MORGAN: Integrative Health with Cara Clark & Body Image Resilience With Lindsay Kite

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:14):
Personally with.

Speaker 2 (00:16):
Rynga Fuelsman. This week we are focused on the body
and all in good ways, nothing to be concerned about.
I'm hoping this episode empowers you to do things that
are helpful for you and your body. First, I'm bringing
on Kara Clark, who is an integrative nutritionist and wellness
educator in integrative health, blood chemistry, and sports and clinical nutrition.

(00:37):
She's going to share her story of how she got
into this line of work and how she balances health
and wellness in her home as a mom of four girls.
And she's going to share a lot of her perspective
on the health industry and how she's helping people understand
their bodies better.

Speaker 3 (00:51):
Then, I'm bringing on Lindsay Kite.

Speaker 2 (00:53):
She's one of the co authors on the book More
Than a Body and has a PhD in the subject matter.
We will talk about body image, resilience, why body positivity
is more than a movement, and how your body is
an instrument not an ornament. I'm super excited this week

(01:15):
to be joined by Cara Clark.

Speaker 3 (01:17):
We were just talking about our love for the Midwest,
for both Midwest girls. Hi, Kara, how are you?

Speaker 2 (01:22):
Hi?

Speaker 4 (01:23):
I'm good, How are you.

Speaker 3 (01:24):
I'm doing good.

Speaker 2 (01:25):
Thanks for joining me and being on here beyond you
being a Midwest girl along with me. You are also
an integrative nutritionist and wellness educator. You've done all types
of clinical nutrition. You're just telling me how you were
an athlete in college and now you have a book
coming out, So walk me through your.

Speaker 3 (01:44):
Story a little bit. How you got to the path
that you're on.

Speaker 4 (01:47):
Yeah, first of all, I love the name of your podcast.

Speaker 5 (01:50):
I think it's really cute and catchy and I don't know,
I'm excited to share personal things.

Speaker 3 (01:55):
That's where we're going to go with this. We get things.
We really want people to take this person. There's a
reason for you.

Speaker 5 (02:01):
Yeah, when I listened to podcasts, I want to know
about people because I can find what they teach on
their website or whatever.

Speaker 4 (02:08):
But I'm like, how did you get there?

Speaker 2 (02:10):
Yeah? I love that, and it gives background to who
you are. Like, you're telling you what you want me
to know. But why should I listen to you?

Speaker 1 (02:17):
Right?

Speaker 4 (02:17):
Exactly? What is your experience? Because you know, everybody has
a story.

Speaker 5 (02:21):
And you know, ironically, when I was getting into nutrition,
it was still really fitness space, human calculator. So to speak,
calories in, calories out, very calorie oriented, very number oriented,
and everybody had this big weight loss testimony. And I
was a college athlete, so I did not have a
weight loss testimony. I had issues with weight because my

(02:42):
coach waited us every two weeks. That's another story that
led me into more of a disordered eating path. So
when I found myself in a path that like I
lost a little bit of control, I had to reevaluate
what did I want for my own life, and like,
how do.

Speaker 4 (02:59):
I reach people who are in this phase?

Speaker 5 (03:01):
Because this is hard. I don't want to I didn't
want to do that. I'm a faith based person. I
didn't want to offend God and hurt my temple, so
to speak.

Speaker 4 (03:10):
So yeah, twenty two.

Speaker 5 (03:12):
I started credentials to become a certified nutritious. But it
was partly because in Bascala and college I knew like
that level of performance was achievable, but nobody could guide
me on how to get there.

Speaker 4 (03:25):
I had to discover it on my own.

Speaker 5 (03:26):
I was always sick during playoffs, like immune system breakdown?
Why's my immune system breaking down? What am I supposed
to be eating? Everybody's drinking gatorade and it hurts my stomach.

Speaker 2 (03:36):
You're having these chronic issues. Yeah, chronic issues or something
that often isn't talked about or able to be discovered
in traditional medical.

Speaker 5 (03:45):
Because they're invisible. Back then, seventeen years ago, people wanted
this visible breakthrough.

Speaker 4 (03:52):
That weight loss.

Speaker 3 (03:52):
How do we easily fix this? Yeah?

Speaker 4 (03:54):
How do you easily fix it? For sure?

Speaker 5 (03:56):
So my thought process when I created my business, which
you know this will tell you a little bit more
so since we're taking it personally, I decided to start
my own business officially right when I got married without
telling my new husband.

Speaker 3 (04:10):
Oh god, okay, what was that like?

Speaker 4 (04:12):
And by the way, I was pregnant.

Speaker 2 (04:15):
A lot happening in there, and now you're a mom
of four girls, which again it just seems like there's
this thing that has happened with you in your life
where there's always been a lot happening there.

Speaker 5 (04:24):
Always chaos is normal. I'm one of eight from the Midwest,
like we talked about, so chaos has been normal for me,
which is ironic because a couple of my breakdowns in
my body were because of stress, but not because I
was more stressed, because I never dealt with the stress
at hand. So yeah, got married, got pregnant on her honeymoon,

(04:44):
even though I text my mom from the Dominican asking
her if I was fertile on day nine or whatever,
and she said I wasn't.

Speaker 3 (04:52):
She said you were, but she was. Did you already
know at this point or no?

Speaker 5 (04:55):
I had no idea, Like I only just started tracking
like fertility and stuff when right when I was getting married,
I didn't think anything of it. So yeah, I was fine, though,
Like I wanted to be a mom my whole life.

Speaker 4 (05:07):
I could have skipped the wedding. That wasn't for me.
I wanted to be a mom.

Speaker 5 (05:11):
But yeah, I never said to my husband do you
care if I quit my well paying job to start
my own?

Speaker 3 (05:16):
It was just like, hey, by the way, and what
was the well paying job?

Speaker 4 (05:20):
I was working at a law firm.

Speaker 5 (05:21):
I was like running a department I shouldn't have been
running only because I was in Orange County?

Speaker 4 (05:26):
Did I get the job? By the way, I looked.

Speaker 2 (05:29):
Okay, wild but also crazy jump yes, athlete nutrition stuff.

Speaker 4 (05:34):
You were broads journalism in college, and then.

Speaker 2 (05:37):
You were working at a law firm and then you
started your own business, which I'm assuming is this what
you're doing.

Speaker 4 (05:42):
Yes, huh.

Speaker 3 (05:43):
Why?

Speaker 2 (05:44):
What was like, I need to start this business and
leave this.

Speaker 4 (05:47):
Job the urgency to heal my own disordered eating. And
that's what it always is.

Speaker 5 (05:52):
It's our own chronic issues that we want to heal from.
Like I said, disordered eating is very invisible and a
lot of people don't go to the doctor to get
a diagnosis. You know, but it controls your mind, It
controls every part of your day, It controls your energy.
And so when I was trying to figure out food,

(06:16):
I wanted there to be a purpose involved, and I
wanted it to be providing energy. I thought, as a
performance athlete, everyone wants to perform on a daily basis. No,
no way, nobody wants to stop performing or not have energy.
And so what I built into my philosophy was to
help me get out of my eating disorder, but also
give people purpose and performance in their everyday life. So

(06:40):
then I created my nutrition philosophy, so seventeen years ago,
I've stuck with it for seventeen years, but I've added
into my credentials.

Speaker 2 (06:50):
Yeah, you've evolved in a lot of that.

Speaker 3 (06:53):
For you, What did the disorder eating look like?

Speaker 2 (06:56):
Because that's another thing with it is it looks different
for everybody.

Speaker 3 (06:59):
Yeah, for you, what was that like?

Speaker 5 (07:01):
It wasn't like binging or bolimia or anything like that.
It was more like what they would call orthorexia, like
overly working out and overly calculating calories and stuff like that.

Speaker 2 (07:12):
And was that because you had mentioned in the beginning
of this a coach who was weighing you.

Speaker 3 (07:17):
Was that part of this? Were all this start?

Speaker 5 (07:19):
I mean I didn't weigh myself then, but I did
move from Oklahoma to California, so looking a certain way
felt like it was a high priority for a twenty
two year old.

Speaker 4 (07:30):
A cultural shift, it's a huge culture shift.

Speaker 5 (07:33):
And yeah, I was just finding myself and like my
identity outside of being a student athlete and going into
the work world. I was broadcast journalism in college. I
fully thought I would be like a sideline reporter until
I found out what their lives looked like and their
hours looked like, and anyway, I wanted a family. I
met my husband like five weeks after I moved to California.

Speaker 2 (07:52):
Oh wow, okay, And so what was that like to
your going through this? You had just made a big move,
You just met your husband, well now husband, obviously he
wasn't then.

Speaker 3 (08:03):
But what was that like for you?

Speaker 2 (08:05):
Like you were experiencing in your body as all of
those things are happening.

Speaker 5 (08:09):
I've always been somebody who goes with the flow. What
do they say, ask forgiveness, not permission. That's kind of
like the way I am, and it's not something I
think about. So I do have to apologize a lot,
and I'm really good at apologizing. I can, you know,
say things I didn't mean or whatever. But anyway, it
wasn't like this crazy experience, but I did know that

(08:32):
for myself, I needed to feel right with God. And
so actually it led me to this very adult spiritual
experience that you don't realize when you're a kid, that
your world view is just what you learn from your
parents and your church and stuff, you know. And so
when I was able to adopt that, I was like, oh,
I can feel faith and that feels good. And so

(08:55):
I actually got with a spiritual director and he told me,
and I've shared this many times, but I feel like
it's really powerful for people to hear. He said, if
you count your or if you keep a prayer log
like you keep your food log you'll be a saint.
Interesting and that was like groundbreaking for me.

Speaker 2 (09:13):
I was like, oh yeah, well and especially with your
experiences that you had, and that probably was just such
a powerful correlation for you. Yeah, So that was this
shift then into this world the nutrition wellness. How long
did it take you to get your body back to
the track that you would feel was healthy.

Speaker 5 (09:35):
The second I got pregnant, I was like, it's not
about me anymore, and that was what healed me. And
so for me, it was like circumstance when I don't
know if that happens for everybody.

Speaker 4 (09:45):
I still not like being weighed while.

Speaker 2 (09:47):
I was pregnant, understandably, so you're growing another human that
comes with.

Speaker 5 (09:51):
Something story, yes, And I wasn't even somebody who gained
a lot of weight being pregnant. But from the second
I found I was pregnant, I was nurturing the baby.
And that's when I really focused on my macros and
not so much the calories, but making sure I was
getting the combination of carbs, fat, and protein every time

(10:12):
I ate, and eating real foods. So I was just
really focused on nourishing the life growing inside of me,
and not really myself anymore. So being taken out of
myself is how I healed.

Speaker 3 (10:23):
Yeah, and that makes sense.

Speaker 2 (10:25):
I don't think it's uncommon to hear you talked to
a lot of parents and there's just a shift that happens,
And it sounds like for you it was especially a
shift in your health and wellness, but also what you
were doing when it comes to nutrition and integrative health
and stuff. It's kind of this I don't want to
say untapped market, because people have been researching nutrition and

(10:46):
diets for years, but the integrative health.

Speaker 3 (10:49):
Is just a little bit uncommon.

Speaker 2 (10:51):
It still is today as far as trying to really
blend all things natural along with traditional medicine and just
finding the.

Speaker 3 (11:00):
Right flow for each individual person.

Speaker 2 (11:02):
So when you were getting into this, how are you like, Okay,
how do I figure out how to do this for
myself and then start to teach people about this because
you don't have a lot of studying material, right.

Speaker 5 (11:14):
Yeah, And I wouldn't say I was integrative then. I
was really focused on just nutrition, okay, and so learning
how to be a nutritionist and help guide people on
the energy of food and not so much like the
calories of food, even though calorie is a measurement of energy.
I started working with sororities all over southern California because

(11:36):
I knew they were probably battling the same thing that
I was, and I trained them through boot camps and
then I taught them how to grocery shop on their budgets.

Speaker 3 (11:45):
Wow.

Speaker 5 (11:45):
So that gave me so much purpose. That also helped
me understand like human behavior. So huge part of guiding
anybody on anything wellness is understanding human behavior and being
patient and like being a good listener. Because in my
argue that I'm a good listener, but I'm a really
good listener for my clients.

Speaker 2 (12:03):
That's different in clients versus marriage.

Speaker 3 (12:05):
Yes, we're walking different territories there.

Speaker 2 (12:09):
You were mentioning too, how everybody's very different and the
body's different for everybody. And you're talking about listening to
your clients.

Speaker 3 (12:17):
How do you when you.

Speaker 2 (12:19):
Get a client, what are some things that you're paying
attention to about their lifestyle that's going to help you
on the nutrition side of things.

Speaker 5 (12:26):
Yeah, that's a really good question and comprehensive question at that.
I'll just start with saying why I became an integrative
practitioner as well as an integrative nutritionist and not holistic
and not functional, okay, because I think, you know, there's
natural paths, there's functional medicine doctors, there's Chinese medicine doctors,

(12:48):
there's all these things. But I knew that at the
root of people's food issues, they were coming most of
the time. People were coming to me at the in
the early days, so in my twenties were weight loss
or sports performance. I had a lot of people being
referred to me for sports performance. That was always fun
for me. My next health breakdown happened in my thirties

(13:09):
when I was just burning the candle at both ends.
I had four kids in five years. I was pregnant
and nursing for seven My business blew up turned into
a business. I thought it was a hobby. I was
pursuing my passion. My husband was earning the money. And
you know, for seven years, it did not matter what
I made, you know, I just got to pursue my passion.

(13:31):
I got to be a mom, I got to have
the kids. And then overnight, like I had this huge
influx of people and I was like, okay, and I
had I was having my third child at that point,
so I got a thousand emails in a day.

Speaker 4 (13:44):
I'm not even kidding about.

Speaker 3 (13:45):
Where did that come from?

Speaker 4 (13:46):
Orange County House Life?

Speaker 3 (13:47):
Okay, you got mentioned on there.

Speaker 5 (13:49):
I got brought into the scene of celebrityism and I
always avoided it, to be honest, and it was hard
to avoid where I lived.

Speaker 3 (13:58):
Yep, Well everybody there once to be everybody.

Speaker 5 (14:00):
Yeah, everybody wants health health like it's just never ending
in that area of the world. So overnight I had
to build. I had to streamline something without any employees.
So I built my challenge programs and those are seasonal,
and then years later I built this membership so and
I have this whole team of nine amazing women that

(14:22):
do all the things. But anyways, while I was having
kids and then running a full scale business, which I
didn't necessarily intend for, I just I really did, just
have always been the hardest worker I know, but it
really did just happen.

Speaker 4 (14:35):
Does that make sense?

Speaker 3 (14:36):
Yeah? Absolutely.

Speaker 4 (14:37):
I didn't have the strategy in mind, but I worked
my butt off.

Speaker 2 (14:40):
Yeah, you were doing the hard work and it just
paid off. You just didn't realize it was going to
happen in that quickly, right, right, It was literally that
part was overnight. But they say overnight success takes ten years,
and in that case it was eight.

Speaker 3 (14:51):
Yeah, it always does.

Speaker 2 (14:53):
There's always everybody wants to look at the moment that
it happened to all the years leading up to.

Speaker 5 (14:57):
Me, right, And it is crazy how in a blink
of and I like all that work paid off. But
for me, I didn't have any intention of hiring a
nanny or nout like my motherhood. So to have grown
a business as a mom and then years later deal
with some health issues with one of my kids and

(15:20):
got pretty sick myself because, like you, I was waking
up at three thirty in the morning so that I
could get my work done before my kids woke up,
and then I could get another three hour window while
they took naps. So I had a beautiful structure of
routine of sleep.

Speaker 4 (15:35):
In my house.

Speaker 5 (15:36):
But I didn't realize like how much it was hurting me,
and how much it was hurting my nervous sys some
and my adrenals and my cortisol. And you know, first
my skin broke out. You know, I'm in my thirties.
I'm like three years post nursing my fourth child. I
should be like in my prime, right, Like I did
all the hard things, and now I.

Speaker 4 (15:56):
Should be flowing.

Speaker 5 (15:58):
My skin started breaking out, and then I got really lean,
like to the point where I couldn't put weight on.
And then so I'm like thirty three thirty four. Then
I got insomnia, and I thought it was all spiritual,
So I like did all the prayer work, I got
the spiritual advisors again. For me, I always go to
spiritual first. And so I have acne, I have insomnia,

(16:18):
I have nervous system issues, like I'm on the brink
of feeling like death all the time. And I'm a nutritionist.

Speaker 3 (16:27):
And You're like, I thought I'm doing all the right.

Speaker 4 (16:29):
Thing that was invincible. Yeah, I ate right.

Speaker 5 (16:31):
I exercised, I did what I was told by the
fitness industry and by my original credential. So I started
working with a functional medicine doctor and a Chinese medicine
doctor and started putting my body back together. Started to
understand I had to I mean, if I was going
to take care of for kids all day and run
a business, I had to optimize my.

Speaker 4 (16:51):
Sleep, not sleepless.

Speaker 5 (16:54):
So started putting the pieces back together and then exploring
further and the reason I became integrative rather than functional,
quote unquote, which are similar. To be honest, I feel
like functional tries to throw solutions at the problem, whereas
I wanted this.

Speaker 4 (17:13):
Root cause approach.

Speaker 5 (17:15):
So even years later, I still had some madrinal stuff
coming up. Like I was doing all the supplements. I
was doing like thirteen supplements a day. For some people
that doesn't sound like a lot, but I like my
clients to be like five or under a day unless
they're on a healing protocol. So for me, integrative is
using aer vidic, which is ancient six thousand years old,

(17:36):
like the original saunas and castor oil wraps and the
Doscha body type and stuff like that. I like assessing
the body with this ancient medicine. In mind, I like
exploring Chinese medicine. Like I said, Chinese circadian rhythm. They
have this clock that helps us identify what organ systems
might not be optimal based on the weakness in the

(17:59):
time of day, our sleep cycle. If we're waking up
at a certain time every night. We can look into
the Chinese circadian rhythm.

Speaker 4 (18:05):
So I use little.

Speaker 5 (18:06):
Chinese biomolecular is supplemental, but it's also therapeutics. It's botanicals,
and herbs and that kind of so it's not just
like vitamins and minerals. And I don't like to just
supplement people based on their labs either. I want to
find the root cause and help the body be able
to activate.

Speaker 2 (18:24):
That's so hard to do too, because the root cause,
you're like, I've learned, the body's just kind of this
onion that you're just constantly appealing back to be like, Okay, what.

Speaker 3 (18:32):
Are we going to find?

Speaker 1 (18:32):
Now?

Speaker 3 (18:32):
What's next? We took care of this? Now, what's this well?

Speaker 5 (18:35):
And especially because I sounded so invested, especially okay, we
like them, especially because a lot of our root causes
were brought to us by birth. Yeah, we came into
the world with them, and so it's our normal and
so any different, Yeah, you don't know any different. So
about thirty three thirty four I did a bunch of

(18:56):
integrative functional work, and then around thirty eight I did
a bunch of root cause stuff and that really opened
my eyes.

Speaker 4 (19:04):
Talk about peeling back the onion.

Speaker 1 (19:05):
You start to.

Speaker 5 (19:06):
Not relive but see some of these like trauma experiences
like I started getting hives at eight? Why did I
start getting hives at eight? Well, once I started addressing
the root cause. I figured out why I started.

Speaker 4 (19:18):
Getting hives at eight. I'm not gonna go okay, okay,
I mean it's related to trauma. Right, Kids forget.

Speaker 5 (19:25):
Things and your body, but your body doesn't. Your body
does keep score. I love that saying your body keeps
score because it's so true. So when I started doing
root cause through using bio energetic medicine, and then I
use quantum so light therapy, pimp therapy.

Speaker 4 (19:45):
Are these you have you heard of these?

Speaker 3 (19:47):
Yeah? I'm just see. I wasn't sure how far it went.

Speaker 4 (19:50):
I mean it goes pretty far.

Speaker 5 (19:52):
I won't get too far into it, but I like
incorporating all of it because it depends on going back
to the bioindividuality of the person first, like what are
their epigenetics, meaning their lifestyle practices?

Speaker 4 (20:04):
Now, can they be compliant with the food because I
can do.

Speaker 5 (20:07):
Like a pull for a full pullback of all the
food that they're eating, and like only put in food
that their system can optimize.

Speaker 2 (20:17):
With interesting, which would be super helpful for anybody.

Speaker 4 (20:21):
It's super helpful for anybody.

Speaker 5 (20:23):
I discovered it by working with autoimmune people and then
I'm like, so, why doesn't this work with anybody inflamed. Okay,
it does like this is a full body reset and
you're not restricting calories or food. You're restricting certain types
of food that are harder for the body to digest.
So if the body if a food's harder for the
body to digest, it's going to take energy to do it.

(20:44):
So the energy is going towards digestion and not healing.
So if we like really pull it back and we
just put food in the body that can be used
that's bioavailable immediately, then the body starts to resource. So
people want to like always.

Speaker 4 (21:00):
Add things in. I'm like, what can we take out?

Speaker 5 (21:04):
That's true, but it has to be like mentally, emotionally,
and physically available to the client.

Speaker 2 (21:11):
And it is true because that's why I ask lifestyle wise,
because so much of health and wellness where people struggle
is convenience and accessibility.

Speaker 3 (21:21):
And that's where you have a lot of people who
are like, yeah, I want to do these things.

Speaker 2 (21:24):
I want to take care of myself, but I don't
have the tools, I don't have the time, and how
do you start to do that? And then you start
to do your own research, which you've been able to
find your way through, right. But to the normal person
who has no knowledge or any version of training, they
go online and you have so many options. Which option

(21:47):
do you go down?

Speaker 4 (21:47):
Okay, this is they take They want to take something,
and I always want to take stuff.

Speaker 2 (21:52):
Everything is is just a different journey, a different battle
that you have to go down.

Speaker 3 (21:57):
So it's interesting to hear that perspective.

Speaker 2 (21:59):
Not once in all of my research that I've personally done,
have I ever heard somebody be like, well, let's remove
some things.

Speaker 3 (22:06):
But also keep stuff in. Yeah, that's just a different strategy.

Speaker 2 (22:09):
Yeah, I want to go a few different areas here
on some of the things you said.

Speaker 3 (22:14):
One of them you mentioned supplements.

Speaker 2 (22:16):
Supplements are very common, especially as people are trying to
understand their bodies better. Supplements tend to be something that
people go down, especially coming out of traditional medicine and
into a more functional lifestyle. Why do you say five
and under and what's this deal with supplements.

Speaker 5 (22:31):
Because most of the time when people are coming to me,
they've already been here or there, like five different other places,
and typically they're loaded up with supplements and they have
all kinds of gut issues.

Speaker 4 (22:41):
So in order for a supplement to work.

Speaker 5 (22:43):
It has to go through the gut and then get
to the blood stream, and it gets to the blood
stream from the gut. So if you don't have like
pretty optimal gut health, then there's not a lot of
encapsulated unless it's wrapped in fat, which is like a zoma.
So life is almost a better option for somebody who's
really trying to heal. So my rule of thumb is

(23:05):
foundational support, So foundations with food, foundations with movement. That
doesn't mean more workouts, it means like matching what the
body is able to do with its stage stress and otherwise.
And then foundations of activation, so we activate the body
in general with a active multi in, a Mega three

(23:29):
or balance oil, and a probiotic.

Speaker 4 (23:32):
So these are the three starting point. If you can
only afford four dollars a day, that's where you start.

Speaker 5 (23:39):
If you're somebody food is not pleasurable because it's like
always disrupting, meaning like bloating gas. Everyone complaints they're bloated inflammation.
We are going to do digestive enzymes with that foundations.
If you're somebody super high stress or high strung like me,
then we're going to do magnesium and optimize the body

(23:59):
that way, are likely going to do an active bee
because somebody like me is burning the adrenals out, so
we're burning our bees, burning the bees.

Speaker 4 (24:10):
That's five, right, five, And.

Speaker 2 (24:13):
You had mentioned these and again you can go online
and you say everybody.

Speaker 3 (24:17):
Needs this like you can see it.

Speaker 2 (24:19):
You got influencerschool, or you have so much content that's
happening out there. But truly, is there supplements that every
single person needs? Is there things that every single body
is going to need? Does that actually happen or is
it more so often that your body is unique and
you need to treat.

Speaker 3 (24:37):
It as such.

Speaker 5 (24:39):
Yeah, I mean, if you have the resources to really
do the bio individual approach one hundred percent tests, don't guess,
but functional medicine testing and integrated medicine testing is going
to be if you want to find out your biomarkers
on all of your vitamins and minerals, it's going to
be like twelve hundred dollars.

Speaker 4 (24:57):
So that's not available to everybody.

Speaker 3 (25:00):
Back to the accessibility.

Speaker 5 (25:01):
See yeah, right, so I just general rule of thumb,
I'm going to suggest, you know, an active multi like
thorn or equolife. Right now, I really for somebody that
is aware that they have MTHFR, I like this supplement
called end Light for their active multi So if I
have a little bit of data on them, I can

(25:21):
make suggestions. But yeah, if we're just generalizing this, go
with an active multi. Even Mary Ruth's vitamins, which are
accessible on Amazon and most people can pay for them,
are good.

Speaker 3 (25:33):
Okay, that's good to know.

Speaker 2 (25:34):
I think for a lot of people too, because just
like I said, the accessibility thing is what is so difficult,
and that's why I think people turn to the internet.
They're trying to financewers the best way.

Speaker 4 (25:43):
They can h and yet they end up burdening the body.

Speaker 2 (25:47):
Yes, because it's often that a lot of things band aid.
We're back to the root cause it's again onion.

Speaker 3 (25:53):
It's all onion, and.

Speaker 2 (25:54):
You're just there's so many different layers and a lot
of complexities of human which is why health and wellness
I think so much beyond understanding just your nutrition and
the things that you're supposed to have in or not
have in.

Speaker 3 (26:06):
It's right, it's understanding things as a whole.

Speaker 2 (26:09):
And I yeah, I love that's what you're practicing that
you're also preaching that in your own life. Yeah, you
were talking to of your high stress and you shared
its and pieces of your story as a mom of
four daughters and you have a husband, like you have
all the reasons to not be doing health and wellness.

Speaker 3 (26:30):
You're busy, you have your own business, Like.

Speaker 1 (26:33):
How do you do it?

Speaker 3 (26:34):
How is this working for you?

Speaker 2 (26:36):
Well?

Speaker 5 (26:36):
Part of it is I have to if I don't
stay pretty straight and arrow on my choices. It's easy
for me because I'm obsessed with feeling good. Let's face that,
I want to feel good every single day.

Speaker 4 (26:46):
I don't like feeling bad.

Speaker 5 (26:48):
Ever, I'm a whimp when it comes to any symptoms.
If my ring here is even Oh you're showing some
mild symptoms, Like.

Speaker 2 (26:57):
You're like, okay, great, I have to restart everything.

Speaker 1 (27:00):
So I have to.

Speaker 4 (27:01):
I chose this.

Speaker 5 (27:02):
This is my dream life that I'm living right now.
I'm not going to watch it fade away. So I
being having four kids keeps you in the present moment.
And that's the nice thing about the chaos of my life,
as I'm always in the present moment, So I'm not
having to do all this meditation work to get in
the present moment because I'm in the present moment. My
meditation work is to, you know, bring out my nervous

(27:25):
system a little bit.

Speaker 4 (27:26):
So the why do like, why do I do it?
How do I do it? I think people should just
come love with me and see. I don't know how
to describe it, but generally I follow my food philosophy.

Speaker 5 (27:39):
I eat within the hour of waking up. I don't
drink coffee on an empty stomach. Those are two big
ones that I think a lot of people don't do.
I try to exercise every day for thirty minutes, and
I don't like the only reason I say try, I'm
obsessed with working out, like I mentioned from the beginning,
but my day doesn't always a lot for it, and
so by life style, I have a lot of meat movement.

Speaker 4 (28:02):
Have you heard of that?

Speaker 3 (28:04):
Tell me?

Speaker 4 (28:04):
Exercise thermogenesis?

Speaker 3 (28:06):
Okay, what is it?

Speaker 4 (28:07):
It's tracking the movement of our body. I'm up and
down the stairs.

Speaker 5 (28:12):
We're talking about the stairs, you know, putting laundry, way,
doing dishes. I have a lot of movement, walking my
kids to school, walking the Dog's just a lot of movement.
And I try to prioritize movement over going to a
workout class because I know it's not realistic for me
in my stage of life, and I'm okay with that,
because when this is said and done and the girls

(28:32):
move on, that'll be like the hard part for me.
I'll have a harder time saying structured and regimented. Then, Like,
right now, I have to drink my water, I have
to take my detax bads, I have to do take
my vitamins or I pay for it, you know. But
when I don't have to anymore, when like space is

(28:53):
totally cleared up and I'm gonna have to deal with
all my issues.

Speaker 3 (28:56):
You're like, there's a lot of purpose behind this side
right now. So I'm just.

Speaker 2 (29:02):
No. But that's also very real, right because it's easy
to look at somebody like you who has all this
knowledge and has the experience and be like, well, yeah,
that's easy for her, but you have a very busy
and full life and you've made it a priority.

Speaker 3 (29:17):
But that's your drive.

Speaker 2 (29:19):
So I think that's something for people to think of,
is what's their.

Speaker 3 (29:22):
Drive, what's their reason?

Speaker 2 (29:24):
That's your reason, and this is why every day you're like, Okay,
I have to do these things, right, you have your purpose,
So finding a purpose I think will help people in
attaining these goals. Yes, when it is you want to
look at it and be overwhelmed and say there's no
way I can do this.

Speaker 3 (29:40):
Right, So I think that's a well I in.

Speaker 5 (29:43):
My membership this year, I started the year off with
the coaching session of having them reprioritize and not.

Speaker 4 (29:49):
Just what's important what's not like, what's relevant to what
you're aspiring to do? Why are you here?

Speaker 5 (29:56):
You're in my membership for a reason, So let's lay
it out with priorities instead of goals.

Speaker 4 (30:00):
And I felt like that even helped me. Like I
was telling my team the other day, I.

Speaker 5 (30:04):
Don't have time to help in my daughter's school quote unquote,
but that's what gives me great joy. So I'm reprioritizing
that in my schedule. So I go do that every
Tuesday for an hour or whatever. People think I'm crazy.
I coach my kids' teams because that's a priority to
me because it gives me so much joy. You know,
I don't not do things because I don't have time.

(30:26):
I restructure my schedule for my priorities.

Speaker 4 (30:29):
Does that make sense?

Speaker 3 (30:30):
It absolutely does, And it is.

Speaker 2 (30:32):
It's something that is difficult, right because a lot of
topics on this podcast in general has always been.

Speaker 3 (30:40):
It's easier to do stuff that's not hard.

Speaker 2 (30:43):
Yeah, that's just true, unfortunately, and it's easy to get
stuck in ways where it's just you're taking the easier
route or you're repeating the same cycle.

Speaker 3 (30:52):
What you're talking about is a hard choice to make.

Speaker 2 (30:56):
You have to make the choice to make things a
priority and read structure your life to make that happen,
which we love to think that we can do, but
when we're faced with.

Speaker 3 (31:06):
That decision is often I'm okay, yeah, mine.

Speaker 4 (31:09):
It's true to cook dinner, grab dinner, for sure, it
really is.

Speaker 2 (31:13):
And then back to the convenient side of things and
understanding all of that. So understanding that things are a
priority is necessary. I also want to mention to you,
so on my side of things, you're gonna probably have
a lot of tips in this area. I've been a
vegetarian since I was eight years old.

Speaker 3 (31:31):
It was a decision that I made.

Speaker 4 (31:33):
Very in the middle of Kansas, no less, yeah, very young.

Speaker 2 (31:37):
My sister told me where my McDonald's cheeseburger came from,
and I said, I am absolutely not eating this anymore,
and declared right then and there too, my parents very
strong opinion of me not to, but I did, and
I've stuck with him.

Speaker 3 (31:52):
I'm not thirty one years old. It's a long time
of being vegetarian.

Speaker 2 (31:55):
But one of my biggest struggles, and I think so
many people's struggles, regardless of vegetarian, vegan, or eating all
kinds of meat, is getting protein in all the time.

Speaker 3 (32:05):
That's and it's so important, but it's so hard to do.

Speaker 1 (32:08):
Yeah, it is.

Speaker 4 (32:10):
I don't know why.

Speaker 5 (32:11):
I mean, that's why I think it trends to say
prioritize protein, because really I prioritize all three macros.

Speaker 4 (32:17):
But it is the one thing that you don't naturally grab.

Speaker 5 (32:20):
Fat's easy to get fat as twice as nutrient dense,
you don't need as much, so by looks of it,
you eat half the fat as you do carbs. And protein. Yeah,
protein is not a natural thing for people to grab.
You're one hundred percent right. I wonder what's involved in
that human nature and evolution.

Speaker 4 (32:38):
I'm with you.

Speaker 5 (32:39):
It's hard to think about the animals. And I have
actually a friend from Kansas who found out where her
pet pig went oh no and never eat meat again.

Speaker 3 (32:48):
So no, that would traumatize me.

Speaker 4 (32:51):
I know it is traumatizing.

Speaker 5 (32:52):
And I went through a stage where I was vegetarian
and it was so inflammatory for my body that I
had to make the hard toste to like but yeah,
and like when I'm working with somebody, there are emotions,
and there's physiological things, and there's physical things and there's
mental things, and so I have to help the person
build back regardless of my beliefs.

Speaker 4 (33:16):
Does that make sense? So anyways, what was the original question?

Speaker 1 (33:20):
Oh?

Speaker 2 (33:20):
Protein, Well you can also talk about too, because you
had mentioned that you do the three groups together than
just protein too.

Speaker 3 (33:27):
So if that's better, feel free. This is just the hot.

Speaker 4 (33:32):
It's because it's hard to get. It's not natural. Even
like my daughter that came home early today, she made
herself a huge and.

Speaker 5 (33:39):
She's I just don't know a protein to add. So
it's just not natural unless we're like deferring to dairy.
Everyone wants cheese and yogurt.

Speaker 2 (33:47):
But yeah, oh yeah, as a vegetarian, that's the one
reason I can't go vegan.

Speaker 3 (33:52):
I've tried, and it is to that point.

Speaker 2 (33:55):
And because often like when people think about protein, when
they think about a healthy meal, it'd be like veggies, rice, protein.

Speaker 4 (34:03):
Yes, and people are so tired of doing that right again,
indoctrinated by the fitness.

Speaker 3 (34:08):
World exactly, and they're tired of that.

Speaker 2 (34:10):
So they're like, Okay, well, how can I find other
ways to get in protein? Then you start looking like, well,
maybe there's really not all that many options here.

Speaker 4 (34:17):
Well, there's not like very many pure complete proteins for vegetarians.
That's just the truth.

Speaker 3 (34:23):
Dairy is one, So you're right on that, and even
how she is like my best friend.

Speaker 4 (34:29):
Yeah, I love cottage cheese.

Speaker 5 (34:30):
I did a bioresonance scan with physics measuring my voice,
so I do all the testing and cottage cheese came
back perfect. I was like, all the wavelengths matched cottage
cheese in my body, which is ironic because I don't
do well with most dairy.

Speaker 3 (34:48):
Okay, so cottage cheese though, was the same one.

Speaker 1 (34:50):
Huh.

Speaker 3 (34:51):
I need you keep telling me all these things, and
I'm like, okay, I do eggs?

Speaker 4 (34:54):
Are you pascytarian?

Speaker 3 (34:55):
I do eggs.

Speaker 2 (34:56):
It's like a weird I have a weird relationship with eggs.
Sometimes I'll be like, yeah, let's eat them.

Speaker 4 (35:00):
Nobody can have a relationship with eggs. Anymore. They're just
confiscated permanently, they're gone.

Speaker 1 (35:06):
They are there.

Speaker 3 (35:06):
I saw a place what was doing in New York.

Speaker 2 (35:09):
They were doing like lucy eggs where they're just telling
like one, I'm like, imagine you just go and buy
five lucy eggs and you're trying to make it home
with these lucy eggs. You're like back in high school
when they gave you that as a baby to take
care of.

Speaker 3 (35:22):
Oh my gosh. Yeah, And I'm like, what are you
going to put your lucy eggs in now? Because you
don't get a carton, it's a whole eggs.

Speaker 4 (35:29):
That's funny. I didn't know that.

Speaker 5 (35:31):
Yeah, And then like when you take the deeper dive
and I know we don't have all the time in
the world, but vegetarian protein is plant based, and a
lot of these plants are not organic and they're not
grown enrich soil, and they're high in arsenic, which is
a heavy metal. And so then you're like where do

(35:52):
I turn. And then the nut milks and stuff they're
unless you make your own, which like who has time
for that?

Speaker 3 (35:59):
It is getting to the point where you're like, I
might as well just have my own garden, my own things.
Don't go to the store.

Speaker 4 (36:05):
I know, never need to go to the store.

Speaker 3 (36:08):
Hope we end up in an apocalypse. I suppose that
would help everybody else.

Speaker 5 (36:12):
Every time I hire instacart and ship, they put me
over the edge with their replacements, so we're lack thereof
yep every time.

Speaker 3 (36:19):
Well, well, that is like a big topic. But what
is something to do for you?

Speaker 2 (36:24):
Because you've been in this so long you personally, maybe
it's something for other people. However you want to walk down,
you can, But what's something you wish you had known
sooner about, whether it's nutrition, health.

Speaker 5 (36:36):
Yeah, the biggest thing I wish I had known is
about adrenals and.

Speaker 4 (36:44):
Taking this more integrative.

Speaker 5 (36:46):
Our dreanals are on top of our kidneys, and our
kidneys and Chinese medicine are heart so American women our understanding.
The kidneys are the air filter to the body, and
so if the adrenals are down, it affects the kidneys,
which affects your dreamage pathways, which you know, and then
affects a lot of other things. Obviously, But if I

(37:08):
understood supporting my dreanals through my pregnancies, through starting my business,
I don't think I would have had the major two
year breakdown that I did, where I thought everything is
going to lose everything. So you know, supporting your adrenals
is not a simple topic. It's different for everybody. It's
not vegetarian, they all are.

Speaker 1 (37:31):
I know.

Speaker 4 (37:32):
So that was that's one thing. And then obviously the
nervous system.

Speaker 5 (37:36):
I think that, like I said, we define things as
normal for ourselves because we're used to it and because it.

Speaker 4 (37:42):
Became our normal.

Speaker 5 (37:44):
But having balance in the body and regulation of the
different systems is what we should be seeking, not keeping
our normal.

Speaker 2 (37:53):
That's really good information for other people to to have.
But crazy I the adrenals I learned about too when
I also had went into some You said, the supplemental side.
What would that be referred to as in medicine, Oh, biomolecular, Yeah,
more supplement And one of the biggest things high stress.
I had bad adreanal because I had such a like

(38:16):
high stress job, and I was.

Speaker 3 (38:18):
Like I didn't even know those existing, No, what are
you talking about?

Speaker 5 (38:22):
And it seems like a loose term, like a drenal fatigue,
because for me, I was hyper. I wasn't tied like
I couldn't even go to sleep.

Speaker 3 (38:29):
Yeah, you're like, this feels like that's not Yeah, didn't.

Speaker 4 (38:33):
Sound right until I really started the path of discovery.

Speaker 2 (38:36):
Yeah, well I could listen, Kara, we could sit here
all day. No, because I love everything that you're doing.
Your story is amazing. But I do love to end
the podcast with a motivational tip if you will, or
something that you feel like can help other people, or
something that you just feel like on your.

Speaker 3 (38:54):
Heart to share.

Speaker 2 (38:56):
So something motivationable to end us here on a high note.

Speaker 5 (39:00):
Yeah, that's awesome that you always share motivational things. I
think for most people when they do start health journeys,
it's fleeting that they don't see results.

Speaker 4 (39:10):
So really tap into how you feel. How do you
can measure how you feel? Do you have energy?

Speaker 5 (39:15):
Do you feel good? Rather than what the scale says
or what your clothes say. If you feel good, change
will come.

Speaker 2 (39:24):
That's a really important one, especially right now because the
impact of social media has a lot of us seeing
ourselves differently and thinking that the scale is still one
of the most important things when it.

Speaker 3 (39:35):
Really isn't right. It has a lot to do with
how you feel. So, Kara, thank you for joining me.
Thanks for being here sharing your story. You do have
your new cookbook that's coming out.

Speaker 2 (39:45):
I did want to mention too, because weird connection by
way country music.

Speaker 3 (39:49):
You have a forward in there from Carrie Underwood. Yeah,
what's that connection?

Speaker 4 (39:53):
We went to college together in Oklahoma.

Speaker 3 (39:55):
Okay, now this is making sense. So been friends since college?

Speaker 5 (39:59):
Well, well, yes, there was a window of time where
we lost touch, but we moved here because they were
very welcoming to us.

Speaker 1 (40:07):
Wow.

Speaker 2 (40:08):
Okay, And have you guys worked together at all on
the nutrition tye because I know she's also huge.

Speaker 1 (40:12):
Yeah.

Speaker 5 (40:13):
I was a contributor to her book, and I'm the
nutritionist on her app. I developed the recipes for her
fifty two app. But yeah, we try to keep our
relationship super like friendship and you know, personal and not
so much work. Nice thing with somebody like her is
you're not even working with her, you're working with her team.
So you know, we always keep our relationship friendly.

Speaker 3 (40:36):
No, that's a good thing.

Speaker 2 (40:37):
Well, I love that, and it's friends supporting friends. You've
helped in some things, but also the core.

Speaker 5 (40:42):
People always say, oh and Carrie Underwood's nutritionist, I'm like,
we're just French.

Speaker 4 (40:46):
She doesn't listen to me.

Speaker 2 (40:48):
You're like, well, I mean, Karena was in great shape.

Speaker 3 (40:51):
I know at some point you just be like and.

Speaker 4 (40:52):
I can't even claim it.

Speaker 5 (40:54):
It takes her five years when after I say something
for her to follow through.

Speaker 3 (40:58):
Well, hey, Karena would just like the rest of us.
You know, we're all learning.

Speaker 2 (41:01):
But I'm really excited to see your cookbook take off,
just like everything else has happened for you.

Speaker 3 (41:06):
But again, thank you for being here you.

Speaker 2 (41:16):
I am joined by Lindsay Kite. She is one of
identical twins. They are two twins who promote body image
resilience after getting their PhDs from the University of Utah
in the study of female body image. But they also
have a book called More Than a Body.

Speaker 3 (41:34):
I'm just so excited to have you on. How are you, Lindsay,
I'm good.

Speaker 1 (41:37):
Thanks so much for having me. Morgan.

Speaker 2 (41:39):
Yes, I'm excited to get a talk with you because
your book is so powerful for so many people. I'm
shocked how I hadn't heard of it until I stumbled
upon you guys on social media and I was like,
these guys are perfect.

Speaker 3 (41:50):
I need to have them on the podcast.

Speaker 2 (41:52):
So tell me a little bit how you guys got
into this line of work.

Speaker 1 (41:56):
Sure, yeah, thanks for this invitation. Whether or not you
had heard of our book or our work or whatever,
I'm glad you stumbled upon us. So love that, And
I can fill you in on the whole background. I
would say Lexi and I first got started in this
work because we had been so affected by our culture's
really crazy, harmful ideals about bodies and weight and beauty
growing up, and so we were kind of primed to

(42:20):
recognize this as a real issue within ourselves. I'll start
from when we were both in college and we were
trying really really hard to be different, but we both
took separate sections of the same class on media literacy.
So it was basically just the ability to see and
deconstruct media messages, why images and texts are curated the
way that they are and engineered the way that they are.

(42:40):
And one of the elements of that was on gender
and how women are represented and portrayed in such specific, narrow,
one dimensional ways. So Lexi and I grew up feeling
so abnormal, just so embarrassed of our bodies and like
we were just so gross and overweight and will never
be good enough and always striving for more, and in college,

(43:05):
once we both were in these separate classrooms learning this
message that we had kind of been tricked into thinking
that we were wrong, that our bodies were uniquely gross
and problems in need of fixing, and instead that was
something that media was literally profiting off of that. There
are so many industries, corporations and people that were banking
on us feeling so insecure, always needing to buy the

(43:27):
next product or the next diet plan, whatever it may be.
Lexi and I, being identical twins, I think were always
really hyper fixated on what we looked like because everyone
else was about us meeting people growing up. Really still
to this day, when we're together will meet someone for
the first time, they will look us both up and
down to scan our whole bodies and phases, and especially

(43:47):
when we were little, they would pick out those little differences. Oh, okay,
so you're the one with straight or teeth, or you're
the one with the round or face. And it was
always just kind of a competition, but it made us
really really fixated on what we looked like and how
we compared to each other. And I remember constantly scanning
my twin sister's body up and down to see, Okay,

(44:07):
that's what I look like in those pants that we share,
and just being really self conscious. So learning about that
in college and starting to figure out that actually, your
body images this whole. It's a construction. It's built by
our society, and so many of us have it regardless
of what we look like. We feel so negatively. That
was the start of so much more. That led to

(44:29):
how many years ten years of higher education. Lexie and
I both earned our masters and PhDs, and we did
it together and did really complimentary research about the objectification
of women. Now we see ourselves as objects, not only
why that happens, but how to fix it most importantly,
and that's the body image resilience that you mentioned earlier.

Speaker 2 (44:47):
It's so cool that you guys, as identical twins, had
planned we're going to have our own lives and we're
going to do our own thing, and somehow it still
panned out that you guys ended up studying the same thing,
coming together and really focusing and understanding this stuff together.

Speaker 3 (45:03):
I think that's awesome.

Speaker 1 (45:05):
So, yeah, isn't that wild? We wanted to be different
so bad and just couldn't do it. We just couldn't.
We have the same interests and had such similar experiences
that we decided we were just going to use our
powers for good instead of evil, and stop fighting so
much and being in competition and instead focus on the
same thing and try to do some good. Thinks it's
really helped. I think our work has gone a lot further,
and we've been able to do so much more than

(45:26):
we could if it was just one of us solo.
Things have evolved in the oh Man, We've been doing
this for teen years. Sixteen years. We started in two
thousand and nine when we finished our master's degrees, So yeah,
this has been an ongoing process.

Speaker 3 (45:42):
I think that's super cool.

Speaker 2 (45:43):
And sometimes you just got to let life work out
how it's supposed to work out instead of fighting it.

Speaker 4 (45:47):
So it sounds like that's what happened totally.

Speaker 2 (45:50):
I don't think that we can really start the conversation
about why the work you guys are doing is so
important without discussing the root cause of body image issues.
You know, before you came on, I also had a
friend on Kara Clark who's an integrative health really is
focused on you feeling good in your body, and that's

(46:10):
the focus rather than focusing on the diet and trying
to change your body, how do you feel good? Let's
find a way to make you feel good. And we
talk a lot about root causes, and I think this
is also a topic where there's a root cause to this,
and there's something that created this and is part of
this story that we often don't get to the bottom
of when we just feel I hate my body and

(46:32):
that's that.

Speaker 3 (46:33):
But there's something behind that. So can you share a
little bit about what that might be.

Speaker 1 (46:38):
Yeah, definitely the root of all of this, and the
research that Lexian I have done has really pointed to
the objectification of women's bodies. So in our culture, all
of the media images that all of us have been
surrounded by since we were growing up has been really
curated so that women look one particular. So think of

(47:00):
the media images that you were surrounded by growing up.
Of course, media was a little bit more limited then,
but we all shared these same cultural images and messages
about which women were worthy of being featured or depicted
in media, whether it was your local news anchor a
national news anchor, what girls look like in your favorite
TV shows, movies, magazines, advertising, you'd walk fast on the street.

(47:24):
Like literally everything we generally saw only very thin women,
often white women, or women with light skin tones if
they were women of color, long hair, flawless faces and
bodies meaning no cellul light, no stretch marks, no acne,
no wrinkles, no gray hair, typically very young looking faces
and bodies. So we have this one very particular idea

(47:46):
of what it looked like to be not just an
attractive ten out of ten woman, but what it looks
like to be a normal woman or a healthy woman.
All of this has been really curated in our minds
through media messages, and some people say it's like a
chicken or the situation. Did people have these preferences for
one particular body type, or did industries create these preferences,

(48:07):
or did media start that and reflected it to us,
And now we just take that in and try to
emulate it and reflect it back. The truth is, I'll
use a word that I don't think people love to
talk about often in a lot of circles, but patriarchy.
When men are largely in power, when decision makers are
overwhelmingly male, then often the images and the messages that

(48:31):
we'll see in society will reflect those types of preferences.
So we talk about a male gaze that is perpetuated
through media, all types of media. That means the women
that you'll see depicted or featured at all are typically
seen through the lens of what a straight male would
look at. So the way the camera pans up and

(48:52):
down a woman's body and zooms in on certain parts
of her body. Think of your favorite TV show. It
could be a reality show or scripted show, whatever, even
one that is specifically for women, You'll still see the
camera zoom in on parts of her body and the
dialogue will focus on what she looks like. It was
even worse when we were growing up in a lot

(49:12):
of ways. So that patriarchy and what sells and what's
deemed attractive or desirable or okay enough to be shown
or celebrated was really very one dimensional, and it's created
these generations of women who feel defined by how we look.
Not just that we don't feel beautiful, but we feel

(49:32):
obsessed with what we look like. Period. Some people do
feel beautiful, and that's what when we talk about self objectification,
that means you grow up in a society where you're
surrounded by the objectification of women and then you turn
that lens on yourself. You learn to self objectify it,
to see yourself as an object, so not a dynamic,

(49:53):
fully thinking, feeling human being with agency living inside this body.
You start to see yourself as the rest of the
world old sees women's bodies, and that is as bodies
and not as people. We learn to self objectify and
moderate everything we do through the lens of how do
I look right now? Who is looking at me right now?
Do I need to suck in? Do I need to

(50:13):
sit in a different position, Do I need to keep
my chin up? So my double chain has been showing.
All of this follows us throughout our whole lives, and
we learn it from a very very young age to
self objectify.

Speaker 2 (50:25):
You mentioned so many different details here that I want
to get into. I am one of those people, much
like most women are. I watched so many Disney shows,
I watched all of them. I loved consuming media. I
loved looking at magazines. I was a young girl that
was so fun to me to do. But now, as
an older woman, you look back and you see the
things that you were consuming, and now I'm having to

(50:50):
retrain myself to see things differently. And I think this
is so difficult to do for people because you're retraining
decades of things, like you mentioned, that have been ingrained
in our heads. So how do we start to retrain ourselves?
What does that start to look like for someone who

(51:11):
is quote unquote waking up and realizing this isn't the norm.

Speaker 1 (51:16):
Yeah, that's such a good question. And I just want
to acknowledge how amazing it is that so many people
are even thinking about that, Like, how incredible is it
that we are in this day and age our generation
is starting to push back on these ideas about what
it means to be desirable or healthier, normal, or whatever.
And we're doing that not only for ourselves, but for

(51:37):
the generations to come, and even for the generations before us.
I do this stuff for my mom and my grandma
who's still fixated on what she looks like and how
many calories and carbs and sugar she's eating. All of
this I think is so important, And I want people
to think of their motivation for why they're even asking
this question, Why do you want to retrain your brain?
It's probably because you have been harmed by this stuff,

(52:00):
because you have wasted too many years of your life,
fixating on what you eat to become smaller, instead of
worrying about how you feel right now. And I don't
mean how you feel about how you look. I mean
literally how you feel, how you feel about experiencing the
world and moving in the world in this body that
you were born into and that you will live every
second of your life in. We should be so at

(52:22):
home in these bodies, and instead we feel so separated
from them. We watch ourselves being looked at. We imagine
how we look as we live our lives, and that
holds us back. It stops us. Think of little girls
in middle school who stop raising their hands in class,
and they start sitting out in pe class and they
drop out a dance and volleyball and anything else where

(52:44):
they don't want to be looked at. And for me,
it was swimming. Once I got into high school, I
completely quit swimming because I was too worried about these
boys from my high school seeing me in a swimsuit.
Think of what you've lost and missed out on. So
a lot of us are starting from that baseline of
can't do this anymore. And maybe it's even for your daughter.
The people who are having babies right now are waking

(53:07):
up to these ideas that I don't want my kids
to deal with what I've had to deal with, even
if I'm still dealing with it right now. I got
to fix it for me so I can help them,
and let that be your motivation. Honestly, keep that kind
of rage and that willingness to fight and push back
and let that fuel you in this journey. So when
I talk about body image resilience, I'm talking about something

(53:29):
that's a few steps beyond just body positivity. I'm not
just telling you you're beautiful just the way you are.
You should feel great because your flaws make you beautiful,
and everyone thinks you're prettier than you think you are.
That's been kind of the messaging that we've heard over
the last couple decades. That's the really just public, kind
of big mass campaign sort of messaging. That is nice

(53:50):
and it's good and there's nothing wrong with it. But
the problem is we need to go a little bit
further than that, because if you really think about it,
all of those messages are keeping us fixated on beauty,
whether or not we feel beautiful, whether or not we
are beautiful. Beauty remains the key to our power and
self esteem, and it shouldn't be with body image resilience.

(54:11):
You are coming back home to your body, your body
not as this beautiful thing for you to display and
to be admired by others, but this instrument that is
your home. The subtitle my book with Lexi is more
than a body. Your body is an instrument, not an ornament.
And we named it that specifically, with your body as
an instrument not an ornament as the subtitle, because that

(54:34):
is this mantra that we've been sharing for the last
fifteen years or whatever, and that kind of sums up
this mission that we are on that in order to
really progress and to make any headway toward feeling comfortable
and at home in our bodies, we need to see
our bodies for what they really are, instruments for our
use and our benefit and our experience, not ornaments to

(54:58):
be looked at and to be admired. I'm not your journey.

Speaker 2 (55:02):
I'm really glad you brought that up. I love that
saying that you guys came up with. And I'll get
into that a little bit more here in a second,
but something that weighs super heavily for me and I'm
sure for other people, I have struggle striking this balance
between I know that I want to love my body

(55:22):
and I want to be comfortable in my skin, and
I don't want to listen to things, but I also
want to be healthy and what does that look like?

Speaker 3 (55:27):
And we balance the two of those things.

Speaker 2 (55:30):
Is such this very delicate area because when you start
to get into the health side of things, you start
to look at yourself in a certain way and you're
obsessed with a scale or you're trying to focus on
what your body looks like.

Speaker 3 (55:44):
But so much of what I think is important.

Speaker 2 (55:47):
Is again striking that balance of I'm comfortable in my skin,
but I want to be strong and I want to
be healthy, and I want to feel good because I
feel good and I'm.

Speaker 3 (55:55):
Nourishing my body in the right way.

Speaker 1 (55:57):
Yeah, but how do we do that?

Speaker 3 (56:00):
Because I know for me that's a daily struggle.

Speaker 2 (56:02):
I know that it's a lot for everybody else, And
we're constantly inundated on social media with so much content
on multiple levels of this. So how do we sit
there and find that delicate area where we're honoring the
fact that we don't need to change, but also we
want to be healthy.

Speaker 1 (56:22):
Yeah, your question is great and it reflects one that
everybody in especially our society, asks when they start to
be confronted with these these topics. And it's actually what
my whole dissertation research was based on. My research was
on how women define health and fitness for themselves, how
they understand it, What does it mean for a woman

(56:43):
to be healthy and fit, and how do we fix it?
Because at the root of your question, it shows this
confusion that almost all women and all people in our
culture share, which is the idea that help means looking
a certain way or when a certain amount. And when
you really dig into the real research on what health

(57:04):
and fitness truly means and how to truly define it
in an effective way, you find out that your weight,
your appearance, your body fat percentage, all of that is
actually a really flawed way of thinking about a person's
health and fitness. So mass research since the seventies shows
that the most effective way to determine a person's health

(57:27):
or fitness is their physical activity level, not how they
look while they're engaged in physical activity, not whether they're
running marathons every month, not how jiggly their thighs are
while they are engaging in that physical activity. It's simply
how often you are moving your body and getting your
heart rate up. That is how you can judge health

(57:49):
or fitness. For most people, obviously, go to the doctor,
get all of the testing done that you possibly can
to find out what's really going on in your body,
because everybody's body is different. But the reality is you
can judge whether or not you're healthier fit by internal
indicators like your blood pressure, your cholesterol, your blood sugar,

(58:11):
your respiratory fitness, all that kind of stuff that a
regular doctor can help you really get a handle on,
and how often you are active and getting your heart
rate up. People who are totally healthy by all of
those measures look a huge variety of different ways and
weigh a huge variety of different weights. So when I
say your body is an instrument not an ornament, that

(58:33):
is actually the answer to your question. I want to
be healthy and I want to love my body means
I'm going to use my body as an instrument because
my body is important to use. How I feel better
about my body is by using my body, honoring my body,
engaging in enjoyable activity, and that is truly the best

(58:53):
way to improve your body image is to think of
your body as an instrument and to actually use it
that way. My research showed that most women define health
their fitness by their weight, their body mass index, or
their pants size, and so my whole dissertation research was,
how do we intervene to share accurate information about how
to define health and fitness so that women can have

(59:15):
a better understanding for themselves and then set better goals
for their own health and fitness. And what it showed
was that women often would start by they would pick
goals for themselves like New York's Resolutions. Basically that would say,
I want to lose x pounds by this date, or
I want to get back into these pants that are

(59:36):
in the back of my closet, or I want to
get into this weight category. And those goals, though they
sound like they're pointing toward health, are often not only unachievable,
but they lead to worse health outcomes because when you
are striving to lose weight instead of to improve all

(59:57):
of those internal indicators of health or to just move
your body at a pace and duration that is healthy
for you, then you are getting hung up on factors
that are not always within your control, especially for women,
because these measures, we might have a weight number in
our head. It's a total lie that we heard on
the internet that women who are the most beautiful weigh

(01:00:20):
this amount for this height or whatever it is. It's
all such a weird, arbitrary system. And you know that,
you know that people's weight fluctuates, and you're shocked when
you hear what someone really weighs, and you think she
looks so great, and wow, I can't believe it's that much.
Everyone's weight is just like a whole different, independent story,
and it really doesn't have much bearing on their health
or fitness. So the better sounding goals, not even better sounding,

(01:00:44):
but actually more effective goals for women's health and fitness
would be to say, I want to get my heart
rate up to x rate for thirty minutes, five days
a week. That is kind of baseline what doctors recommend.
But the most important thing is to do something that
is is motivational and fulfilling for you. So whatever activities
it is, don't do something you hate. Don't do something

(01:01:06):
that's a punishment because you hate too much, or because
you think your body's disgusting. So you've got to go
run on the treadmill late at night for two hours
a day. Pick activities that are actually enjoyable that you'll
look forward to, and they will help you have this
greater appreciation for your body and how it works and
what it allows you to do and to experience, rather
than just measuring it's you know, it's way it's relationship

(01:01:28):
to gravity that can be so discouraging and doesn't actually
improve your health.

Speaker 2 (01:01:33):
I'm so glad you refer to it as a relationship
to gravity, because that's really all it is. It's right
and it always it is, and something that's really helped
me in this area I have focused on. When I
say I want to be strong, it's not to look
a certain way. It's I'm a single woman. I have
to take care of things by myself, so I want

(01:01:53):
to be able to lift things. I want to be
able to take care of stuff by my own, so
I got to be strong to take care of myself.
And I want to feel good because feeling good means
I am a good person. I can be out there
living in the world and interacting with the world because
I feel good because I'm nourishing my body in a
way that feels really good to me. And that's so
important to find. But even someone who like me feels

(01:02:15):
like I have this whole grasp on what I'm doing
and what that means. Doesn't mean I don't go on
social media and see all kinds of things and be like, dang,
I wish I looked like that, or I wish I
had that body, or I don't have that.

Speaker 3 (01:02:30):
Do I need to do this?

Speaker 2 (01:02:31):
Or you can get so derailed so quickly because of
everything that's out there, And that was something I would
love for you to share your input on because I
work in social media. I love social media for the
fact that it can bring people together, and it can
bring people like us together who may never come together.

Speaker 3 (01:02:51):
I think it's a beautiful tool.

Speaker 2 (01:02:53):
But it's also a place that people have used to really, gosh,
just hate on women in every way in which they
do something. They could do everything correctly, and they're still
hatred toward them. There's still this insane goal of making
a woman feel worse about herself. Yeah, and I don't

(01:03:16):
know why that continues to keep happening. But I just
love your input on that because I know when I
get on social media as a woman, I hate being
there sometimes because I know that I'm going to get
hate simply for existing.

Speaker 1 (01:03:28):
Yeah, well, it comes back to what I said at
the beginning about it being profit driven and sexist. Really,
these beauty ideals are a way to keep women in
our place. Women aren't really able to progress as much
personally in our individual lives and in society collectively when
we're so fixated on how we look, and when we
are measuring ourselves against these really unattainable and really hyper sexualized,

(01:03:54):
out of reach images that we're comparing ourselves to, often
totally photoshopped and filtered and edited and everything else. But
I just want to honor how difficult it is to
live in a society like this and to be surrounded
by these types of images and messages for our entire lives.
You could be the most educated, the most successful, the

(01:04:16):
most loved, well informed person who's totally at ease with
yourself in every other category. But if you're a woman
who lives in this Western society where we are being
evaluated by how we look, and we're judging ourselves according
to those same measures, then you're always going to come
up short. And so this is not a you problem.
This is not an individual problem. Of anyone, any one

(01:04:39):
of us not being strong enough, or having high enough
self esteem, or having enough willpower just to abstain from
eating all that stuff that I know I shouldn't have eaten,
or having the discipline to exercise more. All of that
points back to me as the problem. You as the problem.
You not having enough self control, you not doing all
the right things in order to be as hot and

(01:05:01):
thin and sexy and young looking as you think you
need to be in order to be happy. What I
want to point out to you is that that's not
the case, and our whole society, our whole culture, and
so many industries are engineered to put that blame on you,
when the reality is that this system that we're surrounded
by is really the thing to blame. It's been so

(01:05:23):
carefully curated to drive those feelings in us so that
we will then buy the products and follow the people,
and engage in the activities and the services that make
people money and that keep this hierarchy in place where
women were never quite good enough. We're always going to
need to try to be better because we're not quite
worthy of love, We're not quite worthy of empowerment and

(01:05:46):
happiness and confidence, in whatever else we want, because we
just don't quite look the part. Even if everything else
in our lives is ten out of ten, that is
a losing system. It is a rigged game. And that
is the game of objectification, where we are objects, and
these objects, the rules for what makes a good object

(01:06:07):
a perfect object are ever changing, are impossible, always perpetually
just out of breach. And how do you know, Because
even the most beautiful ten out of ten women in
this world don't feel perfect. They don't feel like they
are always worthy of that love, or their images are

(01:06:27):
getting edited one hundred percent of the time. They are
still getting cheated on, They're still having major health issues,
they are still going through the same difficulties that all
the rest of us are dealing with in our bodies
that are blawed compared to theirs. And I also just
want to point out that these things that we want,

(01:06:49):
like what you said, we want love, we want confidence,
we want these success in our careers. These are all
universal human desires. We want all of this, and yet
men are able to achieve all of that without having
to have a body that is exactly perfect and up

(01:07:10):
to these really particular standards. And I'm not saying it's
not difficult for men because men are being faced with
a whole variety of appearance related ideals and ideals on
a variety of other factors about their success, their wealth,
everything else. But for women, we have to have all
of those other attributes and always be judged by whether

(01:07:31):
or not we have a body that is perfect. And
the ideals for women are incredibly hard to achieve because
they are based on thinness and youth, and you cannot
have thinness in youth forever because our bodies change, and
by our very nature, through puberty and through pregnancy and
through all of the hormonal shifts and age and everything else.
Our bodies are changing every single day. So this is

(01:07:52):
a losing game, and when you try to play by
that system, you fail, even when you are amazing in
every other way. This just should point out to you
how rigged the system is, and not how wrong and
at fault you are. We all want all of those things,
and we have been taught by well meaning family members,
by the media that we've been surrounded by, especially the

(01:08:14):
social media, but also movies and TV and everything, especially advertising,
that in order the best way to achieve health, happiness, success,
empowerment and especially love and desirability is to be more hot,
to be thinner, to look younger, whatever. That is all
not true. It is not true. I just want people

(01:08:36):
to be so critical when that thought enters our minds,
we think we are improving our lives by losing weight
or by getting the new cosmetic surgery or whatever procedures,
when in reality, we are just striving for this bar
of perfection that continues to be raised further and further
out of reach, and the closer we get to it,

(01:08:56):
the further we feel from it. So much of the
time it is a losing system. But we can feel
happy and confident and at home in our bodies regardless
of how we look. Literally, this body that you're sitting
in right now, I'm talking to everyone who's listening. This
body that you are in right now, you can be
at home in that body because it's yours. It does

(01:09:20):
not matter what you look like or what you've done.
And you might feel like, well, no, I don't deserve
that because I have no self control and I haven't
done all the right things and gotten all of my
shit together. The reality is you are worthy of love,
of empowerment, of confidence, no matter what you look like

(01:09:40):
and what choices you've made, because you were born into
this body, and this body is important and it's yours.
We need to start from that standpoint that your body
is your home, it's not your enemy.

Speaker 2 (01:09:51):
I love that I put myself in the position then
to have you share that, because again it's back to
what you're saying, where we all have these feelings.

Speaker 3 (01:10:00):
We're human and this is a real thing that we're
experiencing day in and day out.

Speaker 2 (01:10:04):
And so as much as somebody can be so well
versed and so you know that the right things and
you know the right way to see it, it doesn't
mean it's not going to creep in and try and
come back at you all over again. Something that I
really feel that has helped me because it's also in
this all these beauty trends and the fashion trends, and

(01:10:26):
you need to be doing this cosmetic thing. To what
you said, something that's really helped me is that I've
taken the power back and all of that where I
don't participate in trends unless it's something I love, unless
it's something that shows up and I'm like, yeah, I
look good in skinny jeans.

Speaker 3 (01:10:45):
I look really good low.

Speaker 2 (01:10:47):
Rise, or you feel great because you decided to get botox.

Speaker 3 (01:10:51):
Cool.

Speaker 2 (01:10:51):
I love that for you.

Speaker 3 (01:10:53):
If you chose that for you, then I think that's
what helps us a lot.

Speaker 2 (01:10:59):
To take the power away from it and say I
like this because I do not because they're telling me
to not because I'm seeing it on somebody else and
it looks really good, and oh, I'm gonna make it
work on me. There are so many trends that come
down I have. I learned this the very hard way,
especially in my early twenties. So much does not look
good on me that is not built for my body.

(01:11:20):
I say that often, especially when it comes to the
fashion industry. I have a very short torso I'm very short.
Most things do not fit me. And I had to
stop falling into the trap of the advertising and say
I have to do this for me, and if I
will like this trend for me, cool, I'll get it,
but I'm not gonna participate just because it's the cool

(01:11:42):
thing to do. And taking that power back really helped me.

Speaker 3 (01:11:46):
I like that.

Speaker 1 (01:11:46):
Yeah, there's so much freedom. I think sometimes that comes
with age a little bit, where it's like I remember
the last time that trend was around, and it didn't
look out on me then and when I was in
seventh grade trying so hard. I don't have to do that.
Now I'm thirty nine years old. I get to wear
Guinea jeans as long as I want to, or I
wasted jeans even when low rise jeans are coming back,

(01:12:07):
because I know that I physically cannot withstand another round
of low rise jens.

Speaker 3 (01:12:11):
I can't exactly.

Speaker 2 (01:12:13):
And I hope that having conversations like this and grains
it even sooner for people in their lives we've had to.
Your point is it comes with age, it comes with wisdom.
But I hope that us talking about it and grains
it even earlier and continues that, and maybe someday we
finally push it all the way back and there isn't
this lingering thing that's existing.

Speaker 3 (01:12:34):
Out in society. Long game. I love a long game.

Speaker 1 (01:12:36):
So we are here for that totally.

Speaker 2 (01:12:38):
Yeah, we're fighting that hard, Vive, But lindsay, thank you
for joining me, thank you for being on.

Speaker 3 (01:12:43):
Is there anything else.

Speaker 2 (01:12:44):
You want to make sure you want everybody to hear
that you feel is so so important.

Speaker 1 (01:12:48):
I would say that I would put this all in
this model of body image resilience. I mentioned that word,
and I just want to point out that the last
things we were just talking about, you know, wanting to
be able to feel good and make choices that help
you feel more comfortable rather than more at odds with
your body, All of that fits in this model of

(01:13:09):
body image resilience. Where we start out what we call
a state of normative discontent, where most of us feel
pretty crappy and uncomfortable in our bodies, our body image
is poor. Then we are always faced with what we
call these disruptions to your body image, something that makes
you question or rethink your relationship with your body. So
it might be comments from another person about how you look.

(01:13:32):
It could be going through a breakup, pregnancy, really, anything
that makes you change your relationship or your view of
your own body. We are forced to respond to those things.
So some of us will respond and try to feel
okay and ease that shame that we feel by numbing ourselves.
And I call that sinking deeper into shame. So maybe
you numb yourself through disordered eating, or through compulsive over exercise,

(01:13:57):
or abuse of alcohol or drugs or anything like that.
Cutting self harm fits in that category the other things
you just mentioned, where you're trying out the latest fashion trends,
or you are planning for the next cosmetic procedure, maybe
you're getting botox, maybe you're saving up for rest augmentation,
or whatever the thing is that you think you need
to fix. All of that is a way we try

(01:14:18):
to keep ourselves, keep that shame at bay, and just
stay comfortable and stay in that comfort zone. Unfortunately, those
things don't last very long. So even if you do
get the botox, and you do get the new fashion,
whatever you do, go on the liquid cleanse for the weekend,
it doesn't ultimately solve your problem because we come back
to the same place we always were, that normative discontent,

(01:14:41):
and we're always going to be disrupted from that state
of normative discontent. The way out is to start building
your body image resilience. So when you're faced with a disruption,
the next time you read a negative comment about yourself,
you see a video or a picture of yourself that
you hate. If you gain weight because of a health
problem or whatever the thing is, that's when you're disrupted.

(01:15:01):
Your shame is at the surface, and you can choose
how you respond to that. You could do the same
things you've always done, and maybe it's through prescription drugs
or self harm or a crash diet, or you could say,
I don't want to be in that same cycle for
the rest of my life. I don't want to slap
a band aid on it. I instead want to build
these skills to be able to respond better this time

(01:15:23):
and next time, and next time at next time, and
it gets easier every single time. That's what I want
people to know. You might still be struggling now at
this at your old age, but you don't have to
struggle this much the next time a disruption comes along.
And that is if you take the time now to
learn how to come back to your body as your home,
to see your body as your ally instead of your enemy.

(01:15:45):
And you do that through building up your media literacy,
learning to question media images, learning to curate your social
media feeds and all of the images that you take
in because they are teaching you what is valuable and
what makes you okay or not okay every single day.
You need to use your body as an instrument instead
of an ornament. Learn how your health and fitness really

(01:16:06):
can be defined personally for you, and how you can
build that and grow it in ways that are really empowering.
There are ten thousand other things you can do. I
would highly recommend starting with my book More Than a Body.
Your body is an instrument, not an ornament. There's a
workbook that goes along with it, called the Official Workbook
for More Than a Body that Lexi and I just
published last year, and it has these daily tips and

(01:16:27):
strategies that literally walks you through this process to build
your body, image, resilience. And there's ten thousand other ways.
You could follow us online at Beauty Underscore Redefined to
see some of those other tips in action. But I
still love people to know this is achievable, this is doable.
I'm almost forty. I'm thirty nine. From a very very
young age, was so self conscious, so fixated on how

(01:16:50):
I looked and just felt disgusting. And I sit here
today bigger than I ever thought i'd be at this age.
I'm still single, I have a great life. I say
those things thinking that if I saw myself, my sixteen
year old self, if I knew that I was going
to weigh this much and be single and whatever other things,
I would be horrified. But I sit here truly at peace, happy,

(01:17:14):
feeling great, feeling successful in all of these ways regardless
of how I look. And I am able to be
at peace because I have built my body, body image
resilience by facing these disruptions head on and proving to
myself that I am fine, that I am okay, and
I am at home in my body, and I know
everyone can do the exact same thing. So that's what

(01:17:35):
I'll leave you with a long winded way of saying
that you are fine and you're gonna do great.

Speaker 2 (01:17:41):
No, it's perfect. It's a testament. You're not only preaching it,
you practice it. You're living the lifestyle that you want
other people to be able to also live. I love
the work that you guys are doing, and thank you
for shouting all those things out and sharing just all
the different pieces. I think it's helpful in our journeys
as we continue to fight the good fight and keep
fighting for ourselves. I think that's very important. So thank

(01:18:03):
you for being here, Thanks for talking with me.

Speaker 1 (01:18:06):
Of course, thank you if.

Speaker 3 (01:18:07):
You're new to this podcast.

Speaker 2 (01:18:08):
Every episode features a different topic that I've found are
very important to discuss through ways of experts to give
us tools and and understanding and then friends who share
their journeys of hardship. We've talked friendships, careers, dating, grief, therapy, relationships,
mental health, confidence, you name it as always, thank you
for being here, and I'll talk to you all next

(01:18:28):
week

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Eddie Garcia

Morgan Huelsman

Raymundo

Mike D

Abby Anderson

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