44 Transcript: How to Get On (and Stay On!) the Wheel of Wellness (Cassia Piasecki)
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J: You're listening to the Vibrant Happy Women podcast, episode number 44.
C: If I can get up in the morning, even if it has to be really early, and get my body moving, I am always happier during the day. If I take care of myself, my health is good, my body's moving and relatively pain-free at the age of 48. I can handle everything else pretty much with a smile on my face.
Intro: Welcome to the Vibrant Happy Women podcast, stories of vibrant women living happy lives. And now, your host, Jen Riday.
J: Well, hey there, welcome to today's episode of Vibrant Happy Women; I'm Jen Riday and I am very glad you're here. So can you believe we're in the second week of January already? How are your New Year's resolutions going? Mine are going well. In fact, I didn't even set any and it feels great (Laughs). But for those of you who did set some, I want to share a tip of something that has really helped me with mine in the past; and I'm kind of carrying the same mentality forward, even though I haven't set official resolutions. So I've always had the goal to be more patient as a mom and I finally found something that really helps with that; and that is meditation. I'm sure some of you might have participated in one of my Mom's Meditation challenges, but I can just give you a few tips now, if you haven't. Every morning or night, take 10 brief minutes simply to close your eyes and breathe in and out and notice how you feel inside, feel what you're feeling. You might feel stressed, you might feel worried, you might feel afraid of something, you might feel resentful, you're just checking in to know how you feel and then ask yourself, “Is this the way I want to feel?” and then you shift it with breath, breathing in and out and just noticing your body. Usually, when I'm sad, I'll feel that in my heart area, or when I'm frustrated, I might… might notice my fingers are clenched and I breathe through that. And by the end of that 10 minutes of breathing and thought, I can usually feel really centered and grounded and calm. But the best part is, I've been in touch with how I feel, so throughout the rest of the day, I can return to that calm place because I was acquainted with it that morning. And so when the kids start to stress me out, I notice a change in my feelings and I think to myself, “Okay, I definitely don't like this feeling. It doesn't feel as good as what I felt during meditation this morning. So I'm going to go have a quiet moment and shift that back.” I swear by this, I am so much more patient. I can almost observe the stress and chaos around me as an observer. I'm not perfect, mind you, my kids have heard me yell this week, but I have improved so much.
Try meditation just 10 minutes a day. And if you don't know how to do it, just remember it's all about closing your eyes, noticing how you feel and breathing. I do have a membership called vibranthappyliving.com where I offer a brand-new guided meditation along with a message each week to help you move forward on these things most women want to work on like forgiveness, patience, self-love, compassion, relationships. So I am giving you a free sample of a guided meditation I offer there today. You can grab yours by going to jenriday.com/meditate; jenriday.com/meditate. If you love it, there's more where that came from over in the Vibrant Happy Living membership at vibranthappyliving.com. This is where you'll get a brand new guided meditation in your inbox every Monday along with a message from me. It's the perfect way to really push forward on your goals in 2017 so that at the end of the year, you can look back and see that you made massive progress toward a goal, including relationships, fitness, and health or weight loss, getting a new job, finding your purpose; whatever your goal is, meditation will really push you forward way faster than almost anything else. So, again, grab your free meditation from me by going to jenriday.com/meditate.
Alright, on our last episode, I spoke with Katie Dilse. She shared how critical it is for her happiness to spend time with her friends. She is a very extroverted, vibrant and happy woman and you'll love that episode, if you haven't listened to it already. Today, I'll be talking with Cassie Piasecki all about how to get on and stay on the wheel of wellness. I know many of us think about health and wellness goals in January of each year and maybe this is the year where you can stick with it and have your healthiest year yet. So let's go ahead and jump in.
Welcome to Vibrant Happy Women, I'm Dr. Jen Riday and today, I'll be talking with Cassie Piasecki and she has over 25 years of experience in the health and fitness industry as a certified holistic health practitioner and teaching Pilates, indoor cycling, and dance. She has taught fitness to over 10,000 people; that is amazing. Cassie created the WOW Nutrition Program and lives at the beach in Southern California with her husband, Jack, their 2 dogs and sometimes, her 22 year old daughter will come and visit from the East Coast. Welcome to the show, Cassie.
C: Thank you so much, Jen.
J: So let's hear the quote you want to share with us today now that we're in the new year and we're all getting excited to do some amazing things.
C: And this is my quote whether it's the New Year, the middle of the year, the end of the year, but it comes from Joseph Pilates actually and it's, “Physical fitness is the first requisite of happiness.”
J: Ooh, I love that. So how have you used that one in your life?
C: I just personally know that, if I can… it's a very basic formula. If I can get up in the morning, even if it has to be really early, and get my body moving, I am always happier during the day. If I take care of myself, my health is good, my body's moving and relatively pain-free at the age of 48. I can handle everything else pretty much with a smile on my face. And so it's kind of the simple formula that I live my own life by.
J: And that's cool because I've noticed a lot of really successful people and happy people use the same kind of formula; get up and get the movement done, get the exercise done and feel feel amazing, so that's great. Well, take us back to a low point you might have experienced and how you've come forward to where you are today.
C: Yeah. Well, I think in my business, one of the things that resonates most with my clients is the fact that I was not always in the best ‘shape’, quote-unquote. I don't necessarily like to use the word ‘shape’, but it gets the point across since we're not looking at each other. But I threw my… I grew up in a household where everyone was very, very overweight and around my early 20s, I went on the very first diet that I ever did, Weight Watchers, and lost all of the excess weight that I needed to. And some people might look back and think, “Well, maybe that was her low point that, you know, she was so overweight she had to go on a diet,” but my low point actually came almost 20 years later when, after I lost that initial chunk of weight, I had a really difficult time maintaining that weight through marriage, through divorce, through marriage again, through pregnancy, through, you know, raising a child. And I scratched and clawed my way to try and just stay at this number that wasn't feasible and I wasn't doing… I've since done pretty much every diet in the universe and a few prescription diet drugs as well, you know, just trying to maintain that weight that I initially lost in my early 20s. And my low point came about 8 years ago and I was on a trip with my family and I was very thin, but my eating was so bad and I did nothing for 3 days, but consumed candy. And at the end of the 3-day trip, we were packing up and I was throwing some stuff away in the hotel trash, and I looked at the hotel trashcan in my room and it was filled with candy wrappers. And I just… you know, here I was someone who taught people how to be healthy and taught fitness and I… I did nothing, but eat candy, my trash bin was filled with candy wrappers, and that was the low point for me and the turning point to get to where I am today.
J: So you saw all this candy in the trash or all the wrappers and…
C: (Laughs). The wrappers.
J: … you probably felt like a hypocrite, I mean, how did you…. what made you change and how did you change after that?
C: What made me change was looking at those wrappers and thinking to myself, “Self…
[Laughter]
C: “… you’re out of control.”
J: Self. (Laughs)
C: “You’re out of control.” So on top of, you know, just the… that poor eating lifestyle, I also have Hashimoto's thyroiditis…
J: Ooh, yeah.
C: … which is, most people that have it tend to have a low thyroid or a hypothyroid. I had Hashimoto's (I have) and I was actively taking prescription medication for it. I also had tremendous acne all over my body. I was cranky, I was moody, I was hot and cold and… and I just said, “You got…” I mean, it wasn't even… I didn't like that I felt like a hypocrite, it was that I just didn't feel good, and it didn't matter how much I worked out, I just didn't feel good. And no matter how thin I was, I didn't feel good I didn't look good. And so I was on that… that was a trip, and about 3 weeks later, I was supposed to take another trip, someplace where I was going to have to wear a bathing suit. And I made a deal with myself, and again, I said, “Self, you can do anything for 3 weeks; you're a woman. So for the next 3 weeks, you're going to quit eating crap (specifically candy) and you're going to cut out gluten.” Because I had heard a tremendous amount of scientific studies about eliminating gluten for people that have autoimmune disorders like Hashimoto's thyroiditis. And I also have had… I've been diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis, however, I've never had any of the symptoms of it, but it shows up in my blood work.
J: Oh.
C: And so… and most people that have 1 autoimmune disease, most of them have 2.
J: Right.
C: And so being diagnosed with 2 and hearing… knowing what I knew about gluten, I thought, “Let's just, for 3 weeks, you're going to go on this trip and you're going to look awesome,” it kind of was coming from a vanity standpoint, but then it also had this, you know, other ulterior motive with just trying to, you know, quit this stuff. So I quit the sugar and quit the gluten for 3 weeks and, I mean, within 7 days, my moods leveled out, within 2 weeks, my skin cleared up, and within 3 weeks, all of the things like stomachaches that I thought were just because maybe I was stressed out or, you know, life, whatever, all went away.
J: Mm-hmm.
C: And so it was a combination of the sugar and the gluten that, even though Miss health and fitness what… you know, vegetarian, don't drink alcohol, I was still eating very highly processed poor food. So after those 3 weeks, there was no way that I was going to go back to… I mean, I just felt and looked so much better that there was no way I was going to go back.
J: Mm-hmm, mm-hmm. So you changed your diet and then you noticed all of these benefits.
C: Mm-hmm.
J: Then what happened next? I mean, usually people have this amazing experience, but eventually, they fall off the wagon. How did you keep going?
C: Yeah. So, gosh, I kept going primarily because the differences. You know, nobody wants to feel moody, nobody wants to be a bitch to their husband. So the fact that I was not moody anymore and I didn't have to worry that I was going to spout off or, you know, get upset, my patience, just all of that just got so much better, that was a big enough reason for me to stay the course.
J: Nice.
C: And so shortly thereafter, again, doing the fitness thing, I was certified and pretty much just every mode of fitness that you can imagine, but all of those certifications all were very upfront saying, “You should not give any nutrition information to your clients.” And so I sought out a nutrition certification that I did called Nutritious Life Certification through Keri Glassman, who is a registered dietitian in New York, and did her program because I wanted other women my age to feel and look and act as wonderful as I found that I could eating very whole foods, low sugar, low processed food-type diet. .And something… I don’t like to say diet, it's just a lifestyle. It's effortless, it is… I don't even think… it's just the benefits and the way that I teach it are so easy to follow and never feeling deprived or anything like that. And so it was important for me to get some certification behind me so that I could go out and start spreading this word and getting them in off the diet bandwagon and living on what I could refer to as the Wheel of Wellness.
J: Oh, cool. So you got certified and now you're sharing that today. And I shared that in the bio that you're… you've created the WOW Nutrition Program, so tell us more about what that is.
C: Yeah. So WOW is W O W and it stands for Wheel of Wellness. And I always… when I describe it, I kind of go back to what the Wheel of Unwellness looks like. And the Wheel of Unwellness, if you can imagine a Ferris wheel that's put together by a car… I call McCarney, the guys that work at the traveling carnival that goes from city to city, and they pull that sucker up and they put it together in the course of a couple hours and it spins a little too fast and the wheel shakes a little too bumpy and you just want to get off. And when you're living on the Wheel of Unwellness, that's kind of what your life feels like. If you can imagine the Ferris wheel has a car (you would know that the Ferris wheels have cars) and each of those cars, you have a different aspect of your life. So whether it's your health, your relationships, your career are in each of these cars going around and some others. And when one of those is off balanced, the rest of the wheel spins really fast and bumpy and you just… you want to get off. So when your health is so poor or out of balance (I'm not even talking about having disease, but maybe you're overweight or you're not sleeping; you know, all of that) everything else suffers; your relationships, suffer your career suffers, your… your enjoyment, your day-to-day enjoyment suffers. Whether you want to believe it or not, you may not realize it until you get on the wheel of wellness that how much those things were suffering. So it usually looks like something like a woman not sleeping well at night and so she wakes up and she drinks a whole bunch of coffee and she skips breakfast and she heads out to take the kids to school and she stops at Starbucks and get some more coffee and a muffin. And then she's kind of full so then lunch comes around, she's not hungry, so she skips lunch, but then around 2:00 when she goes to pick up the kids, she stops and gets them something, but really, it's to get her something. And she…
J: Mm-hmm.
C: … chooses something that's not so healthy and she eats that and then she's like, “Oh, you know, forget it I've already done… I did that and I'm way too tired to make dinner because I didn't sleep last night so everyone's getting pizza tonight.” And then she stands over the sink and eats the pizza after the kids are done.
J: (Laughs)
C: And she gets the kids to bed and then she sits down with a glass of wine and then her husband says, “Here, have another.” And then they have 1 more glass left in the bottle so she drinks the next… the third glass. And then she thinks she's tired… thinks it's good becasue it'll put her to sleep, but then she just wakes up an hour and a half later because she has to pee. And then she's hot and then she's got to pee again and then her head turns on, and before you know it, she is awake.
J: A cycle, yeah.
C: And it… that's the Wheel of Unwellness.
J: Ooh.
C: So I help women get off of that. And it's very… the first step is sometimes uncomfortable to get off that Ferris wheel and put together by the Carny, but once you do, then everything starts to kind of mellow out and even out and you get on the Wheel of Wellness and that Ferris wheel goes around at just the perfect pace and you can see out the ocean. We have a… down here in Newport Beach, we have something called the Fun Zone and there's a little Ferris wheel there that's there all the time, very stable, and it overlooks the bay; and it's beautiful and it goes slow. And if one of the cars get off balance because maybe you're sick or you change jobs, you just get right on, you fix the…. and it smooths it back out and you don't let yourself get back off of that wheel and onto the Wheel of Unwellness.
J: Mm, I love that.
C: So… so that's where the WOW Life came from, yeah.
J: Well, you mentioned that first step. So without going into too much detail…
C: Yeah.
J: … what is that first step?
C: Sometimes… well, most of the women that work with me, the first step is acknowledging that they just don't feel good and stepping, either on a scale or taking a look in their closet of all the clothes that used to fit and don't fit anymore, and it's just acknowledging like, “Hey this isn't working for me anymore and I need to do something about it. And I need to do something that might take a little bit longer, but is going to last a lifetime.”
J: So with that next step, since I'm now intrigued… (Laughs)
C: Yeah.
J: … would that next step involved going gluten-free and sugar-free like you mentioned that you did or what would that look like?
C: Not necessarily because I find that, most people that start our normal what we know as a diet and you're given like some guidelines and you have to do this and do that, I find that people, they get the book… will say they get the book and they read the whole book and they get all excited and they go to the grocery store and they buy $150 worth of things they've never purchased before.
J: Mm-hmm.
C: And they get home they don't know where to cook it, they don't know where to store it, they don't know how to travel with it, and by Thursday, they're at Chipotle eating a burrito bowl…
J: (Laughs)
C: … and chips. So I don't want that to happen to people so we go very, very, very slow and it looks something like just tracking everything for a week to see what it is exactly that you eat. Because sometimes you don't even have any idea what it is that you ate. And so I ask people to track for a week, we don't do that again for many, many months because nobody wants to sit and write everything down that they eat every day; that's not something you're going to do for the rest of your life.
J: Mm-hmm.
C: And then I slowly start to ask them to make small changes so that they don't get discouraged and frustrated.
J: Mm-hmm.
C: And we take it meal by meal meaning we start with breakfast and we kind of redo breakfast for a week or so until they get used to what a solid breakfast should look like, where to get it, how to cook it ahead of time, how to take it with you to the office, what you can keep at the office, what to buy at Starbucks if you forgot it at home. And then I kind of don't really care what you eat the rest of the day, so long as breakfast is along the lines of the WOW Life Nutrition Program. And then after that, then we move to snack, and then we spend some time on snack, we move to lunch. So… but it goes very slow and I don't ever make anybody cut something completely… I mean, for me, with the autoimmune diseases, it was important for me to cut out gluten, but I don't… I don't have celiac, so if something gluten gets into my diet, it's okay, I… but I'm not going to make a steady diet of eating bread or, you know, those things.
J: Mm-hmm.
C: But someone that doesn't have autoimmune disorders or diseases, they don't have to eliminate gluten. But if you're going to choose gluten, you're going to choose, eventually, be choosing something that's very high quality. Maybe if it's a pasta dish, it's not like you're just going to buy some pasta and make it, you're going to go to the Italian restaurant that you love and you're going to get the dish that you like and you're going to eat it, you're going to enjoy it and you're going to be done with it and then you go back to eating your other stuff. So go very slow.
J: So… so do offer, you know, 1-on-1 coaching or do you have a program for, you know, helping lots of women? How do you reach…?
C: Yeah.
J: How do you share that message?
C: So I do have 1-on-1, but I have found over the last 2 years that most women like to work in a community type or a group setting. So I live in California, but I actually have clients from all over the United States and I run a program that is 5 weeks long and they get 2 emails a week from me that contain videos and PDFs and information, so they learn all the foundation parts of the program. And then they go through it with a group of women whoever joins at each time…
J: Hmm.
C: … and then all the women who have done it in the past. So once you're in, you're in. So any updates that I do, any special additions that I do, you automatically get it once you are a member of the WOW Life Program. But we have a private Facebook group where it's just women and the majority of them are between 40 and 60 years old. There are some younger and there are a few older, but I like to talk to my peers and I know how to talk to my peers, and my peers are between 40 and 60.
J: Mm-hmm.
C: And what's awesome about that is that you have women… it's one thing for me to tell you what to do, but I'm so far through the program that… you know, I have women that have been in there for 15 sort of lost 117 pounds and they're… they're in there telling the new people, “You know, this is what worked for me. This is what didn't work for me. This is what I did when I got frustrated,” so they hear from me, but they're also hearing from women who've lost anywhere from 20 pounds up to 117 pounds in the last 2 years. And so it's really… I'm not a big Facebook group person, these women love it with a capital ‘L’.
J: (Laughs)
C: And so it made me be more… you know, obviously, I'm more involved. And then if somebody asks a question, instead of typing back an answer, I'll just pop on and do a Live video and let them ask even… you know, even more questions and go into much more detail. It's really awesome to have that capability of doing the Facebook Live videos privately for them. So…
J: Great. Well, if someone wanted to learn more, where could they find out more about your WOW Program.
C: Well, I'm sure you're going to have a link to my website which is itsmecassie.com in your show notes. And on my website, they will see a tab that says ‘Work with me’ and underneath that, it'll pop down the WOW Life Nutrition Program. They can find it there, they can find me on social media at Marty Cassie and I always have links to all of my stuff there. And I have some free programs as well that people can kind of test out and see if they like what I say and how I present it etc.
J: Okay, so that's itsmecassie.com?
C: Yes, yes.
J: And I'll have a link to that on the show notes page at jenriday.com/44; awesome. Well, Cassie, I… I've been thinking, you know, since you mentioned the Wheel of Wellness…
C: Yes.
J: … would you say that all of those other things like sleep and relationships, well, I think you did say it already, but that kind of that first step is giving the health under control and everything else balances out, was that….
C: Yeah.
J: … what you're suggesting?
C: I do. I find that we can handle a lot of the hiccup in our life or… and a lot of the, you know, big mountains in our life if our health is on point. And by health, I mean, you know, what we eat to feel energized and feel empowered so that we can tackle our day. So, you know, when something happens at your job and you're tired and then you got something bad that happens, you just don't have the power to handle everything. But if you've got your health in check, you're strong and you're fueled and you're ready to handle most of what life brings you.
J: Mm-hmm. And, yeah, I've kind of made it a practice of kind of studying really happy, almost… well, happy and empowered women, and it's the funniest thing, but I mentioned this at the beginning they all seem to exercise, they all love their green juice.
C: (Laughs)
J: And they… they all try to eat really clean like you're talking about. And somehow, that gives them this confidence and this ability to follow their dreams, so I think what you're doing is amazing. So…
C: Thanks.
J: Yeah. Everyone should go check it out, itsmecassie.com; that's great. Well, Cassie let's talk about a few of your favorite things.
C: Sure.
[Laughter]
J: What is a favorite habit that contributes to your success?
C: So I think we already touched on that, I get up and I move every day.
J: Okay.
C: But actually, when I wake up first thing in the morning, I meditate.
J: Mm-hmm.
C: So meditation I know is a hot trending topic right now, but I do my own form of meditation and I get up and I throw on some lycra and I go and I workout.
J: (Laughs). Lycra, that's great. And your favorite easy meal.
C: Oh my gosh, spaghetti squash is so underrated. So I… Sundays are big meal prep days for me and I take spaghetti squash and I cut it in half and I bake it or roast it in the oven and then I put them in the refrigerator. And every day for lunch, I take a half of the spaghetti squash and I fill it with whatever leftover vegetables I have, so usually it's roasted Brussels sprouts, and… and then I put lentils in it, sometimes I'll put salsa, I just fill the center of the spaghetti squash with whatever I want and it's so yummy.
J: Mm, that's easy too; that's a good one. And your favorite kitchen gadget.
C: Okay. So I love a set of odd measuring spoons. And so, by that, I think are typical measuring spoons that everybody has in their kitchen is like 1 tablespoon, ½ a tablespoon, a ¼. So I have a set of measuring spoons that are like 2 tablespoons, 1½ tablespoons, 2 teaspoons. And the reason I like that is we have a tendency to eyeball things and, you know, you think it's a tablespoon of almond butter, but it's actually closer to 3. (Laughs)
J: Uh-huh.
C: And so, but with these odd shaped measuring spoons, I… who wants a 1 tablespoon of anything? I usually want 2 tablespoons of something, but I definitely don't want 4. (Laughs)
J: Right.
C: So I like my odds shaped, my odd sized measuring spoons.
J: Oh, that's awesome. Where'd you get those?
C: Anywhere.
J: I haven't heard of them.
C: Yeah, I think they're at William-Sonoma or something.
J: Okay, okay. And your favorite book.
C: I love a very short small book by Seth Godin and it's called ‘The Dip’.
J: ‘The Dip’, what's it about?
C: So if you can, everyone can visualize in their mind a picture of like an upside down ‘U’; so that's your dip. So Seth Godin teaches us that, when we first start something, we're up at the top part of the… you know, top of the ‘U’ and we're super excited and we start learning it and then it starts to get hard, so now we start to dip down into the ‘U’. It gets really hard and we get to the bottom of the ‘U’, we have a choice; we can either bail out or we can work hard and get familiar and learn and then start to work our way up out of the dip. And so he teaches us that it's okay to get to the bottom of the dip and say, “You know what? This just isn't working for me,” but it's more important to get to the bottom of the dip and say, “You know what? This isn't fun, but I know that if I push through and stay the course and keep learning or keep trying, I'm going to eventually get up out of the dip.” And so I actually started… I read this book when my daughter was learning how to play golf and it's very frustrating sport and she wanted to quit a thousand times over, and someone gave me this book for her. And I read it first and I apply it to everything and she also, I think she was 14 when she could… she read it at 14, totally got it, and we referred to it all the time; so I highly suggest it.
J: Mm, ‘The Dip’ by Seth Godin; okay.
C: Yes.
J: Nice. And the best advice you've ever received.
C: It kind of comes from ‘The Dip’, like I just said…
J: Oh, yeah.
C: … if something… if something isn't working, it's… it is okay to quit. There are… there are some diets that you should quit because they're either not working or you don't feel good. There are some physical fitness activities that you shouldn't do. You should not do physical fitness workouts that you don't like.
J: Mm-hmm.
C: There… just because someone says that doing Zumba is the best exercise that there is to do does not mean that you should do Zumba if you hate it.
J: Mm-hmm.
C: You will never see me doing Zumba and I love to dance.
J: Mm-hmm.
C: No offense to anybody that teaches ZUmba (Laughs); just using that. But if something's not working for you and you don't like it, it's okay to quit.
J: Mm-hmm, I like that; no one ever says it's okay to quit.
C: Yeah.
J: That's great. And keep going if it's working though; get to the top of the ‘U’ again.
C: Yeah!
J: Mm-hmm. Well, everyone, I love what you're sharing, Cassie, and I want everyone to find… go to the show notes page on… at jenriday.com/44 and click through and learn more about you; we'll have a link to your website there. And finally, let's talk about your happiness formula. If you had to create a 3 to 5 part list or formula of things that help you feel your happiest, what would that include?
C: So when I'm done working out and I eat a really good breakfast (because I love a good breakfast) and then I get to do one of 3 things; I either get to put on my bathing suit and go down to the beach or I get to go walk around Paris, France, or I get a message from my daughter that everything is going right in her world that day, I'm super happy (Laughs). So one of those 3 things, you know, I work out, I get to eat a good breakfast, and then I either get to go on a… go to the beach in a bikini, I get to hear that my daughter is happy that day, or I get to go for a walk around Paris.
J: Okay. So…
[Laughter]
J: How often have you been to Paris?
C: Quite often actually. Well, I… my daughter did her semester abroad there just recently. We're big… we love… we love Paris. So…
J: Okay, okay.
C: Yeah. She did her semester abroad there actually last year, unfortunately, during the attacks. And so…
J: Uh-huh.
C: … I went over there because all of the girls that she was living with went home and she was left in the dorm by herself.
J: Ooh.
C: So I actually went and got to live there for over a month and so I fell in love with it even more, so I loved it!
J: That's great. So your ideal day is the workout, followed by the great breakfast, and then hopefully you're at the beach or in Paris or talking to your daughter; that's great.
C: Yes, yeah.
J: Very detailed; I love it. And finally, let's end with a challenge to our listeners.
C: Yeah. So I know the topic of sugar is so kind of trendy right now and is getting a lot of news, and I'm not going to ask anybody… the challenge isn't to get them to eat less sugar today, the challenge is for them to add up how much sugar they eat over the course of 5 days. So every day, write down all the sugar that you eat, whether… even sugar from… everyone says, “But what about from an apple?” even sugar from an apple. So sugar, in any way, shape or form, just added up over the course of the day and then track it for 3 to 5 days and see how much you're really consuming. And just sometimes the act of doing that is kind of a wake-up call that you're consuming too much.
J: Ooh, this is a good one.
C: Yeah.
J: Alright. Well, thank you so much for that challenge, I think I'm going to try it. I'm a little scared, I'll admit.
[Laughter]
J: And, again, everyone, you can find links to what we've been talking about by going to jenriday.com/44. Cassie, thank you so much for being on the show; I've loved everything you shared.
C: Thank you, Jen, I appreciate you.
J: Mm-hmm, take care.
C: Thank you.
J: Thank you so much for joining us. I'm so honored that you spend this time with us each week. And be sure to go over to the show notes page at jenriday.com/44 where you can grab your free guided meditation from me and you'll find a link to Cassie’s WOW Life Nutrition Program. Make it a great week, and I'm so excited to hear how you implement what you've been learning throughout 2017. This is the year you're really going to knock out those New Year’s resolutions. And at the end of the year, you'll be able to say, “Hey, look at all the progress I made. This is awesome.” I will see you next time and take care.
Outro: Thanks for listening to the Vibrant Happy Women podcast at www.jenriday.com.