Sticking with a fitness program is difficult at best. Professional Fitness Trainer and Author Chad Austin shows us how to make fitness a priority and stick with our fitness plans for a lifetime.
Download this FREE Chapter from my book "The Christian's Guide to Holistic Health" on adopting the right mindset for success.
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David Sandstrom 0:00
Here's a sample of what you'll hear on this episode of Natural Health Matters.
Chad Austin 0:04
Here's someone who's trying to make fitness a permanent part of your life. And one thing that you need to know going into it is that there's nothing about making fitness a priority in your life. That means you have to be perfect. And if that's you can't strive for that because we're human, and we're going to make mistakes. Mistakes are gonna happen all the time. Whenever you fail, that doesn't end your fitness journey that doesn't end your goal. All it what you have to remember is, it's what you do next that counts. So failing is part of the part of your fitness story fitness journey. It doesn't have to stop you. It doesn't define you what defines you is how you respond and how you get back on track.
David Sandstrom 0:41
Welcome to the Natural Health Matters podcast where it's all about maximizing your health potential, so that you could pursue the abundant life more effectively. I'm your host, David Sandstrom, Naturopathic Doctor and Biblical Health Coach, and this is episode number 73.
David Sandstrom 1:03
Today, we have on the show Chad Austin, Chad is the owner of priority fitness in Overland Park, Kansas, is the best selling and award winning author of the book series Make Fitness a Priority. Chad helps his clients to stop constantly starting over so they can improve their quality of life with long term fitness success. Chad, Welcome to Natural Health Matters.
Chad Austin 1:26
Thanks for having me on.
David Sandstrom 1:27
I'm excited to talk with you. This is a really good topic because I don't know a single person has tried to get in shape and lost, you know, been motivated for a couple of weeks lost interest and go back into their own life, their own lifestyle. So you're an expert in not only fitness, but helping people stay with it for the long term. And I know you wrote some books on that topic. So tell me about your inspiration for the book. Why did you write your book series?
Chad Austin 1:52
You know, when I wrote my first book, make fitness a priority, how to win the fight against your excuses, had been kind of circling around, I wanted to make more of an impact. And I knew I was gonna write about fitness and happy getting long term success. But to get direction I did a poll and my poll question online was just what are your top priorities in life? And I asked as many people as I could this question. And the top answers were always family and career. And sometimes faith was a popular answer to but yeah, but family and career were always the top ones. But never anyone said health and fitness. It was it was like the last and not no one ever said after everyone asked. And it just it was mind blowing to me. And after a little more research, I've done a lot of research on this now. And I just kind of realized that fitness in our minds is always the thing we plan to get to later, right, like as life's changes happen. And as we have to keep adapting to change, we're really good at adapting to change when it comes to our family or career or faith. We're terrible at adapting to it when it comes to our fitness. So in our minds, fitness is always the thing we're going to get to later when we think we're going to be less busy and have more time. And the sad thing is that just that day never comes. And so we just have to learn that even though we're busy, and we have all these challenges and obstacles we face every day, we can still make fitness a priority right now. And if we choose to do that we can make our lives better.
David Sandstrom 3:18
Absolutely. You know that there really strikes a chord with me because, you know, I believe that we should be living the abundant life. And I've I've met very few people that I would say are really living the life that they were designed for that that purpose driven life. And fitness is a big part of that, you know, if you're struggling with a health issue, you don't have the energy to face your day, you're not sleeping well. Or you're dealing with aches and pains or some type of digestive issue. These are going to really distract you from living life to the fullest. And I love what you said about it not being urgent, you know, I think was Stephen Covey in Seven Habits of Highly Effective People. He said, The funny thing is the urgent things in life tend to not be so important. And the important things in life tend to not be so urgent. So you're trying to flip that around and say, Yeah, let's make this a priority, so that we can enjoy our lives more fully. Am I right? Is that what Yeah,
Chad Austin 4:10
yeah, that's it. I mean, it's like we kind of have this pattern. Most people are in a kind of a roller coaster pattern with their health. I mean, most I mean, most people fall off track or lose consistency with either their workout routine or how healthy they eat at least two or three times throughout the course of the year. Yeah, for most people. That's that's pretty accurate. And the problem is this we're always attracted to quick fixes and instant gratification because it always seems like the easier path every there's so much out there that just does convincing people that there's an easier way and a faster way. There's always more fad diets and more instant fixes that are out there that are they're said to be no work on the part of the consumer and it's an easier path. And in order to get long term success just like you have to put in the work with your family, your job, your faith, you have to put in the work and your fitness and so it's a constant, or it's a little bit of work always, just to make sure that it fits in your life, you're doing the right thing that help you reach your goal. And if you do that, take the time to do that. It's going to make all the parts of your life better. But if you try to fit something in that doesn't fit, then it actually hurt the other parts of your life too. So it's a it's a good balance trying to find what works best for each individual person.
David Sandstrom 5:22
Yeah, you know, I think very few people would disagree with what you just said, or what I said earlier. But for some reason, it's human nature to give up. So for instance, we all know about the new year's resolution problem, you know, we're all fired up for a new eating program or the new we buy the gym membership. And by February, you know, the fitness machine is just a clothes hanger, or we're not going to the gym. Why is it that we do that? Why don't New Year's resolutions work? Why don't we hang with it?
Chad Austin 5:47
Well, I'll tell you, I'll tell you a little secret about New Year's resolutions, all fitness professionals hate that term. And it's ironic because we were we love goal setting. And we our job job really is to help people set goals and reach their goals. But the thing about New Year's resolutions is there's this negative reputation behind there's this negative relationship we have with that word. And it's because of all the stats and every year I mean, we know the stats like in the middle of February, we're going to hear that it's six weeks in the year 90% of people have already failed on their New Year's resolutions, and then make it sound like once you failed, it's over, you might as well just start over or wait till next year, get a fresh start. And that's not perfection has nothing to do with making fitness a priority just like anything in life, failing is inevitable, you're going to fail from time to time. And that doesn't have to end your journey. It doesn't have to end your fitness story. And so that's what we hate about it. Because they make it sound like once you fail, it's over. But that failing is part of it. You just have to learn always how to get back on track, and how to recover how to get back on track and how to do better next time.
David Sandstrom 6:50
So when you're doing your personal training, I'm sure people come in with a lot of excuses as to why they gave up or they failed. And then they feel like they're a failure, which is absolutely not true. But what are some of the excuses people use?
Chad Austin 7:02
I think there's always this is one thing, you're we're never going to run out of excuses, right? There's no shortage of excuses. I think I think I've had heard them all all here at new one. But you know, whether it be I'm too busy, I'm too bored, I'm too tired, we can always come up with more excuses. And so I think that's, I'm an avid obstacle racer. And I think part of the reason I came into that as being a leader and mentor and fitness and realizing that, you know, all in all, an excuse is just an obstacle we haven't overcome yet. And so the saying is that, you know, you can always for any any obstacle, any adversity you face, you can always either find an excuse, or you can find a solution. And so it's for any sentence, you know, that you can take obstacle and excuse interchangeably, they really are the same thing. But I think the biggest excuses we use, there's a solution for all of them. Like the biggest one we that we probably hear is I'm too busy. And I've kind of realized in the last five or six years or since I wrote the make fitness a priority book series, that most people when they say I'm too busy, it really means something different, it really means I'm too busy to work out like I used to. So we all have this time in our lives where we either that either the last time we got great results and fitness and had great results, or the time in our lives, and we're in the best shape. And we kind of hold that as the bar. It's like when I was a when I first became a trainer. I know I had all this time to work out. You know, I had I'd probably worked out six days a week, an hour and a half every time I had all this time but I was I was new in town I was new to personal training. I was single I didn't have a I wasn't married yet didn't have a relationship yet. So my life is way different now than it was then. And so it wouldn't there's no way I could fit that workout routine in my life now. And it'd be if I tried to it'd be like trying to fit a square peg in a round hole I just all my other parts of my life, my relationships, my job, everything else would suffer. And so but so that's part of the problem is we relate that there, we have a little bit of shame if we do less than when we got our best results before. And that's something we all have to realize it that doing less doesn't mean it's less of a priority. It just means we're having the awareness to see what fits in our life right now.
David Sandstrom 9:12
Excellent. You know, when I had my my office and I did nutritional counseling, people would often say that, Oh, well, I didn't have the time to to do the eating program this week. And I will remind my clients that well, we actually all have all the time in the world. You can't get any more time than what you have. It's a matter of how you choose to spend your time. Right. So I think what you're what you're saying is, look, let's elevate the priority a little bit. You might not do what you know, might not do the workout you did when you were 21. But make it a priority and do something and you will see improvements.
Chad Austin 9:45
Mm hmm. Yeah, absolutely. You'll see. I mean, it might not it might be that it doesn't make sense for you to workout six days a week, an hour and a half anymore, but maybe three days a week. 30 minutes is how fitness fits in your life. And if you put it in your life and fit it in there, then you're going to see improvement across the board your fitness Oh, elevate your whole life?
David Sandstrom 10:03
Yeah, absolutely. In your experience, there's a lot of people into fitness out there. What makes your approach to fitness different? What do you do differently with your clients, that the gym down the road is not doing that that makes your approach better.
Chad Austin 10:16
I think I help them change what they're looking for in their head. I mean, I think, you know, like people come to me because they want to get they want to reach their short term goals. That's what gets them to come in the door. But I help them see the bigger picture that what they they what they want to do is going to be as they want to do something that sticks in their life long term. Instead of getting them towards instant gratification, I help them see that that is just an illusion, it's only going to lead to temporary success and help them see that they need to be looking looking deeper. So like most most fitness programs that are out there, when I when people ask me like what fitness program I should look for, I'm trying to get started again, what should I do? What should I be looking out for, I always tell them to red flags and need to stay away from so if the program begins with the end in mind. So like if you know, on day one, when the last day is, it's a 30 day program, a six week program, or whatever it is, if you know on the on day one, when the last day is, it could be very well setting you up for short term success. Because the last day if you haven't, if you don't take the time to ask yourself what's next, when that's over, then what's next is going to be nothing. And so it hasn't, you have to have a plan that keeps going. And then the second part of that that red flag is if it's if the program is the same for everybody. So if it's if it's if no matter who you are, what your what your fitness level is, what your schedule is, like, what your fitness goals are, if this the same program for everybody. And the goal is to get you as much results as fast as possible in this period of time, then it's not, it's not going to be long term for you, because it probably doesn't fit in your life, right you have it has to be individualized for you, and what fits best for you. And that's what's going to help you lead you to the long term success. So it everyone, everyone's so happy when they get the results. But they forget that just like that dozens of times before, the temporary results we got and how the the losing those results so fast, the pain that that caused. And so we want to make sure that we keep our eye on the big picture. So we what we do is something that fits long term. And so we reap the benefits continuously long term.
David Sandstrom 12:26
So would you say that a big part of your program is mindset is teaching people to have the right mindset for long term fitness.
Chad Austin 12:34
Yeah, I think that's a big part of it. I think, you know, mindset nutrition and training, they're, they're all important. And that my workbook I have I have a six week workbook that talks about those three things each week. But it always starts with mindset. And so for a lot of people that were just whether you're just getting started, or you're starting over, my first job as a trainer, is really to help you change your story. And so when people come to a personal trainer, normally they have they have a story in their head, a lot of times when they come to personal trainer, they've already tried and failed several times on their own. And so they they don't believe they can do it on their own. And they're, they're being honest, they may not really believe they can do it at all. They just say, well, I'll give this a shot and probably won't work if nothing else has, but I'll try. And if that's the mindset when you start, you're not going to be successful. So the first thing I have to do is help fix that story in your head help rewrite that story that you have that says you can't do it, because it's it's a fictional story. Just because you didn't have results in the past does not mean you can't have results in the future. The past doesn't have to predict the future. You just have to you have to change that mindset, you have to change that story. And so that's really the first job I have is to help people change that story in the head that says they can't do it, and help them visualize success in the future.
David Sandstrom 13:46
You know, I'm thinking about a married couple that struggling in their marriage. And the man agrees to go to a counselor, but he's just trying to check the box on his way to divorce. That he wants to be able to say yeah, we did the counseling thing. It didn't work either. So I'm kind of thinking that people can extend that same mentality into their fitness saying, Look, this just doesn't work for me. I'm going to I'll try the personal trainer, but then it's going to be a you know what? I tried it all that that just doesn't work for me. Do you see that? Do you see people with that attitude?
Chad Austin 14:16
That's a really good analogy. I've never heard anyone say that with the divorce but that that is exactly what it is. We sometimes we have a predetermined outcome in our head already. And we're in so we're we have to change that story. If you already think you're you if you can't see it happening, then it's not gonna happen and that's a very important job of anyone that's a Coach is to help people win no matter what it is whereas for me it's fitness but I have to help them see that what the hard work they're putting in the stuff they're putting in the time they're putting in that it can lead to success. Yeah, and and so that visualizing success in the future. I've done that for every goal I've ever had, whether it be a big fitness goal or just a business goal and but that's a that's a habit that you have to get into if you want if you want to reach Finish Line and be successful.
David Sandstrom 15:02
Yeah, the winning mindset, that's really huge. Would you say that? Do you talk to people about their life? Purpose? Yes, people what? What's really important to them?
Chad Austin 15:11
Yeah, I mean, I think I definitely do. Haven't quite said it quite like that. But I think for my for the fitness world, it's about your why. And so that's the what that's the language I use all the time, is that you have to understand why your goal is important to you. So when the going gets tough, and you don't feel like doing the work, you don't, you don't want to make the sacrifices, you have to understand why you're doing it, or you won't be successful. And so and when you ask yourself, what your goals are, someone asked you what your fitness goals are, the first answer is always a little too big. You have to dig deeper and understand why is this really important to you. So I have a couple examples that are really important. So like, one of them, have a client who she would would go on a ski trip every year, she'd go on a ski trip with her family every year. And they went on several, several years without going. And so and then they went on the next time, it was the first time that her grandkids were going skiing. And so they were so little they didn't even have poles yet. Yeah, and just the first time going down the mountain, this lady's knees are lower back, everything just had trouble. And that was the only time she ended up going down the mountain the whole time. And so she had this set in the clubhouse at the base of the bottom and watch that from down there. And that just she her why she wants to be a very active grandma. And so that changed that vacation changed everything because she really understood why it's important to her to be in shape. She wants to be an active grandma, and would with her grandkids. From that moment, everything changed for him, she lost, she lost a lot of weight. She didn't have to take any diabetes shots anymore. She got all her mobility back and active person after it's done. That's just one of many. But you have to be able to dig deep Jeff to understand why this is really important to you. And that is your fuel whenever the going gets tough.
David Sandstrom 16:58
Yeah, absolutely. You know, I often share this quote on the podcast is from Michael Hyatt. And he often says people will lose their way when they lose their why. And of course, the opposite is true as well. If you know what your y is, you'll find your way in it sounds like that's what that girl did. That's a really silly, excellent stuff. Really good, powerful motivator. Huh? What are you into? What's your approach to fitness? Uh, you want to hit training, cardio weight training? What? What's your emphasis? Oh, do you recommend I think
Chad Austin 17:27
this is this is different for everybody. And so the some people have kind of pre conception of what personal training is. I know my dad, it took I had to be a trainer for 10 years before I would get him to let me train him. Because he had this, this perception in his head that personal training that bodybuilding. And it was, it was that's what it was. But for him personal training, his goals are more about just being active and living pain free. Being able to get up and down from the ground without pain, being able to go up down stairs without pain do we know to be active without pain. And so some people, their goal is about being able to move, move just like they did when they were younger without any pain. Sometimes it's about having more energy, sometimes it's about dealing with their anxiety and stress. Sometimes it's about being losing weight. And but it's different for everybody. And so there's no pre you shouldn't have a preconception of what fitness is. It's just about whatever it is that reaches your goals. So I have a freebie I know we've mentioned today but beatyourexcuses.com that website, you can get a free copy of my first book. But that is one thing I mentioned in that book is that, you know, there's the fitness is different for everybody. And that's why it has to be individualized for you. And you can't just find a program that you pay for for 30 days. And it's when it's not customized to what your individual goals and what your individual needs are.
David Sandstrom 18:51
Excellent. Share that website again.
Chad Austin 18:53
BeatYourExcuses.com
David Sandstrom 18:55
Excellent sounds really good. So speaking of customization, what would you say to wants to someone who's tried all the fad diets? They've tried Keto they tried Paleo. They tried veganism, it just feel like they failed with them all. What would you say to that person?
Chad Austin 19:11
I'd say welcome to The Club. I think part of the reason I'm so good at what I do and helping people is because I've made all these mistakes before I've done all these things before. And I've had to learn the hard way. And so we have to kind of have to learn from our own mistakes. Sometimes it's human. But if you have the right people in front of you, the right teachers, you can learn from their mistakes. And so I want to be that person. But I've done all those things myself and we are human. As humans, we are always looking for the easier way right? And so there's so many things out there, they're promising an easier way and there's so many Instagram and social media highlight reels out there that aren't showing any of the hard work or they're just showing the we don't even know if that's temporary success that they're showing. Right. But it's just it's the success that they've done something they found something that works for him, but we don't know but the thing is just because something worked for somebody else doesn't know It's mean, it's going to work for you. Yeah. Just because something would that work for you in the past doesn't mean it's going to work for you now. And so it's all about figuring out what is best for you and what works best for you right now.
David Sandstrom 20:10
Well, you know, I'm a Certified Nutritional Counselor and I have I'm a strong believer in biochemical individuality. One man's food is another man's poison Lucretius and Raman philosopher, and I totally believe that's true. You know, some people will do great on steak and eggs for breakfast. Other people will crash and burn on it. So do you go through that with clients? Do you help coach them through finding out what what foods work for them? What meals work for them? What type of eating?
Chad Austin 20:36
Yeah, absolutely. It is definitely a sometimes it's kind of a weird way to think about it. Sometimes you have to think of yourself as your own scientist science experiment. I mean, you don't know in some things you don't know if it's gonna work for you until you try. Yeah, my, my wife has had all kinds of food issues or food allergies and food restrictions she's had to deal with. And now she's gone through all kinds of elimination diets. And now we're trying to reintroduce food after some gut healing. And so it's, I mean, she's been learned allergic to eggs and had to have eggs out of her life for 10 years. She's her little sister has celiac. So she doesn't have celiac. But she's very sensitive to gluten, probably like right at the fence before you get celiac. And so she's, she's had to deal with lots of things and through taking the right precautions, the right steps, being able to now 10 years later, reintroduce foods that she couldn't have 10 years ago. And so I mean, it's really is about and it's it's an ongoing science experiment, you have to figure out what works best for you. And, and it takes being aware, it takes being and so I always tell people, sometimes it's tough when you have a you're never gonna feel great. Every workout, I always tell my clients that So some days they'll come in and they may feel like a superhero. But other days, for some reason I have no energy and they're just won't be able, there just won't be one thing that sticks out as the reason why. But it did whether you have a good day, you or you have a high energy day where yeah, the low energy did today. It takes being observant and understanding, you know, so what did I do before? What could have led to me feeling this great? Or what did I do before? Wha did I eat today? What how did I sleep? What could have led to me feeling great or feeling bad? And it's it's a little bit of trial and error. And you being self aware of learning? What is the best recipe for you feeling your best?
David Sandstrom 22:18
Absolutely. I've got some comments on that. But I want to go back revisit a word that you mentioned earlier in elimination diet, wanted to speak to the Natural Nation, the listeners about what exactly an elimination diet is, how do you implement it? And what does it do for you?
Chad Austin 22:32
Well, my wife just went through a really tough elimination diet, we did a food sensitivity tests, and she asked round all the foods that she's very sensitive to as far as I could, whether it would make her feel sick, we had a doctor, we're close with this, when we went through it the whole thing. Okay, um, but is this something that she's dealt with for a long time, but basically what I mean we had, it's kind of like the whole 30. If, if your listeners are familiar with the whole 30, they've read lots of books on the Whole 30 Now, and there's there a program that's learned from their past mistakes, and they've made themselves better and better and better every time they every year. But it's not a weight loss program that people need to know that, but it'll help you figure out what foods may be causing you problems. So if you're, if you're feeling bloated all the time, if you're getting inflammation all the time, if you're getting stomach pain every time after you eat, that's not a normal thing, right? I know my wife, she had a problem with eggs for the longest time, but they could never could figure it out why her her mom eventually just said that she always knew that if she gave her eggs, she'd get into fight at school, she had a bad reaction to eggs, but they never really couldn't really figure out they didn't really for the longest time, I understand that it was a food allergy. But it's but the food sensitivity diet is basically just eliminating foods that you could be sensitive to that could be causing problems getting them out of like the whole 30 days is 30 days of getting rid of the food, and then you're reintroducing one at a time. And so it's a very, so you don't want to introduce more than one at a time because you just you want to be able to have a valid test. And so you introduce one so we went 40 40 days I think without all these foods, so we had a lot of foods we counted out and then we were able to introduce one and it was really interesting we got introduced we so we went for it and with eggs because that was one on the test is saying we could reintroduce and so we had we had one egg for breakfast. And then if there was no no problem so we had one egg for lunch, there's no problems. We had one egg for dinner and then we wait for days if there's no problems and then we do the same thing again and I mean it's after not been able to have eggs since like 2013 She was we were able to reintroduce eggs after doing this elimination diets. Incredible.
David Sandstrom 24:40
Yes, that's a that's a fantastic win. And she did it she had to be patient. Right. And she she had to strengthen her system. I'm sure you took some probiotics and those kinds of things to help heal the gut. And she healed enough to the point where she wasn't reacting the way she was at that's that's a great story. You know what I like to tell people about the elimination diet is you really You want to do it for a long enough time, to where it's like a lake that's in calm wind, and it just smooths out to be a glassy surface on the water. And then we hit throw the smallest pebble on there, you'll get some ripples. So the same is true when you start reintroducing those troublesome foods. You you feel better your inflammation is down, maybe your energy is better. Maybe your your elimination is better. And then you say, Okay, well, I suspect I had a problem with gluten. So I'm going to try a slice of pizza. And let's, let's go for it. And then you send another important point, you waited four days for the reaction, because the reaction is not always immediate. It could be, but it's often delayed. It might be two, three days down the road, where you find that you experience the reaction of all right.
Chad Austin 25:44
Yeah, and there's a lot of testing that comes in. So that's why you want to be very curt, you want to make sure you follow it to a tee. Yeah. And then when you when you reintroduce that you're just reintroducing one things you don't want to have anything. That could be any other variables in there that could be taken away from the from the test results. Right. But But I tell you, yeah, that it was it was a, it was a really cool thing. I mean, me and my wife have been together for six years now. But she's an amazing cook. And she loves to bake. And so she's even though she's been without gluten, eggs and dairy. For the longest time, she's been able to make amazing like baked goods and things like that, and which I love that I share. My birthday is coming up at the end of this month. And she always makes a cinnamon roll cake. It's something we created over the years that I just love. But somebody the first time since we've been together that she's that there's going to be eggs in this recipe, so I can't imagine how good it can be. But
David Sandstrom 26:37
But yeah, eggs, eggs add a lot of flavor, man, they really do. But they they are one of the troublesome foods and a lot of people have trouble digesting it. For sure. My daughter asked me this morning, he said, Why is it that you can't digest corn? As much as I chew it up when it comes out the other end, I still see I still see the whole kernels. That's because corn is hard to digest. You know, it really isn't. And eggs is one of those foods as well. And like you said, you want to introduce one food at a time and I I use the example pizza. So if you're eliminating gluten and dairy, you wouldn't have the pizza because it'd be more than one food at once. You just try the slice of bread and go go with that shot. I've listened to you speak and I've heard some of the things you talk about. And I think I think correct me if I'm wrong, but you believe that human beings are more than just a body? Would you speak to that for a minute?
Chad Austin 27:23
Oh, yeah, I'm for fitness. I mean, the way I, the way I hear that, it makes me think that there's way more reasons for fitness other than just what's physical and what's on the exterior. I think a big reason why for me, that I'm attracted to fitness I was I mean, I was an athlete first and then I got into fitness because I enjoyed exercise. But I realized eventually that my bigger reason that I'm attracted to fitness and exercise is what it does does for me emotionally and mentally, how it helps me control my anxiety, how it helps me control my energy, how it helps me control my depression or anything like that. So I'm definitely an introvert. And I'm definitely an introverted person. And I went through a lot of social anxiety before I realized that it was something I could really kind of do about it. But I'm also someone who craves being a leader, and being able to speak and make an impact as a speaker. And so I and to be able to handle the anxiety that could get in my way on that. Taking good care of myself with exercise, taking good care of myself with what I put in my body. That's something I had to I had to learn. It's so important, but for me, that we are way more but we are way more than just a body like you said, we were also a mind and what we're capable of. And so, fitness for me, it's way more about making myself look better, but it's about making myself feel better.
David Sandstrom 28:46
Yeah. And what affects us on a mental emotional level will ultimately affect us physically. And the same is true in the other direction. What affects us physically, will affect us mental emotional level. So you know, you can't separate the two and I would continue to add a third ingredient there that we are spirit as well. And all three parts to human being are interconnected and interdependent what affects one will by necessity alter the others for good or bad.
Chad Austin 29:11
Hmm, yeah, I think the mind and take in being able to be our best self It starts by getting your mind right for sure. I mean, everyone, there's a debate in fitness. Where does fitness Where do is really success start? Is it in the kitchen? Is it in the gym? I think it starts with getting your mind, right. I'm just like most things.
David Sandstrom 29:29
That's really good stuff, Chad. So Chad, before we wrap things up, what would you say to someone as a parting thought that you want to leave with them?
Chad Austin 29:37
The last thing I'd like for someone to take away if you're someone who's trying to make fitness a permanent part of your life. And then one thing that you need to know going into it is that there's nothing about making fitness a priority in your life. That means you have to be perfect. And if that's you, you can't strive for that because we're human and we're going to make mistakes. Mistakes are going to happen all the time. Whenever you fail. That doesn't end your fitness journey. That doesn't end your goal. All it what you have to remember is it's what you do next that counts. So failing is part of the part of your fitness story fitness journey. It doesn't have to stop you. It doesn't define you, what defines you is how you respond and how you get back on track.
David Sandstrom 30:16
So if someone wants to get a hold of you will, what's the best way to do that?
Chad Austin 30:20
The best way to get started so if you're getting started or getting or starting over the website, beatyourexcuses.com. That's the best way to get started with me, you'll be able to get a free copy of my first book, and also five free classes on my online platform is on there also. That's the best place to get started with me make fitness a priority. That's where you can find me on Instagram and Facebook both. I love helping people figure out how fitness best fits in their life. So if you had a takeaway today, don't hesitate to reach out to me, Chad@ ChadAustinFitness.com, okay, the best way to reach out to me
David Sandstrom 30:54
Got it. Alright. Chad, thank you so much for being on the show. I really enjoyed this conversation.
Chad Austin 30:59
Thank you.
David Sandstrom 31:02
Okay, I hope you enjoyed that conversation with Chad Austin. He's a real pro. And he had a lot of great pointers for a fitness regimen and sticking with it for the long haul. And by the way, if you're ever looking to search for an episode on the website, David sandstrom.com. Just go to the podcast page, scroll down to the search bar, and type in the episode number inside of parentheses, and you'll find that episode. Or of course, if you know the guests name, you can search that way as well. And one last thing is if you're enjoying the podcast, would you tell somebody about it, I would really appreciate you spreading the word you can send somebody a text message with the link, or you can use the social share buttons on the website, I would appreciate that very much For more go to DavidSandstrom.com. In the show notes for each episode, you'll find links to all the resources that were mentioned, as well as a full transcript with timestamps that you can download for free. In addition, I always include a content upgrade with each show, which is a free download that is designed to help you go deeper with that subject. Once again, thank you for listening, and I'll talk with you next week. Be blessed