5 Daily Habits for Whole-Body Wellness and Spiritual Growth

Hi.

Today in the podcast, we're going to talk about are we fueling our mind, body and spirit on a daily basis?

And beyond working our physical muscles, we're going to talk about how often are we actually exercising our spiritual habits and what we're putting into our spirit, what we're putting into our minds.

It's a powerful conversation and Dr. Lynn Lopez joins me, so I can't wait to share that with you today.

Welcome to Faith Fueled Living, the podcast that equips you to live well spiritually, emotionally, physically, and purposefully.

Each week, we'll dive conversations and biblical truths to help you strengthen your faith, pursue meaningful work, hear for your whole self, and live aligned with what matters most.

Hi.

Today on the podcast, I would like to welcome our guest, Dr. Len Lopez.

He's a nutritionist, a strength coach, and a chiropractic sports physician.

And he has been helping people learn how to eat right and train smart for decades.

He also is helping people better understand how they can sleep well, think better, eat right physically, be strong, and make sure that they strengthen their spirit so that they can live their best lives, and so that we can show up and do the things we want to do in this life so that we can be healthy for our family and the work we're here to do, and so that we can step into the work that God's also calling us into.

So I'm excited for this conversation.

We are going to talk about easy ways that we can implement in our own lives to do these things and more.

So, Dr. Len, thank you for joining me today.

Thanks so much for having me as a guest.

I'm excited to be here.

Kristin, thank you.

So first, can you just tell us a little bit about what has your journey and the work you're doing looked like and just what does life look like for you today?

Well, it's always going, and right now it seems like it's a new direction.

As I was sharing earlier, for the first 25 years of my practice, I was teaching people how to eat right and train smart.

My background as a nutritionist, strength coach, and chiropractic sports position really was to targeting those people to help and everything.

And it really wasn't until about the last couple of years I was being interviewed for an article on health and fitness, and they came back about a year later.

They go, doc, we want to do another health and fitness article.

The last one was really well, but we'd like to kind of go on it along.

The body, mind, spirit thing is that within you, if you Understand What I'm saying, Dr. And I thought about it and I prayed about it because I had created something years earlier, about 20 years earlier.

I called it five steps a day.

And I never really shared it with others or thought they would go any further, but I shared it with the, with the writer and they contacted me a couple of days or the next day.

I said, this is really cool, these little five steps on how you can instantly track to see how you're feeding your body, how you're feeding your mind, how you're feeding your spirit.

Because we all, we've all heard about people tracking their physical steps, right?

Did you take your 10,000 steps?

Right?

Did you close your rings on your apple, watch for your physical fitness?

But it's, where do you, what are you doing for your mind and your spirit?

And so this is what Five Test is all about.

And I thought, well, maybe this is the time to bring this out, because I think as a whole, I mean, maybe we do need to get more of that spiritual connection within ourselves.

We're doing great as far as always promoting physical fitness, physical activity.

But are we doing enough to really promote what the balance of having our spiritual connection and how we're feeding our mind.

And so that's kind of how I started Five Steps today.

So now I'm going to be back out there talking about what Five Steps a Day is and how you can use it to help improve your body, mind and spirit.

Yeah, I love that.

And I think it's so true.

I mean, while I'm not a health professional or practitioner at this point, it's been a passion of mine for many years.

You know, the health and wellness, holistic natural spaces, and just digging into that data.

And so the more I read by doctors and practitioners, you know, I'm just, I just love getting into it.

And one of the things is how the mind, body connection is so tied together that a lot of us, unless you dig into the research, right.

Or work with a professional, we don't realize it.

Right.

We don't realize that what we think and how we think, right.

Negative versus positive and how we perceive things can often affect our physical body and what's going on within it.

And so for me, those conversations are so important because I think when people start having that information and that knowledge, you realize why it's so important and powerful to actually change our thoughts and to, like you said, to strengthen and deepen our spirit and our faith.

You know, and I always say everything in life, in my opinion, is habits and attitude.

I Mean, and I always think that the habits and attitude that we have, it's kind of like our genetic code, our DNA.

If you trace back your genetic lineage, you find out really where you came from.

But by the same token, if you trace back your, the DNA of your habits and your attitude, you might find that some of the successes and the accomplishments you achieved in life were because the habits and attitudes you were doing got you there.

But by the same token, you can also trace back your habits and attitude, and you may see that some of your difficulties and challenges in life were because some of your habits, as you were saying then ago, not thinking as positively, not doing anything physically to make yourself physically strong, not doing anything to support your spiritual walk.

So, you know, as I like to say, your habits and attitude are like your genetic code.

Trace it back and you can kind of see where you are because what you've been doing this tells, is going to tell you where you're going.

Oh, my gosh, I love that.

Well, yeah, and I think that that really just speaks to, and I'm sure this is when you've worked with people over all the years, it speaks to us having some awareness about these areas.

Right.

In other words, you can't really make improvements and changes in your habits and attitudes which then affect these five areas that you're going to talk to us about without being aware and often without tracking it in some way, whether we write it down or use an app, whatnot.

And that's the thing that's so powerful as far as just writing it down, because we all think, yeah, I worked out today.

Yeah, I thought good today.

Yeah, I connected spiritually.

You know, you do it in your head, but, you know, when you put it on paper and pencil.

And that's kind of how I started five steps a day.

You know, I, I thought it would be best to show it as a.

You could just, you know, shade in your footstep for the activity you did.

And by the end of the day, end of the week, in two minutes time, you can really see are you doing the things you need to be doing to get where you want to go.

And because we're all guilty of saying, oh, yeah, yeah, I did something good today and really did you or not.

But so it's just, it's just a simple way of looking back and trying to track what are you doing to make yourself.

You know, I think we're all trying to become somewhat healthy, wealthy and wise.

Right.

And I think the same thing whether you want to become healthy, wealthy and Wise, or you just want to become bigger, better, bolder in your life.

You got to look at what you're doing, how you're feeding your body, how you're feeding your mind and how you're feeding your spirit.

And so, yeah, let's dig in.

I love it.

Well, one thing I'd also say too, if you don't, if you're not monitoring it in some way, right, tracking it, whatever you want to call it, then sometimes we also get more critical of ourselves.

Meaning that if you just think, I didn't work out today, I feel really, I'm just frustrated with myself.

I don't feel as good.

Right.

A lot of people talk about how you feel better when you go, you know, exercise and whatever that means to you.

But sometimes I notice some people get really frustrated, but it's like if they looked cumulatively at the month or the quarter, most days they were hitting the mark in whatever they're trying to do.

And it's okay if you missed a day, right?

Or you, you know, your schedule changed.

So I think also tracking it lets us have a little bit more grace for ourselves as well, that there's nothing.

You don't need to be perfect.

You just need to be consistent to your point.

I mean, that's so true.

Because I'm going to go back to the health and wellness aspect of it because so often I would see people, they would say, I'm trying to get in better shape, so they're going to start doing some dieting or some exercising, and all of a sudden they died real good for a few days.

Then all of a sudden they go out with their friend, there's a party.

Whatever reason, they fall off the wagon.

They just eat terrible.

Unfortunately, some people say I messed up and they stay off the wagon for another three days, a month or whatever, and they don't get back on there.

And so what I try to tell them with what five steps is all about.

And I'm going to use the step eat.

You know, you haven't.

Most people have an opportunity to eat three meals a day.

I'm not asking if did you eat right?

Because that's what the question is.

Did you eat right today?

If you did shade in the step, maybe you had two good meals and maybe at dinner time you went out with your friends, you had the cruddy meal, you had all the ice cream and cookies and Bosco that you can throw on your food and everything, and you had that terrible meal, hey, two steps forward and one step back because you had two Good meals at one, you at least you're moving forward.

Pat yourself on the back, don't kick yourself further and hold yourself down.

Tomorrow's another day and you'll get a chance to have another good day.

And I think that's what a big benefit because you can visually see, or as I like to say, home runs are great, but you can still win the game by getting singles throughout the day to get you around the diamond.

And so, hey, two good meals and one bad meal.

Fantastic.

It's when you have two good meals and two cruddy meals, you really don't make any progress on your physical health.

So as long as you're doing more, you screwed up today, okay?

For that one meal, next meal, get back on there and just keep on making progress.

And I think that's where a lot of people beat themselves up and they allowed themselves.

And so hopefully this is just a way that, as you were saying, also, you know, just be thankful that you're moving in the right direction.

Yeah, no, I absolutely agree with that.

And like you said, I try to always look at every small positive step I made in the day in these different areas which we're going to dive into in just a second.

And, right.

I might have made nine good choices and one or two choices that could have been better.

But I know, hey, I see all these good choices I made, so I'm not going to beat myself up about the one or two.

And I'm aware, oh, I could do different, different day, but this is what I chose today, right?

So I'll feel okay about that.

Okay, so let's dig in.

Why don't we walk through, you know, one by one.

You can talk about what are the five, five areas, right, which you call steps or because of the acronym.

But then also, let's just dig in, maybe like, give us a tip or two on, you know, each one.

So we can start with sleep.

If you want to talk to us about steps, what that is the stuff.

Talking about, real simple.

It's an acronym for sleep, Think, eat physical and spirit and the sleep and think we're talking about, how are you, how are you feeding your mind?

The E and the P, how you feed in the body and the last S is how you feed in the spirit.

And so when I talk about sleep, the one thing I always tell everybody, when we all know before you go to bed, you're not supposed to eat junky food, right?

But how many of us go to bed with junky thoughts?

How are you going to wake up in the morning, if you feed your mind just junky thoughts because you're worried about work, about the job, about the coming up test, whatever kind of calamity that's in your life.

And so for the eight hours, which is approximately about a third of the life, most people are sleeping.

And I know a lot of us aren't sleeping eight hours, they're happening at six hours.

But in general idea, a third of your life is spent sleeping.

And so, you know, think about it.

If you, how do you think you're going to wake up if you go to bed at night and you, and you're worried about jobs, you're worried about tomorrow, the bills, your employer, your, your, your workmate, your, how are you going to get this and that, how are you going to wake up?

Whereas if you sleep with the smile, as I always say, did you sleep and dream with the smile before falling asleep?

Can you think about what you want to see happen in your life?

Do you know where you want to go with, I mean, you know, being a believer in Christ, you know, we always talk about the proverbial land of milk and honey, right?

We all know what the land of milk and honey is as a written scripture.

But to use the same analogy, what is your proverbial land of milk and honey in your mind?

What is your destination?

What's your dream to see happen in your life?

Do you have a dream?

Do you know where to set sail?

Do you know where you're going?

Unfortunately, I think a lot of research that I've read, so many, especially younger people, don't know where they want to go in life.

You know, they get out of high school, they get into college and even get out of college.

And I can't tell you how many people that are in their third and fourth decade, they're still not sure where they want to go.

They're just kind of just going where the wind is blowing.

But as I always say, if you don't know where your land of milk and honey is, don't complain when you arrive at the land of heartaches and headaches.

So, you know, and it's hard for a lot of people to think about.

They're just thinking about tomorrow, of your teenagers, and they're thinking about tomorrow.

But as we get older, we know, you know, what do you want to see happen in your life?

I mean, I used to always use the analogy when I was trying to find a wife.

And I used to dream about, I'd go to bed at night just visualizing seeing that wedding ceremony and sure enough, it came out.

I look back on it years later, said it turned out exactly the same way.

She's on the other end in her dress out there, the lights shimmering in.

I can see my mom and dad, family and friends, and I can see her just racing down the aisle saying, yes, yes, yes.

But embellish a little bit there.

But that's kind of how it is.

Do you know what you want to do?

So at nighttime, you're talking about sleep.

Do you know what you want to see?

You don't have to dream about what's happening five years down the road.

It could be just five days down the road.

Maybe we were talking earlier about soccer.

If you're younger, maybe it's the upcoming game.

Do you see yourself winning, scoring, scoring a goal?

Do you see yourself doing good on a test?

Do you see yourself doing good on your job interview?

Do you see yourself, you know, getting a scholarship, getting that corner office that you want, you know, getting the promotion, getting the boss, you know, to.

To know your name when you walk up, they're giving a good presentation.

And so, you know, again, when you go to bed at night, if you can visually think about what you're thinking about where you want to go and after you say your prayers, okay, usually you got to do that first.

After you say your prayers, just for that one or two minutes before you fall asleep, just visually think about what it is you want to see happen and what's remarkable as you start.

As you close your eyes and you start visually seeing yourself, let's say you're for simplicity here.

You see yourself giving a speech or going into a big game.

You see yourself winning the game, or you see all the applause after the presentation.

And if you can visually see that and the more vivid you can see what it is you want to see, you'll certainly just get this smile on your face.

Just starts growing and growing and growing.

And so at nighttime, you know, I can't explain it.

I've tried to research that.

It's one of those Pavlov dog things.

Okay, Pavlov dog things.

It's one of those kind of things when you can visually, when the mind can conceive it, the body can achieve it.

And so when you see where it is, you want to go for those next seven, eight hours that you're sleeping, your subconscious mind creating that path.

It's creating that you know where you want to go.

And again, for a lot of people, if they don't know where to go, and I think that's a Great difficulty in our society.

There's so much distractions and these little guys are really all those distractions.

But you know, they're also great for.

They also can be great benefit for you as well.

But, but you know, do you know where you want to go if you do, if you slip with a smile on your face because you did something?

Maybe a vision board.

I'm a big fan of vision board.

Just kind of saying, I want this new car, I want this Caribbean cruise, I want to be down to this body weight.

Right.

You know, whatever it is you can see.

And see that before you go to bed and put that in your mind.

Sleeping with the smile, dreaming better.

That's really the first step.

And the more you can do that, I think you'll find some internal peace within yourself because you're giving your body, you're giving yourself some direction, right?

Yeah, absolutely.

I mean, like you said, we don't want to go to bed worrying about the problems, obviously.

Well, first, God tells us not to focus on that.

And we have enough worry for the next day that we don't want to bring it in.

Right.

Like we don't want to bring in yesterday's worry or tomorrow.

So to your point, we want to end the day in a peaceful space.

Of course, visualization, that makes so much sense because that's what our brain's going to start working on overnight because it's what it just thought about.

And also there's tons of studies too, about whether you do it in the morning or at night.

But right.

Just, just if you're not going to do visualizing, you're not ready to try that.

Maybe gratitude, right?

Like think about what was good in your day.

Because we don't want to focus to your point on the two things that didn't go great and that we keep replaying those we want to think about.

But what about the things that went.

Right, right.

And then to your point, what do we want for our future?

What do we want for our vision of our lives?

You know, what's.

What do we want to step into?

So I love that.

That's fantastic.

One thing, because like I said, yeah.

If you don't know where your dreams are, and there's a lot of people that don't, that's okay.

You can still ready the ship to sail.

And what I mean by that, you can just tell yourself, hey, I'm going to have a great day tomorrow.

You know, you can just, just kind of twist that little.

That's your little mantra.

I'm going to Have a great tomorrow.

I feel great.

I'm strong, I'm healthy, whatever it is.

Get those little, those little statements to become more concrete inside your mind.

That's what I mean by ready in the ship.

You know, build that self confidence, build that self esteem, and you'll find out in the five days, five weeks, five months that you'll start realizing, hey, I think I do know where I want to go.

I have, I've created some direction.

And during that time, you've allowed yourself to, to think about yourself being, you know, bigger, better, bolder.

You, you just created that, that internal confidence within yourself.

So when the challenges come, when the wind is blowing against you, you can still make strides out there.

So there's.

If you don't know, don't figure.

If you don't know where you want to go, work on self first as well.

And I think it'll start.

If you start working on yourself, I think you're going to start looking for.

You're going to start grabbing this book or this book or this book to gain more information.

And you'll see, because that's what happened to me, you know, and you'll see that.

Oh, yeah, now what do I want to see happen?

Okay.

Yeah, it'd be nice to have a new car.

It'd be nice to get this job that pays this much or to have, you know, so everybody has a different, different what they want.

And so it's just about everybody finding it for themselves.

Yeah, absolutely.

Wonderful.

Okay, so why don't you walk us through the next, the next focus.

The next step is think.

St.

Think.

Did you think better today?

And it just kind of goes hand in hand with what I just got through talking about reading the Ship.

I found this out and I was really amazed about this.

And I did a lot of studies on the researchers say that we process about 50,000 thoughts a day.

I was like, are you kidding?

I couldn't believe that.

But of those 50,000 thoughts they say that we processed, the thing that was more impressive to me was that 80% of our thoughts are from yesterday and 90% of yesterday's thought that we're thinking about today are the neg are slanted negatively.

So, you know, more than 80% of our thoughts are negative.

We're watching old reruns.

And I, I think of it this way.

If you're, you get, you know, 10 social comments on, on your, on your, on your.

One of your pages that there you get ten grand.

You did great.

You did great.

You did that.

One person that says you stink.

That's the one that holds you in your head for the longest time and you try to figure out what to do with it.

But so what are you thinking about today?

You know, do you remind yourself and you know, personal coaches, we've heard about, you know, coaches out there, they're trying to help you become better and whether it be athletics or in your professional career, but you know, when you get out in the professional world, you don't have, you have the little guy sitting on your shoulder, you know, is this guy the one telling you you can do it, you feel great, you can hit the ball, you can give a great speech, you're going to give a great presentation?

Are you reminding yourself that you can do this, you can achieve this?

Unfortunately, As I said, 80% of our thoughts are negatively.

And all we're asking you to do, did you take one or two minutes here and there and there throughout the day to give yourself that little positive self talk?

You don't have to repeat a positive phrase a bazillion times.

That ain't gonna hurt.

But, you know, that's not what we're looking for.

But, and what I can try to tell you is I can't tell you that, that if you spend one or two minutes telling you, telling yourself how great you are, that that's going to make you great.

But that one or two minutes that you're just kind of saying, I can do it, I feel good, I'm healthy and strong.

Whatever phraseology you're using, that one or two minutes of positive input is at least one or two minutes, you're not allowing that negative input to get into your brain.

And so how long, how many drops does it take before there's a drop that makes a stain in your carpet?

So you need several drops.

And all we're trying to do is change the canvas in our thinking, in our mind to where we can clear some of that other stuff out there.

And so if you thought good today, hey, shade in the tea.

There's some days that I don't, I don't catch myself thinking good.

But there's other days, hey, I did it here, here, here, three or four times a day.

You don't got to do it for 30 minute, you know, mantra.

But one or two minutes here, one or two, it's going to feel awkward, you know, so talking to yourself.

But I always tell everybody, remember this?

People vacation, they diet, they, they, they sleep by themselves.

They, they do so many things by themselves and everything, they shop by themselves.

So it's okay.

To talk to yourself.

So just give yourself those little words of encouragement and it's going to feel awkward at first if you've never done it, but after a while, it's not going to feel awkward.

You're going to hear that pep talk because, you know, I think we're both parents.

I'm sure a lot of your audience are parents.

What do we do to our kids when they're like two years of age, when they walk out to the pool, you know, you can do it.

Don't be afraid to jump in.

It's okay.

It's okay.

It's okay.

You can hit the ball, you can swing.

You know, you're just giving them the words of encouragement.

Well, as you get older, you, you don't have your parents in your ear.

Hopefully you're not going to get older.

But you, you have your own, you have that little inner voice.

What kind of inner voice do you have feeding you?

And as the scripture teaches, a man is as a man thinketh.

And what kind of thoughts are you thinking throughout the day?

And so if you caught yourself thinking better today, you know one or two phrases of good, of good, feeling good, feeling healthy, feeling strong, whatever it is you're saying shade in that second, that, that second step, which is the teeth up.

And so that's what we're trying to do.

Yeah.

And I think the, the more you are aware of your thoughts, you can often, over time, it does take practice.

Right.

It is a habit.

You can realize when you're having a negative thought that's not really serving you.

Like, you don't need to have, like, like you might say, oh, this one thing didn't go well.

But what, but actually if you re.

If you have a different perception, you realize it's not as big of a deal or it's not as is earth shattering, or it's not catastrophic.

And so you can kind of shift that thought.

Right.

You can replace it with something that's going to serve you better.

And then also, you know, we talked about this, I think before we started recording, but yes, it is what we think personally.

Right.

And what thoughts we're having, how positive or negative or harmful or useful they are.

But it's also what we're putting into our brains.

So for instance, if I go on social media, I don't spend a lot of time on certain social media, but other social media I use, I'm, I have curated feeds where it's faith, health, fitness, recipes, like, it's all things that mostly fill me up.

And I Learn.

Or I say, oh, this is exciting or neat.

So they're not, they're not taking me down, in other words.

Right.

So.

And I'm more.

I, I am a lot more critical of what I watch.

And I'm not saying that I'm, I'm not a Christian that's like, oh, I only watch these.

Only perfectly pursed, pure shows.

My husband loves military and we like mystery shows.

But I still have a different threshold than he does because I know how it makes me feel if I watch it, if there's too much of this or too much.

And so everybody's level might be different, but my point is I've just learned he can watch stuff that doesn't seem to bother him, that might bother me more.

And so I've just had to, I've had to say, this isn't.

Or I'll start a series with him and I'll say it, it feels like it's getting darker and darker and I just don't like that.

And he's fine with it.

So I'm like, that's fine.

Watch it.

When I'm.

We're not watching together.

But it's.

Once again, I have to have a filter or I have to have a, you know, I have to decide for myself, like, is this positive or negative for me?

Is this good for me or not?

Because is it going to affect my thoughts or is it going to make me more scared when I'm home by myself or whatever it is?

And so it's also how, what we, what we're putting in right.

In the world, absolutely everything is what you put in.

It's like a recipe, you know, what are you putting in to make your, your, your cupcakes?

Better tasting versus not.

You can put, put, you know, ingredients that aren't as good, but if you put good ingredients, you're going to get a better result of the cupcake.

And so.

Yeah, so your husband sounds kind of like me and my wife.

Yes, yes.

Right.

And I have no issue with it.

Right.

Because we're all different.

And, you know, I like different.

He likes sports more than I do.

I mean, yeah, we like a lot of different things.

Right.

So that's okay.

Okay, so what about the next one?

What would you just share with us?

You know, little tidbit or tip?

So the easy one that people.

I, I think it's the easiest one because this is where I really started my career with.

And eat right, you know.

Did you eat right today?

If you did shade in the step, I'm not asking if you ate perfect, if it was organic or if it was grass fed, did you eat better?

Because we're all coming from different starting points.

Some people in the audience, they may, they may, you know, just, just skipping the second serving, not having dessert on the meal, not having a big drink with my meal.

Right.

You know, everybody's at a different level.

You know, let me get less processed food in that meal.

Meal.

But we all kind of know where we're trying to go to get healthier.

We all have a general idea that we know this is good or better and we know that's not so good.

Which one are you always choosing to put, you know, put on your plate and everything.

And so if you ate good today, shade in the straight in to eat.

If you didn't, tomorrow's another day.

And again, it's not asking what you ate, how you ate, because my wife's read like every diet book out there, there and I've never been on a diet or read any of.

But, but she'll tell me just some of the, the, the, what's the word I'm looking for, the strictness of what you can and can't allow.

And I'm going, I was never that way with my patients.

Just said, hey, let's make sure we're eating more of the good stuff.

Let's make sure we're, we're, well, you know, from the health background, let's make sure we're digesting it.

Because my first rule of, of health and wellness is, you know, just because you ate it doesn't mean your body absorbed it.

Right.

And so that we can save that for another or we can chat about that too as well.

But did you eat, eat better today?

And if you did, shade in the E, everybody's on a different path as far as where they're at.

You know, are they trying to get really fit for, for the graduation, for the wedding ceremony, for their anniversary trip, their vacation.

But I think, you know, once you get past 40 or so, you start looking at cholesterol, blood pressure, all these other things that we start getting fearful about.

But it's just if you ate good shade in the E, it's, it's kind of that simple as long as you eat more.

And as we said at the beginning, you know, don't let when you do have the credit meal be the one that stops you from eating well tomorrow.

You know, you can win the game with base hits just as easily as you can win it with home runs.

And so you don't have to Eat perfect.

Every time.

I think I shared this with you at the beginning.

When I first would talk to my patients when I was in practice, I would tell them, this coming week, you're going to have an opportunity to take 21 steps towards better health.

And I would say 21 steps, because three meals a day, seven days a week, that's kind of the average.

Right.

Or the perception.

And so.

Okay.

And if you could just see that, those footsteps in the sand, that I don't expect them to take 21 steps by the end of the week, it'd be nice.

But I was like, listen, Mrs. Johnson, if you can have at least 15 or 16 good meals and only four or five bad meals for the week, I mean, you're taking 12 steps forward, you're moving forward, and that's what we want.

We want progress, not perfection.

And so did you eat right if you did shade in the E and move on?

Yeah, absolutely.

Well, and another thing that I've heard when I've talked to nutritionists or different health people is also, if you're going to choose to have the treat or whatever it is, one, you shouldn't make your beat yourself up about it over and over because you chose to have it.

So enjoy it if you're going to actually have it.

And two, absolutely, you can also sometimes choose the better treat.

Meaning.

Right.

It only has a tiny bit of sugar.

It still tastes good.

It's dark chocolate versus is a processed candy bar.

So, once again, all of these are choices.

And we don't want to feel bad about our choice, but we want to be aware of our choice.

Right.

And then try to make sure we're, like you said, the more good choices we make or good choices being, you know, real food and, you know, whatever then.

Then the better off we're going to make progress.

But it's all just about progress.

And it doesn't mean we can't have something that we really enjoy on occasion.

It just means we don't want to be.

We don't want to only eat pizza or ice cream.

Right.

We want that to be the exception.

Yeah.

I'm going to add one here, one thing to you, because I know kind of like when my, me and my wife will go out to dinner sometime and we don't have the kids, like, okay, let's have a good meal and everything.

And so we'll get the fish, right, or the salmon or the good steak and everything.

And she's like, oh, what are we going to have for dessert?

And I go, I don't want dessert because again, this is the doctor background now going, listen, I just got through eating a really healthy high protein meal this and the other.

And if I throw all this ice cream in here, all that sugar in there, it's going to bloat me up, give me all the.

I don't want that.

It's not going to digest and be utilized the way I wanted to.

I want to enjoy that.

I'll wait a couple of hours later and then I'll have a big bowl of ice cream and stuff like that.

But so that's kind of how I've used it with myself.

And I think my kids are always like, dad, how can you be the nutritionist?

You're eating like a bowl of ice cream.

You know, look how big that bowl is.

And they go, yeah, but that's just one of my meals.

And you know, I'll add the other stuff to dampen and the negative effects and.

And you know, we can talk about that some other time or.

But yeah, just so where it's not nearly as bad.

But that's one of my bad meals that I have for the week and everything.

I don't, I don't.

I try not to.

And I tell this with my patient also, it doesn't do you good to have that good steak dinner, that good salmon dinner and then add all the sugar and ice cream and other stuff at the end.

Because just because you ate it doesn't mean your body absorbed it.

Just because you ate good stuff stuff but you mixed it with the batch stuff.

It's kind of like that that batch of is going to help make it not as easily digestible and inflamed.

And we all know the consequences about that within the next 45 minutes or so.

Yeah, I mean, and to your point, like, I actually, and this is not everybody does it different, but when I go out to dinner, I don't actually like getting dessert.

I'm usually full at that point because you probably ate more than you might have at your meal at home or at was heavier.

But so if I'm going to have dessert, it's usually like if we have family over and you know, and then some of us brought dessert and it's homemade or, you know, so it's like sometimes I'll that or I might have a tiny little treat like a little unreal on occasion or something after a meal.

But it's like I don't want the big dessert usually after I've had a meal out.

And I know that's not everybody, but My point is, to your point, usually the meal was really good and I just, I don't need anything else.

I feel very satisfied at that point, so.

Absolutely get that.

Okay, so tell us, what would you just share with us about the, you know, getting in the physical part of our daily steps?

Yeah, that's the fourth step.

The P. Did you work your physical muscles today?

I'm not asking if it was an aerobic workout, anaerobic, high intensity, low intensity, Was it a full workout that you got for your full 60 minutes or you only got 10, 15 minutes in for the day?

And for some people, because everybody's different, a good workout could be just cutting the grass, right?

It could be doing stuff around the house, walking to the grocery store to grab some stuff to bring home.

You know, that could be a good 20, 30 minute walk and everything.

Playing basketball with your kids out in the front yard, that's physical activity.

So it doesn't, don't, don't get stuck in thinking I didn't get my full workout.

Yada, yada, yada.

I mean I travel maybe once a week, once every other week or so.

And so I, because I'll leave earlier in the morning, I'll, you know, I, I consider my walk from my car to the gate to and from back and forth with the 24, which is about 40 minutes total time with the, you know, 20 pound backpack on me.

It's physical exercise.

So I, I don't beat myself up saying I didn't get anything physical, I did something physical so I'm okay.

I didn't get my, the workout I want to get that I would normally want to get in because of time.

But you know, I, I shaded the pee.

I can see all the footsteps now.

Hey, I'm doing good, I'm moving forward.

I' patting myself on the back mentally that I'm, I'm doing the, I'm doing the things you're supposed I should be doing to get where I want to go.

And that's how I look at the steps.

It's just a simple to do list.

And I mean really, I think what it comes down to is what you're saying is, did I move and use my body today?

Because for instance, one of the things most of us want as we get older is we want to be able to still do all the things we want to be able to do, right?

We want to be self sufficient, we want to be able to enjoy life, go places and if we're fortunate because we have good health, then we're going to be able to do those things.

And so, for instance, like you said, when I go out and garden, I mean, yes, that's not my main form of movement, but I know that if I'm weeding and I'm bending down, and then if I'm, like you said, if I'm cleaning the house that night and I'm rushing around and I'm lifting and moving things, I know that I'm using body or muscle groups that it didn't, I didn't have to be certain weights.

I understand weight impact is important, but the point is we get it in all different ways.

And doing real world things is actually just as useful and in some ways more useful than going and doing isolated exercises.

Right.

In other words, we get to count it.

All right, we're saying a minute ago, don't beat yourself up if you had one bad meal for the day.

Well, the same way, don't beat yourself up because your time got stolen from whatever reason your kids were a broken water pipe in the house that you didn't get a chance to work, work out.

But all the, the lugging, the, the sandbag from the front of the house to the back of the house, that was the physical activity.

And, and you know, I, I, I created five steps a day for teens also.

And, and it was really for the fact that I would share with a lot of my adult friends.

They would all tell me, hey, Lynn, this needs to be an app.

And can my kids read this?

You know, because they really gravitated to the, to the, the spirit and the, and the think step.

But I said, you know, you just have to, you know, do something positive for yourself.

You don't have to be perfect.

But are you, are you taking some small steps today to get you where you want to go?

You know, Scripture teaches, you know, the body is a temple.

Are you doing anything to keep the temple?

Does the temple need a remodel, A complete remodel, or just a little, you know, little, little refurbish and everything?

And the way you feel definitely has an impact on how you think.

And so, so when you're exercising, moving your body, there's different endorphins going off and everything.

And so there's benefit to that.

As I said, you know, a lot of young kids, when I try to tell them about the importance of exercise, I'm not trying to get them to go do calisthenics or anything like that, but, you know, get out there and just play instead of it being physical.

Did you play?

And for younger kids, Just go in, you know, because it's so easy to grab that phone.

And a lot of parents are really good at just giving them the phone to keep them busy.

And my kids hate me because I take their phone the way I say, get your rear end outside and go do something out there.

And they don't know what they, they've forgotten how to go outside and just, you know, Tom Sawyer, look for stuff to do and everything.

Or March 20, you know, you're just trying to find things to do and then sure enough you'll find yourself in some kind of physical activity that, that's going on.

And so the physical stuff to me is, is the easy part.

But everybody has different, different goals, like everybody has died, different dieting concerns.

But as long as you, did you do anything for your physical body?

If you did shade in the pea, when you look at it about the end of the day and the week, you can see all those footsteps.

And I want to share this because I wanted to share this at the beginning.

I always say the five steps are kind of like Seinfeld's calendar.

If you're familiar with his calendar or not, or if the audience is or isn't.

I think everybody knows who Jerry Seinfeld is.

And when he went as early in his career, when he became successful, somebody asked him, asked him, how did you become successful?

He said, you know, I, I think it was my calendar.

And he said what?

He, well, he, he had his monthly wall calendar, which is kind of what I used also.

And every day that he said that for me to become successful in this world of, of entertainment, I need to be writing 10 jokes a day.

That was his curse again, like, I need to do, you know, a thousand sit ups or whatever it is.

I need to write 10 jokes a day.

And so he, he noticed that, that if he wrote a joke today, he would write an X on the square for that date.

And then the next day, if he did it again, there'd be another X and another X.

And then he started noticing there are certain days that there was no X's on there.

But the visual cues he was getting by seeing the X's encouraged him to keep putting the X's on there.

And that's kind of what the steps is all about.

Because when you see your footsteps shaded in, you can see the, that progress.

Kind of like that old saying, the, the footsteps in the sand.

When you see those out there, it just kind of taps into your visual and kinesthetic learning centers.

And so because not everybody learns from just Reading or listening.

So sometimes that physical activity, that visual stimulus could be what's going to move them to say I need to start worrying about my body, my mind or my spirit hopefully.

Yeah, absolutely.

We have that visual image imagery and filling it in, right.

It's like a re.

It's like the reward loop.

Doing that is like, oh, look, now I'm connecting the action, right.

We're saying to getting this reward again when I fill it in, right?

Because I'm acknowledging and seeing that.

So yeah, I love that.

Okay, so let's obviously spirit the, the, you know, feeding or making sure that we're taking care of our spirit.

So what would you just share with us is kind of like the biggest thing that you're trying to get across to people about making sure that we're taking care of our spirits.

Great question.

And here's what I always try to tell everybody.

Growing up in the health and fitness world, I used to always find a way to work out my body four, five, six times a week.

That was really thing.

And when I became a, when I, because I've been, I've gone full circle in my spiritual walk and when I wanted to get back into it and everything, I said I need to be reading.

And this, this, this is 40 some odd years ago.

Back in the 80s when we didn't have phones, right.

We just had paper and pencil and AM radio.

But it was like, what am I doing today?

You know, yeah, I went to church today.

What am I going to do tomorrow?

What am I, how am I going to get connected?

Okay, I'm going to read every day and I could always find a reason not to read.

And so I just realized, hey, exercising your physical body is no different than exercising your spiritual muscles.

You know, there's different ways to work your physical body.

Body.

There's different ways we all can work our spiritual muscles.

If you don't have time to read His Word, maybe you can listen to someone's podcast.

Maybe there's some really great Christian music out there that we're going to tap into you when you listen to the words out there now, not every song is going to resonate with you because everybody's in a different stage of their headaches in life and the songs are different.

But you know, you can go fellowship that night.

Wednesdays are very popular, you know, know, oriented church get together.

So fellowship with us, you can serve, you, you can, you can attend.

So there's, there's the various ways you could sit and say, hey, I did something, I, I got together with my friend.

We went bowling or we had a small group today, shading the step.

I, I listened to some of the good Christian music while I was on the way to work on the bus, on the plane, whatever, you know, so there's, and when you start seeing those steps out there, that visual cue again, you go, hey, I am moving closer.

I am feeling better.

My thinking is on my spiritual walk.

And so all I'm trying to do is, is I'll let you find your way of how you're growing your news better soccer player.

You need to get out there and do something.

And if you're, if you're not as spiritually strong and I know a lot of people listening could are, are lost, looking or let down basically, you know, wherever somebody is in their walk by doing something here, there, and, and tomorrow maybe so slowly starts moving you there, is it going to be a miraculous thing for you?

Apparently it does happen to some people, but for a lot of other people it's like building, getting 20 inch biceps.

It takes time, energy and effort to get there.

And so I encourage you to work those spiritual muscles and see what that does for you.

Because I mean research does show people that have a spiritual connection seem to have better overall vision of life.

They're, they're happier, their health is better, their, overall, you know, there's benefits to it other than the benefit you and I understand about knowing Christ, but there's just some other benefits in how you exude and, and present yourself throughout your day.

Absolutely.

Well, yeah, so it, yeah, it's just really, how are we finding ways to fill our spirit?

And of course, you know, as a Christian, we know, yes, getting in the Word's important.

Important.

But I'm with you sometimes just reading the Word, even a study Bible, which gives you more depth, you know, more understanding, even that sometimes can feel a little dry if we're being honest.

Right.

Like you can, it can maybe not hit and I get it, read it multiple times and do all this.

But your point me pulling in, listening to other Christian podcasts or authors or you know, like, or worship music, whatever it is.

And not like I don't listen to other non or you know, stuff that's not Christian.

I mean, I do listen to other things.

Things, but I do fill myself up with a lot of that.

And the thing is, is those things give me a new perspective.

They give me a new way to see the word of God.

Right.

And I feel it in my spirit.

Like you said, not every single thing, every single time, but those things Fill my spirit because they're feeding me in a different way.

Right.

And then sometimes they connect to a scripture I read or something I saw, which maybe it didn't land for me, but then something else reinforces the conflict concept, you know.

And so that's why, to your point, we might do it in different ways, all of us.

You know, there's different, a lot of ways to do it.

There's different ways to get physically fit.

You don't have to.

You can lift weights, you can run, you can bike, you can box, whatever, and.

But my thought is to neglect your spirit is like skipping a meal.

It leaves you empty.

So find a way daily to sit there, do something for that spirit, whether it's reading, whether it's listening to the music, maybe it's, you know, attending something.

Maybe it, you know, there's different.

There's just different ways that you can feed your spirit that gives you that.

That satisfaction.

And, and it's.

When we don't feed our spirit for a day, days, week, you know, then I think it's easier to become lost or just, you know, confused about what's going on with, with where you need to be.

Right?

Absolutely.

So let me ask you this.

What would you say is just maybe a tip or thought that you haven't shared that we haven't already covered that day that's somehow tied to mind, body or spirit?

Just how do we, you know, keep, like you said, making progress in the, in just, you know, the overall.

Our overall health?

Well, I'll say this.

I think people can really.

It's easier to understand that we are what we eat.

Okay.

And we are.

If we are you doing anything physical for your body, but we are what we eat and what we think, you know, what you feed your mind is.

And I forget who first said it as far as, yeah, it would go, a man.

Is the man thinking.

I think it was Henry Ford who said.

Or maybe, maybe it was.

I can't think of his name right now that said, you know, a man is, as a man thinking.

I think it was Earl Nightingale.

He might have said that also.

And so it's.

What are you feeding your mind?

People don't realize that we have control over that.

And if you just take that one or two minutes here, there, 30 seconds just to remind yourself that I feel good, good, you know, I'm going to have a good day.

I mean, you don't walk into the lions, that you don't walk up to the free throw line, up to the, up to the, to the in the game across the mat in a wrestling match thinking, oh God, this guy's going to kick my rear.

You have to go in there feeling you're going to win.

And every day, oh, here's the point.

I'll say when you wake up in the morning, here's the best thing I want to say is when you wake up in the morning, when your fit he feet hit the ground, you're on your way to the restroom.

Restroom.

How long does it take you before you can remind yourself, I'm going to have a good day.

Life is good.

I feel better.

I'm going to do this, I'm going to do that.

Is it after, after you're going to the bathroom, after the shower, after breakfast, after dropping the kids off to school, after going to the office, how long before you give yourself a little mental pick me up?

Doesn't have to be long.

Could be five seconds, it could be 55 seconds, you know.

But how long does it take you before you remind yourself, yourself, or look at it the other way, how long does it take you from when you wake up, do you turn this thing on?

Do you grab your phone, you turn the TV on, Be fine.

Something else that's going to distract you, you know.

And so the name of the game, in my opinion, is if you can leave those down for a while.

For a while at least.

Good 30 minutes or so and just feed yourself mentally how I'm going to have a great day today.

Today's going to be my day.

Whatever kind of phraseology we all have different, different, different phraseology.

But you need to create some kind of dialogue, some kind of lingo, some kind of words, you know, today I'm, I'm bigger, better, bolder out there today.

So you'll figure it out for yourself and everything.

Because if you don't, it's so easy to remind, to let yourself think about how doomed days and defeated you're going to be.

So you get to pick, in my opinion, absolutely.

And like you said, pick what speaks to you, you know, to.

Like you said, maybe when you can't think of anything, it just seems like a tough day.

Have some things at the ready, right, that you're going to remember to say.

And some people it's.

For some people, it's scripture, right?

Like really short pieces of scripture.

For some people it might be something really personal to them.

Maybe I can do all things exactly.

So it's whatever to your point that you can just pull to kind of stop the negative or like you said, all the worry and the distraction just pull us back right to being present and then to move towards our purpose and having meaning and, you know, making an impact.

So absolutely.

I love that.

So anything else?

You don't have to know exactly where you want to go today, and that's normal.

Don't feel bad if you don't because there's so many that don't.

But you can still ready the ship.

Hey, I don't know.

I'm going to start exercising.

I want to, I want to start feeling better.

I need to start having some more better, better mindset, better positive thinking for myself because we're all thinking, thinking and what do they say?

About 80 of our thoughts are negative, only 20% of our thoughts are good.

And if you, to use it, we're talking sports, to use the baseball analogy, you know, when you go up to bat, 70% of the time you're not going to get on base.

But if you can get on base 30% of the time, you can make a pretty good living in the major league baseball.

So you don't have to tell yourself 100 of the time that you're gung ho, you're this, that and the other.

But, but it's just a little a minute here, a minute there, a minute there.

That's one less minute you're not kicking yourself in the rear.

So I like to look at it that way instead of trying to think.

I can't say it a bazillion times.

A little here, a little there, a little there.

It'll start changing.

And I always say, how many drops does it take before mom can see the stain on the carpet?

You know, that's just kind of before it makes an imprint.

Yeah, absolutely.

Okay, so can you tell us how can people connect with you online, your website and learn about the five steps a day and things like that?

You can go to fivestepsaday.com there's an app.

I hope you try the app and check it out.

There's also a teen version, social media.

You can always find it at five steps a day.

You can also find Dr. Lynn online.

They're all kind of interwoven within each other.

And so if there's anything I can help answer the questions and everything like that, I try to get to them.

I am not as good as I probably should be, but I try to put as much information online for as far as health and wellness stuff, stuff that I know I am, that I know you know, I can say, nobody could say, you don't know this doc and everything, but you Know just the other stuff about, you know, being a personal coach or.

Yeah, I'm not a theologian.

I may play a mini theologian right here.

Talking about your faith and everything, but it's just about trying to move people in the right direction.

And so Dr. Lynn online, our five steps to day.

Love it.

So last question.

What would you, what is one of your daily habits that you do every day?

You might have already mentioned it, but that's just one of your go tos, you know, like it can be in any of those areas.

It's just like, is there one that every day you're like, oh, I just love going on my walks or I love this thing like what, what is it for you?

That's a tough one.

Exercise is one of the ones that's out there.

You know, as far as one of the things that, that makes me feel better having three.

Being the older guy.

I'm not going to say older guy.

Being the older guy with younger kids and everything, I'm always, you know, running around chasing after these guys, but just knowing I'm doing something, knowing I'm doing something and, and that's it for me, just knowing, okay, did I do anything?

Okay, did I?

I'm thinking better today.

Just give myself a little pep talk.

It's 30 seconds while I'm getting ready, waiting for them to jump in the car, waiting for them to, you know, dropping them off and everything.

A little here, little there, a little here.

And it's, it's, you know, you start gathering penny, like my grandfather would always tell me, you gather pennies, you gather penny.

After a while you're going to have a lot of money in your pocket.

And so, yeah, so for you it's the progress, it's daily progress.

Yeah.

Or, or moving forward.

When I say progress, it's making progress daily towards your goals.

Yeah, yeah, absolutely.

That.

You said it better than I could.

There we go.

Okay, wonderful.

Well, thank you so much for coming on and joining us today.

Sharing the different, you know, sleep, think, eat, physical spirit.

How each day just those small things that we do are going to get us towards where we want to go.

Right.

For our mind, our body and our spirit.

And how important that is not only to go after the things we want in life because God does want us to have, I mean, don't worry, he doesn't say it's always going to be easy, but he does want us, right, to have abundance.

He does want good things for us.

But also if we're going to do the best work, he has us here to do.

We have to, you know, we have to care for those parts of of us right?

Mind, body and spirit.

So thank you for what you're doing and thank you for taking the time to join us today.

Thank you for letting me come on out and share with you.

I wish you and your audience a blessed day.

Thank you so much.

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