When it comes to optimising our wellbeing and setting ourselves up to be able to comfortably achieve at the highest level, there are three metrics that I get all my high performing clients to track.
These are the 3 metrics that matter the most when it comes to optimising your wellbeing, performance and quality of life both for you now and future you as well.
Nailing these 3 metrics helps ensures you hit the goals and outcomes you want.
In this episode I share:
- What exactly are the 3 metrics that matter the most
- How high performance people can neglect their health
- What exactly is ‘energy’ and what we mean when we refer to it as a metric
- Why you don’t always need to use energising activities like cold baths and can look elsewhere
- The importance of consistency of appetite and managing cravings
- What you should do to implement regular meals and a new nutrition plan if you never have before
- Why ‘performance’ is the most individualised metric of the 3
- How to make the 3 metrics work together
- How using these metrics can increase your output and ability in work and performance
- The unmentioned 4th metric to look at after you’ve mastered the main 3
Key Quotes
“The beautiful thing about having more consistent meals is it delivers more consistent energy levels.”
“When it comes to nutrition…it is literally exactly the same as any other type of training. It takes time.”
“I truly believe you can have it all but it does take approaching it from a different lens.”
Episode Resources
Jessica Spendlove Website – www.jessicaspendlove.com
Jessica Spendlove Keynotes – JessicaspendloveKeynotes – Jessica Spendlove
The High-Performance Profile Quiz https://jessicaspendlove.com/quiz/
Jess Spendlove Instagram https://www.instagram.com/jess_spendlove_dietitian/?hl=en
Jess Spendlove LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/jessica-spendlove-64173bb8/
About Your Host
Jessica Spendlove | Wellbeing Speaker & High Performance Strategist
Jess Spendlove is an international wellbeing and high performance speaker, coach, and advisor. With over 15 years of experience across corporate leadership, elite sport and the military she is known for helping ambitious leaders and teams optimise energy, build resilience, and sustain peak performance.
As one of Australia’s leading performance dietitians and a trusted voice in executive wellbeing, Jess delivers science-backed strategies that empower individuals, teams and organisations to thrive under pressure and achieve long-term success.
Episode Transcript
The following transcript has been automatically generated and not checked for accuracy
Jess (00:06.414)
Team, today I wanted to have an important conversation about the three metrics that matter the most when it comes to optimizing your wellbeing, your performance and your quality of life, both for you now and for future you as well. Today I’m talking about the three metrics, energy, appetite and performance. These are the three metrics that I get every single client and athlete that I work with to track.
This is their North Star. This is their compass. These are the metrics that we need to nail to not only show we’re on the right path to achieving the goals or the outcomes we want, but we’re also doing it in a way that is sustainable and maintainable, which is key when we’re looking at the longevity piece. Now, before we get into today’s episode, I wanted to share a thought.
more of a reflection piece for yourself. In a world that’s dominated by loud notifications and the relentless chase of numbers and milestones, perhaps the true markers of our well-being and performance are the subtle whispers of our energy, appetite and our overall performance. While it’s enticing to consistently aim for the peak, it’s crucial to remember that peaks are
not lived on. And the real measure of our success may just be in the quality of our rest at night and the vibrancy which we wake up. It’s really in the simple things. So I guess a question for you to reflect on as we move through this episode is how are you ensuring that today’s peak performance isn’t paving the way for tomorrow’s burnout? Now on that note, let’s get into today’s episode. Sorry.
Now on that note, let’s get into today’s episode. When it comes to the three metrics that matter the most, this is about optimizing wellbeing, performance, and your overall quality of life, which I know is what you’re here for if you’re listening to this podcast. With the types of clients I work with and interact with, they are very driven operators, just like yourself. And look, that might be in their career, their business, their sport.
Jess (02:33.066)
or overall in life. They want it all and I’m here for that. These people are often very outcome focused, which I support, I understand. I’m the same. But what I am not here for is focusing on the outcomes or the goals at the expense of your health and your wellbeing, whether that’s now or for future you.
I don’t believe people are deliberately neglecting their health and their wellbeing intentionally. Sometimes I think it’s really difficult when you’re wired for success that you’re so focused on your goal and your outcome that you don’t see or feel or acknowledge the little cues and the little signs that were being given.
I get it. That was me too for a decade when I was working in pro sport with hundreds if not thousands of professional athletes all at one time managing six different teams across six different codes Having junior dietitians and interns and running a business. I was so fixated on helping and supporting the athletes in the
clients to thrive, my business to thrive, that honestly I was neglecting myself and my health. Not intentionally, but it was just a byproduct of what I was placing above that. Interestingly, I also present a series of six sessions each year to the Australian Defence Force School of Special Operations and each year we run through a multitude of information to help support all that they do. Now,
These are the top of the top when it comes to the defence force with what they do, the training that they do, and also how resilient their mindset is. I think this is the perfect example of how when you are so outcome focused and so resilient and so strong that you have the capacity to push through anything. But the key learnings to support all of them. This really is the perfect example of being so resilient.
Jess (04:33.118)
so strong, so focused and so well trained that you’re able to push through.
Jess (04:50.708)
This is the perfect example of someone being so resilient, so mentally strong, so focused on the outcome that they push through anything. There’s nearly a drive to need to suffer. A lot of the sessions that I run is the concept of
optimizing wellbeing, optimizing performance, leveraging the power of nutrition to elevate all that they do, which matters for the now, but also importantly is more about that longevity piece and helping them stay at the top, which again is the overarching theme of this entire podcast. I really believe tuning into the metrics that matter are clues to help you sustain your peak for as long as possible.
I really believe tuning into the metrics that matter are clues to help you achieve your peak, sustain a level of high performance, but also manage your overall health and wellbeing. Oh my God. I believe tuning into the metrics that matter are the clues. I believe tuning into the metrics that matter is the key to how to achieve peak performance, sustain a high output.
but also manage your health and your wellbeing, be it your physical or mental now, and for future you as well. The three metrics I get all of my high performing clients that I work with one-on-one, and also I’ve started to do this activity in a lot of the workshops that I run as well, is having a pulse check on energy, appetite, and performance.
Now, normally at this point I would ask my client or the audience to let me know which metric matters the most to them. Yes, I have the people that say all of them, which is totally fine. So…
Jess (06:46.878)
At this point, reflect on which one maybe is the highest value to yourself. There is no right or wrong answer here. And I’ll let you in on a little secret. With everything that I talk about in the coming episodes and the few that I’ve already recorded, all three of these things will improve when you start to nail the right principles and methods for yourself. So, whether that is with your training and your movement, whether that’s with your mindset,
and nutrition, your energy, your appetite and your performance should all be positively impacted. It’s a really big green flag that you are on the right track. The other thing is it needs to be sustainable. It needs to be easy. Now this doesn’t mean if you’re introducing some new training that you’re not going to be sore. That is a byproduct of you pushing your body which is important for cardiovascular health, mental health, physical resilience but
You don’t need to hate it. You don’t need to suffer. You don’t want to injure yourself. So there is a difference there. So these are the differentiators that we’re going to be talking about. So today I want to zoom in on each of these three key metrics and I hope that one.
or maybe all of these resonate to you and you can start to pay attention to what your body and your brain may already be telling you and you can start to look for those green flags or clues on what is an improved behavior for yourself.
Jess (08:31.238)
Now, the first metric that I want to talk about is energy. This is multifaceted and multilayered. When we think about energy, there’s a few factors here. We can be talking about overall elevated energy. We can also be talking about more stable energy levels. So goodbye to the afternoon slump.
goodbye to the crash and burn, but we can also be talking about consistency across the week. So it’s elevated, it’s consistent daily, but it’s also looking at your energy management and your energy patterns across the weeks and months. Now, energy is often the metric that will shift the fastest and is the most obvious for a lot of people. Although it won’t necessarily present in the moment,
it may be more retrospectively. So what I mean by this is when you put in principles that are going to support your overall well-being and performance, it may be more when you get to the end of the day, you retrospectively look back and you go, wow.
I didn’t have that energy crash and burn in the afternoon like I normally do. Or, gosh my energy levels have been a lot better across the day. So this is where at the end of the day you might look back and you might retrospectively acknowledge that shift. That’s likely to be the case when we’re thinking about that consistency or more stable energy across the day. In some instances it can come in a more elevated moment at that
present time. So an example of this might be if you’re new to training in the morning, or you’ve just started doubling in cold showers or ocean swims, so cold water therapy. If that’s something new to you and you’ve just started, you may notice immediately after that, that wow, I’ve just got this.
Jess (10:22.502)
increased energy. I’m feeling vibrant, alive, I’m ready to go. So that can be delivered from an instantaneous like practice or behavior or strategy. So while we want to have behaviors that do promote this elevated energy in the moment, we do want to be looking for those more consistent energy levels across the day. So both are important but what we’re doing is we’re looking to elevate and then sustain. And I’m here to tell you that both are possible.
The thing is, if you’ve never done something or you don’t know it exists, the thing is, if you’ve never felt a new level of energy, whether that’s elevation or whether that’s consistency.
How do you know it exists? So my hope for you is that you test and trial these different principles, whether that’s related to your nutrition, whether that’s related to your sleep, whether that’s related to your movement or other high performing behaviors, you test them and see what works for you. You measure that on your energy, you measure that on your elevation of energy, you measure that on your consistency of energy, and you also measure it in terms of it being a sustainable, enjoyable practice for yourself.
Cold baths and cold plunges and cold showers are all the rage at the moment and there is so much benefit, but if it’s not for you, that’s totally fine. So if you’re looking to have that increase in energy or increase in mood from doing something like that, try it a few times. If it doesn’t work for you, we can pivot. There’s so many other ways that we can do that. So I just wanna put this out there. Test, trial, calibrate, measure, but know this.
I have a number of clients in their 40s, both early, mid and late.
Jess (12:09.986)
who are currently telling me that through a number of personalized strategies and principles that have been applied to their life and their goals, that they currently have the best energy of their life. And that’s for both elevation, but also consistency. So this is what I’m here for, this is what we’re looking for, and this is why this is number one in the metrics that matter. Now,
The next metric is appetite. So this one is really looking at consistency of appetite, but also cravings. What we’re doing here is we want to bridge the gap between swinging from being starving to super full. If we’re bouncing between those two things, it’s an indicator that we don’t have our performance nutrition principles nailed. So please go and listen to the first episode where I talk more about that.
Ideally what we want to be doing is entering each meal and snack feeling a little bit empty, but not starving and ravenous. When we’re starving, we tend to eat faster, we tend to eat quicker, and then we can often overeat. And that’s because our stomach, which promotes our appetite hormones and releases them to our brain to tell them that.
we’re satisfied, that takes time. So if we’re starving, hoovering down our meal, we don’t have that ability to allow enough time for that communication to happen between the brain and the stomach and the brain and that’s why we can go from starving to over full in like three seconds and it’s we look back and we go how did that happen?
That’s why. And that’s also why we wanna be entering each meal, feeling like we’re ready to eat, but we’re not starving. So there may be a point in time where you’re… So in saying that, there may be a point in time where you need to undergo some nutrition training. If you’ve never developed the habit of being consistent, you’re not exactly sure what to eat.
Jess (14:17.33)
everything’s erratic, we have no consistency, we need to train our body and our brain to know what it needs. And that’s where we embark on a journey like this where we listen to these types of podcasts, we get in the worlds of experts, or we potentially even engage them one-on-one to help us. So, again, you don’t know what you don’t know. And I think with nutrition, it’s interesting because we all eat, we all have biases, we all have interest pieces.
we all eat, but we don’t necessarily know how to strategically eat and leverage the power of nutrition, which is really what I want to teach each of you. So there may be a point in time where you need to go undergo nutrition training and this is something I talk to a lot of athletes about, but I’m also starting to talk to more like corporates, leaders, executives and entrepreneurs, people that are out there looking to get the most out of themselves in their day,
Jess (15:16.832)
and their brain to know what to eat and when to eat and to elicit the response that they’re wanting. This is about being proactive not reactive and that is when you’re going to get the absolute best out of yourself.
If you have never had breakfast or you’re a two or three meal a day kind of person and through listening to some of the information I’m putting out you’re hearing me talk about protein at breakfast and you hear me talking about the everyday snack You don’t just click your fingers learn that information and apply it and do it You need to layer it in you need to train yourself to be able to tolerate it You need to give yourself the space and the time to observe the benefit
and you potentially also need to persist with it. The example I like to give here is someone who has never been to the gym or, you know, few classes, but they’re not really into lifting. And then they go, I wanna squat 100 kilos. And maybe at the moment they can squat, I don’t know, 20 or 30 kilos. Do they just go, oh, I wanna squat 100 kilos, I’m gonna walk into the gym and do that?
No, they don’t. It requires training, commitment, the right program, the right technique, likely a coach or a PT or someone to help guide them. My point is it takes time. It takes training. So when it comes to nutrition, for example,
I don’t know why people think I learn the thing, I do the thing. It is literally exactly the same as any other type of training or learning or education that we go, that we embark on. It takes time. So take the same philosophy and the same approach when it comes to making adjustments to your nutrition. Take the same philosophy and the same approach when it comes to your nutrition. You are on nutrition training.
Jess (17:15.108)
to having it, for your brain to trust that it’s going to consistently get it because it’s not something you’ve done before and then all of a sudden you’re responding in such an improved way. You’re getting to your meals and you’re feeling a little bit empty but not starving, you’re not overeating and getting super full and most interestingly those cravings that you were having in the afternoon or evening pretty regularly or daily, they’ve
Jess (17:44.994)
This is why appetite, which consists of that consistency piece, but as well as the cravings, is one of those key metrics that really matters. So the thing here is about being more proactive with your strategy as it will largely buffer a lot of these inconsistent responses that you’re having. And often the solution to this is more consistent protein intake, aka protein pulsing.
increasing your fiber, increasing your hydration, and more consistent meals, which is something that I covered off in the second episode all around conquering your cravings. So if you haven’t listened to that, I’d suggest going back and listening. The beautiful thing about having more consistent meals is it delivers more consistent energy levels, more stable blood sugar levels, more stable focus, and likely greater physical and cognitive output. So get this right and you will reap the benefits.
The third metric that really matters is around performance, which is probably of all three of these metrics that matter, the most individualized of them. This is because different types of high performers have different values and some may value more physical performance, others may value more cognitive performance. You may also be the person that values both, which again, totally fine, we’re here for all of it. When we’re thinking about physical performance,
This might precipitate in terms of output in training, strength in the gym, recovery, time to fatigue at your max when you’re pushing yourself to your absolute maximum. When we’re thinking cognitive performance, this is more like your productivity, your focus, your time to complete tasks. It may also be skill execution as well. So whether we’re talking in the corporate landscape or in the sporting field. So they’re kind of the difference between the two.
might be important but for others it may be more one than the other. The thing is with this metric when the top two so your energy and your appetite are dialed in
Jess (19:59.486)
So when this metric, as well as the top two, the energy and appetite are dialed in for say a busy corporate or an entrepreneur, what this can look like is the same amount of work being done in less time, which means more time for family or for hobbies or for socializing or for your health and fitness. Or if you’re in a season of growth, it may mean more work in the same time. That is valuable.
That is a significant game changing outcome, which really matters, but to get that outcome, it’s about dialing into these metrics that matter and applying the principles that are going to get you there. Ultimately, there is no right or wrong on which metric is the most important. And the best news is when you start to apply consistent,
performance-based principles, behaviors that optimize your overall sleep, nutrition, movement, and mindset, you will improve all three of these. The key here is that it is easy for you to do, it is consistent, it is sustainable, it’s something that works for you, it’s something that you enjoy, and it’s something that you can embed into your life. When you start to feel more, when you start to feel like you’ve got more energy or your energy levels are more consistent, or overall,
When you start to have more elevated energy or more consistent energy levels or your appetite is more consistent, all those cravings that you’ve had for your whole life or as long as you can remember have been silenced, significantly reduced or even eradicated. When you’re at work and you’re noticing your cognitive output and your productivity is elevated, you’re getting through more work than you’re used to or you’re getting through the same amount of work in less time. If you’re an athlete who’s training or if you’re a corporate who’s training for something,
and you’ve got greater output in training, you’re recovering better, your DOMS is reduced, your physical output is at a higher elevation. These are the green flags that you were on the right track. Now
Jess (22:06.63)
There is a fourth metric but I don’t talk about this with everyone but I just wanted to briefly touch on it here. It’s not applicable to everyone and also the first three metrics are still the metrics that matter the most and then we layer it in. The fourth one is body composition. Now
I can’t deny that people come and see me and want some sort of body composition optimization. So that may be in the form of gaining muscle or maintaining their weight but changing composition or it may be someone wanting or needing to lose some body fat for some health outcomes. So the thing is the three metrics that I’ve mentioned here today still matter the most.
Jess (22:53.296)
and our performance with respect to the strategies that we’re applying to elicit this body composition change. So, regardless of which goal… So regardless of which goal to…
So regardless of which goal you may be chasing, if this is relevant for you, to achieve and sustain these for the longterm, we need to get these first three elements in check. And if they’re not, it means the strategies that we’ve got are not longterm sustainable solutions. They’re quick fixes, they’re going to help us feel good in the moment, but then we’re gonna yo-yo and be in a worse position. That’s not what we want. That’s not what we’re here for. It’s 2023, there’s better ways to do things
today. So to summarize the three metrics that matter are energy, appetite and performance and these are universal for all high performers no matter who you are, where you’re starting from, if you’re no matter who you are, no matter where you’re starting from and no matter what matters most to you. When you’re driven with big goals and big dreams it can be really easy to focus on those and somewhat neglect ourselves in the process as well.
I truly believe when we’re driven with big goals and dreams, it can be easy to focus on that and somewhat neglect ourselves in the process. That’s why having this check-in point on, that’s why having this pulse check on the metrics that truly matter, that truly deliver results, both now and in the longterm is so incredibly important.
I truly believe you can have it all, but it does take approaching things from a different lens, a potentially slower, more sustainable, but more compounding long-term way. It’s not about quick wins and instant gratification, it’s about the journey, it’s about the process, and it’s about the long-term results which will ultimately be so much better than you even imagined. If this episode resonates with you, drop me a message on Instagram or LinkedIn and let
Jess (25:00.38)
the most important metric to you and what you’re dialing in to help you not only get to the top of your goals, but stay there. If this episode resonates with you, drop me a message on Instagram or LinkedIn, I’m really active on both, and let me know the most important metric for you or that you’re going to be dialing into. I really hope this episode not only helps you get to the top, achieve your goals, but most importantly, stay there. Thanks for joining me for this video. I hope you enjoyed it.
Thanks for joining me today. If you’d like some support to optimize your nutrition or high performing behaviors and you like what I’m about, please visit my website and see the offerings that I have that may work for you. At the moment, my one-on-one options include fast impact strategy sessions and premium coaching programs, which are a concierge style support program that are truly transformational. You can find more information in the show notes, otherwise I’ll be back again same time next week.