247. Transform Your Life: Empowering Women to Prioritize Health and Reduce Stress with Krystalore Crews

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This is happiness solved with America's happiness. Coach Sandee Sgarlata.

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Hello, everyone, and thank you for joining me today. I'm so happy you're here. I'm Sandee Sgarlata. I was born in Virginia Beach and raised in the Baltimore Annapolis area and had very humble and tragic beginnings. And as a result, my life was a hot mess.

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Thankfully, 33 years ago, I got my act together, and since that time, I have dedicated my life to serving others and raising awareness that no matter what you've been through, you can choose happiness and live the life of your dreams. Happiness Solved is dedicated to giving you content that is empowering, motivational, inspirational, and, of course, a dose of happiness. It's my way to give back to the world and share other people's stories. This thing called life can be challenging, and my guests share their amazing stories, wisdom, and life lessons that demonstrate anyone can choose happiness. You see, happiness is a choice, and the choice is yours.

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Today's episode is amazing, and I am so grateful for you. Thank you for listening, and don't forget to leave a review and follow me on social media at Coach Sandee Sgarlata. Enjoy the show.

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Cruz, so excited to have you here today. Love that I got to meet you here. It's so great when you just meet people that you just adore, just like that. We have great energy, and you're just beautiful. Smile and fellow athletes.

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So it's been an amazing time meeting you as oh, well, thank you. Thank you. And for those of you who are just listening and not watching this on the YouTube channel, we are live from the Bill Walsh's Ultimate Wealth Camp in Chicago. And I was just so blessed to be able to meet Krystalore Crews here. She and I were both on a panel together, which was incredible.

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So tell the listeners a little bit about you and your background and who you are. Yeah. So I'm a life fitness and business accelerator, and I'm on a mission to help empower every woman on the planet, put themselves and their health first for just 34 minutes a day so we can reduce the stress and overwhelm of life and live a more fulfilling life. And I tell you what. 34 minutes, if you can do that, that's nothing.

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Yeah. So a lot of times people say, well, I can't work out. I don't have time. I'm too tired. And what I find I had to do the work.

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Right. I looked it up. How many minutes are there in a day? There's 1440 minutes in a day, and 34 minutes is 2% of your day. Wow.

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So when you put it and you dumb it down into those numbers and you think, I can take 2% of my day, right? Because whatever works, people, right? Whatever works. Yeah. And I find that if you start with the movement, right?

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If you start with that, then you have so much more energy to pour into the rest of your day. Right. So it sounds like that's kind of been part of your routine as well. Right. So there is a synergy to our energy, right.

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How we met.

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It works, yeah. So everybody has a backstory, and I want them to hear yours because it's not that often that I know, for me, because I meet a lot of people, it's not that often that you meet women like you, especially, that have devoted over 20 years of your life to the United States of America. So thank you for your service, but go ahead, you can share it with everybody. Thank you. Yes, I've been serving in the Air National Guard for over 21 years.

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I joined when I was two. Exactly. I do have all the tips for the good skincare and the white teeth, all the things that's typically the first question, so I guess I like to start in the messy middle. And when I met the man of my dreams, he's also in the military, and we had two months notice, and when he got orders to move away from the city that I grew up in. And so I was full time in the military for almost ten years, wearing the uniform every day.

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And then we moved away with almost no notice. Now with a master's degree, all this experience, I was like, I'll be fine. I'll get a job, no worries, as soon as we get there. So we moved to Harrisburg, a really small town in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, and moved away from my family, my friends, everything I knew, and I landed in Harrisburg in the middle of nowhere, knowing no one, and I really had to start from scratch. And it was then that I really found an identity shift.

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And I was kind of going through this identity crisis because I would go to networking events and people are like, what do you do? And then they're like, Well, I just moved here. My husband got transferred here. Well, what do you do? You're just military, like, it must be.

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So like, well, I'm still in, I'm still serving, and my base is up in Niagara Falls, so I travel every three to four weeks so no one would hire me because I had to take every Thursday and Monday off. So it's not a full time.

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Yeah, it was for about ten years, and then when we moved away in the Air National Guard you serve where you live. Right. So where you choose to live? My full time position was in Niagara Falls, New York. And then so when I had to step away from that to move away, I couldn't commute every day, so I had to transfer to a part time position.

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So it landed some challenges. I did get to keep going home every month, which was great, but it just burned me out, really. And I tried applying for jobs. I had to take things off my resume. People were like, you're going to be too rigid.

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You just spent ten years in the military. We're different. So I heard it, all right? And my new position in the military ended up being diversity, equity, and inclusion consultant. So they sent me through almost two years of training and development and certifications.

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And so it was then in those moments where I started to learn the power of emotional intelligence, and I kind of went on this really big personal growth journey. And I hired a life coach who certified in transitioning services for veterans. Okay. And she asked me some powerful questions, and she started to ask, what have you been through that you can help others with? Because it sounds like you're very heart centered.

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You have these core values that you live by. You're a faith based woman. You want to help people. Is this feel this energy? And I was like, yeah, well, I was an NFL cheerleader in 2005, and I landed myself in a wheelchair.

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I was in an abusive relationship, toxic relationship, not only with the man that I lived with, but with myself and my health. I was burnt out. I was working full time, going to school full time, and then I would go to practice for 4 hours. Then I have to check in. So I was exhausted, and I certainly didn't take my nutrition seriously because I was dancing for four or 5 hours.

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So I was just eating whatever. They would feed us pizza.

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They didn't really train us on that. They taught us how to dress and how to show up in the community, but nutrition really wasn't a piece of that. However, it was a big part of our world to be fit all that's. Right. So anyways, my body shut down.

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I did a runway show for Spirit Halloween store, and I wore stiletto toe shoes, and I woke up November 1, 2005, and I could barely walk. Wow. Yeah. So my whole body shut down. Took two weeks.

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I ended up having lockjaw for three months and ended up in a wheelchair for six months while they tried to figure out what was wrong with me. And the doctors put me on all this medication. I had a pill box that was this big, no joke, and it had the amp M. I took so many supplements to offset the holes that were burning inside me. I had ulcers.

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I gained weight. I'm 411 and three quarters. You all see me sitting down. I only grow sideways when I gain weight. Don't we wish we could gain weight and we get taller?

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I could get taller, right? I might be five foot someday. But in all seriousness, I fell into depression, and it was a very challenging time to really crawl myself out of that. I couldn't even put my feet down on the ground. Fun fact, I can't touch the ground right now in this chair.

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But there was a time in my life that I couldn't even put my feet down. I had to fall out of bed, crawl for a good ten minutes before I could actually get up because I was in so much pain. And what they found was I had a really rare form of rheumatoid arthritis. And so it was in those moments back in 2005, there wasn't dr. Google where we can just have an app and say, what's wrong with me?

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And get a quick answer. I was 22 years old. I was an NFL tutor. I was a professional athlete, and I was in shape. I wasn't young, and I wasn't geriatric.

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So arthritis wasn't on their radar, so it took them a long time. I had to take steroid injections, endless amounts of prednisone for anybody that's been on prednisone. It's not pretty. I had to take a chemotherapy pill, and that was the cocktail for me to be able to walk normally. Wow.

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And so soon now, I got out of the toxic relationship with my ex at the time, and I was on this medication, and I ended up in the emergency room with my leg was filled with joint fluid from the top to the bottom. So when you think about having kinkles, those moms out there I had a. Kinkle one on a lake. Just your whole leg was like a kinkle? Yes.

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Holy entire filled with joint fluid from top to bottom. So it was the Er nurse who I recognized, she worked on the base in the military because they tried to kick me out because of the medication. Wow. So when you can't have refrigerated medication injections, like, shipped to you overseas when you're deployed right. So it didn't match up.

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So they were like, your military career is over. And she's like, no, there's got to be another way. You're an ETH. Something doesn't make sense. She was my angel, and her name is Rebecca, and she's incredible.

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We're still friends to this day. She stood up and advocated for me, and she helped me work with my doctors to safely get off all the medication. And it took an entire year. I applied for a waiver to stay in, to continue to serve, and I started running. I started walking one light post at a time, then one stop sign, then 1 mile, then I started jogging for my first five k, ten k, first half marathon.

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And I'm like, I think I can do a full marathon. And it was healing from the inside and obviously the outside as well. But I learned so much about myself and my health and nutrition and understanding the body's mechanics and chemicals and nutrition and hydration and movement and mental health and physical health and how everything just interacts. And so now I've run 26 marathons and a 50 miles race, and I don't take ibuprofen to this day. Wow.

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How many marathons was that? 26. 26. So you've run 26 marathons 26 full. Marathons and a 50 miles race.

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That's crazy. I did one marathon. Which one? Marine Corps 2006. I did the Marine Corps Marathon and I met all of my goals, which was to run the whole time and no walking to do it in less than 5 hours.

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What was the third goal? There was another one. It's like no walking. Finish under Joe. Finish just to finish it?

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Yeah, I think that was the first one. I just want to finish. Don't die, just finish it. Finish it without walking and then finish it under 5 hours. So I met all of my goals and I finished it in like 4 hours and like 54 minutes or something.

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So I was going to do another marathon. I was like, who the heck runs for 5 hours? Who runs for 5 hours? Because I'm a slow. So like if you can run faster and you can do it in three and 3 hours, that's one thing.

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But like 5 hours. So yeah, I only just did that one. Yeah, no, that's huge. That's an amazing accomplishment and I'm very. Proud of it because you know what, Crystal, or for me anything in my life and I've done some really incredible things.

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That marathon is the one thing that I go back to when I ever doubt myself of finishing something or even of starting something. I say to myself, you ran a marathon and you finished a marathon and met my goals. You can do anything. You got this. It's so huge and you learn so much about yourself.

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Oh my gosh. Through that process, if anybody's ever been through it, it's rigorous and quite honestly, you run the marathon. The hardest part is the training and it's the lead up. It's the dedication, it's the grit, it's the daily grind, it's the early mornings, it's the late nights. It's trying to figure out what you're supposed to eat and when and when you're supposed to drink and when or not to.

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And it's a combination of a combination. And I'm a marathon coach too now, so I take women from the start to the finish, which is such a blessing, but it's kind of like entrepreneurship. And so you learn so much in those dark moments, in the silent moments when you're out, just whether you're in the town or you're trying to get some inspiration online or you're sharing your runs on social media. There's just such a journey that you go on in the training cycle and I love to bring it back. To answer your question, back to the messy middle.

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I started understanding people. We were like, why do you keep going? Why do you run? You should slow down. Your knees are going to hurt some.

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Or who are you running from? What are you running away from? Well, I'll be honest, in the beginning I was running to escape. But then it wasn't until people started asking, why do you do it and you should slow down. And it kept triggering me.

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I'm like, no, I'm not going to slow down because I literally was in a wheelchair. I know what it's like to not be able to walk. I am not going to stop moving until, God forbid, something happens. But I never want to take my health and fitness for granted ever again. And I'm going to advocate for myself, and I'm going to put myself and my health first, no matter what.

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Our life depends on it because it does. It really does. And so I started asking myself the question, why do I rush? And then I did find that I was kind of escaping a lot, but I escaped to really learn and understand myself through the depths of all the pain. Not every day is rainbows and butterflies, right?

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But it was the set of accomplishment of the and now that I study the brain, the brain keeps track of the times that we show up for ourselves and we do what we say we're going to do and we show up. We don't quit when it's hard. And brain also keeps track of the times that we cancel on ourselves. So I think what we're chasing is that feeling of emotion, of accomplishment, of the brain saying, ding. There she goes again.

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Ding, ding. She did two in a row. Ding, ding, ding, ding, ding. We have all this string of amazing times where you could have rolled over, you could have hit the snooze button, but you didn't. And you showed up consistently and then exponentially over time, you achieved the results, which in this case in a marathon, you have the strength and endurance, and you've conditioned your body to break down and then build back up and be strong enough and healthy enough to endure that much of a rigorous activity for that long.

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For 5 hours is a long time. My 50 miles hour was in 9 hours and eight minutes. Oh my gosh. So I had to do 30 miles, 32 miles on a Saturday, and then I would go back Sunday and do it again. And my coach, Liza Howard, she's an amazing ultra runner.

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This girl is a beast. She delivered a child and then literally like four weeks later was lactating and pumping at the stops and still won the race. So this woman, she just conditioned me and taught me so much throughout that process. And when you show up, it's like just a victory lap. Yeah.

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So anyways, I started to unpeel the layers and figure out, okay, what were the tools? How did I? Because I didn't always share my story and now you can't get me to shut up. But okay, it's all good. Because I did realize that I needed to stand up for myself and advocate for myself and learning the tools of emotional intelligence, reflecting, setting goals, understanding, collecting feedback, understanding the emotions and everything that my body was going through.

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And then understanding how I was processing what was happening in front of me and how I was connecting with the race, which how I was connecting with life, with friends, with relationships. I really started to unpeel what was happening and I fell in love with that. Now I'm like, okay, what else can I do? And so I really love to help people shorten that time period of self doubt and overwhelm because we are our own worst critic and so many people quit when things get hard, right? And you spend a lot of time with yourself, dissecting some of the hard things and there can be some lonely days and that self sabotage can creep in, right?

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We are so nasty to ourselves. So I really love to just help people rewrite that story, set some goals and be in a beautiful community so that we can help you live a more fulfilling life. And whether it be a race, whether it be entrepreneurship, whether it be just improving the relationship with yourself in a season of change or overwhelm and stress, I know entrepreneurship is like a marathon. It's a never ending finish. You never achieve, you never really make it.

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It's a constant evolution and a constant journey. But the feelings are the same. Not every day is alike, not every day is great. But we cannot quit. And we have to show up every single day.

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Like our life depends on that's. Right? So what can you tell somebody who frequently gets into those places that you're trying to help your clients shorten that time? Yeah. So I think the first thing, because as we talked about in the beginning, that it can be so overwhelming when you take it down to 2% of your day, 30 more minutes a day, putting yourself first for 34 minutes a day is not so overwhelming.

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Right. You just say it like, I got 34 minutes. And so what I find that is if we make it simple and we have short, small actionable steps that we can take each day are non negotiables. Such as it's easier to add things to your diet than it is to take it away. So most clients, they're not eating enough and they're not drinking enough water, and what that impact that it has on their mental health and their self sabotage?

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Right? So we start there. Add nutrition, proper nutrition, making sure we're eating enough food. A lot of women, bad diets, keto, intermittent fasting, they come to me, they're like, I've tried everything, why am I not seeing results? Because we don't have a long term sustainable plan.

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So it's like on again, off again, and we have this yoyo dieting. So if we were to establish a set of non negotiables every single day, that I can stick to this understanding what foods are good for us, what doesn't work for us, and stay away from those, right? So adding food to make sure that we're eating enough, eating the meals that we need to to keep the metabolism going. That's number one. Number two.

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And I'm not a nutritionist. I sponsor flexible dieting. I eat pizza once a week. And I was expected. But you know what?

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What I've learned is that if I don't have the indulgences that I want, you're going to end up binging. So I'd rather have a bite of a piece of brownie every day than not have a brownie at all. So I'd rather have just a little bit. You can actually buy them. Do it yourself.

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Like whatever it is, do your portion control yourself. Yeah. And so learning about what is your portion size, what is the proper amount for my body type or for my blood type? There's a blood type. There's so much out there.

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Right? And so what I like to do is just bring I always say collect data, right. So we don't make any changes. Just like my coach used to say, don't eat something, try something, then wait 15 minutes. Because the brain is going to want to do all these things all at once.

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But if we just slowly, one step at a time, just try something, see if it works, add something else. Right? So nutrition is number one. Hydration is number two. Making sure we're eating or drinking enough water, at least half our body weight in ounces per day.

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So that's a quick tip. Good benchmark. Yes. You're going to go to the bathroom a lot. But the good part about that is you get more steps, so you burn more calories.

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And so it's a win win. And you're conditioning your body. And what people don't recognize is like, if you're really hungry, drink 16oz of water and it'll hold you over to your next meal. Perhaps have a headache, drink a bunch of water. A lot of times the water will get rid of the headache instead of popping a pill.

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Exactly. Or sleep. So sleep is the next one. Yes. Making sure we have enough sleep so that we can recover our body.

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And then movement, at least 30 minutes of movement per day so that we can really flush everything out. And all of those, you get 30 minutes of movement. You get at least 6 hours of sleep. Sleep is overrated. No, it's not.

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Sleep is not overrated. No, you need it. And I learned the hard way. Right. I know we haven't had much sleep this week and I'm feeling it for sure, but yeah, 30 minutes of movement, sleep, hydration, nutrition, it's a combination of things.

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And so I think just having those set standards for your life quick, I'm going to do this and then I'm going to try this. Like really small habits and then they just amplify over time. So that's really the first step. The second piece of this is the inner critic inside of us. Right.

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We need to be able to give ourselves credit and celebrate the things that we have accomplished and start with gratitude. So the 34 minutes movement is two minutes of gratitude and goal setting in the morning. So powerful affirmations to start the day. And then we time block the day for our priorities, such as the 30 minutes of movement. And then we take two minutes at the end of each day to bookend the day and celebrate and connect with the emotions that you had.

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What got in the way? So I ask myself every single day, how were my intentions? Would I fire myself today? Did I do my workout with no judgment, but just really collecting that data? And so this is a great system to hold myself accountable because especially as an entrepreneur, we run multiple businesses from my home and I'm traveling all over the place.

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My bags are always packed. My husband and I, he's in DC right now. We're here in like being healthy and staying fit and staying active is really hard, especially when you're an airport or a hotel conference like this. It's not always the most healthiest, and. It'S not always easy to get yourself out of bed and do the workout right.

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So I did develop a system, and I have a planner that helps structure this to help hold yourself accountable. So you don't need to buy my planner or fancy journal or anything, but if you do, I'd be happy to give you that information. But it's just a system that you can help hold yourself accountable and feel really good about the daily actions that you are taking. And if we're in that space, hopefully those voices become louder than the negative critics of maybe the outside forces, some things that have happened in the past, or just that voice that inside you, I know I need for more, but maybe you're not going to. Maybe you shouldn't do that.

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Maybe you should just sleep in. And so we hope that with this constant system that you're going to achieve your goals and you're going to live a more fulfilling life. And then the last piece of this get in community, because we can do that alone. We have to have our own reflection system. But then what's cool is when we get in community and be like, hey, did you do your workout today?

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You said you were going to write that book. I saw it on Facebook. I just did my cover at the Rainmakers Summit a couple of days ago. I put it on the alumni thing. I just did that.

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Oh, did you? Yeah. Oh, wow. And so did a couple of the other people that were in the group. So it's so cool to be able to, like I'm around other people that are doing going after the scary things and we take action, right?

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We write it down. We say it out loud like, hey, I'm going to write my next book. Okay, when are you going to do that. Well, let's do it. Let's just create the create the COVID Let's talk about it.

00:26:04
So community is so powerful, whether it be in fitness or entrepreneurship, anything that you're struggling with, maybe you're recovering from an illness or an injury, we tend to feel very alone and then we cocoon. So my hope is that, yeah, you sit with it, you feel and deal. And yes, I have energy and I'm very positive, but I process the brain processes through, and I have a 48 hours rule in my world. My husband's an extreme introvert. And so what I found when we had conflict in our relationship, we have a beautiful marriage, but when we have any conflict in conversation or something comes up, I recognize that he needed 48 hours for me, talking, I process by talking, but he processes by sitting in his moments, right.

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For 48 hours, he always comes back. I never have to ask him like, hey, can we have a conversation?

00:27:02
And so what I found in my communities, I build communities of incredible women going after their dreams and goals, and some of them are right here at the summit. And it's so powerful to be able to bring a team here that is cultivated through this community, but we don't go more than 48 hours without connecting with one another. Wow. So if you run a group or maybe you do this in your family or in your circle, your friend circle or masterminds, it's so powerful to say, you know what? I can be alone and feel and deal and kind of go through things and just sort it out.

00:27:32
But then we don't wait more than 48 hours before coming back into the group and saying, hey, I need help. Here's what I'm working on, here's what I'm going through. How can I help you? Because a lot of times getting into a space of service can pull you out of that or I need help and receiving that help and being able to just be grateful that you have a beautiful community. So that's a rule in my groups.

00:27:58
So hopefully that's a good tip for someone. I love it. Yeah, I love it. And you can apply that to so many areas of your life as well. So where can people find you and learn more about some of the programs that you're offering your customers and future customers?

00:28:12
Yeah, so I'm on all the socials kristaloracruz. It's K-R-Y-S-T-A-L-O-R-E. Last name is Cruz Crews and my website is Kristaloracruise.com. I'd love to have a conversation, just connect. I am a real human and I value connections so much.

00:28:30
I build communities of incredible people just having conversations, trying to live happier and healthier. I'd love to have a conversation. I do have a free habit tracker as well to help set up a 30 day system for yourself of daily non negotiables. So you. Can track things off, and so I'd love to offer that as a gift as well.

00:28:48
And where can people get that? So it's crystalloracruise.com habit tracker. Okay. I'll make sure that's in the show notes so people can go there and get that habit tracker. It sounds incredible.

00:28:58
And I get to cheer you on throughout the way, so you get to hear from me too, and you can book a call and we can have even better. Even better. Crystal, Laura, thank you so much for joining me today. It's been just such a privilege to meet you, and I can't wait to see you at some of the future events now that we're a part of this group here together. Yes.

00:29:18
Thank you so much. I appreciate you. All right, thank you. Thank you, everyone.

00:29:33
I certainly hope that you enjoyed today day's interview. Thank you so much for joining me. And as always, I hope that you and your family are healthy and safe and that your lives are filled with. Peace, joy, and happiness. Take care, everyone.