Lia: Welcome to the Sparky Life Podcast. I'm your host, Lia Lamela. Here we discuss women in the trades and how to construct your career. Let's explore with our guests today, Chris Heskett, the powerful combination of nature, nutrition, and fitness. He is a health and fitness coach with over a decade of experience in the field. He's the host of Wild Nutrition Podcast and owner of Peak Wellness Coaching. Thank you so much for being here, Chris.
Chris: Thank you for having me.
Lia: I came across Chris because I am very into health and wellness and fitness. Not just because I wanna look good and feel good, but because for my career, I could get hurt if I am not healthy and strong and fit. One of the complications of working in the field is being able to maintain healthy nutrition, and when I came across Chris, he was so genuine and passionate and knowledgeable. That's what really drew me to him, and I wanted to share him with all of you.
Chris: Thank you.
Lia: Chris, can you give us a little bit of your background? What sparked you on this path?
Chris: Oh. Well, I first started really getting into nutrition back in like sixth grade. Like I was 12 when I started getting into nutrition, but I've always been like a huge nerd. So, big Star Wars nerd. Always wanted to be in the science fields. So it just kind of fell into nutrition. And then in high school, I was like super, super skinny. So you wanna know that what can be now. But I was 70 pounds lighter in high school, so super skinny. I thought, oh, if I get into lifting, I'll attract girls cuz I'm also super introverted. So that did not work. However, I fell in love with health, fitness, and nutrition, so I went to school. I got my degree in exercise science from Bloomsburg University. Got my uh, strength conditioning certification. I did an internship at Bucknell University for strength and conditioning, and then I got a nutrition certification through Precision Nutrition. So that was all my education. And then I worked as a personal trainer for a long time, about nine years, as a in-person, personal trainer before starting my own business.
Lia: Oh my gosh, wonderful. I'm so happy that you are passionate about it because that makes me passionate about it. And one of the things that I really enjoy about you is I think that you have a really keen ability to work with people on every spectrum of the scale. You could, you could work with somebody like me who's like, “yep, yes, let's do this”. And then somebody who's kind of stepping into it to help prevent them from becoming overwhelmed. You kind of can gauge like where they're at. I think that's a skill that not all coaches have.
Chris: I did not have that skill 10 years ago. I, um, I was just like every other coach, like, “see how smart I am, let's go”. Super, super advanced. And it helped, like I always say, to help one out of 10 people. And now my goal is always to like, we're never gonna help everyone, but if we can do seven or eight out of every 10 people, we're doing really good.
Lia: That's awesome. That's awesome. Um, one of the things that I wanted to ask you, I think we talked a little bit about, was when we're in the fields, in construction careers, and if you guys haven't listened to my episode about how strong you need to be for a career in construction, I highly recommend you check that out because you'll hear all about how passionate I am about coaching and getting a coach. And if you wanna invest in yourself, I highly recommend you invest in getting a coach. And we're gonna go over all the reasons of why that's so important. So backtracking to nutrition on the field. It's very hard when you're doing 12 or 15 hours and McDonald's is in your face.
Chris: Definitely. A lot of time when we're talking nutrition, we also have to define goals, because a lot of times we put like weight loss and health under the same thing, or like weight loss, health, build muscle under like the giant umbrella term and while technically you could put it under that umbrella term, how you go about nutrition's gonna be a little bit different for each of those. Like, are we just trying to be healthy? Or are we just trying to like, maintain our weight? Are we trying to build muscle, build strength? Then we need to be in the calorie surplus. That means, one, you should be eating healthy foods, fruits, veggies, protein, but you get a little bit of extra leeway because you have to eat so many calories. Like if you're in the field, you're active for 12 hours, as a woman, you might need 3000 plus calories a day.
Lia: I'm so glad you said that cuz that was one of the biggest mistakes I made in the beginning.
Chris: Yeah. Good luck getting that from like, sweet potatoes and chicken breasts. Like I've tried, you're going to be miserable as someone who's 220. I've tried it. You're gonna be miserable. So you know, 150 pound, 60 pound, 80 pound woman, tried to eat that much. Yeah, it's not gonna happen. So that's where like sometimes we might have to eat some of the bad foods just to make up for those extra calories you need. And then obviously we have weight loss where you need to be in a calorie deficit. That's where a lot of people are. And so you need to eat slightly fewer than what your maintenance is, like three to 500 calories fewer. But if you're again, active for 12 hours, that's not a 1200 calorie diet. That might be 2200 calories, like that sounds like a lot, but once you figure out your activity level, you're like, oh crap, I'm burning 2000 calories a day. 300 calorie deficit, oh, that comes out to, this many calories, right?
Lia: Absolutely. Yeah. A lot of construction, construction careers, you are carrying, you know, 12 foot ladders, going up and down the ladder. You have metal conduit above your head. You know, you could be holding your arms above your head for long periods of time. Screwing, bolting. It's, it's a lot physically. So, and, and also mentally and when you're, when you're that involved, when all of you is working so hard, definitely need more power.
Chris: We need, we need more calories. Yeah. But then you wanna break down, like I always view nutrition as kinda like finances, like everyone's used to finances, so it's an easy thing for us to talk about. We try to adhere to like the 80 20 principle, and if you've never heard of that, that's 80% good food, 20%, whatever you want.
Lia: I like it.
Chris: I say, all right, 80% is your healthy food. That's like your bills. That's gonna be your mortgage or rent payment. That's gonna be your gas, your car payments, blah, blah, blah. All the stuff you need to do your grocery bill. Um, if you don't pay those, life gets really rough really quick. So that's protein, fiber, fruits and veggies. But then we have 20%, like, if you just lived off bills, life would be boring. So we have 20% of that's your fun money. That's like, you want to go out and have girls' night and go to the bar? You're going on a mini vacation. Maybe it's a weekend trip. So that's like 20% of your calories.
Lia: Woo. I love it.
Chris: That's why I’m like, eat whatever you want. So I set aside with my clients like your carbs and your fats like 20%. So 2000 calorie diet, 20% would be 400 calories. So that's 400 calories. You just spend how you want and people are like, oh my god, sugar. Oh my God. It's, but 80% is like really healthy stuff.
Lia: I love that analogy. That makes so much sense.
Chris: It clicks when I say it like that with people. Okay. Yes, it's technically bad, but 80%, the rest of it's all really good. And then you don't have to do it that way. Like it could be that instead of like a Snickers at night, which is my wife's favorite food ever.
Lia: A woman after my own heart.
Chris: Or ice cream or wine, like whatever you want, like it can be just like a bigger piece of steak or an extra sweet potato at night. Like, it can just be that. So that's how I like to split up calories for people when we're talking, like trying to improve your health or like in your, you're in the field and maybe the only option is, it's McDonald's. Okay, well guess what? You have this much set aside for your unhealthy stuff. Well, guess you're using that up on McDonald's today.
Lia: Okay. All right. That makes me feel better.
Chris: That's just reality. Can you do a little bit better? Technically yes, but also what's consistent, right? Sustainable. Exactly. If you can do 350 days of being very consistent of like every day you get this, the McDonald's salad and a hamburger, and you make that work with your macros and everything and the rest of your diet looks great, but every day you just have to do that cuz that’s what fits with your work schedule. Okay. That's better than like trying to be perfect and then failing and then doing nothing for 350 days. Like you did two days really good and then 350 were just not great.
Lia: Yes, yes. Now, with all of your experience and knowledge, what is something that you really struggled with?
Chris: Ooh. Um, so I don't have like a weight loss story to like get me started. However, when I went, um, I would say when I went from working a very active job on the floor, as personal trainer for anywhere between 8 to 12 hours in a day. So not the same level of difficulty as a construction worker. Now you're gonna compare that, but it's a very active depth job where I'm moving weights around doing stuff, helping clients to, what I do now, noticing my activity level. So this happens when, I've noticed this when I've worked with construction workers who've gotten promoted and they go from, say, in the field to now they're a little bit more of a pencil pusher. Like congratulations. Like, yes, your salary just went up, but then your activity level goes down, so your habits don't change overnight, your eating habits. So you have to be careful because you just went from being active for 8 to 12 hours, to now you're sitting on your butt for eight hours. Now you have to be more conscious of getting steps. So I used to roll my eye at the thought of like, get 7 to 10,000 steps in a day. Like, yeah. Cuz I got 15,000 a day working my job. But if you get promoted and all of a sudden you go from 15,000 down to, if you don't look, a thousand.
Lia: Yeah. Wow.
Chris: Oh, that's why I'm gaining weight so easily. That's something, um, since starting my business a year and a half ago that I know it's like, why is my weight just slowly creeping? Oh, this is why, even though I'm working out every day, I'm keeping those same eating habits and I had to adjust that. So that's personally.
Lia: I love that you're, we're always learning, right? We're always like discovering, and I think that's very relatable. Especially, you know, a lot of my coworkers, journeymen, journeywomen experience what you just said, where they're in the field, they're, you know, extremely active, and then when you move up into a senior position, you tend to be more in the office, not moving around as much.
Chris: Exactly.
Lia: What would you say is something you find many people come across or struggle with that you think, if they just knew this, this one thing, that maybe it will help kind of guide them in the right direction?
Chris: One thing, uh, that's a loaded question. It usually comes back to mindset. So starting in your head. So science of weight loss. I'm not gonna say health, cuz health is a rabbit hole that you can go down we could spend hours talking about. But when it comes to weight loss, which is what, you know, we're very for in America, we have like, I think 60% of our population's overweight. So yeah, majority of people are gonna wanna talk about weight loss comes to that. It's very, very simple. Just being calorie deficit, you lose weight, might have to adjust depending on your hormones. And if you, my wife has hypothyroidism and PCOS, which makes things harder, but not impossible, right? So the science is very simple. Application, not so simple. So it starts in your head. Big thing is there's no bad foods. There's no good foods, and there's not that all or nothing, like I'm either on, I actually, my post before this was, health isn't a light switch. Like it's not, you're healthy or you're unhealthy. It's a continuum and if you can just do a, a little bit towards your goals. You're moving a thousand times faster than that person who's just sitting on the butt doing nothing. Like, oh, I'm gonna wait for the perfect timing. I'm gonna wait for the stars to align when mercury's no longer in retrograde. I'm gonna manifest the perfect routine, that's not going to happen, just like start doing something today. Like, if it's drink extra water, they're like, cool. Do. And what happens is you snowball the next thing, like, all right, I'm drinking extra water. So, well probably should start working out. And then you're working out like maybe three times a week, and then you're like, huh, I'm working out, drinking water. Maybe I should watch my diet a little bit closer. And then those habits snowball. So it's like, start with one little thing and it's probably gonna lead to changes down the road. It's just not gonna be that 30 day fix. It's gonna be that one year fix, but if you look back at 2024 and you changed your life around, like, isn't that worth it? Who cares if it was 30 days or 350 days?
Lia: Right. Right. One thing that's very special about Chris is not only is he into the nutrition, health and wellness and fitness, but he combines this with like, a lot of my coworkers will fall in love with, being outdoors. Hunting, hiking. I mean, we are, we're big. I'm a huge fisherwoman fisherman.
Chris: That's awesome.
Lia: Yeah, so that's super cool and I love the idea and really beautifully woven. Can you let everybody know some of your suggestions or how they can intertwine or get involved?
Chris: With like combining the outdoors and your health?
Lia: Yes.
Chris: I did a whole training on what's called nature therapy, which sounds super woowoo, but there's a lot of research happening in Japan where getting outside in nature by itself is really beneficial to your health. So just like being around trees, we see like, blood pressure goes down. That’s what's called your parasympathetic nervous system, which is your rest and digest. That starts to activate more and what's called your sympathetic nervous system, which is like your stress response, your fight or flight that down regulates. So as like, just being around trees as little as like, 5 to 15 minutes can give you health benefits, but the longer the better. Up until, there's a book called The Three Day Effect, which explains this, it's like super short. Um, but up to three days you see benefits, health benefits.
Lia: Wow, that's wonderful.
Chris: A great example, um, that I've experienced myself with the three day effect is, go hiking with a group of strangers for three days, like go backpacking. You're all gonna be, probably everyone's gonna be friends and super connected by the end of that trip. And there's stuff that happens to our brain during that. When you're out in nature, you're away from your cell phone, you're no longer worrying about the day-to-day stuff. Like, that's also something I love about, about hunting. Like you'll see whatever on like, just open Twitter for two seconds. You'll see what's wrong in the world. Everything. Okay, I'm gonna go hunting and I'm like, I'm watching like a fucking fox. Sorry, I cursed there, but I'm watching out.
Lia: No, we, we do here too. We're cool.
Chris: Cool, that's how I normally talk. So. Yeah. No, but like, trying to censor myself, but it's really hard. So I'm like watching this fox play around like this, in the moment. Like, this is what that fox doesn't care that you have a fucking credit score, like, it helps relax you. I like to combine like one, just your mental health, which is super important, and as 2020 we noticed everyone's mental health took a big dip.
Lia: Yeah, I completely agree. Yeah.
Chris: Nature is really important for that, but it's also great for just getting out and being active. Like it's an easy way. You don't have to go on a treadmill to get your workout in. You could just go for a hike. Like I personally hate being on the treadmill. I have one right next to me now. I use it cuz I have to, but I also use it because if I go hunting, like I try to go black bear hunting every year. So I do a rocking workout on there where I throw a way to pack on if I can't get outside and do it because I wanna be in shape. Like if I get a black bear in PA, you can't quarter it out.
Lia: Wow, I did not know that.
Chris: Yeah, so you have to drag the whole thing out.
Lia: Break it down for our non hunters. Start like, help, help us.
Chris: So if you get a big animal, so normally you hear about this with elk, moose, black bear, you have to quarter it. So take off the front and hind limbs, and then you usually have the backstraps. So that's the easiest way to get like a 200 plus pound animal outta the woods. Especially if you're in like a mile or so. Pennsylvania, you can't do that with bear. You can gut it and then you have to drag the whole thing out. So if you get a big old male, which we get, holy cow male up, holy cow in PA at 600 pounds, how are you getting that thing out? And then into your truck or car to take to the way station.
Lia: Right. You have to be in shape.
Chris: So you have to be in shape or somehow, like guys will like get like skid loaders and stuff, but in some of the game lands, you can't bring those in.
Lia: Wow. Wow. That's so cool. I had no idea.
Chris: Yeah. Weird laws. Yeah. Every state has weird laws.
Lia: Totally, totally.
Chris: We have some, we have some weird ones here in PA. Uh, My, um, assistant coach, she's a huge hunter as well, and she lives down in Tennessee. Their hunting regulations are very limited, and she's like, wait, we have like a book here in Pennsylvania, like, here's our book of regulations. She's like, here's our pamphlet.
Lia: Love it. I love it.
Chris: Different states, different rules. I like to do that. I also like to use, like when we're trying to improve our health or fitness, like if you're into the outdoors, you have these activities you really like to do and don't you wanna do them for the rest of your life? Like, nothing's worse than you hear that story of like, you'll see online, like if you're in a hunting Facebook group, my, my dad no longer goes out with me or my mom no longer goes out with me cuz they can't get up the tree stand or they're just not in shape. Don't you want to continue doing your hobby, which is usually is part of your identity for the rest of your life. Whether that's hiking, maybe it's skiing, fishing, whatever it can be. Being healthy, being active can help you do those things cuz those are really important and it sucks when you lose that part of yourself.
Lia: Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. Have you, are you familiar with the book Indoor by Cameron Hanes?
Chris: I've read about half of it.
Lia: Are you enjoying it?
Chris: I, I did, and then I got sidetracked with some podcasts. I will say it's a little slow for me, but I've also consumed so much Cam Hanes content that I'm like, I've heard this story before. I've heard this story before.
LIa: I was brand new to him, so it's a, it was a new book for me and I just ate it up. It was fantastic.
Chris: It is a good book. If you've don't know who Cam Hanes is. Great book. I've listened to so much of his content and followed him for so long. I'm like, I've heard this before. I've seen this before. It's a, it's a good book.
Lia: You're into archery, right?
Chris: Yes. Yes, I am.
Lia: That is so cool. So cool. That takes such skill.
Chris: Yes. Yeah.
Lia: What got you into that? Well, I never grew up hunting. It was always something I was really interested in, but never did it until, and this, this is kinda the story that kicked me off into the, my business and everything. So my wife battles anemia. She had an eating disorder before we were even dating or anything. She has trouble with B12 and anemia. However, because of her eating disorder, she has some GI issues and her past eating disorder, so she can't take iron supplements. Spinach is a terrible source of iron. You only absorb like 10%, or you can get injections from the hospital. Or beef, which was great until she developed an allergy for beef. So I was like, what do we do, so like, you don't become anemic? Like she's working full-time, like can't get, she's a nurse. So, strange. Long hours. As many people can relate to. So what can we do to get iron in? We weren't making enough money to buy bison all the time, which she was not allergic to. We tried venison cuz her family hunted and I was like, well I guess this year I'm gonna learn how to hunt. I bought a bow, bought a rifle. That was one of those things. I'm just gonna do a big game. I'm going to shoot one deer. Got my first deer. It was a nice nanny size doe. I'm not sure what the weight is. I didn't care, but it was, a lot to me.
Lia: It was the first one. It was the best.
Chris: Oh my God. That first like, got it. It was like, nope, this is what I'm doing for the rest of my life. Yeah. Like I, I am, I am a hunter now. This is what I'm doing. I don't care now. I will hunt anything. Uh, if I want to get out for some late season squirrel in February here. It's usually a failure, but I wanna get out and do it anyways. I love dove hunting. I love September 1st with dove hunting. They're delicious. If you've never had dove.
Lia: I've never had, but now I'm gonna try.
Chris: Do you like duck?
Lia: I do.
Chris: Best analogies. Imagine duck, but no fat.
Lia: Ooh, wow.
Chris: That's the best way for me to explain it.
Lia: Okay. Sign me up.
Chris: And they're super easy to process. It takes you like 30 seconds to process one. So, super fun. You're out with shotguns, you shoot a whole bunch cuz you miss a whole lot. So don't expect to come like, oh, we got all this meat. Like, no, it, it's more fun, Um, but if you asked me five years ago, uh, would you be planning food plots and doing all this stuff for deer? Nope. Guess what I'm doing now? It's like, spring is coming around the corner. It's time to plant our food plot. What habitat changes are we making? I'm really down the rabbit hole now.
Lia: That's so beautiful. So you started off really with just wanting to protect and serve and take care of your wife.
Chris: Yep.
Lia: Like that's fucking beautiful.
Chris: Yep. That was the whole purpose.
Lia: Wow. . Wow.
Chris: Yep. And now it's, most of our red meat will be at venison this year. We'll get like, occasional steak here or there, but I have three deer. I'm hoping for one more here in January and that's gonna be our red meat. That's what we eat for red meat for the rest of the year.
Lia: How often do you go bow hunting?
Chris: Depends on time of year, um, and our location. So I'll bow hunt. Um, so like that buck, you see, that was, that was from this year.
Lia: Oh, wow. Very awesome. Wait, that was, let's go ahead. Let's backtrack for people who are unfamiliar with bow hunting. Yes. I get ahead of myself.
Chris: Good point. So if you've never bow hunted, takes a lot more skill than, uh, rifle hunting. Not saying rifle hunting is easy by any means. But generally there's more skill involved, especially if you use a compound bow or a long bow. Um, I use a compound bow versus a crossbow. Nothing wrong with crossbow users if you need to use that.
Lia: Guys. Bow hunting is like, very difficult and a lot of skill. It is very, very hard to do. People spend an entire year and make no success, so, it’s skill.
Chris: I'll start training again in the spring to shoot my bow at 50 yards versus my rifle. I have it cited in that I can just put crosshairs on and shoot at 200 yards, right? So you have to get that deer within, or whatever animal you're hunting within 50 yards. Have it not see you. Meanwhile, their sense of smell, hearing and sight are all better than humans. And then without too much movement, so I shoot a compound bow, so I have to pull back, that's 70 pounds and then, um, it's a 70% lead off. So it's like 35 pounds I'm holding and, you usually pull back when they're not looking. So then you have to wait for it to step out for you to take a shot. So you're usually holding that trying to be steady so you don't injure the animal. Cuz that's the other thing, like not just shooting wildly you like, you want a ethical shot, one that's best for the annual. You want it to be quick and painless for the animal, but it also makes your food taste better because they're not stressed out.
Lia: Yes. Oh. Please go into if, if you don't mind. I, I'm very, I have a Jewish background, and we, we, it's a big deal for us of how you slaughter the animal, that it's super important that you're not stressing them out or that it's painful in any way. Just quick and peaceful death. Can you help us with the chemistry of this and…
Chris: Oh, okay. Yep. When you shoot an animal, you're gonna to harvest an animal in any way. Um, there's gonna be a reflex that kicks in a survival reflex, they're gonna run away. Now, if you shoot it in the heart or the lungs, it's usually going to be a very quick death because the lungs are gonna fill up with blood, or the heart's just gonna give out. Um, you can also argue that with a headshot, however, most hunters are gonna say that's unethical cuz the head moves too much and you can really mess up. There's some really bad photos and videos online in the past. It's a very small target versus, uh, you have like a 12 inch circle with like the lungs and the heart. So when the animal runs off, there's gonna be a stress response. So cortisol, same thing as humans. So we at our stress response is cortisol and adrenaline; animals, same thing. So that's going to start to spike, however, if it lasts like an injury, if that animal is able to survive, then that's going to continue to pump out adrenaline, cortisol, keep pumping out, keep pumping out, and that's where a lot of times you get that gamey flavor. And sometimes you just get a tough annual, and I had one last year. It was a doe, it was a double lung. And it took, uh, we had to leave it overnight. We went back the next morning and there it was, it survived three hours.
Lia: Holy cow.
Chris: They're tough animals.
Lia: Yes. Yes. Very resilient. But you do everything within your power to make it as quick and ethical as possible to honor the animal. And that's the best you can do.
Chris: Yep. That buck up there, it was like 30 minutes.
Lia: Wow. That's awesome.
Chris: I got down off the stand. I saw where I ran off to. Looked, there he was. Okay. And so that's just gonna be individual differences with animals. A lot of people think like you shoot it, it just like flops over. Yeah, and that does happen very rarely.
Lia: Very rare. Very rare.
Chris: You hear it every once in a while, but more often than not, it's you shoot and then you have to go. You give it time, and then you have to go and track it.
Lia: Right.. Right. It's, it's so much skill. It's so cool. I was introduced to bow hunting when I was introduced to the book Indoor. So that's how I started to like, learn about it and read about it. And then when I was listening to your podcast, I heard you mention archery, and I was like, oh, I wonder.
Chris: Yep. I, I love just shooting the bow too. I have some people are starting to get into archery just for the fun of it. Mm-hmm, because it is almost meditative, especially when you're starting to shoot at distance, if you mess up anything, your shot's off, especially as you start to move out to distance. So when you pull back, you need to make sure that your torso is in alignment, you have it in the right part of your palm. You always bring back to the same point, so you have your anchor points. So I have like a little, it's a little thing that goes to the corner of my mouth, but then the string has to come across the tip of my nose and then my first two knuckles end right here at my jaw. Those are my anchor points. If anything here is off and I'm shooting past 20 yards, shots gonna be way off. I'm gonna miss the target.
Lia: You need focus. A lot of focus. Talking about focus, can you believe the focus and fortitude it must have taken for Chris to provide for his family? Chris's story touches my heart. It all began with him just wanting to provide and protect his wife, who struggles with anemia and food allergies. His love and determination to keep his family happy and healthy is so inspiring. It gets me charged up sharing our passion for nutrition, nature, and health with all of you. Stay tuned for part two of our discussion with Chris, where we dig into the importance of having a coach and how this can be a game changer for you.
Thank you for joining us. If you felt a spark in today's episode, I invite you to write a review. I'd love to hear what lit you up. Take what resonates with you, and if you'd like to hear more of the Sparky Life, please subscribe, like, follow and share. Until next time, create the sparks in your life.