Asking for a Friend - Health, Fitness & Personal Growth Tips for Women in Midlife

Ep.139 Kristen Coffield on Wellness Strategies for Midlife, Mindful Habits, and Active Aging

• Michele Henning Folan • Episode 139

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Ready to thrive in your 50s and beyond? Tune into this episode for a fun and inspiring conversation with culinary wellness coach Kristen Coffield. Kristen is here to share her powerful journey and expert tips on building lasting health habits as you embrace midlife. From a family-owned gift shop to becoming a sought-after wellness advocate, Kristen’s transformation is a testament to what’s possible when we take control of our health—and support each other along the way.

In this episode, we dive into the real-talk on alcohol and caffeine, two common culprits that can impact your wellness journey. Kristen explains their links to health issues and offers practical tips on mindful consumption. Plus, discover healthier drink options and learn about her 21-day wellness reset program designed to detox and recharge. Hydration is also a hot topic—because feeling great starts with a foundation of good habits, and we’ve got you covered with easy-to-implement tips.

We also explore the evolving role of Gen X and Boomer women—balancing grandparenthood, caregiving, and staying active. Get ready to hear about the importance of functional movement, setting healthy boundaries, and strengthening those vital family connections. Plus, we talk about the life-saving power of CPR training for grandparents—because staying prepared is key!

Packed with practical wellness strategies, this episode is your go-to guide for living a vibrant, energized life. Don’t miss it—because thriving in midlife starts now!

You can find Kristen and her wonderful offerings at:
The Culinary Cure
Instagram
Newsletter | Free Hydration Training
YouTube
Facebook

Her next 21-day Wellness Reset begins January 20, 2025

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Are you ready to reclaim your midlife body and health? I went through my own personal journey through menopause, the struggle with midsection weight gain, and feeling rundown. Faster Way, a transformative six-week group program, set me on the path to sustainable change. I'd love to work with you! Let me help you reach your health and fitness goals.
https://www.fasterwaycoach.com/?aid=MicheleFolan

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Michele Folan:

Health, wellness, fitness and everything in between. We're removing the taboo from what really matters in midlife. I'm your host, Michele Folan, and this is Asking for a Friend. Some of you may already be in the throes of grandparenting, or perhaps you have the coveted role of favorite great aunt. I personally don't see grandkids in my immediate future, but nonetheless I do think about what that will look like. Will I be active, mobile and healthy enough to enjoy all the great moments when my time comes? You may be asking yourself the very same. Enter. My next guest, Kristen Coffield, is a staunch advocate and coach for all of us midlife women who not only want to be our healthiest selves in this chapter of life, but are eager to be the best we can be when it comes to nurturing future generations of family. Kristen Coffield, welcome to Asking for a Friend.

Kristen Coffield:

Michele, thank you so much for inviting me to be on, and I love what you do because women, supporting women, especially in this over 50 space, is really important, and I feel like my messaging should really land well with your audience. Because here's the deal. We all want to be active agers, right? Yes, we want to live younger, longer and better. Absolutely so for me. I'm 66, and what that looks like for me is I want to keep doing everything I'm doing right now, to the best of my ability, for the next 20 years.

Michele Folan:

Oh, I love this great message.

Kristen Coffield:

How do we so in that? Having said that, how do we put that on autopilot so it doesn't feel like this big, insurmountable task to get healthier and stay healthier and get stronger, because we can't lose our muscle and, you know, risk our bones? You know we don't want to be like my poor little mother-in-law who had a fall and you know she's like a china cabinet. You know she just. You know we can see what the future could look like if we don't take proactive steps when we're in our 50s and 60s and 70s so that our 80s and 90s can be energized and active, just like those people in the blue zones.

Michele Folan:

Yes, and we do talk about the blue zones every once in a while and we have a lot to learn, but I think we're on the cusp of some really good things here in terms of health for this age group. And I want to back up because I'd love for you to just tell the audience a little bit more about you and like where you're from, your career path, and then also some family details.

Kristen Coffield:

All right. So I have a background in food. My background is a chef. I started in high school. My mom had a shop. This is kind of a funny story. My mom had a gift shop in the small town in Westchester, New York, that I grew up in, and she had a really well-known gift shop and I worked for her since I was a little kid, because my mom was a single lady for a long time, so she was supporting our family and I would after school go to her shop and hang out in the back of the shop and make boxes, organize things, and of course all that organization came with me and it's part of what I do as a culinary wellness coach.

Kristen Coffield:

But when I turned about 16, it became clear to me and my mom that we probably shouldn't be working together and she had a friend who had just opened a gourmet shop. So this is like 1975. Oh, wow. And this woman was. She had trained with Diony Lucas, who was an acolyte of Julia Childs, and she was doing things in 1975 that nobody was doing. I mean she had real butter croissant that nobody was doing. I mean she had real butter croissant. She was doing gourmet food right before Martha Stewart kind of blew up, right, yeah. So she was right there at the cusp of everything that changed food the way we know it. And I started working for her in high school.

Kristen Coffield:

And then I went off to college and the next thing I know I'm at Columbia University and the woman I worked for went out of business and people started calling me and saying, hey, Kristen, can you just bring some hors d'oeuvres and a bartender and come on over to my house? And so I started my first catering company when I was in college. Oh my God, yeah, A girlfriend and I started In Good Taste and the next thing I knew I was catering my way through college and then I ended up working in restaurants and selling wine. But I always had a passion and interest in our wellness habits, so I used to belong because I went to school in Manhattan.

Kristen Coffield:

I used to belong to the Jack LaLanne gym oh God, I'm loving this story. That was right by Grand Central Station and I would go there and I loved workout classes and I loved sitting in the sauna, and so this is like late 1970s, early 1980s and the next thing I know I'm, you know, following the love of my life, who's in the army and I find myself out in Washington State, out in Seattle, and now I'm selling wine. And long story short, we get married, we moved to the Washington DC area and I opened a catering company.

Michele Folan:

Oh, wow.

Kristen Coffield:

Yeah, oh, my gosh, yeah. So I catered for a number of years and then I did an interesting pivot. I had three kids. I was really tired of schlepping stuff all over Washington and I created before there were Blue Apron and all of those things I had a subscription meal plan. So for high-performing athletes and executives, I was preparing three to five meals a week and delivering them. Oh dear, I know Really what were you thinking. That's a lot of work and I have three kids in three different schools.

Kristen Coffield:

But it occurred to me that I was giving a man a fish and that what I really needed to do was teach a woman to fish and focus on women, who were the culinary decision makers, for the most part for their families. And that's when I started the Culinary Cure. So I created a wellness website for women who were over 50 at that time. So I'm 66 now and I realized no one had created a roadmap for life over 50. When your kids leave home, when you might be dealing with some real life struggles with your parents, with your own health, with your marriage, with your finances Hello, I had all of the above and I found myself actually very depressed. There had been a lot of challenges. My mom's breast cancer came back. My dad had Alzheimer's. I was diagnosed with thyroid cancer. We got into some financial challenges that affected our marriage. The last kid went off to school. My dog died.

Michele Folan:

Yeah, it's like real life stuff.

Kristen Coffield:

It's real life stuff, and just because somebody looks like they've got their shit together doesn't mean that they're not just putting their best face forward and that underneath they're just trying to figure out how to get through each frigging day.

Michele Folan:

Yeah.

Kristen Coffield:

Yeah, and that's where I was. I mean, the rope was long. Everything I just shared with you took about a decade and, as a woman, I did that amazing thing that we women do where you rob Peter to pay Paul, you're playing like a shell game and you're still putting forth your best face because you don't want your kids to know you're falling apart and your big world gets smaller and smaller because people get tired of hearing about what's not going right in your life and so you're very careful who you share information with and you start to spend more time in your head and literally one day I woke up and had a thrive or die moment. I was like this cannot be what the universe had planned for me. I cannot imagine every day is supposed to be me waking up and figuring out how the heck am I going to get through this day having multiple cups of coffee and then opening the wine at five and going to sleep and having not good sleep. So here's where my story takes this turn that can help every woman.

Kristen Coffield:

I have that thrive or die moment and I think, okay, I can't control all of this stuff. I can't control what's happening to my finances or my parents or my kids, but I can control what I put in my body, the thoughts in my head and how I get through each day. That's a choice. So what happens when we get depressed and feel very alone is we rewire our brains. So, instead of feeding our brains positivity, we start feeding our brains negativity. Our brains love negativity because that's what keeps us safe and before you know it, you're just a magnet for nothing, going right in your world, in your life, in your day.

Kristen Coffield:

So I discovered that I wasn't sleeping anyway. So why the heck not go to a 5 am workout? And the caffeine and the alcohol were not serving me. But I added more water and I did research on hydration and what I found blew my mind. That hydration is this free practice that none of us are optimizing that has the potential to improve every aspect of our lives, from our mood to our sleep, to our muscle pliability, to our detoxifying, to our major organ functioning. It's everything. And yet major organ functioning it's everything. And yet no one teaches us to hydrate. We are not given programming in school or anywhere that says, hey, this is how you do it, this is this thing you need to do. Water is an essential nutrient and it can make everything you do easier can make everything you do easier.

Michele Folan:

And you know I will say this elderly people are chronically dehydrated. They'll have a cup of coffee and a little three ounce glass of orange juice, and they may have some water when they take their pills, but they don't drink water at all. It's frightening.

Kristen Coffield:

Yeah, and that was my grandmother. We'd say oh little Grammy, did you have your water today? And she's like oh yes, dear, I've already had three big glasses of water and it's a three ounce shot glass.

Michele Folan:

No, exactly, it's like the prune juice glass.

Kristen Coffield:

Right, and so there's a reason for all of that. So hydration, like exercise, like positive thinking, like meditation, like nutrition, it's a practice, and the more we do it, the better we can get. So it's really crucial that we establish a hydration practice in our midlife years and carry that with us, because as we get older, we lose our sense of thirst. When the weather's colder, we lose our sense of thirst. So sure, it's easy to drink lots of water when it's 95 degrees out and when you're thirsty, that's your reminder. Oh yeah, maybe I should have had another glass of water, but at that point you're walking around partially dehydrated, which leads to poor food choices, crappy sleep, a hangry mood, less pliable muscles. So exercise is harder.

Michele Folan:

Yeah, and let's not forget about skin.

Kristen Coffield:

Yeah, people are like, oh my gosh, your skin is amazing. And I always say, well, I have to first say the hydration makes a huge difference.

Michele Folan:

Absolutely, and you look fantastic, and I think this is one of those moments where I just have to say I love that you had this midlife epiphany about your health, but even more importantly, about how you were going to approach life, because this was pivotal for you. You were, you were spiraling, and a lot of women do, because we're really trying to define ourselves at this point because we are empty nesters, we may be going through some difficult life transitions and no one tells us how to handle that. So thank you for sharing that. I also want to ask you a question. So you were talking about the coffee and the alcohol and all of that. What is your approach now in terms of caffeine and alcohol and just managing that in your life?

Kristen Coffield:

Yeah, and this is one of those hot button topics, because sometimes people don't like the answer. Sometimes people don't like the answer, and so here's what you need to know. Alcohol is a double toxin it's toxic when you drink it and it's toxic when your liver processes it. So when your liver processes alcohol, it creates a secondary toxin, and alcohol consumption is linked to like 30 different types of cancer. But for women, it's important to know that alcohol consumption is linked to breast cancer. Yep, so my mom died from breast cancer.

Kristen Coffield:

Now, having said that, I do drink alcohol. I am very careful about what I drink. So wine is a real slippery slope for women, because most of the wine people are drinking is commercially produced wine. So commercially produced wine is made from commercially grown grapes. Commercially grown grapes are always at the top of the dirty dozen list, meaning they're treated with more chemicals, fungicides, herbicides, pesticides than any other produce out there. So now you're talking about taking produce that's toxic laden, squeezing it Now you think of a little grape, and how much surface area that is squeezing it and making it into wine, and all of that dirty juice turns into dirty wine.

Kristen Coffield:

And then, on top of that, commercially produced wine, makers are allowed to add things to commercially produced wine, like sugar, like artificial ingredients to enhance flavor, color, consistency of product. So there's a reason that some of these brands, which I won't name, but it always tastes exactly the same and that's because it's a wine-like, chemically altered product. So you're not just getting the alcohol, which is not good for you, you're getting all these other sugars and toxins. So that's why you know, for anybody who's crying listening to this, they're like I love my wine, I love my wine. Find a good wine store, look for natural and biodynamic wines and make that your choice. That's going to be a better choice. I'm a tequila drinker, so tequila has got a different kind of sugar in it. It's got something called agavans. It doesn't spike your blood sugar the same way the sugars in other alcohols do. That's not to say it's good for you. It's just to say if you're trying to pick something that's maybe not as bad as something else, maybe tequila is your friend.

Michele Folan:

Yeah and so my listeners know this that I've come to terms with alcohol over the years, particularly during COVID and after COVID, Kristen's nodding her head like yeah, yeah. So wine and I have pretty much had a breakup because of how my body processes it and the sleep issues, so that was probably an easier decision. I like bourbon, so that's the one thing that if I do have a cocktail, it will most likely be a bourbon, but it is as you said. It is a very unpopular topic. I am always cautious whenever I put something out there on social media about alcohol because I lose followers whenever I bring it up.

Kristen Coffield:

Yeah, don't shoot the messenger if you don't like the message. Just take it to heart that you would never want to find yourself in a place where you were saying, wow, I wish I had created healthier habits around that. So when we talk about alcohol, a big part of alcohol is the sugar that's in it, and sugar is the most highly addictive substance on the planet. So here's my to wrap this up, and then we can move on to caffeine. I recommend that and I do this myself personally. So I have a 21 day wellness reset that I offer for active grandparents and active agers and during that 21 days we detox from alcohol, from caffeine, from added sugars, artificial ingredients, gmos, conventional dairy gluten and, of course, people are like horrified, but that's like seven things. And then we focus on the 7 million things that you can eat, that you just aren't eating and drinking, and most people actually I would say every single person that does the program has a profound revelation about the habitual behavior around alcohol. Alcohol is just a bad habit. You can still have alcohol. Alcohol, alcohol is just a bad habit. You can still have alcohol. Just save it for when you're going to really appreciate it, which isn't every day at five o'clock, right, when I'm coaching private clients and they're like trying to break up with alcohol, I say and they get there, like it's five o'clock, I want a glass of wine. I say you may have a glass of wine at seven, but right now have a seltzer with lime, or do something else, but nobody wants it at seven, they want it right. So it's just a manner of creating new habits. 43% of what you do every single day is mindless repetition. You don't think, you just do. Those are your habits. That includes what we eat and drink. So when we talk about living younger, longer and better, what we're talking about is optimizing your habits to support how you want to look, feel and be as you age. I love it. So you know, hey, one more trip around the sun, this time wearing more sunblock, be aware.

Kristen Coffield:

Now the second thing I want to say about alcohol is never, ever have a sip of alcohol until you've completed your hydration for the day. So I give away a free 14-day hydration training. I do this because it's so important. You know, my wellness journey started with hydration. Every client I ever coach, if I can't get you hydrated, there's nothing else. No other lasting change will stick for you. So we always come back to hydration as a foundational practice for living our most energized and happiest lives. So how much water is that? You can take my 14-day program to find out, but at a minimum it's half your body weight in ounces of water, and you didn't drink it all at one time. You've been sipping that up to that point.

Michele Folan:

Okay, and you didn't drink it all at one time. You've been sipping that up to that point, okay, yeah, and you and I agree on this one for sure, because that's and I'm also a health coach and I try to get everybody to drink at least half their body weight in ounces and that's, that is minimum, minimum.

Kristen Coffield:

Minimum, minimum. You know. The recommended amount is for women, about 111 ounces a day. Yeah, yeah so, but you work up to that and you never drink it all at once because that could be dangerous. So, you know, that's why I teach people, I train them. You know, take it, learn how to hydrate so you understand the process and how it benefits you and why it's smart to follow a protocol instead of just being a cowgirl and being like woohoo, I'm going to drink two gallons of water today, so you get fully and properly hydrated, because the worst thing you can do with alcohol is be a thirsty drinker. Oh, I know right, and we've all been there. Oh, my God, I'm going to have. I didn't drink my water for the day, I'm so thirsty. I'm going to have a glass of rosé with wine.

Michele Folan:

Yeah, or to drink when you haven't eaten. Yeah, that sugar is going to keep you drinking more. Keep you drinking more.

Kristen Coffield:

And, ladies, this is what none of us want. We don't want to create a hormone situation. So our blood sugar and our hormones are all tied in together. So you want to drink all that? You know all your minimum amounts of water before you have a sip of alcohol. And then here's my other suggestion, guys Monday through Thursday or Sunday through Friday, you know you don't need alcohol. Or Sunday through Friday, you know you don't need alcohol. Save it for when, if you really enjoy that glass of wine or that margarita or that bourbon, save it for a time when you're really going to appreciate it and enjoy it, and it's not just going to be a mindless habit, it's going to be a special something and you're going to enjoy it. And maybe you're going to have two glasses of wine, and that's okay. But be smart about it, because if it's a habitual habit and you're doing it every day, the truth of the matter is you're elevating your risk for cancer and many other lifestyle diseases you don't want to have.

Michele Folan:

Yeah, and I do tell my clients as well, kristen, that when you drink alcohol, when you're eating, your body is always going to metabolize the alcohol first, because your body sees it as a toxin. So oftentimes those calories then are getting stored as fat because our body doesn't know what to do with them, because it's busy trying to metabolize the alcohol. So from that perspective as well, I think there's a lot of good reasons for everybody listening to reassess your relationship with alcohol. I think it's just timely and timely with the Surgeon General having just come out with the latest findings on alcohol and recommendations, and I think the recommendation is zero.

Kristen Coffield:

Yeah. So just you know, you and I are agreeing that. You know we're not saying never, we're just saying be smart, make smart choices for yourself. And the same with caffeine. So I love a good cup of coffee, I really do.

Kristen Coffield:

But coffee is tricky, just like alcohol, because many of the beans are produced with chemicals, chemical flavoring Sorry if you happen to like hazelnut coffee, but that's not good for you. Those are artificial flavors that are enhancing your sensory perception of what you're drinking. So again, look for clean beans. Find a local roaster. Ask them where they get their beans. You want Arabica beans, which are a higher grade bean that are lower in caffeine than Robusta beans. Robusta beans are the cheaper beans, you know. And the coffee is very interesting. There's a lot of different types of coffee and different types of roasts, so you can educate yourself a little bit.

Kristen Coffield:

Coffee and caffeine. So let's just talk about caffeine in general. Caffeine is something called a nootropic. Nootropics can stimulate your brain in beneficial ways. So we love our coffee because it can make us feel very alert and awake and excited for the day. Okay, so let's go back to hydration and where coffee and hydration intersect.

Kristen Coffield:

When we talked about habits 43% of what we do every day, mindless repetition that can include getting out of bed, going into your kitchen, putting a pot of coffee on and drinking coffee first thing in the morning. Okay Well, for women, that can start a whole blood sugar hormone. Don't want to go there hangry situation, so you want to hydrate first. And here is a hack about caffeine Don't waste that first cup of coffee when all you've got to do is take a shower and brush your teeth and get dressed for the day. You really don't need the nootropic benefits of brain focus for that, because that's already part of your 43% of what you're doing already, right? So save your cup of coffee for 90 minutes after you wake up.

Kristen Coffield:

That's considered the sweet spot, and then you're going to be consuming your caffeine in a way where the nootropic benefits are going to be able to be applied to a task you're doing that might require more focus. It could be grandparenting. It could be your job. It could be driving your car somewhere. It could be a project. It could be driving your car somewhere. It could be a project you're working on, but so many people get up, have a cup of coffee maybe, then do a little water, have another cup of coffee at that 90-minute point. And now they're going into the negative benefits of caffeine. Now you're feeling a little jittery or you're building up a tolerance to the caffeine that requires you to have more caffeine to get those benefits, those nootropic benefits.

Michele Folan:

This is great advice. I love this, actually, because I think then there's the blood sugar response that you get with caffeine, that you go up and then you do the crash. And then what do you do? Do you make food choices that are not?

Michele Folan:

so great Then you grab a bagel, yeah, you make some food choices that aren't so great, or have another cup of coffee, and that's probably not great. So I think this is wonderful advice. Hey, kristen, we're going to take a quick break here and when we come back I want to talk about a little bit of your active grandparenting. Yes, it is 2025. And I think I'm just about recovered from the crazy holiday festivities. I also have a wonderful coaching group up and going.

Michele Folan:

You know, every year seems to put people on the starting line of a weight loss journey. We've all been there. What if, when you begin 2026, you aren't feeling compelled to start over or recommit to last year's resolutions? Can we adopt a truly healthy lifestyle that is not only effective but sustainable? If you are open to pushing aside the quick fix mentality for slow, steady and long-term, would you be interested?

Michele Folan:

You get to eat all the food groups with your own custom nutrition plan and start to move your body to ensure you are building lean muscle, stability and longevity. Let's get that metabolism fired up, because it is not too late to feel great and be confident and strong. I have another group coaching round starting soon. Are you ready? Reach out via my email, in the show notes or DM me on social media. We are back, kristen. One thing that you really advocate is for healthy grandparenting, and I'm wondering, just in your own life, what are some of your other routines and habits that set you up for success when it comes to being able to grandparent those two cuties that I see?

Kristen Coffield:

Those two cuties and my little grandson is 10 months old, he weighs 25 pounds is like carrying around a bag of dog food. I mean, he does nothing to cling to you, he's just kind of there. And so here's some interesting background on grandparenting and where we find ourselves at this precipice of being a whole new generation of grandparents. I am really at the forefront of looking at grandparenting through a new lens, because women of our generation, our kids, are getting married later and having kids later. So we're finding ourselves stepping into this grandparent role later than our parents did. We're also in a different mindset than our parents.

Kristen Coffield:

So my parents were wonderful, but they didn't live nearby and when they came they kind of were guests in my home and they didn't take an active role with our kids. They did fun things with them, but it was under the visit program. Versus how can I support you? I'm not just a guest in your home, I want it to be easy for you. So here we are, this new generation of women, who are finding ourselves as grandparents in our well. We're Gen Xers or boomers, right, and we're finding ourselves as grandparents. And guess what? We've been taking care of our health, we've been keeping our minds busy and engaged with work, with community work, with projects. We've doubled down because now we have a little longer after our kids were out of the house, to kind of double down on passion, projects and things that interest us that maybe we'd put aside when we were raising our families. So we want to bring this experience into our grandparenting. But more than that, we want to be dynamic contributors to our children's families' lives.

Michele Folan:

Yeah, I think and here's the thing we're straddling a lot here we're straddling generations, right? So you may be still caring for your aging parents, You've got adult children and I always say, bigger kids, bigger problems and then you've got these grandchildren, and so we're still getting pulled a lot of different ways. So how do we best manage all that responsibility and still keep focus on taking care of ourselves?

Kristen Coffield:

Yeah, and if we don't take care of ourselves, we can't do any of that. And that's just the bottom line here. Pivotal time in our lives for creating future wellness and for having the energy and the mental bandwidth for all of the things that are important to us right now. So I too am caring for three different generations of people. I have three kids, two in LA, one in Massachusetts. I'm in the DC area. I have in-laws in New Jersey who are 91 and 93. We just said goodbye to my dad in September. Oh, I'm sorry. Yeah, it's a lot for us. It's even a lot of travel to get to see those people.

Kristen Coffield:

So when we talked about earlier the scaffolding for our lives are our habits and I'll go back to it. 43% of what we do every day is mindless repetition. So the key is to take that mindless repetition and make sure it's serving us, Make sure it's supporting our goals. Because who doesn't want to look good, to have energy, to sleep like a baby at night, to wake up excited for the day, to feel relevant, relevant to our kids? Right? How do we keep that relevance? We're not relevant if you just show up and you're like when's lunch? You're relevant when you show up with lunch.

Kristen Coffield:

It's a shift in mindset. So what we've got an opportunity to do is step back, Open our minds. This is a new job for us as grandparents and active agers. So it's a new job. You're not a parent anymore. Your kids don't need you as a parent. They can get every bit of information they need from the internet in seconds. If they want to know how you did it, they'll ask. So it's an opportunity to create this new role, this new active grandparenting role, and when I say active, that's mental and physical. So you've got to be open minded and you got to not take anything personally right. So if you're getting offended by your child or their spouse suggesting you do something the way they want it done, this is not going to go well for you.

Michele Folan:

Just saying it sounds like something with the daughter-in-law.

Kristen Coffield:

It's not going to go well for you. It's their show. They are the gatekeepers for the grandkids show. They are the gatekeepers for the grandkids and your opportunity is to come in with an open mind, a willing heart and physically prepared to help where you can. Now everybody's going to approach this from a different wellness standpoint, but I want all of your listeners to understand it's never too late and you're never too old to improve your health and wellness.

Michele Folan:

Amen, and I will say this if you follow Kristen on Instagram, she is on the floor. She can pick up that chunker of a grandson and pick him up off the floor without grabbing onto something. It's being able to get up out of a chair with a baby in your arms without having to push off the arms of the chair. It's really. We've got an opportunity here, but we got to take some action if we want to be able to get down on the floor and play Legos.

Kristen Coffield:

It's functional movement. So all of the things we're talking about, they make sense and it motivates women when they're doing it for someone else, Look so, doing it for your kids, doing it so you can have more access to your grandkids. But all the things that we're talking about are the things that you need to be able to do to live longer, and it's the disuse, it's the habitual behavior that took us from being active into inactive, and we are very inactive as a people. We are very screen-oriented. We're very more sedentary than previous generations. We don't live like the people in the blue zones. Who in the blue zones? You don't retire. You keep taking care of your animals, you keep growing your vegetables. Nobody's moving into a one-bedroom house. You know they're still going up and downstairs, they're still riding bikes and walking into town.

Kristen Coffield:

We just somehow got this bad messaging that, oh my gosh, you're 65. It's time to slow down. Take it easy, retire, play more golf. Statistically, it's use it or lose it. The less you do, the less you can do.

Kristen Coffield:

We don't start getting older because we are older. We start getting older and aging because we stop doing the things that support our bodies on a cellular level, starting with hydration, sleep, hydration movement what we eat. It's hard to eat healthy because the system isn't set up for you to eat healthy and we have all become people who self-select our nutrients Because we can get our favorite foods year round. We can eat chicken and asparagus and blueberries, and now we've stopped eating fermented foods and seasonal foods and a bigger variety of foods. So think of foods not as calories but as nutrients. Now we're not getting as many nutrients, so our cells aren't getting the nutrients to bring to our organs to help our body function at its best. So we can control all these things. No one's holding us hostage, making us eat food that's going to make us fat, sick and stupid, and when I say stupid, it is true. When your body mass becomes over a certain percentage, your brain mass goes down. So obesity is linked to diminish brain function as well.

Michele Folan:

Yeah, and again we're starting to hear more and more of this. Kristen is just, you know, again, don't shoot the messenger. These are really really important things that we all kind of need to start managing better and getting a handle on it, because we have an opportunity. We have a really great opportunity to live longer and healthier than our parents did. But you know, we've got to make sure we're taking action. I wanted to ask you really quickly because I had this down as a question that I really wanted to ask you. I wanted to talk about CPR training. How do we go about getting that completed, because you are super passionate about being able to act quickly if you've got a child choking or whatever the situation might be.

Kristen Coffield:

So the last time I took CPR was when I was a new parent and I took a CPR course and I made my husband take a CPR course. Fast forward, you know 35 years and now we're grandparents. And my daughter says you know what, mom, I think it would be a good idea if you and dad because we go and we take care of the kids, so it's kind of a funny thing We'll go move into our daughter's house. She and her husband will go away for a few days and we're with the 10-month-old and the two-and-a-half-year-old. And I know people are looking at us and they're wondering are those really old parents or are they grandparents? They're just not sure, right, because we're trying to do it all. You know we're like ambitious, we'll put them in the car seats, we'll go to Tate for a little breakfast. But so my daughter said I think it would be a good idea if you and dad took CPR. And I literally, you know, smacked my head. I'm like, why didn't I think of that?

Kristen Coffield:

So I immediately looked online and everybody should do this, not just grandparents. Everybody should annually take a CPR course because you never know when you might be able to save a life. So a couple of times with my dad. He did start to choke and my husband had to go behind him and really push up and dislodge the offending piece of whatever it was, and so we went literally. I think she told us on like a Wednesday she wanted us to do that and I said, okay, the American Red Cross, the American Heart Association, both offer courses. You want to take the course that contains the infant and child CPR as well. It took us three hours. We completed the course on a Saturday morning and I will tell you it's a bit of an eye-opener if you haven't taken it in a while.

Michele Folan:

Okay, I think that's terrific advice, because keeping an adult alive is hard work.

Kristen Coffield:

Doing like you don't realize just how hard you've got to press and knowing the right positioning with infants and children is absolutely crucial, is absolutely crucial. So everybody should take a CPR course annually or biannually, but it is really, really important.

Michele Folan:

You know, I saw a commercial the other day for one of these things that you put over someone's mouth. It's a suction in case they're choking. Do you have one of those?

Kristen Coffield:

Yeah, I do, and my daughter has given us one for both our homes and she has one on each floor of her home. Life something I forget what they're called, but basically it's a tool that you can use to help dislodge something from somebody's throat. So, yeah, we want to always put the odds in our favor with everything we do, with our habits. We want to be the active grandparents because, at the end of the day, the grandparents who can be more active are the grandparents who are more helpful, and those grandparents will get more opportunities to participate.

Michele Folan:

It's just the way it is yeah, yeah, I love that, kristen. Now you do offer some other resources and courses to your followers. Can you share a little bit about what you offer?

Kristen Coffield:

I would love to. So I love to get people started. All of my coaching always starts with hydration. I have a free 14-day hydration training that anybody can access at theculinarycurecom. I also have two programs for active grandparenting, and this is a unique program. Nobody's got anything like it. What I've done is I've taken everything I wanted for myself.

Kristen Coffield:

So better sleep, looking great, let's face it, vanity is a big part of it. We all want to feel really comfortable in our skin and confident Absolutely. So the hydration helps with that, the sleep helps with that. So we work on those things. The nutrition is a huge part of it. To make nutrition something that's easy and quick, not complicated, that's clean, that's intuitive. We can get back to basics. It's inexpensive.

Kristen Coffield:

As a former chef, I've got over 200 recipes that are healthy that I share with everybody. They're also on the website at the Culinary Cure. But I have two active grandparenting programs. I have one that is a standalone program. It's under $200. You buy it, you get everything. You get the videos of the exercises, you get the recipes, you get the high value active grandparenting ideas like understand what it takes to respect your kids' boundaries, to have those difficult conversations. So there's a lot of tools about how you can become that in-demand, active grandparent and not ruffle feathers but open doors, right, because that's what we all want. So it's got like five different key components.

Kristen Coffield:

And then I run a live program a couple of times a year where we go through what the digital program is, but we do it with weekly coaching calls and accountability and an active Facebook group and it's just a lot. It's a lot of fun and you get, you know, the accountability and I think for so many of us, look, we don't have time to mess around. Nobody wants a three-month program. They want to get three months of work done in three weeks. Yeah, that is so true. Yeah, it's just the way it is. So it's a transformative program. It is a part of it is an elimination diet because we get rid of all those super inflammation causing things that are aging us, that are accelerating the aging process and literally stealing our joy, because now we have aches and pains and we feel meh, we don't feel like the best version of ourselves. So in three weeks you can go from meh to the best version of yourself, with a whole new arsenal of information that you can use to live your best life and live younger, longer and better.

Michele Folan:

I love your passion for this. I really do. I think it's so awesome and you know, I know hydration is probably at the very core, one of your most important pillars of self-care. At the very core, one of your most important pillars of self-care. What else? What else do you do every day for yourself? That is part of your success.

Kristen Coffield:

Well, I exercise every day and here's a really great tip for anybody listening there is this early morning time. That is found time. It's time before the day starts that you're really not using effectively. So your most productive restorative sleep happens between 10 and 1 am. You've already had your deep sleep, people. So at 4, 5, 6 am you're not getting any of that restorative rest. You're getting some of that dream sleep, some of that really light sleep that can actually make you wake up feeling kind of like you haven't had sleep at all.

Kristen Coffield:

So get up earlier. Work your way to an hour earlier and make that your found time and don't do anything in that time except you. Maybe that's when you meditate or listen to a podcast like this or read a chapter in your book. For me, I get up, I drink my water, I go to the gym, I do my workout, I meet my husband. We have that one cup of coffee a day from our local. A friend of ours owns the coffee shop and I know where the beans come from and we have that time together and that is found time, and that is before 7 am.

Michele Folan:

Yeah, and you know I will say this Kristen and her husband got up early this morning and at 5.45, they went on a walk.

Kristen Coffield:

Yeah, Because we had a snow day here, the gym was closed. We both wanted to work out because we work out early, so we got out. We had this, you know, fabulous, and it was hard. I mean it was the snow was deep. We're really working and we walked right to the coffee shop and got our cup of coffee and it was a great way to start our morning. So I exercise I try to exercise five days a week and get out early and get that sunlight so you can synthesize the vitamin D. That early morning sunlight also sends powerful messages to your brain that it's time to wake up and start your day and sleep, sleep. Don't shortchange yourself on the sleep. Sleep is when your body repairs and restores. It's when you create memories. It's when all of your major organs go through a metabolic detox and all that metabolic waste ends up in your lymphatic system, which is why, when you wake up in the morning, you want that nice big glass of lemon water to help your body detox from all of that. You know that happened during sleep.

Michele Folan:

I need to add the lemon. I always forget to add the lemon.

Kristen Coffield:

Add the lemon. The lemon is so good. The lemon goes in acidic, but it turns alkaline in your body. Okay, so drink it with a straw to protect your tooth enamel. But when we raise the alkalinity level in our body we help lower the acidity level and that is good for us.

Michele Folan:

Kristen has spoken. Do your lemon water in the morning, kristen Cofield. This was really fun. You are delightful Again. I love your passion for this and I think everyone's going to love this podcast.

Kristen Coffield:

Oh, thank you for having me on, Michele. It's been my pleasure.

Michele Folan:

Hey, thanks for tuning in. Please rate and review the show where you listen to the podcast. And did you know that Asking for a Friend is available now to listen on YouTube? You can subscribe to the podcast there as well. Your support is appreciated and it helps others find the show. Thank you.