You are listening to The Design You Podcast with Tobi Fairley, episode number 82.
Welcome to The Design You Podcast, a show where interior designers and creatives learn to say no to busy and say yes to more health, wealth, and joy. Here is your host, Tobi Fairley.
Hey friends. Are you ready to get your healthy on today? No, I’m serious. Are you really ready? Are you ready to stop all the excuses and all the stuff from all the diet books and all the things you’ve tried? Because if you are, you are going to love today’s episode.
I have here today on the show Elizabeth Rider, and we’re talking all about her new book called The Health Habit. So Elizabeth is a nutrition and whole living expert, and she teaches women around the world how to become their healthiest and their most successful. Really, she’s all about helping people become the best version of themselves.
And if you’ve listened to this podcast at all, you can see why Elizabeth and I have so much in common. And when I picked up her book, which is so straightforward, so easy to read, so beautiful, but just full of common sense simple things that can make creating healthy habits so much more doable than anything I promise that you’ve ever heard before.
I knew I had to have her on the show. So before you run out and buy this fabulous book, The Health Habit, which its subtitle is 7 Easy Steps to Reach Your Goals and Dramatically Improve Your Life. Before you run out and get it, which you’re definitely going to want to, listen and enjoy my delightful interview with Elizabeth Rider.
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Tobi: Hey Elizabeth, welcome to The Design You Podcast.
Elizabeth: Hey, thanks for having me.
Tobi: I’m so glad you’re here. So I’ve known about you for a little while because I am a graduate of IIN with health coaching training, and you come from that same family and that same world. But for those people who maybe don’t know who you are, tell us a little bit about you and how you got to be, not only a health coach but you’re an author of an amazing new book that we’re going to talk about a lot today called The Health Habit. But just give us a little bitty intro into who you are.
Elizabeth: Yeah. That’s such a great question and I feel like I could go on a thousand different ways with it. There are so many things happening. So after college, I started working at Ernst & Young as an accounting firm. I was in professional services for about four or five years. And loved the people I worked with, was having a lot of success in corporate America, but was really feeling the golden handcuffs and felt super unhealthy.
I was like, 26, I felt like I was 56, which there’s nothing wrong with being 56 but when you’re 26, that’s not great. And didn’t even know that this whole other world existed, and in hindsight, I can see it all clearly. When I was doing it, I had no idea what was going to happen, but I started blogging. I was lured away in a good way from my corporate job to do some freelance business management.
And I really started my blog as a hobby blog because I had a knack for taking recipes and just making them healthier. So that’s what I was doing. I was just talking to someone the other day and it reminded me. I have been blogging for 11 years, so well before Instagram even existed. I don’t know if you remember this. Remember when Facebook first came out? I was in college. You had to pick what your network was. Do you remember that?
Tobi: I don’t actually.
Elizabeth: I’ve been blogging since then.
Tobi: I’ve also been blogging that same amount of time. I started an interior design blog back in – it’s been 12 years maybe this month. So right about the same amount of time as you. And like you probably, I was on the forefront of that movement in the interior design industry and seems like a lifetime ago back when we were doing all those things. And I can so relate. I love that story.
And you may want to tell us more about it but even just to kind of give you some validation and some feedback, so many of the people who listen to the podcast I know are just like that. They were in other careers and then they had a calling to do something different or they just found themselves doing it for themselves and suddenly now they’re in this other career. So I can so relate. So then you moved into your blogging, and then what happened?
Elizabeth: Yeah, blogging. I happened across nutrition. I was there first. They called it distance learning back then. Now it’s all online, but the IIN program used to be in person in New York. I was living in Denver. They were piloting this idea where they would send you an iPod with all of the content on it, and then there was an online forum.
I was in the first group that did that. And started to understand around that same time that I could actually turn my blog into something that made money. And again, hindsight is always 20/20 and anybody who’s listening to this, it doesn’t matter when you start blogging. You can have a super uber successful blog whether you start now, in a year from now, doesn’t matter when you start.
It just matters that you go about it in the right way. And people like me just kind of – I was stumbling a lot and I don’t mind that. It’s the nature of the business because nobody was really doing it back then. So I didn’t know what to do. Now there’s a lot of plans, you can follow systems, there’s a lot to do. So anybody who’s listening, I want you to know that you can start whenever you want.
But again, I didn’t even know what would be an exact plan, but I started to understand that I could sell things on this blog where I was having a massive amount of traffic. I still have over eight million page views a year just from organic traffic. And I was like wow, I could do something with all these people coming here.
Tobi: That’s so fascinating. I love, first of all, that you gave everybody permission to still blog. Because so often we hear blogs are dead, nobody’s reading them, yeah, maybe you need it for your Google search or whatever, and I love that you’re saying not only are they not dead, you could literally start one now, a year from now, or any time and it has so much power to grow your business. So cool.
Elizabeth: I mean, the whole notion that blogs are dead is the worst business advice I’ve ever heard. Blogs are alive and well. That little thing that we all use every day called Google takes people to your blog and it’s beyond me. Whoever is saying that blogs are dead obviously has never had a successful blog because blogs are very much alive and I think it’s the lowest cost of entry into the world of online business.
Tobi: Yeah, I love that so much. So then you have all these people following you and they’re like, I want you to coach me and all of that stuff, right? Immediately people come out of the woodwork and they’re like, tell me how to do this, teach me how to do this, can you help me do this? And I’m sure then your business, your coaching business just explodes from there, right?
Elizabeth: Well, it wasn’t that easy for sure. But what happened, what was interesting, as I was blogging and I started to understand, I took B-School. I was Marie’s second year B-School when it was still just voiceover slides. And I had this epiphany where the information she was giving me was great and valuable and I needed it, but I had this meta level epiphany of I can sell programs about nutrition and record them on slides like she’s doing, just the way she’s teaching me about business.
It was that meta level of like, the way she was doing it was like oh. And so I started to understand that. I started to sell my nutrition programs. In my network marketing business, I became one of the fastest growers and was in their top 25 growers for four years and become one of the top earners in the US. I signed up over 500 distributors and 2000 customers worldwide because I was integrating my product into my online program.
And it was hugely successful and it was really then when everyone around me was like, teach me what you’re doing. And that’s when I started doing a lot of the business coaching because so many other people who are in health and wellness wanted to know what I was doing.
Tobi: Yes. So I have a very similar story and I can relate, and I love when that happens when you’re sitting in a conference or a meeting or you’re in a program or whatever and exactly like you’re saying, not only are you hearing their content, which is great, but you’re just having an awareness of oh my gosh, they’re teaching me what they’re doing it while they’re doing it to me. And I’m seeing how I could go out and model that in my own business.
I absolutely love and can relate to every piece of that. So good. Okay, so then you put all of those practices to work and that was how long ago that you started your online business?
Elizabeth: Oh gosh, I mean, I never really put a flag in the sand and said now I’m starting my online business. I was kind of starting it all along, so I mean, I would say over the last 10 years. And I really want to make it clear to people like, this all sounds like it’s wrapped up in a bow and like, oh, it just happened. And it’s not the way it happened.
I still feel like I’m just getting started. I run a multiple six-figure, seven-figure business and I still feel like I’m just getting started. So anyone who’s listening to this, I just want to be really clear. I didn’t know how this was going to turn out. I just kept saying yes to the next thing.
Tobi: Yes. And you’re still doing that, which is great. I think that’s such great advice. I just came off of a call earlier with my own coaching program, and the way I got into IIN and then also into life coach training was because I needed it in my own life. So I’ve been that creative, like a lot of my listeners, and that’s one of the reasons I’m so excited to talk to you about your book today is I was struggling with the balancing of work and health and wellness, and I was the last person on the list.
So I was like well, let me go learn about nutrition. And then I saw how I could fold that into my business and let me go learn life coaching, and I saw how I could fold that into my business. But I think like you’re saying, it’s not like we have this roadmap that we see from beginning to end and we know exactly where we’re going.
We literally just learn something, practice it, put it into place and see where that goes. So I love that you’re giving people confidence to think that way because I feel like what holds so many people back and they’re standing on the sidelines is they feel like they need the whole roadmap. And you’re saying that’s not even really possible, and probably not advised either, right? Because what we would decide is way less exciting and less powerful than what presents itself to you so many times.
Elizabeth: Oh yeah. I mean, to be honest, I don’t think a roadmap for everyone exists. I think there are methods and there are systems and there are strategies, and we should learn those and we should follow them, but really, it’s ultimately up to you to make the decisions at the decision points of which way am I going to go.
And I think people choose hard a lot. I tell people all the time, choose the path of least resistance that’s going to get you results. And so a good example of this, the way people sabotage themselves, like you just said, someone, who even knows, no credible blogger has ever said that blogging is dead, but someone apparently said that blogging was dead and then people just believed that.
Don’t take advice from people who aren’t doing what you want to do. That’s the way we sabotage ourselves. So the path of least resistance to create success is to model what other successful people are doing. Not copy them, but model it and modeling means you’re looking at what is successful and you’re making it your own.
Tobi: I was just going to say that’s the whole Brené Brown thing. If you’re not even in the arena, why am I listening to your advice about what I’m doing? And yes, so good. Okay, so let’s start moving into what you really do on a daily basis and this amazing book that I messaged you after I got my copy and I was like, oh my gosh, and I wrote you a review on Amazon because that’s how much I loved this.
And it’s called The Health Habit, which I’m doing so much work in my own life and people hear me talk about it on the podcast a lot about habits and there are so many great books and information out there right now. But I love how you’re bringing this together in a very, very, very practical way because we get so much information on nutrition and health and wellness and exercise and all the things.
And I think that it can become very overwhelming, it can seem not doable, it seems like one more job when we have all these other jobs. Like we’ve already been talking about, to blog and to sell our services and all that stuff.
So where did this book come from and let’s start getting into this whole concept of the health habit because I want them to know how straightforward and simple your methods and your thinking are because it’s so doable. So where did this book come from and this idea?
Elizabeth: So the funny thing about this book that I think a lot of people probably don’t realize, and this happens with a lot of books, this book was not titled until I was done with it, which was driving me crazy while I was writing it. I really wanted a title. And my publishers, Hay House, they kept saying you know, just keep writing, keep creating what you know.
Went through a bunch of different titles. At first it was The Wellness Playbook, then it was Healthy Without the Hard, which putting those words on paper, the only thing it looked like was healthy is hard, so we had to get rid of that. The designer mocked up 12 different covers and we just couldn’t make it work.
So there wasn’t a title but Hay House contacted me and asked me to write a women’s healthy lifestyle book. And I was, of course, elated because who wouldn’t be? And then when I sat down to write it, like, oh crap, what does that even mean? And at first, the first draft of this book – and I’ll tell everyone, if you want to write a book, one, you don’t need anybody’s permission. Just write your book.
And two, you have to be willing to get that crappy first draft out because the first draft is always crappy and just accept it. So your book, write it, and then you’re going to end up rewriting it. But you know what, you’re not going to get to that great final product unless you’re willing to get the crappy first draft up. That’s actually true with just about anything you ever create.
So the first version of this book was really siloed, where it was a holistic health book, but every concept, like food and nutrition, home, how we think, everything was like a very individual chapter and it didn’t flow together. I finished it. It due at Hay House the next week and I sent my editor an email and I was like – because I had this 4am epiphany. And 3-4am is an auspicious time in the day. It’s when you have your best ideas.
Often you’re sleeping at that time, hopefully, but it’s when we get most clear. So if you ever wake up in the morning between 3 and 4am and you have an amazing idea, write it down because it’s your consciousness telling you what is right.
I had one of those moments. I woke up at like 3:30 in the morning and I was like, this needs to be seven steps that flow together. And it was so interesting, I couldn’t even write fast enough. It was in me, I just had to get it onto paper. And I wrote the entire new outline in 20 minutes, went back to sleep, woke up the next morning and was like, this is it. So I sent my editor an email and I was like, I need to rewrite this book.
And she was like, you know, I just had three months to rewrite it. And she had liked the draft I’d given her, but I told her my new idea and she’s like, I think we can make this work. I got an extension for another 10 weeks. We started from scratch and were super happy with the final product. So it was very frustrating. It was a long process, but you have to be willing to get that crappy first draft out.
Tobi: It’s so good. I’m like so many women who have literally read every nutrition and health book, especially every diet book, tried all of them, and then come back to feeling frustrated and just always searching that there’s like a magic – not even a magic pill, but like a secret out there that we just don’t know yet. And that’s what I loved about this because, from the very beginning, I opened it – I mean literally, I think I’ve tagged you on Instagram because I underlined like every page of your whole book. I’m one to write notes in the margins and use it as really a textbook.
And from the very beginning, it drew me in with how it’s just common sense and straightforward in so many ways, except there’s just so many, not just nuggets, but beyond that, even epiphanies of some things that we’re doing that are setting us up for failure. Even pretty early in the book, you start to talk about a couple of things that kind of start to flow together.
One, I love this concept of drama versus trauma and that it doesn’t have to be traumatic to get a dramatic result. And then you move into talking about the right way to goal set. So can we kind of hang out with those two ideas for a minute? Because I think so many of us are looking for – we think, if we’re going to have this giant transformation, that it has to be a big deal and we have to suffer, which you’re saying is not true, and then we’re just kind of doing it wrong, even the goal setting piece.
Elizabeth: Yeah, absolutely, so dramatic change does not have to be traumatic. I think you’re right. I think media has led women to believe that there’s one little secret or one thing and if you could just learn it and do it then everything will be solved, and that’s just not true.
Not only is that not true in general, but that’s not true for an individual. It’s really about the daily small steps that you take. So if somebody wants to change their gut health or change their weight or change one thing, or change something about their life, it’s not like, oh if you just do this one little thing you’re going to be perfect. That doesn’t exist.
And it doesn’t have to be traumatic. The whole – I’m sure you probably felt this in the book – the whole underlying feeling of this book is you have to enjoy your daily health practices or you will never stick to them. And you can find things you will enjoy. So what happens is people try to do a prescribed plan from someone else. They’re like, really, I don’t actually like any of this but she said I needed to do it, so I’m going to do it.
And then even if you can do it for a month or six months or a year, you will eventually fall off of it. And your life is meant to be enjoyed. I’m so about your life is meant to be enjoyed. So the book is about helping individuals find what works for them and brings them daily joy, but also brings them daily health.
And a lot of that, starting with the book you mentioned about goal setting, what I’ve noticed – and this is from a business perspective as well, but it applies to health just as much – people confuse desired outcomes and daily actionable goals. So your goals need to be daily and actionable.
So, for instance, a lot of women will say – and I’ll just use weight as an example because this comes up a lot – my goal is to lose 15 pounds. And that’s okay, but that is a desired outcome. If you want that desired outcome to happen in your life, your goals have to be daily and actionable.
For instance, I will eat 30 grams of protein within an hour of waking up and I will consume no more than 25 grams of added sugar per day. Those are daily and actionable and that will help you get to that desired outcome.
Tobi: Yes, I mean, I wrote all over these pages of the book, on page six actually. So we’re hardly even into the book and I’m like oh my gosh, because you’re so right. And we’re wondering why we’re confused because when we have that desired outcome, like you’re saying, of 15 pounds, there is no clarity on the actions there. We’re just kind of hanging out in, like, confusion land of, well I could try this or this, and you’re just saying it’s so simple. Make a few key decisions, consistently do those, and then measure and see where you are towards your goals. And a lot of times, we’re even going to be there at our goal with just some small incremental changes, which is again where I was saying to you, oh my gosh, this makes so much sense, and I just love it.
So another thing, back to what you were saying about the drama versus trauma, as I call it, is I love where you even said – and absolutely I know I have certain things that I don’t eat that often because they don’t make me feel great, like maybe dairy or other things. But heck yeah, if I go over to somebody’s house and they’re having pizza, I’m not going to make a big deal out of it, I’m just going to eat some pizza, or a piece, or just be flexible sometimes. And I think that that kind of thinking that’s not so traumatic and not so much a line in the sand just made me take a big deep breath. And it’s like, oh my gosh, it’s okay. Because most of will go ahead and eat the whatever it is, the pizza, but then we’ll beat ourselves up about it and that’s where all the drama comes in.
And so again, just in the individual sentences already, by page six, I was thinking, oh my gosh, you’re giving us permission to be normal, to not make a big deal out of it, but to just get up every day and do something that moves us towards our health goals, which is why the book title is so great, as you were saying, because it’s really just a health habit, right?
Elizabeth: Yeah, absolutely, and it’s permission to be human. I mean, when I think of food specifically, and your listeners can dive into this in the book, but there are two types of people. There are abstainers and there are moderators. And you know which one you are by which one makes you feel more free.
Some people who are abstainers like to have very strict boundaries, like they like to use terms like gluten-free, like I’m gluten-free or I’m vegan, whatever it is, because they feel more free having fewer choices. That feels good to them. A moderator is someone like me. I’m a moderator, where I feel more free knowing what foods make me feel good but also, like you were saying, if it’s Friday night and I’m at a friend’s and there’s a flatbread or something, I’m just going to eat it because I don’t have a severe intolerance or sensitivity or allergy to those things. And I’m not going to beat myself up about it.
So again, one of the problems in food and nutrition is that abstainers are trying to convert moderators into abstainers and people who are moderators, the abstainers can’t handle it. So you can understand which one you are. One’s not better than the other, that’s the other thing. We think one’s better than the other and that’s not true either.
So knowing if you’re an abstainer or a moderator will help you a lot, but also, on average, depending on how you eat, if you eat snacks or meals three to five times a day, that’s about 2000 times per year that you eat roughly. And I don’t know anyone who can get something correct 2000 out of 2000 times without any human error. That almost does not exist.
So the fact that we think we have to do something perfect out of 2000 times I don’t think exists, and I think it’s absurd to put that kind of pressure on ourselves. So again, it’s about moving towards what makes you feel good, not wrapping yourself in what I call the box of flavorless perfection.
Tobi: Yeah, I agree, and I’ve heard people say about, say a certain diet book or something, you know, this does work for the people who are similar to the author. But then all these other people read it and are confused why it doesn’t work for them. And that’s why I love the way you approach this because you’re like, there’s different types of us. We have different biology. We have different things that we love, preferences. We have different lifestyles.
And so I think that you really give us permission to make it work for us. And one of the way you do that is you move into this concept of qualitarian eating or qualitarian lifestyle. So speak a little bit about that because I like this as a concept as opposed to eat this particular thing, it’s really just that whole idea of up-leveling kind of across the board of what you’re choosing.
Elizabeth: Yeah, so the qualitarian way applies to anyone, whether you want to label your eating habits or not. It’s just that the quality of your feed matters the most, which is a pretty simple concept. But I think it also gives us a lot of freedom and it allows us to take that breath and go, oh okay that’s better.
Just because something’s gluten-free, doesn’t mean it’s healthy. In fact, if it’s packaged and it’s gluten-free, it’s probably not healthy, you know. Same with there’s a lot of really processed vegan foods. So what I think is most important for the human body is, is this quality food? And qualitarian questions are questions are like, did this, whether it’s animal based or plant based, did this come from a natural source? How modified is this food? What has been added to this food? All of those are important questions.
Tobi: Yeah, so I love that because, like you said, the best part – and I love freedom. I don’t know if you know anything about the Enneagram. We happen to be reading it in my coaching program, just for fun, as a book club. And I’m an eight and we love freedom and we don’t want anybody to tell us what to do. And I was giggling when I was learning that about myself, but then I was reading your book kind of at the same time and I was lie, this makes so much sense for me because I want the freedom to get to make these choices. But I also do really want to be healthy.
I want to feel good every day. I don’t want to feel older than I am. I don’t want to have my joints hurt. I don’t want to not have stamina to run my big business or take it to another level. And I think just throughout the book, all these components that you’re talking about, you’ve said freedom like four times and every time you say it, it’s just music to my ears because I think that’s the opposite of what we have so often when we are trying to get healthy or lose weight or make a change. We just think restriction, restriction, restriction and we rarely think freedom, and that is really what I think your whole approach is really about.
So as we’re talking about this, I’m thinking about most of my audience and my tribe and my members and my coaching program, and it’s probably the same as a lot of yours, are women who are busy. Some of the have children, a lot of them have businesses or they might work for another business, but we have a lot on our plate, right? And I think that so often, the last person on that list is us and so how would you help people take these concepts that we’re talking about already, and there’s so many more in the book and we’ll talk about a few more in a minute, and really start to fold them into their life when their brain is always saying, I don’t have time, I don’t have time for one more thing, one more concept, even one more book.
What do you advise that people do to really start – because I think that’s what I love about this. You’re like, just start with a piece. Start small and make it actionable.
Elizabeth: Yeah, so first of all, you have to be in a position where you run your day, your day doesn’t run you. And you do have time. We all have the same 24 hours in a day. So anyone who’s saying I don’t have time, that is a form of self-sabotage.
Now, I know that you have a lot on your plate and I know you’re busy, just like any other woman on the planet, but you do have time and the way you make more time, there’s a whole chapter that they can read in the book called the Book End Method, where a daily morning routine where you take care of your health first and an evening routine to set you up for sleep, it can be as little as five or 10 minutes, it can be 30 minutes, whatever it is, I walk you through how to find the best one for you, will actually create more time in your day because it will create a sense of inner peace.
And if anybody was starting, I would say start there. You have to create that because, let me just say it this way. Let’s say you’re a mom. You’re a better mom if you’ve taken care of yourself because you can show up more fully for the people in your life. You are a better entrepreneur, you’re a better business owner, a better wife, friend, employee, whatever it is that you do on a daily basis and who you interact with. If you’ve taken that piece of time to take care of yourself, you show up in a better way for everybody else in your life.
Tobi: Yeah, and five minutes, there’s no way we can argue that five minutes is an either or with anything, right? I mean, everybody has five minutes twice a day. We know we’re wasting far more than that.
So, let’s talk a little bit about the home because this gets into my area and my category of interior design, which I love. And you have a whole, well, a chapter called, I think it’s about the home detox. And there’s several chapters that really start to talk about your environment.
So talk a little bit about that. Like, how do you start to detox your environment and what role does the home play in setting up these healthy health habits?
Elizabeth: Sure, so I want to make it clear, there is no interior design because I do not know anything about interior design. So the detoxing your home chapter, first of all, your environment sets the stage for you to execute your healthy habits. So your environment is absolutely critical to the success of your healthy habits.
Now, it doesn’t mean that it has to look a certain way. Obviously you’re an interior designer, the aesthetic that makes you feel good is important, but it doesn’t matter how much money you spend, it doesn’t matter where you go to TJ Maxx or you go to the highest end home store. It’s not about the cost or anything like that. But it’s about setting up an environment for yourself that makes you want to engage in your healthy habits.
What you keep in your kitchen, how you have your laundry set up, all of this is so important. so I go through a lot of really simple ways, even making your own healthy cleaning sprays, making your own healthy cleaning sprays from distilled water, distilled white vinegar, and some essential oils and maybe some baking soda is far less expensive than anything you’ll buy at the store and healthier.
Now, you don’t have to do that. Of course, there’s Meyer’s and there’s healthy cleaning sprays you can buy. If that’s better for you, do that. The way you do one thing is the way that you’ll start to do everything. So if you’re struggling with food, maybe detox your laundry, detox your home, and let that spill into other areas of your life because studies show, when you change one area of your life, you are more likely to change others as well.
Tobi: Yeah, it’s so true. And I agree with you totally, this is really one of the things that I believe in the most about the home and I agree with you, as much as we could have a really good time as interior designers, spending a ton of money on luxury goods, it can be the most beautiful environment in the world, and if it’s not setting you up for success to support your health, your wellness, your daily routine and all of those things, it’s really not serving you in any way. So I love that you said that, and I completely agree.
So there are some things that you talk about in the book, including things like checking our blood sugar every day and just various little steps that you recommend people do. And I mean, I’m thinking, I’ve never thought about checking my blood sugar. I’m not a diabetic.
So what are the four or five key things? If people are saying, I hear you, Elizabeth, I do have time in my day like everybody else, but it feels like I don’t have that much time, where should I start? Is it my environment? Is it the goal setting? Is it checking my blood sugar or eating a certain way? What are the top two or three things that you think people should start with to really start making the biggest difference in their health and wellness?
Elizabeth: Yeah, so everything spills into each other. So even if you do pick two or three things, to be honest, I don’t care what two or three things they are in the book, it’s going to have a domino effect and you’ll make other changes as well. So it really depends on the individual. There’s not just two or three things that everyone should do, although I can give you a few.
Number one – well, read the whole book, I would just say that. It’s not a long book. There’s 50 recipes in the back and it’s 280 pages, so it’s less than 200 pages of content and it’s laid out in a full color layout, so it’s a really easy read. You can get the Audible version. I recorded it for Audible, because you’ll start to understand how it all ties together.
But if somebody wanted some action steps, for women especially, it doesn’t matter if you don’t think that you are ever even going to have to utter the word diabetes, you have to be checking your blood sugar numbers. Pre-diabetes typically exists in somebody for 10 to 15 years before it’s even diagnosed. So it doesn’t matter what your weight is, even if you’re at a healthy weight, you need to be checking your blood sugar numbers because if your blood sugar numbers are off, it’s going to throw your cortisol off, your adrenal glands, everything off.
So I recommend in the book, and I teach people how to do this, you get your blood glucose monitor at the pharmacy. If you’re out of the normal range, god, make some changes to the amount of sugar that you’re eating. So before, even if people didn’t want to get a blood glucose monitor, no more than 25 grams of added sugar per day. That does not include fresh whole fruits and vegetables.
So eat your whole banana, eat your whole berries, eat your whole peach, whatever it is, that doesn’t count. I’m talking about added sugars. No more than 25 grams per day. If you can get down to zero, that’s even better. Most days, for me personally, it’s zero grams of added sugar.
I used to even put honey in my coffee, because it was a natural sugar, I used to add things. I still occasionally add honey to things, maybe if I’m making a treat, but there’s absolutely no added sugar of any kind in what I eat. I use whole pieces of fruit to sweeten things and that has made a huge difference in my health.
So reducing your sugar intake, number one, but again, if that’s hard, if the food stuff is hard, start with some of the home stuff. Start with the goal setting. Start with the daily actionable goals. You know, there’s not one thing because everyone’s going to have different goals, but if you go through the book, you are going to find your few steps that are going to help you.
Tobi: I love that. So just whatever really resonates with you, lights you up, gets you excited, do that first. You’re saying there’s no order, it doesn’t really matter where you start, just start.
So, once you’ve started and you’re starting to see results, you have a whole chapter, which I think is so important, on how to stick to your healthy habits. Because a lot of people are really good at losing weight or starting programs, but it’s the maintaining, it’s kind of that monotony of continuing to do it forever where they fall off.
So as we really kind of tie this up with a bow, because there’s so much wonderful stuff in there, and let me just say too real quick, as an interior designer, they can get the Audible book, but I don’t recommend it because the book is beautiful. The images are beautiful, the layout is beautiful. And so those that are visually, you know, inclined like me are going to love the physical book. But when they get to chapter eight about sticking to their healthy habits, how do we kind of really tie up this concept of putting these things in and sticking with them?
Elizabeth: Yeah, absolutely, I mean, there’s a lot of content in there, but I also – something I really want to leave women with especially is you are free to wake up every morning and re-choose. So if yesterday you feel like you didn’t make the right choices, do not go down the rabbit hole and the spiral of self-deprecation. You have a whole new day to re-choose. Re-choose healthier foods. You can re-choose healthier thoughts. You can re-choose to take healthier steps.
So that’s a big think, I think, you know. My friend Kyle Cease, who is a transformational speaker recently said to me – this blew my mind and I really want women to understand this too – “The past actually doesn’t exist. It only exists in your mind and you have selective memory.”
So everything, when we think about what we’re doing now, we often go, well but I did this, or I tried this, or he said this or she said this or this is what happened when I did that. All of that is true. It’s not that it’s not true. But the only moment that matters is the present moment and you can re-choose at any moment. And that is one of the most powerful things I’ve ever experienced mindset wise to shift myself.
And when you start to choose to treat your body like it’s a temple, like you want to be here for a long time, you have a lot of goodness to spread around the world, you will start putting better things in your body. So I would just say you are free to re-choose at any moment.
There’s a lot of tips in the book about sticking to healthy habits, like use phrases like, I don’t, not I can’t. So instead of saying I can’t have chocolate ice cream, say I don’t have chocolate ice cream on Monday nights, whatever it is. And I walk people through a lot of those ideas.
I just want to say about the design, thank you for saying that about the design. I am not a designer, of course, I’m not a book designer. Hay House hired Shubhani Sarkar who also – who designed Gwyneth Paltrow’s books, to do the layout of this book, and she just knocked it out of the park. So props to her, she did such a great job.
Tobi: Yeah, it’s just beautiful. The photography is beautiful. And I work with a lot of color in my business, there’s beautiful color and layout and it’s great. So you may not be an interior designer, but you play one well in your books. It looks really great.
So this has been so helpful and it just speaks to my heart. Everything that you’re saying, the freedom to choose, the freedom to start over, the not having to wait until the end of the day or the end of the week or the next month or the New Year to start over, but literally in your next decision, right following the one you just made you can choose differently, you can choose again.
I think there’s just so much wisdom in that, and you even give people, if they are looking for that big transformation, if they are looking for a kick start, because sometimes people really want that, they want a clean slate sort of model, you even do give a 28-day plan that they can just jump in with both feet, if that’s what serves them.
Elizabeth: Yes, there’s a flexible 28-day kick start at the end. And I think it’s flexible because you can choose what you eliminate, you can choose what you do. I can give you suggestions, but if that doesn’t work for you, you can make some decisions to change it. I called it a 28-day healthy habits kick start because it’s not a 28-day detox, it’s not a 28-day diet, it’s a kick start to your new healthier lifestyle.
Tobi: Yeah, it’s so, so good. Well thank you, A, for writing the book. I am loving everything about it. And just in a world where we hear constantly all these rules and you have to do this and you must do this and don’t do this, it just is so refreshing to say, you know what, you get to decide. You get to decide what’s right for you. You get to decide what works for you. And even if you don’t like what you decided, you can choose differently the next day or the next moment. So thank you so much for writing this for us busy women and our families, and thank you so much for being here on the podcast to share with people because I knew, when I read this book, I knew you had to be on the show.
I wanted people to hear from you and know you if they didn’t already know you and just have permission to show up in a way that works for them and create their own health habits. So I’m just super grateful for you, for all those things.
Elizabeth: Thanks for having me. I so appreciate it. And I want everyone to know, if you buy the book, go over to my website, elizabethrider.com and click on book and there’s a big package of free downloads that you can get when you buy the book
Tobi: Yeah, and you have all kinds of things, so once they’re there on your site, they can find all the things you do. You have coaching programs and you have memberships and you have all kinds of stuff. So however deep they want to go in this process and with your guidance, you offer all sorts of ways that they can do that. So they can find all of that there, right, at your website.
Elizabeth: Yep, everything’s there.
Tobi: Perfect, well I have to have you back soon. Once I start implementing this, seriously, I’m going to be like, okay, now what? You’re going to have to come back for part two and I think this would be a great book that we will – I’m going to definitely propose it to my community for one of our next book club books because I just think it is fabulous. So when we do that, maybe we’ll have you come over and talk to that crew.
Elizabeth: Oh, I would love to.
Tobi: Thank you so much. And I’ve got to finish – I think I have like two chapters that I’m going to go back and dig into again, and then this stuff, I mean, it’s already in my life, so thank you, thank you, and I’ll talk to you really soon.
Elizabeth: Alright, thanks for having me, bye everyone.
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Okay, so I loved every moment of that. And Elizabeth, as you can tell, is just so smart. She’s a genius in so many ways. And if she said freedom once, she said it 20 times, and that was music to my ears because I love the freedom to create a process or a system that works for me, and that’s why I love this book so much. So go get the book, and as Elizabeth said in the show, head over to her website at elizabethrider.com and get all of the freebie stuff that she has there for you to help implement the book, a bunch of cool bonuses, and a bunch of other things because I know you’re going to love it as much as I do. I’m already putting so much of this stuff to work in my own life.
And if you’re in my Design You coaching program, or if you want to join, get in there because I’m going to follow up with Elizabeth because we’re definitely going to do the Health Habit as a book club book in the Design You coaching program really soon, which I cannot wait.
So, check out Design You, check out Elizabeth Rider, and meet me back here next week, where we’ll have another amazing episode of The Design You Podcast. Bye for now, friends.
Thank you so much for joining me for this episode of The Design You Podcast. And if you’d like even more support for designing a business and a life that you love, then check out my exclusive monthly coaching program Design You at tobifairley.com.
