November 30, 2023 • 44 mins
Do you feel like you're at war with your own body as you're navigating through midlife? Don't worry, you're not alone. We have the pleasure of hosting Janis Isaman (@mybodycouture), a movement specialist, as our guest in this enlightening episode. She shares her profound insights on the physical, emotional, and intellectual transformations we undergo as we age. Janis debunks the myth that pain and discomfort are inevitable parts of aging and empowers us with pragmatic strategies to maintain a harmonious balance amidst the onslaught of fitness marketing and the temptation to simply throw in the towel.
We continue our engaging dialogue with Janis on how we can adapt mind-body fitness programs to meet the changing needs of our bodies as we grow older. Discover the critical role of hyaluronic acid in maintaining tissue hydration and elasticity and how this impacts our bodies' look and feel. This episode underscores the significance of listening to your body and redefining what feels good for you, rather than seeking external validation. Embark on this journey with us to uncover ways to reduce stress, challenge deeply ingrained beliefs, and cultivate a healthier, more attuned relationship with your midlife body.
ABOUT Janis:
Janis Isaman is a movement specialist based in Calgary, Canada. She is the founder of My Body Couture, a movement therapy studio that provides personalized training and rehabilitation services to clients with chronic pain, injuries, and other movement limitations. Janis has been working in the health and fitness industry for over two decades, and she has extensive training and experience in various movement modalities, including Pilates, yoga, and functional movement.
Janis is known for her holistic and personalized approach to movement therapy, which involves addressing the root cause of movement limitations rather than just treating the symptoms. This includes trauma modalities and she has trained with Bessel van der Kolk’s The Trauma Centre as well as Gabor Mate’s Compassionate Inquiry. She believes that every person's body is unique and that each session should be tailored to each individual's needs and goals. Janis has helped numerous clients overcome chronic pain and improve their physical and mental health through her innovative and effective approach to movement therapy.
CONNECT with Janis:
Website | Facebook | Instagram | Elephant Journal | LinkedIn | YouTube
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Christina Smith (00:01):
Well, welcome back shifters.
This week I am so excited aboutthis conversation is about our
midlife body.
Now I know that our bodies arechanging in ways, probably, that
we have never, ever experiencedbefore and we're like what is
going on For me, it's likewhat's going on with my belly
(00:22):
and lately, the joints on theright side of my body and what
is happening here.
So I don't know much about that, but we have an expert, Janis
Isaman here,, who is going to beable to help us understand our
body, what's important for us tobe doing, and a lot of other
(00:42):
juicy stuff.
We already had a conversation.
Probably should have recordedit because it was.
It was really lovely.
So thank you, Janis, so muchfor being here today.
Janis Isaman (00:53):
I'm really, really excited to be speaking to you
again.
Christina Smith (00:56):
Yes, me too, and tell us a little bit about
who you are.
Janis Isaman (01:02):
I am a member of your age cohort so I'm
presenting that because I livethe experience as well where my
body's shifting.
I mean, I think our bodies arealways shifting, but there is
definitely parts of being middleage that look different than
being a different age group, andI'm, by trade, a movement
(01:23):
specialist, so I help peoplefeel better in their body.
So most of the time whattriggers people to come see me
is that they're in pain.
That does again link to kind ofour age group where we often
tell people that living in painand discomfort is just part of
you know what you have to livewith and what you have to accept
.
So the the issue of our bodyappearance and our body function
(01:46):
is really baked into my work,because I have a lot of people
that come in because their kneehurts or their back hurts or
they have sciatica, but then wemove very quickly into, you know
, my back, my, my belly is saggy, my thighs are floppy and
there's kind of all of thisnegative self-talk about the
(02:06):
skin and the appearance of thebody and we have to work with
that emotionally, intellectually, because our bodies are not 20,
they're not 15, and they neverwill be again, and so there's a
huge psychological component tothe middle age body, quite often
in women.
It is actually a period wherewe often have a spike in eating
(02:30):
disorders, body dysmorphia.
So this is really a huge partof the conversation that needs
to be had with every middle-agedperson, especially women.
Christina Smith (02:43):
I love how you said that, because all those
like symptoms, the shifting ofour body and and you know the
way that our hormones areshifting and what's happening in
our bodies it's like reallysimilar to adolescence, right?
I mean, we have this huge shiftin our body and adolescence,
and I love that sometimes peoplecall, you know, midlife, the
(03:06):
second adolescence.
So that's almost what we'regoing through.
So what I'm hearing is sureit's okay to have some
discomfort in midlife, becauseeven in adolescence I don't know
about you, but every time Ithink about puberty my armpits
start sweating and I get alittle nauseous.
But even, but with all of that,like discomfort is normal, but
(03:34):
the pain doesn't have to be, iswhat I'm hearing 100%.
Janis Isaman (03:38):
So I kind of hear two different narrative streams.
One is our classic fitnessmarketing, where we go on
Instagram and it's like you justhave to cut calories and
increase your exercise and thenyou're going to, in 21 days
quote unquote transform yourbody.
And so I see a whole subset ofwomen in particular who are
(04:02):
actually what I would call onthe wagon, off the wagon.
So we get kind of that bingementality where we say, okay,
you know, I get people wholiterally have never run a day
in their life and they're likeI've decided to train for a half
marathon.
And then they, you know, comeup with these elaborate schemes
and plans about how they'regoing to not eat any more sugar
(04:22):
for the rest of their life.
But don't worry, it's alifestyle.
And then, and then you know,just this massive spike in
exercise and activity thatactually doesn't fit quite often
into the middle age lifestylewhere we're juggling homes and
caretaking of, you know, bothgenerations on both sides etc.
So you know, where are you evenfinding the time for this?
(04:43):
But then the second kind ofgroup of people, it's the give
up mentality.
Christina Smith (04:51):
And.
Janis Isaman (04:51):
I actually have received a lot of messaging,
even with what I do, and I'mlike whoa, you know, oh, you
just have to accept that that'sparamount pause.
You accept that your hormonesare shifting, you accept that
you're going to be, you know,aching and creaking and
squeaking for the rest of yourlife, and neither of those are
true.
But I noticed that we reallykind of have this dichotomy
(05:14):
where it's one or the other andthere isn't a lot in the middle
that says, okay, yeah, our skinis going to change, maybe some
of the muscle tone will shiftslightly.
But here are the things thatyou can do, and let's do it in a
way that the target isn't tolook like a 20 year old, because
60 year olds don't look like 20year olds and 50 year olds
(05:35):
don't look like 20 year olds butalso not in a way where we're
like, you know, you're justgoing to have to accept it and
live like that, because neitherof those things are true.
So we actually have this realgap in the market where we have
solutions that are actuallypractical, real, where we
actually talk about the actualbone and muscle and tissue shift
(05:58):
that's happening.
And then you know, one of myfavorite things to say to people
is behind every aestheticconcern is a functional concern.
So when we come in and we say,oh, my belly feels disgusting,
actually what you're feeling isa bit of loss of muscle tone.
So if we can actually get a bitof muscle tone there, 99% of
the time kind of that aestheticconcern goes away because it's
(06:21):
actually about what we'rephysically feeling.
So we don't have thoseconversations where we're
teaching women okay, the pelvisactually shifts.
Your hyaluronic acid, which isa substance that attracts and
retains water, is now half ofwhat it was in your 20s.
So you might feel you're notfeeling dry, but what you're
noticing is that your skin is alittle bit more creepy.
(06:42):
So what do we do about that?
So that conversation reallyactually honestly doesn't exist
anywhere.
Christina Smith (06:49):
Yeah.
So what I'm hearing is outthere and I witness this all the
time, I mean even outside ofour health like there's also
healing and you know all theseother things that it's like all
or nothing.
Like you either have to becomethis brand new person overnight
or you just and it's even morethan accepting it's like
(07:12):
settling right.
It's like, well, not only haveI accepted this, but I'm just
going to settle into it andtherefore continue the same
habits.
That kind of got me where I amand just going to make it worse.
Right, yeah, and I love thatyou're, you know, in the middle,
because I think that that's howall of our growth happens,
(07:32):
whether what, no matter whathabit, that is right.
It does become a lifestyle.
But like even me who, I gotissues in my 30s, I had to
change things.
But it's not like I could likesuddenly one day it wasn't easy
for me anyway one day to be likeno dairy, no grain and, you
(07:53):
know, do all of this exercise.
I mean that just didn't happenovernight.
And I love when people do thatfor, like New Year's resolutions
, like I'm gonna Train for amarathon, even though I hate
running and I've never done itbefore and I eat all kinds of
crap, but tomorrow I'm gonnawake up being the person who
wants to run.
(08:15):
Yes and I have actually triedthat, so I'm guilty there.
I've done it like I've donelike five you know, couched to
5k programs and what I got afterthat was I hate running.
Can I do something different?
I?
Janis Isaman (08:30):
Think we're all guilty of it because we get
served up so much marketing andI think it often doesn't even
look like marketing to oureyeballs because it's on
Instagram, it's on Facebook.
We have a a ton of you know,it's influencers and Coaches and
people who, honestly, I dobelieve that they have people's
best intentions in mind and Idon't think anybody's setting
(08:53):
out to kind of trick you, but itis very compelling.
I can say, as a business owner,I don't do it, but it actually
takes effort to not do itbecause it's very compelling to
just post those before and afterpictures or tell that kind of
really First percentile storythat isn't an average story.
The message of go for a walk,spend some time outside, connect
(09:14):
with others, take somesupplements.
It's boring, it's really boring, whereas I can say oh, here's
my 21 day program that createdthis dramatic result.
In the meantime I'm notmentioning I didn't eat and I
was starving, I was bitchy and Ican't sustain that.
That messaging will get likes,it'll get clicks, it'll get
(09:35):
interested, will get people kindof inquiring, and so I think
that we kind of have a systemthat encourages people To
suddenly create that messagingfor people.
And then, as a consumer, it'sreally hard to be on these
platforms, or you know, thatincludes Reading a magazine,
watching television.
I kind of see all of thesebodies everywhere and see this
(09:58):
promise of magic and and notfall prey to it Mentally,
intellectually, physically,monetarily, etc.
I've done it and I know better.
I, you know I do this for aliving and I still, I still can
really catch my brain going intothese little like oh, you know,
you tomorrow, just stop eatingsugar for the rest of my life.
Christina Smith (10:22):
With a straight face.
Janis Isaman (10:26):
And so I think that you know that's an
important thing to mentionbecause I think that we can, we
can feel Shame about actually,you know we don't use the word
diet anymore thought that wordwent past a number of years ago
and we use lifestyle.
So we're kind of finding thesecliches to pretend that they're
(10:48):
not diets and extreme exerciseprograms, when what we're
actually feeling is thisdesperate sense of I don't know
what to do, and it's reallybecause we're being hit with it
From every angle.
I probably get, in some form oranother, literally hundreds of
messages about bodies every dayand that could be as innocuous.
(11:12):
As you know, I have a magazineon my coffee table in front of
me right now.
I open it up and there's a.
It's the marketing imagery ofthe really sexy, tight-skinned,
wrinkle free body, because themodel is airbrushed and she's a
model and she's 22 years old andso nothing in that.
I might say, hey, this is adiet and fitness or a lifestyle
(11:36):
and nutrition program, but thatmessaging is still hitting my
brain as Middle-aged or older,is is not, it's not sexy, it's
not desirable, it's not, it'snot aspirational.
So it's everywhere and it'sreally easy for us to kind of
fall into that hole where we wejust say, okay, the solution has
(11:56):
to be to do this extreme thing.
Christina Smith (11:59):
Yeah, and then what happens, though?
What I have found happens withmy clients is they try to do
this, these extreme things, oneafter another, maybe after
another, and then they get.
They get to this other oppositepoint where it's like I've
tried it all like this, thisdoesn't work.
There's no way, right, that Ican.
(12:20):
So it's almost discouragingwhen we see these like really
Shiny, sleek, sexy bodies andwe're like you can do that in 21
days.
I mean, doesn't it depend onwhere we're starting from first
of all, not only physically, butmentally?
I mean that takes a lot ofmental endurance.
(12:40):
I've had clients who do the I'm75 hard, and I mean it's just so
daunting that that's not reallyhow we make a lifestyle change.
I I know for my clients andwhat I do with them, it's always
small shifts.
It's not like they come andmeet with me and the next week
(13:00):
their wounded child is healed.
You know what I mean.
Like Issues never come up again, right?
I mean it's just like it's nota magic wand, unfortunately, but
it is what I'm hearing, and Ibelieve that you do as well as
like it's a lot of littlechanges, like a lot of tiny
shifts.
So is that how you work withwomen when they come in.
Janis Isaman (13:23):
I do.
I do a couple of things.
One is I do offer Educationpieces, so I kind of I kind of
referenced a couple of thoseitems earlier, but An example
that's really concrete is if youthink about the bones in your
pelvis, which almost none of ushave ever thought about, ps.
But the bones have an angle, sousually that the top part of
(13:46):
the bone is a little bit widerthan the bottom part in a female
body and as we age that angleactually increases, so that the
bottom of the pelvis willtypically pull in a little bit
more and the top will come out alittle bit more.
Most women have never heard thisinformation before.
It's Part of what your eyeballsare looking at when you look at
(14:08):
a woman like Jennifer Aniston,who's obviously Incredibly fit.
She obviously puts a lot oftime and energy and money into
her body maintenance.
But you could look at her fromthe backside and realize that
she's not a 22 year old womanand that's not a criticism of
her in any way, but what you'reactually.
Your eyeballs aresubconsciously processing that
(14:29):
Tiny shift and that tinybiological signaling that she is
not a 22 year old, she's olderthan that, and so there are
pieces of the body that is itactually an example where I've
actually found that sharing thatwith clients Gives women quite
often kind of that up.
I can let go of that.
My pelvis has shifted.
(14:50):
Perhaps my pant size went up.
That's not going to changebecause that's not your body fat
.
You're never going to diet andexercise your way out of that.
Your bones actually speak yourage.
That's it.
So we can't make a shift inthat.
So I start with kind of some ofthose pieces of education of
what is shifting, another onethat I actually referenced
(15:12):
earlier but I'll kind of flushout.
We have a substance in our bodycalled hyaluronic acid.
It actually appears in a lot ofbeauty products these days
because it attracts and retainsa thousand times this body
weight in water.
If you look at a child who'slike nine, ten, eleven, their
skin kind of glows.
It's actually because they havea ton of hyaluronic acid.
It's giving that hydration.
(15:32):
That's part of why there's nowrinkles in children.
They also have, you know,really high collagen.
So you can actually supplementI do with hyaluronic acid
because we have I can't rememberwhat the exact number is, but
you have half or less at age 40,as you do when you're 20.
So that's something thatactually you know.
(15:53):
Think about your elasticity.
That's when we talk aboutflexibility.
When you have no water in yourtissues, you're gonna feel dry,
you're gonna look creepy, you'regonna have wrinkles, you're
gonna feel tight.
So it's both an aesthetic thingand a Functional thing.
But again, nature kind of andbake that in where there are
(16:15):
those signals of this is a youngperson, this is an old person.
Even supplementing withhyaluronic acid, I don't look
like I'm 22.
So it doesn't quote-unquotesolve it.
There's no kind of binary likethis fixes it.
It's a miracle, but it doesmake my tissues.
(16:36):
I live in Canada where it's coldhere, and so as soon as it gets
cold I notice that there iskind of that like eugh, like my
spine doesn't feel great, andthat's really for me what the
hyaluronic acid is actuallydoing.
It's giving that hydration tomy tissues so that every time
the weather changes, my bodyisn't like, hey, stop.
(16:56):
So that's a small change thatmost of us could do, provided
that we can afford it.
You can buy a bottle ofhyaluronic acid tablets and
start taking them in the morning.
That's not an extreme change.
That's nothing that's going to.
You know, you're not in thisbig cycle, so that isn't.
(17:17):
You know, that's not a diet orexercise solution, but that is a
solution that a lot of peoplewill decide that they want to do
, based on those kind of justlittle micro bits of education
Like this is actually how ourbody is changing as we age.
So I bake that into what I'mdoing and then we really start
to focus on the sensations ofthe body.
(17:39):
So in my primary work, if youwere going to come into my
studio, every single movement,every single thing that we're
doing is where do you feel thatin the body?
What are you feeling?
Put words to it.
We start to really develop thatvocabulary about the body,
because the vast majority ofwomen have grown up with what
(18:00):
does your body look like?
How hot are you, how appealingare you to men, how sexy are you
?
And there is a phase of lifewhere we actually our appearance
helps us attract a mate, ithelps us mate, it helps us have
babies, if you happen to do thatin your life and what happens
is that becomes the entire focalpoint of a woman, typically
(18:23):
from age 12 to 80.
But our actual physicalappearance really has that
quality for you know, let's say,age 15 to maybe 35.
So we take that 20 year ageperiod and we blow it up to this
is the only thing that womenactually.
That's our whole relationshipto our body.
So I really start to shift thatinto.
(18:46):
Let's use words about sensation.
Christina Smith (18:51):
We're moving.
Janis Isaman (18:51):
We're doing exercises.
Where do you feel it?
What are you feeling?
Describe that.
That sounds so simple.
For the vast majority of peopleit's incredibly difficult
because we don't have thatvocabulary.
We have a huge vocabulary abouthow we want to lose weight and
look different and be skinny andhave no wrinkles.
We don't often have a hugevocabulary of actually, is that
(19:15):
sensation at the front of yourshoulder, the side of your
shoulder?
Can you pinpoint exactly whereit is and describe?
Is that a stretching sensation?
Is that a twisting sensation?
Christina Smith (19:25):
Is it?
Janis Isaman (19:26):
hot, Is it cold?
Is it?
You know what's the color ofthe sensation, etc.
There's a thousand differentkind of platforms there that you
can go on and google differentways to describe body sensations
.
But that's where we start toreally develop that mindful
connection to the body and then,from that place, then you can
(19:50):
start to be like what my bodyfeels best doing is so for me at
this particular moment, becauseI had a really high stress
period during the last couple ofyears I feel best when I walk
and so I added that into myroutine.
Every day I walk and that is,you know, different than what I
(20:14):
did a couple of years ago.
It's different than probablywhat I'll do a couple of years
from now.
But just having that vocabularyof like, hey, let me dive
inside my body, Where's thestress sitting, what is my
stress level, Like how are myjoint sentience feeling when I
actually exercise?
Do I feel better or worse?
And starting to develop thatkind of internal narrative
(20:36):
that's actually based on theeducation of your body, then you
can start to make a plan.
So there is no such thing in myworld as I can make a plan
without knowing these otherthings about you, and so we
actually do them concurrently.
I don't have a thing where I'mlike you have to have the
mindfulness before you can havethe program.
We do them together because youget that mindfulness through
the movement and througharticulating it while practicing
(21:00):
.
But that's kind of what it endsup looking like.
So the shift moves away from.
There's research that says thatby age 12, girls are focused on
what their bodies look like.
Boys are focused on what theirbody can do.
So actually I think that's agood thing, and so actually in
middle age I'm flipping that andfocusing on teaching women who
(21:23):
have never been taught how toget that vocabulary what can our
body do?
What does that look like?
And from there we can developthat internal knowing of what
does a fitness program look likefor me today, tomorrow, the day
after, because we shouldn't bedoing stuff like most of the
fitness world out there isreally focused on what to do
(21:46):
when you have this abundance ofenergy to burn.
You go to the gym, you lift asheavy as you can lift and you
run as fast as you can run.
And I don't know a lot of 45 to55-year-old women who are like,
wow, I just had so much energytoday.
I just needed a place to getrid of that, right.
So we've designed a wholeprogram that's actually not for
(22:09):
us.
It's not like most women I knoware like I just love to go to
the spa.
So that already says to me thatyou probably need something
that's a little bit more gentle.
You need something that reducesyour stress.
You need something that'sbringing the nervous system down
.
So it's a more complex answerthan hey, just stop eating sugar
(22:31):
and start running.
But it's so satisfying when youcan kind of really just shut
out all the noise and be likethis is, this is what my body is
actually communicating, and Ihave the language, and I own the
tools to make that decision formyself.
Christina Smith (22:47):
Yeah, it sounds a lot more empowering, like
there's no one size fits all.
It's like me really tuning into my body, which you know.
Our body also contains thefeelings which I think like we
often try to avoid.
So avoiding those feelingsmeans that we're also avoiding
(23:08):
what's going on in our body.
And I know I grew up gen X andmy mother was always like it
doesn't matter if your backhurts, just keep going like if
there was no, like payingattention to my body.
Nobody cared what my bodywanted to say.
I was too sensitive If I, if I,really tuned into that.
But what I'm learning now isthat sensitivity that I used to
(23:30):
be called all the time isactually my gift.
Janis Isaman (23:33):
It is.
Christina Smith (23:34):
I learned over time like running just wasn't
for me.
My joints are not built forrunning.
I mean, I'm not trying to sayit's impossible, I don't.
Just don't like it, and so.
Janis Isaman (23:46):
Don't do it.
Christina Smith (23:46):
I want to do things that I don't like and
because I know I won't keep themup, it takes so much energy
just to talk myself into doingthem, rather than what I'm
hearing from you is like, firstof all, understanding and
educating myself on like thisjoint pain that I'm having now,
like, oh, what's going on.
I already thought like myjoints probably aren't retaining
(24:08):
enough water, especiallybecause I had surgery on this
shoulder, and like sounderstanding that our body
shifts and there's not much wecan do, and I can really speak
to the whole Pulvic areashifting, because after I had a
baby, I thought there's no wayI'm going to be in single digit
clothes anymore.
After like a year and a halfand I gave them away and, don't
(24:30):
you know, like after two yearsmy hips came back together and I
was like Yep those are myfavorite pants I gave away.
So this actually happens and Ididn't know that our hips shift.
So when we're seeing that we'rewider in our genes, it doesn't
necessarily mean that we'regetting fat or growing big.
(24:51):
It just means that our bonesare now in a different structure
and I think you know and knowthis is like a I don't want to
say minor thing, but just alittle piece of what you're
talking about.
But I think that relates to us,like once I am educated on how
my body is working, whatnutrients it might be losing, I
can start focusing on On reallyhow my body feels, rather than
(25:18):
focused on this how does it look?
Because I think that we focustoo much on I mean, at some
point probably we're going tohave wrinkles.
I mean it's unless you have areally great surgeon, I guess
Just a natural thing.
No matter how much, no matterhow much liquids and, you know,
(25:38):
water that we can retain, it'sstill going to happen.
Janis Isaman (25:42):
Oh 100% yeah last week because it's it's fall here
now and.
I was walking and thinking wedon't.
Nature has no mechanism whereit's like OK, summer's over, now
it's fall, but we're going toput out giant lights to pretend
that it's still summer and we'regoing to paint all the trees to
pretend it's still summer.
(26:02):
We actually humans quite oftenrespond like I'm so excited it's
fall, I get to have the pumpkinspice lattes and I get to get
out the chunky sweaters and Iget to get out the booze.
But we don't do that in theautumn of our proverbial life.
We actually kind of encouragepeople to get out the lights and
(26:23):
paint the trees and I actuallywas wondering, you know, what
would this look like?
if we actually just startedcelebrating like I get the
pumpkin spice latte, I get thesweaters, and what is that for
our body?
And I know that that can kindof wander into a bit of that
cliche, but if, instead oftrying to pretend and trying to
(26:43):
paint the trees, what would itlook like for you if you were
like this is the gift that I getin?
This this is the.
This is the piece that I get tohave.
And for me personally, a lot ofthat actually is just letting go
of all the bullshit where it'slike you know, I don't have to
do a 21 day program.
(27:03):
I actually gained.
I gained weight during the lastfew years due to stress and I
spent most of this year doingwhat would be considered a
completely unconventional andprobably scientifically
inaccurate weight loss technique.
I really focused on getting mystress down because, I'm like
internally, you know, I had aton of people that are like,
(27:26):
well, it's just your age, justyour age.
And I'm like, no, it's not,it's my stress, and so I focused
on like getting enough sleep, alot of us don't get enough
sleep, so like eight hours.
You know, I focused on takingvitamins that would actually
support stress, so getting thoseB12 vitamins.
I focused on going for walks.
(27:50):
You know, in my like, I'm afitness instructor, so that's
that's not what we tell peopleis going to help them lose
weight, and I focused on yoga,which again takes the nervous
system down, and I'm not quiteback to my to my regular weight,
but I'm three quarters of theway there and there's no part of
(28:13):
like calories and calories outthat I actually ever applied it
and go on a diet.
I really just focused on likelet's reduce my stress, let's
reduce my stress and you know Iunsubscribe from email
newsletters, things like that.
Nobody's talking about that asa weight loss technique, but
these are simple, doable,actionable, replicable things
(28:36):
that in my day to day life Icould actually do, and so for me
, part of the fall of my life islike I don't care what somebody
told me.
I'm going to sort this out in away that actually feels good to
me, because I, you know that'sone of the things we love about
autumn we get comfortable, weand that doesn't mean complacent
, that doesn't mean like, okay,this is the way my weight for
(28:57):
the rest of my life.
I'm going to hate my body forthe rest of my life.
It means settling intosomething that actually feels
good, nourishing, helpful.
And for you know, I just listedthings I did that might not be
something that resonates withwhoever is listening.
That may, you might be like itgrows.
I don't know.
I can hear that, but I havedone hours and hours and hours
(29:21):
of my own practices to be like Iknow the doctor just told me
something different, or I knowthis other practitioner or
somebody just shamed me and said, well, you know your middle age
, now perimenopause, and I'mlike, no, like my body,
information is saying somethingdifferent.
My body is saying it's stress.
It's stress from a really crazycouple of years that were really
(29:43):
high stress, and so what can Ido about stress?
Here is the smallest thing thatI can think of that I can do
every day without adding stressGo to bed, take a vitamin, go
for a walk and be outside and Ijust did that over and over and
over again, and it doesn't looklike a linear path to
(30:04):
progression either.
There were bumps, there were,there were times when things you
know and I think that's theother thing is just letting go
of the idea that I'm a robot orlike I'm a culture where, if I
go to a bookstore, any kind ofstrategies are quite masculine,
actually, to be honest, wherethey're like do this and then do
(30:26):
it again tomorrow and it'sgonna be crush it.
Christina Smith (30:29):
Crush it, you know, it's like it's so
aggressive and it's like forcing, it's like there's like a force
behind it rather than like sowhat I'm hearing is that that we
usually we can spend,especially in the media.
We spend so much timeprojecting what other people are
going to see right, and thisexternal validation of am I
(30:51):
still attractive?
Is this a pro, you know, andall of those things, rather than
really tuning in and say likeself validating this is like the
same process that I take myclients through, just not
through necessarily.
Yeah, and exercise is thatthere's tuning in and going.
(31:13):
Well, what is my body saying,or what are my feelings saying,
whatever that thing is, and youknow what actually feels good
for me, what can I self validatethat actually feels good for me
?
And then make these small thingsand I think the the major thing
that my clients focused on thatis related is that central
(31:35):
nervous system right, becausewhether we're tuning into our
body to get into feeling ortuning into our body to see what
physically it's telling us,there is a tuning in that has to
happen and we have to starthearing those messages rather
than going through that likesuffering spiral that we do when
we try to avoid it, like Ishouldn't feel this way and what
(31:57):
can I take and where's my magicpill?
I mean, that's where we want togo to when we're on the outside.
And I gotta tell you, I lovethe autumn of my life Because,
like, there is a party, that'slike I'm glad I am not the
object of everyone's like avision anymore.
Right like that.
Don't have to be looking at meand they don't like I don't feel
(32:20):
nearly as judged, I'm like I'min my autumn, I you know the
leaves wrinkle, they dry up andthey fall off and like, and I'm
okay with that, the tree isstill beautiful when it has no
leaves on it and and it's stillfunctional.
And so just reminding ourselveslike really what our body is
(32:43):
telling us is more importantthan what the media is telling
us.
Janis Isaman (32:48):
And actually, to be honest, even your friends,
your doctor, even actually yourown brain so your body has a lot
of information and at the endof it, we've actually been
taught to override that againand again and again in a
thousand million different ways,and so it actually for most
people.
It's a huge process to actuallyunwind all of that.
(33:11):
And so what's being said hereby both you and I work with on
the same kinds of concepts indifferent arenas and specialty.
It's simple words listen toyour body but the reality is
that it takes practice.
It takes literal, daily gettinginto the trenches and doing
(33:31):
that and then noticing whenyou're overriding it and
noticing those shame pieces andnoticing the narratives and
three quarters and don't belongto you anyways.
There's something that yourdad's head or your somebody said
to you at Christmas dinner 27years ago, or you read it in a
magazine, or you know you'regetting it from a book that you
(33:52):
read when you're 15 or whateverit is, and again that seems like
, oh, that would be simple toidentify, but really a lot of
that is really deeply programmedto the point where we don't
even know that it's there.
So it it takes, it takes time.
This isn't a thing where you'relike, okay, I know that
information I hear these ladiesspeaking got it, nailed it it is
(34:15):
.
I mean, it's years of ofworking on that, reinforcing and
practicing it, trying it seeingwhat fits and what doesn't and
then peeling off those layers.
So it doesn't.
You know even everything I saidabout the body.
That doesn't just click intoplace where you come into my
studio and you're like oh, I'vegot it I should then.
(34:39):
So you know.
That's that's why some of theseconcepts are so challenging,
because they actually sound toosimple to be real.
But it's because when youactually it's not about the
information, there's no trick,there's no information, there's
no hack, there's no stat,there's nothing that is going to
replace actually practicing it,and practice actually often
(35:00):
takes support.
It does take information andknowledge, but you also have to
structure your life in order todo that.
Like For me to take a walkevery day.
I have to put that in mycalendar and whether that's
physically on a calendar oractually just in my intellectual
calendar has to be there,because that's the first thing
when it comes to exercise that alot of us will shove out of the
(35:22):
way.
It's like, well, I don't havetime for that.
Christina Smith (35:25):
Right, this other thing happened, yeah, and
I don't like going to the gymbecause I don't like going to
the gym.
Janis Isaman (35:30):
But I will find time to put on a podcast and go
for a walk because I like it andit's good for my body and I get
positive reinforcement andthere's things to look at.
So there's also things that youhave to have.
You have to create that spacefor yourself to do the practices
and then you have to createthose feedback mechanisms for
(35:51):
yourself and you have to readwhat your body is saying over
and over and over and over andover and over and over again.
Yeah, you get more and morenuanced with it, because those
thoughts I mean.
Sometimes I get frustrated withmyself because I'm like girl,
if you teach this, come on, Iknow, throw it out.
(36:12):
And I just self-own that,because even with all that I do
with clients and all that I dowith continuing education and
all of the materials I'm takingin, it'll still pop in there.
Christina Smith (36:24):
Yeah, and there's this process that I
think people don't give enoughcredit to, which is slowing down
, because in order to do all ofthat stuff, like, I have to
consciously, mindfully choose,like hold on, christina, before
we move on to the next thing.
Like, how are we feeling?
And there's a part of me thatgets irritated by that right, my
(36:46):
culture-trained kind of part ofme.
That's just like get as muchstuff as you can get done, be
productive, be efficient andjust keep going.
But there's, like what I havenoticed no matter what kind of
shift I'm trying to make, thereis a slowdown.
I wrote a book about shift andit goes exactly how you just
(37:08):
said like we get this.
In the middle of thetransformation process there's
this aha moment where it's likeoh, I get it, I get it, I get it
, I get it, I'm not supposed toeat sugar, right, like so I'm
just not going to do thatanymore.
(37:30):
But then it gets into what Icall the F stage, because shift
is like an acronym and that'slike whatever F word you want.
But I use fortitude and fear,because this is where we have to
start making new choices and inorder to make new choices, we
have to be mindful that we'reeven making a choice, because
what happens is we just gothrough our day on all this
(37:52):
default mode right and makingchoices that we've always made
before, and until we like, slowourselves down, bring our
nervous system down, because ournervous system can't be up here
when we're trying to makeconscious, mindful decisions, it
becomes a lot, lot harder.
So really, the first thing thatI would say for anybody is like
(38:15):
slow down, start tuning in whatis your body saying to you, and
I think that's on the rightpath.
So I know that we couldcontinue to talk about this all
day long, because I think we didlast time, but I want people to
be able to know where to findyou.
So where can they find you, sothat they can start getting down
(38:37):
to the bottom of what is thefunctioning piece that's
happening here, not necessarilyall the aesthetics.
Janis Isaman (38:45):
My business name is my Body Kitcher, which is
three separate words.
It's my, my Body B-O-D-YKitcher-C-O-U-T-U-R-E.
So I can be found on my website, which is MyBodyKitchercom, or
on the social media platforms.
If I'm on the platform, it'llbe under my Body Kitcher.
Christina Smith (39:05):
Yeah, and all those links will be below so
that you guys can just easilyclick on them.
But I highly suggest that youfollow Janice, because I'm going
to be, because I love to learnabout this stuff and start
getting real about what'shappening in our bodies, rather
than just seeing some aestheticthings, and I mean it hurts me
(39:27):
so much when my clients thinkthat their bodies are betraying
them or doing something awfullike that.
So I know that this is a reallygood resource, because that's
not what we're focused on.
We're focused on what is yourbody telling you, and it's
probably not that you're a jerk.
Janis Isaman (39:47):
No, we never really think about this, but
we're animals and so dogs don'tfight with their own biology.
So putting yourself in aposition where if you're 45
years old, then you're going tolive till 85, where you're
fighting your own biology for 40years.
That's a waste of time andenergy and really to be a
(40:09):
productive, happy, functioningperson.
We don't want to spend our timewith these negative, gross
narratives, fighting with it all, looking in front of the mirror
, hating it.
We're not seeing other animalson this planet do that, but we
love to do it.
We've been trying to do it.
So starting now, you can startto soften that, and that's what.
(40:33):
I would say it starts with asoftening.
It doesn't start with removingthat immediately, but just for
animals.
So the more we can actually bein that animal body and we're
not going to win over top ofwhat our animal instincts are
saying to us.
So let's look at what part ofthat is trained, what part of
that is verbiage that doesn'tbelong to us, et cetera.
(40:56):
Let's try to soften into thatso that we can actually enjoy
the experience of our body forthe next 40 plus years.
Christina Smith (41:04):
Mm-hmm, I love that.
Thank you for that last thought.
I think it's really beautiful.
Dog doesn't worry about theirown body.
Well, thank you so much forjoining us, janice.
This has been lovely.
I'm sure we'll have you onagain because this has been so
helpful I mean at least to meand I'm going to be looking
forward to learning more aboutmy body so I can be kind and
(41:27):
soft with it.
So thank you.
Janis Isaman (41:31):
Thank you, always a pleasure.
Christina Smith (41:33):
And thank you listeners for tuning in.
We'll see you next week.
Well, welcome back shifters.
This week I am so excited aboutthis conversation is about our
midlife body.
Now I know that our bodies arechanging in ways, probably, that
we have never, ever experiencedbefore and we're like what is
going on For me, it's likewhat's going on with my belly
(00:22):
and lately, the joints on theright side of my body and what
is happening here.
So I don't know much about that, but we have an expert, Janis
Isaman here,, who is going to beable to help us understand our
body, what's important for us tobe doing, and a lot of other
(00:42):
juicy stuff.
We already had a conversation.
Probably should have recordedit because it was.
It was really lovely.
So thank you, Janis, so muchfor being here today.
Janis Isaman (00:53):
I'm really, really excited to be speaking to you
again.
Christina Smith (00:56):
Yes, me too, and tell us a little bit about
who you are.
Janis Isaman (01:02):
I am a member of your age cohort so I'm
presenting that because I livethe experience as well where my
body's shifting.
I mean, I think our bodies arealways shifting, but there is
definitely parts of being middleage that look different than
being a different age group, andI'm, by trade, a movement
(01:23):
specialist, so I help peoplefeel better in their body.
So most of the time whattriggers people to come see me
is that they're in pain.
That does again link to kind ofour age group where we often
tell people that living in painand discomfort is just part of
you know what you have to livewith and what you have to accept
.
So the the issue of our bodyappearance and our body function
(01:46):
is really baked into my work,because I have a lot of people
that come in because their kneehurts or their back hurts or
they have sciatica, but then wemove very quickly into, you know
, my back, my, my belly is saggy, my thighs are floppy and
there's kind of all of thisnegative self-talk about the
(02:06):
skin and the appearance of thebody and we have to work with
that emotionally, intellectually, because our bodies are not 20,
they're not 15, and they neverwill be again, and so there's a
huge psychological component tothe middle age body, quite often
in women.
It is actually a period wherewe often have a spike in eating
(02:30):
disorders, body dysmorphia.
So this is really a huge partof the conversation that needs
to be had with every middle-agedperson, especially women.
Christina Smith (02:43):
I love how you said that, because all those
like symptoms, the shifting ofour body and and you know the
way that our hormones areshifting and what's happening in
our bodies it's like reallysimilar to adolescence, right?
I mean, we have this huge shiftin our body and adolescence,
and I love that sometimes peoplecall, you know, midlife, the
(03:06):
second adolescence.
So that's almost what we'regoing through.
So what I'm hearing is sureit's okay to have some
discomfort in midlife, becauseeven in adolescence I don't know
about you, but every time Ithink about puberty my armpits
start sweating and I get alittle nauseous.
But even, but with all of that,like discomfort is normal, but
(03:34):
the pain doesn't have to be, iswhat I'm hearing 100%.
Janis Isaman (03:38):
So I kind of hear two different narrative streams.
One is our classic fitnessmarketing, where we go on
Instagram and it's like you justhave to cut calories and
increase your exercise and thenyou're going to, in 21 days
quote unquote transform yourbody.
And so I see a whole subset ofwomen in particular who are
(04:02):
actually what I would call onthe wagon, off the wagon.
So we get kind of that bingementality where we say, okay,
you know, I get people wholiterally have never run a day
in their life and they're likeI've decided to train for a half
marathon.
And then they, you know, comeup with these elaborate schemes
and plans about how they'regoing to not eat any more sugar
(04:22):
for the rest of their life.
But don't worry, it's alifestyle.
And then, and then you know,just this massive spike in
exercise and activity thatactually doesn't fit quite often
into the middle age lifestylewhere we're juggling homes and
caretaking of, you know, bothgenerations on both sides etc.
So you know, where are you evenfinding the time for this?
(04:43):
But then the second kind ofgroup of people, it's the give
up mentality.
Christina Smith (04:51):
And.
Janis Isaman (04:51):
I actually have received a lot of messaging,
even with what I do, and I'mlike whoa, you know, oh, you
just have to accept that that'sparamount pause.
You accept that your hormonesare shifting, you accept that
you're going to be, you know,aching and creaking and
squeaking for the rest of yourlife, and neither of those are
true.
But I noticed that we reallykind of have this dichotomy
(05:14):
where it's one or the other andthere isn't a lot in the middle
that says, okay, yeah, our skinis going to change, maybe some
of the muscle tone will shiftslightly.
But here are the things thatyou can do, and let's do it in a
way that the target isn't tolook like a 20 year old, because
60 year olds don't look like 20year olds and 50 year olds
(05:35):
don't look like 20 year olds butalso not in a way where we're
like, you know, you're justgoing to have to accept it and
live like that, because neitherof those things are true.
So we actually have this realgap in the market where we have
solutions that are actuallypractical, real, where we
actually talk about the actualbone and muscle and tissue shift
(05:58):
that's happening.
And then you know, one of myfavorite things to say to people
is behind every aestheticconcern is a functional concern.
So when we come in and we say,oh, my belly feels disgusting,
actually what you're feeling isa bit of loss of muscle tone.
So if we can actually get a bitof muscle tone there, 99% of
the time kind of that aestheticconcern goes away because it's
(06:21):
actually about what we'rephysically feeling.
So we don't have thoseconversations where we're
teaching women okay, the pelvisactually shifts.
Your hyaluronic acid, which isa substance that attracts and
retains water, is now half ofwhat it was in your 20s.
So you might feel you're notfeeling dry, but what you're
noticing is that your skin is alittle bit more creepy.
(06:42):
So what do we do about that?
So that conversation reallyactually honestly doesn't exist
anywhere.
Christina Smith (06:49):
Yeah.
So what I'm hearing is outthere and I witness this all the
time, I mean even outside ofour health like there's also
healing and you know all theseother things that it's like all
or nothing.
Like you either have to becomethis brand new person overnight
or you just and it's even morethan accepting it's like
(07:12):
settling right.
It's like, well, not only haveI accepted this, but I'm just
going to settle into it andtherefore continue the same
habits.
That kind of got me where I amand just going to make it worse.
Right, yeah, and I love thatyou're, you know, in the middle,
because I think that that's howall of our growth happens,
(07:32):
whether what, no matter whathabit, that is right.
It does become a lifestyle.
But like even me who, I gotissues in my 30s, I had to
change things.
But it's not like I could likesuddenly one day it wasn't easy
for me anyway one day to be likeno dairy, no grain and, you
(07:53):
know, do all of this exercise.
I mean that just didn't happenovernight.
And I love when people do thatfor, like New Year's resolutions
, like I'm gonna Train for amarathon, even though I hate
running and I've never done itbefore and I eat all kinds of
crap, but tomorrow I'm gonnawake up being the person who
wants to run.
(08:15):
Yes and I have actually triedthat, so I'm guilty there.
I've done it like I've donelike five you know, couched to
5k programs and what I got afterthat was I hate running.
Can I do something different?
I?
Janis Isaman (08:30):
Think we're all guilty of it because we get
served up so much marketing andI think it often doesn't even
look like marketing to oureyeballs because it's on
Instagram, it's on Facebook.
We have a a ton of you know,it's influencers and Coaches and
people who, honestly, I dobelieve that they have people's
best intentions in mind and Idon't think anybody's setting
(08:53):
out to kind of trick you, but itis very compelling.
I can say, as a business owner,I don't do it, but it actually
takes effort to not do itbecause it's very compelling to
just post those before and afterpictures or tell that kind of
really First percentile storythat isn't an average story.
The message of go for a walk,spend some time outside, connect
(09:14):
with others, take somesupplements.
It's boring, it's really boring, whereas I can say oh, here's
my 21 day program that createdthis dramatic result.
In the meantime I'm notmentioning I didn't eat and I
was starving, I was bitchy and Ican't sustain that.
That messaging will get likes,it'll get clicks, it'll get
(09:35):
interested, will get people kindof inquiring, and so I think
that we kind of have a systemthat encourages people To
suddenly create that messagingfor people.
And then, as a consumer, it'sreally hard to be on these
platforms, or you know, thatincludes Reading a magazine,
watching television.
I kind of see all of thesebodies everywhere and see this
(09:58):
promise of magic and and notfall prey to it Mentally,
intellectually, physically,monetarily, etc.
I've done it and I know better.
I, you know I do this for aliving and I still, I still can
really catch my brain going intothese little like oh, you know,
you tomorrow, just stop eatingsugar for the rest of my life.
Christina Smith (10:22):
With a straight face.
Janis Isaman (10:26):
And so I think that you know that's an
important thing to mentionbecause I think that we can, we
can feel Shame about actually,you know we don't use the word
diet anymore thought that wordwent past a number of years ago
and we use lifestyle.
So we're kind of finding thesecliches to pretend that they're
(10:48):
not diets and extreme exerciseprograms, when what we're
actually feeling is thisdesperate sense of I don't know
what to do, and it's reallybecause we're being hit with it
From every angle.
I probably get, in some form oranother, literally hundreds of
messages about bodies every dayand that could be as innocuous.
(11:12):
As you know, I have a magazineon my coffee table in front of
me right now.
I open it up and there's a.
It's the marketing imagery ofthe really sexy, tight-skinned,
wrinkle free body, because themodel is airbrushed and she's a
model and she's 22 years old andso nothing in that.
I might say, hey, this is adiet and fitness or a lifestyle
(11:36):
and nutrition program, but thatmessaging is still hitting my
brain as Middle-aged or older,is is not, it's not sexy, it's
not desirable, it's not, it'snot aspirational.
So it's everywhere and it'sreally easy for us to kind of
fall into that hole where we wejust say, okay, the solution has
(11:56):
to be to do this extreme thing.
Christina Smith (11:59):
Yeah, and then what happens, though?
What I have found happens withmy clients is they try to do
this, these extreme things, oneafter another, maybe after
another, and then they get.
They get to this other oppositepoint where it's like I've
tried it all like this, thisdoesn't work.
There's no way, right, that Ican.
(12:20):
So it's almost discouragingwhen we see these like really
Shiny, sleek, sexy bodies andwe're like you can do that in 21
days.
I mean, doesn't it depend onwhere we're starting from first
of all, not only physically, butmentally?
I mean that takes a lot ofmental endurance.
(12:40):
I've had clients who do the I'm75 hard, and I mean it's just so
daunting that that's not reallyhow we make a lifestyle change.
I I know for my clients andwhat I do with them, it's always
small shifts.
It's not like they come andmeet with me and the next week
(13:00):
their wounded child is healed.
You know what I mean.
Like Issues never come up again, right?
I mean it's just like it's nota magic wand, unfortunately, but
it is what I'm hearing, and Ibelieve that you do as well as
like it's a lot of littlechanges, like a lot of tiny
shifts.
So is that how you work withwomen when they come in.
Janis Isaman (13:23):
I do.
I do a couple of things.
One is I do offer Educationpieces, so I kind of I kind of
referenced a couple of thoseitems earlier, but An example
that's really concrete is if youthink about the bones in your
pelvis, which almost none of ushave ever thought about, ps.
But the bones have an angle, sousually that the top part of
(13:46):
the bone is a little bit widerthan the bottom part in a female
body and as we age that angleactually increases, so that the
bottom of the pelvis willtypically pull in a little bit
more and the top will come out alittle bit more.
Most women have never heard thisinformation before.
It's Part of what your eyeballsare looking at when you look at
(14:08):
a woman like Jennifer Aniston,who's obviously Incredibly fit.
She obviously puts a lot oftime and energy and money into
her body maintenance.
But you could look at her fromthe backside and realize that
she's not a 22 year old womanand that's not a criticism of
her in any way, but what you'reactually.
Your eyeballs aresubconsciously processing that
(14:29):
Tiny shift and that tinybiological signaling that she is
not a 22 year old, she's olderthan that, and so there are
pieces of the body that is itactually an example where I've
actually found that sharing thatwith clients Gives women quite
often kind of that up.
I can let go of that.
My pelvis has shifted.
(14:50):
Perhaps my pant size went up.
That's not going to changebecause that's not your body fat
.
You're never going to diet andexercise your way out of that.
Your bones actually speak yourage.
That's it.
So we can't make a shift inthat.
So I start with kind of some ofthose pieces of education of
what is shifting, another onethat I actually referenced
(15:12):
earlier but I'll kind of flushout.
We have a substance in our bodycalled hyaluronic acid.
It actually appears in a lot ofbeauty products these days
because it attracts and retainsa thousand times this body
weight in water.
If you look at a child who'slike nine, ten, eleven, their
skin kind of glows.
It's actually because they havea ton of hyaluronic acid.
It's giving that hydration.
(15:32):
That's part of why there's nowrinkles in children.
They also have, you know,really high collagen.
So you can actually supplementI do with hyaluronic acid
because we have I can't rememberwhat the exact number is, but
you have half or less at age 40,as you do when you're 20.
So that's something thatactually you know.
(15:53):
Think about your elasticity.
That's when we talk aboutflexibility.
When you have no water in yourtissues, you're gonna feel dry,
you're gonna look creepy, you'regonna have wrinkles, you're
gonna feel tight.
So it's both an aesthetic thingand a Functional thing.
But again, nature kind of andbake that in where there are
(16:15):
those signals of this is a youngperson, this is an old person.
Even supplementing withhyaluronic acid, I don't look
like I'm 22.
So it doesn't quote-unquotesolve it.
There's no kind of binary likethis fixes it.
It's a miracle, but it doesmake my tissues.
(16:36):
I live in Canada where it's coldhere, and so as soon as it gets
cold I notice that there iskind of that like eugh, like my
spine doesn't feel great, andthat's really for me what the
hyaluronic acid is actuallydoing.
It's giving that hydration tomy tissues so that every time
the weather changes, my bodyisn't like, hey, stop.
(16:56):
So that's a small change thatmost of us could do, provided
that we can afford it.
You can buy a bottle ofhyaluronic acid tablets and
start taking them in the morning.
That's not an extreme change.
That's nothing that's going to.
You know, you're not in thisbig cycle, so that isn't.
(17:17):
You know, that's not a diet orexercise solution, but that is a
solution that a lot of peoplewill decide that they want to do
, based on those kind of justlittle micro bits of education
Like this is actually how ourbody is changing as we age.
So I bake that into what I'mdoing and then we really start
to focus on the sensations ofthe body.
(17:39):
So in my primary work, if youwere going to come into my
studio, every single movement,every single thing that we're
doing is where do you feel thatin the body?
What are you feeling?
Put words to it.
We start to really develop thatvocabulary about the body,
because the vast majority ofwomen have grown up with what
(18:00):
does your body look like?
How hot are you, how appealingare you to men, how sexy are you
?
And there is a phase of lifewhere we actually our appearance
helps us attract a mate, ithelps us mate, it helps us have
babies, if you happen to do thatin your life and what happens
is that becomes the entire focalpoint of a woman, typically
(18:23):
from age 12 to 80.
But our actual physicalappearance really has that
quality for you know, let's say,age 15 to maybe 35.
So we take that 20 year ageperiod and we blow it up to this
is the only thing that womenactually.
That's our whole relationshipto our body.
So I really start to shift thatinto.
(18:46):
Let's use words about sensation.
Christina Smith (18:51):
We're moving.
Janis Isaman (18:51):
We're doing exercises.
Where do you feel it?
What are you feeling?
Describe that.
That sounds so simple.
For the vast majority of peopleit's incredibly difficult
because we don't have thatvocabulary.
We have a huge vocabulary abouthow we want to lose weight and
look different and be skinny andhave no wrinkles.
We don't often have a hugevocabulary of actually, is that
(19:15):
sensation at the front of yourshoulder, the side of your
shoulder?
Can you pinpoint exactly whereit is and describe?
Is that a stretching sensation?
Is that a twisting sensation?
Christina Smith (19:25):
Is it?
Janis Isaman (19:26):
hot, Is it cold?
Is it?
You know what's the color ofthe sensation, etc.
There's a thousand differentkind of platforms there that you
can go on and google differentways to describe body sensations
.
But that's where we start toreally develop that mindful
connection to the body and then,from that place, then you can
(19:50):
start to be like what my bodyfeels best doing is so for me at
this particular moment, becauseI had a really high stress
period during the last couple ofyears I feel best when I walk
and so I added that into myroutine.
Every day I walk and that is,you know, different than what I
(20:14):
did a couple of years ago.
It's different than probablywhat I'll do a couple of years
from now.
But just having that vocabularyof like, hey, let me dive
inside my body, Where's thestress sitting, what is my
stress level, Like how are myjoint sentience feeling when I
actually exercise?
Do I feel better or worse?
And starting to develop thatkind of internal narrative
(20:36):
that's actually based on theeducation of your body, then you
can start to make a plan.
So there is no such thing in myworld as I can make a plan
without knowing these otherthings about you, and so we
actually do them concurrently.
I don't have a thing where I'mlike you have to have the
mindfulness before you can havethe program.
We do them together because youget that mindfulness through
the movement and througharticulating it while practicing
(21:00):
.
But that's kind of what it endsup looking like.
So the shift moves away from.
There's research that says thatby age 12, girls are focused on
what their bodies look like.
Boys are focused on what theirbody can do.
So actually I think that's agood thing, and so actually in
middle age I'm flipping that andfocusing on teaching women who
(21:23):
have never been taught how toget that vocabulary what can our
body do?
What does that look like?
And from there we can developthat internal knowing of what
does a fitness program look likefor me today, tomorrow, the day
after, because we shouldn't bedoing stuff like most of the
fitness world out there isreally focused on what to do
(21:46):
when you have this abundance ofenergy to burn.
You go to the gym, you lift asheavy as you can lift and you
run as fast as you can run.
And I don't know a lot of 45 to55-year-old women who are like,
wow, I just had so much energytoday.
I just needed a place to getrid of that, right.
So we've designed a wholeprogram that's actually not for
(22:09):
us.
It's not like most women I knoware like I just love to go to
the spa.
So that already says to me thatyou probably need something
that's a little bit more gentle.
You need something that reducesyour stress.
You need something that'sbringing the nervous system down
.
So it's a more complex answerthan hey, just stop eating sugar
(22:31):
and start running.
But it's so satisfying when youcan kind of really just shut
out all the noise and be likethis is, this is what my body is
actually communicating, and Ihave the language, and I own the
tools to make that decision formyself.
Christina Smith (22:47):
Yeah, it sounds a lot more empowering, like
there's no one size fits all.
It's like me really tuning into my body, which you know.
Our body also contains thefeelings which I think like we
often try to avoid.
So avoiding those feelingsmeans that we're also avoiding
(23:08):
what's going on in our body.
And I know I grew up gen X andmy mother was always like it
doesn't matter if your backhurts, just keep going like if
there was no, like payingattention to my body.
Nobody cared what my bodywanted to say.
I was too sensitive If I, if I,really tuned into that.
But what I'm learning now isthat sensitivity that I used to
(23:30):
be called all the time isactually my gift.
Janis Isaman (23:33):
It is.
Christina Smith (23:34):
I learned over time like running just wasn't
for me.
My joints are not built forrunning.
I mean, I'm not trying to sayit's impossible, I don't.
Just don't like it, and so.
Janis Isaman (23:46):
Don't do it.
Christina Smith (23:46):
I want to do things that I don't like and
because I know I won't keep themup, it takes so much energy
just to talk myself into doingthem, rather than what I'm
hearing from you is like, firstof all, understanding and
educating myself on like thisjoint pain that I'm having now,
like, oh, what's going on.
I already thought like myjoints probably aren't retaining
(24:08):
enough water, especiallybecause I had surgery on this
shoulder, and like sounderstanding that our body
shifts and there's not much wecan do, and I can really speak
to the whole Pulvic areashifting, because after I had a
baby, I thought there's no wayI'm going to be in single digit
clothes anymore.
After like a year and a halfand I gave them away and, don't
(24:30):
you know, like after two yearsmy hips came back together and I
was like Yep those are myfavorite pants I gave away.
So this actually happens and Ididn't know that our hips shift.
So when we're seeing that we'rewider in our genes, it doesn't
necessarily mean that we'regetting fat or growing big.
(24:51):
It just means that our bonesare now in a different structure
and I think you know and knowthis is like a I don't want to
say minor thing, but just alittle piece of what you're
talking about.
But I think that relates to us,like once I am educated on how
my body is working, whatnutrients it might be losing, I
can start focusing on On reallyhow my body feels, rather than
(25:18):
focused on this how does it look?
Because I think that we focustoo much on I mean, at some
point probably we're going tohave wrinkles.
I mean it's unless you have areally great surgeon, I guess
Just a natural thing.
No matter how much, no matterhow much liquids and, you know,
(25:38):
water that we can retain, it'sstill going to happen.
Janis Isaman (25:42):
Oh 100% yeah last week because it's it's fall here
now and.
I was walking and thinking wedon't.
Nature has no mechanism whereit's like OK, summer's over, now
it's fall, but we're going toput out giant lights to pretend
that it's still summer and we'regoing to paint all the trees to
pretend it's still summer.
(26:02):
We actually humans quite oftenrespond like I'm so excited it's
fall, I get to have the pumpkinspice lattes and I get to get
out the chunky sweaters and Iget to get out the booze.
But we don't do that in theautumn of our proverbial life.
We actually kind of encouragepeople to get out the lights and
(26:23):
paint the trees and I actuallywas wondering, you know, what
would this look like?
if we actually just startedcelebrating like I get the
pumpkin spice latte, I get thesweaters, and what is that for
our body?
And I know that that can kindof wander into a bit of that
cliche, but if, instead oftrying to pretend and trying to
(26:43):
paint the trees, what would itlook like for you if you were
like this is the gift that I getin?
This this is the.
This is the piece that I get tohave.
And for me personally, a lot ofthat actually is just letting go
of all the bullshit where it'slike you know, I don't have to
do a 21 day program.
(27:03):
I actually gained.
I gained weight during the lastfew years due to stress and I
spent most of this year doingwhat would be considered a
completely unconventional andprobably scientifically
inaccurate weight loss technique.
I really focused on getting mystress down because, I'm like
internally, you know, I had aton of people that are like,
(27:26):
well, it's just your age, justyour age.
And I'm like, no, it's not,it's my stress, and so I focused
on like getting enough sleep, alot of us don't get enough
sleep, so like eight hours.
You know, I focused on takingvitamins that would actually
support stress, so getting thoseB12 vitamins.
I focused on going for walks.
(27:50):
You know, in my like, I'm afitness instructor, so that's
that's not what we tell peopleis going to help them lose
weight, and I focused on yoga,which again takes the nervous
system down, and I'm not quiteback to my to my regular weight,
but I'm three quarters of theway there and there's no part of
(28:13):
like calories and calories outthat I actually ever applied it
and go on a diet.
I really just focused on likelet's reduce my stress, let's
reduce my stress and you know Iunsubscribe from email
newsletters, things like that.
Nobody's talking about that asa weight loss technique, but
these are simple, doable,actionable, replicable things
(28:36):
that in my day to day life Icould actually do, and so for me
, part of the fall of my life islike I don't care what somebody
told me.
I'm going to sort this out in away that actually feels good to
me, because I, you know that'sone of the things we love about
autumn we get comfortable, weand that doesn't mean complacent
, that doesn't mean like, okay,this is the way my weight for
(28:57):
the rest of my life.
I'm going to hate my body forthe rest of my life.
It means settling intosomething that actually feels
good, nourishing, helpful.
And for you know, I just listedthings I did that might not be
something that resonates withwhoever is listening.
That may, you might be like itgrows.
I don't know.
I can hear that, but I havedone hours and hours and hours
(29:21):
of my own practices to be like Iknow the doctor just told me
something different, or I knowthis other practitioner or
somebody just shamed me and said, well, you know your middle age
, now perimenopause, and I'mlike, no, like my body,
information is saying somethingdifferent.
My body is saying it's stress.
It's stress from a really crazycouple of years that were really
(29:43):
high stress, and so what can Ido about stress?
Here is the smallest thing thatI can think of that I can do
every day without adding stressGo to bed, take a vitamin, go
for a walk and be outside and Ijust did that over and over and
over again, and it doesn't looklike a linear path to
(30:04):
progression either.
There were bumps, there were,there were times when things you
know and I think that's theother thing is just letting go
of the idea that I'm a robot orlike I'm a culture where, if I
go to a bookstore, any kind ofstrategies are quite masculine,
actually, to be honest, wherethey're like do this and then do
(30:26):
it again tomorrow and it'sgonna be crush it.
Christina Smith (30:29):
Crush it, you know, it's like it's so
aggressive and it's like forcing, it's like there's like a force
behind it rather than like sowhat I'm hearing is that that we
usually we can spend,especially in the media.
We spend so much timeprojecting what other people are
going to see right, and thisexternal validation of am I
(30:51):
still attractive?
Is this a pro, you know, andall of those things, rather than
really tuning in and say likeself validating this is like the
same process that I take myclients through, just not
through necessarily.
Yeah, and exercise is thatthere's tuning in and going.
(31:13):
Well, what is my body saying,or what are my feelings saying,
whatever that thing is, and youknow what actually feels good
for me, what can I self validatethat actually feels good for me
?
And then make these small thingsand I think the the major thing
that my clients focused on thatis related is that central
(31:35):
nervous system right, becausewhether we're tuning into our
body to get into feeling ortuning into our body to see what
physically it's telling us,there is a tuning in that has to
happen and we have to starthearing those messages rather
than going through that likesuffering spiral that we do when
we try to avoid it, like Ishouldn't feel this way and what
(31:57):
can I take and where's my magicpill?
I mean, that's where we want togo to when we're on the outside.
And I gotta tell you, I lovethe autumn of my life Because,
like, there is a party, that'slike I'm glad I am not the
object of everyone's like avision anymore.
Right like that.
Don't have to be looking at meand they don't like I don't feel
(32:20):
nearly as judged, I'm like I'min my autumn, I you know the
leaves wrinkle, they dry up andthey fall off and like, and I'm
okay with that, the tree isstill beautiful when it has no
leaves on it and and it's stillfunctional.
And so just reminding ourselveslike really what our body is
(32:43):
telling us is more importantthan what the media is telling
us.
Janis Isaman (32:48):
And actually, to be honest, even your friends,
your doctor, even actually yourown brain so your body has a lot
of information and at the endof it, we've actually been
taught to override that againand again and again in a
thousand million different ways,and so it actually for most
people.
It's a huge process to actuallyunwind all of that.
(33:11):
And so what's being said hereby both you and I work with on
the same kinds of concepts indifferent arenas and specialty.
It's simple words listen toyour body but the reality is
that it takes practice.
It takes literal, daily gettinginto the trenches and doing
(33:31):
that and then noticing whenyou're overriding it and
noticing those shame pieces andnoticing the narratives and
three quarters and don't belongto you anyways.
There's something that yourdad's head or your somebody said
to you at Christmas dinner 27years ago, or you read it in a
magazine, or you know you'regetting it from a book that you
(33:52):
read when you're 15 or whateverit is, and again that seems like
, oh, that would be simple toidentify, but really a lot of
that is really deeply programmedto the point where we don't
even know that it's there.
So it it takes, it takes time.
This isn't a thing where you'relike, okay, I know that
information I hear these ladiesspeaking got it, nailed it it is
(34:15):
.
I mean, it's years of ofworking on that, reinforcing and
practicing it, trying it seeingwhat fits and what doesn't and
then peeling off those layers.
So it doesn't.
You know even everything I saidabout the body.
That doesn't just click intoplace where you come into my
studio and you're like oh, I'vegot it I should then.
(34:39):
So you know.
That's that's why some of theseconcepts are so challenging,
because they actually sound toosimple to be real.
But it's because when youactually it's not about the
information, there's no trick,there's no information, there's
no hack, there's no stat,there's nothing that is going to
replace actually practicing it,and practice actually often
(35:00):
takes support.
It does take information andknowledge, but you also have to
structure your life in order todo that.
Like For me to take a walkevery day.
I have to put that in mycalendar and whether that's
physically on a calendar oractually just in my intellectual
calendar has to be there,because that's the first thing
when it comes to exercise that alot of us will shove out of the
(35:22):
way.
It's like, well, I don't havetime for that.
Christina Smith (35:25):
Right, this other thing happened, yeah, and
I don't like going to the gymbecause I don't like going to
the gym.
Janis Isaman (35:30):
But I will find time to put on a podcast and go
for a walk because I like it andit's good for my body and I get
positive reinforcement andthere's things to look at.
So there's also things that youhave to have.
You have to create that spacefor yourself to do the practices
and then you have to createthose feedback mechanisms for
(35:51):
yourself and you have to readwhat your body is saying over
and over and over and over andover and over and over again.
Yeah, you get more and morenuanced with it, because those
thoughts I mean.
Sometimes I get frustrated withmyself because I'm like girl,
if you teach this, come on, Iknow, throw it out.
(36:12):
And I just self-own that,because even with all that I do
with clients and all that I dowith continuing education and
all of the materials I'm takingin, it'll still pop in there.
Christina Smith (36:24):
Yeah, and there's this process that I
think people don't give enoughcredit to, which is slowing down
, because in order to do all ofthat stuff, like, I have to
consciously, mindfully choose,like hold on, christina, before
we move on to the next thing.
Like, how are we feeling?
And there's a part of me thatgets irritated by that right, my
(36:46):
culture-trained kind of part ofme.
That's just like get as muchstuff as you can get done, be
productive, be efficient andjust keep going.
But there's, like what I havenoticed no matter what kind of
shift I'm trying to make, thereis a slowdown.
I wrote a book about shift andit goes exactly how you just
(37:08):
said like we get this.
In the middle of thetransformation process there's
this aha moment where it's likeoh, I get it, I get it, I get it
, I get it, I'm not supposed toeat sugar, right, like so I'm
just not going to do thatanymore.
(37:30):
But then it gets into what Icall the F stage, because shift
is like an acronym and that'slike whatever F word you want.
But I use fortitude and fear,because this is where we have to
start making new choices and inorder to make new choices, we
have to be mindful that we'reeven making a choice, because
what happens is we just gothrough our day on all this
(37:52):
default mode right and makingchoices that we've always made
before, and until we like, slowourselves down, bring our
nervous system down, because ournervous system can't be up here
when we're trying to makeconscious, mindful decisions, it
becomes a lot, lot harder.
So really, the first thing thatI would say for anybody is like
(38:15):
slow down, start tuning in whatis your body saying to you, and
I think that's on the rightpath.
So I know that we couldcontinue to talk about this all
day long, because I think we didlast time, but I want people to
be able to know where to findyou.
So where can they find you, sothat they can start getting down
(38:37):
to the bottom of what is thefunctioning piece that's
happening here, not necessarilyall the aesthetics.
Janis Isaman (38:45):
My business name is my Body Kitcher, which is
three separate words.
It's my, my Body B-O-D-YKitcher-C-O-U-T-U-R-E.
So I can be found on my website, which is MyBodyKitchercom, or
on the social media platforms.
If I'm on the platform, it'llbe under my Body Kitcher.
Christina Smith (39:05):
Yeah, and all those links will be below so
that you guys can just easilyclick on them.
But I highly suggest that youfollow Janice, because I'm going
to be, because I love to learnabout this stuff and start
getting real about what'shappening in our bodies, rather
than just seeing some aestheticthings, and I mean it hurts me
(39:27):
so much when my clients thinkthat their bodies are betraying
them or doing something awfullike that.
So I know that this is a reallygood resource, because that's
not what we're focused on.
We're focused on what is yourbody telling you, and it's
probably not that you're a jerk.
Janis Isaman (39:47):
No, we never really think about this, but
we're animals and so dogs don'tfight with their own biology.
So putting yourself in aposition where if you're 45
years old, then you're going tolive till 85, where you're
fighting your own biology for 40years.
That's a waste of time andenergy and really to be a
(40:09):
productive, happy, functioningperson.
We don't want to spend our timewith these negative, gross
narratives, fighting with it all, looking in front of the mirror
, hating it.
We're not seeing other animalson this planet do that, but we
love to do it.
We've been trying to do it.
So starting now, you can startto soften that, and that's what.
(40:33):
I would say it starts with asoftening.
It doesn't start with removingthat immediately, but just for
animals.
So the more we can actually bein that animal body and we're
not going to win over top ofwhat our animal instincts are
saying to us.
So let's look at what part ofthat is trained, what part of
that is verbiage that doesn'tbelong to us, et cetera.
(40:56):
Let's try to soften into thatso that we can actually enjoy
the experience of our body forthe next 40 plus years.
Christina Smith (41:04):
Mm-hmm, I love that.
Thank you for that last thought.
I think it's really beautiful.
Dog doesn't worry about theirown body.
Well, thank you so much forjoining us, janice.
This has been lovely.
I'm sure we'll have you onagain because this has been so
helpful I mean at least to meand I'm going to be looking
forward to learning more aboutmy body so I can be kind and
(41:27):
soft with it.
So thank you.
Janis Isaman (41:31):
Thank you, always a pleasure.
Christina Smith (41:33):
And thank you listeners for tuning in.
We'll see you next week.
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