From a former middle school teacher to fitness and emotional eating expert, my mission is to empower and inspire busy women to take control of their wellness and happiness and have the lives they have always wanted.
women desperately want to be healthy and happy with their bodies, but find life overwhelming. They “have to” care for everyone around them, so their own needs always come last.
This is especially true for women.
Unfortunately, for many women, it is their personal lives and their own health that gets put on the back burner far too often. Women feel compelled to be there for everyone else in their lives except themselves.
Kristin’s mission is to provide guidance, structure, motivation, and support to women who want to be their healthiest selves and discover their own personalized path to lasting weight loss success.
Katie: (00:01) Hi everyone. Thank you for tuning into the Hustlenomics Podcast. I’m your host, Katie. And today, I am so excited to be talking with Kristin Jones of Kristen Jones coaching. So Kristen, thank you so much for coming on the show today.
Kristin: (00:12) Oh, Katie, thank you for having me. I am so honored and so excited to be able to share some things with your listeners and hopefully provide some value, and you know, enjoy our time together. So thank you so much.
Katie: (00:25) So would you mind just telling the listeners a little bit more about who you are, your background, and what you do with Christian Jones coaching?
Kristin: (00:31) Absolutely. So again, I’m Kristin, and I spent the first, Oh gosh, I’m going to say probably 32 years of my life. I’m in denial that I had an eating disorder. And at about in my early thirties, I finally kind of came to my own realization that I had some problems and issues with food. And so that’s kind of continued on for a little bit of time. I sought to seek treatment. And during that time, I was also a school teacher. Very happy, happily, happily, a school teacher. I taught middle school, and I started to realize that my life was heading, or my life was going in a direction that was not authentic to who I really was. I spent a lot of time very concerned about hiding the fact that I had an eating disorder from people. I had just kind of come to my own consensus and my own realization that I had one and really realized that I needed to make some pretty large overhaul, changes to my life.
Kristin: (01:32) So at after a 17-year career as a middle school teacher, I just up and decided that it was time that I did something that was truly what I wanted to do. And so, I got a personal training certification and decided that I wanted to do some online coaching and help women specifically. At first, it was more just about health and fitness and just getting in shape and losing weight and that sort of thing. But as I became more comfortable and more came to more of the realization that I really wasn’t the only one that had some issues with eating and issues with food because I started to see it in my own clients. And so what I had already, I had already formed Kristin Jones coaching. And in the last year or so, it’s really morphed into a business and a passion for me of taking the experiences that I’ve had throughout my life in dealing with food and with my weight and with body image and really taking that and really sharing what I’ve learned and what I’ve gone through with other women in the hopes that I can either steer them in a different direction or for younger people really, you know, kind of show them that there are different ways of going about or different ways of interacting with food.
Kristin: (02:52) I didn’t ever think that I would be a person who would have that much of an issue with, with food and, and, and having an eating disorder. But I’ve really come to realize that there are so many of us and in particular the women that really struggle with that relationship with food. And that in turn then turns into their relationship with themselves. So my business really focuses on empowering women and really helping women be their true authentic selves by really be Annie, being able to be comfortable with who they are, and, more specifically, comfortable with who they are in the relationship with food. Oh, I love that. What an incredible story. And if you don’t mind me asking, was there something that happened, an incident or you know, whatever that kind of brought you to that breakthrough moment of realizing that you did have some issues with food?
Kristin: (03:37) It’s really interesting. I was in Denver, I traveled to Denver to do a half marathon, and it was after the race, and I went to Barnes and Noble, and I was walking around, and I was looking for, I love, I love bookstores, and I love looking at books and, and I, I remember this book, I remember I was in the self-help section because you know, even when you don’t actually, it’s almost like you’re kind of, you kind of gravitate towards something even though you don’t want actually consciously to be aware that you have this issue. It’s like your kind of gravity, you kind of is drawn to it. And I was in a self-help issue, help self-help section and this book, it was called living with ed, and I was like living with ed, what is that all about?
Kristin: (04:23) And I, I remember pulling it off the shelf and looking at it and then realizing that ed was an eating disorder and I was like, Oh, okay. And I kind of split it over and I started reading it, and it was, it was like this veil was pulled off of my eyes and I was like, Oh my God, they’re talking about me. And it was like I was just reading the back of the book and I thought it was, it was just at that moment that all of a sudden I just said to myself, Oh my gosh, is this what’s been going on all this time? It’s like I, I, and I keep, even now I look back on it and it seems so, so I don’t want to say funny. Still, it seems so just amazing to me that I was able to, to separate myself so much and be so detached from what was really going on in my life to realize, wow, this book is totally talking about me.
Kristin: (05:09) And then I, and then I thought, Oh, I guess I must have an eating disorder. And it was kind of, and it did to be totally honest. And it seems so [inaudible], and it seems so strange, but it was such a relief to finally be able to put a name or [inaudible] or a label to it that it came to this place. I all of a sudden just became very at peace like, Oh, that’s what’s been going on all this time. Okay. Hmm. All right, let’s think about that. And so then I started looking through other books, and I bought the first book that I pulled off the shelf, and it really resonated with me that, that I thought the way they phrased it in the book, it was almost like ed was a real person and that it was this person you have this back and forth conversation with.
Kristin: (05:50) It was such a relief to be able to kind of have a part of that mask come off where it was like, Oh, I can be myself now. I get it now I know what’s going on. And so then I was really able to take proactive steps in finding a therapist, and I was then able to work through the issues that I was having. It didn’t just manifest themselves in food. It manifested itself in relationships and being very unfocused and things like that. And I can remember it so clearly, but what the thing I definitely remember is that it was a huge sigh of relief. It was like a part of the Tucson elephant went off my chest, and I was able to kind of like breathing a little bit more. And then probably about a year or two years ago was when the rest of the elephant stepped off my chest. And then it was all then. It was good. [inaudible]
Katie: (06:34) You know that’s so interesting that you talked about that earlier. Having that label, you know, cause some people you talk to they’re like, don’t label me. And some people it gives them, Oh okay, I understand now. So eating disorders, there are so many different kinds. And you know, I will never pretend like I understand even a fraction of half of the information, but do you mind just kind of giving an overall description or of what issues with food means? Like some people just say, Oh, I don’t have a problem, but they actually might because they don’t know. So like giving a little bit of an explanation of that.
Kristin: (07:09) So I was at an entrepreneurial conference in December, and I never had a name for it. I just knew I had this funky relationship with food that I was very obsessed with, counting calories and watching what I ate and writing everything down. And so in my mind, my weight changed. But to everybody else on the outside, I looked totally normal. My weight never changed. I’m very athletic, and I teach fitness classes. And so from the outside, you would never know that I had this complete and total obsession with food that really for the majority of my life it can, it controlled my life. And so I was at this conference, and we did this meditation, and it was all geared towards your business. And as we were doing it, it was, I was in a group with 500 people, and we’re doing this guided meditation, and all of a sudden, the words or the phrase emotional eating just plopped into my head.
Kristin: (07:56) And it was like, I know everybody else was in this meditation, and my eyes popped open, and I was like, I was like, I took his breath and like, Oh my God, that’s it. Like I don’t know where that came from, but it came from somewhere. And that’s what my problem is. And so emotional eating is for most people, it presents itself in the way of allowing your emotions and how you feel to dictate your consumption and the quality and the quantity of the food that you consume. And so emotions and, and it’s not just the emotions that you feel, but it’s the emotions that you don’t express. And so many people, what will happen is emotional eaters will either suppress feelings, won’t tell people how they really feel, but then they’ll go in. They’ll eat half a pint of ice cream, or they’ll have a fight with somebody, and they’ll immediately turn to food for relief.
Kristin: (08:47) Or they’ll distract themselves. They don’t want to deal with a problem or a situation. And so they go, and they end up, you know, making a huge meal for everybody. But it’s really their way, of soothing themselves and then you know, and then consuming as much food as they can. It presents itself in very different ways for people, but there is an overarching obsession, not that I like to say do use the term obsession. I would probably say just an out of balance focus on food and its importance in your life. That’s how it was for me. It was this thing that dictated every moment of my day was around what was my next meal going to be? How was it going to impact my body? Should I eat it, should I not eat it? So it became this thing where I was not able to do a lot of other things because the food was such a focus.
Katie: (09:35) Wow, that’s so interesting. And I even see tendencies in myself, the emotional eating, and I’m sure a lot of women do these days with all the pressures that we are under. But did you start your business in the midst of this journey? Did it happen after? What was that like then?
Kristin: (09:50) My business had already started, and I had planned on just being the standard personal trainer. I wanted to do it more in an online sense. I had a catalog of videos that I’ve made. I’m a fitness instructor as well, and so I teach fitness classes and soap. I’m very well versed in being in front of people, so I would make videos and send them to my clients, and they really enjoyed them. And so I was planning that was going to be my business and I’ve come to learn this about being an entrepreneur, is that your businesses will oftentimes take different forms and they’ll ebb and flow, and you’ll go in one direction and another direction oftentimes by, I had a business coach who told me I could wallpaper two rooms of my house with the variety of business cards that I have from the various creations of my business. I mean, it seems like entrepreneurs are always, you know, we’re all like Madonna and lady Gaga, reinvent ourselves all the time.
Kristin: (10:35) And I’m sure you’ve experienced this, you know what you’re doing works, and you’re happy, but you know it’s not what you’re really supposed to be doing. And that’s one of the reasons I went to this conference was I was drawn to it, and I had never been to any kind of thing like this before, and I just felt really compelled to go when it happened, and the words came out, and I realized, Oh my God, this is what I need to be doing. Not that it became easy, but I felt like my passion was finally getting to go in a direction that it was supposed to go in.
Katie: (11:02) Right, absolutely. So do you mostly work with women?
Kristin: (11:05) I have some in-person clients. I have some online clients, some of my in-person clients. I work with husbands and wives, so I do more traditional fitness types of workouts and in-person, that type of thing. But my passion and what I really like to do is to work with people in the way of dealing and addressing the emotional eating. And I like to be very aware that there are some people they want to address emotional eating. Still, they’re not necessarily interested, or you don’t need to really lose weight, but you need to get a handle on this internal stuff that’s going on. And so I’m very aware of, I have some clients, they know that emotional eating is an issue and they have weight to lose. And so we kind of create a program for them that is a combination of proper nutrition and, and some exercise and movement.
Kristin: (11:49) But my focus is really on working with people and an inside job and really looking at how do you feel about yourself? What are your internal tapes saying? What are you saying to yourself on a daily basis? Because so much of the triggers that can cause emotional eating are from the things that we say to ourselves. I call it just the soul-crushing comments that we make to ourselves. I think no one can be as cruel to ourselves as we can be, and that really has to change. And for people to really be able to really live authentically who they really are, they have to embrace all parts of themselves. And even those parts that on the surface you don’t really love. You have to love them first if you want to deal with making any sort of change. I always tell people I do an inside job.
Kristin: (12:33) It’s more of inside work. I mean, yes, for health purposes, yes, moving and eating healthy and putting the right foods in your body. Yet it makes you feel so much better, and you are so much more positive. But there is a whole mental component that I can no longer work with people and not address that. To me, it’s a waste of their time. It’s a waste of their money. And I don’t believe in wasting either one of those things. So I will not work with people who are not willing to look inside and go deep.
Katie: (12:59) Yes. And I’m glad you mentioned body image, and I want to come back to that. Still, I do have a question that I’m just personally interested in thinking about what you’re talking about, like this kind of preoccupation, this obsession with what you’re eating. You’re having people focus on a new kind of approach that hadn’t, were void, the obsession just transferring to a different kind of eating. Does that make sense?
Kristin: (13:20) Sure, sure. Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. There are many similarities and very, very close similarities between food addiction and any degree of food addiction and alcoholism, drug use, you know, gambling, sex, it’s a form of escape. It’s a form of not dealing with what’s in front of you, not wanting to deal with emotions. And so we distract ourselves. Food just happens to be legal and socially acceptable, and it’s not hard to get. And you can, you can kind of have that be a distraction and it’s not something that’s kind of looked down upon. And so, my focus with my clients is just to be more mindful in your daily interest in just your daily life in general. So I want to offer this to your listeners. I just created it. A little flow chart. It’s three questions that you need to ask yourself before you open the fridge.
Kristin: (14:11) And it’s really looking at if I’m going to eat something, do I really physically need to eat this? Meaning how, like let me get in touch with my body. How is my stomach feeling? Am I going to pass out? Do I really need this food? If the answer is yes, then absolutely have something healthy. I, you know, list a couple of things that you could have if it’s a meal if it’s a snack that you want, but if it’s not and you’re going for food for a different reason, then we need to stop. We need to get mindful because so much of our lives we go through on autopilot and we just kind of cruise through and it’s like, well, this is what I’ve always done, and somebody upsets me, and you know, there’s the bowl of M and M’s on somebody’s desk, and I go and grab it.
Kristin: (14:50) You know, it’s like when I was a teacher it was always like you get a bad email and then somebody would say, somebody, sent out an email and say, who has chocolate in their room? That’s a kind of a conditioned response. So now I want people to retrain themselves to like, okay, how am I really feeling like now, and what do I really need? Because the food isn’t really what I need, but what do I need? So like if I’m sad, I need to call somebody and tell them about what happened. Do I need a hug? Do I need to play with my dog? What do I need to do? Instead of always having food be the thing that sues us, we need to find other ways of soothing ourselves besides using food because that cycles into feeling shame and disappointment, and Oh, I guess I ruined my diet now.
Kristin: (15:31) I might as well just forget it. I’ll just go ahead and eat everything. I want people just to become more mindful and more aware of how am I really feeling and what do I really need in, maybe I need to call somebody and tell them that they really hurt my feelings five minutes ago in my book, I talk a lot about my own upbringing and me not being allowed to express how I felt and to be able to share my emotions. And so consequently, as an adult, people think I’m so agreeable, and I’m so happy go lucky. And they don’t know that for years and years I was never telling people how I really felt. And it would be, it would build up, build up, build up. And then once I got to a point where I couldn’t keep it in anymore, Oh my gosh, it was like a Heller monkey. I mean, I was just, you know, totally out of control. And so teaching people how to appropriately express themselves and get those feelings and emotions out of their body. Because if we keep things stuffed in, we keep stuffing things in, and we stuff food down to make those feelings and those emotions stay dormant. And not bring them out.
Katie: (16:26) Yeah, I liked that approach a lot. I really do. And that’s something that you know, and I want to implement in my own life. And you know, you mentioned body image earlier and as female entrepreneurs, you know we’re always encouraged to like get in front of the camera, go live on Instagram, put on your website. It’s like that’s great. But there are all these things in your head saying like, Oh that photo you look fat, or you look stupid or funny or judge you. And like how you mentioned you couldn’t really move forward and make a change when you’re saying all these negative things to yourself in your head, what are some ways that maybe you work with your clients or that you’ve done yourself to kind of help nurture that positive body image, so you feel comfortable stepping out and saying, Hey, this is my business. I’m the CEO, you know?
Kristin: (17:06) Right, right. I require my clients to have some type of morning routine, some way of starting their day in a positive way because it just sets the tone, and it really reinforces that positive feeling towards yourself. And so affirmations, 100% are always a part of what I have my clients do, and there’s a fabulous website called [inaudible] up, and they have affirmations for weight loss. They have affirmations for success, anxiety, and if you can’t think of an affirmation for yourself, you can look on there. They also have an app that you can record yourself saying your affirmations, and then you can play that for yourself every day. I personally like to write my affirmations. Being a teacher, I know the power of pen to paper and what it does from a brain standpoint, and it imprints that information on your brain. Thank goodness our brain is so malleable.
Kristin: (17:56) We are able to recreate and create new neural pathways that are able to change negative thought patterns to positive thought patterns, but there has to be a commitment to doing it, and that’s one of the reasons why I really tell my clients that has to be a part of this whole process. If you really want to address this and really want to have this not be something that holds you back, it has to be, has to be a commitment that you’re really going to look at all the aspects of your life and really make some changes that ultimately will dramatically change your life. But it’s not easy in the beginning, and it takes that. It takes that focus on that and that persistence. That is one thing I absolutely have to have them do that. They also need to gratitude every day. They need to be thankful for what they already have, and part of that is thanking and loving the way you are right now.
Kristin: (18:45) And that’s probably far and away. The hardest thing for people to be able to do is to say, yeah, but I don’t like my belly. I’m, you’re going to tell you that you have to. I have to love this belly. And like, yep, you do. Because science has shown, research has shown nothing in our bodies will change until our minds change. Our minds have to change first. It is ultimately what is in control of everything that happens in your body. And again, I’m very, very selective about, I don’t want to say selective, but I’m, I really am careful about who I work with because I really want people who are really open to change and that are really committed to, to making this change because it’s transformational, but it takes work, but it’s so worth it. It’s so worth it. Your life just dramatically, dramatically improves.
Katie: (19:32) Oh yeah, absolutely. And I kind of have a two-part question. The first is like when you say affirmations for people who have never heard that before, just like what that means. Do you mind like giving an example? And then the second part of the question is, do you mind sharing your morning routine? Absolutely.
Kristin: (19:45) So affirmations are positive statements that a person makes about themselves. And the most important thing is that you make it in the present tense as if it is already in existence. So an affirmation for me would be, I make healthy choices that nourish my body and make me feel good every day. For me, my affirmations are oftentimes focused on my business. And I will say, you know, my, I can affirmation this morning was I’m organized and efficient in all I do every day. When you work at home, it’s so easy to get distracted by the laundry, and the bathroom needs to be cleaned. And so we just have to say, but I always have to stay focused, but it’s reinforcing to myself that I’m already there. These are the skills and the habits that I either want to have, or I remind myself of the ones I already have.
Kristin: (20:39) And so we just don’t do enough of that. It’s really interesting. I was, I was reading a book that said, you know, if you back to kids and when kids are like 10, 11 years old, and you know when you see a child, they always want to tell you what they’re good at. Like, Oh, I can ride a bike, and I could do this and this. And at some point, and I don’t know where it happens, but somehow we start to think that it’s not okay to say good things about ourselves. I don’t know if it’s societal or, but we just, somehow it’s like, Oh no, you don’t want to, you don’t want to brag about yourself. And then somehow it becomes bragging. And so then all of a sudden we forget all the great, cool qualities that we have. So that’s, that’s the importance of affirmations.
Kristin: (21:15) And then my, my daily routine, I just actually just started a new, a new portion of it. But I base my morning routine on the miracle morning by Hal El rod, and he has a six-step. And I know people go, Oh my God, six steps. It’s so much. But, but it’s totally variable, and you can decide how long you need to need to make it. But it’s six steps. I don’t always do all of them, but I always, without fail, I write down gratitude every morning. It’s the first thing I do when I wake up. I don’t have a computer in my room. I don’t have any electronics in my room. The first thing I do is I write down however many things I can think of that happened in the last 24 hours that I’m grateful for. Then I write my affirmations, and then I write my goals, and I write a couple of longterm goals, and then I’ll write goals for the day. In my mind, I also ask myself what kind of person do I want to be today? And then I try to come up with three words that I want to embrace that day. So it might be, you know, it might be forgiving, might be patient, compassionate. Those might be my three words for the day. I prepare myself for my day in that way because then I’m going in, and I’m kind of setting the tone and letting myself know this is how we’re going to be today.
Katie: (22:27) I love that, and it’s amazing. I think about how badly we talk to ourselves, and you start believing that it’s amazing what you would do if you were talking to yourself with love and grace, and then you would start believing that. I mean, it seems so simple, but we do it all the time just in a negative way.
Kristin: (22:42) Absolutely. Oh no, it’s really unbelievable. I just opened my book cause I knew, I knew I wanted this. It says, I wrote in the book we become what we repeatedly think, and it’s a scientific fact that that again, the patterns and the and the brainwaves in the neural pathways are established so, and it just takes conscious. That’s so easy to slip back and to catch yourself. But then you catch yourself, you forgive yourself, and you just move on.
Katie: (23:04) Yeah. Yeah. And since you mentioned your book, I would love to chat about that. When did that book come out?
Kristin: (23:08) It came out in the middle of April. It’s called when food is your drug, a food addict’s guide to managing emotional eating, and it is available on Amazon. I have an offer for any of your, of your listeners. I have purchased the book, so I pay for the book. If your listeners want the book, they can just pay for the shipping, and I will send it to them. I want my book to get into as many people’s hands as I possibly can. It was before I’d actually, I think I had made the decision to write my book, and I was doing a Facebook Live. I started talking about, I think it was the first time I’d ever announced it because when you decide to write a book, you say it to yourself, but then you’re afraid to tell other people cause you’re like, Oh my God, what if I don’t do it?
Kristin: (23:49) And so I was, I finally had gotten to the point where I was far enough into it that I was like, okay, this is happening. Like I’m doing it. And I got into Facebook live, and I started talking, and I started talking about how I would never wish my eating disorder onto anyone. And I just started crying. I didn’t stop the camera, but I just was like, I’m not a pretty crier. I’m so sorry. And so I just, you know, kept talking. It’s so true that the angst and the feelings and the negative feelings that I’ve had for, you know, that I’ve put myself through, I wouldn’t wish that upon anyone. And so for me, it’s like I just want people to, one, to know that they’re not alone if they feel this way and that somebody else has, has been there and feels those feelings and knows what that’s like and that there is a way out and there’s a way to kind of bring yourself back to who you truly are and to remember who you truly are.
Kristin: (24:43) And I take them to step by step through the process in the book. Well, thank you so much for offering that. That is so valuable. Oh, absolutely. Yeah. And out of all the, you know, things that are different ways you can get your message out there. What made you want to choose to write a book? Well, it’s funny because it’s the last thing I would have thought that I would have done yet. I was an English teacher, so it’s really interesting that I was, I was an English word, but like, Oh, write a book. Oh my gosh, no, when somebody suggested it, and I was actually at that same entrepreneurial conference, and a gentleman got up and presented about writing a book and how it’s just such a powerful form of communication that it’s something that is, it’s always there, and it’s just, and it’s something that people can refer back to.
Kristin: (25:23) And so what I did was, because I’m because I was a teacher because I was an English teacher, the book is very interactive. So the way I write it is I intertwine my stories with information about emotional eating, scientific fact, I resonate with books where they talk about something and then the person gives an example of how it looks in real life. And so for me, it’s like that’s how I learn. And so that’s what I do is I tell my story. Anytime I talk about a concept, I then always share an example from my own life. And when I was teaching English, I taught middle school English, and we were teaching kids comprehension. And the form that we did was we would always have them do what we call them stop and jots where they would read, and then we get to a significant part in the book, and you’d stop them, and then you’d give them a prompt, and they’d have to write.
Kristin: (26:11) And that’s what I do in the books. So as I present things, I present it, and then we have gray boxes come. You know, you have a green box on a page, and that’s a stop. And John and I tell people they have to have a journal at the beginning because you’re going to stop and you’re going to, you know, you’re going to do some journaling. And again, if they really want to, to uncover this stuff and really want to get to the bottom of it, it’s that writing and that getting those feelings and emotions out of yourself, that’s the absolute key to being able to move past the feelings that trigger the emotional leading. Yeah. I really appreciate the interactive part. I love that. I think it makes
Katie: (26:44) So much of a difference when getting that information into your head.
Kristin: (26:47) Oh, absolutely.
Katie: (26:48) Yeah. Are you looking to write more books? You know what? Where are you trying to take your business in the future?
Kristin: (26:52) Well, what I would really like to do, I love working with people individually. I love doing private coaching, but I also feel this incredible pole to make the information much more accessible to people because not everybody can do private coaching. Not everybody. A lot of people, you know, a lot of people don’t have that disposable income, but they still need help. I’m very passionate about making this something that people can have access to. And so I have the book, I’m so excited, I’m just starting to put together a digital course. And so there’s going to be a digital course that, because I also realize people are busy, people have lives, they have a lot of stuff going on. And so I really wanted to create something that could be something that a person could do on their own time, in their own home, do it in a way that’s, that’s authentic to them, but also have there be options for group coaching calls or individual coaching calls that if they needed.
Kristin: (27:46) And again, I love the private coaching. What I really, ultimately, where I want to take this is I feel that there is a huge gap between trainers, coaches, and their clients when it comes to emotional eating. And I would really like to train personal trainers and wellness coaches about emotional eating. So I would really ultimately like to create a certification for trainers to actually take and become better versed in being able to deal with clients and being able to get the information out to people and have trainers be able actually to help people with their issues with emotional eating.
Katie: (28:25) Oh, that’s incredible. How exciting. Well, you know, when we get to that stage of creating our course, I’d love to have you back on as a followup interview. You know, I’m creating a course at the moment too, and it’s a fascinating beast. Talk to you about that and get your, your input on it. And you know, I’m all about encouraging self-care and healthy self healthy business. So you know, you talked about having those positive affirmations, but is there anything else that you do in your own life or that you encourage your clients to do to just kind of have a few more healthy habits in their day so they can shine brighter and help other people better?
Kristin: (29:00) I asked my clients to do this, and I do this for myself as well. It’s so hard to get people to do it. And I, and I even have a hard time sometimes is I require that people have 15 minutes, just 15 minutes a day of my time and me time constitutes something that one doesn’t benefit anyone else but you. And that’s hard. That’s hard to come up with something that doesn’t benefit anybody else. You cannot feel guilty about doing it. And the last one, this is the one that just kills everybody, is it cannot involve any electronics of any kind. You have to, whether it’s going for a walk, whether it’s taking a bubble bath, whether it’s 15 minutes, just reading quietly in your room with the kids in front of the video and have them sit out and you know, and give yourself that time.
Kristin: (29:48) That’s just for you. And women, especially, do not do that enough for ourselves. And I think people, in general, underestimate the impact that stress has on our bodies and has not only on our physical bodies but our overall, I mean our really our overall health. And I think that that really has to be, I feel like we’re heading, and maybe it’s because I’m in the health industry, I feel like we’re heading in that direction, that more people are aware of the impact of the mental aspect of life and the stress that we put ourselves under. And that we absolutely have to have some way of taking care of ourselves. And, and so I, you know, I just, I get people started on 15 minutes, and I do it myself and just take that time for you. It can be challenging, especially as an entrepreneur because you, you know, you have so many things you want to do in there.
Kristin: (30:42) I’ve never in my whole life ever felt like, Oh my God, 24 hours is just not enough for one day. And so I really, and I have to be very conscious of that too. Still, I try to do my own, I teach fitness classes, but I really try to do my own form of exercise, something that’s, it’s just for me, whether it’s, whether it’s yoga, whether it’s, you know, a hit workout here at home or you know, whatever, whatever, you know, running with, with my running partner, I always tried to make sure that I am doing something for myself at least once a day.
Katie: (31:11) That’s amazing. I love it. And speaking of partners and people you know, in our lives, whether they’re, you know, your, your partner, your friend, your family member or a coworker or whatever the situation, if they have somebody in their lives who’s going through some issues with emotional eating or you know, issues with food, what are some ways that they can be supportive? They probably have no idea what to do within those kinds of situations. So what are some ways that they can be supportive of people while they’re dealing with those kinds of issues?
Kristin: (31:39) It was a huge relief for me when a friend of mine said something to me about the pieces of paper that I had written around the house, and I left her on the house of the listings of everything that I was eating and the calorie counts and all that. And I remember him saying something to me about it. And I at first was kind of embarrassed, but then I was like, what? You never said anything? And he said, no, it was, it’s, this is, this is your thing, but I just want you to be, I just want you to know that I’m aware of it. And if you, when you’re ready to talk about it, you can talk to me about it. And it was like, Oh, okay. And I was like, I, I didn’t, it wasn’t like, Oh my God, you have a problem, Kristen.
Kristin: (32:19) But it was, it was just making me aware that he had observed it, but that he was there for me. And I think I very strongly feel I had I have a niece who is, is who has been anorexic and I had a brother who was an alcoholic who has passed away because of that. And I would say in my brother’s case, never said anything. And I don’t like to ever live with regret, but that’s one thing that I wish had happened in my life. I wish once somebody in my family and myself specifically myself had said something to him. When this, when the anorexia presented itself with my niece, I couldn’t, I had, I had vowed since my brother had passed away that I would never do that again. And so just with love and compassion, if you see somebody that you think is struggling and that is struggling with something, you know, whether it’s, whether it’s drugs, whether it’s alcohol, whether it’s, whatever it is if you are aware of that.
Kristin: (33:18) My niece was so relieved when I said something to her. She was like, Oh my God, I’ve, so, you know, I know, I know this is a problem. And then we started, and then we started talking about it, and we got her therapy, and we got, you know, it’s like the wheels, the ball started rolling, but it was if I had just not said anything, it could, it, you know, she was close to being hospitalized. So I think that if people see someone struggling, you just have to know that they’re hurting inside. And how we, I always think, I always try to put myself in the position of how would I address a child that was crying, you know, would I go, Oh, of course, I’m going to go over to a child that’s crying, and I’m going to put my arms around them and tell me what’s going on. And when someone is hurting, even if they’re acting in such a way that you think, Oh my gosh, this person is so difficult to deal with, know that they’re hurting and just come from a place of love and a place of compassion. And you’ll be surprised in every case in my life that that’s happened. The individuals have always been relieved that somebody finally said something.
Katie: (34:17) Yes, I like that. That’s great advice. And you know, just kind of wrapping up here, you’ve mentioned some great resources, and your book is a fantastic resource. Is there anything else out there that you’ve found to be helpful, whether it has to do with emotional eating or running a business, being an entrepreneur, anything that you found helpful that you would recommend to the listeners?
Kristin: (34:34) Oh my gosh. I would say the book that absolutely changed my life, and it was, it was what encouraged me to leave teaching. It got me to leave teaching. It has been just a gospel for me in finding what your passion is and following your passion. So many people are, are living lives and doing jobs and spending so much of their days miserable to get to the weekend or to get to retirement. And, and I don’t think we’re meant to live our lives like that. I think that we have so much more as human beings to offer each other and offer the world. And, and I know there are people who have incredible talents that aren’t, are not, they’re not living their life that they should truly be living. So the book that changed my life was you are a badass by Jensen Cheryl. I tell every person, anybody who’s having any sort of like, I don’t know what to do with my life. Oh my God, read that book. And then she has a followup with your badass at making money, and that’s a great book for female entrepreneurs and men as well. But female more so just because women usually we have a tendency to have a little bit more of a challenge when it comes to the issues of money and asking for what we’re worth and that sort of thing. And so that book is just, it’s life-changing.
Katie: (35:47) That’s awesome. Yeah, I’ll definitely link to that in the show notes. I’ve heard amazing things about it. People are going to want to check out everything you’re doing and follow your journey. So do you mind telling people how they can find you?
Kristin: (35:58) Absolutely. I am so excited. I started a Facebook group, and the name of the group is called a breakthrough. And I will actually send you, I’ll send you a link to that too, that people can, can click on the link and come and join the group. But my Facebook group is called breakthrough, and it is focused on healthy living and empowerment for people who struggle with their relationship with food and who really just want to be healthy overall. But, but there’s always is that underlying theme of how is this going to help you when it comes to your relationship with food and with emotional eating. And so I’m, I’m so excited about that. I, I post like yesterday, was motivational Monday, and we talked about patients and just being kind to ourselves and giving ourselves time today was today’s transformation Tuesday. And so I always do a tip on how to kind of sidestep emotional eating. So I’m always posting, you know, very practical things that people can take and use immediately in their lives and really have it be kind of those stepping stones to getting yourself to a better place. So that’s, that’s first and foremost on Instagram. I am at Kay, Jonesy, KJ, O, N E S E Y 44, and I also am on my personal file on Facebook as well. It’s Kristin with an I N not very many people spell it that way. So.
Katie: (37:15) Great. Well, thank you so much. I mean I just have to thank you so much for coming on the show today. This has been such an informative, and it’s a pleasure to talk to you. Really. Thank you. Thank you so much.
Kristin: (37:27) I appreciate you allowing me to come on and, and share my story and, and I hope that you know, something I said resonated with members of your audience. And again, I would just say to anybody who’s listening, if, if you feel like you’re alone, you’re not. And there’s help out there. So I, I just, I always want people to know that there are resources and there’s help and, and you can definitely move past whatever, wherever you are in your journey. And it is a journey and that you know that there’s, there are always steps that we can be taking.
