Noweigh Health App : Valerie Evans
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Guest: Valerie Evans PhD
Release Date: 8/14/2023
Welcome to Trulyfit the online fitness marketplace connecting pros and clients through unique fitness business software.
Steve Washuta
How do we truly create lasting habits, our health and fitness metric indicators more important than how we actually feel? On today’s episode, we discuss a health app called no way that uses mindfulness, self reflection and behavioral perspectives to achieve health through self awareness.
Steve Washuta: Welcome to Trulyfit. Welcome to the Trulyfit podcast where we interview experts in fitness and health to expand our wisdom and wealth. I’m your host, Steve Washuta, co-founder of Trulyfit and author of the book Fitness Business 101.
Steve Washuta
On today’s episode I interview Valerie Evans, she’s a PhD behavior analyst. And we’re going to be talking mainly about her app. That’s the lion’s share of our conversation. It is called No way and Oh, w e IG h you could find that on any of the app stores that you use to download apps. And you could also find that on no way.com.
Steve Washuta
Now Valerie and I also discuss habit building. And we get into random conversations about our lives. But the majority of the conversation is based around the app. What is the app? Well, your standard fitness and health apps are what they’re all about restrictive dieting, and food logging. And all of these hardcore metrics with checks that people get obsessed with.
Steve Washuta
Valerie said, I’m going to deviate from that I’m going to build another app that focuses more on intentions and motivations and how to build a proper day to day habits and becoming more self aware. So I think it’s a fantastic idea. It really wasn’t in the marketplace. And it puts more emphasis on how you feel and less about what the numbers say. It’s a great conversation.
Steve Washuta
With no further ado, here is Valerie Evans. And I, Valerie, thank you so much for joining the truly fed podcasts, why don’t you give my listeners and audience a little background on who you are, and what it is that you do day to day in the health and fitness space.
Valerie Evans
I’m a educational psychologist, and a board certified behavior analyst. And I started out working with clients, mainly individuals with autism and intellectual disability, working on programs at home and in schools in the community residential settings.
Valerie Evans
I also worked at a program level as a research associate at the School District of Philadelphia, the last 10 years, I’ve been a continuing education provider, which requires it’s it’s my own business. And it’s designed as an text based, interactive lit review type module.
Valerie Evans
And I do a lot of reading, research. And I’ve got really up to date on everything that’s happening and behavior analysis. And that has provided me this opportunity, which is really where I always wanted to be disseminating behavior analysis to professionals and individuals in a way that they can use it in their daily life, or with their own clients to enhance their experiences and get them going with how they want their life, their daily life to feel and be.
Valerie Evans
And my first my first attempt at this is a app that I call a weight loss app. That’s a diet alternative. And it’s called No way. And it’s based completely 100% on behavior analysis.
Steve Washuta
Before we get into No way I want to take a step back here. So you said your you were or maybe still do continuing education provider, does that mean that there are like board certified XY and Z of what you do? You create the program so that people when they need to keep up their continuing education, they they take your courses are your tests? Yes. That’s cool. Yeah.
Steve Washuta
And so I did that for fitness for a little while. And it’s a little bit easier on fitness, because you can just create anything you want, and then send it to the board. And they almost always approve it as long as you pay. The problem is the market got really saturated. And people started charging, like almost nothing to take it. So it wasn’t like worthwhile for me to spend hours and hours and hours to create something good.
Steve Washuta
And then let’s say I was charging $300 for it and someone else would come over the top. And for the same continuing education units would they would be charging, like $30 instead of 300. So it’s like well, so I stopped doing it. So I don’t know exactly how that works in your industry. Do they charge like $1 amount per unit?
Valerie Evans
Yeah, the way it works is you become approved as a provider and then you can put out the content that just meets their requirements. So every piece of content doesn’t need to be approved. And what actually happened is I when I was first recertifying all I could find online were PowerPoints with voiceovers, and I just cannot pay attention to the Oaks you know, I’m I’m just immediately distracted.
Valerie Evans
So I was I’m really more of a reading to learn type learner and you that that was my inspiration. So these are interactive lit reviews, that attempt to answer questions with recent research and also identify what the remaining questions are. And then they kind of the objective is to translate the research into something that’s readily usable for professionals so that they could take the course and then walk away with something that they can begin implementing immediately.
Steve Washuta
That’s awesome. Do you think it could or like, extend to like physicians, like I’m sure like this, that information is also good for let’s say, a pediatrician or like a general practitioner, not just someone who works in exactly what you do? Or do you think? No, because that now you have to go through like a different board to get that approved?
Valerie Evans
That is, yeah, that’s the hurdle. Yeah. Yeah, that would be a cool way to expand, for sure. Yeah.
Steve Washuta
So let’s go talk about no way a little bit here. Walk me through the app experience, I download the app today. I don’t even know if it is currently active, or if it will be active soon. But let’s go ahead and say it is I download the app today. I register, put it in my login. What is the next step? What is the user experience? Like?
Valerie Evans
Okay, well, yeah, it is available on Apple and Android today. And the first thing you do is you contact some interactive content, so that you have the information on behavior analysis that you may implement in your own daily life. And there’s some assumptions that go with this app. One of them is that users are the experts on what their daily life is like and how it is experienced.
Valerie Evans
So by providing them with these tools, they can most expertly implement them in their, in their daily life to fit their own contexts. So these interactive content modules are really short. They’re about seven minutes. And there’s 12 core ones, so you can kind of get through all of them in two weeks comfortably.
Valerie Evans
And in the process, you’re acquiring behavior analytic techniques that you can use that generate motivation that weakened unhelpful habits and strengthen the ones that you want to promote. And there’s also reflections every day, they take about three minutes. And that’s what you would continue to do.
Valerie Evans
Once you have all this, you know, information, you’re implementing it, you just take three minutes at the end of the day to answer some really easy reflection questions to orient you to your day, and how, what was great about it, and then also what you might change tomorrow.
Valerie Evans
And there’s a weekly intention, as well, and a whole bunch of extra content that users can review that might apply to some users and not others. So it’s really like, you become, you’re already the expert on you. Now you acquire this behavior analytic information, and you fit it into your day. And you see how, how easy it is to change?
Steve Washuta
Are there questions in the beginning? I know, you mentioned that it’s kind of specific to each individual because you’re the expert on your day. So if I’m a 54 year old mother of four, as opposed to a 21 year old male, I mean, are the questions I’m being asked potentially different? Or is it just the kind of responses I would get are different?
Valerie Evans
Yeah, the, all of the content will apply. There’s, there’s applications it’s very, very interactive. So there’s a lot of applications of how this would look for different types of lives, and experiences.
Valerie Evans
And then also a lot of different applications that that demonstrate different ways that it could fit into someone’s life, considering various barriers, you know, like being a mother of four, or having some type of chronic health issue such as experiencing pain, or various things that will affect your motivation and how you experience your day.
Steve Washuta
Now, initially, you said you’d be you you’d like to become a continuing education provider, because you saw that the market was missing something right? You would go on, and you saw like, there’s there’s just boring PowerPoints, I’m going to create something better. Is this sort of what the app came from you were looking for something like this? Or did you actually maybe stumble upon another app, you’re like, this needs X y&z features to become what I believe it could become.
Valerie Evans
Both? Yeah, both I was. It’s very, it’s inspired by personal experience. Definitely. I was recovering from surgery. And I felt very disconnected from my own body. It was very, a very uncomfortable state to be in to feel, you know, kind of like it was my head and this You know, like cyborg type situation, except, unlike a robot, it wasn’t really doing what I was telling it to do, it was more like just this, this foreign thing, you know, and I, I wanted to reconnect with myself and I downloaded some familiar weight loss apps.
Valerie Evans
And those, those did more to disconnect me from my body because they impose some rules and restrictions that you need to follow. And in doing so, you’re moving your attention away from what your body is telling you. And you’re redirecting it to following the guidelines and rules of this diet program. And then at the end of your day, it’s not really how you feel or noticing those differences is about earning your, your blue.or your green checkmark or maintaining some type of streak or some type of graph that is supposed to motivate you and keep you going.
Valerie Evans
So I wanted something that was a little more intrinsic and personal, and really got me got me back to feeling like myself, and one of the diet apps I actually downloaded during that time, did promote itself as behavioral psychology approach to weight loss. And I was, you know, very excited to take it, especially being a behavior analyst.
Valerie Evans
And I was just so disappointed because it just turned out to be the same, you know, calories in calories out type of application, with some, you know, psychology overlaid on top, sort of just like, you know, for like, inspiration, but not as an integrated approach. So I made no way and I in doing so I just completely cut out all of the documenting, weighing, measuring budgeting that goes with a typical weight loss approach, though, this is like 100% different, it’s like the, the opposite.
Valerie Evans
And it was inspired by feeling offended he now that, that if this, this wasn’t gonna work for me, I was the one that was left feeling like a failure, and then also inspire that other people who don’t have the behavior analytic knowledge I do, I would also feel like a failure, failing at these programs. And I just don’t think that’s true. I don’t think not being able to follow a restriction diet makes you a failure at weight loss. I just think it’s the wrong approach.
Steve Washuta
I agree. And I like it from both perspectives, the sort of economics nerd likes it because everyone was doing one thing. And you said, Well, this isn’t here in the market. So I’m going to do the other thing, right, just from that perspective, but then more from what I do, as a living right at personal trainer trying to help people, I see how disheartening it is for people to go open up some of their apps and say, Hey, I’m following everything here, right?
Steve Washuta
I got all those checkmarks, as you said, on in each thing, I’m taking my calories down, I’m going for my daily walks, I’ve done this, it’s been three months, and I haven’t seen the results. Well, it’s because everyone’s body is different. Maybe they’re not sleeping, maybe they’re stressed, maybe they have underlying health issues, you know, whatever that may be, they need an individualized plan for them.
Steve Washuta
And it’s disheartening when they just keep looking at the numbers, and they’re not concerned with, you know, how do you feel and then it goes the other way around. Sometimes I’ll see clients who they don’t feel great, but they’re losing weight. And they think it’s a good thing. But they’re they’re not sleeping well. And and they don’t look great, if that makes sense, right? Maybe maybe the scale says the number they want to say but they look frail. And they’re probably not healthy.
Steve Washuta
Right? So this this gives you a better sense of how do I feel day to day, let me let me go back to just because it’s so funny how I was just talking my wife about this. If If for some reason you decide not to weigh yourself at all, you decide not to count calories decide not to weigh yourself at all. We’re very in tune with our bodies where we have a sense if things are working or not, right,
Steve Washuta
if I go on a diet and workout regimen for three months, and I can’t look at any metrics I can tell you if it’s working, but by by looking down at myself by how I feel about how I’m sleeping by My energy levels, all of these things are that’s what people did for them the whole span of time before right before we had these things right? There’s people 300 years ago, they weren’t like you know, they weren’t eating something terrible and being like Oh, I’m not really sure if they were assessing how they felt after they ate the thing.
Steve Washuta
Not looking at numbers necessarily so I’m glad you’re you’re providing something that isn’t on the market number one but number two you’re allowing people will step away from things that are typically more disheartening than than positive. So so let’s let’s talk about habit building and being behavioral analyst. Tell me a little bit about what maybe the general public misconstrues about habit building what’s what’s important. What do we do that we what do we currently not do that we should or if First, what are we doing that we shouldn’t?
Valerie Evans
Well, the way behavior analysts look at habit building is that habit strengthening and habit weakening, go together. So if you’re strengthening a response, and other responses being weakened, if you’re trying to eliminate something and weaken response, another response will fill that spot. Either intent, you know, the intentional one that you chose, or a default, one that you didn’t see coming.
Valerie Evans
Sort of, like, you know, gaining weight when you stop smoking type of thing. The the fifth mistake a lot of people make or the tendency, I guess, just culturally, the way we think about change is like looking at this, like, New Year’s resolution type of way of looking at it, where you’re just, you know, I start my diet on Monday, or from this point forward, or now, now, this is going to be true to true to me.
Valerie Evans
And there’s this rigidity, where you’re kind of like set on a path that is going to derail at some point because it lacks flexibility. And it lacks that contextual perspective, where you’re seeing that the responses you’re doing now are a result of a, a history with this context, and your tendencies to respond a certain way, what motivates you, and the patterns that you’ve been responding using all along to get through your daily life, because all of the habits that we have now all of the patterns of responding have been established, because they were solving some problem, they’re adaptive, you know, even if they’re not helpful, they’re still adaptive.
Valerie Evans
So like, for me, I’m, my big problem is that I’m tired a lot, I feel like exhausted and that really weekends, my ability to do what I want to do, how I want my day to go, and I fall back on some default responses. And one of you know, my tendencies is to snack when I’m feeling tired, and it is very effective. The when I was actually when I was breastfeeding, I got into this, because, you know, that made me very, very, feeling very exhausted all the time.
Valerie Evans
But they, I got into m&ms and they they don’t make the bag of m&ms like they did when I was a kid was just kind of a huge bag, and you cut it on one end. But it actually like stands up on the counter on its own, and has this big open and you can just like grab m&ms Whenever you’re feeling like you know, tired and you’re trying not to sit down and you’re trying not to zone out. And you know what it works.
Valerie Evans
Taking a second and doing some stretching, also works. So it’s the eating the m&ms is adaptive, it is not helpful. But if I want to stop doing that, I want to identify something that will take its place. So if I’m, if I’m thinking about grabbing some m&ms, or I noticed myself snacking on them, that’s okay. And next time I’m going to stretch, and that’s going to be probably a more effective response. And I just have to fit it into that context, where I’m replacing the old habit with a new habit.
Steve Washuta
You that’s great. I want to go back to something you said though, you said that habits are sort of interconnected. When you have one habit that increases one habit decreases. Explain that a little bit more. Maybe, maybe let me give you like an anecdote. Tell me where if I’m wrong here, like, let’s say I go to bed really late.
Steve Washuta
And I decide to start going to bed early. Does that mean now because I go to bed early. Another positive response comes out of that, like it’s connected like now I wake up earlier and I have more energy? Are you saying that like a one good, there’s going to be a bad habit somewhere? Like how are the habits connected?
Valerie Evans
Well, it would all be contextual. So if you want to go to bed early, one thing you want to think about, there’s a lot of reinforcement that’s gonna go with that, you know, being able to wake up earlier and get more done at the beginning of the day. And then getting more done at the beginning of the day might be, you know, working out or prepping yourself for your day. Productivity type of things, too.
Valerie Evans
But then what are you doing in the evening that you’re not doing now that you’re going to bed early, maybe that’s your time to connect with your partner, or maybe that’s your time to read you know, and and that will be removed.
Valerie Evans
So you will, you will be going to bed earlier but you may also be spending less time with your partner or you may you know fall behind on your you know, your shows that you like to watch or that inspire you in some way. So seeing everything as interconnected like a like a web of responses where everything has something that inspires it to happen, and then it also inspires other responses to follow it.
Steve Washuta
I’m gonna ask a tough one here. Do you use your do you put your behavior analyst hat on with children or is that just? Is that a totally another end of the spectrum? Like, if you’re gonna have a build with a child? Is it the same way that you would talk to me as an adult?
Valerie Evans
Oh, yeah, definitely. Absolutely. So a lot of what we talked about no way is being aware of your mood, your arousal level, are you feeling hyper? Are you feeling exhausted? Being aware of your contexts and the history of responses. So that’s some of the thinking ahead and reflecting that you might want to do for the child. Be aware of that. Like, I’m trying to potty train my two year old right now.
Steve Washuta
Really, Hamish? Yeah. Wow, okay.
Valerie Evans
Yeah, it’s, you know, trying not to ruin the couch in the process, which is about, but she wakes up in the morning, I would love you know, she really, she loves to put on her pretty princess dresses. So she wakes up in the morning, she wants to get dressed, that’s a great opportunity for me to say, okay, yeah, as part of getting dressed, we’re gonna sit on the potty, I’m gonna take off your diaper.
Valerie Evans
But the reality is, when she wakes up in the morning, she’s really grumpy. And she doesn’t want to be told what to do. And she responds better, after she has breakfast and feels more awake and is kind of oriented to her day and what she wants to do. So, you know, I would kind of notice that myself, and then wait until she’s until I noticed the, the cues that she’s ready to sit on the potty, and then start our potty training day from there.
Steve Washuta
That makes sense, I guess you also don’t want to build maybe a negative association with something, right? It’s like, you’re, if the child is forced to do it, and they don’t want to be there, then there’s that negative association, then they’re less likely to run to the potty on their own.
Valerie Evans
Yeah, and that’s, that’s wonderful. Because that happens with adults, too, where you mentioned personal training, like, you know, as motivated as you are, when you start a program, at some point, you’re going to not feel like doing it, even though you know, you come to the time you’ve allotted, and you got yourself all dressed, but you just don’t feel like it.
Valerie Evans
And the important thing there is that you have natural reinforcers that you’re accessing in your natural environment, through the course of your day. Like, for example, if if a personal trainer was working with someone, and they’re you know, showing them the change in metrics, you know, this is, you know, your your body fats going down your muscles are, you know, getting bigger your weights changing whatever it is, or you’ve been engaging in this program, you did it five straight days this week, that’s awesome.
Valerie Evans
You know, those are those are very reinforcing, and wonderful to look at and review. But the other thing you want to prompt people to think about are those reflection questions about the reinforcers that they can contact very readily, in a natural way. Like, how do you feel when you wake up in the morning? What is carrying the groceries in, you know, to the house feel like for you?
Valerie Evans
Does that feel any different? or picking up your child? Or what’s going to bed like for you? Are you going to bed quicker, or even just the that special, tired feeling that you get after you work out? You know, noticing that and making it you know, recognizing that it’s something special appreciating it? And then it becomes a reinforcer that promotes continued responding to that, you know, helpful habit of following your workout routine.
Steve Washuta
Yeah, that’s great information we’ve talked about a lot on here. One of the most important parts about the personal training session is what I call the update phase. And I my clients always win. And what I mean by that is they give me an update. I say when When did you last eat? How are you feeling today? Did you sleep? What’s going on at work? Right?
Steve Washuta
While they’re warming up? They told me all this information, and then I adjust accordingly based upon their responses, right? So if Sally didn’t sleep last night, and you know, her toddler was up and she’s trying to potty train her toddler and she had a bad day at work and she didn’t get a chance to eat. Well, then we’re going to do an easy workout. We’re just something that Sally enjoys.
Steve Washuta
Today, right? Sally? Sally’s paying, she always gets to win. I’m not going to do the difficult program that I had planned for her initially because of all of these things. And I think you’re having a professional that understands that because what is the point of going to somebody if they’re going to be pushing it to your limits on a time when you don’t need to be pushed to your limits?
Valerie Evans
Exactly, exactly. And that’s the back and forth that’s missing when you follow some kind of like restriction program and that’s exactly what you need to do for yourself to be your own personal trainer like you described and take into account your situation and adjust accordingly. Yeah,
Steve Washuta
on the technical side of the app. Were you involved in that at all? Was that difficult? Sort of like the creation of it and getting everything to maybe look aesthetically? How you want it? What sort of role did you play in that? Or were you specifically just dealing with like, the context and the content?
Valerie Evans
Yeah, I, when I pitched this idea to my husband, I said, Oh, it’ll be you know, I create all the content upfront, I do all the work. And I’ll be like, set it and forget it, you know, and then it’ll just be like, an easy thing that’s up on the App Store.
Valerie Evans
And no, there’s there’s a lot more to that. But I did, you know, start with just the content and the, the technical side, and that design was done by the developer. And the big thing, the big contribution I made to that was my choice of developer, which was its own learning experience, and did take a lot of time. And I did learn, you know, from that experience, how to do that.
Steve Washuta
Sort of interviewing developers, people who have done other apps in the past, do you have the chance to, like, look at their former apps to say, like, Oh, I saw this company, did this one, this is something similar to what I want to go is that, is that sort of how the process goes?
Valerie Evans
Yeah, definitely. That’s, that’s how I started. The other thing is paying attention to how they respond to me. And if they were understanding what I was talking about what I was trying to do, and if they thought it was a good idea, you know, it’s, when I started, I was like, okay, yeah, I’ll make the content. And we’ll develop it. And we’ll just kind of, you know, stay in our lanes and work together.
Valerie Evans
But really, there is overlap, you know, they, they are invested in your product, because as long as you keep it going, they’ll be able to continue to develop it for you. And the developer that I ended up with, is very interested in product development, you know, how are we going to respond to user feedback and make this better and better and get people more and more engaged?
Valerie Evans
Other, you know, one of the indicators I learned, and I’m trying to apply this now, as I look for people that are going to help me market the app, is, are they bringing other people to the meetings, you know, if I have more than one meeting with a company, I’m hoping that they start bringing other people into the meeting to talk to me to kind of interview me as I interview them, and kind of like, see if, if this is going to fit together.
Valerie Evans
And the developer, I chose, um, to do that. And other developers, there’s one developer, I was really looking at who just ultimately Dennett didn’t understand what I was trying to do that they, they didn’t think it was a good idea. So that would not be a good fit.
Steve Washuta
Yeah, it’s, it’s difficult, I’m in the same space. So they speak a different language, a lot of these people. And I say that. I say that with no fault to them. But sometimes they’re so smart. And they’re their wavelength, they’re thinking on another level, right?
Steve Washuta
So they’re thinking from the the computer technical side, exclusively, maybe they don’t have the marketing background, maybe they don’t have the understanding, obviously, of who does what you do in the behavioral analysis sort of field and what the market wants. So it’s, it is really hard when you’re, and then it’s hard as for someone like me, who was dealing almost exclusively with people who are looking to get health, excuse me get help, and health and fitness, or personal trainers who are looking to get help and better their business, right?
Steve Washuta
So I was talking to two people exclusively for so long. And then when you start talking to the technical people, their minds don’t work the same way. So you have to learn this, like strategic two way communication is a little bit different.
Steve Washuta
And how do I relay that information to them and also like, not, not take not to take anything personally, because sometimes these people don’t have any idea, the world that we live in and what we do, and they just they just know, the numbers. So it is really difficult. And that’s that’s why I brought it up with you just to see your experience in it. Because it’s it’s been tough on my end.
Valerie Evans
Yeah, I saw that you were developing an app is is that something that’s out yet?
Steve Washuta
So no, it’s not. I mean, I have two pieces of software. So I have something called skip wish, which is a registry for all occasions. So I’m a co owner on that. So a lot of registries you go onto let’s say, like Target and all you can do is add gifts from Target.
Steve Washuta
So if you’re someone’s getting married, or if they’re having a baby or even if like let’s say in Christmas, you want to you don’t know what to get your family everyone can go on skip West, you can create a list and add gifts from anywhere on the internet and you can just share it with your family or you can leave that list public so everyone can go on. So that’s one that’s one of the apps slash software I have and the other one is is true.
Steve Washuta
We fit it’s a branch off of this, this is sort of marketing arm for it where personal trainers can find clients, personal trainers can go on, they can list their services, they can list their profile, and then clients can go on. And they can seek out someone specifically, they have like, I don’t know if you’ve ever heard of class paths. But it would be like class paths, except class passes for gyms, where this is for individual personal trainers.
Steve Washuta
So it’s still in the works. As you know, it’s always more difficult than you think it’s going to be. So there is no great time to do a difficult thing. So it’s like, even if there’s one or two glitches, it’s like you just launch it and figure out the problems afterwards. Because if you’re trying to fix every problem, you’re you’re never gonna launch it. But at the same time, you need enough enough things where you feel confident and and that it’s ready to be launched. We’re just not there yet.
Valerie Evans
Yeah, that’s so true. We did a kind of a soft launch where it’s up in the App Store, and was doing beta testing with some, you know, family and friends and people who were found us on social media. But yeah, at some point, you just have to do it. And no way is in that state now where it’s completely usable by the general population.
Valerie Evans
And now we get to do the fun part, which is take what the beta testers were saying, and continue with development to make it more engaging, and more meaningful, and really, more than just a wellness weight loss app, I really envision it as a mental health tool. And thinking specifically of the moments in your day when you’re like, you know, waiting for your doctor’s appointment, or you’re feeling unsettled at home, and you just need to, you know, engage your your brain in something, and you open your app.
Valerie Evans
And your options are, you know, games that might become frustrating or social media, which sometimes changes your mood the wrong way, or, you know, news headlines, you know, which are also terrible. But I always go to the Royals, I have, like, Apple news knows that I love about the Royals or like on my Royals headlines, which are always fun, but But what about like, what if you could feel like that unsettled feeling or have some time to kill and open your phone up and look at No Way and see what people are posting about? What was the best part of their day today?
Valerie Evans
Or what are they looking forward to? Or what are the intentions that they’re using for their weeks that they’re finding most inspiring and helpful? And those are the types of development that we’re doing now for version two, which we’re hoping will be ready for the weight loss season in December and January.
Steve Washuta
I love that do you expect or maybe you already have metrics people to be using this, let’s say once daily, multiple times daily, maybe not maybe just once weekly? What is the expectation? What is reality? How, how do you like foresee this even maybe not now, maybe a year from now,
Valerie Evans
that user should really try to use it before bed, you know, I use it, I open it up. And I’m like, under the covers, like ready to kind of, you know, start reading my book. And it takes, you know, like three minutes to do the reflections. And I try to do that five times a week. And that’s really the, you know, minimum effective usage that’s being recommended.
Valerie Evans
There’s also going to be and this will be available soon, a morning reflection, where you’re feeling like you’re just getting started or you’re having stressors in your life that you need some extra, you know, you can open it first thing in the morning and kind of take a couple minutes just to answer two questions, to anticipate what your day is going to be like, and what the barriers are going to be like and how they’re going to interact with your weekly intention and make it harder, and what can you do to plan to plan ahead to kind of combat that?
Steve Washuta
Is it a negative to be too structured? I know these questions seem to be like getting your headspace in a proper place. But like if there was another step, maybe not even to your app, but if someone were to take the next step like oh, I need to plan the day. And they go okay, well, I’m gonna like write everything down what I’m doing for the day. Is that a good thing from your analysis? Do you think that goes too far? And then people drive themselves crazy by by like over planning, so to speak.
Valerie Evans
I am someone who’s very susceptible to checklists, Brian, and I think you know, I get it multiple times a day. And my husband can just see the look on my face like my eyes. Always like checklists burning and I use like the notes section on my phone and there’s so many So many notes, so many notes and checklists.
Valerie Evans
So, you know, I think for someone like me, that can get a little obsessive quickly, but someone else that can be helpful, I like it for those two reflection questions in the morning, it’s, it’s really about orienting your mood.
Valerie Evans
And getting yourself like, looking forward to your day, what are you anticipating today is going to be a really great thing, what’s, what are you looking forward to, and then also, what recognizing ahead of time what those barriers are going to be, and there’s things that are gonna throw you off, you know, having a bad day on you anticipated having a great day.
Valerie Evans
But having those you know, strategies identified beforehand, and then, you know, knowing Oh, today, I’m going to feel tired. So I have to remember to stretch, you know, and just reminding myself of stretching, as is reminding me that the, the toe touches have been feeling really good.
Valerie Evans
And I’m going to do those and maybe a downward dog, and this is where I’m going to do it. And this is how it’s gonna feel. And then you’re just, you’re just ready. And when you hit that context, you don’t have to worry about reminding yourself, you’re just going to be ready to, to do what you intended to do towards strengthening these responses.
Steve Washuta
Do you see an advantage for people doing this together? And let me tell you like, what I was thinking of, I feel like when you say something out loud, sometimes it helps, right? So if you were in bed, and you were reading it out loud, and you said what you felt were the answers to the questions. And then your husband said what he felt? Is that even maybe, does that like imprint more so than just like saying it in your consciousness?
Valerie Evans
Yeah, maybe the reflection questions you do, right. And so that does make it bigger. And they’ll also be sharing boards, where you can read what other people wrote about their parts of that the best parts of their day. And that was actually inspired by my continuing education business, because I was giving people mental breaks and asking them what the best part of their day was so far, and what they’re looking forward to in the week ahead.
Valerie Evans
And then I was setting up those forms so that I’d get an email with their responses. And I just noticed, I would open my work email, and I would always read those first, and they always made me super happy, you know, or I would see a couple and just, and just wait till I was kind of feeling you know, frustrated and open them and they would really change my mood.
Valerie Evans
So I think there is doing it together is, is so important. And especially when someone is trying to change something about themselves, and they have a feeling of dissatisfaction or disconnection, bringing other people in and normalizing it and just, you know, there’s no setback, there’s only learning across along the way, there’s no straight line, it’s, it’s a continual evolution, and you don’t know where you’re going to end up, you have to just continually respond to how it’s going. And that requires reflecting and evaluating as you go.
Steve Washuta
I really liked that you make them write it in, I think that makes a huge difference. Right? In my mind, that wasn’t the case, I thought it was just, you know, you read the question and you sort of like answer in your brain as opposed to like, taking the time to actually think and write it out, really gives you I don’t know, maybe more clarity on your answer, you’re not going to lie, and it and it imprints a lot better than you just, you know, let it get sort of flashed across your brain and then and then be out, and then forget about it.
Valerie Evans
Yeah, I totally agree. I totally agree.
Steve Washuta
Last thing here, on the sort of the habit building, you know, in the personal training space, in the fitness space, in the health space, people are obsessed with this now, you know, optimization, building habits, and so on and so forth. For me, I believe sometimes it goes too far right, the optimization that the habit building goes beyond what we you and I have discussed sort of feeling your body and understanding that, you know, there’s more to this. Is there a point in which?
Steve Washuta
I know it’s a tough question, but the habit is just not working. And you just have to pivot. Like, I’ve tried so many times to do this, or whatever it is, like I’ve tried to eat at four o’clock, and then it’s seven o’clock and I just I can’t do this. Do you just pivot Do you just say maybe, maybe I’m not built for this?
Valerie Evans
Yeah, definitely, I think and that’s what I meant by evolving and not having this this, you know, cemented endpoint that you have to get to. And then also though, you start the journey can really minimize that problem where and, you know, step counting might be a good example of this like where you decided you want to start counting your steps which got wildly popular, and then, you know, one day it’s raining You can’t walk your dog, you know, or they painted and there’s fumes and you can’t take the stairs or, or you feel like riding a bike or you feel like going swimming, or you feel like doing yoga.
Valerie Evans
And that’s what your body’s telling you to do. Having that flexibility, and the the habit of reflecting and paying attention to your body, and just beginning with what, what do I What in the past worked for me, you know, is telling myself to eat at certain times, really how I tend to eat, you know, is, is it better for me if I can feel my body feeling hungry, and pay attention to my arousal levels, and have snacks available to me that will wake me up like apples and crunchy carrots, as opposed to you know, my giant bag of m&ms. But, yeah, absolutely.
Valerie Evans
The like. And that’s, that’s such a big part of habit building is just the evolution that’s informed by how it’s going. And you don’t know that until you got started. We were
Steve Washuta
talking about HRV on the podcast, maybe four episodes ago, and the gentleman who was on explaining at ease, he was a sports scientist for Ohio State. And he said if your stress device is causing you stress, it’s time to like reassess the situation, right.
Steve Washuta
And it’s really those people who look at the numbers, and they say I didn’t get my steps. And today, I have people who are very close to me that literally cannot work out unless their recording device is on them. And that that is not a good thing. You should be able to just go for a walk, you should be able to just go to the gym and not have a plan, decide once you get there, do a little warm up and say hey, you know what, I’m just gonna go play basketball today.
Steve Washuta
I’m just gonna go swimming today, I’m gonna I’m gonna move around and, and not have a plan and not have metrics associated with this, because it’s just, you need to, it should be just as important physiologically as as it is psychologically. And I think it’s it’s not looked that way. And I’m glad. No way is, is helping people come come to grips with that. let our audience know here, how they can find no way on the app store where they can maybe reach out to you individually and any other information you want to talk about.
Valerie Evans
Oh, yeah, it’s available on both app stores. And there’s also a blog and social media and you can access both from the website, which is just no way W E IG h.com. And you could also reach out to me and ask me a question from there. Email me anytime at no.com.
Steve Washuta
I’ll put all the links in the description. My guest today has been Valerie Evans with no way. Thank you for joining us truly for podcast. Thank you very much.
Steve Washuta: Thanks for joining us on the Trulyfit podcast. Please subscribe, rate, and review on your listening platform. Feel free to email us as we’d love to hear from you.
Thanks again!
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