IAM2031 – Culinary Coach and Kitchen Interventionist Empowers Individuals to Take Control of Their Wellness

In this episode, we have Kristen Coffield of the Culinary Cure. Kristen discusses her wellness journey, leading to her efforts to empower individuals through culinary resilience to improve their health and productivity.

She further touches on how she incorporates ‘biohacking' strategies to change personal input into a better output – increased productivity, maintaining better emotions, and achieving wellness goals. She emphasizes the importance of sleep and the careful use of food to fuel one's energy and efficiency.

She also discusses her role as a CEO, leading by example and helping her employees imbibe a culture of wellness.

• Background: Kristen Coffield is a Culinary Coach and Kitchen Interventionist who focuses on empowering people to take control of their wellness by providing them with the necessary tools to make informed decisions about their diet and overall health.
• The Culinary Cure: This approach emphasizes the importance of what's at the end of our forks, as it can have a significant impact on our health outcomes.
• CEO Hack: Kristen values her iPhone and its capability to capture the world around her, enabling her to understand what people are interested in and listening to.
• CEO Nugget: She encourages individuals to view food as a part of their productivity package and to think of it in a utilitarian way.
• CEO Defined: Being a CEO, according to Kristen, means leading by example and creating brand ambassadors.

Website: theculinarycure.com

Previous Episode: culinary-coach-kitchen-interventionist-empowers-individuals-to-take-control-of-their-wellness

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Transcription:

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Kristen Coffield Teaser 00:00

Corporate wellness is a huge, huge market because healthcare is out of control and lifestyle diseases are controllable.

That means you can change yourself on a biological level to prevent getting diabetes, cancer, heart disease, hypertension the list goes on. Neurological decline is a big one. So by educating people and giving them the tools, I can really make a big impact.

Intro 00:29

Do you want to learn effective ways to build relationships, generate sales, and grow your business from successful entrepreneurs, startups, and CEOs without listening to a long, long, long interview?

If so, you've come to the right place. Gresham Harkness values your time and is ready to share with you precisely the information you're in search of. This is the I Am CEO Podcast.

Gresham Harkless 00:57

Hello, hello, hello. This is Gresh from the I Am CEO podcast. And I have a very special guest on the show today. I have Kristen Cofield from the Culinary Cure. Kristen. I appreciate you taking some time out of your schedule.

Are you ready to speak to the I Am CEO community?

Kristen Coffield 01:10

I am. Let's go.

Gresham Harkless 01:11

Awesome. Awesome. Awesome. But what I wanted to do first was to read a little bit more about you. So people get a good idea of you and your background and all the awesome things that you're doing.

So Kristen Coffield is the culinary coach and kitchen interventionist, and she empowers individuals to take control of their wellness with tools to help them navigate the complicated and overwhelming landscape of health and diet information.

The Culinary Cure starts with what's at the end of the fork to help people change their health destiny. So Kristen, are you ready to speak to the I Am CEO community?

Kristen Coffield 01:43

I am.

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Gresham Harkless 01:44

Awesome. Awesome. Awesome. But what I wanted to do was just give you the mic, so to speak, so you can tell us a little bit more about your CEO story and what led your business.

Kristen Coffield 01:51

All right. So the Culinary Cure is really the accumulation of lots of life experiences. I've been in the food business for a very long time.

I had a catering company in Washington. I had a healthy delivery meal service long before, that was all the rage. I clearly missed that opportunity. I was feeding my kids organic baby food before anybody was doing that. And then. My life really went into disaster mode.

So I had a 10-year period where everything bad happened. I lost my mother to cancer. I lost my father to Alzheimer's. Those are both lifestyle diseases that Really can be controlled by changing the way you approach your wellness destiny. I myself developed thyroid cancer. My marriage was in trouble. My dog died. I know the nail in the coffin. My dog died.

My last child went to college and we were in. Financial trouble. And then I ruptured my L4 L5. It was just a series of unfortunate events. And from there, when, and I am not alone, when I shared this story, many people find themselves in a situation where they're very well-controlled worlds starts to go out of control and it doesn't happen right away. It happens over time.

So. Having said all of that, I had this great food skill set, and when I was at my lowest point, and I really felt like I had no control over anything, what I did still have control over was what was on the end of my fork.

So I took back control of my life one bite at a time. I started with food and once you change the way you eat and you start eating to empower your body and it helps empower your mind, then you've got a little more energy.

So you start going to the gym and then the way you like the way you look and feel and you start to sleep better. And all of a sudden, more things become possible. So I took all those experiences that led me to that place where I was taking back my life one bite at a time, and I figured other people could use those tools to reboot their own lives.

So I started the Culinary Cure it initially was just a platform where people could get recipes and information, and now it's turned into something so much more. I'm really trying to help people, not just one-on-one coaching, but I'm really hoping that I can help people change their lives.

From every aspect, starting with food.

Gresham Harkless 04:33

Yeah, that makes perfect sense. And obviously, sorry to hear about those 10 years, but sometimes what hasn't killed you makes you stronger, so they say.

Kristen Coffield 04:40

Exactly.

Gresham Harkless 04:41

There you go. There you go. So what I wanted to do was learn a little bit more about what are the actual services? How do you support and serve your clients that you work with?

Kristen Coffield 04:49

Absolutely. So I do some one-on-one coaching, but that's really not my end goal. I love to do, I get into companies and I do corporate wellness programs. And what I love about that is people spend more time in the workplace than anywhere else.

And so that has the biggest influence. If you have a wellness culture where you work, that spills over into people's private lives. And then people bring that home and they share it with their family. Corporate wellness is a huge, huge market because healthcare is out of control and lifestyle diseases are controllable.

That means you can change yourself on a, biological level to prevent getting diabetes, cancer, heart disease, hypertension the list goes on. Neurological decline is a big one. So by educating people and giving them the tools, I can really make a big impact. But what I'm really doing and what is You know, this is a great term.

So biohacking is a very popular term right now. Silicon Valley is trying to find all these ways of developing products to help people biohack their health. What I do is a very organic form of biohacking. So you control quite a bit. People don't realize just how much they control.

You can biohack your own life. So biohacking is basically taking all the things that you input. And that's into your body and your mind. So that's sleep and exercise and food and what you watch on TV and your thoughts and the people you surround yourself with. And then you tweak your inputs to improve the output.

So the output is like your productivity at work and your emotions and those sorts of things. So I teach people how to basically biohack their own lives in a very organic way, and it starts in the kitchen. It really starts in the kitchen.

Gresham Harkless 06:52

Interesting. So what you're saying is you basically take people, whatever they put into their bodies or into their systems.

That's what kind of manifests themselves and how they feel and how they're acting and how their day goes and so on and so forth. Really interesting.

Kristen Coffield 07:05

And when you have your own company, you are really You're working all the time. You're always thinking about your business. Yeah. There's never enough time in the day for us, entrepreneurs,

Gresham Harkless 07:16

25 hours.

Kristen Coffield 07:18

Exactly. And what you have to realize is sleep is one of the most important tools. Like you cannot, you should never undervalue sleep because it's the thing that helps you go, go, go. It's when your body can create. growth hormone. It's when you detox all the negative and environmental toxins of the day.

And of course, now we're living this world where we're on these screens all day, and that's affecting our brains and our bodies too. So you've got to sleep and you can't cut sleep short. So how do you maximize? The rest of your time. How do you use food as a tool to achieve your business goals?

Gresham Harkless 07:59

No, that's a huge thing. And I imagine that a lot of people never really thought of that, especially busy entrepreneurs and business owners that are running around all the time that don't really want to sleep, but have to sleep, as you said, but understanding that these bio hacks that they can do and implement into their lives to be more effective and efficient and not only them, but also their teams and their families as well, too.

So that's super awesome. So what I wanted to ask you now is a little bit more about what I call like your secret sauce. So this might be what you feel like makes you unique or what sets you apart from people that may do something similar to what it is that you do.

Kristen Coffield 08:32

There are two things. There are things that I do that nobody else does. So I help, I teach people culinary resilience starting in their own kitchens with my kitchen intervention, and that's helping people create their own superpower in their kitchen by reorganizing, getting rid of, believe me, if you're going to get to your walk, you better not have a panini machine in front of it.

You know what I mean? Strip it down to what you need so you can do what you need to do. But my biggest secret sauce, and anybody who knows me well will tell you, I get up at 4. 15 in the morning. I know that sounds awful to some people. It really doesn't matter when you get up. What matters is how you harness those first waking hours when you are the freshest, when you're you have your best energy, your clearest mind.

So I get up at 4:15, and I drink my warm lemon water with coconut oil because you want those good MCT oils to fuel up your brain and your body and you'll burn them for fuel, not store them as fat. And then I work out at 5 a.m. So by the time I get home from the gym, it's 6:15. I've already done all kinds of stuff.

I have not looked at my cell phone. That is one thing I haven't done. I haven't gotten on my cell phone and I haven't gotten on my computer. So carve some time out. at the very beginning of the day to set yourself up for success.

Gresham Harkless 09:56

Awesome. Awesome. Awesome. That makes perfect sense is doing that at the beginning of the day.

It's huge. And I know that I myself sometimes use my telephone as my alarm clock in my game machine and also my work machine. So being able to shut that down and not look at that, make sure you're not driven or sucked into all the things that are happening. You're not a passive to what's going on. So that's huge.

So now I wanted to switch gears a little bit and ask you for what I call a CEO hack and a CEO hack is an app or a book or something that you use or, or lean on, on a regular everyday basis that makes you effective and efficient.

Kristen Coffield 10:29

Being in the food and wellness business, I'm a recipe developer. I have to say, I love my iPhone for a bunch of reasons. I'm constantly capturing inspiration everywhere I go, and that might be the food I see. That might be somebody dressed a certain way, but I think capturing the world around you makes you a little more aware of everything around you and what your role is.

In that world, my role is to help people live their best lives. And so the only way I can do that effectively is by understanding what their world is like.

Gresham Harkless 11:12

No, that's huge. And that's huge, especially for people that are trying to connect and build relationships with people to be solid and to understand this is what your client or what everybody's reading or watching or listening to is definitely a phenomenal CEO hacks. So, awesome.

Now I want to ask you for what I call a CEO nugget, and that might be a word of wisdom or a piece of advice that you might have.

Kristen Coffield 11:30

I like to really encourage people to think of food, throw out everything you already think about food, think of food as a tool that's part of your productivity package.

So instead of thinking of food as just, oh, I've got to eat something, think of food, As this really important component that's going to help you accomplish your goals, I tell people Monday through Friday, use your food in a utilitarian fashion. Think of what can I eat to power me through this day? Strategically using food.

And then live your life on the weekends because honestly, diets don't work because they're not sustainable. This is about creating a sustainable lifestyle that fuels you up, that gives you the mental energy, the quality sleep, the focus that you need to live your best life.

Gresham Harkless 12:25

Awesome. Awesome. Awesome. Yeah, that's powerful.

And I love that because now food doesn't become like a habit or something you have to do becomes a tool that you're using to. Help you to reach your goals or help you to feel better or help you to have a better relationship or whatever that is.

Kristen Coffield 12:36

And you actually just said something really important. We are the sum of our habitual behaviors and people are very unaware of their behavior patterns around food.

So when you start to create new behavior patterns that support what you want to accomplish in your life. It's a very powerful tool.

Gresham Harkless 12:55

Awesome. Awesome. Awesome. And that's definitely one of those bio hacks or hacks that we can definitely incorporate into our lives. So I love that. So, now I wanted to ask you for what I call and my favorite question, which is your definition for what it means to be a CEO.

So we're hoping to have a lot of different CEOs on this podcast for big, huge Fortune 500 companies, the smaller companies, the solopreneurs. So I wanted to ask you specifically, what does being a CEO mean to you?

Kristen Coffield 13:25

I have a small company, so I have three people that work for me and I think being a CEO for me means that I'm leading by example, I'm showing my team so that they can be ambassadors for my brand.

The best ways to do that, to help the other people. And I also coach all of my employees. So I do wellness coaching for them and help them live their best lives. But our goal is to really help people. So creating brand ambassadors and people who understand the power on the end of the fork is really where we're going.

Gresham Harkless 13:57

Awesome. Awesome. Awesome. Kristen, I truly appreciate you for taking some time out of your schedule. I wanted to see and pass the mic to you, see if there's anything additional you want to let our readers and our listeners know and how best people can get ahold of you.

Kristen Coffield 14:08

Okay. My website is theculinarycure.com. I would love for your readers to go to my website and sign up to get my free live, like you mean at the playbook, I think of this as being the starting point for starting your best wellness journey. It's got recipes and tips and really doable actions that you can use right now to live your best life.

And of course, follow me on Instagram for daily inspiration.

Gresham Harkless 14:36

Awesome. Awesome. Awesome. I will make sure to have those and show notes just in case anybody wants to click through and follow you.

But Kristen, I appreciate you so much for helping empower us, and learn a little bit more about how we can live our best lives, and I hope you have a phenomenal rest of the day.

Kristen Coffield 14:47

Awesome. Thank you. Grash appreciate being here.

Outro 14:59

Thank you for listening to the I Am CEO Podcast powered by CB Nation and Blue 16 Media. Tune in next time and visit us at iamceo.co. I Am CEO is not just a phrase, it's a community.

Check out the latest and greatest apps, books, and habits to level up your business at ceohacks.co. This has been the I Am CEO podcast with Gresham Harless, Jr. Thank you for listening.

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