160- Helping Type-A Personalities Manage Stress and Health with Christian Elliot

[00:00:15] Bryan Carroll: Hey, all my type, a personality friends out there. This episode is specifically for you, especially if you like to live fast. You like to go for high achievements and you are in situations that just constantly stressed you out.

This episode is all for you. What's up everyone. My name is Bryan Carroll and I help people to move more, eat well and be adventurous. And today I have Christian Elliot on the show. Tackle some issues with managing stress and different psychological issues that all of us type a personalities out there probably experience at some point.

And we might live fast-paced lifestyles, but if we don't take care of our health, then that eventually will catch up with us, which is what we'll be discussing in this episode with Chris. So Christian is the CEO of true whole human, where he and his wife have helped. Thousands of people achieve their health and physique goals.

And he also runs a popular blog title, deconstructing conventional, which has been featured on men's health, HuffPost, CBS, and many other major media outlets. So let's welcome Christian Elliot to the show. Thank you, Christian, for coming on to the. 

[00:01:28] Christian Elliot: Thanks so much for having me. It's great to be here. 

[00:01:30] Bryan Carroll: I'm really excited to chat with you about different ways to manage stress, but until we get to there, let's talk a little bit more about what your background is and what got you working with so many people.

[00:01:42] Christian Elliot: And I have kind of a, I guess, unique background you could say have, in terms of, I give you more of the personal I've been on. I've lived in seven states and 14 different cities north, south, east, west. Big city, small city. So I've seen a lot of the country grew up in a Christian home, went to public and private school.

I went to a college and got a bachelor's in communications and double major in religion and theology. I went to a fuller seminary and got a masters for your master's degree in divinity. And then a hill started falling apart a little bit and needed to do something to get back in front of that. And so I, I took my curious brain that had learned how to learn by that point and just said, what else do I not know about.

Dove into about a two year journey of just trying to get my health back and came across more. I guess you could say holistically minded doctors who just were able to help me where the medical realm was not. And that just got me so fascinated. Like how much, how many other amazing parts of health do I not know about that could dramatically improve my life?

And so it just, it lit a fire in me to really study that. The hobby turned into a profession slowly. I got different nutrition and coaching and fitness certifications. And this kind of created this business. I couldn't tell anyone how to get here or duplicate what I did, but it's, it's it's fun work. I get to work with people in different countries and through virtual coaching, just really getting to the root of health challenges.

And usually probably 80% of my time is spent on. What's keeping you from being able to do the thing, rather than the tactics of, you know, how much water to drink and how much, how many minutes of exercise, or how many carbs or proteins or fat like that, stuff's relatively easy to figure out. It's, it's really become the psychological and contextual parts of people's lives that offers the most opportunity to really rethink and, and get to it.

So I got to that just by kind of solving my own problems and solving client issues that were recurring. Develop my own process. So that's a quick version of the background, I guess you could say, 

[00:03:40] Bryan Carroll: I have to ask when you were having a health issue, start to pop up, did you ever figure out why they were popping up or what contributed to it?

[00:03:47] Christian Elliot: Oh yeah, for sure. A lot of it was just my complete ignorance related to nutrition and how tied into our healing that is and how symptoms often manifest because our body is just waving a red flag saying I have way under nourish here. Can you please help me out? And. Couple that with it, you know, young 20 something males, not really knowing how to work out that well, just checking out what you see in fitness magazines, or trying to be macho and do the thing and just overdoing it, hurting myself.

And so I ended up with a lot of structural stress and I pile that on top of waiting tables with very predictable, repetitive movements. And my joints were not happy. They, I was developing degenerative joint conditions and, you know, a shoulder I could barely lift above my head. It hurt to do simple things like snuggle or I'm thinking how in the world am I going to play with my kids when they show up, this is not good.

And so, yeah, it was a combination of just eroding health. I was sick frequently and nutrition was a major part of, if you don't have that sorted, it's really hard to heal anything in your body because you're essentially, you're poisoning yourself every time you eat. And that's the opposite of health. 

[00:04:52] Bryan Carroll: Yeah, it's super interesting because this is the most overfed world we've ever lived in, but most people are undernourished.

So it's a weird combination of people just not getting the nutrients that their body needs in order to actually thrive. 

[00:05:06] Christian Elliot: Yeah. We have nutrient blight or nutrient free foods, foods in quotes, food like substances. Enter as in our body screams at us for more calories. And when it doesn't want more calories, it wants more nourishment.

So we get such confused, hunger signals and hormone issues and things we don't need to cause we just don't know how to feed ourselves. Well, if nutrition has become a very, like so many topics, so politicized and there are political footballs and interests in so many of these different industries that sorting through all that can be a a big task.

It's probably not. Realm and the entire no notes field of study and the entire room of health that ends up having more confusing or conflicting information in the nutrition. 

[00:05:47] Bryan Carroll: Yep. Yeah. You can literally find anything to back up your claims, whether you want to eat, you know, paleo, vegetarian, vegan, a potato only diet McDonald's diet.

You can find something to back up your claims, 

[00:06:00] Christian Elliot: cookie diet. 

[00:06:03] Bryan Carroll: So one of the types of people that you work a lot with is people that are very fast paced. A lot of high impact. Can you explain what are those types of people? Like what defines a fast paced lifestyle, 

[00:06:16] Christian Elliot: you know, at a fast pace and high-impact, to me, sometimes those go together and other times they don't, I don't think they're mutually required.

If you will. Like, I work with several people who are just at the limits of their capacity. They have. Taken on more than it's saying for one person to do. And they're kind of at the, either the burnout or the recognition of the crisis of limitations where holy cow, I'm not holding it all together. I thought I could do all the things and I can't.

And so that is a portion of our client base and other people it's just finding that hope or that will to be. Person, they know they're capable of and looking for that drive to, to get back to maybe more of a medium paced lifestyle where they're just, they feel like they're not waking up mailing it in so high high-impact and fast paced sometimes are a great combination.

And other times they're the recipe for burnout and it's a great way to overestimate what you can do and think if I just work harder at it, it will make it all better. And what it does is it ends up just eroding your confidence and your health. Often your relationships and not where any of us want to go.

So I like to think there's a, there's a place for a high impact, modest paced lifestyle, or that it's not, it's okay to have a modest impact lifestyle. Not everybody needs to swing for the fence and, and your, the impact that we bring to the world, I would hope would be more based on when I lay my head on the pillow at night.

Do I feel good about how I have stewarded the time and money? That I have. And is there a way I can optimize it and get a little bit better, but sometimes the, the unicorn of high impact it's cause it's so easy to compare ourselves to people who have more impact and to think I should live up to that.

And maybe what's healthier is to say what's a reasonable expectation for me and maybe I grow into it, but maybe I don't need to be a billionaire. Maybe I don't need to have a hundred thousand followers. Maybe I can just be a good shepherd. Fewer people. I, I, we had a calculated business decision few years ago.

What kind of model do we want? Do we want to be sell to a thousand people or 10,000 people and have a lower cost, try to impact as many people as we can numbers wise, or would we rather go deeper with fewer people? And, and as I thought about that, it made more sense to me. I think I can actually make a higher impact going deep with a handful of people.

My impact ripples through them. It's the lives they impact. It's the way they get to show up and pick up their microphone and influence their community and their family. But I think in such a transformed way, somehow that gives me a higher impact. And maybe I don't have as many numbers as someone else with a bigger following, but I'm also okay with that.

And I thoroughly and get to enjoy the work. 

[00:09:05] Bryan Carroll: Yup. And that's at the end of the day, you got to enjoy what it is that you're doing, and that's going to make you a help and a benefit, more people in the long run, because you're actually passionate about what it is that you do now. Do you think there are people that thrive with a fast paced lifestyle, or do you think at some point it's going to catch up the candle is going to burn at both ends and they will start breaking down from that life.

[00:09:32] Christian Elliot: Oh, yeah. I mean, there's different people, I think have different capacities. And I would imagine almost everyone has a gear. They can go to that. They underestimate their potential and, and it's fun in different seasons where appropriate to, to really go after and figure out what, what am I capable of in this area of life?

That I think what perhaps sets our business part of the way that we at least have come to coach and clients seem to appreciate is we are very interested in whole life success. I want you to know. If there's a difference between what does success look like and what does success feel like? And on the outside whole life, success is different.

It's, I'm successful at relationships and finances and health and vocation. Whereas what you might see, and some people is just myopic success at career, or that taking care of their health and any one area, if you're just super successful, let's say at work and your home life falls apart and know. Body is your health.

Isn't great that won't feel successful and flip that around any way you want your great shape and you're broke. That doesn't feel successful either. So it really comes back to in my estimation, what, because as humans are, so multi-faceted in our definition of success, we want to be broadly successful and short of having success in the meaningful areas of life that will still feel hollow.

Like we will, we can have bank accounts, so padded that we couldn't spend. And we wouldn't feel successful. And so how do we step back from that then, and say, what would a successful life look like to me? And how much time would it take to put into those various areas? So I could actually enjoy the success that I have, like for practically, for me, I have five kids.

Well, if I'm going to spend time with all five of them, that has to come from somewhere, that means I can't just work 80 hours a week. And. For them to go through a childhood and look back and say, my dad was amazing. He was totally there when I needed him. If I constantly put them off, that's not going to, I won't feel safe.

I would regret that. And so I want to be broadly successful. And then with a fascinated mind, say, how can I optimize this? Like where could I business? You can scale. You can leverage your time. You don't get to do that as much with kids, they just need attention. You can't really do that with, I'm gonna leverage, I'm going to tell my wife, I love her on my wedding day.

And then I'll let you know if that changes. And I just assumes that, like, you have to keep putting relational equity deposits in that account on the regular. And so I get fascinated with how would I optimize this? How can I live a better. More impactful life, but without sacrificing my family on the altar of business or whatever way you might spend, how do I stay in shape, but not make it an idol that I have to be.

So in shape that I, and then it becomes a almost narcissistic self-absorbed look at me and I'm trying is pretentious. And that, that to me is revulsive or repulsive it's it's no, thank you. I would rather. The more modestly successful. I came to peace with the reality that I'm probably never going to be a billionaire.

And frankly, I don't want to be, I don't want to go through life and make all those trade offs and have all those lawsuits and have that gigantic number of employees and other things I would rather enjoy. Good enough is good enough. And this is pretty darn awesome. I am so fortunate to say, I feel like I live a pinch me existence because I was fortunate enough to come across other people who helped me learn that.

So I didn't have to look back on my deathbed. Shoot hoops. I hadn't worked so much. I wish I had spent more time with family. I wish I had invested in my friends more like to me, that's what success is like. And sometimes that's fast paced and sometimes fast paced is just a great way to burn out because you're trying to do too much.

You're thinking I can be super successful work and super successful in the gym and super successful at volunteering or whatever. And eventually you realize you can't and it's so much more refreshing to look at it. At least for me. Broadly with a wide angle. Look at success. When I try to go, where am I going to spend my time?

[00:13:32] Bryan Carroll: Yeah. And every single human has the same amount of hours of the day. And so Which means that in those 24 hours, you've got to figure out how do you manage your stress in a way that isn't just absolutely destroying you. And like for you, you have six family members that are vying for your time and that's not including the work that you do or anything like that.

That's just your direct family members. So what strategies can people utilize to figure out where the stress in their life is? The most and causing the most impact on their body. And how do you start to regulate it in a way that isn't just taking over that 24 hours 

[00:14:16] Christian Elliot: of the day? Yeah. There's, there's a few different ways I could go answer that.

I guess what comes to mind is you know, one barometer for how successful in my life right now is, do I have any joy? Do I ever let myself feel happy? Or am I always discontent and chasing the next thing and frustrated that I'm not there? And that's, that's a common human experience and easy for any one of us, myself included to, to get into that Headspace.

And so some of what I've found super helpful is as you know, when to an earlier comment that often the ways that we get healthier is by not focusing on health it's by focusing on the things that have to precede, being able to have the time for health. And so I guess some habits for me that have been super helpful as protecting my sleep, like as.

Fairly into them as much as possible. And you got a young kid in the house, maybe that's different, but can I be ferocious in my protection of a good eight hours set aside to sleep and not make excuses? And that means I got to optimize my wind down routine. It means I have to have Get all of what needs to be done, done, or have a philosophy that says good enough is good enough.

And this can wait till tomorrow. Cause work is self replicating. It will always be there. So that would be just sleep would be a major important one because it lets me show up at my cognitive and physical best that lets me be more emotionally, even keeled. And I would wager that six hours of sleep and a brain operating a little slow or emotions a little more on edge is actually no more productive than.

Putting the two buyers back into sleep and being really engaged in what I'm actually doing. Another thing that really has helped me is a fairly predictable morning routine. So it's just, you know, water lemon that often put a couple drops of some supplements that are appropriate for where I am with my health.

And I kind of I called it my hydrating warmup. I have a routine of, of, you know, half a dozen to a dozen moves I do in the morning just to de stiffen the body and get it moving. And being protective of that as been, it just kick-starts the day in a very meaningful way. And then the, I guess if I were to pick a third one, I'd probably be just taking the time to be consistently learning that as much as anything keeps you humble.

It, it doesn't require me to think of everything. Take somebody else's who've spent years slugging it out, developing a philosophy or learning something and get all that distilled down into a book or a podcast or other opportunities for engagement. Those are as much as anything finding people, I really respect and just going deep with their content for awhile and finding out the principles and unpacking their processes.

You, you get to me, those are three things that come to mind of ways that I. Attempted to give myself the rhythms that let me say this has to get done. These particular things have to fit on my schedule somewhere. And if they don't, what does it say about me that I can't? But these are my schedule, but once you've evaluated, how much time do I have for all, for, for kids and for family and for the other activities we want to do, once you kind of soberly evaluate how many hours does this actually require to do it well, and it's not like you find the one number and it never changes.

A rough guess of it. And then you say, well, how much time is left? And that, that simple question of what is my actual capacity and what's just too much. And what is me? That's really funny, Kristen. You're never going to be able to do that much. So why don't we save that for later? It's it really helps organize a lifestyle or at least give you an operating system for how to look at all the options for where your time could go and say, am I happy with that trade?

And maybe this thing I really want to do that can wait. And here's why, and here's why I'm comfortable with letting.

[00:18:06] Bryan Carroll: So kids, often times they don't, they have a hard time seeing the big picture. So like you have your wind down routine, you have your morning routines, you optimize your sleep, but they might not get that. You need that in order to function. So when you have people in your life that don't understand that that's a necessity for you, how do you get across to them that you need that?

And they need to respect. Yeah. 

[00:18:31] Christian Elliot: Yeah. Well, that's a fantastic question because what parent does it wrestle with that question? Right? Yeah. Like my youngest right now is about six months old. My oldest is 13. So I have been through this a few times with the really you're awake again. Like, and now you need water and bedtime was a half hour ago and I told you to go, okay, you're still not, you still haven't put your pajamas on, like, it's such a common parenting experience.

And so as we've thought about that a lot, we've, we've backed up from that said, okay, what time do we want the kids to be in. How much time does it take to actually go through the trigger of typically it's a clock, but sometimes it's an event, but what triggers saying, okay, it's time to get ready and start moving toward a bed.

And having kids that kids feel very safe when they know the rules or where they understand what type of system they're supposed to plug into. And there takes a level of reinforcement because kids are very distractable attention and focus on bedtime. Some other shiny things shows up and distracts them.

Isn't always, it's, they're just being kids. They're not being difficult, but it's, it's the patients to repeatedly trained them to know you're training little humans, hopefully to someday be competent adult. And to say, this is the, this is what I signed up for. When I decided to have kids. This is part of the journey here.

And it is, I can't be upset with them for being kids. So helped me. And it's not like I'm perfect at this by any means, but how. Understand how to organize a system that is more that where I grease the shoot and make it easier and easier for them to fall into a predictable bedtime routine. And some of that then, well, they wake up when their tummy hurts and they had a bad dream and the other things that could happen, some of that and kids are not super plannable.

You do the best you can with it. And you expect. That's part of the gig, but you can also work on their nutrition. You can also work on how loved they feel and how that your expression of gratitude or appreciation or love for them and pride in them. Sometimes that is the best cure for a tummy ache.

That is the thing they needed to hear and feel. And it was just, I had a son the other day. It was just, oh, my tummy hurts. I don't feel good. I snuggle with him for five minutes and he's fine. He just needed to feel his love tank was. He needed me to top him off and he's back to being himself. And so often it's just recognizing that kids have needs and often they don't have needs.

They can even put words to, cause they don't have vocabulary for that yet. So, whereas parents, can we Intuit? This is, I think this is what's going on. Let me step back from my emotions and try to understand they're, they're frustrated with something and they're extra frustrated. They don't have words for it and that you don't understand that because it's not a good reason.

And so to be able to say. Give me a hug. Let's sit down, let's talk, let's read a book, but something else. And then really what you feed them has so much to do with, can they stay asleep? Are they undernourished? Are they hyper? You're putting, you know, food dyes, co carton, you know coal essentially in their food.

You're, you're, you're putting MSG and vegetable oils and there there's just all sorts of garbage into their system that is going to come out somewhere and their behavior. And it's on us as parents to do the best we can feeding them so that they don't have to have one more difficult reason managing their own emotions.

So it's definitely a moving target. There's no, you know, this always works, but there are principles of, of loving and caring for them and giving them a routine and then doing our best to might have two young boys that are like, you have to run them like Labrador retrievers. Those kids need to move. They got to get that.

Wrestle and have some rough play in order to wear them out enough to be tired. And so we we've come to understand that about boys in particular and that managing their energy, managing what they eat and making sure their home is psychologically safe and loving, and then giving them routine, I guess, would be the four quick summary points.

It took me a long time to say there. 

[00:22:29] Bryan Carroll: When you feel your stress tank is starting to get full, is there a different dietary changes that you make to try and balance the stress out in any way? Or do you make any changes to your workout routine? 

[00:22:41] Christian Elliot: Great question. Yeah. So I guess my an example comes to mind.

Anytime I get like a scratchy throat by take that as my body waving a red place and whole we're have, there's a fight on our hands. Stresses. Hi. Can you do anything you can to support me right now? So what I'll do in moments like that is if there was a chance, sugar was going to be my day, it is out.

If there's a stress and maybe it's, I need a nap, maybe it's I need something to drink. Maybe it's I need a modest walk. But so I, I inst anytime stress starts to feel high. I, the longer I do this, the more self-aware I become, I tend to pump the brakes. Let me look at this from 30,000 feet. Where is this coming from?

Am I anxious? Am I, am, you know, am I just running my engine really hard? And my body needs a break. As any number of things could trigger it, but it's so step back and double down on any health habits I could do in the moment. And then sometimes I step back and say, okay, it's it's chicken broth. It is to consume.

It is you know, kind of are not feeling so great self. Categories that we go to, let me, let me see if I can hyper nourish because when the immune system has a battle, it needs a handful of things in order to fight more effectively. So let me double down on those and anywhere I can remove stress or physical burden from my body and not have to ask it to pay, sorry, I'm not going to sleep as much tonight.

Can you just make up the difference now? I flip it. Okay. You need an extra half hour in bed. Let me see if I can give you that. And there's any number of. Home care type remedies or, or ways that your immune system. Okay. And most of the time, not every time, but most of the time that scratchy throat turns into a joke.

It's like my body, like, thank you. You heard me. And it laughs it off. And we get back to the day or the week or whatever, but the more you're able to appreciate and see that feedback from your body as feedback, rather than anything else, and, you know, judgment against yourself, just, oh, thank you for letting me know that.

Let me see if I can dial back the. When it comes to working out, the modest walk is often the easiest. It just moves all your lymphatic fluid around, especially if you go outside of your breathing and get some nature. So I'll, I'll dial back to a walk. If it is you know, a data workout I would, instead of going, I could lift this much weight, I'll lift 50, 75% of that weight.

It movement is as much the point as getting a workout in it. Can I move? Can I. With a lower intensity, knowing that moving is the benefit just as similar to moving is better than not moving. Eating is better than not eating, doing something to undergird my body with exercise to certain benefits worth it.

Nothing else can duplicate. So how about if we use exercise as a medicinal tool to feel less stiff, to exert ourselves in a way that squeezes and gets sugar to go into the muscle and out of the blood and. Walk and breathe deeply at the same time and give our lymphatic system and our diaphragm, some exercise that helps all of those purging systems and the immune system work a little better.

So anyway, that's a long answer, but that's some of what. 

[00:25:44] Bryan Carroll: So earlier you were talking about that a lot of times when you're working with people you discover that the, the things that make the biggest impact with them are in tackling some of the psychological issues. And it's not necessarily telling them that you have to do this specific workout.

Otherwise you're not going to get any benefit. And like you just said, movement itself, even if it's going for a walk or doing something is very beneficial. So what are some of the main. Psychological issues that you see with clients that are blocking them from being able to be successful with making changes to their health.

And what would you do to get them to get past that 

roadblock? 

[00:26:22] Christian Elliot: Great question. Yeah, there's, there's probably as many answers to that as there are people, but there's certainly some themes that come up a lot. I guess one thing I'd say that is a fairly consistency theme, is this underlying feeling of, I don't know if I have what it takes.

There's this self doubt that creeps in or this imposter syndrome, or you can name it different ways, but it's kind of this general. I don't have as much confidence here as I would like to. And I don't even know if that's possible. So this erosion of confidence or belief in themselves is often a showstopper cause it just stops people from trying.

And so when I end up in moments like that as a coach, I do my best to just get fascinated with them. Like really? Where did she get that boat? I said who that you can't do that thing. And, and I know I've got a pretty good case history. I can usually pull out a client story or a frame of reference of somebody in a worst situation who overcame something.

And so much of our ability to change as humans, interestingly, comes back to having just a believable frame of reference for somebody who's not too dissimilar from us, that overcame something. And when you hear those stories or you realize that person did that well, shoot, they're not any smarter, more talented.

Richard or whatever than I am if they did that. Why couldn't I, so where did this belief come from? That I'm not capable? Where did this belief come from? That I'm not worth it or that I'm I shouldn't, I'm not allowed to feed to have this kind of success or I don't know what it would mean to be that I don't have the identity of a confident athletic in shape person.

So I ended up finding a way to self-sabotage myself. Well, where did the idea come from that? You're, you're not allowed to be that. And why do you think you do sabotage yourself? And I guess that if there's a trick to, to asking those thoughtful questions, it's to do it with a tone and in a space where they just feel safe, where they don't feel judged, where they just say, you know what, thanks for asking, why do I do that?

I got it. Now that you ask it, I've been living by that rule for a long time, who says I have to continue to live by that rule. And when people see that the rules they've lived by. Narratives they've believe in most of the narratives, the stories we tell ourselves about ourselves or about our world are mixed with all sorts of falsehood.

And when you shine a bright enough light on it, some of the false has they're like, they're ugly. Like, well, where did that come from? Like who says that has to be true. Or my mom said this, my dad said that the bully at school, the coworker, the person who cut me off in track, like whatever that thing is that you have believed when you can look at it in a safe space and say, yeah, well, And you start to rise above that.

It's, it's the gift of fascinated introspection that helps you say, you know what? I don't have to live by that rule anymore. And maybe there's a better way to see this and you go forth with humility and the willingness to try. And that's typically where traction has made. You've remove the expectation of perfection from working at a meaningful goal.

And then it's just an experiment then it's just, well, shoot. I wonder I did that. I wonder what else I can. And you string together enough, small wins and you start to repair confidence. You start to galvanize a belief that, well, shoot, if I did that, maybe I could do that other thing. And maybe it would be worth facing the identity of what it would mean if I was successful in.

And that's a good thing to do. So, and just, I could probably give you a hundred more examples of things like that, but that's that imposter syndrome. I don't know if I have what it takes. Who am I to do this? That's those are probably some of the main ones that come up. 

[00:29:54] Bryan Carroll: Yeah, you bring up some good points.

Cause a lot of people, they, they like to set overarching goals. So let's say someone comes in and they want to lose 500 pounds. Well, that sounds like a lot of work and you got to lose one pound before you lose 500 pounds. So setting those small goals and getting those wins, that's definitely going to increase your confidence to be that you're going to be successful.

So I love that you're talking to all about. You know, creating those small wins so that you feel confident you feel successful and then it gets you jazzed up and ready for the next goal. And so that you can continue to be successful. That's 

[00:30:31] Christian Elliot: awesome, right? No, it is. It's, it's the process of transformation.

What most people don't understand or appreciate about it. We and traditional marketing, we see all the outlier stories for the most part, that people who transport really fast and they lost this much weight and this much time and my, whatever of the whatever now is gone after two weeks. Two months of this intervention.

And what we don't realize is that that's a moment in time of a story. That's probably not typical and transformation that lasts. I differentiate breakthroughs from transformation. A breakthrough is a change in perspective that can happen in a moment like, oh, I just see that differently. Well, now there's a new category of possibility, but the transformation lags.

Something that comes after in the untangling and the working through the beliefs and things that have been stuck in your head, or that have entangled into your schedule or your priorities that take time to untangle from, and transformation means you're kind of unrecognizable to the person you were before, but the longer you've been, you know, kept compounding health debt.

The longer it typically takes to get out of that. And, and really the, the S the small wins and the willingness to. Turn the mirror back on yourself and say, oh, this isn't about how many grams of fiber I'm eating. This is about that heart issue. That I am not sure I'm ready to face it or that. What if, what if I am having a hard time with this?

What does it say about me that this isn't easy and usually leaning into those that the breakthroughs come from that stuff it's not as much from the tech. Often there's a very practical, like I have five kids or I have a job that's full-time or I have all these responsibilities. You can't overlook that and think that they're irrelevant.

Cause that'll come bite you in the butt. But yeah, the small wins is an amazing way to get the the momentum going and then slowly build that confidence. 

[00:32:24] Bryan Carroll: Yeah, it's interesting because the stuff that we remember or the stuff that's, over-exaggerated like the TV shows that people lose hundreds of pounds in a very short amount of time, and that it gives you that false reality that, that.

Achievable, like that's the normal, however, those people they're on literally a TV show, which is they're completely taken out of regular life. They're not dealing with their five kids and having to work full-time and having to figure out food options, all of that's taken care of for them. So, yeah, just recognizing that alone, that real life is a little bit slower and takes some time to get your health back into regain your health.

So you just have to be patient. 

[00:33:05] Christian Elliot: And I often tell people. This is a, you know, if you set your mindset to a one to two year process, that's very realistic. You go through every birthday, every holiday, every season of the calendar, and that winter keeps coming around every year. Maybe we should figure out why you slide back in your fitness every winter and, and start to face those things.

And, you know, biologically, it takes almost two years for all of your sales to be made new, to turn over into your body, to produce a whole. Body. Well, what if for two years we were just consistent. It's that's a way different question then what does it take to lose weight in six weeks? Or what are the best exercises to burn belly fat?

Like irrelevant. Those are not the most pressing or important questions. And when you can look at transformation through the lens of the long game and what lifestyle do I want to move into? What habits could I do on my worst day? What habits could I move into that I don't need to quit? The what lifestyle?

Of eating most of this thing that you've, you know, the biggest loser you go on that show, almost everyone who goes on the show gains all the way back. And I compare it to winning a lottery. Like you, you win the lottery of weight loss, but you never became the kind of person this happens with surgeries as well.

You never became the kind of person who knows how to sustain a life like that. And until you slug it out and try to figure that out, you won't get to keep any of those games. That's why the average person, shockingly goes on a diet. 55 times in their life, which is a Testament to our resilience and like, oh, just wait till you feel crappy up and try it again.

But it's also the definition of insanity. Like, is there a different way we could approach this? Maybe we're dieting, isn't the answer, maybe stepping back and saying, I, maybe if I upgraded my thinking and approach this problem completely differently, I was just on a client call somebody this morning and she wants to get after this fitness thing.

Give me the plane. Let's go do the thing. And I had to remind you that you came to me because you couldn't figure out how to get yourself to do the thing. So if I just give you another fitness plan, but we haven't really solved the problem, we've just made you feel like you're a failure again, I'm actually interested in helping you figure out why it's hard for you, why you don't feel like doing it.

And if we cracked the code on that and let me clear my throat, cause I can get you in shape. That's not that hard. However, the, the moving parts of your life and the. To be consistent over the long haul to embrace. I'm moving into a different lifestyle. That's very different than what do I need to do to balance my hormones?

What do I need to do to sleep better? What supplement can I take to get rid of my knee pain? Like how about if we fixed? The reason that knee pain showed up in the first place and we work on the mindset that makes you unflappable and unbeatable and builds resiliency into it at a real transformation is actually climbed.

Make some progress. And what most people do at that plateau is they get frustrated. They slide back down the mountain and they wait until they feel crappy and start over thus 55 diets. And the lifetime transformation is actually climbing plateau climb again, plateau. And it's that process repeated what gets the first 50 pounds off is not going to be what gets the second 50 pounds off.

You get to optimize something else. And when that clicks that I'm on a journey of becoming and who else could I become? If I just didn't quit? That's way more fun. To go through life because now your possibility thinking rather than willpower, cram it in here, see how long I can fight my cravings and take a photo and say, I did it.

And like, no, that didn't change you. Then you just feel worse. Then you feel like more of an imposter. Then you feel like a phony or you're embarrassed that you did it and then it didn't stick. And what does that say about you? If you just sat on a journey to go, you know what, I'm not a finished product and I'm going to keep working at this and I'm not where I can be or want to.

But I'm not going to quit and I'm going to keep trying, it's an empowering way, a different way than most people think about the process of change. 

[00:36:55] Bryan Carroll: I love it. That, that right there. People need to go back re-listen to that. Cause that's exactly how you regain your health. Just follow exactly what you said so important.

So that brings me to my final question. What is your vision of what healthy looks like and what are three things you do daily to reach that. 

[00:37:16] Christian Elliot: My vision of what healthy looks like would again, come back to whole life success. What do I, when I rest my head on the pillow, where, when I looked back in the toilet years of my life and say I left it on the field, I did the best I could with what I have.

I think what I'll look back on are the relationships that I invested in that will be the ability to close a laptop and not be at work. It will be, I did the best I could to squeeze as much health and vitality as possible out of this. And so I, I often fast forward to the end and say, is this choice I'm making right now, serving that end of legacy and have a well lived life and of giving my body and my mind, the opportunity to show up at my best.

If I don't steward my health, my mind won't be there to help me cognitively as my body inevitably slows down a little bit. So. To me, what a healthy lifestyle looks like is having time for the important things and that's family. And that is faith and that is health and that is meaningful work. And if I can check those boxes, you know, some of them get more check marks than others in a given week.

But if I look back at the breadth of a calendar year and I can see a bunch of red check marks all over this and I have for me, and it's simple. Rhythms we've built into it is very protective of, of JST three things that are very protective of, of rest and of play to me. Those are different. That's even different than sleep.

Sleep is we all know sleep as close your eyes and feel asleep, wake up, but rest is what are you doing when you're awake? That's not work. Some of us are really bad at that particular not playing or not, not working when you're awake. What is that? Like? We are always on mission and we never stopped to smell the coffee or the roses.

Appreciate a flower and beauty and look far and breeze deeply. Rest is something that are in play in particular, something you do for the sheer enjoyment of it. There's no contribution to the greater good. That is just fun for its own sake. And it's refreshing and makes you feel alive and you laugh. I'd like you, for whatever reason, it's fun to be around you.

I want to get some more. And play is so bonding as a reason why we bond over sports. So whatever your version of play is that w we, for us, as a family, we try to really protect our, our Sunday rhythm or at least the 24 hour period of, of downtime and connection. We have a family meeting on Sunday mornings just to how we are doing what's everybody's schedule this week.

What kind of fun thing do we want to do together? But it gives us something to anticipate. We also try to take it, you know, some sort of modest, quarterly getaway where it can be. One night over overnight, somewhere or a longer get away just to give us chance to be together and connect. So those would be as two of the things on top of the, the, you know, protecting sleep in the down or the the wake up rhythm and education, I guess to me, that the habits that you have, that, that you practice with regularity, if you give them enough thought of where they go and what fights for their attention.

You can start to aim yourself and say this is worth it. And this is not that the other last one I'd mentioned is quite protective of time for thinking. So every, typically every Friday I have an hour or two, sometimes three that I just block out to think to zoom out and say, how did I do this week?

What do I want to work on the next week? What, where might I, what's my actual capacity. How many appointments do I have coming up? And a regular habit of thinking about. If you could at least squirt you owe yourself at least a half hour of thinking time, weekend deal, you get a couple of hours, but get what you can get because most people will plan their vacation with way more effort than they'll plan their whole life.

Well, what a sad commentary on the way that we think about the value of our life, like why do we plan our escape and not plan our life? And if we can plan our lives with enough thought and evaluation of trade-off. And how much time does it take to be healthy? How much time does it take to invest in relationships?

How much time do I actually have to be working? How do I optimize that? That thinking time? My gosh, that is like, don't you dare take away my thinking time, because that helps me be who I am. So those would be the ones I'd how I'd answer. 

[00:41:29] Bryan Carroll: Perfect. Well, people can find more about you at hole, a true whole human.com and also a deconstructing conventional.com.

You have a quiz over there as well. Can you tell us a little bit about the quiz? Yeah, the quiz 

[00:41:41] Christian Elliot: was, it came about just as a, we're constantly trying to innovate the next problem. Our clients tend to run into like, well, how else could we think about this? So the quiz came about as really an attempt to answer the question or the puzzle.

I know what to do, but I can't make myself do it. Like, why is it. And so we just really set out to do our best to answer that and what it came to was a quiz. And we ended up with four different, typical, predictable trajectories people get on the typical patterns. They will get into the waist. They'll work really hard to leverage their strengths and the way the overlook, their, their weaknesses or their shadow side.

And even some fairly predictable health challenges that come with particular ways of being. And so we just got to draw upon, you know, a few hundred clients. To say this year, we couldn't be there. Know how many we'd come up? Both. We ended up with four, but that quiz helps you kind of just ask some, you know, half dozen quieter and other questions, I think to just have a little more self-awareness to know yourself, better say, oh, this is my typical problem.

I see myself a little more clearly. Now that ancient Greek phrase know thyself is essentially what that quizzes about. If you know yourself a little better and you're one step ahead of out thinking the inevitable tripping points. When you go to. Accomplish a meaningful goal and you wrestle less with that.

I don't know why I can't make myself do it well, now you can know. So that's what the quizzes. 

[00:42:59] Bryan Carroll: Perfect. Well, thank you, Christian so much for coming onto the show. And people definitely listen to the words that you've said and go back and listen to them again, because there's a lot of words of wisdom in there that if people just took the time to plan out what they want their life to look like, like you said, not just plan on the downtimes, but really design the life that you want to live.

We could change a lot of people's health and happiness and perspective on this world. 

[00:43:28] Christian Elliot: Yes, sir. Thanks for having me. It's been. 

[00:43:31] Bryan Carroll: Thank you again, Christian, for being on the show. I think we covered quite a few different ways to help out those people with the type a personalities, to be able to manage their stress in their life and still maintain that their health goals that they're trying to achieve.

So you can learn more about Christian at true whole human not com and he has a personality quiz and all that type of stuff over there. So if you want to go through and see how your personality can impact your health goals, then that's a place that you want to go to. Okay, next week we have Beth O'Hara on the show.

Let's go learn who she is and what we'll be talking about. I am here with Beth O'Hara. Hey, Beth, what is one unique thing about you that most people don't know? 

[00:44:12] Beth O'Hara: I would say this something I haven't really talked about publicly. I am really into wild edible. What I can find in the woods and the backyard.

Now I work really hard at the identification and make sure I'm not picking things that are toxic, but the wild edible foods, even like the dandelion greens that grow in our yard, we've got to make sure they're not spray pesticides. Those are some of the most nutrient dense foods we could possibly get access to wild onions or some of the most nutrient dense foods.

More than anything you can possibly buy in a supermarket, including all of those expensive, super. 

[00:44:48] Bryan Carroll: So you had mentioned to me that you're going to the grand canyon to go hiking and stuff. Are there any wild plants over there or wild foods that you're excited to try and locate? I am 

[00:44:59] Beth O'Hara: sure there are a ton, but it'll be my first time in that region.

And I know that the Midwest area, so I'm going to have to pick up a book on it and see what I can find. 

[00:45:11] Bryan Carroll: Well, what will we be learning about in our interview together? 

[00:45:15] Beth O'Hara: I'm going to learn about. One of the most under-recognized and significant conditions facing the whole general population today called mass cell activation syndrome.

It's affecting between nine and 17% of the general population over 50% of people with any kind of chronic health condition and want to learn about it's absolute number one root trigger, which is mold toxicity. 

[00:45:47] Bryan Carroll: You know, what are your favorite foods or nutrients you think everyone should get more of?

[00:45:53] Beth O'Hara: Well, favorite is going to be herbs as far as the food, because next to these wild edible foods, herbs are the next most nutrient dense. And they're loaded with things like natural , which is a great muscle stabilizer, all kinds of antioxidants. So we're talking basil oregano chives are really fantastic. We're talking things like Sage and time.

I load those down on my plate as much as I can. If we have to go with a nutrient, I'm going to have to go with magnesium, just because of, and that's probably an obvious one, but all of the functions in the body that magnesium supports 

[00:46:33] Bryan Carroll: in, what are your top three health tips for anyone who wants to improve their overall.

[00:46:39] Beth O'Hara: One never underestimate the possibility or impact of mold toxicity. It's a huge mimicker of all kinds of different health conditions. And many, many people with chronic health issues are dealing with this. Have no idea. Out of 600 clients, I have checked for mold toxicity. We're dealing with chronic health issues.

Not a single person did not have mold toxins show up in their. So that's number one, number two, we are not supporting our nervous systems enough. And we're going to learn about in this podcast, how the nervous system and the immune system are intertwined. So if we want to have strong, healthy immune systems, we've got to have relaxed and calm, nervous systems and particularly support.

What's called the limbic system and the Vegas. And then the third one is I believe we all need to be supporting detox throughout our lifetimes, not just as a, oh, we found a toxin, let's get rid of it. And then let's just go back to what we were doing before. But we live in a different world than we lived in a hundred years ago and we live in a toxic world.

So if we want to have quality of life, I want to be a super active 90 year old. The younger people can't keep up with, then we've got to take care of our detox systems throughout our lives. 

[00:48:01] Bryan Carroll: Mast cell activation is very interesting to me and we'll be covering a lot about the immune system in the next episode.

So until then keep climbing to the peak of your health.