Christmas Abbott; My Core 4 Supplements I Don’t Leave Home Without

Content by: Christmas Abbott


The above video is 6:36 minutes long.

Watch the full interview below or listen to the full episode on your iPhone HERE.

Guy: Make no mistake, Christmas Abbott knows her stuff! With a wealth of life experience under her belt, she shares her wisdom at what it takes to be your best self in all endeavours. Her impressive resume includes athlete, author, speaker, business entrepreneur and a NASCAR pit crew front tire changer.

She was a self-destructive path when young, life intervened to set her on a whole new direction. Her mission now is to be the inspiration for others. So sit back and join us as we hang out and have fun with Christmas Abbott. Enjoy!

Christmas Abbott

 

“Conquer your fears. The most rewarding things in my life have scared the crap out of me.” – Christmas Abbott

 

Christmas Abbott Full Interview:
From Self-Destruction to Inspiration (& Building a Badass Body)

Audio Version

downloaditunesListen to StitcherQuestions we ask Christmas in this episode:

  • Tell us about your job in Iraq, were you close to the war?
  • What was the catalyst that led you to focus on your health?
  • How important is recovery for you and what strategies do you use?
  • Tell us about your book ‘The Badass Body Diet’
  • What are your 3 must-have’s to crush it in business?
  • What advice would you give to an 18yr old version of yourself who lacks direction?
  • And much much more…

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Full Transcript

Guy:
Hey, this is Guy Lawrence from 180 Nutrition and welcome to today’s health sessions. We have another rock star guest for you today and her name is Christmas Abbott. If you’re not familiar with her work, I think the best way to describe Christmas is cool. I even asked her the question how would you best describe yourself and she struggled as well so that’s fine for an introduction. But look, in a nutshell, she’s a business owner, she’s a crossfit competitor, Olympic lifter, a head trainer and she’s also been a NASCAR pit crew front tire changer as well which is exceptionally impressive for the resume.
Christmas has been on our list for a while to reach out to and get on the podcast and once I heard she was coming to here in Australia in April I thought we’d better get our act together and reach out to her and she kindly come on and shared a lot of her wisdom for you. She’s an amazing entrepreneur. She’s an exceptional athlete, she’s got a very successful crossfit gym as well and she’s also got a very impressive social media presence as well so she really is doing some amazing things. She’s just reduced a new book as well and I think that’s what part the tour is, is coming across along with her seminars.
The one thing I loved about Christmas after meeting her today on the podcast was that she’s the real deal. She wears her heart on her sleeve. She says it as it is and is very open to sharing her wisdom and from the mistakes she’s learned in the past being younger and what’s guided her to such great success today as well. I have no doubt you’re going to get a lot out of this podcast. Once I knew she was coming, I reached out to the event organizers and basically twisted their arm so they’ve kindly offered us a discount code for anyone of 180 listeners that want to go to Christmas Abbott’s seminars.
[00:02:00]
All you have to do is go back to christmasabbott.com and there’s a big button called Australia . You click on that and you can enter in the checkout when purchasing a ticket, xmas180 and that will give you a fifteen percent discount on any of the seminars that she’ll be holding which will be I think Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane. I’ll be hanging out at the Brisbane ones myself personally. The topics covered will be nutrition, weight lifting and also business and it will be segmented into three but all the details are over there. All you have to do is head over to Christmas Abbott’s website and enter that code XMAS180 when purchasing. Let’s go over to Christmas Abbott, enjoy. Awesome. All right, should we get into it?
Stu:
Sure.
Christmas:
Yeah.
Guy:
All right, one sec. Okay, cool. Hi, this is Guy Lawrence. I’m joined with Stewart Cook as always. Hey Stu.
Stu:
Hello mate.
Guy:
Our lovely guest today is Christmas Abbott. Christmas, welcome to the show.
Christmas:
Hi guys, thanks for having me. I’m so excited.
Guy:
That’s awesome. The one thing that’s clear, I’ve been following you on social media and digging into your background a bit and you have many strings in your bowl for sure. Yeah. My first question to you is, if you were in a cocktail party and a complete stranger came up to you and said, “Hi, what do you do?” What would you say?
Christmas:
[00:04:00]
Man, I lead with I’m an athlete and beyond that, I kind of let it lie because if they’re not in it, then they don’t really understand but if I really want to explain to somebody what I do, I kind of let them know that I’m a fitness guru and just an aggressive entrepreneur. I’m an athlete, I’m a coach but I love the business side of things. My goal in my work which is my agency, our working out, our coaching is to create daily inspiration and that’s a mantra that I have with my agency.
Guy:
Fantastic. I was thinking as well, if you were rewinding the clock ten years ago, would you ever thought it would have morphed into where you’re at today?
Christmas:
Oh man, I’ve been doing crossfit for eleven years. I’ve been doing fitness for about twelve years, give or take some months and honestly, I just thought that I found something beautiful that I can control and was good for me. My history as in adolescence and early adulthood was that I was just really into drugs, really into rock and roll and was a little party animal. Now I’ve morphed that party animal into a fitness animal.
Stu:
Brilliant, fantastic.
Christmas:
I never would have known that this is my life. I would have thought that I kind of would have been doing something business based because I’ve always had a passion for business but I never would have thought that I can morph two things that I really was not predestined to do and really created that path myself.
Guy:
Yeah, no, that’s awesome. That’s amazing because we’ve been kind of on our path for the last six years with 180 and can really appreciate the hard work that would go into what you must do every single day to get where you’re at right now.
Christmas:
[00:06:00]
People see the success and they see ultimately the top of the pyramid and they don’t understand how long it took to build that pyramid or iceberg, glacier, whatever you want to call it. There is so much grind everyday. I wake up and I think about it, I go to sleep thinking about it, I dream about it. You don’t clock out. Somebody said recently or I saw in a meme recently that work that you aren’t in love with is called stress. Work that you’re in love with is called passion and the different approach really yields different results. Obviously, you’re passionate about what you do so you never clock out and that’s okay.
Stu:
Exactly. I love it. It’s a great way to look at it. I wanted to rewind a little bit pre crossfit and pre your business. I read that you had a job in Iraq and you were very close to the war zone and I just wondered whether you could tell us a little bit about that please.
Christmas:
That’s so funny that you say I was very close to the war zone because I was in it.
Stu:
Right.
Free Health Pack
Christmas:
I was in it. It was the most traumatic experience of my life and the most exhilarating, life changing experience of my life. It was kind of like that double edged sword of the intensity of crossfit. It’s like the best thing ever but also, you’re kind of like, please kill me now. It was that experience for four full years. I was twenty one when I applied. I kept at it and then eventually a month after my twenty second birthday, I went into Iraq, completely ill prepared on my behalf because I didn’t pay attention in class and I was in the middle of a war zone.
I was in Baghdad international where the IZ was, International Zone and that was where the embassy is and we were working with Iraqi’s to reconstruct the city politically and infrastructure and it was just such a magical time to be doing something period. It was just incredible. I had no idea what I was getting into. Three weeks in, I mean, you heard mortars and stuff but like, three weeks in, we had incoming into the camps so it was a couple hundred meters from where I was.
[00:08:00]
Meaning that like, it was probably about three hundred meters from where I was sleeping and I leaped out and I just had such an epiphany of holy shit, I’m in a war zone and why am I here? What am I doing? What is my purpose? Why am I still smoking? Why am I still drinking? Why am I not paying attention to what I should be for safety protocols and then holy shit, I’m going to end up killing myself because of the decisions that I’m making and it was just one of those epiphanies that I just knew in that moment that I didn’t want to die and I didn’t want to essentially by a choice, commit suicide.
I will tell you that it wasn’t like suddenly this beautiful vision of being a fitness guru and entrepreneur and paving the way for other fitness enthusiasts to happen, it was not that at all. I was like, I guess I have to quit smoking. That was the first thing and I remember that moment and I really, really harnessed that moment and I like to make sure I expand on this so if I’m long winded it’s because I care. It’s because in that moment I decided to change my life and I changed my life by making a decision that was better than what I had previously made.
That doesn’t mean that I was going to make the best decision. I wasn’t going to immediately start working out and eating right and quit smoking and not drinking and get rid of all my vices. I still have vices but that just meant that I was going to take one step at a time. Every morning I would make a decision whether to work towards something better or allow myself to regress back into potential suicide. That’s one of the things that I’m really passionate about people understanding. It doesn’t matter where you are in life. It doesn’t matter whether you want to be into fitness or not. You just have to want something better for yourself to create a better life. You have complete control over your circumstances. Don’t be a victim.
Guy:
Yeah, absolutely. It’s a process, isn’t it? You evolve.
Christmas:
Just start preaching.
Stu:
Hallelujah.
[00:10:00]
Guy:
Why Iraq in the first place because it can be really difficult to get out of your comfort, the familiar, the environment that you know that keeps creating the habits that you’re doing habitually. That can be self destructive to actually pull yourself out of that and drop yourself into a very unfamiliar place and especially somebody like Iraq can be a really huge decision because we tend to stick to the familiar. What made you do that in the first place?
Christmas:
Surprisingly my mother suggested to me that I should go overseas and do this job.
Guy:
Awesome.
Christmas:
You think, like why would your mother do that? Isn’t she supposed to protect you? Yes. My mother went over about six months before I did or almost a year before I did and she was like, “Christmas, you should try this.” She knew the doors that it would open for me but in the bigger picture, she also knew that I was going to end up being a junkie or an alcoholic, hands down. I have no question about that and yes, crossfit saved my life, it changed my life but going to Iraq literally was a pivotal point in my life where it took me from potentially being in the ditch face down across the street because I overdosed into me being aware of my life choices.
Stu:
Right.
Christmas:
[00:12:00]
I thank my mother every single day that she was willing to put me into an active war zone. January 04′ to I was there ’till December 07′, so just a month shy of four years and I was there when all the insurgents, it was crazy. The stories I have are insane. People don’t believe me but it’s amazing how much she saw of me and my potential not just like, where I needed to be pulled out of but where I could go. She’s always been my biggest fan. She’s incredible.
Guy:
Yeah, that’s amazing because a lot of parents wouldn’t do that because it’s like you’ve got to find the answers for yourself. You can’t tell people what to do ultimately at the end of the day.
Christmas:
Yeah. She was definitely willing to push me through the fire to see my internal passion and literally pull me out of that drug infested lifestyle that I was in.
Guy:
Yeah. Stu, you’re going to say something?
Stu:
What pulled you towards crossfit then as a lifestyle, as opposed to perhaps yoga or zumba or line dancing? What was it about crossfit?
Christmas:
I won’t lie, I actually still do yoga. I still run. I love fitness as a whole. When I first discovered working out, I did the elliptical. It was the only thing that was not super scary to me and through seeing changes, I wanted more and more. Eventually once I was into a fitness regime, I was kind of doing bodybuilding and isolating my cardio, that’s what you did then. There was no hybrid workout as there is now and my friend showed me a video of these girls working out. Please make sure that you put crossfit in front of this, crossfit nasty girls and it was this amazing video.
Yeah, I’m not getting in trouble for that. It was an amazing video of these three girls working out but what I loved is that they didn’t have that bodybuilder look but they also didn’t have that endurance runner look. It was like this gorgeous body and it was Nicole Carroll, Eva T, and Annie Sakamoto. Guys, I’m going to tell you, everybody whose watching this podcast, research your crossfit homework, okay? Know who paved the path for you and I consider myself a second generation crossfitter because they came right before me.
[00:14:00]
It was so beautiful and magical that I was like, whatever they’re doing, that’s what I want to do. It was so short and intense and the body that these girls had and the ability that these girls had, I was just so impressed and I was like, that’s what I want to look like and that looks like me. They’re small like me and so it resonated with me. Since then, crossfit is obviously my primary training regimen, I also weight lift, I also do like body weight boot camps and I do yoga and I run and I hike and I’ve done all of the fitness. I just want to love life and that’s what it enables me to do.
Guy:
Excellent. I always ask this question on the podcast, if you hadn’t discovered crossfit, there would have been something else to fill it’s place or do you think you would have gone off in a different direction again?
Christmas:
You never really know. I definitely found a love for fitness. Crossfit really was able to keep my attention. I am ADD one hundred percent. It’s like tennis balls in a dryer all day long. I have to figure out and fight with myself and so crossfit’s great because it really does give you something different every single day. Had it not been crossfit, I’m sure that I would have tailored my workout regiment to at least change it up every few weeks. I probably may have gone into figure competitions or fitness competitions, something like that and just be able to challenge myself but it’s like, whose to say?
Guy:
Yeah. It’s interesting. We had a good friend and a business mentor for a while and he had this brain that would not turn off. He’d wake up in the middle of the night and he’s just going, going, going and he took up crossfit because he said it’s the only time he’s in enough pain that he can’t physically think about anything so you had this window of an hour a day.
Christmas:
[00:16:00]
I agree with you. Absolutely. We call that the pain cave. It’s really difficult to break into but once you break into it, you can kind of embrace it and there is this moment of calm and comfort that I have when I’m in the middle of my workout and to everybody else it looks like chaos but to me, that’s my zen. It’s just my body is working as the way it should and the way it knows and it’s a beautiful place to be.
Guy:
Yeah, observing it all.
Stu:
My word, I’m just trying to think. You said like calm and beautiful place to be and I’m picturing myself and Guy doing Fran and I don’t whether I’d use those words. Oh my word. Yeah, I get it.
Christmas:
It just means you embrace the pain cave.
Stu:
Exactly right, there you go.
Guy:
Yeah. What came next? You get into crossfit and so what was the next bit of your entrepreneurial path? Was it the Box itself or was it something social media?
Christmas:
When I found crossfit I eventually found some guy who asked to work out with me and we would hang out everyday and that’s how I discovered I liked coaching. It wasn’t because I loved cross, it was because these guys that I worked out with, every single day we were there to help each other. They were like, “Christmas, you’re good at this.” I’m like, “Whatever, I don’t know what you’re talking about,” but I discovered that I really appreciated it. Eventually I decided to open a Box. First I had a boot camp in the park which allowed me to collect some cash in order to be able to open up and I opened up in December 2010 in Raleigh.
[00:18:00]
I had one previously with an old partner but then I moved, which they’re still open and they’re still doing really well. I just took the knowledge of that experience and applied it to this Box and it’s been such an incredible experience and I love it. I have a partner that runs a lot of that now so that allows me to be able to travel and be able to do other things. I love owning a Box and being in there and coaching and I love the business aspect of it but I didn’t want to be held down too much with not being able to do these other things. Yeah.
Guy:
Yeah, yeah, fair enough, yeah. Stu, you were about to say something and I interrupted, sorry mate.
Christmas:
Sorry Stu.
Stu:
He does this all the time, he does this all the time. I wanted just to pull it back to you’re in the gym, crossfit workouts and we’ve noticed over here that kind of newbies to crossfit are so enthused and so, so wrapped and elated and they’re so driven that they just get in there and they crossfit Monday morning, Monday evening, Tuesday morning and just go hard out but I was intrigued as to the recovery which is probably more important than the workouts themselves because if you’re not recovering then things go to pot. My question is, after a WOD, how important is recovery for you and what specific strategies would you use to recover?
Christmas:
I love this question. I actually talk directly about this in my nutrition seminar that I’m bringing to Australia, you guys. Good plug. Recovery is just as vital as the workout itself. When you work out, you expend nutrients and energy and it puts you into a deficit so think about your body as a bank account. When you work out, you spend money.
Stu:
Yeah.

available in the USAChristmas:
[00:20:00]
When you sleep, when you recover, when you eat well, when you take your vitamins and supplements, that is your cash positive so you’re getting paid. You’re putting money back into your bank account, bringing it back down to either ground zero or plus. People have to understand that you can’t just keep cashing checks without putting money into the bank. The recovery is equally as important as the workout because if you’re continuously pushing yourself at a deficit, then you are not pushing yourself at a hundred percent. You’re only reaching whatever it is, maybe at best, eighty, seventy percent of your potential because you have not properly recovered and you can actually really, seriously open yourself up to injury. It won’t be immediately, it will be eight, twelve months …
Guy:
Gradual process, yeah.
Christmas:
… a year to two years from now if you’re not stretching and properly recovering because your body can absorb a lot of wear and tear and eventually it snaps. It’s kind of like the concept of the straw that broke the camel’s back. People are like, “I don’t understand why I’m getting injured so much now because I’m not doing anything differently.” I’m like, “Because you did it improperly to begin with and it’s just accumulated all of these issues which are causing other issues.”
I tell people, especially the newbies, you gotta love them, and they want to tell you everything that they know and you’re like, “I learned about this eight years ago boo before they were keeping handstand push ups.” You have to sit them down and let them in a true, daily concept understand the importance of recovery and what the recovery is going to enhance the workout. You’re actually going to be able to pay better or like, pay out more if you are recovered better. That’s when it starts clicking with them. They’re like, “If I really do eat well and I sleep well and I drink water and go for at least the basics, then I’m going to probably get ten to fifteen percent more out of the workout and feel better and be faster quicker.”
Guy:
Yeah, absolutely. How
Christmas:
You’re like, smart.
Guy:
I’m just curious, how many hours a night do you sleep?
Christmas:
[00:22:00]
I’m huge on sleep. The minimum I get is seven, like minimum I get but I like to get nine. On the weekends, ten sometimes twelve depending on how crazy my week’s been. I really, really, really value sleep. It is the best time for your body to recover. You can do your post workout stretching and your vitamins and eating well but if you’re sleep deprived, you literally go insane. Look at what sleep deprivation does to people. You hallucinate, you are irritable. It’s pretty much like extended periods of doing meth.
Stu:
Yep, no, I get it.
Christmas:
It elicits the same kind of reactions. I don’t expect a lot of people to get that analogy because I expect a lot of people not to have done that but it really does crazy things to your body and that is the best time for your body to recover itself. I actually wear an iFit and this is a lot different than a lot of the other wearables and I’m just going to go on a little diatribe real fast.
Guy:
Go for it.
Christmas:
One of my favorite things about this, like anybody can get a tracker but this actually tracks the amount of sleep that you get per night and whether you’re in deep sleep, light sleep or if you woke up, it tells you what time you did and how long. If you wanted to be like, man, I don’t know if I slept really well, I feel kind of groggy today, you can look on your app and see how many hours you got, how many of those were light sleep versus deep sleep and then you can adjust your daily workout to accommodate what kind of sleep you got.
[00:24:00]
If you’re consistently not getting good sleep then you can start looking at what is triggering that. I love them, they’re super fun. They track a whole bunch of other stuff and are waterproof but they’re amazing. If you go to iFit.com/christmas I think they ask for a code, if you put Christmas in there you get ten percent off but I coupled with them last year and it’s just been an amazing tracker for a whole bunch of other stuff but my favorite is the sleep.
Guy:
That’s awesome.
Stu:
If I got an iFit tomorrow and I tracked my sleep let’s say for a week and I came to you and said, “Christmas, my sleep is shot. It’s all over the place, I don’t know what to do.” Where would you start?
Guy:
One, I would look at what your daily habits are anyway. I can capture it in three days or so. This is actually something else that I’m working on is a personal nutrition and workout program is I would look at what you’re doing to trigger that poor sleep. You’re probably doing a couple things that may trigger it but I’m going to look at consistencies between those days and then we’re going to take away one of those consistencies and it will actually help you. There’s a ton of things that happen that disrupt sleep that is during the day.
First I would probably look at your caffeine intake. Anything after 3pm is going to disrupt that sleep cycle. People don’t understand that it may not feel like you’re still caffeinated at six or seven or eight PM but it stays in your system five to eight hours. I also talk about that in my nutrition seminar. I’d look at the habits and then from those habits I would start implementing better habits. We’re not going to turn your whole world upside down. It would be one layer at a time.
Stu:
Yeah, right.
Guy:
Yeah. Thus Stu loves the topic of sleep. We’ve explored it on many occasions on the podcast as well.
Stu:
It’s so important, right?
Guy:
We call it the overrider.
Stu:
It’s the most important pillar for your health. If that pillar goes than your foundation is shot irrespective of how well you’re eating, how you’re moving, just pointless. Jet lagged all day is not cool.
Christmas:
Absolutely. Yeah.
Guy:
Yeah.
[00:26:00]
Christmas:
There’s a reason that they have the term the sleeper. Like the person that comes in unexpectedly, comes and takes everything. That’s like you without sleep, it will take your entire life if you don’t get sleep.
Stu:
Absolutely.
Guy:
Yeah. The take home message so far is improve your nutrition and get a good night’s sleep if you want to crush it in crossfit.
Christmas:
Absolutely.
Stu:
Again, like you said, just one layer at a time because you could do ten things and you wouldn’t know what’s changed so just once at a time.
Christmas:
Exactly but also, we’re creatures of habit and this is in my new book that I’m working on. It’s Thirty Days of Christmas and basically I’m talking about the steps to take to bridge the gap from what you’re doing now which are bad habits and where you want to be and basically it’s just exploring and implementing some discipline for you to create new habits. New habits are not created one time. They are something that you have to do consistently. Pick one, no more than two things to change and then stick to that and once that’s kind of like on the back of your mind where you’re doing it everyday without thinking about it, that’s when you add something new. I call that layering your success.
Stu:
Yeah.
Christmas:
You can’t layer your success if you just purge everything all at once and then you’re going to nosedive into failure. It really is important to take one thing. I say take one or two things a month and then by the end of the year, you’re really rocking it.
Guy:
Yeah, exactly. You’re on a journey, right? You don’t want quick fixes and you’ve got to play the long game. It’s as simple as that.
Christmas:
Yeah.
Guy:
[00:28:00]
You mentioned the word book there and I’m keen to talk about your book and especially around how you put it together, what’s in it as well because myself and Stu, this is a passionate topic for me especially as well because I’m keen to get a book out over the next twelve months. I’m curious to know, your book is the Badass Body Diet book, right?
Christmas:
Yes.
Guy:
Right. How did that come about first of all before we get into what’s in it?
Christmas:
When I was doing NASCAR I was posting a lot of my workouts and my training and my pit crew sessions and so people have known my training regiment for the most part but they were like, “What are you eating?” I kept emailing people suggestions of what they should do and given I’ve been doing this diet, Frankenstein diet for the last eleven years, like shortly after crossfit I really kind of pieced this together. I took all the pieces of all the diets that I liked and I got rid of all the shit that I didn’t like out of them.
It’s much like crossfit creating the crossfit brand. They took all the good stuff from all the workouts and they left all the BS. I did the same thing with this diet regiment. I just got tired of emailing people and I was like, “Let me do a seminar,” and the seminar took off and about a year into this seminar, a book agent kind of approached me. He was like, “Have you ever thought about writing a book?” I was like, “I’m not a writer.” He was like, “What is this seminar thing about?” I’m like, “That’s my nutrition seminar.” He’s like, “Write a book,” and so from there, I just took everything that I had taught in my seminar and I broke it down even more. I left somethings out for future seminars but I just kind of took the basics and expanded on them.
Guy:
Yeah, fantastic. I heard the other day as well, I was listening to a podcast you’re in about the word diet, that you didn’t want it in the title initially. Is that right?
Christmas:
We fought on it, yeah.
Guy:
Right, okay. They got their way.
Christmas:
[00:30:00]
I did. I was like, “I don’t want this to be a diet, it’s not a diet.” Because really, it’s just educating you on food and how to couple the food for the maximum benefit and that’s it. When I think of diet, I think of like the cayenne pepper lemon thing. It makes me cringe because it’s so restrictive. This way of eating is a lifestyle and you can do it mindlessly after a while. They were like, “Christmas, you have to see the bigger picture. People aren’t going to understand that this is a nutrition based book that can help them if that word is not on there.” I was like, “Okay but I’m going to explain in this book how much I hate the word diet and how much I actually didn’t want this in there.” I agreed with them on that and then I got to have my explanation later.
Guy:
Is the book available in Australia?
Christmas:
With this tour that I’m coming to Australia, the publishing company is also bringing over the books so the book will be available in Australia come April.
Guy:
Got it. Excellent and you can have it live in the flesh as well which is fantastic.
Christmas:
I love it, I’m so excited.
Stu:
We’ve got a crossfit athlete, coach, Box owner, author, speaker, this is a full on brand. What’s next?
Christmas:
There’s a lot in there.
Stu:
Yeah, huge.
Christmas:
What’s next?
Stu:
Yeah.
Christmas:
[00:32:00]
I’m actually doing a really hard push this year, there’s some major projects that I have in the works right now. I’m working on my second book that I already mentioned, I’m really excited about it and it’s just balancing the body, the mind and the spirit and knowing how to do things to keep all of them sharp and intertwined with each other. I’m working on a personalized nutrition program that’s online so basically you would have a nutrition coach and depending on your goals, that will be kind of identified. I’m actually next month, I’m launching a very simple version of it to expand into the next realms. Again, layering my success, right?
Stu:
Exactly.
Christmas:
I have to remind myself that too. Ultimately I’m working on a corporate wellness program that once I have that database of the nutrition coaching, I’m expanding to corporate wellness.
Guy:
They need that, yeah.
Christmas:
Yeah. I have a ton of like, super amazing companies that I want to work with but I just don’t have it set up yet. I’m really excited about it because they’re doing a big push for it and it’s amazing that they’re really pushing for health and wellness at a mass level. I’m still hosting Spartan race and working on a couple of potential TV shows and entertainment industry things. Of course, this book tour has been really amazing and I’m just trying to have fun with fitness this year so I’m kind of taking a step back from aggressive competition but more just like, let me find my playfulness again.
Guy:
Okay, yeah. Have you just got back from a book tour?
Christmas:
No, I’m coming to see you guys for the book tour.
Guy:
Yeah, Australia of course, yeah, yeah, yeah but prior to that.
Christmas:
Yeah, last year was aggressive so this year it’s kind of like more playfulness.
Guy:
That’s amazing. A thought just popped in there, let’s talk about the Australian tour then because you’re coming across. There’ll be a lot of people outside of crossfit listening to this as well. Let’s talk about your nutritional seminar for a sec. What kind of people do you get turning up? Are they all crossfit fanatics or is there a broad range of everyone?
Christmas:
[00:34:00]
I love that there is such a broad range. Initially people think that they have to be into crossfit or even into fitness to come to one of the nutrition seminars. THat’s not true at all. All you need to do is want to do better in your life with your food and that means that if you struggle with it, there’s a really amazing way to balance all of this where depending on your body type, depending on how strict you want to be, you are able to balance this with your lifestyle. There is not a one size fits all and so you have four different categories.
You have a couple different options in there. You see the quality scale of the food so you are making conscious decisions even with like, the not great quality scale. I teach you how to make it good for you and how to work your system and really I just make you kind of aware of what you want out of the program and so you have realistic expectations. It’s an incredible program. I love it, I’ve seen really, really amazing results. I use this all year round and I just want to be able to share that with everybody so you can be a crossfitter. It’s going to help your crossfit performance hands down or you can be like the everyday person on the street that you’re just like, man. I just want to know what to do a little bit better. It doesn’t have any barriers. Man or female. It doesn’t matter.
Guy:
Great, fantastic. Now because one seminar wasn’t enough, I think you’re doing three right in terms of different types of seminars. Can you tell us what the other two are?
Christmas:
The second one is actually a weightlifting seminar. I love weightlifting almost as much as I love crossfit. I’m really into it. I am very technical with things and I want people to understand that you get the one on one information, then the fancy stuff is easy. With the weightlifting seminar, it is practical application so we are going to be going through the proper positions of the movements. Now given that there’s lots of different styles, that’s fine, I understand that. This particular style that I have discovered has been the most beneficial for my performance.
[00:36:00]
I’ve gone to Nationals several times, I’ve gone to the US Open several times. Pound for pound in my weight class, I’m one of the top and I just want people to be able to understand that they can get the mechanics regardless of wherever they are in their crossfit endeavors. You make this a sound position early on, then it just gets better and better. You get stronger and stronger and then people don’t understand what you’re doing because you have such great technique.
Guy:
Fantastic.
Christmas:
Literally one of the only reasons I’ve been able to out lift the girls that weigh a hundred and fifty five pounds and we’re lifting the same amount, at the same speed or me even faster is because of technique. You can be strong but man, if you don’t have that technique, it doesn’t really give you that longevity.
Guy:
I can believe that.
Stu:
I was interested when you said weightlifting as well because a lot of people would have raised their eyes at weightlifting and especially from the female camp as well. They think, I don’t want to be big and muscly. I just want to be lean and healthy and strong and so, historically the masses will stick to the cardio so just sit on the treadmill and run all day long. Why is weightlifting so important if you want to completely excel in everything that you do?
Christmas:
[00:38:00]
In order to be able to perform at high levels, you have to have the technique. The strength will always come but the technique has to be there and it is a full body workout. I’m going to tell you, if you haven’t done three snatches in a row at eighty five percent of your max, you don’t know what cardio is. Like that will huff and puff you harder than running a four hundred. It’s incredible and I love the body that it produces is just these beautiful, bubbly bodies that just are super lean and cut versus like the really lanky, gazelle kind of style.
Stu:
Yeah, yep.
Christmas:
But truly, the technique is so far.
Guy:
Yep, yeah. The thing about weightlifting is well, there’s always an element you can improve on so you’re constantly having to challenge yourself and work on it. It’s quite rewarding at the same time.
Christmas:
Yeah.
Guy:
Yeah. Another question for that seminar then, are you still there Stu because you’re frozen? You’ve got a really good looking mugshot.
Stu:
No, I’m still here mate. I’m not frozen, I’m sweating.
Guy:
You’re sweating, well, you’re frozen this end and it’s going to be great. Yeah. To do the weightlifting seminar, do you need to have a background in lifting any kind of barbell or weights?
Christmas:
No, not at all.
Guy:
It’s for everyone?
Christmas:
It’s for everybody. We’re going to take you literally from position one through the whole thing and then we’re going to have a little bit of time afterwards if you want to put some weight on the bar. We’ll start with like PVC and if you want to get a fifteen pound bar, thirty five or forty five, depending on where your expertise are or your comfort level is, we’ll build from there. Really, we’re just drilling and drilling and drilling so when you go back home to your box or home to your home, garage gym, you will remember what that position feels like and you’ll be able to have a peer coach and say, “Hey, am I in position?” They’re like, “No, raise your chest a little bit more.”
Guy:
Okay.
Christmas:
It really is for everybody. We’re not going to be loading up max effort from the very beginning. We’re actually not even going to put much weight on until after the seminar is done, the practical application is done and then we’re going to have that play time of like, let’s go.
Guy:
Awesome.
Christmas:
But if you’re not doing it with that good executed technique, then you have to regress.
[00:40:00]
Guy:
Okay, fantastic. If I come to that one in Brisbane, I need to know that you’re going to be kind to us and I won’t be calling out at the end of the day, that’s all.
Christmas:
No, I don’t trash like that. It’ll be all good.

available in the USAGuy:
Yeah, no, that’s good.
Stu:
Just don’t wear your 180 t-shirt, Guy because you don’t want to embarrass the brand please. Wear somebody else’s. What we’ll do, Christmas, we’ll put all of the dates in the show notes and obviously we’re going to shout out to everybody that we can on social media because we want to fill up those classes because it sounds fantastic.
Christmas:
Thank you.
Stu:
But I’d like now just to dab a little bit into your personal routines because I’m sure there are a whole heap of people that go right, I love what you’re about, I want to be like you. What does the typical day look like outside of competition for Christmas Abbott?
Christmas:
It depends on the cycle, where I am in the year. For right now, the Open’s going on but I’m slightly injured so I’m just trying to go through and kind of survive this Open. I wake up, sometimes I’ll go for a run when I wake up but I wake up. I eat breakfast everyday. It’s in one of the rules that the seminar talks about and I go to my gym, Invoke which actually my agency has an office inside the gym. I get with my squad members so that’s like basically my employees. I have three people that work for me directly in the office and then I have a few people that work for me remotely and we crush projects.
[00:42:00]
It is a beautiful balance of chaos and organization and communication and it’s just so much fun. Then usually I’ll either workout at nine thirty, eleven thirty or four thirty depending on my day. I might do two a day and then usually around six or so, I come home. I like to cook my dinners fresh and I like to cook my breakfast’s fresh so I’ll cook enough for dinner to be able to have for a snack and a meal the next day and then I’ll cook my dinner again fresh and it’s like super fast, pretty simple stuff. Sometimes I’ll kind of sit on the couch and work a little bit at night or kind of chill out with Fran, my little Fran.
Guy:
Is that your dog’s name, Fran?
Christmas:
Yeah.
Stu:
Yeah, chill out with Fran doesn’t mean chill out doing the mother of [crosstalk 00:42:31].
Guy:
Yeah, no. [crosstalk 00:42:31]
Christmas:
I don’t do Fran everyday but she is actually named after the workout. I think she’s sleeping right now. I should go get her before we get off.
Guy:
Okay and for anyone that doesn’t know what Fran is, can you just tell them the workout?
Christmas:
Fran is an original crossfit workout named after a female’s name. It’s twenty one thrusters, twenty one pull ups, fifteen thrusters, fifteen pull ups, nine and nine and you do it as fast as you possibly can and a beautiful thing is, Greg, the founder of crossfit obviously, named all of these baseline workouts after females because he said they’re like hurricanes. Females are the only things that can leave you lying down on your back, not sure what happened, huffing and puffing and still kind of wanting more.
Guy:
That’s amazing.
Stu:
I like it.
Christmas:
Love Greg, love him.
Guy:
[inaudible 00:43:24] do you do any proactive downtime? Because you’ve got a huge social media presence as well. Do you just like turn everything off and silence the mind or is there too much going on in your day?
Christmas:
[00:44:00]
At night I definitely cut it off at night. There’s a certain time where I just put my phone away. I put it on silent. I have it actually automated where it doesn’t give me any updates after a certain time period because I just need to get away from it. It will suck. It’s a black hole and I love it but I do kind of take myself away from that at night usually around seven or eight pm I cut it off because also, the blue light that it emulates really kind of stimulates you. If I’m looking at performing better and sleeping better, I can’t be on it right before I go to sleep.
I tend to shut it down then, also when I’m having really intimate, personal time like with my family and my nephew and nieces, I tend to show a little bit of that but I also kind of want to respect their privacy. They didn’t ask for this type of exposure so I tend to shelf the phone when I’m home with my family and if I do need to post anything, then I just make sure that it’s respectable to them.
Guy:
Yeah, awesome.
Stu:
Great.
Christmas:
Going off the grid for a day, it’s exhilarating but it’s also terrifying so occasionally, [crosstalk 00:45:04] amazing.
Guy:
Yeah. That’s why I assigned you to have Stu so I can just go off the grid and let him to it, you know?
Stu:
I think Guy was born off the grid. That’s why I look so haggard. [crosstalk 00:45:15]
Christmas:
I’m gonna go off the grid for a day in Australia guys, know that that is going to happen. I’m pumped about that.
Stu:
Yeah, okay. No problem, [crosstalk 00:45:23] awaiting.
Guy:
Stu, can I rewind slightly? Because I want to touch on your business seminar. Whose it for and what can they expect because you’re clearly crushing it in business.
Christmas:
Thank you, I love what I do.
Guy:
Yeah, yeah.
Christmas:
[00:46:00]
Initially this is for Crossfit Box owners, it’s also for small business owners. The structure of building a business doesn’t change just because of the genre of the business for the most part. There are core concepts and implementations that you can do no matter where you are in the business in order to be able to make it more efficient and effective. Whether you’re in social media or in crossfit or you’re in publishing, it doesn’t matter. There are core concepts that can be applied here so this really is just kind of like the skeleton of those core concepts and you can come in, get the initial information and then what I’ll do after that is just continue to send them information if they sign up for the business newsletter.
I love to see people succeed. Unfortunately in business, it’s kind of like whatever you want to do. That’s their concept and it’s beautiful but it’s also daunting if you haven’t gone through it. I’ve been running my gym for five and a half years now with six and a half years with the boot camp and it’s seven years with the old gym so I have a lot of experience with it. There are things that just work and it works well and you can’t deny it.
Guy:
Yeah, absolutely. That’s awesome, that’s awesome. We’ll be there.
Christmas:
It’s kind of like the core technique for business.
Guy:
Yeah. Stu, I’m going to nick your question because I can see you thinking it, if there were three core elements to crush your own business, off the top of your head, what would they be?
Christmas:
Create an SOP. Know your finances and task out shit that you hate doing.
Guy:
What was the first one? SOP?
Christmas:
Create a standard operating procedure.
Guy:
Right.
Christmas:
How do you turn on the gym? How do you shut down the gym? People don’t understand that that stuff needs to be written out. It needs to be identified and explained. What I want to create is a manual that if I wasn’t there, it could still run as if I were there.
[00:48:00]
Guy:
Yeah, yeah. Perfect. [inaudible 00:48:03], I love it. Where are we at? Okay, Stu, go on, talk about food. I know you’re thinking.
Stu:
Look, this is what he does. He’s pulled me away from my questions that we were truly inspired by. I was going to ask you what you eat but I figure now, I’m not going to do that because I reckon you probably cover that in your book and that would give other people more of an impetus to really want to delve into the book. I will drill into supplementation because the demands that you put your body through with crossfit and even just with the demands for the business as well with your brain that doesn’t stop firing constantly. How important is supplementation to you and what regime do you undertake?
Christmas:
Supplements, I want you to think of them as like the micro nutrients where food is the macro nutrient. Because food is a drug, if you were dosing yourself properly, then you are getting the majority of supplements that you need or the majority of micro nutrients that you need and that comes with the quality and variation of the food. With supplements specifically, I call it my core four that I don’t leave home without.
[00:50:00]
These are the ones that are going to effect my recover, which ultimately allows me to get back to that ground zero so I can actually apply myself well. I do talk about this in the book but the core four, the first thing is in the morning I do a low dose of zinc. Zinc, it stimulates the body. It’s kind of like a natural upper but it also induces or promotes that testosterone hormone. Women hear that, they’re like, “Oh my gosh, no.” But it’s good for us and it allows us to be able to create strength and it actually stimulates the sexual drive too. Hey.
Free Health Pack
Stu:
Yeah, write that one down, Guy.
Christmas:
When men hear that, you see them like nudge their wives, they’re like, “We’re getting some zinc.”
Stu:
The big tub.
Christmas:
But zinc is an upper so I like to take that in the morning with my meal.
Stu:
Right.
Christmas:
I do a fish oil and in the book I talk about how to identify a good fish oil, not all are create equal.
Stu:
Yes.
Christmas:
Fish oil has an EPA and a DHA. DHA is for the brain function, that’s what we want to be used to develop our brains. Fantastic, we’re adults, we’re going to be as developed as we possibly can be at this point so as fitness enthusiasts, we look at the EPA. That is the anti inflammatory portion of the fish oil. On a daily average for a fitness enthusiast, we want at least one gram of EPA per day. If I’m training in high season, I’ll do two grams of EPA so you have to look at your label. Know how to read your label and figure out how much fish oil you’re taking in order to be able to get that minimum one gram per day.
Stu:
Got it.
Christmas:
[00:52:00]
Yeah. People are like, “Oh my gosh, I have to do math.” It’s okay. During the day I like BCAA’s, branch chain amino acids and what that does is it gives you like an immediate energy. It allows your body to recover faster which means that you can do more. I tell people, “Supplement your caffeine with BCAA’s.” Caffeine is pretty tragic to the body but I’m not going to take it away because I need one vice and I do limit my caffeine amount but I try and supplement BCAA’s during the workout or in the morning but basically it’s an energy surger and it allows you to recover faster and it actually gives you a little bit of strength surge as well.
At night I take magnesium and I also take a low dose on that because it can upset your stomach. Magnesium, we expend magnesium during metabolic conditioning, aka we use it when we work out. Our body will naturally reproduce it but our body doesn’t reproduce it fast enough for us putting ourselves through a hard workout the next day. Usually we are in higher deficit of magnesium than anything else and so I just take a magnesium pill before I go to bed. Initially it will give you kind of crazy dreams but I think it was Jen Turn, she said that she was on a roller coaster nekid one time so maybe not so bad.
Stu:
We can live with that. What type of magnesium would you take because there’s a minefield out there.
Christmas:
I would look at magnesium and your zinc to be chelated. As for brand, I’m not going to get into brands. I’m not familiar with what’s all in Australia but if you look at the style of the magnesium and the zinc, it needs to be chelated. That means that your body is going to absorb most of it as efficiently as possible. Sometimes people will ask about a ZMA combo, that is fantastic. However, zinc is kind of like an upper, magnesium’s kind of like a natural downer and so they fight for your body. They both do wonderful things and they do work together but they are not as efficient as they are separated so I would separate them.
Stu:
Gotcha. Okay.
Christmas:
Spread them small doses. This does not mean more is better. If your stomach is feeling upset or you’re feeling a little sick like or flu like, you’re just like, I’m off, you probably did a little to hard on the zinc and probably a little too hard on the magnesium.
[00:54:00]
Guy:
Yeah. You’re going to have to gauge slightly as well depending on how often you’re working out, right as well?
Christmas:
Yeah. I tell people to start between one fifty to two fifty milligrams of each. I wouldn’t go above three fifty or four fifty milligrams of each. Your body will know.
Guy:
Fantastic.
Christmas:
Like your body, you know.
Guy:
Brilliant. Perfect tips.
Stu:
Excellent.
Guy:
I see Stu’s brain thinking there like … We ask a couple of questions on the show at the end of the show every podcast.
Christmas:
Yeah.
Guy:
The first one would be, if you’re not a cocktail party now, you’re on the street and you were strolling along and you bumped into your eighteen year old version of yourself on the street …
Christmas:
I’m sure we’d fight.
Guy:
Yeah, and you had one minute to give her advice, what would it be if she [crosstalk 00:54:53].
Christmas:
Oh man. I would just hug her and tell her just believe in herself. Quit smoking, stop fucking around and believe in yourself. Yeah. I raised some hell. I’d tell her she was worth it.
Stu:
No, that’s good.
Christmas:
Yeah.
Stu:
You could also slip her a couple of your books, that might help too.
Christmas:
But this is what you’re going to do, so don’t fuck it up.
Stu:
Exactly right.
Guy:
Good one, Stu. Last question is, what’s the best piece of advice you’ve ever been given?
Christmas:
[00:56:00]
Have fun with it. Yeah. No matter what you do, if you’re not having fun, what’s the point? I don’t mean to like not take things seriously but passion trumps everything and if you’re not passionate about it and you’re not having fun with it and you don’t look forward to doing it, then it’s stress, it’s torture. You are in purgatory and there’s some part that will always be kind of a grind that you’re like, “I gotta dredge through this,” but ultimately in the bigger picture, do you love what you do? Are you having fun with it?
Guy:
That’s awesome, yeah.
Stu:
That’s good advice, yeah.
Guy:
Yeah. I often think that the best thing I ever did for myself was actually have the belief to go and do what you love and then your life opens up and it’s pretty amazing.
Stu:
I think Guy, the best thing that you ever did for yourself was run into me down at the beach. Let’s not forget that. But no, you’re absolutely right. Enjoy the journey to because you don’t want to overlook it. If we’re constantly looking at the future, we don’t actually realize that the stuff we’re doing right now is so much fun too.
Guy:
Yeah, absolutely.
Christmas:
Yeah. I’m trying to do more of that this year and I’m definitely doing that when I’m in Australia because you guys have some amazing things and I’m going to have fun with my seminars but man, I’m going to really explore your cities and your towns. I was there for three weeks almost ten years ago and I’m so excited to return.
Guy:
Yeah, right. I’m also ten minutes outside Byron Bay so it’s the surfing mecca of Australia around here. Do you surf?
Christmas:
I’m gonna learn. I’m going to get a long board. I’m going to be like one of those real chill ones.
Guy:
That’s all you need up here, that’s all you need, it’s amazing.
Christmas:
Yeah.
Stu:
Just don’t ask Guy for lessons. You might be spending a little bit of time in the hospital.
Guy:
No, there’s nothing wrong with a Welshman that couldn’t swim surfing, that’s all right.
Christmas:
That could be a problem.
Guy:
No, it’s fine, it’s fine. I like to think I’m great at it but that’s probably the only person.
Stu:
Yeah, sure do, don’t you?
Guy:
[00:58:00]
Let’s rattle off the dates. What are the dates for your tour? It’s April, I think it’s 12th? The first one, or 14th?
Christmas:
Let me look real fast. I’m there all of April.
Guy:
Okay.
Christmas:
I don’t have the exact dates in my calendar but I think April 9th is the first one.
Guy:
Yep.
Stu:
Okay.
Guy:
Yeah, so Melbourne, Sydney, Brisbane, right, excellent.
Christmas:
[crosstalk 00:58:16] Then we go through [crosstalk 00:58:15] 5th. Brisbane, Sydney and Melbourne are the three cities that we’re going to be in.
Guy:
Yeah, fantastic.
Christmas:
Actually, all of those dates along with the weightlifting, nutrition and the building better business, they are all on the website so depending on which one you want to go to. It’s categorized by seminar and then by city so it’s definitely out there and I can send you guys that information too.
Stu:
We’ll put that up on the website and the show notes and across social media, so fantastic. We will spread the word.
Guy:
[crosstalk 00:58:46] Yeah. Where’s the best place to go? Website?
Christmas:
Christmasabbott.com. Yeah.
Guy:
Excellent.
Christmas:
If you sign up for the newsletter, we’re going to be sending out information specifically for each location and each seminar. In the newsletter we actually do giveaways with so go get on the newsletter. It’s really cool because we send weekly updates on the no and then recipes and fit tips and it’s really a great way to just kind of expand beyond like Instagram and Facebook and the masses that get to see whatever. It’s a little bit of behind the scenes.
Guy:
Yeah, excellent.
Stu:
Fantastic, excellent.
Guy:
Awesome. Check out your Instagram account as well because I see some of the weight you’re lifting around in there and it motivates me as well. It’s a good thing.
Christmas:
Thanks. When do I get to see you guys when I’m in Australia?
Guy:
Yeah, exactly. Stu’s in Sydney and I’m in Brisbane, near kind of.
Christmas:
I’ll be in both.
Guy:
Yeah, exactly. No, it will be easy.
Christmas:
We’ll Skype each other when I’m with one other.
Stu:
Absolutely, no. I’ll be there but I won’t be doing Fran, that’s for sure.
Christmas:
I’m going to be long boarding.
Stu:
You’re not bringing Fran, are you by any chance?
[01:00:00]
Christmas:
No. Let me go grab her real fast.
Stu:
Yeah, do it, please.
Guy:
Go for it.
Christmas:
Fran.
Guy:
She got lost. The dog’s run at the house.
Stu:
Yeah.
Christmas:
She was actually sleeping.
Stu:
Fran. We used to have a bulldog growing up. I’ve always had a bulldog. Look at that.
Christmas:
Yes.
Guy:
Wow.
Christmas:
Hi baby.
Stu:
Hi Fran.
Guy:
He looks like he’s just woken up too, poor thing.
Christmas:
She’s still snoring.
Stu:
[crosstalk 01:00:41]
Guy:
That’s awesome.
Christmas:
Okay, okay, get off.
Stu:
Brilliant.
Guy:
Christmas, thank you so much for your time and coming on the podcast today. That was tremendous.
Christmas:
Thank you so much, guys. I appreciate it.
Guy:
Yeah and I look forward to catching up in April.
Stu:
Really enjoyed it, appreciate your time and cannot wait to catch up with you soon.
Guy:
Awesome.
Christmas:
See you in almost a month.
Stu:
Yes. We’ll be there. Thank you.
Guy:
Cheers, bye.
Stu:
Bye bye.
Christmas:
Bye guys.

Christmas Abbott

This podcast features Christmas Abbott who has impressive resume that includes athlete, author, speaker, business entrepreneur and a NASCAR pit crew front tire changer. She was a self-destructive path when young, life intervened to set her on a whole new direction. Her mission now is to be the inspiration for others.... Read More
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