Fill Up Your Cup, with Dallas Heath – TPW272

Nutrition and wellness coach Dallas Heath has a lot of insight on how health affects productivity.

Self-care (including nutrition and fitness) and productivity

Nutrition and wellness coach Dallas Heath works as a Lead Coach for MetPro, a concierge health coaching program. Dallas lives in California, where she enjoys lifting at the gym, walking in nature, practicing a variety of martial arts, taking dance classes, and shooting at the archery range. She also devotes time to nutrition advocacy in a variety of ways, including volunteering at a local nonprofit that focuses on improving food insecurity in impoverished areas.

Dallas has been interested in nutrition and fitness from a young age. She entered the fitness industry at age 17 and got involved in competitive body-building. By 19, she was managing her own gym. After that, she moved on to managing supplement shops, took some time to travel, and coached some people along the way helping to improve their lives.

She went on to get her bachelor's degree in nutrition management and focused a lot on child development during that time. She wanted to help people create great habits from the beginning rather than having to undo the bad habits accumulated over the years. Her interest in child development led her into doing policy and advocacy work so underserved children could get proper nutrition through school lunches and, ultimately, the same opportunities as more privileged kids.

A typical day

Dallas wakes up between 6 and 6:30 am. She spends a few minutes stretching and getting her body moving. Then she checks in with herself to process the dreams she had the night before and her present emotions and getting into a mindset of intention.

She then gets back into reality, gets her hair and make-up done, gets dressed, grabs her lunch out of the fridge and heads out the door. On her way to work stops by her go-to coffee shop. Right after she orders her coffee, she writes in her gratitude journal. It's important for her to be in a good place when she's talking to her clients, so she gets herself into a positive mindset by listing and pondering a few things she's grateful for before she starts her workday.

As soon as she gets into work, she has a team meeting. She finds that eating breakfast at work takes some of the pressure off her, so she throws together a quick and simple meal, and jumps into work.

Her first priority is responding to client messages and "putting out fires." Then she tends to her clients. It's hard to say exactly how much time she will spend with each client because they each have different needs. Some days, the day gets away from her, and other days she's ahead of the game. She has learned to roll with it.

She has an hour lunch break, so she uses that time to either work out or go for a walk or drive. After her break, she returns to work and tends to her clients again or goes through her to-do list.

At the end of the workday, she shuts down her work, because she believes it is very important to have a disconnect from work and personal life. She has a lot of things she likes to do after work. On Mondays, she goes to Taichi and Jiujitsu. On Tuesdays, she does archery. On Wednesdays, she takes violin lessons. On Thursdays, she's at the gym. On Fridays, she takes dance classes. She likes to schedule these on her calendar, but she doesn't like to turn them into obligations.

By 8 or 9 in the evening, she's back home. She listens to audiobooks or sometimes journals for a bit and winds down for the night. Then she goes to bed.

I had the pleasure of working with Dallas as my health coach through MetPro for a few weeks. I really appreciated her help in getting a better handle on my own nutritional...