Lucie Robazza on 5 micro-habits to prioritise your health

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Rachel Smith: Hello and welcome to The Content Byte, a podcast for freelancers who use their words to make money. I’m Rachel Smith, a freelance journalist, copywriter, and content producer. I’m also the founder of Rachel’s List, a jobs board and community for Australian writers and other creatives. 

Lynne Testoni: I’m Lynne Testoni! I’m a journalist and content writer as well. Rachel and I are your weekly co-hosts, and every week we bring you all kinds of tips, tricks, and some fabulous guests to help you make the most of your freelance business.

Hey Rach! 

Rachel: Hey. 

Lynne: Now we’re tackling a topic close to many writers’ hearts, and especially mine. Especially those people that are a bit more sedentary than we’d like to be. 

Rachel: And that is not you. 

Lynne: No, it’s not me.

Rachel: I remain in awe. I remain in awe of your early morning Pilates sessions. How many do a week?

Lynne: Five. 

Rachel: Oh my God. Plus, you also do multiple dog walks. 

Lynne: Dog walks twice a day. 

Rachel: I’m in awe. I continue to be a work in progress. 

Lynne: I think it helps when you don’t have young kids at home. I also try and swim once a week as well. Do laps as well. 

Rachel: Amazing. 

Lynne: But maybe also that happens when you’re my age and you need to keep your body moving and you can really see the difference of the people that haven’t.

Rachel: Yes. Yes, that’s right. 

Lynne: So, I think we’re going to have a real eye-opening chat with our guest today, Lucie Robazza, who knows quite a thing or two, about building in some simple habits, exercise habits and lifestyle, health habits that can fit into your real life. And I think it’s a must for anyone who’s desk bound really.

Rachel: It really is. I’m excited about this. I will tell you a bit about Lucie, and then we’ll get into it. 

Lynne: Fantastic. 

Rachel: Lucie Robazza has a French first name and an Italian surname, which confuses people, but she’s fine with it. She spent 17 years in corporate perfecting the art of overdoing it. I love that. Oh gosh, haven’t we all been there? Smaller jeans, bigger to-do lists, and she learned the hard way that doing everything right can still feel wrong. She crashed into hormone chaos, missing periods and a grumpy gut. And that is why she became a certified health coach, personal trainer, and kinesiologist. And she now works with women thirty-five plus, who are ready to make this season their best years stronger, better fed, impossible to ignore.

She’s the author of Don’t Be Sh*t, be Well: Diaries from Healthtopia, and she lives in Sydney where she can usually be found in her local health food store, reading food labels out loud to herself. 

Welcome, Lucie! 

Lynne: Welcome.

Lucie Robazza: Thank you for having me! 

Rachel: Lucie. Let’s dive straight in. You’ve said to us that freelancers often think they need more motivation, time, or the perfect routine in order to stay healthy. But are we kidding ourselves if we leave it only to motivation. 

Lucie: Well, we are one hundred percent. And I think, writers should know this better than anyone else because, you don’t wait for inspiration to come to get writing. You have your templates, your briefs, your deadlines, your process and, you need the same thing with your health. You need a system based on simple things that you know that you can do even on your worst day so that you don’t have to rely on the perfect time. Because as freelancers, time doesn’t magically appear.

Rachel: So true. 

Lynne: It’s true. I even know people who wait to get the perfect exercise clothes. They want to get all the gear. Yes. 

Rachel: Is that unusual? I don’t think that’s unusual.  

Lucie: No, definitely.

Lynne: I found it really interesting too. I like the idea of thinking of it as a system rather than waiting for motivation to strike. And that’s certainly me. I think there was a big thing that changed for me with James Clear – his Atomic Habits and he said, you don’t think of, I’ve got to motivate myself to exercise. You think about yourself as being someone who exercises and it’s just a different mindset really. This motivation and everything. What does it look like in real life for someone who really struggles to stay consistent with these sorts of healthy habits? 

Lucie: It needs to look very tiny at first. Because almost so small that you can’t fail? 

Rachel: I love that. 

Lucie: Because system is what is, helping us to make the best choice, the easiest in that moment, but we tend to create systems based on our ideal day or week, which will never happen. So, we need to build that system instead of, for our worst day.

So, a question that I ask my clients often is, what is the one thing that you can see yourself doing consistently for a month, even on your worst day? And if that’s even just doing twenty squats while you are waiting for your coffee to brew. That is fine because, doing that consistently for a month, I promise you will make you feel better and then it will create that momentum and that confidence and then you just add more onto it. But you need to start small. 

Rachel: And after doing twenty squats for a month, you’re going to have a better butt as well. 

Lucie: For sure. 

Rachel: Yes. I’m very much that person waiting for the kettle to boil and doing squats or push ups or something like that because it is good to associate something with doing that activity. I would love to ask you though, for people who do consistently say, oh, I’ve got no time to work out today, or whatever, and they’re putting their health on the back burner, what’s the hidden cost to your creativity and even your income when you’re consistently doing that? 

Lucie: I don’t even know if it’s that hidden because, you can sort of sit on your P and L almost, like when you have that 3 pm slump and you can’t focus and you’re like spending an hour staring at a blank page. That is a direct cost to your business. And the same thing if you have back pain and you can’t sit in a chair for too long, so you can’t, like something that would take you an hour to write becomes three hours – all of that impacts your creativity, your efficiency and at the end of the day, your business from a monetary point of view. So, I think we need to start seeing health as not a reward that we get to once we’ve successful and we have time for ourselves, but like something that like helps us get to become successful. 

Rachel: Like a non-negotiable type thing. 

Lucie: Exactly. Exactly. 

Lynne: You mentioned that it can work for writers to frame health improvements as a business benefit. What do you mean by that? Talk us through it. 

Lucie: It’s a bit of a mindset shift. You need to start seeing your health as not that fluffy, nice to have, but it’s almost like a time and focus management tool. And it is part of your core business kit. It’s very important as a writer to be energised and focused and all of that. So, when you start your day with a high protein breakfast, you’re not on a diet, you’re actually balancing your sugar levels so you can be focused and sharp enough to finish your proposal. Or if you start doing strength training, it’s not vanity. It’s like you are literally building the structure that you need to be sitting down in a chair for a long period of time to be writing without your body falling apart. So, I think it’s completely, it needs to be built in your business. 

Lynne: Makes sense.

Rachel: I totally agree with you. This is a mental shift that also comes a lot when you’re older, where you stop seeing exercise and eating well as I want to fit into that dress or I want to look a certain way. You do start to do it in the sense of, what you say, building your eighty-year-old body with today’s actions and I found that so interesting because I did an article once and I about ocean swimming and I talked to a doctor and she said she used to swim with all these seventy year olds in the water every morning. And then she also used to treat seventy-year-olds in the hospital as part of her day job. And she said it was just nuts, they were streets apart in their health and how frail they were and all of that. And it blew her mind, and I always thought that would’ve been such a great campaign like health campaign for getting people to see, well, if you do something now, this is what you’re building for when you are eighty and that sort of thing. Is that sort of what you need to be thinking about?

Lucie: Absolutely. And I’m so passionate about that. I totally agree, it’s like the body – what your body is going to be in twenty, thirty, forty years from now is the result of choice made in the small changes you can have that you have time for today. I know everyone says I don’t have time. Everyone is so busy. Absolutely. But it’s like when you get that popup saying that you need to update your operating system, you do it because if you don’t, it’s going to crash in the worst time possible. And it’s the same with your body, when you are hunching over for hours and not doing anything about it, you’re literally programming your eighty-year-old body with chronic back pain. And as your writer, your brain and the body containing it is your most important asset. So, you want to be making sure that it’s working properly for you. 

Lynne: So interesting and I know what you’re saying, Rachel, because my mum is in her late eighties and the difference between her and her peers. She doesn’t do a lot of exercise, but she does walk her little dog twice a day and just that simple act of moving a little bit, she’s straight ahead of similar people her age. That’s great. 

Rachel: You really start to notice, don’t you. 

Lynne: You do. 

So, Lucie, I know your big on micro habits, which I like, because I think they seem quite achievable. How do they differ from typical habits and are they easier to stick to? 

Lucie: They are way easier to stick to because usually your normal habits are stuff like, I’m going to work out five days a week, or I’m going to cut carbs and by day three we all know your brain is fried already from ten rounds of almonds or whatever and it’s like, I don’t think so you just end up doing nothing whereas when with a micro habit, they are again, too small to fail almost. So, it’s not like I’m going to meditate for twenty minutes every day. I’m going to take three deep breaths before I even open my inbox and because it’s so small, they sort of fly under your, I don’t have time or I’m too tired radar, and you just end up doing them and because you’re successful at them, then it builds that confidence and momentum again, and then they become automatic and then you can layer more on top as you go. 

Rachel: Okay. Well, I know that you are going to give something to our listeners at the end that’s going to help them set up these micro habits. But let’s start, let’s dig into a couple of them and we’ll start with the first one, light. So why is it important and what’s a simple tweak that we could make that would change the whole trajectory of our morning? 

Lucie: Well, light is like super, we need light to function as humans. We like anything else in nature, we pretty much like house plans with deadlines and a sweet tooth or whatever. So, we need light and when you start your day with your mobile phone or your laptop, you’re bathing your brain with blue light, which is the same thing as screaming in someone’s ear, panic, stress and it’s not a great way to start your day. So, what you want to do instead is get into, you want to get your face in sunlight. So ideally, you’ll go for a walk outside, but if you can’t even just sitting, on your balcony or next to an open window. So, it needs to be within the first sixty to ninety minutes after you wake up, ideally. And you want to get the sun on your, like eye area, so you don’t want to be wearing sunglasses. And that would like to set up your body clock for the entire day in the way that it’s supposed to be, which means that you’ll have energy in the morning and like during the day when you need it. But at night you’ll sleep much better.

So, it’s really such a simple tool, but it has a huge effect on your entire day, your energy, your sleep, and also even on insulin sensitivity. So, it’s a pretty neat tool to use. 

Rachel: Okay. So, you can’t be sitting in the sun with your phone. You leave your phone elsewhere. 

Lynne: Does that resonate for you there, Rach?

Rachel: The first thing I do, I literally, my eyes are shut, and I reach for my phone, which is on top of the bed board every morning. Terrible. Okay. I’m going to do that. I’m going to do the light thing. 

Lynne: The light. Well, that’s part of my morning. It’s not just Pilates, is that I walked to Pilates, which is ten, fifteen minutes.

Rachel: But do you reach for your phone before Pilates? 

Lynne: I do; I pick it up. But still, I don’t really do much and then I’m out for a little while, so, yes. 

Lucie: You can still, but try to just fit that ten, fifteen minutes with the sunlight. And if you’re living in a country where it’s dark in the morning, you can get those light therapy lamps. I don’t know if they’re expensive and that’s super helpful. 

Lynne: Yes, that’s true. And I know that a lot of writers feel chronically tired and foggy. I mean, we hear about this a bit and usually in the afternoon, and what sort of reasons are behind that crash and how can we fix it in a healthy way? Like not reaching for a biscuit tin. 

Lucie: Which is a difficult way to fix it. So, it’s usually either, one or a couple of the following things. So, one thing is not enough sunlight exposure in the morning so that impacts that as well energy. The other thing is being dehydrated. If you’re drinking lots of coffee or tea in the morning and not enough water, then you’re going to crash in the afternoon. And the third thing, which is the most common I’ll say, is that blood sugar rollercoaster. If you have the usual toast and coffee for breakfast and then pasta or sandwich for lunch, then that spikes your blood sugar that then crashes in the afternoon. To avoid this, you want to, if you can prevent it from happening, in the space so that, it’s drinking in of water, earlier in the day. So, morning and early afternoon. And then you want to make sure that you eat protein for breakfast and lunch. That’s going to stabilise your blood sugar level like nothing else.

And we’re talking like thirty to forty grams for breakfast and lunch, which is more than most people eat, or especially women. And then if you do have that crash in the afternoon, it’s the same thing – you want to do the, I call that, hydrate, move, and nourish. So, you want to drink a tall glass of water. I don’t care if you’re not thirsty, you drink your water, you are going to be moving your body for five minutes. It doesn’t matter what you’re doing, you just need to get that blood flow and lymph, going. So, you can just be doing jumping jacks in your kitchen and then you’re going to be nourishing your body. I know you want to reach for the biscuits but put your body in a place where it needs energy and you need to give it energy and nourishment. So, the last thing your body needs is empty calories. So, you want to reach for that high protein snack, like Greek yogurt with berries or something like that.

Rachel: Interesting. Let’s go back to what you were mentioning about protein because this is huge for me. I’m perimenopausal and I know about the thirty grams every meal, which is kind of hard to hit. So, talk to us about two to three easy, realistic meals that you can pull together quickly as a writer who wants to hit that protein goal every day? What are some ideas? 

Lucie: So, the first thing that you want, needs to become an automatic for you is what I call the protein first mindset. So that means every time you sit down to eat, your first thought needs to be, where is my protein coming from? Because it’s very often a second thought. I’m going to have the pasta, the sandwich, the salad, and then where the protein, and sometime there’s none or very little. So that’s the first. That’s a big mind shift. It took me a long time, I’m not going to lie. I had a lot of resistance. My protein intake, I thought I was fine and it changed my life when I did, I’m not kidding, but you take some time.

So also, don’t think that you can jump from seventy grams of protein a day, which is what most women eat to one hundred and twenty overnight. It’s going to feel overwhelming. You gut might not be happy with it. Take your time. So, the first thing is breakfast. That’s your biggest bang for your buck. If you start with a good high protein breakfast, you can do that for like a month and that’s it. And change nothing else. You’ll feel so much better. 

When people eat eggs, usually they eat two eggs. Two eggs is only twelve grams of protein, so it is not enough. So, you want to go for three. Don’t be scared of eggs, the idea that eggs are unhealthy and blah, blah, blah cholesterol that is been debunked. It’s not true. So, you can have three eggs multiple times during the week, but what you can do is add white eggs. So, they are sold, in your supermarket, in the fridge or freezer section. Some people don’t even know that exists and it’s so handy because it’s pure protein. There’s no fat, no carbs, so it’s a very good way to add more protein onto your breakfast. If you do oats, just put some great yogurt or add some good quality protein powder. That’s also for me; I couldn’t live without my protein powder. It just needs to be good quality not full of crap.

For lunch and dinner, if you eat meat and fish, just think about a palm size of your hand, size of meat or fish. So, it doesn’t have to be complicated. Then if you are more like a vegan or whatever, you can do a tofu scramble that’s very quick. Or if you’re going to eat lentils or chickpeas, you want to add a grain next to it because that will make the amino acid profile of the protein more complete. So, it’s a better protein. 

And then in terms of snack, which is very often, tricky, you want to go for the cottage cheese, which is very high in protein, and you can make savory or sweet. So, it’s very versatile – Greek yogurt, jerky and biltong, you can find a lot of that now in supermarket. That’s very handy, delicious, and full of protein that will be my go-to. 

Lynne: Oh, that’s quite interesting.

Rachel: Interesting about the three eggs. I reckon I could only do three eggs if I was doing scrambled eggs or something. 

Lynne: Frittata or omelette. 

Lucie: Exactly. 

Rachel: That’s right. 

Lucie: Also don’t see like it if like it looks smaller, but you eat them.

Lynne: Yes. 

Rachel: Yes. Okay. 

Lynne: And I know you’re big on movement too, which I love, but I know there’s a lot of people who are intimidated by gyms or don’t feel they have the time to do a full workout. So, what are some great exercise hacks that might just take a few minutes. It could be done at your desk or near it.

Lucie: I think we need to divorce the idea of movement from going to the gym. You’d be going to the gym for an hour three times a week, which is great, but if you don’t move at all during the day, then it’s not doing much for your health, it’s not enough. So, I really like exercise snacks they’re called where it’s just very short bursts of movement. We’re talking one minute to five minutes max. And you them a few times during the day and it’s actually been studied and proven that it does increase your fitness, your insulin sensitivity and it reduces, mortality from all causes. I don’t remember the exact number, but it does decrease the mortality.

For such a simple thing that’s pretty cool. So that’s just getting moving. So, for example, again, those squats that we mentioned where, or while your coffee is spring or whatever, or if you are downloading or uploading a very heavy document is taking time. You’re just going to do ten desk push ups, for example or it’s as simple as saying, I’m going to stand every time I take a call or, I’m sure many of your listeners, brainstorming with AI, we all do now. So, you could be walking around when you do that, for example. And something that I’ve added to my routine is a walking pad. Those treadmills that you put on your desk. That has changed my life because I do my emails, that sort of stuff that you can do walking slowly for an hour in the morning. And I have eight thousand steps by 8.30 am so that is an amazing way to add some movements to your day as well without leaving house. 

Rachel: What about, I read something about jumping and how that’s really good for older women especially. Could you just put on a song and do some running on the spot on the deck or do some jumping and that’s good for your bones as well.

Lucie: Exactly. And I know you can even, I have a rebounder, a small one that I can hide under the bed. It’s amazing if you have a problem with your joints, but definitely for perimenopausal women, you want that high impact to protect your bones and strengthen your bones. So, jumping jacks, jumping squats and just running on the spot for one minute, it’s nothing. But you can do that every time you go to the bathroom, you put a post-it note on your mirror that says, jumping jacks every time you go to the bathroom, stuff like that. I know it sounds silly and very tiny and what is it going to do? But believe me, it does. It really has a big impact. 

Rachel: It’s like that compounding effect, isn’t it?

Lucie: Exactly. 

Rachel: Then not doing anything. 

Well, I wanted to also talk about posture. Obviously, a huge problem for writers who spend hours hunched over their laptops. I love how you talk about it, as in good posture is your pain insurance. Just talk us through that. 

Lucie: The writer’s hunch is not just a bad look. It really means guaranteed you’re going to be in pain later down the line, for sure. So, what you want to be like when you hunch like that, you are literally squeezing the life out of your nerves and blood vessels in your spine and your neck, and that can lead to headaches, brain fog, and chronic back pain and shoulder pain. You want to look at your posture now, not later. The same thing that we’ve discussed earlier, it needs to be a mindset shift where you could use those exercise snacks that we just mentioned as a quick two minute stretching, and you’ll see that as your premium that you pay on your, pain-free insurance because really it’s, again, small things done now will make you feel so much better down the line.

Rachel: I know. Well, no one can see because we’re obviously on audio, but I’m wearing one of my many wrist splints for joint pain in my hands. And I just have a series of exercises I do all the time to try and mitigate that. But that’s a huge one as well. We see lots of writers who are having carpal tunnel syndrome and having operations for that and everything. 

Lucie: I had that actually – I had carpal tunnel syndrome. And, strengthening the muscles very often, like higher up your arms can really help. So, I know it’s a different thing. 

Rachel: No, that’s interesting. 

Lucie: Okay. Because I was told I needed an operation, a surgery on both my wrist and my elbows and sometimes you need them absolutely, sometimes you need surgery. But I did those exercises and that completely resolved my problems. So, strength training is not just about the muscles you like. It’s so important for the body. 

Rachel: Amazing.

Lynne: I certainly think as you get older, it makes a big difference. No matter whether you’re a man or a woman, it really does make a difference. One of my Pilates classes every week is a strength class, and I find that that’s really important as a holistic thing. 

It’d be great to talk about some food or nutrition hacks that actually become easier when you work from home, because I think, unlike when I worked in offices, it’s really hard. We had a horrible communal kitchen and people steal your stuff from the refrigerator, the whole nightmare of transporting it. So, when you’re at home, you do have a lot of things that you can do better. Have you got some good tips? 

Lucie: It is actually a big advantage because I remember the same for me when I worked in an office in corporate, you had the food court downstairs and vending machine and it’s very hard. 

Rachel: Well, it’s like, hello, ten kilos in like three months. The food courts. Oh god. 

Lucie: Pretty much. But when I was working in an office, I was doing meal prep, which I guess most people would’ve heard of which is when you prep in advance your meals, so you’re cooking everything and then you’re assembling everything already. So, you just have to take a Tupperware out of the fridge. But that is great. I did it for years, but you sometimes get in that soggy green bean situation. So, when you work from home, what you can do, it’s not meal prepping, but food prepping. So, you still cook once and eat thrice. It’s in a different way. So, you batch cook, for example, you could be making a big tray of roasted vegetables, and then you cook a whole chicken in the slow cooker and then you batch cook, twelve boiled eggs or whatever. But you don’t assemble everything, you just have them cooked in the fridge and then when it’s time to eat, you just decide what you want to put together? So, it’s fresher, but it’s much quicker and healthier because you have your protein sources and your veggies already prepped. 

That’s one thing that is very helpful when you work from home. Another thing is you have a bit more control about what you want to eat and when to eat it? One thing that is very helpful with energy and not having cravings all day, is managing your blood sugar, as we mentioned. And carb timing is very important in that. So, if you’re working from home, try and keep your biggest carbs portion for after your training. Or after your heavier brain work task because that’s the moment when the body needs the glucose the most and is going to use it the most efficiently. So, you want to try and do that rather than eating your carbs and then just sitting on your butt for three hours, which is not ideal for blood sugar regulation.

And then one other thing you can do with that is some people do really well with eating a small portion of carbs at night for dinner. So, for example, sweet potatoes because they will count down your cortisol and it would help you to sleep through the night. So, I know for myself it works very well. Everyone is a bit different with that, so you need to try, but that could be also a good thing to do when you work from home. 

Rachel: I love all those suggestions. One thing that I wanted to add, which I found really helps when you’re meal prepping is making the dressings ahead of time as well. That’s the biggest thing, isn’t it so annoying having to measure out all the ingredients, when you want to pull like a lunchtime salad together and if you’ve got the dressing, it’s two minutes to do that.

Lucie: Exactly. Absolutely. 

Lynne: Talk us through your emergency desk drawer kit. That sounded good. I love that idea. 

Rachel: Does it include biscuits? 

Lucie: No. Well, for me it’s all about high protein. Little to no sugar. It’s similar to what we’ve talked earlier, but for me, having a good protein bar is going to make it and it sort of tastes like dessert if it’s a good one. I don’t know if I can mention brands here. 

Rachel: Sure, of course you can. Whatever you like. 

Lucie: Cool. So, what you want to look out for is, obviously a small ingredient list and you don’t want those artificial sweeteners and stuff that you don’t understand the components, but one good brand in Australia that you can find at Woolies and Coles that I really love is Greenback. It’s a vegan one and I like the hazelnut chocolate one. But you were talking about biscuits, honestly it tastes like dessert. It’s delicious. So, that’s an option that I love. Chief Nutrition has very good one as well with collagen. That is also like an added benefit. Keep it Cleaner is also a good brand. They are vegan and non-vegan ones. Raw as well is a good brand. And then, I love a good Greek yogurt with protein powder. So again, something you want to clean one, Chief Nutrition makes good one and Botanika Blends is an Australian brand. Botanika with a K. Which is amazing. It’s vegan and so clean and it tastes delicious. And if you put your protein powder in your yogurt and you mix it, it tastes like dessert, honestly. 

That is my go-to. But as I mentioned also, cottage cheese is a good option and jerky. I’m going through a lot of that as well. Chief Nutrition has it, it sounds like I work for them, but I don’t. They have these jerky bars as well, so it’s like a protein with savory. So, those options are super high protein and clean and very no prep. That’s what’s in my drawer. 

Rachel: Fantastic. What about nuts and things like that? Or do you think that you can just eat too many?

Lucie: Well, personally, I can’t stop myself but also nuts are, don’t know why this started going around that nuts are high in protein, they’re not. Nuts are fats, there’s a tiny bit of protein, but it’s mainly fat, which is not bad. It’s good, you need it for sure. And if you can have just a small handful, good for you can. So, I avoid that. I have not only when if I eat a piece of fruit because it’s great, it’s sugar. It’s good sugar, but it’s still going to impact your blood sugar level. I try to add a little bit of fat next to it to slow down the speed at which the glucose is going to hit my bloodstream. So, I add a few almonds next to a piece of fruit. That’s the only time I have nuts and then I just hide them away because, you can really quickly over eat and they are very high in calories, so that’s why I tend not to eat them, but it’s super healthy. Just if you have, if you can control yourself.

Rachel: Okay. Well, this is a great question. I’ve been dying to ask you this question because I’m a big tea drinker. I don’t drink coffee, but I do drink tea throughout the day and I’m always trying to pair it back and switch to water instead because I’m conscious that I’m putting milk in every time and I do have low fat milk because I have to have that. But do you have any hacks.

Lynne: There are a lot of writers that survive on coffee as well.

Rachel: But I know writers that drink ten cups of tea day, I’m not that bad, but I still drink a lot. 

Lucie: I’m a bit of, a bit of a coffee addict myself, so I’m not going to take your coffee or tea away. But we need to be a bit careful and especially with coffee tip to a lesser degree because the caffeine, is less, but there still is, it can be used as a tool or a crutch. And many writers use that as a crutch to mask the exhaustion that they have and the problem is coffee and tea, but mainly coffee, because stronger coffee has a half-life of five to seven hours, which means that if you drink coffee at 3 pm as a little pick me up, it will still be in your system. Half of it will still be in your system by 10 pm. So, it’s going to wreck your sleep and you’re going to be tired the next day and you’re going to need more coffee. So, something you can do to help and same with black tea. Green tea is not as bad, but, coffee, black tea, you want to wait sixty to ninety minutes after you wake up, before you drink your first cup. Because your cortisol is always very high when you wake up already, which is normal. It’s still way for your body to wake you up. But if you add caffeine on top of it, then it makes it worse. It keeps it high. So, you want to wait a bit and then during that time you want to be drinking water, and you want to be eating something because you never want to have caffeine on an empty stomach. That’s a recipe for disaster. 

I mean, if you put the bulletproof coffee, I don’t if you’ve heard of that, but if you put, this coffee where you put MCT oil, which is a type of coconut oil in there. It slows down that caffeine heat, so when you put your milk, it does that to a degree. But I will still wait for at least an hour, drink water and eat first, and then that means for most people, you should really be drinking your caffeine between 10 am and 2 pm at the latest. Because you want to stop eight to ten hours before you go to bed.

So again, tea is a bit better. Green tea, it’s even less caffeine and also every cup that you drink, make sure you drink a cup of water next to it because tea and coffee are very, very dehydrating. And then to drink more water, the easier that I’ve found is to get a pretty one litre water bottle and put it next to your bed. So it’s the first thing that you see, the first thing that you do in the morning before your coffee or tea, and then you fill it up again and you park it on your desk so you see it all day and you aim to drink two of those before the end of the day. 

Rachel: Wow. Okay. 

Lynne: Oh, look it, see I’ve got mine. I do exactly that. 

Lucie: It really helps. You can try and do some swaps, instead of coffee, you can try a matcha tea, which I know is an acquired taste or instead of the black tea in the afternoon, try to shift a switch to green tea, that sort of thing. So, you just lower that caffeine diet. 

Rachel: Okay. All right, cool. 

Lynne: Oh, fantastic. It’s so interesting. Tell us a little bit about your business and what you do to help women become healthier. How does the Strenxia program work? 

Lucie: As you mentioned when you read my bio, I had my fair share of health issues, especially hormonal issues from undereating and over exercising, all of that. Now I work with women, usually thirty-five, and older who feel like their body has turned against them because I really know how it feels when perimenopause hits, which, by the way, can start as early as thirty-five. Rules completely change on us and because no one warned us about this, no one explained anything about what’s happening – it can be a very stressful, frustrating and confusing time for women because your body changes overnight almost. And what used to work, doesn’t work anymore. So, and when you go to the doctor.

Rachel: Amen. 

Lucie: I know, right? It’s really like the doctor tells you it’s all, it’s just stress or it’s all in your head, or it’s part of aging, right? But it is not the case. It doesn’t have to be that way. And my program, teaches women how to navigate that time, and feeling better, stronger, and more confident, because it can be a very rough time if you don’t know what’s happening and what to do about it. But if you do, it can actually be a very empowering time for women because as our oestrogen drops, so does our need to put everyone else in front of us or care for everyone else, which is what women tend to do.

Lynne: Yes. 

Lucie: It can be very empowering and it can be a beautiful thriving time for women if what’s happening and if what to do about it. 

Rachel: Interesting. Well, I know we could talk to you all day and pick your brains about this stuff, but I know you’re giving our listeners a Micro Habits challenge. So, tell us what that involves. What are they in for? 

Lucie: Yes, it’s very simple. It’s called, the Writer’s Reset Challenge, and it’s a five-day challenge where each day I’ll give you a new micro habit to try. So, it’s very similar to what we’ve discussed today and at the end – so you do one habit per day. At the end of the five days, you reflect back and think about which habits can I see myself do consistently for months, even on my worst day? And then you commit to doing that for 28 days and it will show you how easy it is to get started. To build momentum and to feel better so quickly from such simple things.

Lynne: That’s a great idea. 

Rachel: Love it. We’ll put that in the show notes. 

Lynne: Yes, we will. We’ll put a link to that in the show notes. So, one of the things we always ask our guests, is about their favourite apps and tech tools and stuff like that. Do you have any recommendations for some healthy apps that can help reinforce these micro habits like reminders or whatever? Are there some you’d be lost without? 

Lucie: I’m going to be very boring, but my favourite health app is the one that is open on your laptop all the time, which is your calendar. Because I know I’m the same – I like a new shiny app or gadget, but to be honest, the best habit is the one that you’re doing, right?

The best thing that I found for this to happen is to put in your calendar, to schedule it like meeting, like a client meeting because it is as important. So, you mentioned James Clear earlier and he talks about habit stacking. You could, every time you have a client meeting in your calendar, you could add right after to do an exercise snack, for example. So that could be something you do, or you could just put drink water three times a day as a reminder. I know the Writer’s Reset Challenge includes a principal tracker because I know how satisfying it is to tick boxes. You don’t have to over complicate it. Your calendar and your water bottle on your desk will beat any app that you don’t open every day. 

Rachel: Getting away from that phone addiction which is a whole other episode.  Oh, my goodness, Lucie, this has been amazing! Thank you so much for giving us great tips as writers to be healthier. I think it’s going to be really useful to a lot of our listeners.

Lynne: And so achievable too. So achievable. Really good. 

Rachel: I don’t feel like overwhelmed or like, oh God. It’s really great how you’ve unpacked it for us. Tell us where our audience can find you.

Lucie: You can visit my website, which is strenxia.com. Or the best way to get in touch with me, I guess, is on Instagram where I hang out pretty much every day. So, it’s at Lucie.Robazza. 

Rachel: Okay, great. 

Lynne: Fantastic. 

Rachel: We’ll pop that into the show notes. 

Lynne: We will. And we’ll also put a link to Lucie’s challenge, which is great and quite inspiring. Thank you so much, Lucie, for being our guest this week. It’s really lovely to have you on and I think it will inspire people without intimidating them. So that, I think that’s great. So that brings us to the end of the show. Thanks to everyone who’s listening and don’t forget to leave a rating and review where you find your podcast and take a look for the show notes.

Thanks. We’ll be back again next week, Rach!

Rachel: See you everybody! Bye. 

Lynne: Okay, bye. 

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Credits:

Connect with Lucie via her website: https://www.strenxia.com/

Find Lynne www.lynnetestoni.com 

Find Rachel www.rachelsmith.com.au 

Rachel’s List www.rachelslist.com.au 

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