Rick and Kyrk talk with registered dietician Mary Plowman to discuss the parallels between health and finances. One of the top expense retirees have is healthcare. Mary gives tips on ways you can try to reduce that as much as possible, no matter where you’re at in your health journey. No matter your age, your fitness level or your financial status, you’re sure to takeaway something from this episode!
Mary Plowman and any mentioned companies are not affiliated with The O.N. Equity Sales Company or O.N. Investment Management Company.
Kyrk Davis is a Registered Representative offering Securities through The O.N. Equity Sales Company, Member FINRA/SIPC, One Financial Way Cincinnati, Ohio 45242 (513) 794-6794. Kyrk Davis is an Investment Advisor Representative offering Investment Advisory services through O.N. Investment Management Company. Estate planning services provided in conjunction with your licensed legal professional.
Rick and Kyrk talk with registered dietician Mary Plowman to discuss the parallels between health and finances. One of the top expense retirees have is healthcare. Mary gives tips on ways you can try to reduce that as much as possible, no matter where you’re at in your health journey. No matter your age, your fitness level or your financial status, you’re sure to takeaway something from this episode!
Mary Plowman and any mentioned companies are not affiliated with The O.N. Equity Sales Company or O.N. Investment Management Company.
Kyrk Davis is a Registered Representative offering Securities through The O.N. Equity Sales Company, Member FINRA/SIPC, One Financial Way Cincinnati, Ohio 45242 (513) 794-6794. Kyrk Davis is an Investment Advisor Representative offering Investment Advisory services through O.N. Investment Management Company. Estate planning services provided in conjunction with your licensed legal professional.
Welcome to the How to Win podcast. I'm Kyrk Davis. And I'm Rick Gregory. Want to know how to win in life and in your finances? Then you're in the right place. On this podcast, we'll be talking about everyday topics and how they relate to your overall financial future. so welcome back to the How to Win Podcast. Today we're joined with Mary Plowman, who is a registered dietician. Welcome to the show, Mary. Thanks, Kirk. It's good to be here. Mary, it's very nice to meet you. Could you tell us about yourself and kind of what exactly is a registered dietician? Yeah, absolutely. So like I said, my name is Mary Plowman. I am a registered dietician licensed in Kentucky. What it means to be a registered dietician is that I have the registration and credentialing provided by the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics that I got after completing a Bachelor's of Science in Dietetics followed that up with a supervised practice internship through the University of Kentucky Hospital here. And also with the Lexington VA. And that paired well with my local schooling from Eastern Kentucky University. And then after that I sat for my boards, which is a big bear of a test that you take and then get a piece of paper and then I get to practice. So the difference between like a dietician and a nutritionist that you may, you know, see on social media or things like that is that there's a lot of that extra stuff like I just talked about, that you have to have to proclaim yourself as a registered dietician. And not so much with nutritionist. And I can work kind of in any scenario or field that I want to. So I work right now as a clinical dietician at the University of Kentucky Transplant Center, which is very cool. So I get to work with patients who are either pursuing transplants or who have already gotten a transplant in the past cuz there's a lot of cool nutrition stuff and nutrition requirements that those patients have to follow. And then I'm also the nutrition coach at the gym local to me in Richmond, which is CrossFit Cygnus that I actually go to with Kyrk. So kind of get to teach all different types of people in both of those roles. Yeah, so that's actually where we met was at CrossFit Cygnus probably we're getting close to a year ago now, I guess. So Mary, have you always wanted to be a dietician or how'd you, how'd you get going down that career path? Gotcha. So I didn't always wanna be a dietician and I remember feeling kind of as the outlier in my undergrad program when everyone there knew they wanted to do that from, you know, when they were little. I didn't know that it was a thing. It's kind of one of those you don't know what you don't know. And then I met a dietician whenever I was younger, just at like a health fair and learned that profession even existed. So I was already really heavily involved in sports, like soccer and track and things like that. And I have multiple family members who have had disease or nutrition related diseases like diabetes, high blood pressure and heart disease as well. So I really saw how important it was to have good nutrition to help prevent those things or to help treat them after. So that's what inspired me to go that route instead of anything else. Awesome. Thank you for sharing that. The whole reason that we put this show together was we wanted to take everyday topics that most people don't really associate with financial planning and show how they're actually interconnected with your money. So Mary, I asked you to join us today because I was recently reading an article that was put out by AARP talking about the largest expenses that retirees have. Rick, if you had to guess, what do you think a few of the top expenses would probably be? Well, I'm going to say probably travel, spoiling grandkids and your house, you gotta have a place to live, but I'm kind of pulling your leg and I'm pretty sure that I'm wrong. So that's the fun stuff that everybody likes to spend money on. But actually the cost of healthcare is ranked higher than all of those things. So as a financial advisor, part of my duty is to prepare my clients to eventually retire and to have enough money to live the life that they want to without having to go back to work. In short, we try to tackle this situation from both ends. How do we save and grow a portfolio and how do we reduce expenses as much as possible while still maintaining the fund and high quality of life that they like? Seeing that healthcare is likely to be one of the largest line items in a retiree's budget, I thought it would be appropriate to explore ways to reduce that as much as possible. Obviously, I'm not a medical professional or qualified to give any real advice on healthcare. But I've observed in my own life that fitness and nutrition play a big role in our overall health. Mary, I know you could have probably talked about the subject all day. But in general, what does the science say and what have you observed in your career as far as the effects of nutrition and exercise throughout your life and how that goes into a higher quality of life in retirement? So, Yeah, absolutely. Those are all great points and initially I was kind of surprised to learn that healthcare costs are one of the bigger line items as far as for retirees. But when you think about it, it does make sense. Just because of increasing rates of disease, obesity, things like that. But truthfully, the importance of good nutrition and fitness while you're young cannot be overstated. It's obviously important throughout your entire life, but creating those foundations whenever you're younger really sets you up for success in the future and makes it easier to maintain those healthy habits because we're all creatures of habit. And if you have lived an entire life of not being intentional about your health and nutrition and sometimes that's to no fault of your own. like I said earlier, you don't know what you don't know, most people do, what their family does, what their parents did, what their grandparents did, we all tend to kind of follow suit. So if good nutrition and fitness weren't prioritized in your childhood, then that's likely not something that you're gonna prioritize as an adult. So I really like to push that it starts at an early age, but that's not to say that in your sixties you can't jump in on the bandwagon like people say and really learn about nutrition and fitness. Cuz all of the top 10 comorbidities or disease states that contribute to those rising healthcare costs, like you were saying, so things like obesity, diabetes, heart disease, even things like arthritis, sleep apnea, asthma, all of those that are really common nowadays. Those are all impacted by nutrition and fitness. Mm-hmm. So that's actually what led me to pursue this career in dietetics because it can always be prevention. Sometimes people don't stumble into a dietician's office until they're in their fifties. But we can work with that, we can prevent whatever disease it is from getting worse. Or we can prevent a new disease from occurring or escalating to a point where it becomes unmanageable. Things like that. So, obviously you can't control what your family history or your genetics are. I think about myself like that. I have a lot of family history that's kind of working against me, but you can control what you eat and how much you move your body to a certain degree, so prioritizing your nutrition and fitness now at whatever point you are in your life really decreases either the risk of developing those diseases later in life so that you aren't spending your retirement in and out of doctor's offices, hospital visits, physical therapy, things like that. And then also just so that you have that greater quality of life, even if you don't currently have any disease states like that. Okay, Mary, so, so we just met here. You are picking on the 50, 60 year old people and my diet and my arthritis, which I complained about is hurting. And so I've got a question. Yes. So do I have to eat yogurt and fruit for breakfast every morning? Go to the CrossFit gym five days a week, or can I have some biscuits and gravy sometimes? No, you do not have to do all of those things every day. You definitely don't have to eat yogurt and fruit and hit the gym hard every day. You can absolutely have your biscuits eng gravy occasionally. What science really shows us now is that the occasional things that you do do not matter at all. And that goes both ways. The occasional healthier choice that you make, whether it's with your nutrition or with movement, if it's an occasional thing, doesn't really matter. If it's a negative aspect of it, where, let's say you eat whatever you want all day and it's something that you know is really high calorie, high fat, where you just feel really bad. At the end of the day, you're feeling sluggish, whatever. That one day also doesn't matter at all. It's really like what you're going to do, for the most part, for your life. So whatever your typical habits are, the outliers, I don't really worry about 'em. So I typically give my clients and patients full permission to whenever they, everybody, especially around here, you really have that time where you just need biscuits and gravy on a Saturday morning. So I say go for it. Okay, so it doesn't have to be that complicated is what you're saying. No, it definitely does not. Well, that's good. So it's obvious to me that a bit of work and prevention over the course of your life, it's gonna lead you to less trips to the doctor, less money spent on healthcare. And obviously when you get to retirement, ultimately a higher quality life, I can still go and do things that I wanna do if I am just a little bit careful early. Yes, absolutely. So what are the common misconceptions out there around nutrition and exercise too? I'll leave a little bit open-ended. What do you hear most often? Whenever I do seminars and lectures. I call those nutrition MythBusters, like the old show about MythBusters. This will be fun. That's a good show. So, yeah. I think the most common one though, from like a high level. So not anything super specific, but kind of like what you were touching on, Rick, is that the biggest conception about nutrition or disease prevention or anything like that is that it's complicated. It really isn't. I mean, don't get me wrong, there's plenty of science behind it. I went to school for a long time. You know, every healthcare professional does to help prevent people from being sick and whatnot. But at the end of the day, what the average person can do is not complicated to help improve their quality of life. But society and the media especially really try to overcomplicate these ideas. And it's usually for the sake of money, it's a company pushing a certain diet plan or that you have to buy this or you need to buy that, or you have to buy X supplement. And this is the key for youth and wellness and all that, but I like to put
it like this:prioritizing your health is simple, but it's certainly not easy. Easy. Mm-hmm. So the choices that you need to make are simple, but they're not easy. Especially now nowadays you're. Honestly in the minority or weird per se, for eating and exercising intentionally and thoughtfully. You know, how many times have you been the one, like in the break room or at a restaurant or whatever, and you're eating like let's say some kind of lean protein and a veggie and you know, you've picked one starch or whatever, and then someone rolls in with their extra large pizza or box of donuts or whatever, and then scoffs at you for making the healthier choices. Or maybe not you, but maybe you've done that to someone and you know, like, let's think about that, that. Used to, it was much more common for people to eat, more of like a whole food focused diet. And now we've really moved away from that. So because of all of this variety in our diet, though, there's all this complication, especially with social media and everything. So I think the biggest misconception is really just that there's some big secret to it when there really isn't, because as far as like nutrition in particular, Eating a varied diet that prioritizes protein, fruits and vegetables, and intentionally moving your body every single day. Like that's really it. That's the secret. You don't need to follow a specific diet, take the expensive supplements, whatever. If you prioritize those things more often than not, cause it doesn't need to be every day, then you're gonna see good results in the long term. Not just aesthetically either, but like internally. So we don't have to be perfect, Mary, from what you're saying to, to reach a goal, but we do have to start. So where do we start and how do we start? Oh, that's a great question cuz I tend to tell people, this can seem really overwhelming, especially if you don't think about these things, normally now and a lot of people are either obsessed with these things and don't actually do them, but you have that constant dread, like that dark cloud hanging over you that's like, oh, I know I need to make these healthier choices. Or you have other people who have really never been educated on this or who have no idea, so they don't have that baseline knowledge. So I get a lot of first time clients who are overwhelmed by it, which makes absolute sense. So usually what I tell people to start with is just to start with what you do right now and really look at that. So whether you want to focus on your activity levels first or your nutrition, pick something, pick one thing, focus on that. So let's say it's your nutrition and if you're really digging into it and you're recording what you're eating, and I don't mean it needs to be something meticulous, like blogging every single bite you take in a calorie counting app or something like that. I've had a lot of clients whenever they start with me, just take photos of everything they eat. Just so I can get an idea of their current habits. So then we pick one thing. So maybe your one thing that you notice in your diet is, Wow. I went three days without eating a vegetable on purpose. You know, I'll have some people say like, well, my cheeseburger at lunch had lettuce and tomato, and I'm like, yeah, that doesn't really count. You know, like, let's, let's be adults about it. Yeah, let's be adults about it. Have some ownership, some responsibility. So it's really best to just pick one thing. I don't necessarily think there's one thing in particular for every person to start with, cuz everyone's diet and exercise patterns right now are all a little different. But it's really best if you just pick one thing to work on, whether it's your vegetable intake or maybe you're not prioritizing protein, or perhaps you don't drink any water and you only drink caffeinated or sugary beverages, something like that. But studies show that choosing one thing to work on makes you like 90% more likely to maintain that habit over a year than if you picked three things to work on initially. So it seems like I'm crushing people's dreams a little bit at that first appointment with people cuz they want to hit the ground running, they really want to revamp their whole life. And I try to get people to pump the brakes on that because it's really hard to do that. So it's really best if you just pick the one thing, focus all of your time and energy on that, get it down and make it to where it is a habit that it's easy and it's second nature and then we tackle something else. Alright, Kyrk, so I'm gonna drill something at you. Okay. So since you guys have been picking on the oldest older people, so what about when you're talking to people that are your age, you know my age? Yeah. Okay. Yeah. You know, middle, you know, 30 ish, forties, maybe, just Yeah. But looks 12. Yeah, but that's true. But start maybe, and haven't really thought about in one thing their nutrition or their retirement. Yep. Well, this is a great thing. And that kind of like leads into a question that I had too while Mary was talking there. You know, she kinda hit the nail on the head with it. It's really hard when you look at, hey, there's 10 different things that I need to prioritize, and actually sticking to those. And that, very rarely works and only works for certain people that their mind is just built that way. And honestly, if your mind's built that way, you're probably don't have a problem to begin with. You've figured it out already. So yeah, I always try to give my clients. When we have a meeting, we build out a financial plan, and then we pick one or two, maybe three different things to work on over the next three to six months. And we prioritize that. That way they're not overwhelmed. And then as we get back together, that's when we can kind of see the progress that they made where they're struggling, and then kind of provide a little bit more guidance from there. If everything's going great, then we pick the next two or three items on the list and keep moving. Cuz I know if I give a client a list of 30 different things that they need to work on in their financial life, they're gonna come back six months later and be like, Oh, you know, I left that list in my car and then I cleaned it out next week and I lost a list and I didn't do anything. So yeah, so there's a big parallel with that. But one thing I haven't struggled with, and one thing that I have struggled with with my health and and fitness is, you know, I've never, well, I'm not gonna say never cause I used to be really, really fat. But it's okay. I can laugh about it now. But for the most part, I've not struggled with being active. So when I was in high school, I played golf every day. So I was always walking around the golf course. Then when I got into to college and I joined the National Guard I was active with that. When we first got outta outta college, that's when I officially started CrossFit, and then our gym closed down unfortunately. And so did my fitness habits and then I started getting fat again. But then I kind of picked that back up in 2018 and got back on the right track. So the exercise and moving piece of it, I never really struggled with, the eating piece, you know, one of the things that when I get stressed or when I get anxious, I'm a eater and it's typically not the good food. I'm not eating the, the salad with, with no dressing there. But let's go across the street to Steak N Shake and get a big burger and a milkshake. Large fry. Yeah. And then we're gonna drive around the Hamburg area while I eat that and, and sulk and think about whatever's stressing me out. And then I eat all that. I was like, That's not enough. I gotta go to Chick-fil-A. And this is a true story. This has happened to me at at times. I'm not proud of it, but I'll be honest. So, I don't know exactly where I'm going with this, but I've always kind of struggled with the nutrition side of things and Mary had put together a nutrition plan for me, I guess two months ago or so, and I thought it was gonna be something that was very, very involved of I had to eat this much fat, this much carb, this much protein, and had to track every single thing and MyFitnessPal or a similar app. But, but it didn't cuz I guess she knew that I was horrible at that kind of thing. And like she said, if she keeps giving me too many, too many moving pieces, I'm not gonna do any of it. So she really simplified it for me. And now I still wasn't perfect with it. There was still days and time periods in there that I just struggled. Cause there's life's complicated and had too many things going on, and it was still relatively new to me. But I can promise you that since then my eating habits have improved to, to some degree and my exercise habits haven't really changed. But I've actually seen progress. So I've lost a couple pounds, lost a couple inches, and it's because, again, and we'll get into, well I was kind of wanting to get into this piece a little bit later, but we can kind of talk about it now or at least this piece of it. But it's because those little things they do add up. And even if you're not perfect for whole entire day or the whole entire month, just little wins every single day kind of add up to some progress. Yeah, absolutely. So what Kyrk is talking about is our 30 day challenge at CrossFit Cygnus which is kind of my version of 75 hard. So 75 hard took off really hot like about five years ago or so. And it's a very strenuous program that requires people to do four specific things every single day in order to complete the program successfully. And one of those things is two workouts every single day, and it's to follow your diet that you set kind of perfectly and avoid alcohol and all these things. And you know, here recently TikTok, which as we know is the source of all truth and good things. That's definitely not accurate, but is it for some stuff, there's, there's another parallel. There's all these finance TikToks out there. Yes. Yeah. The nutrition probably don't, finance TikToks are rampant out in the world now. TikTok taught me. Yes. But one thing that I did like that TikTok started or someone on TikTok did is the idea of a 75 soft, which is 75 days of kind of trying your best at that 75 hard program. And then also some people took it and made the program a little less rigid, I guess or they changed the habits from the specified ones in 75 hard to ones that best served them. So the 30 day Challenge at CrossFit Cygnus was kind of a play off of 75, hard, 75, soft, with a shorter timeframe, obviously 30 days. And was also something that I use to tie in every aspect of wellness because wellness is not just what you eat, what you drink, or how you move, it is those things, but it's also what you do. Like you were saying, Kyrk, you were always really good about your activity and stuff, so it's what you do those other 23 hours outside of the gym, or the hours outside of the gym and cooking and eating. So I wanted to include things that often get overlooked when people are trying to improve their health and wellness. So people got points basically for each of these aspects. And the one that got you the most points was hitting your protein goal every day. And that's just because protein really is king. If you know anything about nutrition or if you have been on social media ever, you've probably seen a video or two about high protein this, high protein that. That's because there's a good reason behind it. Protein is the one nutrient that's gonna keep you the fullest the longest. And it's also what helps you build muscle mass. So, especially for people who are doing, intense exercise like CrossFit, it's really important that you eat enough protein. And it's also great for those people, like Kirk was saying he want to lose some weight, drop a few pounds. If you aren't eating enough protein, you're not gonna do that. So I can eat all the yellowfin tuna I want, is that what you're telling me? Yeah, pretty much. Yeah. That's, that's really good. All the high quality lean protein to your heart's content. Yes. But then the other stuff that we focused on was like making sure that people were adequately hydrated. They got points for getting more than 8,000 steps a day because we're all incredibly sedentary now. We don't move as much as we used to 50 years ago. That has led to an increase in obesity and like you were saying, arthritis Rick, it's kind of back and forth. If you do too much, you can hurt yourself and if you don't do enough, you can hurt yourself. And you know, being sedentary and sitting all day leads to your metabolism being lower, so then you don't get to eat as much. So really wanted to focus on that. And then we also incorporated that they read a certain amount or listen to a podcast every day. And it didn't have to be something nonfiction and really just turning light bulbs on for you, that was more so of a stress relief. Because a lot of people don't even take the 20 minutes a day to do something like that where they read or listen to a podcast or just sit and listen to music. We're all moving at high speed all the time now and everything is fast and it has to be done right now. And we overextend ourselves. So I really wanted to make that something that people had to be intentional about was making time for themselves. Another big one that we focused on was sleep. Because sleep is so important, and that's another thing that in today's society, you kind of get like a pat on the back if you can thrive on four hours of sleep and wake up at four in the morning and not go to bed until midnight, that kind of thing. And That's not good for anybody's health. So I really wanted to break that stigma that, no, it is cool if you're getting enough sleep because you're gonna recover better from the gym. You're gonna be able to control your cravings because you're not tired and exhausted all day. Or like Kyrk was saying with his like kind of emotional eating. Most people do that to some degree, and whenever you're sleep deprived, you're way more likely to do it. So the 30 Day Challenge really just encompassed or tried to, I tried to encompass every aspect of health and wellness that you can track, because that's also another really important bit of habit building, whether it's nutrition or finance wise. And Kyrk, you can speak to that, but, If you are not tracking your data, then there's nothing to hold yourself to. There's not a standard, because you don't know if you've reached your goal or not. Maybe your goal was, I want to hit my protein goal every day. It's like, well, did you track it? No. Then we don't know if you reached that or not. So that was the other part of it was really trying to get people to recognize the importance of that. Five minutes a day of going through their little habit checklist that I gave them and being like, yep, I did that, I did that. Oh, I didn't do that. Oh, and I didn't do it yesterday. So like, maybe tomorrow I should really prioritize that. Yeah, that was perfect. I loved that challenge, that wellness challenge. Did you win? No, I did not win. No, he was in the top six. I was in the top six. There was only, there was only seven No. Of almost 60 people. So that's pretty good, I'll take it. No, but I really like that. I really like that challenge cuz it put health and wellness into a perspective that I try to look at finances, which is the way that my brain works it works a little bit better. So like oftentimes I would think. Well, I ate bad for breakfast today. Well, I guess the rest of the day is shot. So now we're gonna start making bad choices throughout the rest of the day. There's only a few things that people tend to gravitate toward that mindset with, and food, money, anything that gives you those like quick satisfactions, like the little dopamine hits. Because you think about if you start your day off bad, like let's say you drop your phone on the ground, you don't just stand there and stomp on it too to make sure it really doesn't work, just because the screen was cracked. But for some reason these things that people have control over once they don't like food or money or whatever, then they kind of take it to the extreme. Just get that like screw it mentality. Well, the good thing about Family Financial Partners and Kyrk is when we, and this is a correlation again with you saying keep track of your protein till you get enough protein, well, do you know you got enough? Well, here with your finances, your money will do that stuff. Kyrk will take care of you. You won't have to worry. You know? So that won't cause stress to worry that you have to go to Chick-fil-A six times a day. You know what I'm saying? I mean, and that's what we do. And that's funny. Now wait, Chick-Fil-A six times a day. Yeah. Five times. They got salads. They got salads. Yeah. So, that way we take care of it. And that's one less stress thing for you, and one less thing for you to worry about. Like you don't have to have a whiteboard at home and check off, Hey, I did this today because, you know, Kyrk's taking care of it. And it's that level of accountability too. Like people say that as far as nutrition coaching. Nobody wants to come in after two weeks and tell me that they didn't try, or that they fell off the wagon, quote unquote. That's what people usually say. So I imagine your clients probably feel the same way, Kyrk, where if you gave them a goal, they don't want to come in here and be like, Ooh, I actually didn't do that. So it's that layer of accountability that I think helps to. So this was not planned, but that is the exact same thing that I tell clients when they're coming in is that when we're gonna hold you accountable to do the things that you say you want to do, or the things that we help you determine are necessary in your financial life. And when we put that checklist together and we make those two, three different things that we need to work on before the next meeting, you know that I'm gonna look you in the eye and say, Hey, Mary, did you increase your 401k by 1%? Over this quarter? And you're gonna have to tell me yes or no. And of course you can lie to me, but that doesn't help. But that extra piece of accountability helps my clients actually accomplished the things that much better. Yeah, absolutely. And really that plays into as well, like what your priorities are because I try to preach to people that priorities and goals can be flexible to an extent, to a degree, because if your nutrition, finance, whatever, goals are really rigid, life is gonna happen eventually. And whether it's something that you have control over, like if you go to a fast food restaurant or something like that, or if it's something like a part goes out on your car and you need to replace it and it's expensive. If you aren't able to reach certain goals for a certain reason, it's like, well, that just wasn't your priority at the moment. So sometimes that can be a little bit of an eyeopener for people where it's like, yeah, life was hard. So that was what the priority was. Maybe it was that your kids were sick for six days in a row and it's really hard to prioritize nutrition there. Or maybe you did have some crazy expense come up, so that's hard. Yeah. But then there's also, I think it helps people kind of open their eyes to being like, Oh, in the times where I can change things and make better decisions, I just didn't because I prioritized whatever people might do. Kyrk, I don't know, that throws off their finances. Maybe they take like a last minute trip or a bunch of time off work or buy something extravagant. I don't know. But yeah, so just things to think about as like, well, your priority just didn't align then. Mm-hmm. Yeah. So you'd mentioned earlier that we don't have to be perfect every day. So going back to the 30 day challenge you said that I got six place, so humble, brag there. Yes. Reiterate that I got six place out of how many people. 57 out of 57, so I'm top 10% almost. But, so there's five people that I know personally. I did not get every single point, every single day. So there's five people that were ahead of me. Mm-hmm. Did any of them get every single point, every single day? No, they did not. The top three people of course, were close to getting every point, every single day, but even all top three people had days where they got like less than half of the points. Mm-hmm. So, you know, just an off day or a day where They were incredibly busy or they took a scheduled rest day and just focused on hanging out, relaxing, that kind of thing, which is totally fine. And that's a great point is that they still won and they got quite a bit of money for it too, which was nice. And they gotta have biscuits and gravy. Yes, they did. Exactly. But that's a great point is that even the people who really crushed it and were like my star pupils, they still didn't do every single thing every day and had great results afterward too.. Well, let's look at the Was there anybody that got zero points for the entire 30 days? No, not zero. And whenever there were people who I could tell were kind of starting to trail off or just forgetting to log or things like that, or it was falling to the back burner, that was kind of where I would chime in and be like, Hey, I noticed that you haven't logged anything out, or you were crushing it and doing almost everything, every single day. And now for like the last week, it's kind of nothing as far as this goes. Like something going on, can I help you? Do you need like my assistance somehow? Like that. But no, nobody got zero points for the entire month. Same thing with your finances. Yeah, just like that. Exactly. Who would've thought that you could be coming in almost last and it would still be okay. Yep, yep. Did, did everybody, even the people that that struggled at times, did everybody see some kind of progress? Yeah. So some people will see progress that's not aesthetic and then some people will see all the good aesthetic progress that like really gets you the likes on Instagram. You know, that's what I tell people. But I had plenty of people who let me know halfway through like, Hey, I thought this was going to be the thing that like changed my life. And then My spouse had a stroke and that was a real situation with one of our clients. Or I thought this was gonna be the thing and then I was hospitalized for a few days, so it was, life does pop up, and things happen, but every one of those people who gave me their scenario and a, but those are excellent reasons to not prioritize what you eat. But they all came back to say, but I did learn this or I did do this. Or I couldn't do these three things. Like I couldn't get in the gym every day because so and so was sick or I was sick or whatever. But I made a point every day to sleep the recommended amount and to get my steps in and to go outside, cuz that was another one of ours was. Another one of our goals was to get everybody outside as much as possible. So those people that maybe they didn't do everything, they still did something and they got the results, even if it wasn't 30 pounds of weight loss or something crazy like that, they still gained from it, but it's also only a 30 day, exactly a 30 day time period. So the results that you're gonna see are limited by the timeframe to some extent. Yep, absolutely. But extrapolating that out over a lifetime, I imagine even if you just made it a priority to catch your steps every day, drink your water and hit your protein, that's probably the big three. Yeah. In my mind. Yeah. And everything else kind of falls in around that. At least kind of doing those things most of the time is gonna have big results over a whole year period, or five years, 10 years. The results are crazy different. Absolutely. That's kind of the same thing with our finances is again, I know you're not gonna do everything perfect every single day of week or every single month. But trying to have the mindset of, hey, these are the little things that I need to do. And even if you struggle, so even if you had that day where you walked outta the house and you forgot your lunch on the kitchen counter. Yep. You know, well now it's like, is that gonna throw off my budget? Cause I have to go out to eat. Is that gonna throw out and throw off my nutrition? Cause I have to have to eat. That's okay. It throws it off a little bit. But at the end of the day, if we kind of align our mindset, and I'm big on mindset with whatever you do if you align that mindset with your goals, it drives every single decision that you make. I know for me personally, in the challenge, there were days that I was working late or for whatever reason, I just absolutely failed at the day. But I get home in the evening and it's like, well, what can I check off this? What can't I check off this list? Can I go drink two big glass of the water and make sure I hit that goal? Great. I've only hit a third of my protein so far. I'm probably not gonna hit that one, but that's okay. Cause I can go walk around the block a few times and now I hit my step goal. It's again, that mindset of let's do as many of the little things right, every single day. And that's what ultimately gives us the the most progress. So in financial terms, it's, Hey, let's actually build the budget. Let's stick to that budget as as much as possible. If we get thrown off in some area, is there another area that we can adjust in? So that we kind of balance it out. If it's a big expense that happened to pop up in the middle of the month that you weren't expecting ,That's, that's fine. It just kind of throws us off a off a little bit. But as long as we don't let that one thing say, well, the whole month is blown, I'm gonna go backwards this time. No, that's the wrong mindset. You can control the things that you can control, I guess is what I'm trying to, what I'm trying to say. So, we have people that come here and ask questions about their finances, just like they ask you questions about their diet. And it's amazing to me that we've sat here and talked about this and how everything is almost directly, I mean exact parallel. Mm-hmm. I mean, the little things like say you're putting in a hundred dollars a month in your 401k, well, something happens. You left your lunch on the counter this month and you have to buy lunch, and you can only put 50 in, but that's okay because 5, 10, 20 years from now, That's still gonna have a huge impact. Yeah. Just like eating good for, five years instead of 30 days. Yes, exactly. So who would've thought that it would be just a direct correlation and in more ways than one, you know, with your health, which is going to lead to reduced healthcare costs, possibly. Things of that nature. So Kyrk, so what's the first step that somebody needs to take? Since Mary told us the first steps and she's made it simple, what's the first step somebody needs to take as far as getting to where they want with their financial goals? Well, very, very similar to Mary's. Let's track and see where you're at today. So the first meeting that we always have with clients we're not trying to build a financial plan at that point. We're just trying to take stock of exactly where you're at, what kind of debts you have, what kind of income you have. Are you currently saving any money? What's the balances of those accounts look like? Do you have life insurance? Do you have disability insurance? And, what's the budget currently look like today? Is there even a budget or do you just haphazardly spend and hope it all works out? We're just trying to track and kind of see. Get all the puzzle pieces that you have and start putting them together. So the first step would be come see us. Just let us have that conversation and interview if you will. And let's kind of do an analysis of where you're at today. And then we have that conversation of, Hey, let's dream big. Like, what's retirement look like for you? What other goals do you have along the way? Is it buying a house? Is it paying for for kids? College? Is it fill in the blank. Whatever you want. And then once we have both ends of the spectrum there, now we can actually put the plan together of, well, how do we go from A to B? As efficient way as possible. Yeah, I like that too. And I also like to meet people where they're at. And I'm sure you all have to do that a lot here too with finances, because with both things there's a big learning curve. This isn't some, both aspects are not things that people typically know a lot about. So in meeting people where they're at sometimes it can be intimidating to come see a dietician or to come see a financial planner or something like that. So if you're gonna take, like Rick, you were saying that very, very first step, just do what we're saying, but on a smaller level where you look at your own stuff that you are tracking, and see if you can find any shortcomings or places where you're really thriving or something like that. And, once you kind of check off that first initial tiny thing of looking at it yourself, then I feel like it becomes less daunting to like take your finances to Kyrk or to come talk to me about nutrition or things like that. So you really just have to do something right there like yourself, that you can do without spending any real money or real time or anything like that. You know, there's nothing to lose there. You're just looking at what you're doing. That's perfect. Mary. So you kind of mentioned it In a roundabout way, but sometimes people are intimidated to come talk to us because they think there's some level that I have to be at before it makes sense. That's not really the case. So we have a business model here that allows us to work with people that are just starting out in life. So maybe you just graduated from college or trade school or even high school and you're just kind of starting your financial journey on your own. Well, we work with people like that. And then on the opposite end of the spectrum we have clients that are retired and millionaires and everybody in between. So we meet you where you're at and we're comfortable and we understand that I would rather spend time, even if it means I don't make money off of it. I would rather spend time with those young people just getting started to help push them down the right path that ultimately will change their, will change their life. So, Mary, do you work with people that are in really bad shape? Never, ever taken care of themselves at all. And then do you work with people that are star athletes and the perfect human specimen, if you will? Yes, especially between all of the jobs I've had now in dietetics. So one of my positions is working in a hospital, so some health conditions are completely genetic or they're an immune disease or something like that. But also, for the vast majority of my patients at the hospital, these are people who have been sick for a long time, And who maybe tried to prioritize their health and it just didn't happen, or maybe they never knew what to do or what have you. So sometimes I can tell that people are trying, not really to pander to me, but to try to scramble to tell me what they think I want to hear, you know? Mm-hmm. When really that makes my job harder, because I'll tell you, working with the star athletes is far harder because there's less to adjust. It's much harder to get someone who is already A lean toned machine who is thriving out there, but they have an even bigger goal. It becomes much more specific and time tedious things for them to work on to get to that. But when you've never done anything, like if you were just recently diagnosed with a new disease or if you are like immobilized or something like that, Then there's actually a lot that I can help you with, and those are my favorite clients because it in a way, kind of makes my job easier. And you also see those results a little quicker too. Mm-hmm. Because if you, I would say the worse you starve, the better it can get, you know? Some of my clients come to me after they've worked really hard on their nutrition for a long time and they're stuck and that's where it can be really hard for both me and them to find what it is that's holding them back from that next level. Whereas whenever you have no idea what you're doing and you've never done anything and you've never been to a gym or anything like that, like you're kind of like a blank slate for me to teach you. However I want to, like the world hasn't had its opportunity to teach you all of these fake things about nutrition or wellness or anything like that. So really whenever people are just honest with me, like that's when I can help 'em the most. Even if your diet is McDonald's three times a day, like, I don't care. There's a lot to work with there. And we can make really easy changes that you're gonna see those big results really quick, and that's very motivating for people. So, so it's like me, I had a really good, really good retirement. And I don't go to McDonald's three times a day. It's only twice. Yeah, only twice a day. Yes. But I, but I had really good retirement. I worked almost 26 years in one place and put a ton of money my 401k and Kyrk did help me with it. So everything's good. But my youngest daughter is getting her first job out in the world. And Kyrk's helping her. So, you know that end of the spectrum, I'm the finely tuned athlete that has Mary and then my daughter's just, you're, yeah, exactly. Yeah. And my daughter, yeah. My daughter's just starting out, so see, there's another direct correlation. Yep. You know, and she's just, she's starting now and Kyrk's taking care of her money now and. And that just goes to show that again, that you know, where we're at and what we can do with just little steps, you know, and, and an expert. Yeah. And I really like the direction that this is going, and I know we've definitely like beat you all over the head with that. These are correlated, but this is kind of a two birds, one stone thing. If you adjust your mindset about one thing, it becomes that like transferable skill, you know? So if you adjust your mindset about, Nutrition and then you get that on point and then you realize that your budget is out of whack. Okay, well now let's approach that the same way you did with nutrition, cuz something worked, like you changed your habits. So I just liked that we're drawing all these parallels because like Kyrk, I know we've talked about this offline before, but now that I'm also a working adult, so kind of like your daughter Rick, like I've been working for about five years now and I just think about myself like 10 years ago, I had no idea what a 401K was or how much insurance cost or that I was gonna have to do this. And like I just recently bought a home and that's come with a lot of learning curves too. And as someone who is a self-proclaimed, former, really unhealthy person for a time in my life and also used to be really bad with money. Now nutrition is far more on point than money still. Just because that's not what I do all the time. But I like to draw the parallels in between them because I'm now approaching finances in a similar way as to what I did with my nutrition. So it's not, if you look at both with a restrictive mindset in like the, like you were saying, Rick, about do I have to eat this every single day, or do I have to go to the gym every single day? Or like with money, do I have to save this much every day or do I have to put this much in my 401k every single month, whatever. If we look at it that way, then, inevitably something's going to come up, like the lunch on the counter type of thing, or the big car expense. Or maybe you decide to do something fun because that's more of what aligns with you in that moment. Then if you approach those things with a negative mindset, which is we're all, we have that negative bias, we all lean toward that, nobody really thinks of themselves super optimistically. We tend to think of the people we love optimistically, but ourselves kind of negatively. So then when those inevitable things pop up and happen, that sets us up for those major long-term setbacks, whether it's food or nutrition. If you get in that screw up mentality, then that's a very slippery slope if you don't kind of rein it in and adjust your mindset. So I've even started like talking about these types of things differently. So I tend to not say diet as much unless I'm strictly referring to what people eat. Cuz that's really what your diet is. It's what you eat. I'm not telling you to go on a diet, it's just what you eat right now. But I've started even with myself and my clients referring to it as an eating pattern or your eating habits or things like that. Because diet has such a negative connotation and that's kind of similar to budget in my mind too, where it also has a negative connotation sometimes because we're so used to it being this restrictive and you know, kind of put you in a box type of thing, and you have to stick to it or else. And that's how I feel about diet. So both of those, like adjusting those terms. So adjusting a budget to a spending plan or a savings plan or whatever. Will allow for flexibility and help you adjust your mindset away from that negative bias. And then even after I give people the spiel about mindset, then I also follow it up with you. Do you need to be an adult and be responsible about whatever choices you're gonna make? You know? Because sometimes whenever you tell people, it's kind of like if you give an inch, it'll take a mile. That kind of thing. So some people, whenever we talk about these things, they hear that as, oh, the dietician said I don't need. To worry about this, so now I'm going to eat, I don't know, ice cream for every single meal. It's like, well, no, let's appreciate the nuance of all these things. But I think it's freeing for a lot of people to think like, oh, this can be flexible and it doesn't have to be stressful, and I can kind of make either my eating habits or my spending plan, whatever worked for me. Another parallel here. When, when you say diets, what you eat, not necessarily a eating plan or anything like that. It's the same way when I say budget, budget is the way I look at it is it's just what you, what you spend. Not necessarily the line item by line item of, we have to, spend this much on gas, this much on groceries and so on. I find that. A lot of people that gives them stress and anxiety because they feel like they're in a box. There's no, left and right movement in there and it's just restrictive. So I actually, and I don't think I created this term. I'm sure I heard it somewhere. But, and you'll like this Mary cuz you don't like necessarily the word budget either. The budget, no. But I call it the anti budget. Okay. So what I work with clients is the big thing like with your diet is if you eat enough protein, drink enough water, the rest of the stuff tends to fall in line to some degree. Mm-hmm. But with your budgeting, if we develop how much you actually need to save to hit those goals and how much money you need to direct towards debt payments, if there are any, and we automate those things to come outta your paycheck, well then the rest of the money that's actually hits your bank account. I frankly don't care where it goes for the most part. Now there there's some better choices that we can make, but at the end of the day, if we hit those savings goals and those debt repayment goals, as long as you're not spending any more money than what actually comes into the accountant going backwards. Well, who cares if you, really like to eat out a lot and don't like cooking. Okay, well, you can, you can make that work. Or I'm fine not having any entertainment in my life. So, or in Kyrk's case, Hannah, I'm going to get a new golf club. We don't gotta make this personal But the idea is if we hit the things that are the most important, the rest of the stuff tends to fall in line. Yeah, absolutely. And I kind of approached that in my first sessions where people like, you know, tracking macros is the big thing now, and I personally do like it cuz it allows for that flexibility. But I typically have people only watch their calorie intake and their protein intake. And then, you know, if you're hitting both of those goals, yeah. The rest can just shake out how it wants to, you know, care. So, calorie intake, protein intake, savings. Yep. You know, savings, retirement, whichever. And how much money's going in your checking account. Yeah. Again, it's all parallel, every bit of it. Yep. And then, I feel like if people have issues after that point, like if they've nailed down the calorie amounts and the protein amounts in there, Maybe they're seeing results but not the results as quickly as they want, or the specific results they wanted, whatever. Then we can kind of dig through it more with like a fine tooth comb and realize like, okay, you're doing this here or this here, which I feel like in my own spending life, that kind, I had to do that at some point where things weren't becoming or weren't evening out at the end of the month, like you were saying. And I was going backwards. So then it was like, okay, now what did I do within those things that really threw me off? Do you ever do that with people? Yeah. So again, if we hit the savings goals and debt repayment goals, if there is any great. That's perfect. That's kind of the big thing. I know if you do that and you're not going backwards, we're maybe not being as efficient as possible. But we're at least making progress and the savings goals were designed to make sure you get where you want to go in the timeframe that you want to get there. If we decide, hey, maybe I'm not going as fast as I would like to or maybe that's just a perception in your head, then we can have conversation of, okay, well how do we, how do we take the next step and dig a little bit deeper and get into the details of where else can I pull some additional funds from to speed up that savings process. But even if you have something bad happen, like you eat biscuits and gravy twice in one week, or your car breaks down another parallel. You know what I'm saying? That's not gonna throw you off track for the future. No. Yeah. It's really the stuff that adds up over time. Yeah. You know, and that's, that's what Mary's here for and that's what Kyrk's here for. So to wrap this thing up a little bit, I would like Mary, you and Kyrk both to give us something that everybody should at least try to do, and that obviously in your dietician work and then Kyrk and your financial work, so, It can be hard to give people a unanimous across the board suggestion or advice or whatever that everyone should do. But if you're listening to this and it's got you really motivated to clean up your nutrition, clean up your finances, or just prioritize those things, whatever, from a nutrition standpoint, really focus on eating enough protein, prioritizing fruits and vegetables, and increasing your daily movement every day, because everyone needs to work on all of those things, and they're good starting points for like the average person. Kyrk, what do you got? Yeah, it's a little difficult because everybody's financial plan is different. Everybody's is unique. But the one thing that every single person needs to do, no matter what, is to spend less than they actually earn and then save the difference there. I think that you guys have done a great job I hope everybody enjoys it. Thanks for listening. Thank you for being here, Mary. Thank you.