Heal Nourish Grow Podcast

For Day 24 of the 30 Day Healthy Habits Challenge, Cheryl shares a habit that makes healthy living feel way easier: planning ahead. Today’s goal is simple, plan tomorrow’s movement and one healthy meal. This helps reduce friction, decision fatigue and makes following through with healthy choices easier. This habit is all about keeping it realistic. Your healthy meal doesn’t need to be fancy or time-consuming, it just needs a plan. If tomorrow feels too tight, you can plan for a healthy meal sometime in the next three days instead. Takeaways Planning reduces friction and helps you follow through without relying on motivation. Deciding ahead of time reduces decision fatigue, especially at the end of a busy day. Meal planning supports variety, helping you include more ingredients and avoid repeating the same meals. Aim for at least 30g of protein in your planned meal (breakfast, lunch, or dinner your choice). Try adding one produce item you don’t normally buy to increase variety and support gut health. Planning your movement mean choosing what you’ll do and when you’ll do it so it actually happens. Disclaimer: Links may contain affiliate links, which means we may get paid a commission at no additional cost to you if you purchase through this page. Read our full disclosure here. CONNECT WITH CHERYL Shop all my healthy lifestyle favorites, lots of discounts!  21 Day Fat Loss Kickstart: Make Keto Easy, Take Diet Breaks and Still Lose Weight  Avaline Wines, Tested and Clean, Sugar Free Drinking Ketones Wild Pastures, Clean Meat to Your Doorstep 20% off for life  Clean Beauty 20% off first order DIY Lashes 10% off  NIRA at Home Laser for Wrinkles 10% off or current promo with code HealNourishGrow Instagram for daily stories with recipes, what I eat in a day and what’s going on in life Facebook YouTube  Pinterest TikTok Amazon Store The Shoe Fairy Competition Gear Getting Started with Keto Resources The Complete Beginners Guide to Keto Getting Started with Keto Podcast Episode Getting Started with Keto Resource Guide Episode Transcript Cheryl McColgan (00:00.014)Hey everyone, I’m Cheryl McColgan, founder of Heal Nourish Grow and welcome to day 24 of the 30 days healthy habits challenge. So today is one that I am particularly fond of and I think it’s fun. Some people will not think this is a fun habit to have, but that is to plan tomorrow’s movement and one healthy meal. ideally we’re going to plan one healthy meal for tomorrow, but I will say that if you have a particularly challenging work schedule or this is something that you don’t do on a regular basis, you can really plan for that healthy meal just sometime in the next three days. But the idea is to plan ahead to figure out what it is, how you’re gonna make it, what ingredients you need for it, if you need to find a recipe, all that kind of good stuff. And everybody’s definition of a healthy meal will vary slightly, obviously, depending on your goals and depending on. you know, what that looks like for you. There’s, you know, there’s all kinds of different dietary practices that anybody might be following. So I’m not prescribing a specific one. Of course, you know, I’m going to say that I would challenge you to, for whatever it is to have at least 30 grams of protein in it. And this one healthy meal you can plan, can do it for breakfast, lunch, dinner, whatever that means for you. It’s going to be, you know, if you’re not used to cooking, I don’t want you to plan like a big elaborate thing, unless that sounds fun to you, then yes, you could do something like that. But it would mean just a nourishing healthy meal. It doesn’t have to be necessarily anything fancy or anything that requires a lot of cooking. It just has to have a plan. So planning reduces friction, reduces decision fatigue later. It might be decision in the moment that you have to make, but once that is done and once you’ve already planned for it and gotten the ingredients, you already know what you’re having for dinner tomorrow. So that should make everything really easy through. throughout that next day, not having to worry about that one part of your day, that’s already decided. And then it also, in the literature, the research for today, it says that it supports food variety, which is really also great for your diet, great for your gut microbiome. People that plan meals tend to include more different ingredients rather than if you just, if you don’t do much planning, you just might grab whatever’s available, grab what you typically tend to buy anyway. And so it gets… Cheryl McColgan (02:18.71)you know, can get pretty repetitive. So this planning ahead to try a new recipe or to make something slightly different can also just introduce variety into your meals as well. And then as far as picking your movement, that can be whatever you’ve stuck with for the whole challenge for your 10 minutes, but you’re going to plan like when in the day you’re going to do it, what time, what’s going to work for you tomorrow. So this, this idea of this habit is just the idea of planning ahead just helps make everything run more smoothly. And it can be, again, the minimum. It doesn’t have to be a ton of cooking. Just make it a healthy nourishing meal, whatever that means to you. I will challenge you, like I said, get your 30 grams of protein in that meal and maybe a piece of produce that you don’t typically pick out. Maybe try something different. Maybe just go to the grocery store and be like, this looks interesting. I’ll try making this and then look up a recipe that goes along with that ingredient that you happen to find in the produce aisle. So hopefully that gives you some ideas about how to approach this one. Again, optional journal prompt for you. The links to the research are in your tracker and in the email that you received for the day. And that is it. I will see you again tomorrow.

In this episode, Cheryl McColgan discusses the concept of habit stacking, a technique that involves attaching a new habit to an existing one to make it easier to adopt. She shares her personal struggles with maintaining new habits and provides practical examples of how to effectively implement habit stacking in daily routines. The conversation emphasizes the importance of cues and motivation in forming lasting habits, as well as the value of research in validating health information. Takeaways Habit stacking is a technique to make new habits easier to adopt. Attaching a small habit to a daily routine can enhance consistency. The perceived importance of a habit affects motivation to maintain it. Using strong cues can help in forming new habits. Daily routines can serve as effective cues for new habits. Habit stacking can reduce decision fatigue. Disclaimer: Links may contain affiliate links, which means we may get paid a commission at no additional cost to you if you purchase through this page. Read our full disclosure here. CONNECT WITH CHERYL Shop all my healthy lifestyle favorites, lots of discounts!  21 Day Fat Loss Kickstart: Make Keto Easy, Take Diet Breaks and Still Lose Weight  Avaline Wines, Tested and Clean, Sugar Free Drinking Ketones Wild Pastures, Clean Meat to Your Doorstep 20% off for life  Clean Beauty 20% off first order DIY Lashes 10% off  NIRA at Home Laser for Wrinkles 10% off or current promo with code HealNourishGrow Instagram for daily stories with recipes, what I eat in a day and what’s going on in life Facebook YouTube  Pinterest TikTok Amazon Store The Shoe Fairy Competition Gear Getting Started with Keto Resources The Complete Beginners Guide to Keto Getting Started with Keto Podcast Episode Getting Started with Keto Resource Guide Episode Transcript Cheryl McColgan (00:00.174)I’m Cheryl McColgan founder of Heal Nourish Grow and welcome to day 22 of the 30 days healthy habits challenge. Today is something that we’ve talked about a little bit throughout the challenge, but I haven’t really dedicated an episode to it yet and I haven’t challenged you to actually do it as part of the habit challenge and that is to habit stack. So habit stacking is really simple. It can sometimes be hard to find ones that put together that make sense. But when you can find those ones that go together that make sense, it just really makes this such an easier thing. So today’s challenge is to attach a small habit to something you already do every single day. So I think I just even mentioned this in the last recording for day 21 in the reflection thing is about if you missed habits, know, habit stacking is a great way to do those. Because if you’re finding them challenging to fit in your day, sticking them to something you already do is going to be one of the easiest way that you can make that stick. And then so I’ll give you an example of the one since I started making this challenge, I’ve been thinking about this a lot for myself. And here’s the one that I’m working on right now. So I have had this hair trauma for the last three years. It’s a really long story that you don’t need to hear about in this episode, which I have actually done a podcast episode on it before. But at any rate, it’s, you know, I’ve had a lot of trauma to my hair. I’ve had a lot of hair falling out. I’ve had some scalp irritation, things like that. And so I’ve been very focused on that. And one of the things I purchased to help me deal with this is this OS one supplement. I’ve been using their skincare for a while now. Absolutely love it. I have an article over at the website all about it. He says a peptide science. It’s really cool technology and it actually works and there’s some good clinical data behind it all. But anyway, oh, and just because I mentioned that If you read about it, you do get a little extra discount with my link or something. But anyway, the point of none of that is the point here. The point is that I find it difficult. I bought this hair serum and I bought like I can’t remember if I bought a three month supply or six month supply because you definitely get a bigger discount if you buy more. And plus, if you’re doing anything with your hair, it’s going to take you a little bit longer to actually notice results. Right. So anyway, I’m getting to the point I promise is that I bought that serum, probably a good Cheryl McColgan (02:20.305)six months ago now or maybe even longer. And I’ve only used it maybe a total of five times and I’ll start to think, okay, I’m going to use it today and then I’ll get on the new habit of doing this every day because you got to do it every day for it to really be effective. So I haven’t been able to do that up to this point. I don’t know why it’s such a simple thing. It’s not difficult. You literally split your hair, you put the serum on the scalp, you rub it in, you go to bed. Easy peasy, right? Can’t seem to make myself do it, but The one thing I do every single night is wash my face, brush my teeth and put on my skincare. put on the same skincare by the same brand that I put on my face every single night without fail. Doesn’t matter how late I’m out. Doesn’t matter what else I’ve done. I will not go to bed without washing my face, putting my skincare on and brushing my teeth. That is a solid set in habit that does not fail. for the last few days or since this challenge when I was talking about habit stacking several times, I’m like, this is just ridiculous. have this perfect habit that this pairs with, which is like I mentioned, my teeth and skincare routine in the evening, I just need to put that hair serum like literally where I cannot miss it. And so I had it on the counter next to my toothbrush. I don’t know why, but that wasn’t quite working because the flow. But what I found was I put the hair serum inside of a drawer that has the skincare. I took the hair serum out of the cabinet off the counter. put it in the drawer like literally right next to the moisture. And this is so dumb right, you’re like, why can’t you just put that in your hair every night? I don’t know why. This is why anybody has trouble with habits, right? This is why we’re doing this whole challenge. But put it right next to my skincare so that it’s literally right where I take them both out. I do the skincare part, I put that back and then I take the hair stuff and then I put it and rub it and put it right back next to the moisturizer. So that seems to be working. So that is a habit stack. So that was a very long winded way of telling you. But I also think it speaks to the fact that, you know, obviously none of us are perfect. Even those of us that are very good at discipline, very good habits. And also there’s something about the perceived importance of the habit, I think. So this particular thing, like if I put this stuff in my hair or not, it really doesn’t matter. It doesn’t affect anything. I’m not even sure 100 % that it will help or that it will work. So it’s not a high Cheryl McColgan (04:40.651)value habit, right? There’s not a whole lot of motivation example for me to continue that habit. Whereas something like changing your nutrition or changing your diet, if you’re say your goal is to lose weight, there’s a lot higher of motivation or importance. I won’t want to say motivation because motivation like we talked about that comes and goes. But the importance of that to your health or to your future goals, looking a certain way or having a certain body composition, the importance of that is a lot greater. than something like putting this stuff in your hair that may or may not work. You know if you change your nutrition behavior, change your eating behavior, that that will have a positive outcome. So I think you also have to look at the importance of any particular habit in relation to how hard that’s gonna be to maintain or how hard it’s gonna be to force yourself to do. So the whole reason this works is pretty obvious. The habit stacking, the first habit, the existing habit is the cue and there’s no motivation there. The second habit just comes right after it, because that’s where you’re sticking it now. And so again, this creates less decision fatigue. It just makes it easier for you to just go ahead and do it. So here’s an example. made this little formula that I wrote out so that we are all on the same page with this. It’s so ridiculously simple. But just for clarity, it’s after I blank, I will blank. So for example, after coffee, I will drink water. But I would put that in reverse, because as we talked about, It’s stacked like that can still be stacked even though we’re supposed to drink the water before the coffee because well the coffee is still the cube. We’ll go to the thing to get coffee and we’ll be like oh yes I’m Annie and I’m going to drink this water first. And the other thing is after brushing teeth I will stretch two minutes. So you’re picking a cue that happens every single day because we want this new habit we want it to be a habit that’s like an everyday habit we just stick it with there. So that is really it for today. If you keep forgetting then you might need a stronger cue. the more automatic the queue is, the easier it’s going to be to get this new habit to stick. So look for those things, like I said, like brushing my teeth or things that you’ve never missed. Those are the ones you want to stick it to. And as always, the links for the research, the links for the research, this week aren’t exactly tied to or for today aren’t exactly tied to habit stacking, but they’re just kind of the. Cheryl McColgan (07:01.517)way that goal setting interacts with habits and things. So I think those are pretty interesting, but those are in your email and in the tracker. As always, the optional journal prompt is there if you want to do that. And the research is always optional to read, but hopefully it’s, know, mostly if you just skim the abstract or skip down to the results, that would be a super quick read for you less than a minute. So also that could be a come a new habit, just like looking at, you know, looking at the research or especially, I don’t know, this one’s turning into a longer little episode here. But just this is a totally random unrelated thing, but to encourage you whenever you hear certain things online, before I repeat them, or before I invest a whole lot of time in belief or disbelief or whatever, I’ll go search the topic in the PubMed and just see if there’s any existing literature or research on the topic and see if it’s even in the direction of what the person is claiming online. Because there’s a lot of bad information out there nowadays. I’m sure you already know this. but it’s always nice to just consider the source, number one, and then go check, do a little research on your own and see. And the reason I like to go to PubMed first is because too many articles on the internet are all full of opinion, right? So just looking at the existing literature is a pretty good hint and a good signal to whether something is valid or not. So anyway, sorry to be a little tangential on this one, but hope you… Enjoy today’s habit. I hope you can find a habit that you can stack with one of your existing ones. And I’d love to hear all about it as always in the comments below. Or if it’s something you don’t want to share publicly, you’re always welcome to email me as well. And if you’re not signed up for this challenge yet, if you just randomly found this on YouTube and you’re like, what is this all about? You can go to healnourishgrow.com slash habits and you can start this 30 days of healthy habits anytime for free. just check that link out and you’ll get started that very same day or the next day, you’ll get the emails and then you’re onto your 30 days of creating new healthy habits. So that is it for today and I will see you again tomorrow.

In this conversation, Cheryl McColgan discusses the importance of adopting small, manageable habits to improve mental clarity and reduce stress. She emphasizes the benefits of a five-minute decluttering practice, which can lead to a calmer environment and a sense of accomplishment. Cheryl shares insights on how clutter can increase anxiety and how small wins can build trust in oneself. The conversation encourages listeners to embrace these habits as part of a broader 30-day healthy habits challenge. Takeaways Clutter increases your stress. It creates a calm Zen mind. You get to check it off your list and it’s done. Touch it once, that’s the practice. Don’t be tempted to deep clean. Watch on YouTube Disclaimer: Links may contain affiliate links, which means we may get paid a commission at no additional cost to you if you purchase through this page. Read our full disclosure here. CONNECT WITH CHERYL Shop all my healthy lifestyle favorites, lots of discounts!  21 Day Fat Loss Kickstart: Make Keto Easy, Take Diet Breaks and Still Lose Weight  Avaline Wines, Tested and Clean, Sugar Free Drinking Ketones Wild Pastures, Clean Meat to Your Doorstep 20% off for life  Clean Beauty 20% off first order DIY Lashes 10% off  NIRA at Home Laser for Wrinkles 10% off or current promo with code HealNourishGrow Instagram for daily stories with recipes, what I eat in a day and what’s going on in life Facebook YouTube  Pinterest TikTok Amazon Store The Shoe Fairy Competition Gear Getting Started with Keto Resources The Complete Beginners Guide to Keto Getting Started with Keto Podcast Episode Getting Started with Keto Resource Guide Episode Transcript Cheryl McColgan (00:00.62)Cheryl McColgan founder of HealNourishGrow and welcome to the day 20 of your 30 days of healthy habits challenge. Today is one that I use pretty frequently and I think it is so helpful and actually looking into the research about it I always knew that there was a reason that this was a thing that was good for you. But today’s habit is that you’re going to declutter one small area for five minutes. So you’re just going to set a timer on your phone or in the kitchen time or something like that and stop when it ends. Now, I will say what happens to me when I use this little habit is that sometimes I kind of get on a roll and I don’t really want to stop. So if you want to keep it super manageable and not let it go kind of taking over other parts of your day, if you have a really busy day, you might want to just take a five minute section that’s right before you need to do something else. So you definitely have to stop. And it’s interesting how it almost leaves you kind of craving more because once you get started, quite often you get a little bit in a flow and then a rhythm or you want to do a little bit more. And it’s kind of like the other habit that I shared with you, I mentioned how I would kind of trick myself when I used to have to get out the door to go run or go exercise or something like that. And so it’s kind of the same with this. saying I’m only going to declutter for five minutes and then I’m going to stop. So it takes away the resistance to that. Because I know a lot of times if I have a big cleaning project or if I have an area that’s a big mess and I just I want to reorganize it and I want to deal with it, but I just I will mentally put it off forever because it seems like it’s going to take too much time. And it creates a lot of mental stress for me specifically. So I think that this habit is a really good one to take on. It is something that, again, like all of these habits has research to support why it’s good for you. But basically clutter increases your stress. So like I just described, for me, it definitely creates, it’s more like anxiety for me, what it creates when I have a messy space. And a calmer space also supports calmer routines. It makes it easier to carry through on your other habits because you’re not looking around thinking about all the things that you need to clean up or organize or do. It’s just a calm Zen space really creates a calm Zen mind. So this small reset can also help reduce visual stress and make your environment just more supportive for everything that you’re going to do in that space. For example, right now, if I look at my desk, there’s a few papers and things on it that aren’t making me so happy in the moment, but Cheryl McColgan (02:22.466)That’s probably what I will do for my five minute little clutter cleanup today. So you start these short sessions and it really helps you build trust with yourself because again, it’s a small win. And so in this scenario, the way that we set this up, decluttering a small space, you’re going to have the small win where you finish what you started and you get to check it off your list and it’s done. And that always feels great, right? So that’s another way it’s really supportive. So as far as picking a tiny zone, Here some examples or ideas that you might want to use. So for example, a counter space, maybe the kitchen, junk drawer. I don’t know, my junk drawer would probably take more than five minutes. I might not pick that one for this particular one. One specific shelf, or maybe it’s a part of your car. Maybe it’s like just vacuuming. You know, this one’s not really decluttering per se, but say you had trash or work things or piles of paper or something in your car, you can declutter that space. And then the simple rule is just you only want to touch the things once I think that is a really good practice as well I try to get my husband to do this with the mail, but he just he’ll sort through it He’ll kind of look at it and then I’ll put it down. It’s like touch it once So that’s what we’re doing with this declutter habit and you just trash it donate it or relocate it That’s your choices. So it’s either trash donate put away just you’ve got to deal with it though in that moment and So again kind of stopping at that five-minute mark even when you want to keep going the reason this is important for this particular habit is it’s about repeatability. So you can’t, you know, you can’t put it off as easily when it’s only five minutes. If you get into a whole thing where you try this five minute habit and then it takes you 20 minutes because you didn’t stop and then you’re kind of annoyed by it because it took over some other space in your day that you needed. That is so I think it’s good to sit mentally that parameter at the very beginning and then that way when you stop again you get to check off. that thing off your list, you did it the way that it was supposed to be done, and that’s it. So if you have problem with that touching it once kind of thing, or something you really need to give it more thought, because even Marie Kondo, is that her name? I think she’s the one that’s the lady that’s the declutter lady. But a small decide later, Ben, is OK. And this is only for one day, so you probably won’t need that. But if you’re going to carry this habit forward into the future, Cheryl McColgan (04:43.958)maybe have a small side later been that way you can put some little things in there when you’re feeling overwhelmed, but you can still put it out of the way and make the one space that you’re focused on actually being, you know, completed like we’ve discussed. So even just if it’s one square foot, that is it. It’s like, don’t be tempted to deep clean. Just remind yourself that this is a small little habit that you’re going to start repeating over and over. And that’s why we want to keep it super manageable. And this one is again, you can tell I’m talking about this one a lot because it is definitely something that I find challenging, where if I would practice this habit every single day, these small five minute cleanups, I’d be in so much better shape than when I ignore it or I wait until I have enough time to do the whole thing, because you easily keep putting it off and keep putting it off. So anyway, hopefully that was useful for you today. As always, the research links will be in the tracker and in your email for the day. And if you haven’t signed up yet for the challenge, if you’re just running into this video on YouTube and you’re like, what is this all about? This is a 30 day healthy habits challenge. you can sign up at any time. And that link is healnursgrove.com slash habits. And so that’s it for today. I will talk to you again tomorrow.

Today’s habit for the 30 day healthy habits challenge, is a seriously under appreciated part of health. However, it’s one that impacts both how you feel now and how you age over time: connection. Having supportive relationships and a sense of community isn’t just good for your mood, it’s strongly linked to longevity, resilience, and overall well-being. For today’s habit, you’re going to reach out to someone. Call or text, but take it one step further and make an actual plan. Suggest a specific day and a specific activity, even if it’s simple and free, like a walk or a coffee. If you can, I want to encourage you to call. Hearing someone’s voice or even leaving a quick voice message creates a deeper kind of connection than a quick text, and it’s something we’ve gotten away from over time. Relationships require communication and follow-through, and today is about being the person who makes it easy for connection to happen. Takeaways Connection and supportive relationships are linked to mental health and longevity Isolation can negatively impact health over time, and reaching out helps reduce that A quick message is good, but a real plan is better Suggest a specific date and a specific activity so it doesn’t stay vague Consider calling instead of texting to create a more meaningful moment of connection It does not have to be expensive or complicated, a walk, coffee, or casual catch-up counts Relationships require communication and consistency, and someone has to initiate it You can build a strong support system with just a few key people, but you have to invest in it Watch on YouTube Disclaimer: Links may contain affiliate links, which means we may get paid a commission at no additional cost to you if you purchase through this page. Read our full disclosure here. CONNECT WITH CHERYL Shop all my healthy lifestyle favorites, lots of discounts!  21 Day Fat Loss Kickstart: Make Keto Easy, Take Diet Breaks and Still Lose Weight  Avaline Wines, Tested and Clean, Sugar Free Drinking Ketones Wild Pastures, Clean Meat to Your Doorstep 20% off for life  Clean Beauty 20% off first order DIY Lashes 10% off  NIRA at Home Laser for Wrinkles 10% off or current promo with code HealNourishGrow Instagram for daily stories with recipes, what I eat in a day and what’s going on in life Facebook YouTube  Pinterest TikTok Amazon Store The Shoe Fairy Competition Gear Getting Started with Keto Resources The Complete Beginners Guide to Keto Getting Started with Keto Podcast Episode Getting Started with Keto Resource Guide Episode Transcript: Cheryl McColgan (00:00.394)Cheryl McHogan founder of HealNourishGrow and welcome to day 18 of your 30 days healthy habits challenge. Today is one that is such an underappreciated part of health and that is to reach out to someone and having connection in your life and having a supportive community is really just so key not only to your mental health but also it’s highly related to longevity. So if you want to be healthier Creating a small circle or a large circle of people that you have in your life that are available to you is just really important and an underrated aspect of health. So today’s activity, today’s habit is to reach out to someone. Now I’m gonna say call or text, but plan something. Plan to meet, plan to meet in person, plan to go somewhere. It doesn’t have to be somewhere where you spend money necessarily, maybe go for a walk or just grab a coffee or it could be dinner. just anything like that. And I am going to encourage you, I said text or call, but I’m going to encourage you to call because we all have gotten maybe a little lazy with that over time. And it’s just nice to hear people’s voices, even if I’m not able to pick up the phone for some reason in that moment, I always love getting a nice voice message because it’s just something we don’t do that much anymore. Why this matters again, social connection, it’s protective for your mood and longevity and It’s just going to make you less isolated, which is also related to health over time. And if you don’t reach out, you’re not going to have those connections. You’re not going to have a actual relationship like relationships require communication. It requires touching base. And I have to say, I’m really impressed. There are certain people in my life that are just so very good at this. And I really admire that quality. They’re always the one to reach out or just say, thinking about you or let’s get together soon and throw out a date and throw out an idea. That’s another thing. mean, people, I feel like that’s one thing when you say, yeah, we should get together soon. That’s not a plan. That’s why that’s part of this conversation of this habit is to get you to be the one that says, how does next Thursday work or throwing out a date and an activity? Because a lot of people, you were the one to reach out. You’re the one that was thinking of them. And so I like for that to be kind of the way that you connect is to actually put an idea out there and Cheryl McColgan (02:22.99)not make it so ambiguous because quite often I have people in my life that will say that, we should get together. And yet they never suggest a time or an activity or a date. And it’s just kind of, I don’t know, it falls flat, I think in the realm of relationships. So it shouldn’t always be one sided. You shouldn’t always have to be the one to do that. But for this habit for today, I’m going to say, I’m going to put that on you to make that challenge to just reach out to somebody that you miss, that you want to catch up with, that you want to see and make some plans. And so that is today’s habit. As always, the research behind this, if you want to dig into it a little bit more, you’ll just find that it’s so related to many aspects of health. And I think you might really enjoy reading that if you need any encouragement about staying in touch with people, because it doesn’t have to be a big group. You just have to have somebody that’s got your back, somebody that you can rely on. And you have to create that. You have to put some energy into it. So that is it for today’s habit and I will see you again tomorrow.

Today’s habit for the 30 day healthy habit challenge is simple, powerful, and genuinely fun: set aside 10 minutes to do something creative or playful. As adults, we often stop making time for “silly” or purely enjoyable moments, but those short creative breaks can lower stress, boost your mood, and make it easier to stay consistent with healthy habits the rest of the day. Whether you put on music and fully immerse yourself, try painting, cook, take photos, knit, or explore something totally new. This is about giving your brain a reset and letting yourself experience a little joy. Takeaways Today’s habit: Do 10 minutes of fun or creativity, in addition to your daily movement. Fun isn’t “extra”, it can lower stress and support your overall well-being. Short creative breaks can improve mood and stress resilience, making healthy choices feel easier. As adults, we often forget how to play, making fun a habit helps bring that back. If you work in a creative field, choose something different from your job to truly reset your brain. Aim for an activity that helps you enter a mini flow state. This allows you to be extra focused and not thinking about everything else. Try something new you’re not “good” at. Being a beginner can actually make it more immersive and fun. If you’re too tired for “fun,” choose something restorative (like a relaxing read) and still count it. Watch on YouTube Disclaimer: Links may contain affiliate links, which means we may get paid a commission at no additional cost to you if you purchase through this page. Read our full disclosure here. CONNECT WITH CHERYL Shop all my healthy lifestyle favorites, lots of discounts!  21 Day Fat Loss Kickstart: Make Keto Easy, Take Diet Breaks and Still Lose Weight  Avaline Wines, Tested and Clean, Sugar Free Drinking Ketones Wild Pastures, Clean Meat to Your Doorstep 20% off for life  Clean Beauty 20% off first order DIY Lashes 10% off  NIRA at Home Laser for Wrinkles 10% off or current promo with code HealNourishGrow Instagram for daily stories with recipes, what I eat in a day and what’s going on in life Facebook YouTube  Pinterest TikTok Amazon Store The Shoe Fairy Competition Gear Getting Started with Keto Resources The Complete Beginners Guide to Keto Getting Started with Keto Podcast Episode Getting Started with Keto Resource Guide Episode Transcript: Cheryl McColgan (00:00.558)Hey everyone, I’m Cheryl McColgan, founder of Heal Nourish Grow and welcome to day 16 of your 30 days of healthy habits challenge. Today is fun because it actually is doing something fun or creative for 10 minutes. So this is of course, in addition to your 10 minutes of daily movement, but you’re going to take a separate 10 minutes at some point today and set that aside to do something creative or fun. So this is often challenging for people. When I even think about it for myself, I’m like, what do I find fun? What would I actually do with this 10 minutes? Well, the beauty is it can be anything. And hopefully you have a hobby or a thing that you do, whether it’s art or singing or dancing or just something that speaks to you and creates fun. This fun or creative activity, it can lower stress, it supports your well-being, and it just makes healthy habits throughout the day easier to maintain if you always have a little bit of fun. Short creative breaks can also support your mood and it creates stress resilience. fun, we don’t always make time for it, but you can make that a habit too. And that’s why I wanted to include this one in the challenge because I definitely think it’s something that when we become adults, that we do this less and less. And it’s too bad because those times that you’re silly, and I find, at least for me, it’s often easiest for me to do this with friends, is that the silly creative or just fun times, it creates so much joy and you almost forget what it’s like. Whereas I feel like when we were younger and kids, we were more carefree and had less responsibilities. it was easier to just say pull off work and do something fun for 10 minutes. But it really will pay you benefits if you look at it in terms of your work, because when you give yourself that little mental break, and especially if you’re in a creative field, it is nice to take a break and do something fun or different from whatever it is creative that you do for your actual job. So I would encourage you if you are in a creative field, if you do, for example, you do some people call it I do creative, I don’t know if I really think that it’s because I don’t. Cheryl McColgan (02:12.332)I don’t think of writing creativity in the same way that I think of like drawing or painting or things like that. To me, that seems more like creative activity, but it is, it really is creative. And even when you’re doing it kind of more in a work component, that it’s not, you know, I’m not writing fiction or anything like that. So it’s not creative in that way, but it is still a different kind of skill of creativity. So for mine, I would not choose writing, obviously, I would do something completely different. And for me, I’m more likely to choose fun. for this challenge. So I would probably just maybe put on some music and you know really just take a moment to immerse myself into it and listen to it. I find that very fun and very rejuvenating and very refreshing break from work. So here’s some other ideas for you if none of that is resonating with anything so far but I already mentioned music. I mentioned drawing or painting. There’s also cooking. or taking photos or some other hobby that you have. Maybe it’s knitting, crochet, maybe it’s, one of my friends does this thing with these little like sparkly crystal things, putting them into pictures and stuff. just anything like that. And ideally also something that you can get in a flow state with if you can within 10 minutes, because it’ll just give you that stress relief because you’re totally focused and you’re not thinking about anything else. And in the past when I’ve done this, I haven’t thought it was fun. cannot draw or paint at all. Just was never a skill of mine, but I had bought this inexpensive acrylic set from Hobby Lobby. think those are pretty all over the US anyway. And it’s just a place that has a lot of different creative supplies and housewares and things to decorate with and stuff like that. So a lot of stuff for creativity. But being a person that doesn’t paint or draw at all bought this little inexpensive paint kit with how to canvas and spent the afternoon on my patio and started, I had an inspiration piece that was a flat perspective thing that I had seen somewhere that I had a photo of and I got so immersed such in a flow state, was unbelievable. Excuse me. And I think that it was even more so of a flow state because I didn’t know what I was doing. So. Cheryl McColgan (04:30.67)Extra bonus points if you try something new with this challenge that you’re not used to because I think it can create an extra fun thing. So if you’re extra tired when you’re doing this and this fun doesn’t seem like the thing go for relaxation whether it’s just a 10 minute break to do something you don’t normally get to do like reading something like that. That would be fine as well. So that is your habit for today. And if you’re not yet signed up, you can always start at any time. We’d love to have you and that’s it for this one. So I’ll see you again tomorrow.

This is the end of another week of the healthy habits challenge, and Cheryl McColgan discusses the importance of evaluating the week in order to identify ways to improve for the rest of the challenge. Watch on YouTube Disclaimer: Links may contain affiliate links, which means we may get paid a commission at no additional cost to you if you purchase through this page. Read our full disclosure here. CONNECT WITH CHERYL Shop all my healthy lifestyle favorites, lots of discounts!  21 Day Fat Loss Kickstart: Make Keto Easy, Take Diet Breaks and Still Lose Weight  Avaline Wines, Tested and Clean, Sugar Free Drinking Ketones Wild Pastures, Clean Meat to Your Doorstep 20% off for life  Clean Beauty 20% off first order DIY Lashes 10% off  NIRA at Home Laser for Wrinkles 10% off or current promo with code HealNourishGrow Instagram for daily stories with recipes, what I eat in a day and what’s going on in life Facebook YouTube  Pinterest TikTok Amazon Store The Shoe Fairy Competition Gear Getting Started with Keto Resources The Complete Beginners Guide to Keto Getting Started with Keto Podcast Episode Getting Started with Keto Resource Guide Episode Transcript: Cheryl McColgan (00:00.846)Hey everyone, I’m Cheryl McColgan, founder of Feel Nourish Grow and welcome to day 14 of your 30 days healthy habits challenge. We made it to day 14, that’s the end of week two and now it’s time for the weekly reset. So every week we do a reflect and adjust. It’s not a time to make any judgments about yourself or to be sad or unhappy with yourself for not doing a particular day or anything like that. You’re not perfect, you don’t need to be perfect. We just need to keep repeating the habits and not get stuck on, you know, this idea that we, you know, there’s the streaks and stuff are fun. And I, again, I made this challenge to be manageable so that it’s five to 15 minutes a day. So that ideally you’re getting those wins every single day. But if you do miss a day, it’s totally okay. You’re just jumping back in. So for the weekly reset, we’re going to go back to the same thing that we did on day seven. And that is to list one win. one challenge and one small adjustment for next week. Again, we’re doing always the 10 minutes of movement every day. I hope you’re enjoying that. I’d love to hear how it’s feeling in your body, what you’ve been doing for movement, what’s different for you with that. And then also going back to your focus areas. Ideally every day when you are looking at the habit that we’re doing, and I’ve tried to mention this a few times throughout the videos, but it’s not always easy for me to remember to do it on every single one, but to… Keep the habit in the framework of your, the three things that you identified at the beginning as your focus areas, trying to integrate that in some way that supports those focus areas. And if it just doesn’t fit for you, maybe that’s not one of the habits that you’re going to keep going forward. But those focus areas, again, ideally when you have these kind of focus areas in mind, and I like to take the focus areas and eventually, you make them into goals that are maybe a monthly goal or a five-year goal or a 10-year goal. things that are much bigger goals, you have to take these small steps to get there. And so, but these focus areas in, I have this other thing that I wrote up a long time ago and it was just about your daily or your goals and habits and kind of identifying what things are most important to you in your life. And, Cheryl McColgan (02:23.566)So was this program that I wrote about and it’s still on the website. I’ll include the link in the show notes for you, but it’s a goals and kind of identifying things in your life. Like what are you about? What are your primary drivers and what are some big goals in the future that you want to get to? You might have a five-year goal, a 10-year goal, but these daily little habits that we’re creating should all support your focus areas, your future goals, things that you’re gonna get to. the… Example I always like to use is the marathon. You know, you’re not going to go out and run 24 miles, 25 miles, 26.2 to be technically correct in a day. I’d like just do that tomorrow. You’ve got to build up to it. Ideally, if you’re going to run a marathon that’s four months in the future, you’re starting out by running a few, you know, maybe it’s even minutes at a time if you’ve never run before. And maybe it’s a six month build up to this or a year build up to this goal. But it’s these little daily habits that get you there. So anyway, all that is to say to just take these into account every habit that you try in this challenge, notice what’s speaking to you and then see how you can apply that to your focus areas. So hopefully that all makes sense. And as always, if you have any questions or anything, you can always reach out. But sometimes these things want to have a little bit of ambiguity around it because everybody’s got different goals in mind and different things that they’re doing. And so it’s nice to have a little bit of interpretation of it for yourself. But again, if you’re struggling or having trouble or just have questions, always feel free to reach out. And if you’re not doing this challenge yet, I encourage you to go ahead and sign up. It’s healnourishgrow.com slash habits. You can start any time, no matter when you’re finding this, it is never too late to start again or to just get started. Going back to your three things that you’re doing, your one win, your one challenge and your one small adjustment. If this week was messy, and you had a lot of little loops along the way. The win can be I did not quit. So it can be as simple as that. Again, this is not meant to beat you up or to be something that you yet again failed at like a New Year’s resolution. It’s nothing like that. This is all just bringing more awareness to your habits, giving you some things to try that will hopefully be useful in your real life after the challenge is over and that you can keep going for Cheryl McColgan (04:48.174)months, weeks, years, however much it supports your goals and your personal well-being. So that is it for today. I will see you again tomorrow.

Cheryl McColgan discusses day 12 of the Healthy Habits challenge with the idea of a “movement snack.” Getting up from your desk on a regular basis and adding in small bouts of movement throughout the day has a number of benefits. Watch on YouTube Disclaimer: Links may contain affiliate links, which means we may get paid a commission at no additional cost to you if you purchase through this page. Read our full disclosure here. CONNECT WITH CHERYL Shop all my healthy lifestyle favorites, lots of discounts!  21 Day Fat Loss Kickstart: Make Keto Easy, Take Diet Breaks and Still Lose Weight  Avaline Wines, Tested and Clean, Sugar Free Drinking Ketones Wild Pastures, Clean Meat to Your Doorstep 20% off for life  Clean Beauty 20% off first order DIY Lashes 10% off  NIRA at Home Laser for Wrinkles 10% off or current promo with code HealNourishGrow Instagram for daily stories with recipes, what I eat in a day and what’s going on in life Facebook YouTube  Pinterest TikTok Amazon Store The Shoe Fairy Competition Gear Getting Started with Keto Resources The Complete Beginners Guide to Keto Getting Started with Keto Podcast Episode Getting Started with Keto Resource Guide Episode Transcript: Cheryl McColgan (00:00.11)Hey everyone, I’m Cheryl McColgan, founder of HealNourishGrow and welcome to day 12 of your 30 days of healthy habits challenge. Today’s habit is to do a movement snack after for sitting too long. So I love the name of this and normally I’m not a big, not opposed to snacks generally, but you’ll do better if you just eat real meals, but movement snacks, we’re all about those for sure. So all this is going to do is do some kind of movement after you have been sitting for a while during the day. a lot of us have desk jobs where we sit in front of a computer. If you’re very active throughout the day, you have an active job. Maybe this is more like a movement snack in the evening after you’ve kind of wound down. You’ve been sitting around on the couch for a little bit. But anyway, just any time that you’ve been sitting for, you know, say maybe 45 minutes. For some people, you might get antsy quicker than that. For other people, you might want to sit longer. but try not to sit longer than 45 minutes. So you’ll just do like a two minute little movement break. Ideally, you want to stand up if you’re working in front of the desk, doing stretches like I’m demonstrating here on camera. So if you’re watching audio only, I’m pulling back my hand with the other hand just to stretch out my wrists. I do a lot of typing. So that is a really good one for me. You can also put your arms behind your head and grab one elbow and do a nice stretch there. So that could be the first part of your movement snack. And then to just get up for a minute, maybe go get a glass of water or just take a walk down the hall, maybe step outside for a minute, something like that. So your body is just really designed for frequent movement. And these long times that we’re sitting just really aren’t good for us. So especially if you’ve been sitting at a meal for a little bit, having that little bit of movement after. a meal, whether it’s a walk or something like that is really good for blood glucose. So doing something like some air squats that there’s also a recent study on that where it showed doing some air squats. When I say air squats, I just kind of mean like body weight squats where you don’t need any equipment or anything like that is as effective as walking for blood glucose control. So that’s pretty cool. It also just can support circulation, energy, focus. These are just Cheryl McColgan (02:19.24)nice way to break up your day and again just not have yourself sitting all the time. Eventually when you sit for long periods you don’t counteract that it’s know shortens your hip flexors it create a lot of issues in your body. We all get this kind of forward head when we’re working in front of the computer so things that you can do to counteract that like bringing your arms behind your back and interlacing your hands and then really stretching back to create a stretch in the front of the chest is a way that you can kind of counteract some of that you know, hunched forward movement. So I am mentioning a lot of stretching, but I do want you to get out of the chair for sure. Again, try to keep it to 45 minutes. If you get up more frequently, of course, that’s always amazing. But that is the habit for today. So try not to sit for too long. As always, if you’re not yet part of the challenge, you can go sign up. The link is in the show notes or in the comment box below. If you’re looking at YouTube in the description box, it’ll be there. And yeah. Let me know if you find this helpful and I’ll see you tomorrow.

Cheryl McColgan discusses the habit for day 10 in the Healthy Habits Challenge, a simple 3 breath reset. Breathwork is a great tool for stress relief and attention. Watch on YouTube: Disclaimer: Links may contain affiliate links, which means we may get paid a commission at no additional cost to you if you purchase through this page. Read our full disclosure here. CONNECT WITH CHERYL Shop all my healthy lifestyle favorites, lots of discounts!  21 Day Fat Loss Kickstart: Make Keto Easy, Take Diet Breaks and Still Lose Weight  Avaline Wines, Tested and Clean, Sugar Free Drinking Ketones Wild Pastures, Clean Meat to Your Doorstep 20% off for life  Clean Beauty 20% off first order DIY Lashes 10% off  NIRA at Home Laser for Wrinkles 10% off or current promo with code HealNourishGrow Instagram for daily stories with recipes, what I eat in a day and what’s going on in life Facebook YouTube  Pinterest TikTok Amazon Store The Shoe Fairy Competition Gear Getting Started with Keto Resources The Complete Beginners Guide to Keto Getting Started with Keto Podcast Episode Getting Started with Keto Resource Guide Episode Transcript: Cheryl McColgan (00:00.414)I’m Cheryl McColgan founder of Heal Nourish Grow and welcome to day 10 of the 30 day healthy habits challenge. So today is going to be a habit that I have been practicing for a really long time because it’s a little bit based in yoga, which if you know a little bit about my background, I’m a certified experienced yoga teacher, tons of hours teaching, have been doing yoga since… gosh this is… tough to say, but like over 30 years now I picked it up while I was in college. But anyway, it’s about a breathing practice. And this one’s not a structured breathing practice. This is just to try this one time today. And that’s just to practice a three breath reset. So at some point during the day where you’re either tired or feeling a little stressed, or you’re having an interaction that is making you tense up, you’re simply going to take three deep breaths. Now the one thing I want to teach you about this because there are a lot of structured breathing programs and they all have maybe slightly different purposes. There’s box breathing, there’s alternate nostril breathing, there’s a ton of different breathing practices. And we are going to talk about another one I think later in the series that’s for a different purpose. But really this is just a practice to just get you thinking about breathing. And the thing I just want to bring home is that the most One of the more important parts of any breath practice, I think if you’re using it to calm down or to fight stress, which is what we’re trying to do with this one, and that is to extend the exhale slightly longer than the inhale. So if you inhale for a count of four, for example, you want to exhale for at least a count of five. And the reason that this works and there’s plenty of data on it, like you know, with this whole challenge, there’s always research and the links for those are in your tracker and emails. But the slightly longer exhale activates your parasympathetic nervous system. And that’s the part of your nervous system that’s for calm, that’s for rest and digest. And it’s the one that a lot of people really have trouble accessing. So just having that slightly longer exhale is a great way to do that. So today, like I said, one of those times you’re just going to do that slightly longer exhale. Cheryl McColgan (02:18.487)This is gonna cue your nervous system to be more calm and it’s gonna help with stress and impulsive decisions. So it’s particularly useful in situations maybe with your significant other or at work or with your children. Anytime you’re feeling a little frustrating, just take a moment, three deep breaths, slightly longer exhale, and then deal with whatever the situation is. So you might wanna use some kind of trigger moment today. that makes you think of it. Like again, if we do this habit stacking thing, the thing that’s going to help you do it most easily. Now that’s most useful when you, it’s something that you want to accomplish every single day. And I certainly think taking this time, any time of day, doing it at a specific time is really good, but I think it’s really more useful even, like I said, in those little situations where you might have some stress, like before a meeting or when you’re driving in traffic or something like that, or just using it to really settle yourself down before bed, you could make it. part of your bedtime ritual if you wanted to do that. So that’s today’s thing. Super easy. Just breathe. If you want to read the signs, make sure you’re signed up for the challenge. You’ll get all the links in the tracker and in the emails. And that’s it for today. I will see you again tomorrow. I was almost going say next week, but man, we’re only on day 10 here. So we got a lot to go.