Episode 3949, lean into leverage.

Moms, it's time to rediscover, rejuvenate, and renew whom you are in mind, body, and spirit.

Welcome to Create Your Now, Your Best Selfie, the show that help you do just that.

Here's your host, certified life coach, personal trainer, and nutritionist, Christian Warno.

Happy everyday. I hope you're having a fabulous week.

I cannot believe it's already midweek, take a deep breath because what is going on in your neck

at the woods like seriously? Have you been watching the weather? We'll hear down south,

we're thinking we're going to get a big one, we'll see. But today it's all about your health

and wellness. Lean into leverage. For those of you who are brand new to Create Your Now,

welcome to this incredible family. I'm so delighted of your presence. If you already

haven't had the opportunity, you want to head on over to creaturenow.com where you can learn more

and sign up for the Kisses newsletter. They keep it simple strategy, everyday solutions,

to live, love, and impact, where this episode is brought to you by aim, inspiring connection,

and community. You know, if you have a life where everything is perfectly aligned,

you've got the ideal schedule, boundless energy, just these endless resources.

Fabulous. This isn't for you. But for the rest of us, especially when it comes to healthy living,

the reality is messier. It's more complicated and rarely perfect.

So instead of getting caught up in the magnitude of all the things' health,

maybe it's all about how you lean into leverage. And not the leverage you're probably thinking of,

right? I mean, if you're chasing that ideal health picture, you know it rarely last.

So instead of drowning in the overwhelming list of habits and foods and workouts and wellness

trends, the list goes on and on. What if you shifted your focus? What if thriving really thriving

was less about perfection and more about leverage, leveraging exactly where you are and what you

already have? So think about the word leverage, because I know you're going, Christian, I need a

dictionary. Or what we think about leverage is maybe a negative. I want you to look at this as

a positive, right? Leverage is all about maximizing impact with the resources at hand.

That's how I want you to define the word leverage today, not waiting for the right time,

or not waiting for perfect conditions. It's pulling strength from your current situation,

your season of life, and making it work for you, not necessarily against you. Because again,

go back, right? If you are living in a perfect world and you've got everything together,

then honestly, series them being just really real with you. You just need to turn this off now

because it's not going to match. But if you're one who says, oh, Christian, I've been up and down

and all around. It's been a roller coaster. If you only knew what kind of life I've been having,

I know I get it. And that's why I think we need to have a reminder in this. Maybe for you,

you pick a word for the year, right? Well, maybe you've been looking for that word. Maybe that word

needs to be leverage for you. And if you have picked a word and it's not leverage, feel free to

share it with me. Connect at createyournow.com. So let's keep this real. Let's keep this grounded

and actionable, right? You want to take aim, action ignites motivation. You want to create a system

for the season. That is your kiss to keep it simple strategy. Create a system for the season.

I like saying that like 12 times. I like the system for the season. I don't know. It just rings

a bell and it has this rhythm to it. And I think when we want to have impact in our life,

we want to be able to have something that moves with us, not against us. And a lot of times when

we are talking health, we have a lot of things that go against us. I can't have this. I can't do that.

But you must do this and you must do that. And you're thinking, but I don't want to do this.

And I don't want to do that. But no, you have to do this and you have to do that. You see,

it's like, why am I playing with this kind of fake flower that, oh, you know, I love you. I love

you not. I love you. I love you. Not do you remember that way back when, okay, maybe I'm really

aging myself right now as I'm saying it out loud and thinking about it. But remember when you

take a flower and you would sit there and say, I love you. I love you not. I love you. I love you

not. I can remember, okay, this is really going back. It's horrible. Elementary and I would have

girlfriends. It would be like, I don't know if he likes me or not. And they would sit there and go,

I love you. I love you not. Well, that's kind of what we're doing here. We're going like,

this is great. I want to do this part of the diet. But over here, nope, don't want to do any part of

the side. But over here, I'll do this part of the diet. And there's no wonder that by the time

you're done, all your petals have fallen off. And what do you have? Just an empty stem. Nothing

that looks pretty. Nothing that's good. You know this all too well. Healthy living isn't about some

cookie cutter diet or one size fits all formula. It's about creating a system, a personal flexible

system that fits your unique season right now. I don't think anybody really out there talks about

this much because they want you to get on the bandwagon of, it's the new year. You need to have

New Year's resolutions. You need to do whatever it is, right? With the voice of their choice.

Yeah, no. Because honestly, the older we get, the more complicated life becomes.

We gain wisdom. And with wisdom means there's responsibility. And with that responsibility,

it basically gives us more choices. But now they become different because we are older.

And if you're kind of over the big hump of half a century, you know that you're on the downhill.

Pretty much, right? Even if you live to be over a hundred, you're still basically on the downhill.

Now, that's not to say don't take care of yourself. I totally believe in taking care of yourself.

If you can live to your 110 on your terms, by all means, go and let's do it.

But if you want to sit here and say, man, well, I kind of want to do this. Well, I kind of not.

I kind of want to do this. I kind of don't want to. Right? Back to the pedals.

That's not going to help you when it comes to a healthy lifestyle.

What it's going to do is going to set yourself up. Your body up for complete failure.

You're not going to be able to handle it. You're going to have everything going in all the wrong

directions. Right? And so if you don't have a system for the season, you're just fighting an

uphill battle that guarantees burnout and frustration. And you might be already living that now

without thinking about health. So how did you really begin to create a system within the season

that you're in right now and build it to where it actually works for you, not against you?

So you don't have to sit there and do those pedals. You can just look at the whole flower.

That's what I want for you. I want you to have the whole flower. Number one, take stock of your

current resources. So here's some questions to really consider. What time do you realistically have?

There are some people like, I want to lose all this weight. Okay, well, depending upon how much

you need to lose, I guarantee you cardio is going to be involved. Number one, your heart needs it.

Number two, you got to be realistic. You need cardio. So instead of believing those, you don't

have to run or exercise or do anything. No cardio, nothing. But you could lose 30 pounds and 30

days. Run away fast. Okay, I'm just saying, right? And we've heard all those infomercials.

Maybe you've even tried them in your younger years. But now what did I tell you? Your older,

your wiser, your decisions are different, which makes your responsibility even greater.

So what times do you realistically have? What food options are accessible?

If you live down south and not right now where we're going to have this winter storm coming through,

but where you can grow your own food and you have access to your own eggs and maybe even your own

beef and chicken and all that jazz, it might be easy. But someone who might be in a cold or

climate and they don't have access to the food except for what comes in the grocery stores,

that's going to look a lot different, right? So what food options are accessible? What does it look

like? How can you have a well-balanced meal? Okay, where your body will take it in and use it

for the betterment. We can eat whatever we want. We can drop our calories all we want to, right?

But if we're not eating what our body needs, we're just pooping it out. I'm just going to be

real with you, right? What about movement? Intentional movement. What feels good to you? Are you one

who really does enjoy aerobic exercising? Great, but maybe you don't, but you do enjoy dancing

and just train on some music and you find yourself doing that when you're cleaning your house or

doing your laundry, then maybe you need to consider something unique like that. You know, you don't

want to look at what should be there, but what's real? This honest inventory becomes your leverage

foundation and that's the key. You want to build a baseline. Because then you have something to

work with. This isn't about starting really something from scratch. It's about starting where you

are and knowing this is where I want to go and what does it look like between here and in between.

So take stock of your current resources. Number two, set micro goals that fit your capacity.

We all have a capacity, right? I am one who can get up early and stay up late and survive. If I

have to, on three and a half to four hours, however, the older I've gotten, it doesn't work real well.

I really need about five and a half to six hours strong. If I can get that, even if I get up once

to go to the bathroom, I'm being honest, I can make it really good and I can feel good. But is that

really what I want in the season of my life? Is this really what it, you know, boils down to? No.

So look at your capacity of what you have, what micro goals fit into that. Forget giant leaps,

none of those anymore. Focus on small wins. Maybe it is that 10 minute walk. Okay, down to the

end of the street and back. Maybe it's adding water before coffee. You're like, I'm a coffee

hall like great, but drink 24 ounces of water before you have your first cup. Okay, now you may not

start at 24 ounces, but maybe you start at one right when you get up at the morning, these eight

ounces go go go go go right. And then the next to another eight ounces go go go go go go and you've

got 16 ounces right there. The next will be I'm going to have water while I make my coffee and then

you've got 24. That's something to celebrate. Maybe it's swapping one snack for fruit. You know,

maybe you're one who says, oh my goodness, I've only I could have like, oh my chocolate and all

of this. Okay, great. But can you cut back a little bit? Maybe for that, it's I'm going to eat healthy

vegetables or I'm going to have a healthy fruit. Little steps, micro goals. These are steps that

add up without derailing your life. It's not a, oh my goodness, this is going to change the world.

But it is going to have greatest impact, a greater impact, honestly, long term because our micro

and micro adds up to macro. You got it. Number three, create habits that align with your energy

and schedule. This is, oh, so important. I've been traveling a lot. I've been got almost

out two weeks when you're gone and away from home. And yes, we got this storm coming into my

mind's a little bit all over the place. But as I'm on the road, it's hard because there will be

nights, especially when I'm at a conference or with the grandbabies or wherever I'm at that

my schedule when it comes to sleeping is all messed up plus I'm not in my own bed. I don't have

control over that. And so you've got to think, okay, I know I'm going to be traveling for this season.

I've got a good friend right now who's traveling to England took her whole family. All seven of them

are going over there. I think it's fabulous. But guess what? Their schedule is going to be messed

up, especially their sleep schedule. Primarily why? They're on a different time zone. Okay, they're

going to have to adjust. So if you want to eat healthy in that type of environment, it's going to

look differently. If you want to work out in that type of environment, it's going to look differently.

It's going to feel different. So you want to create habits, you want to create these

pockets of this is what's going to work right now in this season. And a season could be a couple

days, a season could be a couple weeks or maybe a couple years. And remember, seasons change all

the time. So you might be in a season for two months and then you jump into another season.

And that season may go for just a couple weeks. And then you jump into another season that may last

for months. You've got to be able to say, this is what I need, where I'm at at this moment.

And what do I need to go and do through this season, whatever that length of season it is?

If mornings are rushed, maybe evening is your movement time, right? That's when you say,

I'm going to work out then. Is that good or bad or ugly? It just depends. Don't sit there and judge

yourself right now. Get yourself in a habit of doing and moving. Maybe cooking feels impossible.

So consider prepping simple nutritionist meals on a weekend. Maybe for you, you're like Christian,

I don't cook. You know how many options there are out there now that you can have healthy foods

sent to you. Don't tell me you can't figure it out. You can. But I think we have to start looking at

their system and our season that we're in and meld them together, right? Systems are flexible.

They're not rigid. And so when you sit here and say, okay, I'm going to build this in. I can build

this into the dunks and credits of my day. I know I can do this. You can do it because I know I've

done it. Now, I'm not saying it comes easy. You still have to have determination. You still have

to stick to what you want to do. You want to have accountability and you've got to create consistency.

That goes with absolutely anything. But what happens is this works with you, not against you.

Remember, the path to wellbeing, oh, my friend, it is not a sprint. It's a steady climb, right? It's

that marathon. And sometimes it might feel like a marathon going up the hill, literally running up

the hill. Remember, once up at a time, these two miles of greatness. So if your season feels complicated,

maybe you're shifting in your career. That happens when we get older. Maybe you're retiring.

Congratulations. Then maybe you're like, oh, no, no, no, no. This is where I'm starting to have

problems. Maybe you're in the middle of parenting. You got kids at an age that, oh, my goodness,

it's just wearing down on you. I get it. Maybe you've had a few health setbacks. You've been in

the hospital. You've been recovering from a few things. My mom, you know, recently broke her

ankle. Let me tell you that was a setback. But let me also tell you she's on the come back.

But you get to choose which side of the coin you want to be on the setback side or the come back

side. That's all the more reason to lean into leverage. Use what you have where you are.

My friend, don't throw in the towel just because the terrain is rough, right? Lace up your shoes.

Put your feet in the right shoes so you can go out and run the terrain, walk the terrain

for the journey in front of you. That's how you build your system for the season.

Because honestly, that's where real progress lives. And then it sticks. You want healthy living

to be sticky. And when it's sticky, that means you know, well, you're doing something right.

Go on peace, train for life. Love your journey. I love you so very much. I cannot wait to see you

on the other side. Blessing tags and lots, lots of love. We'll talk to you real soon. Have a glorious

plus day. Bye-bye. Feeling inspired and ready to train for life and love your journey,

visit createyournow.com for more incredible resources to help you along the way. We'll see you next

time on Create Your Now Your Best Selfie. And remember, always be sure you consult your position

before beginning any health and fitness plan.