Real Life Runners with Angie and Kevin Brown
Angie and Kevin Brown are here to help real life runners to improve their running and their life through conversations about training, mindset, nutrition, health and wellness, family, and all the crazy things that life throws at us. The lessons that we learn from running can carry over into all aspects of our life, and we are here to explore those connections through current research, our experiences, and stories from real people out on the roads and trails, so that you can become a physically and mentally stronger runner and achieve the goals that matter to you. We are Kevin and Angie Brown, husband and wife, mom and dad, coaches, and runners. Angie holds her doctorate degree in physical therapy and uses running as part of her integrated fitness routine. Kevin is a marathoner who has been coaching runners for over a decade. Together, we want to help make running more accessible to more people, so that more people can gain the benefits of being a Real Life Runner.
Real Life Runners with Angie and Kevin Brown
414: Don’t Train on Leftovers: The Profit First Method for Runners
What would it look like to pay yourself first when it comes to your health?
In this episode, we explore how the Profit First principle—typically used in business—can be a powerful tool to help you shift how you think about your time, energy, and well-being. Instead of letting health be what’s leftover, we talk about putting it first—so you can show up stronger in all areas of life.
We share personal insights, practical examples, and actionable strategies to help you prioritize what matters most—sleep, training, nutrition, and recovery—even in a busy life full of obligations. From blocking off time in your calendar to conducting a “time profit audit,” you’ll walk away with tools to create more balance, consistency, and sustainability in your health journey.
We also dive into:
- Why so many of us struggle to prioritize ourselves—and how to change that
- The importance of boundaries, saying no, and asking for help
- How consistency beats intensity for long-term health and performance
- Ways to build a support system that lifts you up
- Why recovery isn’t a luxury—it’s essential
This is your reminder that your health isn’t selfish—it’s foundational. And it doesn’t have to be all-or-nothing. Let’s reframe the way we show up for ourselves—one small choice at a time!
00:10 Profit First: Applying Business Concepts to Health
01:40 The Fence Metaphor: DIY Projects and Running
03:27 Prioritizing Health: A Common Struggle
04:51 The Profit First Equation: Flipping the Script
10:26 Real-Life Application: Prioritizing Sleep and Training
16:00 Balancing Obligations: Work, Family, and Health
20:30 The Importance of a Support System
24:04 Recovery Time: The Overlooked Priority
27:43 The Importance of Saying No and Setting Boundaries
29:53 Prioritizing Nutrition for Health and Performance
32:52 The Power of Consistency in Health Habits
37:10 Practical Tips for Scheduling and Meal Planning
44:43 The Importance of Boundaries and Self-Care
49:27 Join the Real Life Runners Team
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What if the reason you're not feeling the way that you want in your body or seeing the results you want in your running has nothing to do with your training plan and everything to do with your priorities? I've been reading this book called Profit First, and it's totally changing the way that I think about business, and it also got me thinking about how this applies to health and fitness too. So the idea is simple. Most businesses spend all of their money first and hope that there's something left over for a profit. But most successful ones, they take their profit first and make everything else work around that. And that's when I realized this is what so many of us are doing in our running and our health, and living our lives in this same way. We spend our time and our energy on everything and everyone else. And then hope that there's something left over for our training, our recovery, or our health. So today we're gonna be talking about how to flip that model on its head. What if we took our energy first, our health first? What if your health was your profit and it came before everything else, and you actually held boundaries around that? So let's talk about what happens when you stop training on just the leftovers and start treating your body like your most valuable investment. So stay tuned. What's up runners? Welcome back to the show. We're talking all about Profit slash Health first, and I'm super excited to dive into this concept because this is a book that I've been reading or listening to actually on my walks. and it's a co a concept I'm gonna be applying to our business to help make our business run healthier. And it just really got me thinking about how this applies to so many other areas of our life spec, specifically our running and our health. It's
Speaker 2:fantastic. I'm just excited to do a podcast, not discussing a fence, honestly.
Speaker:the fence is still going. So actually, maybe we should do a little fence update, because those of you that caught our episode last week, we talked all about this, fence metaphor and how we were replacing our fence and A lot of projects that you, DIY things might not always go exactly to plan.
Speaker 2:Yeah. that's running is a something that we, DIY you've got, you can reach out for us and for some coaching and for help on that, but. Running is a lot of a DIY experiment and you do stuff around the house and it's oh, we're gonna start this project. Oh, but first we have to do that thing. And then as we started, it's oh, there's also this little hiccup. And with things just aren't going quite as smoothly as they could be as. As tends to be the case.
Speaker:that's because you're not a fence professional, right? And no, I am not. And you're doing a really good job. And last week we talked about how we have a really good friend that's done this before and is helping us in this, but even this isn't what he does for his job, that he's not a. Professional fence installer. And so Kevin has had to make multiple trips back to the fence supply store and multiple trips to Lowe's because like things just pop up that were not expected or didn't exactly go to plan or Oh, you know what, we didn't exactly plan that the right way. And that same thing can definitely happen in our training as well.
Speaker 2:Yeah. But ultimately we have a beautiful fence up right now. It's and a functional gate
Speaker:and yes. And so I think that. The fence will basically be done today after we record this episode. So that's exciting. we just have to do a little more, a couple little tweaks, and then fill in some space underneath the fence.'cause our lot is not exactly even like from the front to the back. So some kind of, functional details.
Speaker 2:then we'll have a fence and two functional gates Exactly. Is really what we're gonna have.
Speaker:Yeah. So it's great. But So if you have questions and you're not sure what we're talking about, just go back and listen to our last episode. But today we're gonna be talking about this idea of priori priorities and how many of us, and I think this happens to all of us at some point in time. So I don't think it's like one of these things that you're like, yep, this episode does not apply to me. I can just check the box and hit skip, because I definitely prioritize my health and my fitness and my nutrition and all the things like I think that. I'm very good at that. I think that you in general are pretty good at that as well. but I think that we all fall into this trap sometimes.
Speaker 2:Yeah. It's why you gave me a caveat there. I think that you in general are very good at that because I think a lot of,'cause you're, go ahead. I think a lot of people are pretty good at this. Yeah. In general, and sometimes we're not. It's people who are okay at this, but in general they're not that it's gonna be super helpful for. But I think everybody has times where they're like, yeah, that did not exactly prioritize my health as a priority there.
Speaker:Yeah. And I think that we're gonna be very honest with you guys, like we always are because. There are times that I have to remind Kevin, because Kevin is a very self-sacrificing human in general. He tends to put others first, especially his family, which is a beautiful trait. And sometimes that means he puts himself on the back burner. And so there are some times that I literally have to kick him out the door and I'm like, go run, go do this. this is very important. You need to take care of yourself here. And I think that's a trap that a lot of us can fall into as well. So let's just start by Defining this concept of what is this idea of profit first? You probably already have, a good idea of what it is, but in the book, in business, the author talks about how most people, when they think about their profit of their business, they use the old equation, which is revenue minus expenses, equal profit. So profit is. Your second thought, like it's just whatever's left over after you, you've taken all of your revenue, pay out all of your expenses, whether that's payroll or supplies or what all the, your operating expenses of the business, your taxes, all of that stuff. And then whatever's left over is the profit and how most businesses, this means that they're not profitable and that there's not really enough money left over for like owner's compensation and payroll, especially in small businesses. And so his concept is to really flip this equation. So instead of revenue minus expenses equals. Profit. You take revenue minus profit equals expenses. You start taking your profit first, and he in the book is very clear that you're not supposed to just take, okay, I want 50% of my business to be profit, so I'm gonna start taking 50%. Like absolutely not. Most businesses, if they did that, would go under and would not be able to pay off all of their expenses. But we start with just a little bit 1%. That's how he suggests to do it. You take 1% of. Your revenue weekly or monthly and just put it into an account. Separate that you don't even touch it. You don't look at it. It just comes out. And that starts to build that muscle because if you say you're making$10,000 to just choose an easy number, if you're able to run your business on$10,000, you're definitely able to run your business on$9,900 because 1% of 10,000 is a hundred bucks. So you can definitely run your business on that. So it's, at the beginning you don't even feel it, but then now you're building up. This bank of profit that you know, really can get you rolling in the right direction. And so ultimately when you flip the equation this way, this forces better prioritization, it prioritizes more efficiency in your business and clarity around what's important. So you can look at the expenses that you have in the business and ask yourself, okay, are all of these. Necessary for me to do right now. do we need that software subscription? Do we need all of these extra things that are, we're spending money on and really get down to the nitty gritty and figure out, okay, what's necessary for me to run the business and what can I cut so that I can actually have more leftover for profit?
Speaker 2:Instead of saying, I hope there's some profit after we've paid all of these things, you say This is the profit that we're aiming for. And so I only have this much left to spend on expenses. And here's where it's not a perfect one-to-one metaphor because the. maybe it is.'cause there's stuff inside of businesses that have to get paid off the, there's stuff,'cause we're gonna transition this over to life. There's stuff that doesn't really get moved. Like in a business, you have to pay taxes, otherwise the government comes after you. I think I assume.
Speaker:Yeah, they do. and you have to pay payroll if you, but again, this is one of those things that yes, you do have to pay payroll if you have employees, but are all of those employees necessary? could it be run more efficiently with less employees doing the same job because. In a lot of businesses, we were actually just having this conversation with a guy that was helping us with the fence yesterday.'cause this is one of the things he actually used to do, is he actually used to go into businesses and help those businesses actually become profitable by taking a look at what they were spending all their money on and tell them where they needed to start cutting things. So in life, when we look at our health and our running. How do most people run it? They say, okay, I've got life, I've got work, I have family, other obligations, chores, a to-do list. I have to clean my house. And then whatever's left over, that's the time that I have left for running or health. And again, I. Maybe you're pretty good at this most of the time, but then sometimes this happens too, and this is why, Kevin and I are gonna talk about there is nuance, right? But in general, if you're doing this all of the time, that's training on leftovers. And often this is what leads to inconsistency, guilt, frustration, and burnout. Because you're prioritizing everything else above your health. And in this case, you're running.
Speaker 2:So to go back to the business model, if you put all the expenses first without ever actually examining what those expenses are, you're like, oh, you have to pay for all these things if you never actually look at where you're spending all of your time. You're like, of course I have to spend time doing this and time doing this, and time doing this. Suddenly all your time is gone and you reach the end of the day one, you're exhausted, like so you have no energy. Yeah. Your energy tank is on empty, and your time is probably running scarce. Before you get to the oh, I have to make sure that I make dinner or whatever. the next thing is also there's time and energy and they're both intertwined on this guy is I only have so much life to work with. There's only so many hours in the day and so much energy that I have to put into those hours. And so if you flip it and you're like, all right, I have to figure out where I'm going to actually be able to run and take care of myself. Then I have time to do some of these other things. And again, this is a little tricky. Like in business you have to pay taxes. You can't be like, this is the profit that I want. So I guess I'm just not paying taxes this quarter. that's not how it works. there are things that have to happen in your life, but not everything that we're saying. I only have this much time and energy minus all of these things. And then whatever's left over, that's where I get to run.
Speaker:So let's talk about. What this looks like in our real life first, and then we'll start to get into some of the nuance. So what this might look like, taking your quote unquote health profit first would be to, number one, prioritize your training sessions. Actually, I probably shouldn't even put that as number one because yes, training sessions are important, but I would say that your sleep would be one of the more important things too. Nail down first because this is one of those things that if you're not getting enough sleep, you're probably going to underperform in pretty much all areas of your life. So when you are able to. Plan your sleep as a non-negotiable? I would say that would be one of the first places that I would start. And there's so many people that make excuses around it. They're like, oh, I have to wake up at this certain hour because I have to do this and I have to do that, and then I have to stay up late. But do you like, how much TV are you watching at night? could you get to bed earlier? I don't know. I can't answer that question. And believe me, there's absolutely no judgment, but I just would really. Invite you to truly look at how you're spending your time, and we're gonna talk about kind of action steps towards the end of the episode. But I would say that number one would be like really understanding how important sleep is and really making sure that you put good boundaries around your sleep. Because if you get better sleep, you're going to have more energy and you're gonna feel better in other areas of your life as well.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that was gonna be like my first take is I've got 24 hours in a day to, to work with. And then number one, subtract off sleep. Like now how many hours of the day do I actually have, take sleep out originally instead of I've gotta cover all these things and then whatever's left over I. Maybe I'll fit some sleep in on that end. Yeah. I like to put sleep towards the front of it. Every once in a while things come up and your sleep cycle is gonna get shortened. You are like, you actually did have to wake up. You got a flight. Or you're going out with friends and you're like, alright, this is unplanned, but I'm going out and I actually do want to go out. I'm gonna stay up a little bit later and really enjoy myself. Don't feel bad because you, you took that, but recognize that I'm cha I'm taking away some of this sleep. Portion. But normally I would put that thing almost immediately, 24 hours in the day, minus the amount of time you're gonna sleep.
Speaker:Yeah, I agree. And I think that, but you know what, like what you were just mentioning, if you've got travel or if you've got other things going on, oftentimes that's the exception to the rule. And every now and then, that's totally fine. But then just figure out, okay, how am I going to make up for that? So this happened to me like a week or two ago. I went down to South Beach to. Celebrate my friend's birthday, and I knew that was going to be a late night. I didn't know how late, but I knew that was going to be a late night. I knew that I was going to be, partying a little bit and driving home like late that night, so I wanted to make sure that I. Blocked off enough time that I was not going to plan on getting up on Sunday morning and going for a run. I was going to make sure that I allowed myself to sleep in because I needed to make sure that I was making up that sleep that I lost from going to bed late the night before.
Speaker 2:Yeah. trying to plan an early morning long run the next day would be a terrible choice. No, thank you. but people do that, right? They're like, oh, it's Sunday and this is what I do for my workout on Sunday. It's that's gonna need some adjustment.
Speaker:and I think there, there's a lot of people that. Take a badge of honor around that too, of look at me. I was able to go out and do this thing and I still got up and ran, and maybe that worked when you were in your twenties, but if you're over 40, that stuff stops working. So it's really important to understand, okay, it's fine. I'm gonna make this choice consciously that I'm going to go out, I'm going to stay up late, and then I'm going to make up to make sure that I'm going to adjust my schedule to. Make sure that I'm prioritizing my health as much as possible with this added thing that I put into my schedule.
Speaker 2:Okay. So anything else that we wanna put into the non-negotiable idea? I think sleep is absolutely critical. I'm very biased towards that after, 2017 that I'm like, no. Sleep needs to become a priority at all costs.
Speaker:So then the second thing I think would be planning out your training sessions, which is what? Where I started and then reverted, but training sessions, if you, it depends on what you're training for and depends on, what your current goal is. If you're currently training for a race or an athletic event, that does need to be a priority. Now, I think a lot of people would say that easily, if I've got a race on the calendar and this is what. I think leads a lot of people to sign up for, races to use as motivation because they will put a race on the calendar. And then now, because that race is on the calendar, now I'm motivated. Now I can prioritize that thing, but why don't you prioritize during other parts of your life as well? Like to me. I'm not training for a race right now. My goal is to build strength and to build muscle. I'm still prioritizing my training sessions. There are still times that I move them around. They don't always happen the same time every day. And luckily I have a flexible schedule that I can do that, but I'm still making sure that I'm getting in all of my training sessions each week. Every now and then, life happens and something comes up and I miss one here or there, but I never have, I never miss two in a row. So where can you fit in your training sessions? Maybe you have a very regular schedule. If you are someone that has a full-time job and say you work the same hours every single week, you know what time you have available. So how can you put those training sessions in either before work, after work to make sure that you're prioritizing those things before everything else, before you know all of your. Kids and your spouses and all the other activities that are on your social calendar, are you prioritizing and figuring out where your health and your training session goes? And this is where it becomes a little tricky, I think, and where we can get into some nuance. Because there's a lot of people that will then say, I can't move my work schedule. how can I can't just work out whenever I want to because I'm required to be at work from this time to this time. And so we're not telling you that. everybody's going to do this the same way because it's going to be, it's going to look differently. Kevin's schedule looks much different than my schedule because he's a full-time teacher. So he knows that from seven 30 to three 30 every single day, Monday through Friday, he's at school. So that is something that is obviously a priority to him. That doesn't mean it's a higher priority than his health and his fish fitness and his training, right? how would you say like that, you look at that in your mind?
Speaker 2:Yeah. It's not that it's a higher priority, it's just that time block is blocked off. Like I'm not going to, in the middle of. Seven 30 to three 30 be able to be like, all right, now I'm just going to leave campus for an hour and 15 minutes. that's just, that's not how it works. Like I'm required. It's in my contract that I'm on campus.
Speaker:Yeah. But there was that year that you had a very long lunch break that you sometimes trained during your lunch break too.
Speaker 2:That's true. The way the, that the schedule worked out that year, I had the period that was a connected to lunch. I had that as an off period, and so I could, I had. Essentially an hour and 20 minutes that included an off period and lunch connected to each other. And so if class ended and I immediately changed and got on a treadmill, but I almost never left campus. Yeah. I was always there. I was avail if somebody needed me. They knew where I was. Yeah. I was on a treadmill.
Speaker:I don't think you ever left campus, did you?
Speaker 2:I have left campus, so very rarely. Yeah. teaching because if you do it, you have to let 10 different people know. Yeah. Is like we have a procedure that like if you have to go off campus for whatever, Yeah. An appointment, like whatever, like you, you're gonna go out and grab lunch at the grocery store that's half a mile north of us. You, there's 10 different people that need to know the answer to this thing. and it's a, it's an easy, it's a relatively easy email to send out. I'm heading off a campus and then you have to tell the guard that you're leaving campus. There's stuff, so I just know I'm on campus from seven 30 to three 30. But yes, that year did conveniently work out that I could in fact run some days at 1130 in the afternoon.
Speaker:Yeah. But going back to how you prioritize that in your head then, like how would you say you prioritize your training sessions versus work? Because what we were talking about here with this pro. health First equation would be we're taking your time that you have available and then prioritizing your health and your training first before all of the other obligations of your day.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I run most days I get up and run before work because. That's where it fits based off of my work schedule. But like we said, prioritizing sleep is also super critical. So if for some reason I'm up later the night before, I'm not going to get up at five and go for a run because I'm gonna end up with too little sleep. And so then I will try and figure out a way that I can run the. Following afternoon, which leads to one of the other points that we have on here is asking other people for help, which does not come easily and naturally to me. I like to be able to do the things like if I'm supposed to help take the girls to different places, if I've got stuff that normally I help you with and. Then I don't get up and run that morning. I don't like to come home and be like, Hey, I can't help you with this, and this, because I need to go for a run. Yeah. I can't help with dinner because I'm gonna go take off and can you just cover taking the girls to all the places and make dinner because I'm gonna go out and for a run. Like it doesn't feel good to me, but sometimes it has to happen.
Speaker:So how do you navigate that? Because you say some
Speaker 2:uncomfortably,
Speaker:sometimes it has to happen, but there's a lot of times that you don't hold that boundary for yourself either. I'm gonna go ahead and call you out here because I want people to know that it's hard to hold this boundary even when. you want to, even when you know it's good for you, all of these things. And so I think it's important for people to hear this from us also, that it's hard to hold this boundary sometimes.
Speaker 2:Yeah. I'm not very good at this.'cause I, the earlier you and I can talk about it, of when am I gonna be able to run, Sometimes this even gets taken care of the night before. Yeah. Of I'm, we're heading to bed later than normal. And you're like, when are you gonna run tomorrow? And I'm like, oh, it's gotta go tomorrow after I come home from school. And the earlier that we can talk about it, the less I feel like I'm springing on you. Yeah. Hey, I can't cover this thing that I often do.
Speaker:but I think that this is also making me think about the importance of a good support system and having someone that you can ask for help and that you feel that is really supportive of you. And I think it does make it harder and much more challenging for those of you that might not have that partner or those people in your lives that are. As supportive of you as you might want them to be. And I know that also as the partner that often has to do this, like it can be a lot for me too, because there's so many other things that I am dealing with in life, like the girls and making the dinner and all the things. I oftentimes, it can be a point of frustration for me that Kevin doesn't hold this boundary for himself because I'm like, why do I, like, why is your health. Also on me, right? you need to hold this boundary for yourself. Like, why am I the one that's asking you, when are you gonna run? and there's oftentimes he'll be like, oh, I just, I'm not gonna run tomorrow because, we have this thing to do. And I'm like, you still can run. We just have to figure out when you're gonna do it. and so I'm trying to help him understand like, this is important to you. Like I know what running does for Kevin, and I know how important it is for his mental and physical health. So how can we fit this in? I'm not like, oh no, we're not gonna do this. It's always, okay, how can we make this work? But it can be frustrating for me at times that I feel like that gets put on me to figure out for you, even though that's not my job.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's definitely not. But that's why I. anytime that we've had like race recaps and I finish a thing that I'm like, this has been such a team effort. It's not a team effort on the day of the race. It's been a team effort for months and months leading up to that, like the amount of training that goes into some of these things and the days that I'm like, I cannot be helpful today. I'm heading out for three hours and that's what I've got. Yeah. that's why all of it, all of the. Training is a team effort also, so having as much of a support network as you can create at all, like anybody that you can bring in to help being willing to ask others for help. Sometimes that's a tough shift for people.'cause you can, you don't feel as bad asking for help on various obligations along the way. But to ask for help so that you can prioritize your health for some reason feels different than asking for help with other areas of your life.
Speaker:I think that it can, until you really start putting this. Principle into play because I feel like I've gotten pretty good at really holding boundaries for myself. And I think that's what frustrates me when you don't do it too. Because like I know that I do it and maybe it's easier for me and for multiple reasons. And I think that in some ways it's also not easier for me because I feel as a mom that it's more of my responsibility to take care of the kids and make sure that they're getting to all the places. I'm not saying that you're very helpful, but I think that it's just tricky sometimes.
Speaker 2:No. let's be real honest, like if I need to go for a run in the middle of the afternoon, there's usually like a thing that you are now responsible for that I was gonna do. If you're gonna go for a run in the afternoon, now there's 12 things that I need to pick up because those were the things that you were doing that I didn't even realize were taking place.
Speaker:and I think that's why I am good about holding my boundaries because I know that. I have, I wanna get my things in here because it, that way I can still have the time in the rest of the day to do the other things that I need to do without inconveniencing other people.
Speaker 2:Because you do a thousand things during the day and I do six.
Speaker:I don't know about that, but I think that it, it is interesting and. We can oftentimes block out and get like wrap our heads around this idea of blocking out time for our training sessions or blocking out time for sleep. But are you also prioritizing your recovery time and really blocking out time for recovery? And I think this one's definitely trickier. I know it's definitely trickier for me like. If I am doing something, I'm like, sorry, I can't do this. I have this other thing that I need to get in. And like my mom literally just texted me in the middle of recording this podcast and asked if I wanted to go to lunch. That sounds awesome. I would love to go to lunch with my mom right now, but I'm podcasting. And then after this podcast, I have to get my strength session in because I haven't lifted yet today. could I move it to later in the day, maybe I'm gonna look at my calendar after we're done recording here, but there are times that we can. Prioritize. I think that we can prioritize certain things easier than others. And when it comes to recovery, time to actually just relaxing. This is one of the things that you were even having an issue with last night, right? Kevin's been installing this fence and been outside in this heat doing very heavy labor for a few days now, and he was outside yesterday from I think nine to after 5:00 PM and. I made dinner of course, and we had dinner and whatever. And normally Kevin is helping clean up for DI from dinner and I told our youngest daughter, I go take dad and make him sit down on the couch. And she's what? I go make him. Sit down, go sit down with him. I don't know, just go have him sit down because he felt bad taking recovery time and relaxing, knowing that we were still cleaning up from dinner. And I think that taking that time to just rest and relax can be much harder for a lot of us.
Speaker 2:Because it doesn't feel productive, right? You're not doing a thing. You're literally not doing a thing. That's most of what recovery time is. Sometimes there you can have some active recovery, but most of the recovery time, especially if you go hard on physical activities, most of that recovery time is spent not doing things like you were trying to just push me down to the couch so that I could just sit and comfortably relax. That, and that'd be great. There was stuff that needed to get done around the house and I felt uncomfortable.'cause, I sat down and I'm able to look around and see that there's things that needed to get taken place. The, was it yesterday? We were at your sister's house. She made dinner for us. Yes. Monday. Monday. So that was fantastic because there was no way that I could help with dinner. There was no way that I could help clean up from dinner. That's one of the rules when we have dinner at it is at your sister's house. Yep. Is you're not allowed to help. and so I went there and I literally just sat on the couch and it was fantastic because I didn't. Feel? A pull to help. Yeah. I was able to just sit there, which was fine. And I felt physically really nice about that. It's difficult for me to sit at home when I can look around and see that stuff needs to get done. And especially if I'm watching other people do stuff, I could be like, I could be helpful. I could participate in that thing that needs to get done and it will get done faster. But, sometimes recovery time is. Is definitely required.
Speaker:Absolutely. And I think that, that is really the part of leaning on people too. Like after your ultra marathon, you, I think offered to Dr. Drive part of the way home. I definitely did. I felt
Speaker 2:so good. I was, oh my God. just gimme a cup of coffee, I'm good to go.
Speaker:Absolutely not sit in the passenger. Seat and close your eyes, like you just ran a hundred miles. And I think that this is the challenge that happens with a lot of people that are service oriented, like I would call you a very service oriented person. People that also have that need for people pleasing. always wanting to be helpful. Always like having a hard time resting
Speaker 2:service person sounds so much nicer than people pleaser,
Speaker:service oriented, right? Don't you think?
Speaker 2:Yeah. Way nicer than the clear people pleaser.
Speaker:But I think that's one of the things that. All of us could probably get better at, which is saying no. That's part of this as well, is like in order to put your health first and your energy first, you have to say no to things of lower priority. And this is boundary setting and. When you grow up as a people pleaser, as someone that has been told to prioritize serving others or doing things or, always being productive and action oriented, which a lot of us runners do, there's a certain personality type that is attracted to running for a reason. That's why you can oftentimes connect and relate to so many runners and that's, one of the things that we love about our real life runners team is like we have literally runners all over the world and they're all. They can all connect on very similar things because running tends to attract a certain type of person, and that type of person usually is very action oriented, very like a doer, not just someone that sits around, obviously is not caring about their health or about their life. Like it's someone that likes to challenge themselves, like to, likes to do things. And that can backfire in this, arena a lot of times because then you're just always caught up in the doing and you're not saying no because you're always like, yeah, I'm gonna say yes. I wanna help people. I wanna do these things. I wanna be part of this social circle. But part of prioritizing your health is als also learning when to say no and when to hold that boundary.
Speaker 2:So that's, To go back to the metaphor that's really looking carefully at all the expenses and figuring out what is not required. Yeah. If you're, you say you have 24 hours worth of time and energy, and then you start subtracting a bunch of things and health is left over, which of those things do you not need to actually subtract off? Which ones could. Literally just not even be on the list. Not that you could ask for somebody's help with them, but they just don't need to be there, in the business model, who doesn't actually need to be on payroll because they're not contributing to the company. Yeah. what are those activities in your life that are not really actually contributing to your life that you feel, still feel compelled to do? But you could just subtract and give yourself time and energy back.
Speaker:Yeah, absolutely. and one more thing that we wanna look at when we're prioritizing our health first is our meals. And I think that as busy people, it can oftentimes be easy to forget about meals. Skip meals or just make meals a second, like an afterthought when you go over to your fridge and you open up your fridge and you're like, what am I going to eat today? And then you end up putting something together or throwing things together. And a lot of times when people come into our coaching program and we start talking to them about. Eating more food and prioritizing protein and those kinds of things, they find it very hard to do this. And that's because it has to become much more intentional. Like you don't just naturally, most people do not just naturally eat 120 grams of protein every day. Like you have to be intentional to figure out how am I gonna get in that much protein? And then also eat like the fruits and the vegetables and the things like that have micronutrients, right? Like. When you start to look at prioritizing your nutrition, both for overall health and for performance, you have to be intentional about it. It cannot be an afterthought. And this is one of the things and one of the reasons that I think that so many people struggle with this is that. You haven't been trained to do it this way. You've been trained to just eat whatever and figure it out. And it cannot be that way if you are going for certain health or performance goals.
Speaker 2:Yeah, if you start running in much longer things, training for marathons and further beyond that, the food that you put in during the run, that's like saying that I'm gonna ballpark my hydration and nutrition during a two to three hour long run. that is not something that you're just naturally going to take in enough calories, especially if you're planning on carrying all of them. Like you're not gonna accidentally have hundreds of calories stashed on your body. You need to actually plan this out and make sure that you are carefully doing it. If you're not carrying like. A water vest with you, you might have to plan a route out that you know is going past drinking fountains so that you are actually getting in enough water. Otherwise you're just not going to take in enough water along the way because you probably didn't just accidentally carry a couple of liters of water on your person.
Speaker:Yeah, and I think that when people get into training for longer distances, they do. Prioritize their training during, or their, sorry, their nutrition during a run, but they're not always the best about planning their nutrition for the rest of the day. Yeah. and that part is way more important than the calories that you take in during your run, your overall nutrition, what you're feeding yourself for breakfast, lunch, and dinner, and. Snacks throughout the day is way more important than just the things that you're taking in during the run. And I think that this is where so many runners and people get in trouble because they're looking for these like little things. They're focusing on these small details without addressing the low hanging fruit and the things that will actually make a really big difference in how they look, how they feel, how they perform. Because. They're too simple in, in some ways, right? Like in some ways, like this is the simple, boring, unsexy stuff that we're doing every single day that's actually making the biggest difference in how we feel. Like I had this conversation with my sister. And my sister, I'm actually gonna have her on the podcast, so I'm excited to introduce you guys to her. at some point when, whenever we get the time to record this, but she's been, on this journey of eating more protein and lifting weights and really changing her body composition. And she was talking about how she's. Having conversations about nutrition with her friends and things that, we're all over 40 now. And so now all of a sudden, all these women are looking at things differently. And she was talking to a friend of hers and she's asked her, how are things going? And her friend was like, I had ground beef and cottage cheese for lunch today, and my sister was like, yep, that sounds about right, because it's the boring, unsexy stuff that is going to actually lead to the results. It's not the things that you know are all over social media, but it's the things that you do every single day that you just repeat that actually give you those results.
Speaker 2:Yeah. that's the answer for business. That's the answer for training. That's the answer for most things, is it's not the stuff that looks cool to put on social media that gets the results. It's the boring consistency that gets you phenomenal results. It doesn't get you phenomenal results tomorrow. It's the boring consistency day over day, month over month, year over year that compounds, and then you look back three years, four years later and you're like, wow. Look at the change that I've managed to accomplish. But it doesn't look cool from one day to the next. It almost never looks cool from one day to the next, and
Speaker:you don't feel a heck of a lot different either. Just the same way that the book was talking about taking 1% profit, you're like, Ooh, I've got 10 bucks in my account. Like I've got a hundred bucks in my account. Whoopy do. At the beginning, it doesn't look like much. But when you keep doing it, then it builds up over time and all of a sudden you've got all this money in your account and you're like, oh my gosh, look at this. How great is this? Same thing with our health day by day. You getting a little bit more sleep on Monday. Maybe you'll feel different on Tuesday, maybe not. But if you continuously prioritize your sleep and you are consistently getting eight hours of 7, 8, 9 hours of sleep, and by the way, some new research that's coming out is also showing that women actually need more sleep than men. so that's something to keep in mind because I think, I feel like women oftentimes get less sleep than men because we're taking care of a lot of other things. that's just my own. Random opinion, not based on research at all that statement, but anyway, you know when you do that over time and your body actually gets to reset and recover and rebuild. You're gonna start seeing that pay off in dividends and just there's compounding interest in the bank, there's gonna be compounding interest in your body and your health down the road as well.
Speaker 2:Yeah, no, that's a good way of putting it. it's, they're dividends. Yeah. That's why you buy the boring stocks that just keep paying you dividends. Because they're showing up on a quarterly basis that you didn't even do anything and money just shows up in your account.
Speaker:because when you start prioritizing these things and making these investments in your health, and this is, that's really how I want you to start thinking about this, is when you get the right amount of protein, when you get the right amount of sleep, when you're prioritizing your training sessions, you are literally putting investments in your health bank. And when you continue to invest, you're gonna have more energy, you're gonna have more clarity, you're gonna have more presence for everything else in your life. Those things that. You need to do in your life, those other life oblig, quote unquote obligations and taking care of your family and all of those things, you're gonna show up way better when you invest in yourself first, when you have more energy, because you know how it is. Like when you are not well fed, when you are not well slept, you do not have patience for anything. You are cranky. this is what happens. And maybe I shouldn't say you. I know I am okay. Like this is one of the things that happens. And when I take care of myself, I. Have way more patience and tolerance for everything else in my life. And I think that's really the way that we need to think of this, is that all of these little health habits we are investing in ourselves so that we can show up better in all areas of our life.
Speaker 2:Yeah. No, that seems, it seems really good. So maybe we get into some of the practicality of, I, I feel like we've touched on some of this, but let's really highlight some nitty gritty of what is it that we can actually implement now, coming off of this, there's probably a lot of people that are like, yes, I get the idea of I should prioritize running. But how you talked about having some micro shifts. I'm gonna skip ahead on the thing to hit the one that I really like. Making your bedtime a boundary of your day, not a bonus that you can be like, this is when I would like to get to bed. But actually putting it on there and being like, this is when I get to bed. And we talked earlier that sometimes you move it because you have consciously chosen that you're going to stay up later that day. You're going to get up earlier the next morning. But that bedtime is a fixed number, not a super gray area. It's actually a fixed number. And that's helpful.
Speaker:Yeah, and I think that can shift around, like right now, it's summertime. Our girls are older, they wanna stay up later, and family is a priority for us. So we are staying up a little bit later than we normally do, but that's also because we can sleep in a bit. A little bit later too. Yeah,
Speaker 2:everything gets shifted because of the summer. It's a thousand degrees, so it's still nice to get up and run before it becomes just the surface of the sun. But I am okay with running at 10 o'clock in the summer in South Florida. It seems weird. It's super, super hot. But it's okay to me to do that. And so I can shift my wake up and workout time back if we're staying up a little bit later on the other end.
Speaker:So some other little things that you can start to do is to put your runs and your training sessions on your calendar as if they were meetings with yourself before you schedule any other meetings like. Put those things in if you have, work from nine to five, I understand that is something that you have to schedule around. But in general, there's a lot of other flexibility that you might have put your training sessions in your calendar and make them non-negotiable. Another thing you could do would be to. Think about your meals for the week and prepare your meals ahead of time, or at least plan them ahead of time. Go make sure that you plan them. You go to the grocery store, you have all of the ingredients on hand so that when it's time for you to make dinner, you don't have to think about it. You just make what's on the schedule.
Speaker 2:Yeah, being able to prep this stuff ahead of time is fantastic. I'm sure back in the episode somewhere before a hundred, we had a whole thing on batch prepping. Yeah. If you could plan out all of your meals and do all the prep work on Monday, and you're gonna be so smooth sailing, if you could just figure out what meals you're going to eat. God, that'd be so helpful because come like four o'clock in the afternoon, the last thing that you want to do is try and figure out what you're going to make for dinner if you at least have a plan. Sure, you still have to go through the steps and actually create food, but if you don't have to come up with an idea, that just makes it seem so much easier to do. I can do the steps of, this is the meal tonight. Now just do A, B, and C and we're going to have food on the table. But opening the pantry, opening the fridge, and being like. What do I feel like making for dinner sometimes? Seems exhausting.
Speaker:Yeah. Sometimes that's too big of a hurdle to get over. Yes. And that's when you pick up the phone or go online and put it in an order and you just go pick it up?
Speaker 2:Yes. Yeah, because it's just too big of a hurdle. Yeah. Just lower that hurdle and figure out what you're going to eat during the week. God, that sounds easier.
Speaker:because you can do that when you are fresh and when you have, your head on your shoulders, you do that on a Saturday or a Sunday, whatever it might be. whatever day works out best for you so that you can think through it, make sure that you're getting the proper nutrition for yourself, and then you just have to go get it done. Let's just real quick as we wrap up some like common things that might be coming up for you that we may or may not have addressed right now. So if you're thinking, okay, Ang, this sounds like a great idea, but I just don't have the time for this. I would really invite you to take a look at. How you are currently spending your time, and this is one of the action items that I would love for you to take away from this week, is to really do a time profit audit. So look and literally take a couple of days, maybe one day, two days, and write down every single thing that you do that day and every single thing that you are spending your time on, and then figure out, okay. What is negotiable here? What is non-negotiable here? How can I make more time for the things that are important to me? Because I don't think it's a matter of more time. I think it's a matter of clear priorities and yes, everybody's life is different. I am not saying that we all have the same amount of time. There are people out there that will tell you, we all have the same 24 hours in a day. Yes, right. We do. There's 24 hours in a day, but we all have different. Obligations and social things and family situations and things that there are people that it's going to be a little bit easier that to prioritize these things than others. I understand that. So I'm not trying to say, you can do it, and you just don't care enough about it. That is definitely not what I'm saying. So please don't hear it that way. But I am inviting you to take a look in a survey of exactly where you're spending your time and figure out. What lower priority things are currently taking up your time that you could maybe prioritize with some higher priority things.
Speaker 2:also, how many times do you switch tasks during the day instead of being able to take a task that should take you an hour, do you do 20 minutes of that and then do 20 minutes doing something else and then come back to the thing? Because every time you flip from one thing to the next, there's, it's not a smooth transition. Yeah. You don't immediately start the next task. Your brain has to get on board. You have to actually be able to start and get your brain thinking about that next thing. The fewer switches you have, the smoother your day's gonna be. And it's not like you're suddenly gonna have three hours left over at the end, but if you clean up your task switching, you could end up with a bonus 30 minutes at the end of the day easily.
Speaker:Yeah, for sure. I know that's true for myself as well. And this is one of the reasons that calendar blocking and actually putting things into a calendar is super helpful. So I personally use Google Calendar for this. anybody, obviously Google Calendar is free, so you can start using that. You can use the calendar app on your phone. There's lots of ways you can do this, but I literally put my workouts on my calendar, my walks, my runs, like all of my daily tasks. I tell my girls, if it's not on my calendar, you can't hold me to it. they ask Mom, can I do this thing? I said, put it on my calendar. If it's on my calendar, I will figure out how to get it done. You know how to make it work. But if it doesn't go on my calendar. I can't promise that I'm gonna do it because I may have prioritized other things and there might not be any space left for that.
Speaker 2:I love that everything that you do is on the calendar because then I also know where you are. I know, is she out on a walk? Oh, she's probably gonna be back in 20 minutes. No wait. This one's a long walk. Because of whichever day of the week. Maybe she's gonna be back in 40 minutes. It just gives me such awareness of what's going on. I think it gives other people the ability to plan around you, which is also super helpful because then people aren't asking you questions, Hey, can you do this for me? If you can see the calendar? You're like, no. That's already blocked out. That does. There is no time for that person to do anything.
Speaker:and I think that's a really important lesson that we can teach our kids as well, is boundaries. Like I, this is when I'm doing my thing. I am here and I'm available for you. And it's not that my kids. Second to that, it's that, Hey, if you need me, no problem. you're my priority, but I need to know ahead of time so I can move things around so that I can still prioritize myself and the things that I want to do that are important to me, and also take care of you and get you to, take you to the mall or take you to whatever it is. But if you're not, if you're coming to me last minute and I already have my calendar as. Full then. Yeah, you taking you to the mall to hang out with your friends is not gonna be high on my priority list.
Speaker 2:Yeah. that kinda goes to one of these other kind of objections that you might be getting is my family my job? They need me first. And yes, they do need you, but you are going to show up best for them when you're actually taking care of yourself, both in how you feel after going for workouts, after prioritizing your health. But also from a fueling perspective, if you're getting in the food that you need on a regular basis, if you're getting the recovery that you need on a daily basis, then you can actually show up as a better version of yourself for those around you. Like you just said, if someone needs your time and you have it blocked out for lifting, like you didn't lift this morning when it says so on the calendar, you're moving it. But you have to know that things are getting shifted to other. Points of the day, the earlier that people can give you a heads up of, Hey, I might need your time during this window. It allows you to shift things around. It's not that your running has to be on the day during this exact time slot, it's just that it needs to be on the day somewhere. And so if it's gonna get moved, you need to have some advanced notice so that you can plan out that movement. Yeah, that is super helpful.
Speaker:Yeah, I a hundred percent agree because I just need to know what are all the things I need to get done today? And it doesn't necessarily mean that they have to happen at that time. And for you they might though, if you have more of a rigid schedule, there might be a time where you're like, this is the window I have, so that means I'm gonna have to say no to anything else that conflicts with that. And that's okay. I think that holding boundaries is often something that is very underestimated and it ha. undervalued in our society because we are taught to do things for others, which is a beautiful thing, but it's also very important because you can't pour from an empty cup. You have to be able to take care of yourself. It's not selfish to take care of yourself first, because then you will have more to give. And I think that. Me holding those boundaries and people might argue with me and people might tell me that I'm selfish and that's okay. They can have their opinion of me, which again was a very hard thing to come to, is like allowing people to have whatever opinion they want of me. That is definitely a personal growth thing that I've developed and am still developing. But me holding boundaries for myself is also, I'm trying to live by example and show my girls. These are the boundaries that you're allowed to have for yourself as well. Like in the future, as you grow up, as you're a teenager, as you grow up, and to be a young adult and an adult, it's important for you to set boundaries with your time, with your priorities as well. To take care of yourself because I don't want my girls to just be, bend over and people please and then not take care of themselves and end up burnt out and depressed either. So it's really important that I am setting that example for them and they know that yes, they are my priority, but. Also mom's a priority for herself too.
Speaker 2:So I think we've got a couple of takeaways that we can come out of this episode. Your idea of writing down the actions that you actually do during the day so that you can see whether you can schedule things smoother. So you can see, is there anything that I have on here that I actually don't need to be taking care of that maybe I could get some help with that I could actually just not do and remove off the list. and then I think something else that we could use moving forward is some non-negotiable. Health habit that you are going to actually just protect at all costs this week that you are saying, this is one thing that I am definitely going to put on my schedule, that this one doesn't get moved, this one does not get adjusted. This one has to take place and there's a variety of things that you could do. sleep is a good place to start. Meal planning is a good place to start off of this guy. Don't try and hit all of them. Hit one of them
Speaker:1%. Yes. 1%. So something go back to the 1% task.
Speaker 2:Something that is achievable That you're like, I can be successful protecting that thing.
Speaker:Yeah. And I think that's really important is like when you try to go okay, you know what? I'm all in, I'm gonna do all the things. That's where we oftentimes just burn out and fall off like.
Speaker 2:That's New Year's Eve.
Speaker:Yeah, new Year's Eve. what is, but what is the 1% like? What can you start doing this way to start building this muscle, to start building these habits? because you are your most valuable asset, and so it's important for you to stop trying to run your life on leftovers. Stop trying to promote your health or build your health on leftovers if you're not prioritizing these things in your life. It makes sense that you're not getting the results that you want. And that might be a hard truth to hear, and I don't want you to feel any guilt or any shame. But again, this is about bringing awareness to this area so that, because when you have awareness, now you can take a step forward. Now you can change. Now you can decide, okay, what's the 1% task that I want to do this week that's actually going to help me? To invest in my health, to prioritize my health first in this area, and then that will start to get the ball rolling and then it'll, other things will become easier for you. And if you are someone that loves having support and accountability. I would love for you to come check out our real life runners team. We have, it's our membership, our monthly or annual membership. You can choose what works best for you. We give you all of the things that you need to be successful. We give you your training plan with all of your runs, all of your strength workouts.'cause again, it helps when you don't have to figure it out, like Kevin said, with meals, you don't have to figure out what you're doing every day. You just have to. Pick a place in your calendar to get that in. we have an amazing community of other runners that are all doing this as well. So if you are someone that doesn't have a good support system, we have one built for you. Okay? You can come in. We are so welcoming. the people in our membership are so welcoming and so loving. we will be here to support you as well. So if you want. More information on that. I'm not gonna go into all the details right now. Head over to real life runners.com/team and check that out today because we would love to be, there on your journey to support you. Do you have any other final thoughts?
Speaker 2:No, I think you got it. Like the team. I just wanted one, one thought on our team. It's so supportive. It's no one's gonna show up and help drive your kids to whatever event it is. that's not where we're at'cause we are around the world, but it's. Being as part of a group where everybody else is, has similar challenges and being able to recognize that we're all real people trying the best that we possibly can and some days are gonna go smoother than others. and having that as the group of people around you, I think is just so helpful when you're trying to shift your. Your mindset around some of these things.
Speaker:Yeah, I definitely agree. So as always, guys, thank you so much for joining us. If you haven't yet, I would be so appreciative if you would leave us a review on your favorite podcast player or share this episode with a friend or on social media so that we can continue to help more runners around the world. And as always, this has been the Real Life Runners podcast, episode number 414. Now, get out there and run your life.