Healthy Habits As a Busy Entrepreneur: Interview with Certified Nutrition Coach
New Year’s resolution check! How are they going? Are you keeping up with them? Or maybe you don’t even want to continue reading because you’re ashamed that you have completely forgotten about them?
DON’T STOP READING! You are not alone.
25% of people already drop their resolutions within the first week, after a month this number rises to 36%. With one of the most popular resolutions in 2020 being to eat healthier – 44% of UK respondents chose this resolution, 44% of Polish participants, and 43% of Americans.
These numbers are shocking to me! Maybe you can relate? Especially as a busy entrepreneur?
I get it. Building that empire involves countless hours of work, late nights, and sometimes forgetting to take a break to nourish your body. As entrepreneurs, everything is gogogogogo and with that, our bodies need the energy to keep moving at such a fast pace. This means it’s important to make sure we make healthy habits throughout the day.
But how do we approach it?
Meet Nicole Erica, a certified nutrition coach and personal trainer. She is the founder of The Nourish Note. Nicole helps busy female business owners help reach their fitness goals without deprivation.
I spoke with Nicole to share her tips on how to create healthy habits as a busy entrepreneur. And this is what she said:
What is the one habit that is easy to incorporate into a busy workday?
A: It might sound silly, but (and I know you and the rest of my clients won’t be surprised to hear this!) … One easy habit to incorporate for a busy entrepreneur is drinking an adequate amount of water.
On average, when my clients first come to me, the majority of them drink far less water than they should be drinking. A good minimum guideline to follow is 1oz of water per body weight (keeping in mind that this does not take into consideration your activity level, if you live in a hot climate and if you’re a naturally sweaty person… ahem, like me.).
I want to be clear that if 1oz per lb of bodyweight sounds like a lot, or even if you don’t know (or care) how much you weigh, your water consumption can also be increased based on what you’re already doing. For example: track how much water you drink for 5-7 days. Then, take the average amount of water consumption for those 5-7 days and add 8-16oz one week at a time. So, if you’re currently drinking 20oz habitually, during week 1 you may increase it to 36oz, then week 2 you increase your consumption to 52oz etc. Do you see where I’m going with this? Making incremental changes will be a lot less daunting and much more manageable to maintain long term than if you were to go from drinking 8oz of water one day and drinking 80oz of water the next day.
Here are a few practical tips that won’t make you feel like you’re drowning yourself in water:
Create reminders on your phone (think: by noon, I will have drank x-amount of water)
Add lemon (personal fave!), mint, cucumbers etc.
Add 8+oz of water with each meal
I can’t fit a workout into my schedule. What do you recommend I should do to still move my body and for how long?
You can prioritize anything that is important to you. Make intentional movement important to you. It’ll take some time to shift your mindset, but keep at it.
If you’re starting from zero intentional movement, always start small. This can mean 15 minutes of intentional movement 3x a week. Intentional movement doesn’t have to be intense - it can be something as easy as a 15 minute walk. Once this habit becomes easier to do, then you can start to make the walks longer or you can start to incorporate more difficult workouts.
The important thing is that:
You prioritize your health and well being. As entrepreneurs we often prioritize our clients and our business more than we do ourselves. Prioritize yourself. Health and wellness is a part of that.
START SMALL (are you starting to see a pattern here? Also, this is in caps because I’m yelling). The smaller the changes are, the less daunting the new habit feels. As a result, you are also more likely to keep the habit long term! See where I’m going here?
Pick something that you enjoy. If you don’t enjoy being in a commercial gym DON’T DO THAT. if you enjoy classes DO THAT! Movement is not and should not be treated as a punishment. You’re also more likely to stick to continuing to incorporate intentional movement if you actually enjoy it.
Think about moving your body because you love yourself rather than because you hate yourself!
I don’t have time to make a nutritious lunch. Is it bad if I just replace it with a pre-packaged healthy juice or meal replacement bar?
It is not “bad” per se. No food is inherently “bad”. Are pre-packaged juices or meal replacement bars perhaps less nutritious than a whole-food minimally processed meal? The answer is, generally, yes. If you don’t have time to make a nutritious meal, I would try my best to be creative - this could mean frankensteining a few items together from a grocery store while you’re on the go, or even hitting up a “fast food” place and looking for an option that contains mostly whole minimally processed food and/or incorporates protein and veggies.
Really what it comes down to is reading the ingredients and being able to look at a meal or food product and identifying what’s in it. If the ingredient list is made of mostly items that you don’t know, put it down! When you’re putting together a meal, always remember: carbohydrates, protein and colourful food (veggies/fruit). Carbohydrates are not bad for you. You need energy to get you through the day and carbohydrates do exactly that for your body. Protein because of overall satiety and muscle retention. Colourful foods (think: the more colours, the better!) for health (vitamins, micronutrients!) and energy!
I know as entrepreneurs we often get wrapped up in our businesses and sometimes meal prep / cooking takes a back seat (also, meal “prep” is just glorified leftovers anyway). As long as your food choices (whether cooking at home or buying food on the go) prioritizes whole, minimally processed food, you’re good to go!
How do I get out of the mindset of eating pizza is not healthy? Because I frickin’ love pizza.
I think it really comes down to education and filtering out poor influences. I would first try looking at the root of this view point. I mean, who told you pizza was unhealthy? Diet culture? Social media? Your parents? Google? That fitness influencer who (disrespectfully) made cauliflower pizza to make it “skinny”?
What is “unhealthy” about pizza? Is it the lack of nutrients? Well.. What about the veggies in pizza? Or the protein? The more and more you remind yourself that no food is inherently bad, the more you will start to see a shift in categorizing food as “nutritious” vs “less nutritious” rather than “good” and “bad”.
I also frickin’ love pizza, and it would be rude to give it up. If you’re worried about a meal with pizza not being “nutritious” enough, look at what is missing. Remember what I said earlier about carbohydrates, protein and colourful food (veggies/fruit)? Always focus on a good balance between the three. For example, let’s say you have a hawaiian pizza (it’s my favourite ok, and pineapples belong on pizza). Hawaiian pizza has some sort of veggie/fruit on it (Colourful food, check! Carbohydrate, check!) and there is usually ham or bacon (Protein, check!).. Maybe it’s lacking a little bit in the colourful veggie section. So, we fix that by having some veggies on the side! See what I mean? You can still balance your favourite food and eat well.
I want to also make it clear that there’s also nothing wrong with having just the pizza - think 80/20 (80% whole, minimally processed meals during your day and 20% fun meals - this is where the pizza fits in).
I eat when I’m stressed with work. How do I combat that?
What’s important to recognize about stress eating is developing an awareness, identifying the triggers and understanding that your behavior regarding food doesn’t define you as a human.
Something that I like to get clients to create is a “nourishment menu”. This is essentially a list of things that you can choose to do instead of eat (i.e. go for a 5 minute walk, have a glass of water, deep breathing for 1 minute, etc.). Make sure that the “menu” is somewhere that you can see it (think: fridge, notes on your phone, a note on your laptop etc.). Also keep track of how many times you use the “menu” and which tasks you gravitate towards. If after doing one (or two) of the items on the nourishment menu, you still want to eat, then eat.
Another “strategy” is showing yourself kindness. We all deal with stress differently, and well, life can be tough. There is no need to berate yourself for coping with stress. When you show yourself kindness, it doesn’t mean that you’re giving yourself a “pass” it means that you’re not giving yourself a harder time than what you’re already experiencing. There’s a difference between stress eating and telling yourself “omg, I did it again, I’m so stupid, why did I do that, I always do that. I hate myself” and “I stress ate again. That’s okay. This one event of stress eating will not derail my overall health and wellness”. See the difference? Showing yourself kindness helps to develop a sense of self awareness and may also help you identify triggers that cause you to stress eat.
Where can people find you online to follow along on their fitness journey?
A few places! If you’re interested in working with me, you can find more about me and my services at www.thenourishnote.com and on IG @nourishnote. I’m also always happy to have a chat and answer questions during complimentary coaching calls.
Drink water, eat well, see ya! ✌️
Thank you Nicole for sharing your insights and answering my questions!
I hope this was helpful for you all in your fitness journey and business.
It definitely was for me! Not only how I nourish my body has changed but how I view my body. All because of Nicole… I have gained a healthy relationship with food, am mindful of what I am eating but not hyperfixating on the labels, drink a sh!t ton of water, and realized that I actually despise leg day and love full body workouts and HIIT (which used to be the opposite for years beforehand).
I fall into that statistic in 2020 of wanting to eat healthier and just overall be healthier. By the end of 2020 that is also when I kick-started my business. And then 2021 rolled around and the days of stretching before bed every night, YouTube workouts, and regular eating hours were gone. Until I came across Nicole’s summer sweat online classes on Instagram. And after that, I have been joining her weekly online class and signed up for her 4-week nutrition coaching session. Nicole makes it easy to get an hour workout in your week and if you miss a class, there is no sense of guilt like when you follow a Youtube workout video that constantly mentions what day your own on that workout program. Although the workout classes are online it feels the exact same when I was working out in the gym with a personal trainer–and that’s all because of Nicole’s caring soul to see busy women reach their fitness goals and her professionalism as a trainer.
I wish you all the best on both! And if you sign up for Nicole’s classes, I’ll see you there!
