'tdo it. Taking care of your
health, your wellness and yourmind doesn't have to be time
consuming. These small thingsreally, really do add up. So as
we, as we wrap things up, I'mgoing to put you on the spot,
Nolan, which I know makes younervous, right off the bat, I
want like, your number onehealth tip,
Unknown (36:20):
sweet. 100% it's hard to prioritize anything. But, I
mean, you hit the nail on thehead. We're talking about it
with when you had Mark Gray onit's so true, sleep is the first
domino to fall in the day,because if you get out of bed
and you're tired, you're goingto lose the ability to have full
(36:40):
mental acuity, you're going tobe a little bit more
scatterbrained, you're going tohave less resistance to urges.
You're going to want to be moresedentary. You're not going to
want to engage in some of thehabits that you might have
before. And sleep is supersimple in concept, sometimes
(37:01):
it's harder in practice, and Ican recognize that, but set a
consistent schedule, even ifit's 11pm right now for you, and
11pm to 7am or 6am or whatever,set that schedule and then just
move it a little bit to get itto where you want. It 11 to six,
(37:21):
for example, move to 1045, to545, and then move to 1030, to
530, and just move it a littlebit each week, but keep the
windows consistent throughoutthe week if you can, and it's
going to set you up for successon all the rest of the pillars
that we talked about earlier.Because, like we said, it's all
connected. But as you start yourday, thinking about
(37:43):
chronologically in the day,sleep is the first thing that
happens. Yeah,
Angie (37:47):
yeah, it's the foundational piece, I would say,
but both. But like you said,it's the easiest one to
sacrifice. And I love how youtalked about, like, when you're
tired, you get lazy, which meansyou don't want to make food,
which means the willpower goesout the window, because you're
going to get the takeout, andthen you don't want to actually
go be fizz. It's it, is it? Isthis a slippery, slippery slope.
And I will tell you, I go to bedat 10 o'clock and I wake up at
(38:09):
six o'clock every single day. Onthe weekends, maybe I'll go to
bed at 1020 and let myself sleepuntil 630 if I can. But at this
point, I can wake up at 5:59amwith no alarm, pretty
religiously, because now I'veset this cadence, and you're it
does make everything so muchmore manageable. Because, you
know, the thing that we haven'tbrought up quite yet, and I'll
(38:31):
kind of wrap in here as weclose, is this idea of, you
know, if you're a highperformer, you need energy, you
need stamina. We are only givenone vessel with which to do
that, and if you don't stewardit, you're doing yourself a
disservice,
Unknown (38:43):
right, right? Going back to the analogy, you're not
taking care of your car, it'sgonna break
down. There you go,
Angie (38:50):
and nobody wants to pay an auto shop bill. So Nolan, or
how we bring our car to yourshop? How do we find you? How do
we get in touch with you andhave you calculate our macros
and get your processes and allthe things?
Unknown (39:05):
Yeah, so, couple different ways. I'm on
Instagram, YouTube, at wealthcoaching, W, E L, L T H
coaching, and then also wealthco.com spell the same, W, E L, L
T H, CO, C, o.com, reach out,schedule some time, send me an
im shoot me an email. Nolanwealth@gmail.com really doesn't
(39:27):
matter to me. I just lovetalking about this stuff. And we
can talk about your habits, talkabout where you're at, where you
want to go, and we cansystematize it, if you're one of
those folks who like systems,yeah,
Angie (39:39):
and we will have all these links will be in show
notes and in the in the chat.And you know, Nolan and I do
enjoy nerding out on behavioralpsychology. He comes at it from
the health and wellness angle. Icome at it from every other
angle. And so this is a fun wayto bring that together and
really just encourage all of youout there on this st Patty's day
when you're going to go drinkgreen beer and eat better. Eat
(40:00):
probably like what corn beef andhash after work today is your
20% off tomorrow. Get back intothat routine. Take control of
your health. I hope thisconversation inspired you to
make those small changes. Ipromise you they will add up and
Nolan, I thank you so much forbeing here and being that
inspiration and sharing somewisdom and how we can do that.
(40:21):
Totally. Thanks for having meand for everybody out there, I
do want to say Happy SaintPatty's Day One more time. I may
not look like it because I'mmostly Italian, but I got a
little Irish in me. So there yougo. I hope all of you will take
this challenge. I'm going to I'mactually going to end the
podcast today with a challenge,and that is, what is your one
small habit this week thatyou're going to commit to
drinking more water, sleeping 15minutes more, getting outside
(40:45):
for 10 minutes, ditching theDoom scroll. Pick something
simple and do it this week tojust take a little tiny control
of your health and wellness.I'll check in on you next week,
see how it's going when I seeyou for another episode of no
more Monday's podcast. You.
Top of the morning, it is st Patty's day around here,
everybody.
Unknown (00:08):
Yeah, happy Saint Patty's Day.
Angie (00:10):
No one's wearing green to celebrate. And this is no more
Mondays here. We do not havegreen beer because is 10am where
we live, and also because we'regoing to talk about health and
nutrition, and I'm not surethat's on my plan. However, I
want to welcome you to the show.This is a program where we
believe you can have a thrivingcareer or business and an
amazing life on your terms. Andwhat I do is bring you guests
(00:32):
who not only prove that fact,but have great advice to help
you live and work authentically.And our health is a huge part of
our overall well being,entrepreneurship, leadership,
high performance careers, we allhave one thing in common,
demand, demand on our time,demand on our energy. Heck, even
life freaking demands a lot ofus these days and when things
(00:55):
get busy, guess what's the firstthing to go our health. We skip
workouts. We get takeout meals,maybe a hungry man, which we
talked about a little bit in thegreen room. Green Room. Too much
coffee. Amen. It's not exactly aformula that has longevity, has
good health benefits or even issustainable. But what if you
(01:16):
could build a sustainablelifestyle and be healthy without
feeling like it was another fulltime job that was super
restrictive, and today we arecutting out the noise with Nolan
Cunningham. He's a strength andconditioning coach who knows
exactly how to make health andwellness work for you and real
life. Nolan has coachedCrossFit, yay. I finally get to
talk about CrossFit on thisshow. He's trained high
(01:38):
performance professionals, andhe even has a background in
software development, sonaturally, he is about creating
efficient, process drivensolutions for busy people. He
makes fitness and nutritionsimpler, and he's going to make
your life better with somefantastic tips and really sound
advice coming your way. Sowithout further ado, let's get
into it. Nolan, welcome to nomore Mondays.
Unknown (01:59):
Love it. Thank you. Thanks for the introduction. I'm
excited to chat.
Angie (02:03):
Nolan and I have had many a question. We've known each
other for a while. We've hadmany a conversation about
CrossFit and food and soap boxesand all kinds of things when it
comes to trying to livehealthier in a world that just
continues to consume, consumethat health and kind of disrupt
and take take away from it. AndI'm curious Nolan, as we kind of
(02:24):
kick this off, why is this sucha struggle? Why is it so hard to
prioritize our health? You know,we're super high achievers. We
can do so much well, but forsome reason, this is something
that we sacrifice and we don'ttake great care of our bodies.
Why is this the thing wesacrifice? Why aren't we good at
this?
Unknown (02:42):
Totally? Totally agree with that too. I think it's a
great question, because highachievers are always thinking
about how they can one upthemselves, how they can get
that extra 1% especially intheir business. Can they up
their numbers in their businessor in their career? But
oftentimes that's at thedetriment of what we're doing to
(03:02):
ourselves, and it's easy to putit on the back burner, because
we can still maintain thatprogress in other facets of our
life, while running on empty,while having a spare tire on
your back left axle of your car,You could still drive all the
way to your destination, butyou're kind of putting something
(03:25):
on the back burner, and sooneror later, those issues are going
to start to manifest in prettyserious ways. So I think the
short answer is, because we canget away with it in the short
term, but if we have a long termview, and as business owners,
high achievers, we all shouldhave a long term view, it's a
little bit more challenging tomaintain that unhealthy
lifestyle for years and years
Angie (03:47):
well, and even the car that's got the the thing
dragging in the back eventuallyis going to break down, end up
on the side of the road, or endup in the, you know, in the
shop, which is tends to be whathappens when we push ourselves
to the nth limit. You know, wedo irreparable damage and end up
way further in a hole than wewould have if we just tried to
keep things in check over time.Totally.
Unknown (04:10):
Yep, there are small things we could do day in and
day out that don't reallynecessarily take too much out of
you, but they'll move the needlein a really positive way for
your health and wellness, and itwill keep you out of to like
damage and really hit theanalogy on like even more, to
keep you out of the auto bodyshop. You're just doing the
(04:32):
small habits that way you canstay out of the shop.
Angie (04:35):
Absolutely, I think there's this assumption. I
thought This isn't me, also,just so you all know most of the
questions I have asked apply tome. So I am not a hypocrite over
here, I will fully tell you. Andalso, we got noble, and I am
repping. I am repping runningfor CrossFit, because Hi Scott
and Laurel. She listens to theshow. They're great friends of
(04:56):
mine who own our gym, and it'san excellent community, which is
a. Piece of the support systemthat kind of keeps me going,
because I think there's this,there's an assumption, or this
is, this is something I can fallinto, which is this idea that,
like, you have to completelyoverhaul to to be good at this,
right? I have to eat exactlyright? Perfection. We fall into
that perfection trap, and don'tfeel like there's a way to do
(05:17):
this, maybe, like, well enough,this feast or famine doesn't
serve us. Talk to me a littlebit about that mentality.
Unknown (05:25):
Yeah. And you're a fan of The Pareto principle, right?
Oh, I love, I love a good 8020rule, yeah.
So basically, for yourlisteners, Pareto Principle, 80%
of the effects or outcomesreally only come from 20% of the
causes or inputs. So if youcould change 20% of your inputs,
you're going to get a huge bangfor your buck. You do not have
(05:46):
to be perfect, but coming fromsomeone who was kicking
themselves when they were notgetting perfect scores on my
exams back in school, I canreally appreciate the
perfectionist mindset, buttruly, you can move the needle
very far, just changing a coupleof small habits, and you kind of
hit the nail on the head too.Having a support system and
(06:07):
people who embrace that progressover perfection mindset really
help you recenter when you'rejust going, going, going, trying
to be perfect time in and timeout.
Angie (06:18):
Well, and I feel like we talk we perfectionism comes up
on no more Mondays a lot,because perfectionism rarely
leads to no more Mondays,because it puts these boundaries
and our expectations onourselves that we're just never,
ever going to reach. And perfectexample is if I eat too much
gluten free, probably a two ordairy free cheese pizza, because
I have so many food issues, if Ieat too many, too much pizza on
(06:41):
a Saturday night. At one pointin time, I would have said I ate
a whole bunch last night. Mightas well just keep going and you
eat the whole the thing the nextday, because you had this one
quote, unquote, slip up. But ifyou stop thinking about it that
way, and you think about it asthe opposite of the 8020 the 20%
I'm allowed to be flexible onit, kind of starts to change how
you look at this whole system,
Unknown (07:01):
totally. One of the things I love working with, with
some of my clients, is on thefive days in the week, you're
setting a routine. You're kindof doing your thing. You're
moving and grooving, going towork, or logging online,
whatever you're doing. You canreally systematize those five
days throughout the week, andyou can even on the weekends,
(07:22):
give yourself a rating, A, B, Cor D. You don't have to have
perfect days on your habits tokeep moving the needle forward.
You can do have some B and Cdays, have some cookies during
the holidays, like have a pizzaon Friday night, and you could
still, in the aggregate, keepmoving forward in a really
positive way.
Angie (07:44):
As my math teacher dad used to tell me, these are good
grades, but I never got thembecause I was too much of a
perfectionist that needed theA's, but if you're getting F's,
you ain't gonna graduate people.So I'm curious. Here's some
here's some things that I knoware common in the health and
wellness as far as, let's say,myths are things we tell
ourselves, I don't have time, Ineed to spend an hour plus at
(08:06):
the gym, which goes back to Idon't have time eating healthy
is too expensive. How do you getpeople to rethink all of that?
And kind of, how do you debunkthose? Maybe myths slash
limiting beliefs
Unknown (08:18):
totally. So a couple of pieces. One, everybody's out to
sell you something, andsometimes they're adding value
to their lot to your life.Sometimes they're not. They're
just retract detracting fromyour life to make a buck for
themselves. And health andwellness is rife with these
examples. A lot of these aretruly are myths that you were
(08:41):
talking about earlier. There area couple of really easy ways to
think about whether or not whatyou're seeing, hearing or
consuming is actually based onmerit, or if it's someone who's
just trying to sell you somesnake oil. But in the grand
scheme of things, pulling backto the 30,000 foot view, you can
(09:04):
eat healthy, and you could eatjust some fresh veggies, some
rice and beans, and you couldhave a very healthy meal. You
don't necessarily have to dothat every meal, but that's
super cheap terms of time. Youcan get some serious progress in
by going for micro walks, couplewalks a day, instead of spending
(09:24):
an hour and a half at the gymevery day. There are some really
easy, sustainable habits you canestablish without spending a lot
of your resources, time, energyor money.
Angie (09:35):
Oh, by the way, stick a pin in snake oil. We're going
back to that. But before we do.You mentioned this idea of,
like, systematizing the week,and now we just talked about,
let's say, habits, habitstacking. How's that fit
together? Give us an example ofhow all of that might look
during the five days that we'rein our system, versus the other
two days where we maybe areflexible in our system.
Unknown (09:57):
Totally. So couple ones I'm. Just going to go through a
couple of pillars. One Pillarthat we should all be
considering is movement. How arewe moving? Some folks like to
wear wearables. They'll have,like an Apple Watch that'll
track how many steps they takein a day, or how many times they
stand in a day. You can stackthat movement with walks while
(10:19):
you're answering emails. Forexample, you could take a walk
around the block. Another easystack is when you're getting
ready in the morning and you'remaking your coffee while the
coffee maker is running. You canchop up some apples, just really
simple stuff that when you sayhabit stacking, it means you're
just putting two habitstogether, and you kind of
(10:39):
associate them with one another.So it's almost like classical
conditioning. I know you're apsychology nerd like I am. When
one thing happens, you do theother thing, I'll drop into a
deep squat when I'm brushing myteeth, for example. Bunch of
habit stacks that you just stickin throughout the day when
you're already doing somethingelse that just is a more
sustainable, healthy habit, andthe time's already wasted, so
(11:02):
you might as well stack it ontop of it.
Angie (11:05):
This might seem like, really, like, seriously, two
squats while I'm brushing myteeth. Hopefully you're brushing
your teeth for longer than twosquats. Makes a difference. But
I think this goes into somethingthat's like the 50,000 foot
view, which is like,systemically, as a society,
we're way too sedentary. Sothese small things actually can
make a difference, because it'sjust taking one less sit down
(11:28):
away from us
Unknown (11:29):
absolutely and in the kicker is these aren't small
things, because they snowball.You're going to start small for
sure, but they're going to startto build on themselves. You're
going to start to get addictedto dropping into a deep squat. I
promise you're going to start tospend more time trying to fit in
walks here and there, becauseyou're loving the fresh air, the
(11:50):
sunlight on your face. This isgoing to start to snowball into
something bigger. And they soundsmall now, but if you're
consistent with the small stuff,they build on themselves into
something that's supersustainable and really moves the
needle
Angie (12:03):
well. And what I think is really interesting here, here's
the big thing is, it seems likea chore at first, then it
becomes a habit that you kind ofcan't do without, because you
realize how much better youfeel. And that's all over,
physically, mentally, youprobably are in a better mood.
You have more energy. And so ifyou can, if you can get through
the initial lift, it all becomeseasier.
Unknown (12:26):
Totally, yeah, and I don't want to go too far down a
rabbit hole, so pull me back ifI do, but it's all a system,
like you talk about howphysically, when you're moving,
it also impacts your psyche.Mentally, you feel better. Your
emotions are turned around. Yousleep better when you're
hydrating. You get to performbetter when you're out for a
walk or when you're eating yourmeal, and you get better sleep
(12:49):
and rest. You're more focused.And then they just feed on each
other. It's a self feedingcycle. So it's all a system that
to your point, as you work onone the other ones feel better
too.
Angie (13:00):
Yeah, that's a good rabbit hole. I like rabbit
holes. Yeah. And speaking ofrabbits, we're going to go back
to snake oil. Oh, yes. So we'retalking about systems and
processes that we can use to Idon't love the word hack, but in
a way, because it's not you'reyou're creating habits. But
we're talking about some systemsand processes and just ways that
(13:21):
we can adopt things that makeour lives healthier. But the,
you know, what Nolan brought upearlier, was this idea of, like,
there's a lot of claims outthere about systems and
processes that can make yourhealth better, but really, that
isn't what they are. So, youknow, side note, I am a child of
the 80s, and which is when thefad diet became a thing, and so
(13:41):
there's a there's differentversions of the fad diet. Now,
in these, you know, Magic Bulletlose 40 pounds, magic food
delivery type things, or theworkouts, right? There's lots of
claims out there, but we need tobe aware. Talk to me about this.
Totally,
Unknown (14:00):
yeah. Another. Another way to see it is, if you just
look on a bookshelf at a usedbookstore, the health and
wellness section, oh my gosh,all the recipe books that take
out all fat. It's like, well, weneed fat. So
Angie (14:17):
if you, if you are a woman who grew up in the late
80s and 90s, you know all aboutthe low fat diet. You know,
clearly a low fat Twinkie that'spacked with more sugar is better
than just eating the damnTwinkie. Not that you need to be
eating Twinkies at all. But thatis exactly what the late 80s and
early 90s were all about. Andthen it came Atkins. Oh, sure,
those are the big ones Iremember absolutely.
Unknown (14:40):
Yeah, they they all come in different flavors,
depending on the year, I'm sure,and we have them now, they're
just in a different format,oftentimes, and Instagram ads or
podcasts, but they're all of thesame ilk of trying to sell you
something. Because it's a veryemotional and personal
(15:02):
experience, especiallynutrition, but generally health
across the board, like workingout, eating, sleeping, we're all
looking for easy solutions,right? Because we're busy
people, we like mental shortcutsand stories are really
compelling to us. So as a socialcreature, we want to hear the
(15:24):
stories and the anecdotes thatmake a lot of sense in our
brain. And we also want to feelbetter like that's human nature.
That's natural. There are acouple of different things that
I like to do to take the emotionout of the equation when I'm
consuming some of this content,just so I know that I'm not
buying into my biases or mymental shortcuts, because we all
(15:48):
have them, making sure that I'musing an objective approach when
I'm faced with something that istrying to inform or persuade me
to Change my health habits.
Angie (16:01):
Oh, I feel like there's a system coming here. But I want,
let's, let's, let's peel backthe onion a little, and we're
just going to call spadesspades. We're This is that we're
talking about the health and themedia claims that we we see in
social media, for instance, is abig one. I'll give you a very
perfect example. I am now amiddle aged woman in my middle
(16:22):
40s, which means I get lots ofads about take this hormone, and
you will magically have nobelly, and you will lose 40
pounds. Or Nolan and I weretalking about the V shred guy
before we came on, and he'slike, Oh man, I hate that guy, I
just outed you, but just these,it's these extremist things that
(16:44):
I think you have to be very,very cautious of, because there,
unfortunately, in health, thereis not a magic wand.
Unknown (16:53):
Totally, there's not a magic wand. But you can move the
needle pretty far with small,sustainable habits, like we were
talking about earlier, but amagic bullet, magic wand,
whatever you want to call it,that doesn't exist. There is no
true hack. It takes consistencyand a little bit of effort, but
you can do it totally. Anybodycan do it. It just takes a
(17:16):
little bit of time and effort toconsistently chip away to meet
your goal. That's that's justthe end of it.
Angie (17:24):
And before we I want to talk a little bit more about
this, like, how do we evaluateclaims, and how do we know what
we're buying is legitimate andhealthy and not a scam? I want
to, I do want to talk more aboutthat, but something's on my
mind, specifically as I'm takinga walk down memory lane in the
fad diets of the 80s and 90s,those like it took a long time
(17:44):
to undo the psychologicalimpacts that kind of stuff had
on me in very formative years asa little short Italian with a
big butt growing up in Kate Mossland, for any of you who know
wafe time of modeling, that'sexactly what It was. And so,
like, I still sometimes think,oh, less fat is better, or the
(18:05):
low carb thing is better, butultimately, those are core food
groups that give us energy, andit's all about figuring out how
to balance them. And this isactually a place where balance
comes in, right?
Unknown (18:16):
Totally. No, I appreciate that lead in too,
because I was thinking aboutthis earlier, you really jog my
memory. This is all emotional,like we're in our formative
years. We're brought up acertain way with our parents,
right? And we like interact withothers in society. We intake all
these images and videos and whathave you that kind of inform who
(18:37):
we are, how we view the world,and what we define as success,
right? And just on a baseline,what is success? What is good?
And a lot of the times, it'spositioned counter to what would
actually be helpful, extremelyskinny. For example, some people
(19:00):
are naturally extremely skinny,which is their body type, which
is awesome. That's great. Lovethat some people are not
naturally skinny.
I'm not one of them,
but that being put on a pedestalfor everyone to see that's not
necessarily the best way toposition success or value for
everyone in the world, same withthe way we act with one another.
(19:25):
Some people are very stoic andnot emotive at all. They don't
show any emotion. Some peopleare better at expressing their
emotions. If anyone's been in along term relationship, I'm sure
they can relate to the fact thatbeing able to express your
emotions is really important, sobeing the stoic, stone faced
(19:46):
person isn't always the best wayto approach that dynamic, even
though that's what the mediakind of portrays it as. So this
is all pretty emotional, and itties to our identity, and it's
pretty deep rooted, like yousaid,
Angie (19:59):
which. Which ends up meaning this, like, essentially,
when it comes back to this,like, media type stuff, the
fads, they're predatory, right?They're play. They're preying on
emotions. And, you know, I'lltake a minute and get on, I'll
get on the soapbox that's nextto Nolan, because I see this,
you know, he, he sees thishappening in the health and
wellness space, and that's kindof preying on every human's
(20:21):
emotion to want to feel and lookbetter. Even if they've already
got a six pack, they probablywant the eight pack, right? We
all have a thing when it comesto, like, our connection with
our physical self. I see this injust the general coaching space,
with the same kind of, like,predatory, broad scope. Hey, I'm
going to fix your business, orI'm going to help you make a ton
of money. But again, it comesback to this idea that there is
(20:43):
no replacement for process andsome hard work and some
commitment, and that's reallywhat we're talking about here,
and why you have to be carefulof these claims that say you
won't have to put in the hardwork, the process or the
commitment, because that's justsaying how it works. Totally.
Unknown (21:00):
No, I think you had an example before one month,
$300,000 or something like that.Turn your business around. Yeah,
Angie (21:08):
we've all seen it. Oh, yeah. Here buy my $5,000 program
and I'll help you build a sixfigure coaching business in 30
days. Like, okay, maybe 10 plusyears ago, when there were a lot
less coaches out there, thatcould be the case, maybe. But
certainly not now, just like me,taking, I don't know, a good
belly vitamin or whatever theheck ad I get for the women's
(21:29):
hormone multivitamins isn'tgoing to make me lose 40 pounds
in eight days,
Unknown (21:34):
right? Right? It's triggering your emotions. It's
there's a part of your braincalled the amygdala, and it's
taps into your fear and anxiety,and that's exactly lizard dude.
Yeah, the lizard brain, Yep,yeah, the lizard
Angie (21:47):
or the cave, the caveman brain, who's reacting to things
that we don't actually have inour environments anymore, right?
There is no saber tooth tigerwho's chasing you down so that
you have to run away from thecave. But unfortunately,
evolution hasn't caught up withthat fact. So what we can do is
use the brains we have to bediscerning about these kind of
things. And so here, here comesa framework. Here comes
technology, Nolan, with a littlebit of a process on how we can
(22:10):
assess whether or not we shouldbuy in to a health claim or a
health process. So what's thislook like? Totally
Unknown (22:19):
preface, before we jump into the framework itself. We're
in the context of engaging incontent that we want to learn
from. Like sometimes I'll throwon some brain candy on YouTube.
Honestly, when I just want itrelaxed I don't want to learn
from that. I might switch into acontext where I do want to
learn, and then I'llsubconsciously initiate this
framework. But sometimes we justconsume just to turn off or be
(22:42):
distracted for a while. This isin the context of when someone
is trying to persuade us, orwe're in the context of wanting
to learn about health andwellness, or someone's trying to
persuade us about health andwellness. First thing I like
thinking about is looking at thecontent itself, assessing the
claim itself on its merits, isthe health and wellness claim
(23:03):
based on scientific evidence?Can I look up that science? Does
the person delivering it give meaccess to looking up that
science? Is it just an anecdote?Is it based on peer reviewed
studies? Is it a meta analysis?You know, we can get really
nerdy if we want, but basically,how strong is the evidence for
(23:26):
this claim? And
Angie (23:28):
is there any, if any? Yeah, a
Unknown (23:31):
lot of times it's just a story about how their brother
in law, Billy did this one thingonce. So everybody should do it.
It's like, okay, well, I don'tknow if that's exactly how we
should approach learning how totake care of our bodies
Angie (23:47):
or in general. And actually, you know,
Unknown (23:50):
I'm going to get
Angie (23:53):
dangerously close to a line here. I think this applies
to any type of of informationconsumption, media consumption,
on any sort of topic, especiallyin the current day and age where
we live in confirmation biasesand in information vacuums and
and fake, fake and lies, right?You have to be careful to you
(24:15):
have to, you have to use thefreaking brain in your head and
evaluate the merit of a claimperiod, whether it's lose 20
pounds or whatever the otherstuff floating down there in the
world. And I'll actually addanother layer to this is, you
know, the idea of doing that isalso an aspect of our health and
wellness, and being intentionalabout what you consume and when
(24:35):
you consume, because we overconsume, and that is not good
for our health. Absolutely,
Unknown (24:41):
there's a term I love, called Media hygiene, like,
what? What are you consuming?And are you cleansing your
timeline? Are you making surethat you're getting rid of
interactions that are notbenefiting you in your psyche? I
mean, we talk about consumption.Of food that you have
consumption and media too. Isit? Is it a clean diet, or is it
(25:04):
a pretty dirty, maladaptivediet? Second piece here, once
you take a look at the claimitself, another layer is to
assess the delivery. How is itdelivered? Is it positioned
within a broader context. Or isit taking kind of more as an
overwhelming universal truth,regardless of circumstance, like
(25:28):
in all cases, everybody shoulddo XYZ? Or is it positioned
within like certaincircumstances that would make it
more reliable? Is it based onsupport that it's helping us
trigger that emotion, or is itless about emotion and more
(25:49):
about facts and data? A lot oftimes, like we were talking
about earlier, it's going to tryand prey on your emotion. And
you use the term, you put a nailin the head. It's predatory.
Sometimes it just wants to getus to react and to make sure
that we are safe. Even thoughwe're in 2025 by and large,
we're all pretty safe. We gotshelter. We got safety. We're
(26:11):
just trying to help. No longerneed to start a fire and run
away from the saber tooth tire.Nope. Another way to look at the
delivery. Is it packagedalongside potential counter
arguments or pitfalls, Nuancedownsides, or do they just
(26:32):
deliver that claim as if it werethe be all, end all, and they
don't necessarily talk about howit could be wrong or how there
are some limitations to thatclaim itself. Specific example,
in certain circumstances, it maybe good to get some sunlight
throughout the day, butsomeone's saying you should
(26:53):
never walk in the sun. Everytime you go out in the sun, you
should wear SPF 75 I mean, itdepends on the context. If
you're not getting any sunlight,it'd be good to get some vitamin
D. Good to get some vitamin D.You don't necessarily have to
wear SPF 75 every
Angie (27:06):
time. When is it? Is it as SPF over 30? Kind of
pointless. But this is, this isthe kind of stuff like, how
outlandish or, like, shockingare they trying to be in the
delivery in order to get you tonot question the claim, which
comes to a third part that I'mguessing is the WHO involved
here. Yes,
Unknown (27:26):
so trying to avoid talking about the who first.
That's why I started with theclaim. You don't necessarily
want to attack a person beforelooking at the content they're
saying, but also understandingthe context that that person is
living in. Understand the persondelivering the claim and their
intentions. What's what aretheir values? What is their
(27:46):
objective? In particular? Dothey have any incentives, like
money, influence, power, evenprestige or attention? Any
incentives to make thisoutlandish claim outside of just
delivering data, if they have anincentive, your your antenna
should probably go up a littlebit, just to be a little bit
(28:07):
more unawares, just tounderstand, okay, what are their
incentives? Would theynecessarily want me to believe
this? Because they could benefitfrom me believing this. Another
thing to think about with theperson delivering the claim is
if they're exhibiting logicalconsistency. So a good example
of this is, do they hold a claimfrom someone else to a very high
(28:31):
evidence standard, but they havetheir own claim. It's not
subjected to any rigorwhatsoever. They just speak it
as truth and gospel. Are theylogically consistent in how they
approach problem solving.
Angie (28:44):
So here's the thing, we are talking about this in the
again, talking about this in thecontext of health and wellness.
But I would, I would go out on alimb and say that what Nolan's
talking about in this idea ofevaluating claims, merits
delivery, and the people of anoffer applies to anything that
you might buy in the service andknowledge space, because
(29:07):
there's, there's lots of woolbeing pulled over eyes out
there. And not to like be, youknow, be negative about it, but
make sure you are getting realstuff. And in general, here's
what I here's how I wouldsummarize the idea of like, does
the claim have merit, and is itdata backed? Is, does the does
the delivery make sense, anddoes the person credible? If
(29:30):
it's too good to be true, itprobably is. Yep, absolutely.
So. Anyhow, some cliches arestill true. Well,
Unknown (29:39):
they're all They're all rooted in some truth, right? So
Angie (29:43):
I usually say cliches or cliches for a reason, and
usually it's because it's true.And so I want, so I want to kind
of take this back to the bigpicture, because we talked
really specifically about how tonot fall into traps and empty
promises, especially when itcomes to our health and
wellness, because that's, Ithink, where that happens when.
Really significantly, becausethere's the clear emotional
trigger in order to prey onpeople who want this change
(30:07):
really rapidly. And that's whereI want to go back to this big
picture of we've establishedthat there isn't this thing
that's going to magic, wave amagic wand and make me a size
two. It just ain't going tohappen, right? And I have
finally come to terms with that.And I just go to the gym a lot
to deal with it. But how so? Soin thinking about these things,
that most things, most results,come from hard work, a process
(30:30):
and consistency. How do we wrapour heads around that? And how
do we lean into that? And how dowe get started
Unknown (30:35):
to create it? You get started by just crawling before
you walk. That's that's the bestanalogy I can think of. I don't
want to belabor the auto analogyanymore, so we'll get rid of the
car and we'll talk aboutcrawling. You just start really
small. And I like thinking aboutit just because my system's
brain is the way it is. I likethinking about it in a couple of
(30:57):
different buckets, bucketsrelated to health and wellness.
I mean nutrition, hydration,movement, sleep, recovery and
then mindset. They're allinterrelated. This is one big
system like we were talkingabout earlier, that is self
feeding, self informing. Sotaking care of one is going to
have benefits on the other. Butbefore you even start
(31:22):
considering thinking about one,just know where you're at. Just
take a small assessment. Howmany steps do I get in a day?
How many ounces of water do Iget? Do I know what types of
foods might be better for methan others? How's my sleep? And
asking those questions toyourself, establishing a
(31:42):
baseline, and then from there,you could take very small, micro
steps that accumulate over time,each week. Once you know your
baseline. Here's an explicitexample. I know that I'm only
drinking 64 ounces of watertoday, for example, I want to
get that up to over 100 so I'mgoing to jump from 64 to 75 I'm
(32:04):
just going to add a little bitmore, and then maybe the next
week, I'll add 10 more ounces,and if I meet that habit, seven
days out of seven, I'm going tojump on 10 more ounces. Is a
really simple example, but it'sillustrative of the process
itself. Amongst those fivepillars that you can start small
and it's just going to build onitself, and it's going to be
(32:25):
self feeding. That's the awesomething. I keep on coming back to
that when you drink more water,you're going to sleep better.
When you sleep better, you'regoing to be able to have more
energy to go work out, play withyour friends. Go for walks. Play
with the kids rather, go forwalks, things like that. So
starting small, and it's goingto snowball very quickly.
Angie (32:43):
That really is that ecosystem. And a couple things
that pop into my mind are, Ithink, you know, to go back to
this idea that's like feast orfamine. We think about it in the
long term. There's a book calledThe one thing that, for some
reason, feels very applicablehere. Whereas instead of
thinking, oh my gosh, I need tolose 10 pounds, so I'm going to
have to go to the gym three daysa week for the next three
(33:04):
months, and I'm going to haveto, like, cut my calories. Just
think I got to go to the gymtomorrow, or I get to go to the
gym tomorrow, because you are anable bodied person who has that
privilege, versus looking at asa chore and just that's the next
thing you have to do. Instead oflooking at the entire ball of
wax, there's this idea of, like,the first domino that will push
all of the others over is justthe one thing, and it's less
(33:28):
it's less onerous to think aboutit that way, instead of, like,
what's that term that I hateeating the whole eating the
whole elephant one bite at atime type of thing? And so,
like, that's the the perfect,like, the water example you used
perfect for that sleep I thinksleep is the thing most of us
overlook. I am a I am I guess Ican't say it anymore because
(33:49):
that word has different term.But I am a very, very rigid
about my sleep schedule. 15minutes, if you, if you don't
like your sleep schedule, changeit by 15 minutes a day, a night
for a week or two until it'swhere you want. So it's just,
it's little things that canreally add up. You do not have
to change your entire life atonce. It's like quitting smoking
(34:10):
cold turkey. How often does itwork? Yeah,
Unknown (34:13):
not, not very often, right? Thinking about bringing
it all together, to thinkingabout start of a conversation.
CrossFit workouts, chipperworkouts, you know, you're just
chipping away. I'm not thinkingabout the 100 pull ups I have to
do later in the workout. I'mjust thinking about getting
through these 25 air squatsright now, and then I'll do 25
(34:33):
more, and then 25 more just did
Angie (34:35):
you have to go? Murph, with that thought? Sorry. Also I
hate I have, actually, I haven'teven told you this, I have
actually been doing zone twotraining in order to try to make
my as Jim calls them, little,tiny lungs, work better on
uphill mountain bike climbs andso do. Training is wildly
different than kill myself atzone 12, high intensity kind of
(34:59):
CrossFit work. Workouts thatjack your heart rate, especially
at high altitude, but find thething that you enjoy. You know,
for me, I kind of, I would say,gamed the system a little bit in
a way, by creating forcedaccountability of finding a
place where I could go, wherepeople would ask me if I don't
show up. And now, after fiveyears, it's a habit, it's a
(35:20):
habit, and I willingly go, evenif I'm alone. But for several
years, I needed to know thatsomebody would wonder where I
was if I didn't show up for morethan one morning.
Unknown (35:28):
That's awesome. Accountability built in forced
accountability. I love that.Yeah, yeah.
Angie (35:34):
Same thing with in your house. Take the junk food out of
the house, right? Just setyourself up for success. And
those are small things. So thatgoes back to this big whole
thing. And again, we just, youbrought it all back together.
So, so well chip away. You know,whether it's 100 pull ups or
putting the chips away, makethese small changes. Is dad
(35:56):
joke. You gotta love that. Thisis not this is you've heard this
a million times. We just don'tdo it. Taking care of your
health, your wellness and yourmind doesn't have to be time
consuming. These small thingsreally, really do add up. So as
we, as we wrap things up, I'mgoing to put you on the spot,
Nolan, which I know makes younervous, right off the bat, I
want like, your number onehealth tip,
Unknown (36:20):
sweet. 100% it's hard to prioritize anything. But, I
mean, you hit the nail on thehead. We're talking about it
with when you had Mark Gray onit's so true, sleep is the first
domino to fall in the day,because if you get out of bed
and you're tired, you're goingto lose the ability to have full
(36:40):
mental acuity, you're going tobe a little bit more
scatterbrained, you're going tohave less resistance to urges.
You're going to want to be moresedentary. You're not going to
want to engage in some of thehabits that you might have
before. And sleep is supersimple in concept, sometimes
(37:01):
it's harder in practice, and Ican recognize that, but set a
consistent schedule, even ifit's 11pm right now for you, and
11pm to 7am or 6am or whatever,set that schedule and then just
move it a little bit to get itto where you want. It 11 to six,
(37:21):
for example, move to 1045, to545, and then move to 1030, to
530, and just move it a littlebit each week, but keep the
windows consistent throughoutthe week if you can, and it's
going to set you up for successon all the rest of the pillars
that we talked about earlier.Because, like we said, it's all
connected. But as you start yourday, thinking about
(37:43):
chronologically in the day,sleep is the first thing that
happens. Yeah,
Angie (37:47):
yeah, it's the foundational piece, I would say,
but both. But like you said,it's the easiest one to
sacrifice. And I love how youtalked about, like, when you're
tired, you get lazy, which meansyou don't want to make food,
which means the willpower goesout the window, because you're
going to get the takeout, andthen you don't want to actually
go be fizz. It's it, is it? Isthis a slippery, slippery slope.
And I will tell you, I go to bedat 10 o'clock and I wake up at
(38:09):
six o'clock every single day. Onthe weekends, maybe I'll go to
bed at 1020 and let myself sleepuntil 630 if I can. But at this
point, I can wake up at 5:59amwith no alarm, pretty
religiously, because now I'veset this cadence, and you're it
does make everything so muchmore manageable. Because, you
know, the thing that we haven'tbrought up quite yet, and I'll
(38:31):
kind of wrap in here as weclose, is this idea of, you
know, if you're a highperformer, you need energy, you
need stamina. We are only givenone vessel with which to do
that, and if you don't stewardit, you're doing yourself a
disservice,
Unknown (38:43):
right, right? Going back to the analogy, you're not
taking care of your car, it'sgonna break
down. There you go,
Angie (38:50):
and nobody wants to pay an auto shop bill. So Nolan, or
how we bring our car to yourshop? How do we find you? How do
we get in touch with you andhave you calculate our macros
and get your processes and allthe things?
Unknown (39:05):
Yeah, so, couple different ways. I'm on
Instagram, YouTube, at wealthcoaching, W, E L, L T H
coaching, and then also wealthco.com spell the same, W, E L, L
T H, CO, C, o.com, reach out,schedule some time, send me an
im shoot me an email. Nolanwealth@gmail.com really doesn't
(39:27):
matter to me. I just lovetalking about this stuff. And we
can talk about your habits, talkabout where you're at, where you
want to go, and we cansystematize it, if you're one of
those folks who like systems,yeah,
Angie (39:39):
and we will have all these links will be in show
notes and in the in the chat.And you know, Nolan and I do
enjoy nerding out on behavioralpsychology. He comes at it from
the health and wellness angle. Icome at it from every other
angle. And so this is a fun wayto bring that together and
really just encourage all of youout there on this st Patty's day
when you're going to go drinkgreen beer and eat better. Eat
(40:00):
probably like what corn beef andhash after work today is your
20% off tomorrow. Get back intothat routine. Take control of
your health. I hope thisconversation inspired you to
make those small changes. Ipromise you they will add up and
Nolan, I thank you so much forbeing here and being that
inspiration and sharing somewisdom and how we can do that.
(40:21):
Totally. Thanks for having meand for everybody out there, I
do want to say Happy SaintPatty's Day One more time. I may
not look like it because I'mmostly Italian, but I got a
little Irish in me. So there yougo. I hope all of you will take
this challenge. I'm going to I'mactually going to end the
podcast today with a challenge,and that is, what is your one
small habit this week thatyou're going to commit to
drinking more water, sleeping 15minutes more, getting outside
(40:45):
for 10 minutes, ditching theDoom scroll. Pick something
simple and do it this week tojust take a little tiny control
of your health and wellness.I'll check in on you next week,
see how it's going when I seeyou for another episode of no
more Monday's podcast. You.
Popular Podcasts
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!
Crime Junkie
Does hearing about a true crime case always leave you scouring the internet for the truth behind the story? Dive into your next mystery with Crime Junkie. Every Monday, join your host Ashley Flowers as she unravels all the details of infamous and underreported true crime cases with her best friend Brit Prawat. From cold cases to missing persons and heroes in our community who seek justice, Crime Junkie is your destination for theories and stories you won’t hear anywhere else. Whether you're a seasoned true crime enthusiast or new to the genre, you'll find yourself on the edge of your seat awaiting a new episode every Monday. If you can never get enough true crime... Congratulations, you’ve found your people. Follow to join a community of Crime Junkies! Crime Junkie is presented by audiochuck Media Company.
Ridiculous History
History is beautiful, brutal and, often, ridiculous. Join Ben Bowlin and Noel Brown as they dive into some of the weirdest stories from across the span of human civilization in Ridiculous History, a podcast by iHeartRadio.