Kyle Gonzalez is the VP of Performance and Coaching at Coya, helping people build sustainable habits for lifelong health. A former college basketball player and exercise science major, Kyle blends practical experience with science-backed strategies. He’s the author of Move Thrive Come Alive (available in June) and a passionate advocate for integrating movement, mindset, and recovery into everyday life. His focus is on “performance for life”, helping individuals develop lifelong habits that enable them to navigate complex health environments by understanding their bodies and biometrics. Kyle’s mission is to reach and impact as many people as possible while prioritizing a human-first approach to health and wellness.

ROUTINES & HABITS:

Were you always as structured in your habits and performance as you are now? What brought you into wanting to help others with that?

Kyle: Athlete background, so I’m used to having structure. I played college basketball, so it was a necessity: balancing class, practice, film, social life. On top of that, I’ve always been curious about the human body and performance. I majored in exercise science and was one of the few on the team who actually wanted to go to class.

I’m not a fan of the word “optimize”, but I’ve always been fascinated with how I can live a better, more active, happy, healthy, and sustainable life, while still making it feel realistic, as opposed to having a 13-step morning routine and taking 30 supplements.

I focus on what I can realistically do day to day that feels sustainable. I’m structured but not afraid to break routines when needed

Of what you are structured with, which are non-negotiables for you?

Kyle: Movement every day. I made a pact about six years ago: do something daily; yoga, workout, whatever. I could count on one hand the days I missed. In my early professional career where I started working longer hours, I found that my workouts were the first thing to go, so I made that pact to myself to make sure I got some form of movement in every day, no matter what or when.

Also, family walks, morning and night, are sacred. We try to keep those phone-free, no work talk. Sleep and nutrition can be variable with a kid, but those walks are locked in, especially with a dog.

How do you approach recovery? Are there things you do that really made a difference for you?

Kyle: Sleep is number one on that list, for sure. Before, I didn't care that much about sleep. I knew it was important, but I was like, Yeah, you know, I'll get sleep. I'm young, I can bounce, all good. Then I read Why We Sleep by Matt Walker, and that changed my perspective on everything, so sleep is first and foremost: making sure I'm getting to bed at the at the right times, making sure that I have a routine. I think the big thing for sleep is, like, we warm up for exercise, but how do we warm up for sleep? To me that means a 10 to 15 minute routine to relax and wind down beyond sleep, moments where I can really kind of get into this parasympathetic, rest, digest mode: reading, breath work, meditation, sometimes moments of just boredom, some of the walks and then writing are all where I can get into a Zen state.

I usually try and anchor some of my recovery stuff towards the beginning and the end of the day, usually around wake up in bedtime, because God willing, those things are going to happen every day. I do what's called a 555, before bed. I do five minutes of gentle movement, five minutes of breath work and five minutes of meditation. That's how I end my day every day, even if I'm traveling or wherever. Sometimes it's 333, sometimes it's whatever, but I think ultimately, that's one way that I prioritize recovery.

Second is nutrition: making sure I'm getting enough protein, making sure I'm hydrating. People don't often think about that as recovery, but I do, because I know when I was training for a marathon, my needs for nutrition went way up.

So for me, the sleep, stress management, which is the breath work, the reading, the meditation, and the nutrition, are the biggest rocks.

And then lastly, self-care. I think that's one that people don't put a lot of chips in that bucket, especially high performing entrepreneurs and executives. They think like, oh, yeah, I'm good, don't need to take care of myself, or it's selfish for me to take time to do something for myself, but whether it's going to a sporting event or watching something you love or reading a great book, or getting outside, or hiking, or name your thing. I think for me, it's getting outside, it's spending time with my family, it's reading. So those are things that reenergize me. And I think physical energy is great, but there's also a component of mental energy and how much vigor you want to put towards your pursuits in life. I have a professional life that I live and work, but I also do a newsletter, I have a podcast, I write books. I want to make sure I have enough time for all of those, and I'm not slacking on any.

TOOLS & TRACKING:

Since you mentioned walking after dinner, do you track blood sugar? Or is that just an overall health habit you do for movement?

Kyle: That’s definitely tied to blood sugar and digestion, but I do it more for the mental break and quality time with my wife. It’s one of those things that is so small, but checks so many boxes. I have used a CGM before and didn’t love it, even though it was cool to see the data and how the walks, meals, and exercise affect blood sugar, but for me, the post meal walks are for the mental and emotional benefits more than anything else.

Is there a metric or biomarker that you track that you think truly makes a difference?

Kyle: At Coya, we track everything: HRV, sleep quality, respiratory rate, resting heart rate. Personally, I check HRV regularly but I’m not neurotic about data. I trained for a marathon recently and used a Morpheus strap to see how my HRV and heart rate were responding so I could structure my recovery. But overall, I focus more on doing the thing than tracking the thing. I’m very in tune with my body, so I notice changes without needing gadgets. I’m not a biohacker.

More on tracking:

Kyle: At Coya, we like to say “Data is a tool, not a rule”. A lot of people obsess over the data, there is even a term for it called orthosomnia, where people obsess over the metrics of optimizing sleep. If your Oura ring tells you you’re going to have a bad day based on your sleep or recovery, a lot of people listen, but that’s just not the case; you can have a great day when the Oura ring tells you otherwise, and the other way around; people really psych themselves out with this.

I tell people that more often than not, they should go with how they subjectively feel. On top of that, the data isn’t perfect either and there are margins of error out of your control. I tell people to do the gold standard thing, like a DEXA Scan or VO2 Max test, but to rely more on the trends than to treat any number as absolute.

MINDSET:

How do you think mindset comes into play with your performance?

Kyle: It’s huge, it’s the linchpin that underlies all habits, motivation, and behaviors. I think understanding that your beliefs on something are going to affect your physiology and your psychology, but then also understanding that it's a never-ending journey. And so I'm always trying to look at it as learning, as opposed to getting to some end point. And so I think when people say you're never going to have health solved, I look at it as how can you continuously learn? How can you continuously evolve? And on top of all that, what is sustainable?

I want everybody to understand that it's really about consistency as opposed to intensity. And I think high performers specifically love intensity. They're like, oh yeah, I can push the gas pedal, I can do the harder workout, I can take more supplements, I can do all that. What they don't generally get quite well or do well, is recovery, taking your foot off the gas, and going long term.

I think when people get out of athletics and go into the workout or work environment, or they're just high performers entrepreneurs, they burn out because they push too hard, or they don't actually start paying attention to some health thing until they're in the hospital. And so for me, I'm like, What can I continue doing for the rest of my life? Not everything is going to be exactly like that, like training for a marathon. I think having a healthy mix and balance of challenge and recovery and, you know, pushing and just kind of teetering that scale that all comes down to mindset for me. And for me, it's harder to hold myself back than it is to push harder, so since I know that now, I have to create systems of like Kyle, you can't do this on this day; I have to make contracts with myself of like, nope, I know you could push, you think you could push harder, but that's actually not going to help you in the long run. Mindset underlies all of that.

The All or Nothing Mindset

Kyle: Yeah, I always say, you know, switching people from all or nothing to always something is my motto with that. But it is hard. And I think it's something to use to your advantage. It's like when you do push, push hard, but when you do recover, guess what? Recover hard. People think recovery is passive, and they're like, oh, recovery just kind of happens, but it's like, no, you have to actually plan for it, be proactive, and make it a part of the training program. It’s not a nice to have; if you're not recovering, you're not adapting.

I think people also don't understand that sleep and nutrition and stress management help you actually get the most out of your exercise and the most out of the changes and goals that you're going for.

What do you tell yourself on days when you feel off or unmotivated? How do you talk yourself out of it?

Kyle: I set up a lot of different systems in my life so I don't rely on motivation. I've written and just finished my second book, but when I wrote my first book, I made a contract with myself that said, every day after dinner, I'm going to sit down at my computer and I'm going to write. It can be one sentence, or it can be two pages or a paragraph or whatever. And that contract worked for me because I wasn't negotiating with myself. If I was super unmotivated, I would still sit down on my laptop and I'd write two sentences, and it's like, all right, cool, check. But other days, when I was it was like, oh my god, I'm sitting for three hours writing. It was great.

The second thing is, how you set up your environment. And so for me, there's two prongs of environment. First is external so the people, the places, the things, the information you consume. So, I have time limits on social media, I make sure that I surround myself with people who boost my energy and don't drain it. And then in my home environment, I try to set things up to make it easy. I keep fresh fruit out, which seems small, but you eat it more when it's visible. I make sure that I put my workout clothes out. Super cliche, but it works. I make sure that all of these things are set up so visually, it makes it easier. I always say, how can you make the healthy, choice the easy choice? It takes a little bit of proactive work, but once you do, it's like, boom, it works. So I would say the systems that I set up are the inputs, and then also, I have built in things that I can call on if I need a boost, maybe one day that's a YouTube video, maybe one day that's music, maybe one day that's, you know, a walk before whatever, to clear my head. Usually, it's just to have the systems in place to not rely on motivation. Have a plan so that you're not thinking. But of course, there are always days when motivation wanes.

CONSTRAINTS & TRADEOFFS:

What are the biggest tradeoffs you make in order to perform at the level you do?

Kyle: I always tell people in health and wellness, there are no solutions, only tradeoffs. Ultimately, I love all of the decisions and tradeoffs that I make, so I think it's almost like an out of sight, out of mind thing, like social media, for example, I used to be on social media for probably hours a day, and now I have a 10 minute limit for each social media, and I don’t ever crave it.

You have to have things that you are passionate about and are pursuing that fill that time, or else you'll replace social media with Netflix or TV or with some other mindless tasks. The trade, I guess, would be ultimately living a structured life. I feel like, people always say discipline equals freedom, which is so true for me.

I love it and don’t think I'm making any tradeoffs. I don't think there's anything I'm missing out on. Socially, me and my wife have great friends, and we can do social things when we want, but when we don't, we don't crave those types of things.

This sounds super like, oh yeah, the health guy is saying this, but I like eating healthy and I like making my own meals. I don't crave the junk food all the time. I don't crave staying up super late, I like when I get good sleep. The tradeoffs are really just okay: How do I allocate my time, professionally and personally, so I can make sure I have quality time with my family, I can do all the activities that I want, can travel, and I can have experiences.

I'll be the first to say that I totally enjoy my vices and all those things. But, when I introduce them as 90-10 or 80-20, it's so much more impactful and joyous.

I think tradeoffs to me are all relative, and I think I enjoy the tradeoffs that we make. If there was anything I could crave more, it's more experiences and travel. But the reality of our situation is we have a kid and a dog, so that's the only thing right now that's burning inside me.

CLOSING:

What is something you’re looking to improve in your business, health, or personal life?

Kyle: Mindfulness practice. One of our coaches mentioned this, and it rings in my head is, we have coaches and trainers for nutrition and for fitness, but we don't think about our mind that way. Mental performance is becoming a huge space, and people have coaches for that. For me, I work so much on physical aspects, but mental aspects, I don't work as hard with that to set up structure. So I think that's one space where it's like, where can I strategically incorporate more breath work? Where can I really inject more pause, moments, reflection? I want to get back to journaling and all of those things because I think it pays dividends. That's one area where I want to continue going down that rabbit hole and learning about myself and my mindset and how I can improve.

Which habits or routines truly move the needle for you? And what’s one thing you would advise others to do that could move the needle for them?

Kyle: It's definitely the walks. I would say walks allows for so many other things to naturally go in. Off the top of my head, usually, you're getting outdoors for the most part. And that's sunlight or outdoor light. We're doing it without phones, so you're having a moment to break from all of life. You're being in nature most times. You're also just getting time with your own thoughts, you're getting activity, you're getting steps in it. I can just go down the line on all the benefits from just something so trivial as going for a walk.

What I encourage for people a lot is, How can you think about movement? And this is the thesis of my book that I just wrote. It's called Move, Thrive, Come Alive. How can you think about movement outside of just exercise? What does movement look like in totality? Because my argument is the 23.5 hours outside of that 30 minute exercise block is probably more important than the 30 minutes. Generally, if you're getting 30 minutes of movement and then doing nothing else for the rest of the day, or nothing intentional for the rest of the day, or you're sitting for eight hours a day, I would rather focus on figuring out how to integrate movement into your life.

I also think it’s so important get the habit down first. Start with the smallest, easiest, minimal effective dose, and then build from there. That's where my whole movement everyday thing came from. It's like, what's the minimum effective dose for me? & Actually set that. For me, I do either a mile run, or I do a workout where I do 500 reps. That's the minimal dose every day I can do that no matter where I am, and everything else after that is like, if I can do more, do more.

MOVE THRIVE COME ALIVE:

Kyle’s book, ‘Move, Thrive, Come Alive’ comes out on June 2nd! His book shares practical strategies and understanding on how to train your body, your mind, and all of those things to integrate movement back into your life, not just in exercise.

It’ll be available on Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and anywhere books are sold.