Nicole Aucoin - Profitable Nutrition Programs & Practical CGM Applications

Hey everybody, welcome to the Future of Fitness, a top-rated fitness industry podcast for over three years and running. I am your host, Eric Malzone, and I have the absolute pleasure of talking to entrepreneurs, innovators, and cutting-edge technology experts within the extremely fast-paced industries of fitness, wellness, and health sciences. Please stop by futurefitness.co to subscribe and learn more. To live your healthiest, longest life possible, you need to understand what's going on inside your body. People age at different speeds, and generic annual blood work doesn't properly evaluate your biological age, but Insight Tracker does. Insight Tracker is a truly personalized nutrition and performance system designed to extend your health span and slow down the aging process. Created by leading scientists in aging, genetics, and biometrics, Insight Tracker analyzes your blood, DNA, and fitness tracking data to identify where you're optimized and where you're not. You'll get a daily action plan with personalized guidance on the right exercise, nutrition, and supplementation for your body. Add Interage 2.0 to any plan to calculate your true biological age and see how you're aging from the inside out. For a limited time, get 20% off the entire Insight Tracker store. Just go to insight tracker.com forward slash future. That's insightracker.com forward slash future. All right, we are live. Nicola Coyne. Welcome to the future of fitness.

Thanks for having me. I'm excited to be here.

It's a pleasure. I I got to catch up with you at uh Julian Barnes uh summit in New York City. Uh shout out to those guys. It was a great event. And it was it was so good to see you again in person. I mean, you know, we've been in the CrossFit space for a long time. Um every once in a while those circles kind of overlap, and it's it's always uh it's always really good to see a friendly face. So thank you so much for joining me. Uh, you do a lot of great work. I've seen the growth of you as a professional, as as you know, healthy steps, nutrition, and what you've done for gym owners and a lot of individuals. So you guys do great work over there, and it's it's uh it's great to get you highlighted. So let me stop talking. Um, let's let's get into you a little bit about you. So if you can just give an introduction to our audience about who you are and kind of how you evolved to be where you are now.

Awesome. So I started um in CrossFit in college and fell in love as soon as I went one time. I was like, man, these are some really cool, nice people, and uh was becoming a dietitian at the same time and knew my passion was always health and fitness, but was told I had to be a dietitian in a hospital to be successful, whatever that means. Um, so I ended up moving down to South Florida, knowing one person, joined a CrossFit gym, um, and worked at a hospital. And at the same time, I started Healthy Sups Nutrition because I knew the hospital wasn't gonna fulfill me. I knew that was gonna give me a paycheck, but I really wanted to help people make meaningful change. And I knew it wasn't gonna be through a one-time consult in between a bunch of doctors going in and out of rooms. So started Healthy Subs Nutrition and slowly built it up, ended up meeting my husband at a CrossFit gym. And uh then we started traveling to CrossFit gyms doing nutrition challenges. And it's funny, I talk about challenges now and gym owners falling into a challenge trap where all they do is nutrition challenges. And I was like facilitating this back in 2012. Um, and you know, it got to a point, fast forward a few years, that my husband was like, You're not happy at the hospital, leave and just dive into healthy subs nutrition full time. And around that time, one of our mutual friends found out who owns a mentoring company, found out what we were doing and was like, Hey, you're doing something really cool that could help a lot of gym owners. Nutrition is a missing piece of the puzzle in CrossFit gyms, yet it's the foundation of the fitness pyramid and the first 13 words of fitness. Like maybe you can help other gym owners. And so I ended up coming on his podcast back in like 2015, 2014. And it was like super quick growth after that. Every gym owner was like, Yep, this is a missing piece. Yep, we're having informal conversations and we thankfully have grown the team and been able to help thousands of gym owners and coaches, and in the process, have been able to build some really cool partnerships with CrossFit and other really amazing companies to help their their network of gym owners to build nutrition and truly impact people and make meaningful change.

Right on. Yeah. So you've worked with a lot of gyms. I mean, you just said thousands of gyms. Uh, who do you primarily work with? Is it is it CrossFit affiliates? Are you branching out into other boutiques or health clubs? Who are those people?

No, when we first started back in 2015, it was 100% CrossFit gyms. I was writing for the CrossFit Journal. I didn't, I never did any advertising. So it was just like whoever found out about us in the CrossFit space is is pretty small. Um, and then I got connected with Julian a few years ago and we started doing some webinars and some different things with their following. And they have a lot of different types of boutique, bar, and personal training studios. And those people were like, hey, yeah, I want to add nutrition into my business. And then there were chiropractors that were like, hey, if my people lost weight and got healthy, I would be able to help them or I'd be able to add a revenue stream. So then chiropractors jumped on and a lot of a lot of different types of businesses now. I would say it's it's about 60% CrossFit and 40% a mix of of other types of boutique fitness facilities and even independent nutrition coaches at this point, too.

So that's awesome. I mean, you're gonna keep branching out because you guys, you know, you you do you do good work, and I think that's critical. And you know, it fascinates. I let I want to get your take on this because it's since I've been in this this industry for the last 15 years, even as an athlete starting at the age of like 15, 16, nutrition has been this mystery, right? It just seems so it's so fundamental. Everyone eats, right? Uh but we have such a lack of understanding of nutrition and how it works and why it's so complicated for people, you know, and and really like I've you've probably done this too. I I've been in rooms where I could have sworn like chairs were gonna get thrown across the room because people were arguing about optimal nutrition, right? Uh and it just seems so misguided, like we're missing the point on a lot of it. So I guess if now we're in 2022, what would you give the overall state of the nutrition coaching or nutrition industry? Like how are we doing overall?

Um I think that people are aware nutrition is important and health is important, and you're not going to become the best and healthiest version of yourself by going to the gym multiple hours a day or every day a week. So that's a positive. Um, but I think outside of that, people are so confused. At Healthy Seps Nutrition, we say something all the time, something as fundamental as nutrition shouldn't be complicated, which is why you should focus on a simple habit-based approach. But the problem is our society tells us we want things today. And if we do more, we'll achieve more. If we change all the things with our diet and do all these crazy 75 days of craziness, then we'll see really, really good results. And you it might work in the short term, but there's a reason why people don't do well in the long term and and maintain good results, right? Like two-thirds of people will regain more weight than they lost. And it's because they don't start small, build slowly, have the fundamentals, they go all in and then they're all out as fast as they went all in.

Let's let's get into this because I I want to in this, I'll get the definition as we explore it. But I, you know, I want to get the definition of what exactly you say habit-based nutrition is, because that, you know, it's it's kind of keywords that you hear every once in a while. But maybe we can do in the context of when gyms, um, this particular boutique gyms apply a nutrition program. Obviously, we all see the value in healthy nutrition. I mean, most of the time, if you most of the clients that come into a gym, you could probably shut your doors and just have them do nutrition plans, and 90% of them will reach their goals, right? Yeah, we have this bass acquaintance way of doing things where it's like we're going to, you know, get them in, we're gonna start them working out, and then we're gonna start a nutrition plan, like down the road, we're gonna upsell them on that, right? Or something. That tends to be the common thing. So when you look at most of the gyms that you work with and those that are successful, maybe those that aren't, um, where are they getting it wrong?

Um, I think there's a few things. One is we put the value on something that's not really the value of nutrition coaching. So telling someone what to do or giving them a meal plan or telling them macros is not the value of a habit-based coaching program. Your value as a coach or a business facilitating a nutrition coaching program comes from the accountability and support to ensure someone is consistently doing the habits they are committing to. And when you think about what you should focus on or how to build a habit-based coaching program, it's starting off with one thing at a time. When you look at the research, studies show that if you start with one thing at a time, you're 80%, 80% successful to maintain that one thing a year later. Two things less than 30%, three things less than 5% success rate. And if you think about it, most gym owners or coaches just want to help their clients, right? Like we just want to give them all the tools and resources. And I've made all of the mistakes. Like I've been doing healthy sex nutrition for 10 years, I've made every mistake under the sun. Um, and one of those things was it was like a fire hose of information when I would meet with people the first time and they would leave feeling overwhelmed and they wouldn't change anything, and then they never saw good results. But instead, when we started simplifying the process and said, hey, start with this one thing based on, well, you know, or even better, what are you most excited about making a change with? Like what is something realistic that you could implement into your life today and be consistent with that? And I can help you check in with you to make sure that you are consistent. And then I let them talk, right? And then it's just figuring out the path of, okay, you say you want to do this. Let's figure out every single step to make sure that you are doing this. And you do it every single day, you'll start seeing those wins. And if people can see wins, they're gonna be more likely to continue to do it, and then they're gonna be more successful. So I think the the biggest misconception is like trying to do too much at one time or putting your value on something that's not really the value of nutrition coaching. When you do it right, you should have a length of engagement of over 12 months with your nutrition clients. You're you shouldn't sit down with clients one time and help them. Like, yes, you might give them a lot of information, but they're not going to stick with it. They could probably read all of that stuff online. The value comes to the human and current human connection and the in-person touch points that you're having it or virtual. You know, we have a lot of virtual clients at Healthy Steps Nutrition. We have a lot of in-person. But I will say, you know, to your point, many of our new clients start off with nutrition only, and then we add fitness if that's the right fit for them.

Yeah, that's great. And I guess the challenge, and and maybe you've probably addressed this thousands, if not tens of thousands of times, but when you say, hey, we're gonna start one habit at a time, and this is you know gonna be like a 12-month plan, people want to hear that, right? They want, no, I want a 30-day fat loss program, right? Like, I want results now. How do you set the table early on, especially I guess in the sales process as well, of like, hey, this is that we're gonna unfold this over time. You're just gonna have to stick with it. Like, how how do you position that and and set the expectations early on?

Um, number one, we require a 12-month or 12-week commitment for our nutrition coaching program. So you're not starting with us as a client unless you are willing to commit three months. At that point, you're gonna weed out the people that are looking for that quick fix, right? Because they're just looking to, you know, get something super fast. And then, you know, if someone is, you know, has a discovery call with us and we're talking and they tell us that they've tried a million different diets, which studies show that people try seven to eight diets before seeking a professional. So they've tried a lot of things and you know, ask them, how is that going for you? Well, why are we sitting here? What are you really looking for? What are you wanting? Where's the gap here between what you're wanting and where you're at right now? And then let's position how we can help you if it's a good fit. And there are people that are not a good fit for our program. If someone's like, hey, I want to do strict whatever, or I want to fast all the time, or I just want to take supplements, okay. Uh, you know, that that could be an option for you. But when you're looking at our material, when you listen to our podcast, when you're reading um stuff that we put out, it's pretty obvious, hey, we help people through a habit-based approach, we focus on whole foods and really our value as a coaching program comes down to the accountability and support that we provide our clients.

And let's get into that. So the accountability and support, I mean, that that's that I think that's key. I mean, that's where I also see technology playing a beneficial role. Yeah. Right. Um, how do you guys construct the accountability, you know, uh for the client? Like, is it is how many touch points do you? I'm sure there's a lot of intention behind the way you guys do that. So maybe you can give some insights to our listeners on on how they can hold their clients accountable.

Yeah. So, you know, I will say a mistake that I made um for when I started healthy subs nutrition is I would meet with people in person and I never built time into our packages where I built into a buffer, a margin for the in-between the in-person visits or like the Zoom calls if we were doing 100% virtual. Um, and now part of part of the structure of the program and coaches are paid for it is the touch points between those scheduled meetings, the face-to-face or in for virtual Zoom. So for a lower tier package, there's check-in messages typically on Friday. I personally am trying to guide all of our clients, all of our coaches with our mentoring program and HQ to do video messages. Hey, checking in, you know, Eric, you said you were gonna have more vegetables. I'm I'm looking in the app. It looks like you've had vegetables for every single lunch. Awesome job. What did you learn by having more vegetables for lunch this week? Now I'm asking you to think about, okay, how did it affect you? And then let's positively talk about how you're gonna move forward, continuing that one habit that you focused on. So, you know, having a check-in message that's scheduled, you know, at a specific day is super helpful. Um, I like doing it on Fridays because you're reviewing how people did for the week and you're going into the weekend, totally the toughest part for people to stay on track. Um, and then having a higher touch point program, which is most of our nutritional clients, where they have virtual calls or Zoom shorter calls, 10-minute calls at the beginning of every single week. And clients pay for it, but it helps them set themselves up for the week. And I think so many reasons, so many times the reason why people fail is because they don't have a plan and they don't have anyone to keep them accountable to that plan. But if you built in time to create that plan for yourself, and sometimes it it takes a coach to help you create that plan and just give you an outsider's perspective, you're gonna be more successful with consistency, which is gonna help your success to whatever you're wanting long term.

Yeah. I you and I talked about this prior to recording, but I I have this stuck in my craw, like how a lot of technology companies um in the fitness, health, and wellness space uh are are cool are creating really cool features, right? Like you look in like, well, that's cool, how'd they do that? Wow, right? Um but the connection between the actual results for a human being um and the features of the tech, there's a disconnection at many different points. When you look at the field of nutrition and nutrition coaching, like what role do you think technology can play? And what part and what roles can't it play?

I think I so we have an app where we manage all of our clients, and it is a streamlined place for our client coaches to communicate with our clients. We have educational videos, there's recipes, we can send check-in messages through that. I can see consistency with habits. It is a really great platform for me to be able to kind of keep tabs on what our clients are doing between those in-person visits.

Did you build that out?

Um we, yeah, um, so we um basically built on to trainerize. So we built all of our program. I actually helped them build the the habit stacking, and their main developer was a nutrition client of ours back in 2017 to figure out how can we best build habits and nutrition into a fitness coaching platform, which is what it was at the time. Um but you know, your value as a coach, like we got in this business to help people. They're people, right? We crave connections with people. I started traveling to CrossFit gyms after COVID and uh to gyms that run our program and have talked to so many gym owners at this point, and they all say the same thing. They say the value that the nutrition coaching program has had on our business has helped us deepen relationships, deepen connections with our members. And it makes sense to me because if you think about it, when you have a gym and you have 20 people, 15 people going into class, how much time are you really spending with each person? Maybe you might ask them a quick question, but you're not really getting to know them unless you're chatting with them for 15 minutes after or whatever the case may be. You know, when you have nutrition coaching, you have those intentional sit downs with clients to help them. And when you use a holistic approach and not just talk about nutrition, you're able to look at the stress management, their lifestyle, the support system they have, all these other factors that are influencing their nutrition decisions, which is influencing either them working towards their goals or working against them reaching their goals. And when you build a framework and you build a coaching program that really is a holistic approach, you're gonna be able to deepen the connection with your members so much more, which increases length of engagement. You're obviously having adding a revenue stream, which increases referrals. And I think what it taught so many people during COVID was hey, I don't have to have my gym open to still help people with nutrition.

How do you uh I've heard a lot of different models about pricing? And I think pricing in the in particularly in the nutrition coach world is is fascinating because um I think there's different ways to do it, especially when you're tied into a gym. I mean, you can charge at some points like, well, you want to charge a good amount of money because you want people to take it seriously, right? Um, but you also want to make it out of touch for people who may really need your help. And you know, let's let's be frank, a lot of people in this country um who are obese or suffer from a lot of chronic disease due to nutrition, don't make a lot of money, right? So you want to make it accessible to them. And then I've also heard, you know, different models within gyms of like, well, we just bake it into the membership fee, right? It's part of it. Um, or you know, whatever we charge it in uh different ways. So when when you look at, and I know there's a lot of people probably want to know, well, how do I actually price a nutrition program? How do you suggest gym owners and coaches go about that?

So I would recommend doing a little bit more for the first three months and then doing an ongoing coaching rate that's a little bit less. There's more time commitment for the first three months, people have more questions, it's just more time intensive. And you want to make sure that you're charging appropriately so that your coach is being valued for their time. Cause you know, what a lot of people don't think about, especially when you build a nutrition coaching program and you're a gym owner that's planning on doing it yourself, you're not building in enough margin so that eventually you can pass it off and still make a profit in your gym. And like I understand we want to help people if we do so much free help. I get it. But I also understand the value of the service that we're providing and what's your health worth. I mean, you can pay $200 a month now or you can pay thousands of dollars in medications later because you didn't take care of yourself now and the ripple down effect, right? Like your habits, whether you like it or not, are being passed down to your kids. Like, what are they seeing? Right. So, do you want to set them up for success long term? Um, in regards to nutrition coaching, I'll give you an example at our gym. And most gyms that that use the HSN mentoring platform are within 10% of these numbers. So we charge $199 per month for three months for an initial package for lower accountability where you're meeting with a coach every four weeks and you have message check ins weekly. And then we have a higher accountability plan that includes those weekly calls as well. So there's longer appointments every four weeks, and then you have shorter touch point calls every week. And that program. Is $2.99 per month for three months and the price goes down after that. I think one of the biggest mistakes gyms make is they fall into this challenge trap where they run nutrition challenges and then the program ends at the end of the challenge, or they do this, try to convert people to a nutrition coaching program, but they charge little to nothing for a nutrition challenge, right? So, you know, if you're thinking about running a challenge, which I think from a gym standpoint is a really great way to get people talking about nutrition and increase engagement with existing members, running one to two challenges a year is what I would recommend. Don't run a million challenges because then people just wait for the next challenge. Um, but charging higher than whatever your ongoing coaching rate is. So at HSNHQ, we charge 129 ongoing after the first three months for that lower tier plane. And whenever we run a challenge, it's between 149 to 169 for a nutrition challenge. Um, but we build in individual touch points with those clients too. So pricing is really important. Uh, number one, you want to make sure that you're packaging your programs correctly, but you also want to make sure that you're building in that margin for the between in-person connections that that you need to be making and make sure that you know your coach is happy with the amount that that they're making too. We recommend paying your coaches about 45 to 50% of the revenue coming in for nutrition. There's probably someone doing the sale that needs to make of something, right? For either time for doing the free intro process, and then you need to make a profit on your program.

And is that um these are all pricing on top of gym membership as well, right? These these are incremental coaching fees. Um if let's just use a number of 200. Let's say a booty gym has 200 members. You know, if from what you've seen, if if they're um doing it well, you know, really selling and packaging and uh delivering a nutrition coaching service of value, like what percentage of those 200 people do you think should be on a nutrition plan generally?

At some point, every single person should be on a nutrition coaching plan. No matter how well you think you're doing with nutrition, there is always room for improvement to helping someone become the best and healthiest version of themselves, whether it be directly related to nutrition or their sleep or their support system or stress management, there is something that they need help with that they could use in accountability. I mean, even myself, right? And I know what to do, but having someone to keep me accountable is super, super helpful. So, you know, every single person should be doing it at some point. Every single person at our gym has done nutrition in some way, shape, or form, or is currently on nutrition now. Um, for new people, getting on board, and you mentioned this before, but having a solid front-end offer that encompasses nutrition, fitness, and accountability is by far the best way to grow a nutrition coaching program in a gym. Having that solid front-end offer, I would expect at least 50% of new members signing up for nutrition, fitness, and accountability if you do it correctly. And then at least another 20% of those people that did not sign up, sign up at some point within the first six months of getting started in your gym because they're not going to see all the results they're looking for. But what happens is whoever's doing the free intro process or the sales process does not know about the nutrition coaching program or just wants to make a sale and you know, get a member signed up so they don't talk about nutrition, or they say nutrition's really important. Here's our on-rant program and our group fitness classes. Let's get get you started there. And then maybe someone will follow up regarding nutrition, or or even worse, in my opinion, right after they pay $300 to get started at the gym, they have another free intro to essentially essentially sell nutrition at that point, which is now the person feels like they're just being sold, you know. Um, so and when you do it correctly, one of the things that that I would say for gyms that are like, okay, Nicole, I've got a front-end offer that encompasses nutrition. Like, how do I get people to sign up for this? You know, make your value proposition based on the transformation that you're gonna help your clients achieve, not the amount that they're paying. If that makes sense. So, like if you look at our sales binder, the last page is the amount that they're paying, but they see success stories, they see Google reviews, they're in a room that has a wall of success of all of the people that have done nutrition, fitness, and accountability. They're naturally looking around, saying, How do I get up on that wall? Well, nutrition, fitness, and accountability. Before they come in, they see a video from myself and and members who have talked about how nutrition, fitness, and accountability has really changed their health and their life and and how we've helped them do that. But you're not gonna be able to sell nutrition if you're not talking about nutrition and you're not intentional with how you position the value of your program and make sure your staff who's doing free intros and even just your coaching staff is on the same page.

Yeah, right on. I'm just curious, Nicole. Uh, when you talk about habit-based nutrition, what what are some of the more common, maybe two or three most common habits that you start, you know, your coaching clients with?

That's a great question. So for every person, it's a little different based on where they're starting from. But I will tell you like the three core fundamentals at healthy steps nutrition. First one, start with whole foods first. Eat meats and vegetables, nuts and seeds, some fruit, little starch, minimal sugar. Um, and then when you think about um the next thing after we're eating more vegetables, is we should be having a balance of protein, carbs, and fats. We should have a balance of macronutrients there. Most people, if we think about convenience foods or things that people are eating often, they're loaded with carbohydrates and we don't have enough protein and you know, we're scared to have fat because fat makes you fat when in reality, no, that's not necessarily the case. Probably all the added sugar that we're eating is making us fat. Um, and then the third thing is addressing the sugar. Like we have to cut down the amount of added sugar that we are consuming on a daily basis, which is leading to chronic disease. And, you know, for a lot of our clients, those three things look very different. So for a lot of people, hey, let's just add in a little bit of vegetables for lunch. I want you to eat those first, have vegetables. What vegetables are you gonna cut? When are you gonna prepare them? When are you gonna buy them? What is it gonna look like? Are you bringing them with you? Like, let's plan out every single step so you know when you leave my office exactly what you need to do to be successful with that one habit. Let's get you consistent with that one thing. And once you've had vegetables with your lunch every day and talked through, oh man, by having these vegetables, instead of just eating a sandwich and chips, I actually have more energy in the afternoon. I'm more productive, I'm in a better mood. I'm not like falling at my desk asleep. I'm not having to drink a ton of coffee in the afternoon. Okay, great. Like all these things are positive that that because you added these vegetables in, then let's start shifting the dinner routine. Like, okay, let's have vegetables. If you're eating some vegetables, let's have a little bit more vegetables for dinner every day. All right, now let's connect the dots with those same things. How's your mood? How's your energy? How's your sleeping, right? Like we know if we're eating a bunch of carbohydrates at night, it's going to impact the sleeping that we have. We know that from, you know, wearing a whoop. We know that from wearing a CGM. It's it's really obvious the data shows. So, you know, when we help people understand the positive impacts of their nutrition decisions, then they're more likely to want to continue it. And then they realize, man, binging on cookies at night, it's not helping me sleep, which is causing me to wake up tired, which is not helping me be the best leader of the company that I'm looking to be. I care more about doing that than eating these cookies. Let's stop the cookie nighttime curse.

I that's very personal for me, the cookie nighttime curse. Uh you brought up CGM. Great segue. I'm I want to talk to somebody who actually knows uh, you know, not just about the technology, but how to actually apply it and the value of it. Because that was one of the things that you and I talked about uh, you know, a month or two ago in New York was, you know, you you're you're okay. So let's start with this. What is CGM? I know you're not, you know, a technology expert on it, and Nora ask you, maybe you are, I don't know. Uh, but explain, you know, to people what it is, why it's important, and how you're utilizing it uh in your practice.

So let's start with like broad spectrum here. Like we eat carbohydrates and your blood sugar goes up. And most of us do not realize um, you know, how high our blood sugar is going up or how it's correlated to our energy, sleep, all these other factors until we go and get our annual blood work, or for some people every 10 years, whenever they go get it. And the the doctor says, Hey, your A1C, your three-month average of your blood sugar is continuously going up, your triglycerides are elevated, your fasting blood sugar is going up. And when you look at the research, there are a lot of people in the US and in the world that have prediabetes or diabetes, like a third of the population, and most of them are undiagnosed. So, you know, what if instead of waiting until that point when the doctor says, hey, you have diabetes, now I'm gonna give you a pill so that you can manage your diabetes and that pill is gonna work for a certain amount of time, and then you're then gonna have insulin, and then you're gonna have all these complications. What if we started way back and started looking at how our body is responding to the food that we're eating? So now that I've kind of given that preface, continuous glucose monitoring was historically just something for diabetics. And in the hospital, this was the thing that like crushed my soul the most is the diabetes issues that people would have because it would be uncontrolled. And then one complication would lead to a million other complications. And I saw them on dialysis. I saw them getting amputations, I saw them like so many bad things happen to people when they do not control their blood sugars and it goes chronically for too long, and then they have all these chronic diseases that could have been prevented if they were educated on what they needed to do and actually took action on it. So continuous glucose monitoring is a way to continuously monitor your glucose. And historically, for diabetics, you would prick your finger and it doesn't feel good. It actually hurts. I I've done it multiple times. Um, I don't like doing it. And most people don't do it because it hurts. Well, then they came out, these diabetes pharmaceutical companies came out with this machine that um basically tells you at all times, every five minutes, what your blood sugar is. And so now you no longer have to prick your finger and you can see. And the cool thing is, is everyone does, everyone's body does something a little bit different. Like we know that blood sugar goes up after we eat foods, but how high and how fast really depends on the person and other factors like how stressed they are, if they exercised, you know, what else is going on. So previously to a couple of years ago, these continuous glucose monitors were only available for diabetics. Well, over the past couple of years, there's been some companies that have said, well, wait a second, what if we don't go through insurance? What if people invest their own money and they can actually don't have to be diabetic and they can get a prescription and they can track their numbers on their own. So last year, um, my husband and I actually did a continuous glucose monitoring experiment where we just did it for 12 weeks. I think we ended up doing it. And I we ate things that we shouldn't have and we ate things like normal and we traveled, and it was during the holidays too. So it was during Thanksgiving. My husband's dad is diabetic. He's one of those guys that started with metformin and now is on insulin and all these things because he has uncontrolled type two diabetes from weight, essentially. And, you know, so we were eating the same foods as he was, and then and he has a continuous glucose monitor too. So we were all just seeing, like, what's going on with our body? And it was super interesting. And it was, I what I realized in that time is my husband would ask me, like, why is this happening? Why is this happening? Why is this happening? He doesn't have a nutrition degree, but it made me realize, man, if he doesn't know the answers, which I don't expect him to, and he's married to a dietitian where our business is built on nutrition, how would anyone else in the population, if they did this, understand what those numbers mean and how to correct them? And that's when I ended up getting connected with a company that we work with now, Cygnos, where it's a professional dashboard. So if you were to get started with continuous glucose monitoring with us, you have nutrition coaching and we base your nutrition coaching recommendations based on real-time feedback of what you're eating. It's just a really, really interesting thing for people to learn a little bit more about themselves. And what I've seen, um, we've targeted some people to be the first people to do this in our nutrition coaching practice who've been nutrition clients for for years. And one person in particular, uh, we had been talking about things for a really long time. And he didn't necessarily make all the changes consistently until he started seeing the real time feedback. And then he started correlating. I mean, when I drink alcohol, I actually feel like crap when I'm sleeping and I'm not sleeping. My blood sugar is elevated all night long. And that caused him to stop drinking as much and not drink at all during the week because he's a super busy business person. And then it, and then it came to the conversation of, well, I'm traveling for work. How do I stay on track? And then he would either positively reinforce his nutrition decisions or be like, man, I could have done better. And here's the reason why. So that was really cool. The other thing that was super neat that people have seen with continuous glucose monitoring is the impact of exercise and activity. I don't mean a crazy CrossFit workout, but like going for a walk for 15 minutes after eat. Um, I have a really cool example. My uncle who has type 2 diabetes as well. Um, or yeah, type 2 diabetes last Thanksgiving, um, and he's been struggling with this and it's been getting worse for years and years. And last Thanksgiving, he was an Italian restaurant. So, like, it's tough to stay on track when you own an Italian restaurant. Um, last Thanksgiving, I was like, hey, you should really consider getting a continuous glucose monitor. I'm sure your insurance company will pay at least a portion of it. I think this will give you some information to help you make more educated decisions and help you get all these numbers under control. Fast forward four months, his A1C is almost down to normal. He's lost like 40 pounds at this point. And he's done an incredible job. We went out to dinner and he, after we got done, he started walking. Like I was running to keep up with him around the building because he's like, I know if I do this, my blood sugar will get down to normal, and then I'm not gonna have to do anything else the rest of the night. It'll be good. Um, so it's it's been a really cool way for people to proactively take control of their health.

Yeah. It's I here's what I like about stuff like this too. And you can either confirm or deny, but especially working with um Joel Jameson at Morpheus, and you know, it's it's an HRV stress monitoring system, and it takes sleep and lifestyle factors and kind of gives you scores and things that are usable, right? But what I like about him most, and and the people I talk to are, you know, at the you know, where the rubber meets the road, working with clients and using the technology was that it makes these conversations objective. Like it's not Nicole the coach saying, Did you do this, did you that? We're like, well, hey, let's sit down together and let's look at the data, right? And that makes just for a better relationship. And then it also motivates the person more because that you can't, it's hard data, right? It's something that it's it's undeniable. I mean, you know, there's there's accuracy within certain percentages, I'm sure. But is that something that you've noticed when you you start implementing this type of technology?

A thousand percent. And I think, you know, one of the things that we do at the beginning of every session is let them come with what they're noticing. So, hey, tell me a little bit about what you're noticing. And I want them to kind of, I don't want to tell them because like if I tell you something versus you coming up with the that answer on your own, it's gonna be so much more impactful and meaningful for you than me just saying, Hey, did you notice this? So, hey, what are you noticing over the past week? And then they come up with things that are important to them, like, hey, I noticed that when I had this food or when I ate these things, this is what was happening, or I noticed that when I was eating out, or when I had this breakfast, I was a little bit more my blood sugar was more stable all day, or when I had alcohol, this is what happened. And then we could talk and there can be an education piece around that. But I build the education around what's most important to our clients at that moment, not like here's all the information about continuous glucose monitoring, how you manage your glucose with all these different things that factors that could go into it. Let's figure out what's important to you and what you're noticing, and then let's let's build a program and platform from from there. And that's one of the benefits of doing it for 30 days, right? We have lots of time to essentially let them see and notice all of these things so that they can really understand how these positive healthy habit changes are going to impact their life.

Awesome. You know, that we we don't have a lot of time left, but I there was something I want to touch on because I'm starting to notice this trend. Um, and it's not just in nutrition, but it's just uh a stronger emphasis on uh feminine biology, right? Like it there's a the traditionally very little research money has been do, you know, siphoned off towards you know understanding female biology and hormones and all those things, and now it's starting to come, you know, menopause, premenopause, like you know, during pregnancies, things like that. So when you start looking and just talking about the female anatomy and nutrition specifically, are you starting to notice a trend towards more knowledge, more research, or what are you seeing in that specific area?

There's definitely a few pioneers in this space that are becoming more um you know, popular with hormone health. One of our dietitians actually specializes in hormone health, and she we guide so many people to her because the female nutrition clients are interested, especially when they're coming around menopause or you know, going through menopause or postmenopausal, like they want to know so that they can make more educated decisions. And even something as simple as like understanding why your body or why your mood or energy levels or whatever is being affected, just understanding, like, hey, it's normal, it's okay, and understanding why is super helpful for females, women to give themselves a little bit of grace. Um, so yes, I definitely think that it's becoming more and more talked about. There's more education around it. Uh, we ran a hormone nutrition challenge back in January, and it was it was a really fun way for women to learn more about their bodies and just understand what's going on. And, you know, there's so much research. And Amanda, our dietitian, is the one that specializes in this. I this is not my specialty, so I can't speak on it, but I do have an expert in this area. She will correlate where you are in your cycle with what type of work you should be doing, what type of relationships and all these things, because as your hormones change, so does your like brain chemistry to be able to be more successful with different types of things, which is mind-blowing, but it makes sense when you really think about it. So, you know, one of the things that we have in our technology, our app is weekly videos. And she made a whole series of videos related to hormone health. And I end up watching them all before they go into the app, just making sure like the videographer editor did a, you know, there's not a sentence that's said twice or whatever the case may be. And I learned so much about myself and my body, even in that process. So I think it it's super helpful for women to understand what's going on inside their body. And the more knowledge you have, the more educated you can dised you can make for yourself, which is super valuable. Um, yeah, I think it's I think it's a good thing. I mean, people are interested and invested in learning more about themselves. Like that's great.

Yeah, it is. And I I can't remember uh who gave me maybe it was EC Sinkowski or someone who were like, you know, it's it's guys' hormonal uh cycle is like 24 hours, right? Women is much longer. It's like 20 to 30 days. So we like guys were like, all right. Well, I feel well, I didn't feel good today yesterday, but I feel better today, right? And that's it. And we just kind of go along our happy way, and we don't really realize, you know, how complicated things can be on the hormonal side for women. So I think it's it's a really promising field. And I I really like the trends I'm starting to see there towards just overall um, you know, women's women's health and wellness. So it's it's really cool. Um Nicole, wealth of knowledge, you you provided so much input and I think action, almost too much action items for people to take on, but um they can always uh you know go and check you out. So if if people want to get a hold of you, if you want to send them somewhere online, uh, where would you like them to go?

Um if you go to healthy stepsnutrition.com, um, that's our main website. And if you're a gym owner, grow your nutrition business.com is where uh all of our gym owner support and like the turnkey solution, basically uh helping gym owners implement the healthy steps nutrition platform. Uh you want to find me on Instagram, Nicole underscore RD underscore HSN. I could send you all the links so they could be in the show notes, maybe.

Awesome. That'd be great. Well, Nicole, thank you so much. Uh, I'm sure you and I will be catching up somewhere in person soon now that everyone's traveling and doing in-person events again. Hooray.

So awesome, right? We're actually hosting a live event in September in Nashville. Maybe you should come to that one.

Oh, that'd be great. I would love to. Yeah. It would be great. And uh yeah, so give people really quick uh, you know, will that be on your website, I presume, once once it's live, or has that been announced yet?

Um, it has been announced. Um, it'll be for gym owners and coaches to learn how to build nutrition into their business to help their clients impact, impact more people in their community. Um, so it's in Nashville, September 16th and 17th. It's gonna be so much fun. Yeah, I'd love for you to be there. I don't know why I didn't ask you before just now.

Right on. Right on. Well, thank you so much, Nicole. It's been uh it's been an absolute pleasure and thanks for for joining me this morning. And uh yeah, we'll be talking soon. Ladies and gentlemen, Nicole Coyne. Hey, wait, don't leave yet. This is your host, Eric Malzone, and I hope you enjoyed this episode of Future of Minute. If you did, I'm gonna ask you to do three simple things. It takes under five minutes and it goes such a long way. We really appreciate it. Number one, please subscribe to our show wherever you listen to it, iTunes, Spotify, Castbox, whatever it may be. Number two, please leave us a favorable review. Number three, share. Put it on social media, talk about it to your friends, send it in a text message, whatever it may be. Please share this episode because we put a lot of work into it. We want to make sure that as many people are getting value out of it as possible. Lastly, if you'd like to learn more or get in touch with me, simply go to the future of fitness.co. You can subscribe to our newsletter there, or you can simply get in touch with me as I love to hear from our listeners. So thank you so much. This is Eric Malzone, and this is the future of fitness. Have a great day.