In this episode of the Morning Upgrade podcast I talk with Brianne Lombardo about her morning routine, deep breathing, eating protein, asking for help and more.
In this episode of the Morning Upgrade podcast I talk with Brianne Lombardo about her morning routine, deep breathing, eating protein, asking for help and more.
Ryan
Hey guys, it's Ryan real quick. So my mission with the Morning Upgrade blog and podcast is to raise the awareness of morning routines and personal development. And I now have two products that are also helped me with this mission. The first product helps you start a 20 minute morning routine. And the second product is a book that outlines how to use personal development, upgrade your life and business. You can get full details on both products over at morningupgrade.com. Thanks for letting me share. And now on to the show.
Announcer
Welcome to the Morning Upgrade podcast with Ryan Cote where we feature casual conversations with entrepreneurs about personal development and growth.
Ryan
Hey, Brianne, welcome to the Morning Upgrade podcast. How are you?
Brianne
I'm doing very well. Thank you so much for having me.
Ryan
Yeah, I'm excited to speak with you over these next 15 minutes. So just so, my audience of morning upgraders know who they're listening to, why don't you briefly talk about who you are, what you do for a living, and then maybe one or two of your hobbies.
Brianne
So my name is Brianne Lombardo. I'm a NASM certified nutrition coach. So I focus on helping busy wives and mothers make major changes in their health journey with minimal changes to their lives. Because as you know, everybody's busy right with that little bit of time to do a lot of things. As far as me personally, I really like to travel and do anything outdoors. And my husband and I actually joked that we're pioneer people at heart because we make our own wine. We make our own maple syrup. And we also hunt for our own meat. So that takes up a lot of time.
Ryan
Yeah, that's very interesting. You're the first guest that makes her wine and their own meat. What does it mean? Like you hunt? What kind of animals?
Brianne
We primarily hunt deer for venison. And then in the spring, we usually hunt turkey. So we have Wild Turkey as well. That's honestly the majority of our diet, I can pretty much take any regular recipe any they use wild turkey venison and most people don't even know it's wild game.
Ryan
So you will not buy meat from the store. It'll have to be hunted by you guys.
Brianne
I mean, obviously, there was an occasion where we do and you know, even I'm a nutrition coach. I love my summer hot dogs. But for the most part, we do provide our own meat.
Ryan
Okay, very interesting.
Brianne
We process it ourselves as well. So that's part of it as well.
Ryan
Wow. That's really neat.
Brianne
You clearly didn't see that coming?
Ryan
No, I don't even know what questions to ask. Because I know nothing about that. But this is about personal development. But I just, I find it really interesting. One or two of your hobbies.
Brianne
So definitely travel. COVID is going to crash on that lately. But we used to make travels abroad, you know, once you play a year, which was a big part of our lifestyle, and really anything outdoors, whether it's hiking, hunting, just getting out with the family and touching the earth.
Ryan
Yeah, traveling is a big one for me, too. And I guess if you're out there hunting Turkey, you're probably getting a lot of exercise walking around. So you kind of knock off two things with one activity?
Brianne
Absolutely. Absolutely.
Ryan
Do you have a morning routine? Like what does that look like when you first wake up?
Brianne
Yeah, sure. So I used to have a much more elaborate routine in the mornings, and then I had a baby. So my routine becomes much more condensed. And it's not what most people would think it's not meditating or anything. So I have protein coffee every morning, just to make sure that even if things get hectic, and I miss breakfast, I'm fueling my body. So it's something that I do for my body. First thing, and I do look like devotional because it can take as little as five minutes or I can spend up to 30. Again, baby boss. So it depends on that. But I make sure that with those two things, I'm doing something for my mind and something for my body first thing in the morning, and that way no matter what life throws at me, that's one consistency that I'm able to maintain day today.
Ryan
And the protein coffee. What is that? Is that special? Obviously, it's coffee. I know there's like a brand like super coffee. That's a protein with caffeine and I think MCT oil like how do you make you how do you add the protein to your coffee?
Brianne
Yeah, sure. That's actually the question I get. So it can be any coffee you want. You know, we have a joke that we have like a blend that we do where we just take whatever's on sale and mix in a big bin. So the coffee is not the important part. But you add a high-quality protein I use level one by the first form, but you can use whatever your favorite protein is, and I have to add a coolant first or else it clumps. That's the big kicker that I have to remind people and then I just add some milk, I add the protein, which is in whatever flavor, for example, you know, it's fall they have a pumpkin spice flavor them currently loving. And so it's a way for me to not only add protein first thing in the morning but also to add flavor without a bunch of additional chemicals or sugar or just sketchy ingredients. So that's my personal favorite thing about it is I'm basically drinking a pumpkin spice latte every morning and I just blend it with one of those little hand mixers. Okay. I like the Francaise.
Ryan
I used to try to make the bulletproof coffee but I probably was making it wrong because I know that there are like a billion customers that do it but man the layer of butter and coconut oil to get through Friday. So that's the coffee. I'm like, I'm getting chills just thinking about it right now. I just couldn't stick with it. So maybe I'll try what you're recommending.
Brianne
Yeah, sure. So I've done quite a few. You know, Friends, family, and clients have done it, because it's just, it's actually really delicious. And it's so good for you. And like I said, it gives you the ability, especially if you're a big creamer person. Like my brother, I'm still working on him. He loves the creamers and they have the chemicals and the extra sugar and things. And this is the way to get the flavor without all that.
Ryan
Yeah. Okay. Good tip. Let's talk about your business. And you said, your nutrition coach. And before we start recording, you said that you weave a lot of mindset work into your nutrition coaching. Can you talk a little bit about that? Like, what do you do for mindset with your clients?
Brianne
Yes. So we go into a lot of just like neuroscience type things where we talk about, you know, how do you form a habit, what happens in your brain, when that is taking place, and how you can strengthen that. So I won't go into the whole training, but we'll be here all day. But essentially, it's like the difference between when you start making alike when you start creating the foundation to a habit, it's more like you're in a horse and buggy on a back that road. Once you do the things you need to strengthen your neural connections. And there's actually a fatty substance called myelin that increases and it pads it to make these connections stronger and more efficient. It then transforms your habit to be more like you're driving on the autobahn, right, you're driving 90 miles an hour, nothing stopping, you know, because I relate it to brushing your teeth. You don't spend your whole adult life, you know, coaching yourself every morning to brush your teeth, you just do it, because it's such a foundational habit ingrained in your subconscious, that it's just a part of your life. So we go into those types of things in order to make healthy choices. And those changes that you need to make with whatever you're personally dealing with to reach your health goals. Effortless overtime.
Ryan
Got it. Okay, that makes sense. Your habits are huge. What are some of the pillar habits that you tried to get your clients to add to their daily routine?
Brianne
So that's a little tricky because I do mostly one-on-one coaching. So it's extremely, extremely personalized. But I would say that all of the habits, it's less about what habits they're implementing, and it's more about their ability to be consistent in implementing them. So if it is a morning routine, you know like you asked me if I have one, some people don't, some people prefer to have a night routine. Or maybe it's just they can't do either. And so they have a lunchtime routine. So it's all about finding what works for you to help move the needle forward each day towards your goals that are sustainable, and that you can do consistently. So that's sort of where I come in, and I have all these ideas. And we sort of break it down. Okay, how do we actually do this in practice?
Ryan
Let's talk about you then what are some of your habits that you rely on every day.
Brianne
So I would say a fundamental habit that I'm still working on to me, nobody's perfect. But deep breathwork is a really underutilized habit, in my opinion, because you can do it anywhere, you can do it in just a few seconds. And it's just, you know, the habit of literally just taking a huge deep breath in, holding it for a few seconds, and then audibly blowing it out. And the reason why I feel like this is undervalued is that you know, you're changing the chemicals and the hormones in your body when you practice this. So you know, cortisol is a stress hormone, it is not your enemy. chronic exposure to the stress hormone is where we run into problems, and especially looking forward to going into like flu season. There's a lot of research out there that indicates that people that are coming down with the flu or even COVID, have compromised immune systems and are showing extremely elevated levels of cortisol, or basically like, you know, the body's been under a lot of stress. So if you're able to weave in some deep breath work throughout your day, you can actually immediately reduce your cortisol levels. And just to kind of, in case people aren't super familiar with cortisol, that's your fight or flight reflex when cortisol rises in the body that's, you know, the fight or flight. And so when you do the fight was referred to see an immediate benefit. But then also over time, if you've been exposed to chronic stress, and the levels have been elevated, you can actually work to bring them down obviously not on its own but it's a huge help. And it is a way that you can not only fight your stress but boost your immune system, which is super important as we look towards the sixth season.
Ryan
That's a big tip. I'm glad you share habits. I'm glad you shared that I'm 20 on my morning routine, I have a series of questions that I go through and but at the top of my little note cards here I have you know, take a deep breath just to remind myself to breathe. And if you think about it, you know like I don't know the exact days are so these are not 100% accurate numbers but you can live with that food for I think two weeks you can live for that water for two days. You know, you can't and how long can you live without air but oxygen the breathing It's like, what? A minute or two, you know. So it's fitting that in that, in that in that context, it shows you how important breathing is, especially for you mentioned, like, lowering your stress levels and everything, you know, is really good. I'm glad you put it in that perspective because that ripples out into what I do as well. Because, you know, it's so funny cause hydration, obviously, is one of those things, people tend to focus on exercise, and then food and then water. And it really should be in the reverse order, you know, fix your water first, then let's work on nutrition and exercise. It's really interesting that you put it in context because that definitely speaks to exactly. Wow, thank you for sharing that.
Brianne
I heard it somewhere. So I'm just sharing it. I'm just spreading the word. So it makes sense to think about it.
Ryan
Absolutely. Since I'm speaking to a nutrition expert, I usually ask about like, what your number one. Sometimes I'll ask my guests, what's your number one personal development tip? And I consider nutrition and wellness part of personal development. So it's not too far off from the normal question. But let's talk about nutrition. Like what's your number one tip for nutrition?
Brianne
So I'll give you one specific one that is sort of broader. So the first thing I would say is, in terms of nutrition, the biggest thing is making sustainable changes instead of like, that's like crash diets don't work? Well, they do. And then you go back to being a normal human being, and you gain all the way back, right. So if you can just focus on being 1% better each day, think about how that compounds over time. So if you're just making, okay, I'm going to serve my sugary cream as a protein today, you're 1% Better than you were yesterday. And then tomorrow, you focus on doing that and adding something to it. So that's sort of a broader approach to the number one tip in terms of specific applications and food 100% of the clients I've ever coached come to me with significantly with protein consumption, which is way below where it should be. So if you're starting with your diet, you should probably take a look at your protein, because unless you're already focused on it, it's probably not enough.
Ryan
How much protein do you recommend, it depends, on the right age and how you're waiting and fat.
Brianne
As a general guideline, I'm usually about like a gram of protein per pound of gold body weight. But obviously, you have to have a realistic body weight goal, you're not going to go, you know, if you're really far away from that, you're gonna have to, you know, make increments towards that goal weight, you know, you wouldn't want to make that shift immediately. But it normally ends up being well over 100 grams, and a lot of clients come to me eating 100 or less. So in general, even if you don't have an exact number, it's probably low. And the important thing about protein that people don't realize is that it is, you know, instrumental not just for muscle growth, like you know, culture has been society has really kind of plugged protein is like going into Gemini proteins. But it's so much more than that it's been fundamentally important for, you know, digestive enzymes in your body for the production and the management of hormones. It really is, even on collagen, that's a big buzzword, you know what I mean? Everyone's buying collagen, that's the most abundant protein in the body. Again, protein is a bigger player in the field than most people realize. And honestly, the standard American diet is not our friend getting our protein because we're very carb and fat heavy in you know, if you go out to eat, or you get fast food.
Ryan
So increase your protein, then I guess the next level is actually hunting your protein as you guys do.
Brianne
It is the fact that wild game is, you know like benefit has a higher protein and iron count, per serving than even beef does.
Ryan
Yeah. I'm saying yeah, like, I know, I'm just but Yeah, makes sense. Yeah. The meaning of life. I like asking this question. Sometimes. It's personal for each person. So have you figured out for yourself what the meaning of life is?
Brianne
I'm sure. You know, it's, that's a loaded question where you can't necessarily put it one thing, but I would say overall, finding your gifts and learning how to share them. Because that could mean anything. That could be what you do as a career. It could be parenting your child. Do you know what I mean? And it's just ultimately, if you really break down the principle behind everything, you know if everybody was truly honoring their gifts at what they were best at, and sharing it, I just feel like that would make the world a really happy place.
Ryan
You’re preaching to the choir. So that's what I'm trying to do with Morning Upgrades. So I love that answer. Brianne, I got one last question for you. And then we're gonna wrap up with you sharing how people can connect with you and want to learn more. So my last question is, let's talk about your business. I've got your business owners that listen to this podcast, and do I want to share with them specifically, what you've had the most success with in terms of growing your business? What does that look like for you? What have you had success with in growing business?
Brianne
Oh, I know this one, again might not be what people think it's not the logistics, you know, it's not the backend, it was literally learning to ask for help. And that's because I think when you take ownership of a business, you take a leadership role. So you feel like you need to lead and sometimes you forget in that role that you need help as well. And so by learning to ask for help, I became a better coach, I became a better business owner. And it made me more effective in my role and therefore, growing that was, you know, it was a direct reflection of when I started asking for help and receiving it, whether that was about coaching, or, you know, like I said, back in logistics, once I did that there was a direct reflection in the growth of my business, and I actually filled my roster, my client roster that is, once I started doing that, so I would say never forget to you know, never be too proud to ask for help.
Ryan
And I'm not saying this, because I'm speaking to because you're a coach, but I think about, I was watching the Michael Jordan documentary, and it just hit me like, you know, he was at the top of his game, you know, back when he was playing basketball. And he still had coaches, he had, like, obviously, the head coach at the team they had, he had this guy, Tim Grover, who was like, his fitness and mindset coach, and maybe he had others I don't know, but like, the person at the top of his sport had multiple coaches. So you think about it that way. And it's like, you know, it makes sense why we all should get outside help as you mentioned.
Brianne
Absolutely. I think it's critical.
Ryan
Well, this was great. 15 minutes flew by. If someone wants to connect with you to learn more, where should they go?
Brianne
To my Instagram. So my handle is @heytherebrianne, on a few bits of time to include that in your show notes. I have a link tree in my bio that has other resources, such as my coaching application, but I'm extremely active on Instagram. And that's the fastest way to connect with me. Some of the highlights. Yep.
Ryan
Yeah, well definitely look up your Instagram. Everyone can check out your bio link for more. Perfect. Well, thanks, Brianne. This was great. Appreciate your time.
Brianne
Yeah, thank you so much for being on here.
Ryan
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