January 15, 2024 • 47 mins
Today on Feminine Roadmap guest Rachel Freiman talks about unleashing your strongest, most empowered self. Rachel is a lover of lifting heavy things and is passionate about helping others unleash their strongest, most empowered selves through education and mindset training. She shares how your health is the most important asset you have and it is so much more than the number on the scale. Diets are not designed to last, they are short term strategies that keep us locked in a loop of struggle. As we learn to understand true health we begin to develop skills to empower ourselves and step into our power. Once we begin the journey, we can begin to experience optimal health and energy. Neuroscience has become a powerful tool to empowering real change as we begin to rewire our brains with new mindsets and habits. Our bodies are created to do incredible things and Rachel’s goal is to help people understand that it is possible to become strong and healthy in your body at any age. It’s time to shift our inner monologue from guilt, shame and blame to forgiveness, grace and freedom. Grab a cuppa something wonderful and join us to unleash your strongest, most empowered self! https://www.mindstrongfitnesscoaching.com/
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:03):
Hi, hi'm Ginifer. Are welcometo the Feminine Roadmap Podcast, a global
community of women in midlife. Wegather here weekly over a cup of something
wonderful for real talk, life changingstrategies and a big dose of sisterhood.
Now, please sit back and enjoy. Hello, Feminine road members, Welcome
(00:28):
back to Feminine Roadmap Podcast, thepodcast that helps you navigate the challenges and
the changes of midlife and helps youlive a more vibrant second half. If
you find us on YouTube today,please don't forget to subscribe and ring that
bell so you don't miss any moreof these amazing conversations. And if you're
listening on a podcast platform, pleaseremember to subscribe, rate, and share
(00:49):
these conversations. Today, friends,we're going to be talking about an age
old thing that us women think about, and that is our bodies and our
health. You know why is ourhealth the most important thing? My guest
today wants us to understand that healthis the most important thing we have.
It's not about the number on thescale. It is so much more than
(01:10):
that. My guest today is RachelFreiman. She is the CEO of Mind
Strong Fitness and she is the authorof the number one Amazon bestseller, Becoming
Mind Strong The Truth about Health,fitness, and the BS That's holding you
Bath Rachel, thank you so muchfor being on the show today. Oh,
thank you for having me. I'mlooking forward to chatting with you my
(01:30):
pleasure. Why don't you tell usa little bit about why this mission and
message? How did you get intothis passion for fitness? Yeah, my
background is an odd one. Mybackground actually has nothing to do with health
and fitness. I was a musicianfor most of my life. I was
a jazz musician, did all ofschool, all of college, all of
my master's degree in music, andeventually went on after years of freelancing,
(01:53):
to become a teacher. I wasteaching middle school music. And if you've
ever worked to children, or havechildren, or been around a child,
you know that it is very rewardingbut very exhausting work. So I just
needed something that was my own outletat the end of the day. And
I had some friends who were activein the gym, so it very much
(02:14):
just started as an organic hobby.Let me try this thing out and see
if I like it. And whatI found, as most of us have
experienced, is the more I gotinto this world of trying to get healthy,
of trying to lose a few pounds, of trying to grow some muscles.
The more I learned, the moreconfused I got, because this was
an industry just filled with really goodmarketing and a whole lot of BS,
(02:36):
and I didn't understand that at first. So the more I got my hands
in the dirt and and started toeducate myself, the teacher in me I
always say, I wanted to shoutfrom the rooftops like holy cow, Nutrition
especially does not have to be thisbig overwhelming subject. You know, someone
could teach you to knit, someonecould teach you to surf. You can
teach nutrition as a skill. Andit was this very defining moment of my
(03:00):
career and of my life in alot of ways where I love teaching,
I did not want to leave thatfield. And I knew that the health
and fitness industry did not need anotherpersonal trainer, but what it did need
was an educator. And that's whatto this day, what I consider myself.
I will never consider myself a coachor a trainer. I'm an educator
in the field of health and fitness, doing something completely different than what most
(03:23):
of this industry is designed. Myfavorite joke is I have the worst sales
pitch in the world because you onlyneed me once. Because once you have
an education in something, you're incomplete control and you'll literally never go on
a diet again. M M.That's fantastic. Now, we talked about
before we hit record, just thebaseline of health and how important that is,
and how the older we get,the more amplified that truth becomes.
(03:46):
Right now, I have had conversationsbefore when we talk about health and hormones
and everything is we have been drawingfrom a bank. A lot of people
are less inclined to maybe make goodchoices with their bodies when they're younger,
because you're invincible, right, You'regoing to live forever, and so you're
not thinking, oh, I gotto make this baby lasts for eighty ninety
(04:09):
years. Right. But we hitthis middle ground in middle age and our
bodies start to change with hormones,stress, all these things, and then
health becomes a completely different conversation.And I'd love to talk about your perspective
on how that healthline base, howthat fitness base needs to shift, or
(04:29):
what it is we can do,because I think there is a shift up
in our minds because when we're twenty, we're trying to look like the hottest
thing on the beach, right,or we feel pressure to at least,
and maybe we do in our midfifties. I think it is kind of
out there. There's a lot ofInstagram models in my age group that are
still looking tiny, which I'm fiveto eleven and have never really been tiny.
(04:54):
But I think this mindset and thereason I'm bringing this up is part
of that feminine idea deal and idealthat we have wrestled with our whole life.
So let's let's go from your perspectivethis idea of fitness as a baseline.
What is health and how we canshift the mindset so that we are
actually approaching it in a more appropriateand helpful way for us. Yeah.
(05:17):
I love they use the word baselinebecause in my mind, every time I
talk about the importance of health,the importance of fitness, I think of
it as a pyramid. If thetop of this pyramid is that we want
to live a life in alignment,we want to live our most empowered,
unleashed you know, choose your word, our best life. If we're going
to call that the top of thepyramid, the middle pyramid, the middle
(05:40):
part of the pyramid is all aboutour mindset, our inner monologue. The
stories we're telling ourselves are limiting beliefs. And the foundation, that baseline of
the pyramid has to be your physicalhealth. And there's a very scientific reason
for this. And I'm going toemphasize the word scientific because when I start
talking about energy and attraction, it'svery easy to tune out and be like,
oh, she's talking wu wu stuff. But to me, nothing about
(06:03):
attracting back is woo wuo. It'squantum physics. So there's a there's a
law of quantum physics of energy thatsays like attracts like in music, music
travels in sound ways. Right,it's energy and pitches attract pitches because like
attracts like when it comes to energy. So when we understand that concept that
(06:23):
like attracts like and then we understandyou know, if we think back to
our elementary school days, then that'sa further away for some of us than
others. But you know, we'regonna go back for a second. When
we think about learning about atoms,Right, atoms are the building block of
everything in the world, which meansyou're made of atoms. I'm made of
atoms. The chair we're sitting onis made of atoms. But what science
has discovered is that, yes,an atom has all those parts we learned
(06:46):
about in school, the nucleus,the protons, the electrons, but in
atom, the building block of everythingis actually ninety nine point nine percent energy.
So if that you really let thatsink in, it's kind of incredible
because it means everything in the world, including you and I, are vibrating
energy. Now, things vibrate atdifferent speeds, right, It's why we
(07:06):
don't fall through our chair. Butwe are all walking around as vibrating energy.
So when we combine those two understandingsthat when it comes to energy,
like attracts alike and we as humansare vibrating energy according to quantum physics.
According to science, it is atruth of life that when we talk about
attracting back, that's not rainbows andglittering and unicorns. That's quantum physics.
(07:30):
So if we're walking around in aday and we're sitting there thinking, oh,
I shouldn't have sniffed pizza last night. Now I feel like I gained
five pounds, Right, I shouldhave gone to the gym. I shouldn't
have eaten this. We're walking aroundin the world shrunken down, right,
We're in our heads, we're beatingourselves up. We are shrunken down in
our skin, and that is thelife we are quite literally attracting back.
(07:50):
So when we start taking the stepsto get our health in check, it
does not matter. This is notabout wearing a T shirt that says I
lost twenty pounds. Nobody's wearing aT shirt that says this is how much
I weigh. It's about the energythat we're putting out into the world.
Because before we've even lost a pound, well, we just start taking the
steps. We start standing up taller, we start feeling more confident in our
(08:11):
skin. And it's no coincidence thatas we start doing this work, we
start attracting back a very different life. Right. We watch people step into
the jobs of their dreams, leavingunhealthy relationships, finding partners they've been looking
for. And to me, that'squantum physics. So if we want to
truly live a life in alignment,in our most empowered life, that baseline,
(08:33):
as you put it so beautifully,has to start with our physical health.
I think it can be challenging becausethe stories that I've heard are like,
ah, I've never been an athlete. I'm not athletic, you know,
right, I've never played sports.So let's talk a little bit about
what you're talking about. When wetalk about health and fitness, a lot
(08:54):
of people literally categorize it like,well, since I never played sports,
I am therefore not interested, notcapable of working out, like it's this
animal outside of ourselves. And thisidea of energy is if I think I
don't like something like attract likes,I am not going to like it,
right, Very true, very true. The saving grace here. You know,
(09:20):
I primarily work with women aged fortyto sixty, so by that stage
of life, we have some verydeep rooted when we understand neuroscience and beliefs,
these are literally deeply wired in beliefsystems exactly as they're saying about what
we like and what we don't like. Most of the women that we work
within that age group, every oncein a while we get an outlier,
but most of them come in withthis belief of you know, I am
(09:41):
scared to lift weights. That's aboy activity, right. We go to
the gym, we see sweaty gruntingmen, and we don't want to go
there. I'm going to injure myself. The beautiful part. When it comes
to your health, those are twovery separate topics. Health and fitness are
two very separate topics. You canone hundred percent do this with nutrient alone.
Nutrition is ninety percent of this game. So when I have someone come
(10:03):
to us and they're like, Idon't know where to start, I'm overwhelmed.
I feel like I always red flagthe word should I should be working
out, but I hate it.Answers. We're not even gonna touch that.
We're gonna start with nutrition alone.Because human beings, Freud discovered something
called the pleasure principle. We aredesigned to avoid pain and seek pleasure.
(10:24):
So when we try to do thesemajor life overhauls of like okay, new
way of nutrition, working out fivedays a week, no more couch potato,
like the whole shebang, we're nevergonna stick with it. That's put
I call that pushing a boulder upa hill, right, It's never gonna
last, and it's going to bereally, really difficult. But when we
start with just nutrition, because we'repleasure seeking creatures. At some point organically.
(10:46):
We don't have to force this.We're gonna say, wow, I'm
feeling really good, and as apleasure seeking creature, and we're not gonna
say I feel really good, letme not do anything else, right,
We're gonna say, I feel reallygood? What else can I do?
At that point, we play agame called do the bare minimum, where
it's like, you know what,let me do two exercises twice a week.
I'm not going to go four daysa week to the gym. I'm
(11:07):
not going to do an hour longworkout. I'm going to dip my toe
in the water. And now webecome a snowball going down a hill.
And we don't even have to thinkabout that part yet because when you start
with nutrition, not only will youget results, but that's the start of
the snowball going down the hill.That's how we start to get momentum.
You know, you're talking about howstarting small and not going too far too
(11:30):
fast. I think it's interesting becauseI would think you would find people back
to the mindset thing, the fearcoming in even with changes in our food,
because food is such a comfort thingat this point in our life,
you know, And like, Ilike how you say that one little change
(11:50):
your body will tell you. Andthat's the thing that I've noticed is we
don't always know what our body istelling us. And that seems to be
a pivotal thing. Would you agreethat it's a pivotal thing to make a
small change and then learn to listento how you actually feel. Absolutely?
(12:11):
Yeah, And this is something youknow. Intuitive eating is such a such
a buzzword right now, and wehave some What we teach is a skill
called macro tracking. So the short, little cliff notes version is that every
human's body is designed to run ona balance of carbs, fat, protein.
If we want optimal energy, ifwe want optimal health, what we
need to learn is how much yourpersonal body needs in terms of carbs,
(12:33):
fat, protein. Now, thesecond I say the word macro tracking,
there's like eighty percent of people listeningthat have a visceral reaction there, Like,
I don't want to track my foodbecause for a lot of people,
the end goal is intuitive eating.I just want to listen to my body.
And my answer is that is abeautiful goal. I love intuitive eating.
I have coaches in our program thatteach into a deveating and right now,
(12:56):
our bodies are speaking to us basedoff of habit, not intuition.
Right, if you've trained your bodythat every Wednesday we go out and we
get a hamburger, will come Tuesdaynight, your thought might be, well,
I must be low and iron becauseI'm craving a hamburger like that is
not your body speaking to you.That is habit. So for people who
want to eat intuitively, again,I'm a huge fan, and I think
for a lot of people it's abeautiful goal. But right now we need
(13:20):
three things. First, we needto understand how our personal body is designed
to run, meaning that balance ofcarbs, fat, protein. We need
to get better at eyeballing portion sizesright, well, we think a tablespoon
of peanut butter is not a tablespoonof peanut butter. And then number three,
we need to do this long enoughso that our brain literally gets wired
for these new habits, and ourbrains and our bodies can start communicating.
(13:43):
So I like to think of itas a training ground that we can then
release to truly listen to our body, because I mean, our bodies are
incredible. We know this at thisstage of life. We know this.
Our body is capable of incredible things, but especially when it comes to nutrition.
We've lived in an industry that hadus cutting carbs, then binging,
then cutting out fat, then binging, then overeating and under eating, and
(14:05):
right now, our body doesn't trustus. And a huge key to this
process, especially in your forties fiftysixties, the key to firing up your
metabolism, the key to balancing yourhormones, and the key to eating intuitively
is we have to gain trust withour body through consistency first, and then
we can release it and start listening. That makes total sense that if we've
(14:30):
lived forty fifty sixty years one way, there's going to be some need to
reform some neural pathways, absolutely,especially when it comes to like stress,
emotions, things that we've I mean, how many of us have tied food
to reward or punishment or emotion?Right? Really? And so what I
(14:54):
hear you saying is we basically haveto build a completely different relationship and we
have to give our brain brains inour bodies time to get in sync with
this change. Is that what you'resaying. Yeah, And I love that
you use the word relationship because oneof the things we say that the work
we do does is it heals yourrelationship with food. Because the problem with
(15:15):
the diet industry in general, andagain if we've been around forty fifty sixty
years we know this better than mostis I always tell people, you know,
if you think you've if you makea list of every diet you've ever
tried, and there's one hundred andfifty diets on that list, you haven't
actually tried one hundred and fifty diets. You've tried one hundred and fifty versions
of one diet, and that dietis telling you what you can or can't
(15:35):
eat. And when we understand again, all of this is flowing with human
nature. When we understand human psychology, there's a term called reactants, and
reacting simply states that as humans,we want autonomy, we want the power
of choice. We don't want tobe told what we can or can't do.
So we go on diets, weput on horse blinders. We say
I can't eat carbs, I can'teat fat, I can only eat these
(15:56):
points systems, I can only eatthese shake systems. And then we can
even binge and we beat ourselves upabout it. And the key to making
this sustainable when we talk about asyou beautifully put it. You know,
this relationship with food. When wetalk about healing our relationship with food,
the foundation of that is number one, this trust that we were just talking
about. But most importantly, it'sby learning to stop labeling foods as good
(16:18):
or bad, or allowed or notallowed. Right, I love donuts.
That's my thing is. We usedto have a whole my whole business platform
used to be based off of howto lose weight while still leaving donuts.
Are they the most nutritious food?Absolutely? Not. Am I gonna eat
three a day? No? Butcan I have a donut and still hit
my weight loss goals? Absolutely?And because I've stopped shaming food or saying
(16:41):
it's off limits again, this isthe snowball down a hill. This is
about flowing with human nature. Andwhen you talk about mindset as you just
brought up, you know this,especially forty fifty sixty, we have decades
upon decades of these wired in beliefsthat donuts are bad foods. Right,
I eat a donut and now I'mfat. So a lot of the work
we do is not only the physicalskill of learning how to diet without restriction,
(17:06):
and it's around this mindset of understandingthat there are no bad foods,
there's nutritious and less nutritious, andreleasing that shame, blame and guilt around
past diets because it wasn't one hundredand fifty it was really one diet and
it wasn't designed to work. AndI think we vilify ourselves in the process,
right, Like it's hard for usto be successful when we are saying
(17:29):
I'm bad, yes, yes,right, I'm bad for making that choice
with the donut, for example.And I think, and maybe you can
tell me what the science is onthis, but it's like when we allow
ourselves to find joy in the process, when we I know, that lights
up certain parts of the brain.So I think if we could shift from
(17:52):
the shame and guilt like you weretalking about and shift to finding the joy,
like if I want a donut,which, which is funny you brought
that up because I live really justbought an apple fritter this week, and
I almost it's maybe once a yeartype of a thing, and I was
like, I want a donut.So it takes me a couple of days
because they're so big. I cannoteat an entire apple fritter and I was
like, you know what, I'mgoing to enjoy this, right. I
(18:15):
think that's what I hear you saying, if we can shift from the shame
and the blame and the guilt,because I think our body responds to that
to joy, pleasure and a treat. You know, it's not the end
of my life to have this donut. But what I hear you saying is
that shift and that emotional energy thatwe're putting towards the food is actually part
(18:40):
of the growing, changing process weneed to make in order to find true
health. Am I right? Absolutely? Absolutely? The way that we speak
to ourselves are inner monologue is someof the most powerful work we can be
doing for exactly the reasons we're saying. You know, there's this common belief,
especially as we get older, thatoh, if I'm not tough on
myself, I'm not going to succeed. Right, And the game I like
(19:03):
to play with people is like,think back to your favorite teachers growing up.
Your favorite teacher was probably they're probablystrict with you, they probably set
the bar high, but what theydidn't do was shame, blame, guilt,
and belittle you. So why asadults did we decide that that's the
key to success. Right. Andthen the other part of this is of
my running joke, is we're alljust glorified drug addicts. We're all just
(19:23):
going around looking for dopamine hits.Because if you trace anything back to the
root, what we're looking for isa feeling. Right. If you tell
me I want to be super wealthy, and I ask you why, is
it because you want to log inyour bank account and see a bunch of
zeros? Or is it because youwant the freedom, the security, the
ability, the feeling of taking careof people you love. Right, everything
(19:44):
in life is about a feeling.And it's the same thing here. When
we when we go on a diet, a traditional restrictive diet and it doesn't
work, we don't emotionally separate andsay, oh, that specific diet didn't
work for me. We do exactlywhat you said. We go down the
rabbit hole, the shame that blthe guilt of beating ourselves up, and
then we wonder why we have nomotivation and we feel like crap and we
don't want to do this again.But when we take baby steps, the
(20:08):
key to this whole baby step concept, and you're going to feel like a
dope when you first do it,because we're not used to doing this,
but when you take that baby step. Let's say yours is two twenty minute
walks this week. The first timeyou take that twenty minute walk, you're
going to throw yourself an internal party. You're going to do you know what,
you are incredible. You didn't wantto go for that walk. You
(20:29):
did it. I'm so proud ofyou. And that's going to feel really
hokey at first. But what we'redoing is we're literally training our brain to
release dopamine in that moment. Sothe next time we don't want to go
for a walk, which we won'tbecause it's wired in our brain. Now
our brain has proof of Wait asecond, remember how good it felt afterwards.
Let me get that little fixodopamine thatI'm chasing and go for my second
walk. And all of this again, I keep coming back to it.
(20:52):
It's about flowing with human nature,and human nature states that we're designed to
avoid pain and seek pleasure and beatit ourselves up. The shame, blame,
guilt that is that is pain,and we're going to avoid activities that
cause that, moving towards baby stepsthat release that dopamine and feel good.
That's pleasure. And we're always goingto keep that snowball rolling. It's a
(21:12):
It's it's a hack, isn't it. It is. It's a like a
brain end life hack. It's like, go for it, make yourself feel
better. I dare you to beable to feel better. I love it.
I love a little brain hack fora healthy living. It's like it's
like you're talking to you know,do you want a little hit of dopamine?
(21:33):
Do you want it? I lovethat. I was just speaking with
a PR manager the other day andwe were talking about designing a hook,
and as you said that, I'mjust like, oh, hack your brain
for healthy living. Like I thinkyou just gave me my hook. Yay,
you now get commission. That's awesome. You know. I think we
(21:55):
overcomplicate things, don't we. WeWe think so hard about things, and
some of us to the mindset piece, which I'm really passionate about mindset because
I agree with you, Rachel.It is it is driving our life,
striving our decisions, is driving thechoices that we make in our relationships,
(22:15):
in our thought life, and thethings we do or don't do, and
the in our dialogue that you talkedabout. I feel like we don't even
realize how much of that is goingon, Like we think, I want
to look like this, I wantto wear this size, I want to
be this number. But you talkedabout the number on the scale not being
(22:41):
necessarily the goal we should be aimingfor. And as women, it's all
about the numbers, right, We'vebeen taught it's about the numbers, right,
right, So let's talk about thatshift. And when you talk when
you're talking about tracking your macros,it's not for the number, is it?
Not at all? None of thisis ever I mean for some people,
(23:03):
yes, there is a goal ofa number on the scale, but
there's a few things we need tounderstand. Number one, this scale,
I mean, we could talk fortwo hours about the scale. The scale
is not a reliable source for dayto day information. Even if you are
quote unquote perfect with your nutrition,whatever that means to you. If you're
perfect, the scale's going to fluctuateas much as one to six pounds every
single day. It becomes a mindgame. It's great for long term data,
(23:26):
it is not there for day today. So healing your relationship with
the scale is a whole separate topic. And when it comes to weight loss,
it is a slow, tedious,frustrating process. Right Like, I'm
not I work in this field.I'm not going to sugarcoat it. It
goes slower than any of us wantit to. So if your only measure
of success is A to Z,right, I'm here, I want to
(23:48):
be here, and that is myonly measure of success, you are setting
yourself up for failure. There isno world in whatch you're going to stick
with it, because that path fromA to Z has too many hills in
It is up, it's now,it's backwards, it's forward, it's all
over the place. So what westart to do is again, all of
this is baby steps. What's thefirst baby step goal? Right? For
(24:10):
some I'll tell you some interesting ones. There's better sleep, I mean menopause.
What we can have a whole conversationabout lessening the symptoms of menopause for
people with a larger amount of weightto lose. Not having to use a
seatbelt extender on the airplane is onethat we hear a lot. Getting into
a pair of genes that you haven'tworn since college, things like how your
clothes fit, even just you'll feelit in yourself, your energy, your
(24:33):
confidence, the way that you're presentingin the world. Those things are going
to show up much quicker and muchmore reliably than the number on the scale.
And what happens for most people atsome point is they hit their goal
weight and they're like, oh,like, that's cool, But I like,
I don't even care about that anymorebecause by the time I got there,
my life had already unleashed in allthese unexpected ways. So it's not
(24:56):
a bad thing to have a goalnumber as long as we understand that on
that path to A to Z,we have to have little baby steps in
between to keep us motivated to getto the finish line. If we're going
to call it that. Mm hmm. You said something interesting there. It's
like, by the time we getto that goal number, I think for
a lot of people, we expectto feel a certain way, and because
(25:18):
of the changes and the challenges thatwe've been experiencing along the way, our
brain thinks this is still the goal. But we've changed in the process absolutely,
which is a beautiful thing, right, because there's a multifaceted experience we're
having with this idea of who weare, do you find that the success
(25:38):
actually comes with how a person perceivesthemselves, and that number absolutely. The
running joke within my company is,you know, people come to us and
we're like, oh, they thinkthey're here for weight loss, right,
the weight loss is to us,it's the simple part. Some simple doesn't
always mean easy, but when youdo it correctly, and I'm going to
(25:59):
purposely that work correctly. Weight lossis math and science. It's human biology.
It works if you stick with it, it will work period hard.
Stop might drop end a sentence.What the real work is. And this
is where my coaches and I kindof giggle because we're like, oh,
they think they're here for weight loss. The real work comes in the mindset
training, it comes in the innermonologue. It's the belief systems. It's
(26:21):
those deep wired stories that we've toldourselves for decades. So it's ninety nine
point nine percent of the time whenwomen come to us, this is what
we hear. Though. Oh Ithought that I came to you to loss,
to lose twenty pounds, but myentire life has shifted everything about me.
I'm a different person than when Istarted. And yeah, I've lost
the weight, but that almost feelsinsignificant at this point because it's never about
(26:45):
the weight. It's about, togo back to the start of this conversation,
it's about our energy, it's aboutbeing comfortable in our skin, and
most of all, it's about whatwe're attracting back in our life. And
that happens somewhat immediately. It doesn'ttake getting to point Z. It happens
getting to point B and C asyou're taking the steps. So weight loss
again, Like, it's easier forme to say as someone who's done this
(27:07):
for decades, it's harder to believewhen you've been on the yoyo diatrain.
But it truly is when done correctly, it's not a guessing game. It
will happen because it's human biology.It's that inner work that we're really here
for. We just don't really knowthat yet. Yeah, you know,
we have so many paradigms around howwe look. You know, I have
(27:30):
daughters, and so I thought Ithought about intentionally, like how do I
want them to perceive themselves? Youknow, not that I have control,
but just my own inner dialogue beingso not helpful. And that's probably the
most negative input they've had, isme, me saying the things about myself
(27:51):
that I've had the habit of saying. But it's interesting because I think having
other women in the home, youknow, my daughters as an adults,
I look at them and I thinkthey have a much healthier relationship with their
bodies, and I'm glad that theyhave not as far to go. And
right now, there's a little bitof an argument, especially in the social
(28:15):
media world, around body positivity andthis sort of thing, and so I
think what I want to clarify iswe're not talking about justifying any type of
body. We're talking about true healthand that's why the number disappears right.
(28:37):
And as women, I love thatyou remind us that our bodies fluctuate during
the day and or the week,especially during menopause. And You're right,
menopause is a big conversation. I'vehad it many many times. But what
is the thing about what you dothat just gets you out of bed in
the morning. What is so excitingabout this? You know, helping women
(29:00):
forty to sixty, and I'm sureyou help other people as well, but
what is the thing that you're mostpassionate about. Oh, this is such
a good question. So our ourtwelve week program is called Mind Strong Ignite,
and Ignite was a very conscious choiceof name because I think, especially
as we get forty fifty sixty,we've spent a lifetime taking care of other
(29:22):
people, right whether if you havekids, especially if you have grandkids,
especially, but we've also worked withteachers and nurses and just women in general
who tend to be givers at theirown expense. So what typically happens is
we hit this midlife period and suddenlywe wake up and we're like, well,
what about me? Right now?The kids are out of the house
that you know, the grandkids arebeing taken care of. Maybe we're retiring,
(29:45):
or we're just slowing down at work, or we're still working, but
we have this moment of like,I've spent a whole life giving and I've
lost myself. And when we talkabout even I mean, I've been doing
this for over five years, LikeI get goosebumps still talking about it.
When we talk about igniting your lifelike that is not some cheesy Hoki saying.
It's about stepping back into your powerright right now. I have a
(30:08):
member in our program who's seventy twoyears old, and she left me message
the other day, she started sobbingon the message and she's like, I
feel like I just got my lifeback for the first time at seventy two,
and they talk about what lights youup there. I started crying listening
to that, because if I canteach you that at seventy two, fantastic.
(30:29):
If I can teach you that atforty, let's go right because the
moment that you start to realize itdoesn't need to be this complicated. This
is not a guessing game. It'snot oh I wish I could have this
life. Oh I wish I coulddo this. When we understand basic human
psychology, basic neuroscience, and basicnutrition, you are holding the reins to
(30:51):
live that most aligned, unleashed life. And all we need is an educator
to teach us that it's not aguessing game. It's logistical steps you can
take. And the fact that Iget to wake up every day and do
that in the world and watch ithappen in real time, Like I am
so incredibly grateful for the work thatI get to do, and just watching
(31:11):
these women step into their powers themost beautiful thing. So what I hear
you saying is it is possible nomatter where you're at on the journey,
it's just a commitment to do thethings that will get you there consistently.
One hundred percent what we teach whenit comes to nutrition, when it comes
to mindset the whole shit and firingup your metabolism. This works if you're
(31:34):
twenty, This works if you're eighty. It's human biology one o one.
It's personalized to the individual. Thereisn't a cookie cutter answer when we figure
out what your body needs. Itis personal to you, and it is
math, it is science. Itis human biology, human psychology, and
it works for everyone. I'd lovethe fact that there's a hope, there's
(31:56):
a you know, it's not whatelusive. We're not talking about bigfoot here,
right, It's not sasquatch. Wecan actually figure this out and find
it. I think one of thethings in terms of fitness and being a
woman is this idea of a specificstandard of beauty. You know, I'm
(32:24):
imagining that what you do is tapinto the beauty of the person that's in
front of you, stripping away thisidea that this body's not good enough,
or this body isn't attractive enough forthis body isn't the right size. I
would imagine that mindset piece is partof what comes up through the process of
(32:45):
working with you. Am I rightabout that? Yeah? That is spot
on. I think, you know, if we go back to where we
started this conversation about like attracting,like when it comes to energy, Yeah,
we may see someone walk by inthe street and think they're physically beautiful,
but what actually attracts us to peopleis their energy. Right, it's
the literal, vibrating energy they're puttingout in the world. So if you
(33:06):
still have fifty pounds to lose,but you're showing up in the world,
standing in your power, confident inyour skin. You know, we're seeing
a lot of people in the entertainmentindustry now coming through, which is beautiful.
They're standing there in their skin,in their power and saying this is
who I am and I own it. And yes, we still want to
worry about their health and hope they'retaking care of their health, but the
energy they're putting out in the worldis attracting back millions. So to me,
(33:30):
this is this multifaceted things happening atonce. Right, we want to
get you healthy and take those steps, but this goes back to the conversation.
It's not about A to Z.It's not once I get to Z
suddenly people will find me attractive andI'll find my perfect partner. It's about
as I take these steps, Iam showing up in the world as a
different human and the people that aregoing to start coming into my life are
(33:51):
going to be of a different literalvibration, because that's what I'm attracting back
now, and that has nothing todo with physical looks. That's all vibrating
energy. Yeah, yeah, it'strue. When you think about energy.
You know, you can go intoa room, especially as women, and
we're picking up what's going on,right, Or or you meet someone and
(34:12):
you instantly go, oh, Ireally like this person. Or you meet
another person you're like, no,thank you. You haven't even said two
words to them, right, right, And isn't it interesting? We believe
we know that animals can do this, right, We know that dogs can
feel energy, but yet when wetalk about humans feeling it, we think
it's weird and woo woo. Yeah, that's why I love putting the science
behind it, because, as Ilike to say, it's not rainbows and
(34:35):
glitter. This is quantum physics.This is how life is structured. Mm
hmm. And I think if we'rethinking about health as a baseline, you
know, health is multifaceted as well. I think we've minimized it to calories
and food, right, But Ithink, and you've touched on this.
You said the center of the pyramidis our mindset. Our health is mental,
(34:59):
emotion, psychological, and physical.And to your point, our own
energy is impacting the level of successor lack of success that we're experiencing.
Do you find that when people trybut they don't believe they can, they
(35:20):
get nowhere? Absolutely? There is. So my company's name, Mindstrong comes
from two points. Number one isthe education. Point number two is the
importance of this mindset work. Andwhen I talk about mindset work, I'm
not talking about standing in front ofthe mirror beating my chest saying I am
a woman, hear me, roar. It's about neuroscience because there's a truth
(35:40):
of the human brain that we cannotexist in a world where the internal and
external don't match. So as we'redoing as we're learning a new skill,
right, we're getting away from dietculture. We're doing something brand new and
it will work what's going to happenis if we're not addressing the mindset piece
and those stories are still replaying inour heads, saying, yeah, but
I've lost ten pounds before and thenI gain back twenty. Yeah, but
(36:04):
this is going to be another thingI tell my family about and then I
quit, and then I'm embarrassed.If those stories are still replaying, those
are way more deep wired than thisnew work we're doing. So we're always
going to self sabotage right back tohomeostasis, to our comfort zone. So
when we talk about mindset work,we're talking about literally identifying and rewriting the
old stories going on up here andconsciously wiring in these new habits and the
(36:28):
new inner monologue that's supporting what we'redoing. Because if you're not doing that
work, which most traditional diets don'teven talk about that part, right,
you're absolutely it's science. You're absolutelygoing to self sabotage because your brain can't
exist in the world where both aretrue. I love that piece about alignment.
You know, it feels as thoughwe're removing the emotion from the conversation
(36:51):
and we're replacing it with this isexactly what it is, Yes, right,
the process that you bring is howdo we bring the external and the
internal into alignment so that our mental, emotional, physical, psychological health becomes
more and more balanced. Because youtalk about you know, we think A
(37:13):
to Z. You know, I'vegot to get to this goal. But
I think these peaks and valleys thatyou talked about really are the building blocks,
because it's so easy to look atthe goal and miss the process and
what the beauty in that process thatyou're teaching people. And that's what I'm
hearing is these are the building blocks. The goal will come if you do
(37:36):
this thing. But what about theit's you know how they say in your
born date and your passing date?You know, what are you doing with
that dash? This feels like thesame conversation to me. Yeah, I
love that, and I love thatyou just said taking the emotion out of
it. There. There is avery real time and place for emotion in
this conversation, right. Food isa very emotional thing. Our bodies are
(37:57):
a very emotional thing. And whenit comes to the process, whether we're
talking about the logistics of nutrition,whether we're talking about the logistics of rewiring
our brain, those are very emotionlists. We can remove the emotion,
say here are the steps to dothis, and when you follow them,
they will work. Now does thatmean we suppress our feelings? Does that
mean that we're like, you know, put your head down and do the
(38:19):
work. Absolutely not. But alot of the exercises that we do that
are very important is you know,we talk about emotional eating a lot,
and we do exercises where we identifywhat time is it, what am I
doing right now, what's the feelingI'm feeling, what am I tempted to
grab? What am I choosing instead? Because this is one of the greatest
paradoxes to me of humans. Thisis what I love about humans. We
(38:43):
are such deep feeling individuals. We'reall so individual and we have so many
feelings and when you step back andlook at us, we're all the same.
Right. There is a very scientificreason for why we make the choices
we do. So if I'm feelinglonely, and I can see that on
paper, and I can start toidentify a pattern that every time I feel
lonely, I reach for sweet foodsor I reach for salty foods. All
(39:07):
the emotion behind that is valid,and we can have conversations about that,
we can cry together, and nowwe have scientific data of Okay, if
every time I feel lonely, Icrave sweet foods, what if I start
to swap out those skittles for anapple? And now we've removed that emotional
piece and we've got our hands inthe dirt and the scientific part of it.
(39:28):
And I just I love how youphrase that, because that is so
much of it. It's not sayingemotions are bad, it's not saying they're
not valid. It's saying, let'sget those all out, let's cry about
them, let's hug each other,and let's have faith, let's have confidence
in the fact that we are stillhumans who are wired a certain way,
and we get to be in controlof those wirings. I love that.
(39:51):
That's the most empowering part of theneuroscience piece of what we're talking about,
because fundamentally the whole thing is aneuroscience conversation. It is, I mean,
because if we're going to change ahabit, we have to change our
mind, and that that's a nice, deep, wide, fascinating conversation as
(40:14):
well. But because this is oneof those ongoing mind shifting, emotion tapping
conversations, if you had to anchorin three things that you know might help
our audience, you know, begina process or how you want to encourage
them. What three things are comingup for you that you would like to
(40:34):
share. So Number one, there'sone of my favorite exercises that we do.
We've we've referenced it a few timeshere, is called do the bare
minimum. So it's a feeling exercise. It's not a thinking exercise. You
just you sit still, you closeyour eyes, you take a deep breath,
and you ask yourself, what isthe bare minimum I can commit to
this week? And the second youidentify that bare minimum, maybe it's tracking
(40:57):
my food, which I'll talk aboutin a second, maybe it's two twenty
minute walks. The second you thinkof it, that little inner monologue is
going to kick in telling you whyit's not enough. So just keep in
mind, being an overachiever in thisgame ruins the game. You will feel
it in your body. The secondyou start adding to it, you're going
to feel tension. The second youfeel at piece, that's your answer.
(41:19):
And from there, the key,like we talked about, is to throw
yourself that mini party when you doit, to get that dope imine release.
So number one, play the dothe bare minimum game. Number two
if you want to jumpstart. Nomatter what people go on to do,
anyone who works with us at atany investment level, we always start them
in the same place because to makechange, we have to shine the light
(41:39):
of awareness. So if you downloadany kind of macro tracking app, the
one I use is called my FitnessPal. I'm not affiliated with them.
They're just a common one. They'regoing to suggest macro numbers for you.
Do not use them, they're notpersonal enough. But for the next five
days, do your best to eatas you normally eats. Easier said than
(42:00):
done because you're shining the light ofawareness, and just input your food into
the app. We just want tosee again, talk about that emotional distance.
We just want data, right.This is going on, whether we're
aware of it or not, Sodoing our best to release the emotion around
it. Just eat as you normallyeat for five days and track your food.
You'll be surprised how much knowledge yougained from that in terms of what's
(42:22):
currently going on in your body.And the third thing is kind of just
a bigger mindset piece to all this, and it's really wiping the slate clean
that If you remember a while ago, I said, you know, if
you've tried one hundred and fifty diets, you haven't really You've tried one hundred
and fifty versions of one diet,and that diet was never designed to be
sustainable. Restrictive diet and cutting outcarbs, cutting out points, system shake
(42:45):
systems. They are literally fighting againstyour human nature and the forgiveness and release
that we can experience when we fullythis kind of a nutrition pun when we
fully digest that, and we canwipe the slate clean and say, you
know what, it's not like I'ma huge fan of radical personal responsibility,
(43:05):
but it's not actually my fault thatthose didn't last. They weren't designed to.
So now is the day that Idraw the line in the sand and
I say this is it. Thisis the day I do something new.
I stop dieting, I learn askill, and I step into my power.
That's more of just an understanding amindset shift, but it's one of
the most powerful ones we can doto show our bodies and minds that we're
(43:25):
ready for change. That lasts.I love that it's a skill that we
can learn that removes a whole lotof the baggage. Yes, you know,
it's the guessing game out of it. It's not oh, I hope
this is a thing that works forme. It's are you a human?
Do you have a heartbeat? Doyou have a pulse? Yes, this
will work for you, whether you'remenopausal, posts you know, whatever,
(43:46):
your Hashimoto's, vegan, diabetic,you name it. This works for you.
So there's no more hoping and praying. And is this the thing?
When you stick with it, itworks. It's human biology when you stick
with it. Yes, there's themagic. And that's why the mindset peace
become so clear because when you doboth, you will stick with it.
(44:07):
But we won't stick with it ifwe're not addressing that inner monologue as we
talked about. That's amazing. So, Rachel, how do people find you
and your resources? The best placeto find me is on our website mindstrongfitness
dot com. There you can youcan set up a call, you can
look through our programs. My bookthat you mentioned at the beginning is called
(44:29):
Becoming Mind Strong, The Truth aboutHealth, fitness and the BS that's holding
you back. That's available on Amazonand if you're listening or watching this.
I'm assuming that you're a podcast andYouTube person. I also have a podcast
by the same name, Becoming MindStrong, and that's a really great place
to just dive in and absorb alot more of these topics that we touched
on today. M hm. Youhave a YouTube as well. Yes,
(44:52):
it's not as active as the podcast, but we do throw them on there.
When when I remember to keep itactive, I know it's right.
It's like edit and create and putand you're like, where did we put
that? Where do we need toput that? Do I have to put
it there? Well, Rachel,I want to thank you so much for
being on the show today and forsharing your passion and your expertise with us
(45:12):
as women and continuing to build theconversation around true health, mental, physical,
and emotional health and how important itis for us to begin to acknowledge
ourselves and take time for ourselves andto believe that we can be healthier.
I really appreciate the practical way youremoved the veil of what we have believed
(45:38):
fitness and health to be, andI really appreciate your perspective and your wisdom
today. Thank you so much forhaving me. This was a blast.
Yes, friends, today, ifyou find us on YouTube, if you
just look down below those links thatRachel shared, they're going to be right
there for you. And if you'reon a podcast platform, you can go
to www. Dot Feminine roadmap dotcom Forward Slash episode three five three and
(46:02):
the show notes will be there aswell. Friends, This is a conversation
that I look at it like adiamond, right. I talk to different
people and I have different guests becausewe all have a perspective and a gift.
Each one of my guests has apurpose and a passion that they bring
to the table. And this isanother piece in that process of us understanding
the beauty of this body we've beengiven and what it is capable of,
(46:28):
what it has done, what itis doing, and what it will continue
to do, and how important itis that we strengthen the base of our
foundation of health so that we cancontinue to serve in the world the way
that we're meant to serve health.If you don't have your health, you
really don't have anything. So,as Rachel said, play that game.
(46:51):
What's the smallest, littlest thing youcan do, not the biggest thing.
Where can you start? What canyou do with what's in your hands now.
Thank you so much for joining ustoday. I do encourage you to
share this conversation with your friends,read the book, do the things together,
because doing these things in community canbe very, very powerful. Thank
you for joining us today. Thankyou for being a part of this conversation.
(47:14):
I look forward to sharing more inspirationalpeople, conversations and resources with you
in the weeks to come. Takecare of my friends. Bye bye,
Hi, hi'm Ginifer. Are welcometo the Feminine Roadmap Podcast, a global
community of women in midlife. Wegather here weekly over a cup of something
wonderful for real talk, life changingstrategies and a big dose of sisterhood.
Now, please sit back and enjoy. Hello, Feminine road members, Welcome
(00:28):
back to Feminine Roadmap Podcast, thepodcast that helps you navigate the challenges and
the changes of midlife and helps youlive a more vibrant second half. If
you find us on YouTube today,please don't forget to subscribe and ring that
bell so you don't miss any moreof these amazing conversations. And if you're
listening on a podcast platform, pleaseremember to subscribe, rate, and share
(00:49):
these conversations. Today, friends,we're going to be talking about an age
old thing that us women think about, and that is our bodies and our
health. You know why is ourhealth the most important thing? My guest
today wants us to understand that healthis the most important thing we have.
It's not about the number on thescale. It is so much more than
(01:10):
that. My guest today is RachelFreiman. She is the CEO of Mind
Strong Fitness and she is the authorof the number one Amazon bestseller, Becoming
Mind Strong The Truth about Health,fitness, and the BS That's holding you
Bath Rachel, thank you so muchfor being on the show today. Oh,
thank you for having me. I'mlooking forward to chatting with you my
(01:30):
pleasure. Why don't you tell usa little bit about why this mission and
message? How did you get intothis passion for fitness? Yeah, my
background is an odd one. Mybackground actually has nothing to do with health
and fitness. I was a musicianfor most of my life. I was
a jazz musician, did all ofschool, all of college, all of
my master's degree in music, andeventually went on after years of freelancing,
(01:53):
to become a teacher. I wasteaching middle school music. And if you've
ever worked to children, or havechildren, or been around a child,
you know that it is very rewardingbut very exhausting work. So I just
needed something that was my own outletat the end of the day. And
I had some friends who were activein the gym, so it very much
(02:14):
just started as an organic hobby.Let me try this thing out and see
if I like it. And whatI found, as most of us have
experienced, is the more I gotinto this world of trying to get healthy,
of trying to lose a few pounds, of trying to grow some muscles.
The more I learned, the moreconfused I got, because this was
an industry just filled with really goodmarketing and a whole lot of BS,
(02:36):
and I didn't understand that at first. So the more I got my hands
in the dirt and and started toeducate myself, the teacher in me I
always say, I wanted to shoutfrom the rooftops like holy cow, Nutrition
especially does not have to be thisbig overwhelming subject. You know, someone
could teach you to knit, someonecould teach you to surf. You can
teach nutrition as a skill. Andit was this very defining moment of my
(03:00):
career and of my life in alot of ways where I love teaching,
I did not want to leave thatfield. And I knew that the health
and fitness industry did not need anotherpersonal trainer, but what it did need
was an educator. And that's whatto this day, what I consider myself.
I will never consider myself a coachor a trainer. I'm an educator
in the field of health and fitness, doing something completely different than what most
(03:23):
of this industry is designed. Myfavorite joke is I have the worst sales
pitch in the world because you onlyneed me once. Because once you have
an education in something, you're incomplete control and you'll literally never go on
a diet again. M M.That's fantastic. Now, we talked about
before we hit record, just thebaseline of health and how important that is,
and how the older we get,the more amplified that truth becomes.
(03:46):
Right now, I have had conversationsbefore when we talk about health and hormones
and everything is we have been drawingfrom a bank. A lot of people
are less inclined to maybe make goodchoices with their bodies when they're younger,
because you're invincible, right, You'regoing to live forever, and so you're
not thinking, oh, I gotto make this baby lasts for eighty ninety
(04:09):
years. Right. But we hitthis middle ground in middle age and our
bodies start to change with hormones,stress, all these things, and then
health becomes a completely different conversation.And I'd love to talk about your perspective
on how that healthline base, howthat fitness base needs to shift, or
(04:29):
what it is we can do,because I think there is a shift up
in our minds because when we're twenty, we're trying to look like the hottest
thing on the beach, right,or we feel pressure to at least,
and maybe we do in our midfifties. I think it is kind of
out there. There's a lot ofInstagram models in my age group that are
still looking tiny, which I'm fiveto eleven and have never really been tiny.
(04:54):
But I think this mindset and thereason I'm bringing this up is part
of that feminine idea deal and idealthat we have wrestled with our whole life.
So let's let's go from your perspectivethis idea of fitness as a baseline.
What is health and how we canshift the mindset so that we are
actually approaching it in a more appropriateand helpful way for us. Yeah.
(05:17):
I love they use the word baselinebecause in my mind, every time I
talk about the importance of health,the importance of fitness, I think of
it as a pyramid. If thetop of this pyramid is that we want
to live a life in alignment,we want to live our most empowered,
unleashed you know, choose your word, our best life. If we're going
to call that the top of thepyramid, the middle pyramid, the middle
(05:40):
part of the pyramid is all aboutour mindset, our inner monologue. The
stories we're telling ourselves are limiting beliefs. And the foundation, that baseline of
the pyramid has to be your physicalhealth. And there's a very scientific reason
for this. And I'm going toemphasize the word scientific because when I start
talking about energy and attraction, it'svery easy to tune out and be like,
oh, she's talking wu wu stuff. But to me, nothing about
(06:03):
attracting back is woo wuo. It'squantum physics. So there's a there's a
law of quantum physics of energy thatsays like attracts like in music, music
travels in sound ways. Right,it's energy and pitches attract pitches because like
attracts like when it comes to energy. So when we understand that concept that
(06:23):
like attracts like and then we understandyou know, if we think back to
our elementary school days, then that'sa further away for some of us than
others. But you know, we'regonna go back for a second. When
we think about learning about atoms,Right, atoms are the building block of
everything in the world, which meansyou're made of atoms. I'm made of
atoms. The chair we're sitting onis made of atoms. But what science
has discovered is that, yes,an atom has all those parts we learned
(06:46):
about in school, the nucleus,the protons, the electrons, but in
atom, the building block of everythingis actually ninety nine point nine percent energy.
So if that you really let thatsink in, it's kind of incredible
because it means everything in the world, including you and I, are vibrating
energy. Now, things vibrate atdifferent speeds, right, It's why we
(07:06):
don't fall through our chair. Butwe are all walking around as vibrating energy.
So when we combine those two understandingsthat when it comes to energy,
like attracts alike and we as humansare vibrating energy according to quantum physics.
According to science, it is atruth of life that when we talk about
attracting back, that's not rainbows andglittering and unicorns. That's quantum physics.
(07:30):
So if we're walking around in aday and we're sitting there thinking, oh,
I shouldn't have sniffed pizza last night. Now I feel like I gained
five pounds, Right, I shouldhave gone to the gym. I shouldn't
have eaten this. We're walking aroundin the world shrunken down, right,
We're in our heads, we're beatingourselves up. We are shrunken down in
our skin, and that is thelife we are quite literally attracting back.
(07:50):
So when we start taking the stepsto get our health in check, it
does not matter. This is notabout wearing a T shirt that says I
lost twenty pounds. Nobody's wearing aT shirt that says this is how much
I weigh. It's about the energythat we're putting out into the world.
Because before we've even lost a pound, well, we just start taking the
steps. We start standing up taller, we start feeling more confident in our
(08:11):
skin. And it's no coincidence thatas we start doing this work, we
start attracting back a very different life. Right. We watch people step into
the jobs of their dreams, leavingunhealthy relationships, finding partners they've been looking
for. And to me, that'squantum physics. So if we want to
truly live a life in alignment,in our most empowered life, that baseline,
(08:33):
as you put it so beautifully,has to start with our physical health.
I think it can be challenging becausethe stories that I've heard are like,
ah, I've never been an athlete. I'm not athletic, you know,
right, I've never played sports.So let's talk a little bit about
what you're talking about. When wetalk about health and fitness, a lot
(08:54):
of people literally categorize it like,well, since I never played sports,
I am therefore not interested, notcapable of working out, like it's this
animal outside of ourselves. And thisidea of energy is if I think I
don't like something like attract likes,I am not going to like it,
right, Very true, very true. The saving grace here. You know,
(09:20):
I primarily work with women aged fortyto sixty, so by that stage
of life, we have some verydeep rooted when we understand neuroscience and beliefs,
these are literally deeply wired in beliefsystems exactly as they're saying about what
we like and what we don't like. Most of the women that we work
within that age group, every oncein a while we get an outlier,
but most of them come in withthis belief of you know, I am
(09:41):
scared to lift weights. That's aboy activity, right. We go to
the gym, we see sweaty gruntingmen, and we don't want to go
there. I'm going to injure myself. The beautiful part. When it comes
to your health, those are twovery separate topics. Health and fitness are
two very separate topics. You canone hundred percent do this with nutrient alone.
Nutrition is ninety percent of this game. So when I have someone come
(10:03):
to us and they're like, Idon't know where to start, I'm overwhelmed.
I feel like I always red flagthe word should I should be working
out, but I hate it.Answers. We're not even gonna touch that.
We're gonna start with nutrition alone.Because human beings, Freud discovered something
called the pleasure principle. We aredesigned to avoid pain and seek pleasure.
(10:24):
So when we try to do thesemajor life overhauls of like okay, new
way of nutrition, working out fivedays a week, no more couch potato,
like the whole shebang, we're nevergonna stick with it. That's put
I call that pushing a boulder upa hill, right, It's never gonna
last, and it's going to bereally, really difficult. But when we
start with just nutrition, because we'repleasure seeking creatures. At some point organically.
(10:46):
We don't have to force this.We're gonna say, wow, I'm
feeling really good, and as apleasure seeking creature, and we're not gonna
say I feel really good, letme not do anything else, right,
We're gonna say, I feel reallygood? What else can I do?
At that point, we play agame called do the bare minimum, where
it's like, you know what,let me do two exercises twice a week.
I'm not going to go four daysa week to the gym. I'm
(11:07):
not going to do an hour longworkout. I'm going to dip my toe
in the water. And now webecome a snowball going down a hill.
And we don't even have to thinkabout that part yet because when you start
with nutrition, not only will youget results, but that's the start of
the snowball going down the hill.That's how we start to get momentum.
You know, you're talking about howstarting small and not going too far too
(11:30):
fast. I think it's interesting becauseI would think you would find people back
to the mindset thing, the fearcoming in even with changes in our food,
because food is such a comfort thingat this point in our life,
you know, And like, Ilike how you say that one little change
(11:50):
your body will tell you. Andthat's the thing that I've noticed is we
don't always know what our body istelling us. And that seems to be
a pivotal thing. Would you agreethat it's a pivotal thing to make a
small change and then learn to listento how you actually feel. Absolutely?
(12:11):
Yeah, And this is something youknow. Intuitive eating is such a such
a buzzword right now, and wehave some What we teach is a skill
called macro tracking. So the short, little cliff notes version is that every
human's body is designed to run ona balance of carbs, fat, protein.
If we want optimal energy, ifwe want optimal health, what we
need to learn is how much yourpersonal body needs in terms of carbs,
(12:33):
fat, protein. Now, thesecond I say the word macro tracking,
there's like eighty percent of people listeningthat have a visceral reaction there, Like,
I don't want to track my foodbecause for a lot of people,
the end goal is intuitive eating.I just want to listen to my body.
And my answer is that is abeautiful goal. I love intuitive eating.
I have coaches in our program thatteach into a deveating and right now,
(12:56):
our bodies are speaking to us basedoff of habit, not intuition.
Right, if you've trained your bodythat every Wednesday we go out and we
get a hamburger, will come Tuesdaynight, your thought might be, well,
I must be low and iron becauseI'm craving a hamburger like that is
not your body speaking to you.That is habit. So for people who
want to eat intuitively, again,I'm a huge fan, and I think
for a lot of people it's abeautiful goal. But right now we need
(13:20):
three things. First, we needto understand how our personal body is designed
to run, meaning that balance ofcarbs, fat, protein. We need
to get better at eyeballing portion sizesright, well, we think a tablespoon
of peanut butter is not a tablespoonof peanut butter. And then number three,
we need to do this long enoughso that our brain literally gets wired
for these new habits, and ourbrains and our bodies can start communicating.
(13:43):
So I like to think of itas a training ground that we can then
release to truly listen to our body, because I mean, our bodies are
incredible. We know this at thisstage of life. We know this.
Our body is capable of incredible things, but especially when it comes to nutrition.
We've lived in an industry that hadus cutting carbs, then binging,
then cutting out fat, then binging, then overeating and under eating, and
(14:05):
right now, our body doesn't trustus. And a huge key to this
process, especially in your forties fiftysixties, the key to firing up your
metabolism, the key to balancing yourhormones, and the key to eating intuitively
is we have to gain trust withour body through consistency first, and then
we can release it and start listening. That makes total sense that if we've
(14:30):
lived forty fifty sixty years one way, there's going to be some need to
reform some neural pathways, absolutely,especially when it comes to like stress,
emotions, things that we've I mean, how many of us have tied food
to reward or punishment or emotion?Right? Really? And so what I
(14:54):
hear you saying is we basically haveto build a completely different relationship and we
have to give our brain brains inour bodies time to get in sync with
this change. Is that what you'resaying. Yeah, And I love that
you use the word relationship because oneof the things we say that the work
we do does is it heals yourrelationship with food. Because the problem with
(15:15):
the diet industry in general, andagain if we've been around forty fifty sixty
years we know this better than mostis I always tell people, you know,
if you think you've if you makea list of every diet you've ever
tried, and there's one hundred andfifty diets on that list, you haven't
actually tried one hundred and fifty diets. You've tried one hundred and fifty versions
of one diet, and that dietis telling you what you can or can't
(15:35):
eat. And when we understand again, all of this is flowing with human
nature. When we understand human psychology, there's a term called reactants, and
reacting simply states that as humans,we want autonomy, we want the power
of choice. We don't want tobe told what we can or can't do.
So we go on diets, weput on horse blinders. We say
I can't eat carbs, I can'teat fat, I can only eat these
(15:56):
points systems, I can only eatthese shake systems. And then we can
even binge and we beat ourselves upabout it. And the key to making
this sustainable when we talk about asyou beautifully put it. You know,
this relationship with food. When wetalk about healing our relationship with food,
the foundation of that is number one, this trust that we were just talking
about. But most importantly, it'sby learning to stop labeling foods as good
(16:18):
or bad, or allowed or notallowed. Right, I love donuts.
That's my thing is. We usedto have a whole my whole business platform
used to be based off of howto lose weight while still leaving donuts.
Are they the most nutritious food?Absolutely? Not. Am I gonna eat
three a day? No? Butcan I have a donut and still hit
my weight loss goals? Absolutely?And because I've stopped shaming food or saying
(16:41):
it's off limits again, this isthe snowball down a hill. This is
about flowing with human nature. Andwhen you talk about mindset as you just
brought up, you know this,especially forty fifty sixty, we have decades
upon decades of these wired in beliefsthat donuts are bad foods. Right,
I eat a donut and now I'mfat. So a lot of the work
we do is not only the physicalskill of learning how to diet without restriction,
(17:06):
and it's around this mindset of understandingthat there are no bad foods,
there's nutritious and less nutritious, andreleasing that shame, blame and guilt around
past diets because it wasn't one hundredand fifty it was really one diet and
it wasn't designed to work. AndI think we vilify ourselves in the process,
right, Like it's hard for usto be successful when we are saying
(17:29):
I'm bad, yes, yes,right, I'm bad for making that choice
with the donut, for example.And I think, and maybe you can
tell me what the science is onthis, but it's like when we allow
ourselves to find joy in the process, when we I know, that lights
up certain parts of the brain.So I think if we could shift from
(17:52):
the shame and guilt like you weretalking about and shift to finding the joy,
like if I want a donut,which, which is funny you brought
that up because I live really justbought an apple fritter this week, and
I almost it's maybe once a yeartype of a thing, and I was
like, I want a donut.So it takes me a couple of days
because they're so big. I cannoteat an entire apple fritter and I was
like, you know what, I'mgoing to enjoy this, right. I
(18:15):
think that's what I hear you saying, if we can shift from the shame
and the blame and the guilt,because I think our body responds to that
to joy, pleasure and a treat. You know, it's not the end
of my life to have this donut. But what I hear you saying is
that shift and that emotional energy thatwe're putting towards the food is actually part
(18:40):
of the growing, changing process weneed to make in order to find true
health. Am I right? Absolutely? Absolutely? The way that we speak
to ourselves are inner monologue is someof the most powerful work we can be
doing for exactly the reasons we're saying. You know, there's this common belief,
especially as we get older, thatoh, if I'm not tough on
myself, I'm not going to succeed. Right, And the game I like
(19:03):
to play with people is like,think back to your favorite teachers growing up.
Your favorite teacher was probably they're probablystrict with you, they probably set
the bar high, but what theydidn't do was shame, blame, guilt,
and belittle you. So why asadults did we decide that that's the
key to success. Right. Andthen the other part of this is of
my running joke, is we're alljust glorified drug addicts. We're all just
(19:23):
going around looking for dopamine hits.Because if you trace anything back to the
root, what we're looking for isa feeling. Right. If you tell
me I want to be super wealthy, and I ask you why, is
it because you want to log inyour bank account and see a bunch of
zeros? Or is it because youwant the freedom, the security, the
ability, the feeling of taking careof people you love. Right, everything
(19:44):
in life is about a feeling.And it's the same thing here. When
we when we go on a diet, a traditional restrictive diet and it doesn't
work, we don't emotionally separate andsay, oh, that specific diet didn't
work for me. We do exactlywhat you said. We go down the
rabbit hole, the shame that blthe guilt of beating ourselves up, and
then we wonder why we have nomotivation and we feel like crap and we
don't want to do this again.But when we take baby steps, the
(20:08):
key to this whole baby step concept, and you're going to feel like a
dope when you first do it,because we're not used to doing this,
but when you take that baby step. Let's say yours is two twenty minute
walks this week. The first timeyou take that twenty minute walk, you're
going to throw yourself an internal party. You're going to do you know what,
you are incredible. You didn't wantto go for that walk. You
(20:29):
did it. I'm so proud ofyou. And that's going to feel really
hokey at first. But what we'redoing is we're literally training our brain to
release dopamine in that moment. Sothe next time we don't want to go
for a walk, which we won'tbecause it's wired in our brain. Now
our brain has proof of Wait asecond, remember how good it felt afterwards.
Let me get that little fixodopamine thatI'm chasing and go for my second
walk. And all of this again, I keep coming back to it.
(20:52):
It's about flowing with human nature,and human nature states that we're designed to
avoid pain and seek pleasure and beatit ourselves up. The shame, blame,
guilt that is that is pain,and we're going to avoid activities that
cause that, moving towards baby stepsthat release that dopamine and feel good.
That's pleasure. And we're always goingto keep that snowball rolling. It's a
(21:12):
It's it's a hack, isn't it. It is. It's a like a
brain end life hack. It's like, go for it, make yourself feel
better. I dare you to beable to feel better. I love it.
I love a little brain hack fora healthy living. It's like it's
like you're talking to you know,do you want a little hit of dopamine?
(21:33):
Do you want it? I lovethat. I was just speaking with
a PR manager the other day andwe were talking about designing a hook,
and as you said that, I'mjust like, oh, hack your brain
for healthy living. Like I thinkyou just gave me my hook. Yay,
you now get commission. That's awesome. You know. I think we
(21:55):
overcomplicate things, don't we. WeWe think so hard about things, and
some of us to the mindset piece, which I'm really passionate about mindset because
I agree with you, Rachel.It is it is driving our life,
striving our decisions, is driving thechoices that we make in our relationships,
(22:15):
in our thought life, and thethings we do or don't do, and
the in our dialogue that you talkedabout. I feel like we don't even
realize how much of that is goingon, Like we think, I want
to look like this, I wantto wear this size, I want to
be this number. But you talkedabout the number on the scale not being
(22:41):
necessarily the goal we should be aimingfor. And as women, it's all
about the numbers, right, We'vebeen taught it's about the numbers, right,
right, So let's talk about thatshift. And when you talk when
you're talking about tracking your macros,it's not for the number, is it?
Not at all? None of thisis ever I mean for some people,
(23:03):
yes, there is a goal ofa number on the scale, but
there's a few things we need tounderstand. Number one, this scale,
I mean, we could talk fortwo hours about the scale. The scale
is not a reliable source for dayto day information. Even if you are
quote unquote perfect with your nutrition,whatever that means to you. If you're
perfect, the scale's going to fluctuateas much as one to six pounds every
single day. It becomes a mindgame. It's great for long term data,
(23:26):
it is not there for day today. So healing your relationship with
the scale is a whole separate topic. And when it comes to weight loss,
it is a slow, tedious,frustrating process. Right Like, I'm
not I work in this field.I'm not going to sugarcoat it. It
goes slower than any of us wantit to. So if your only measure
of success is A to Z,right, I'm here, I want to
(23:48):
be here, and that is myonly measure of success, you are setting
yourself up for failure. There isno world in whatch you're going to stick
with it, because that path fromA to Z has too many hills in
It is up, it's now,it's backwards, it's forward, it's all
over the place. So what westart to do is again, all of
this is baby steps. What's thefirst baby step goal? Right? For
(24:10):
some I'll tell you some interesting ones. There's better sleep, I mean menopause.
What we can have a whole conversationabout lessening the symptoms of menopause for
people with a larger amount of weightto lose. Not having to use a
seatbelt extender on the airplane is onethat we hear a lot. Getting into
a pair of genes that you haven'tworn since college, things like how your
clothes fit, even just you'll feelit in yourself, your energy, your
(24:33):
confidence, the way that you're presentingin the world. Those things are going
to show up much quicker and muchmore reliably than the number on the scale.
And what happens for most people atsome point is they hit their goal
weight and they're like, oh,like, that's cool, But I like,
I don't even care about that anymorebecause by the time I got there,
my life had already unleashed in allthese unexpected ways. So it's not
(24:56):
a bad thing to have a goalnumber as long as we understand that on
that path to A to Z,we have to have little baby steps in
between to keep us motivated to getto the finish line. If we're going
to call it that. Mm hmm. You said something interesting there. It's
like, by the time we getto that goal number, I think for
a lot of people, we expectto feel a certain way, and because
(25:18):
of the changes and the challenges thatwe've been experiencing along the way, our
brain thinks this is still the goal. But we've changed in the process absolutely,
which is a beautiful thing, right, because there's a multifaceted experience we're
having with this idea of who weare, do you find that the success
(25:38):
actually comes with how a person perceivesthemselves, and that number absolutely. The
running joke within my company is,you know, people come to us and
we're like, oh, they thinkthey're here for weight loss, right,
the weight loss is to us,it's the simple part. Some simple doesn't
always mean easy, but when youdo it correctly, and I'm going to
(25:59):
purposely that work correctly. Weight lossis math and science. It's human biology.
It works if you stick with it, it will work period hard.
Stop might drop end a sentence.What the real work is. And this
is where my coaches and I kindof giggle because we're like, oh,
they think they're here for weight loss. The real work comes in the mindset
training, it comes in the innermonologue. It's the belief systems. It's
(26:21):
those deep wired stories that we've toldourselves for decades. So it's ninety nine
point nine percent of the time whenwomen come to us, this is what
we hear. Though. Oh Ithought that I came to you to loss,
to lose twenty pounds, but myentire life has shifted everything about me.
I'm a different person than when Istarted. And yeah, I've lost
the weight, but that almost feelsinsignificant at this point because it's never about
(26:45):
the weight. It's about, togo back to the start of this conversation,
it's about our energy, it's aboutbeing comfortable in our skin, and
most of all, it's about whatwe're attracting back in our life. And
that happens somewhat immediately. It doesn'ttake getting to point Z. It happens
getting to point B and C asyou're taking the steps. So weight loss
again, Like, it's easier forme to say as someone who's done this
(27:07):
for decades, it's harder to believewhen you've been on the yoyo diatrain.
But it truly is when done correctly, it's not a guessing game. It
will happen because it's human biology.It's that inner work that we're really here
for. We just don't really knowthat yet. Yeah, you know,
we have so many paradigms around howwe look. You know, I have
(27:30):
daughters, and so I thought Ithought about intentionally, like how do I
want them to perceive themselves? Youknow, not that I have control,
but just my own inner dialogue beingso not helpful. And that's probably the
most negative input they've had, isme, me saying the things about myself
(27:51):
that I've had the habit of saying. But it's interesting because I think having
other women in the home, youknow, my daughters as an adults,
I look at them and I thinkthey have a much healthier relationship with their
bodies, and I'm glad that theyhave not as far to go. And
right now, there's a little bitof an argument, especially in the social
(28:15):
media world, around body positivity andthis sort of thing, and so I
think what I want to clarify iswe're not talking about justifying any type of
body. We're talking about true healthand that's why the number disappears right.
(28:37):
And as women, I love thatyou remind us that our bodies fluctuate during
the day and or the week,especially during menopause. And You're right,
menopause is a big conversation. I'vehad it many many times. But what
is the thing about what you dothat just gets you out of bed in
the morning. What is so excitingabout this? You know, helping women
(29:00):
forty to sixty, and I'm sureyou help other people as well, but
what is the thing that you're mostpassionate about. Oh, this is such
a good question. So our ourtwelve week program is called Mind Strong Ignite,
and Ignite was a very conscious choiceof name because I think, especially
as we get forty fifty sixty,we've spent a lifetime taking care of other
(29:22):
people, right whether if you havekids, especially if you have grandkids,
especially, but we've also worked withteachers and nurses and just women in general
who tend to be givers at theirown expense. So what typically happens is
we hit this midlife period and suddenlywe wake up and we're like, well,
what about me? Right now?The kids are out of the house
that you know, the grandkids arebeing taken care of. Maybe we're retiring,
(29:45):
or we're just slowing down at work, or we're still working, but
we have this moment of like,I've spent a whole life giving and I've
lost myself. And when we talkabout even I mean, I've been doing
this for over five years, LikeI get goosebumps still talking about it.
When we talk about igniting your lifelike that is not some cheesy Hoki saying.
It's about stepping back into your powerright right now. I have a
(30:08):
member in our program who's seventy twoyears old, and she left me message
the other day, she started sobbingon the message and she's like, I
feel like I just got my lifeback for the first time at seventy two,
and they talk about what lights youup there. I started crying listening
to that, because if I canteach you that at seventy two, fantastic.
(30:29):
If I can teach you that atforty, let's go right because the
moment that you start to realize itdoesn't need to be this complicated. This
is not a guessing game. It'snot oh I wish I could have this
life. Oh I wish I coulddo this. When we understand basic human
psychology, basic neuroscience, and basicnutrition, you are holding the reins to
(30:51):
live that most aligned, unleashed life. And all we need is an educator
to teach us that it's not aguessing game. It's logistical steps you can
take. And the fact that Iget to wake up every day and do
that in the world and watch ithappen in real time, Like I am
so incredibly grateful for the work thatI get to do, and just watching
(31:11):
these women step into their powers themost beautiful thing. So what I hear
you saying is it is possible nomatter where you're at on the journey,
it's just a commitment to do thethings that will get you there consistently.
One hundred percent what we teach whenit comes to nutrition, when it comes
to mindset the whole shit and firingup your metabolism. This works if you're
(31:34):
twenty, This works if you're eighty. It's human biology one o one.
It's personalized to the individual. Thereisn't a cookie cutter answer when we figure
out what your body needs. Itis personal to you, and it is
math, it is science. Itis human biology, human psychology, and
it works for everyone. I'd lovethe fact that there's a hope, there's
(31:56):
a you know, it's not whatelusive. We're not talking about bigfoot here,
right, It's not sasquatch. Wecan actually figure this out and find
it. I think one of thethings in terms of fitness and being a
woman is this idea of a specificstandard of beauty. You know, I'm
(32:24):
imagining that what you do is tapinto the beauty of the person that's in
front of you, stripping away thisidea that this body's not good enough,
or this body isn't attractive enough forthis body isn't the right size. I
would imagine that mindset piece is partof what comes up through the process of
(32:45):
working with you. Am I rightabout that? Yeah? That is spot
on. I think, you know, if we go back to where we
started this conversation about like attracting,like when it comes to energy, Yeah,
we may see someone walk by inthe street and think they're physically beautiful,
but what actually attracts us to peopleis their energy. Right, it's
the literal, vibrating energy they're puttingout in the world. So if you
(33:06):
still have fifty pounds to lose,but you're showing up in the world,
standing in your power, confident inyour skin. You know, we're seeing
a lot of people in the entertainmentindustry now coming through, which is beautiful.
They're standing there in their skin,in their power and saying this is
who I am and I own it. And yes, we still want to
worry about their health and hope they'retaking care of their health, but the
energy they're putting out in the worldis attracting back millions. So to me,
(33:30):
this is this multifaceted things happening atonce. Right, we want to
get you healthy and take those steps, but this goes back to the conversation.
It's not about A to Z.It's not once I get to Z
suddenly people will find me attractive andI'll find my perfect partner. It's about
as I take these steps, Iam showing up in the world as a
different human and the people that aregoing to start coming into my life are
(33:51):
going to be of a different literalvibration, because that's what I'm attracting back
now, and that has nothing todo with physical looks. That's all vibrating
energy. Yeah, yeah, it'strue. When you think about energy.
You know, you can go intoa room, especially as women, and
we're picking up what's going on,right, Or or you meet someone and
(34:12):
you instantly go, oh, Ireally like this person. Or you meet
another person you're like, no,thank you. You haven't even said two
words to them, right, right, And isn't it interesting? We believe
we know that animals can do this, right, We know that dogs can
feel energy, but yet when wetalk about humans feeling it, we think
it's weird and woo woo. Yeah, that's why I love putting the science
behind it, because, as Ilike to say, it's not rainbows and
(34:35):
glitter. This is quantum physics.This is how life is structured. Mm
hmm. And I think if we'rethinking about health as a baseline, you
know, health is multifaceted as well. I think we've minimized it to calories
and food, right, But Ithink, and you've touched on this.
You said the center of the pyramidis our mindset. Our health is mental,
(34:59):
emotion, psychological, and physical.And to your point, our own
energy is impacting the level of successor lack of success that we're experiencing.
Do you find that when people trybut they don't believe they can, they
(35:20):
get nowhere? Absolutely? There is. So my company's name, Mindstrong comes
from two points. Number one isthe education. Point number two is the
importance of this mindset work. Andwhen I talk about mindset work, I'm
not talking about standing in front ofthe mirror beating my chest saying I am
a woman, hear me, roar. It's about neuroscience because there's a truth
(35:40):
of the human brain that we cannotexist in a world where the internal and
external don't match. So as we'redoing as we're learning a new skill,
right, we're getting away from dietculture. We're doing something brand new and
it will work what's going to happenis if we're not addressing the mindset piece
and those stories are still replaying inour heads, saying, yeah, but
I've lost ten pounds before and thenI gain back twenty. Yeah, but
(36:04):
this is going to be another thingI tell my family about and then I
quit, and then I'm embarrassed.If those stories are still replaying, those
are way more deep wired than thisnew work we're doing. So we're always
going to self sabotage right back tohomeostasis, to our comfort zone. So
when we talk about mindset work,we're talking about literally identifying and rewriting the
old stories going on up here andconsciously wiring in these new habits and the
(36:28):
new inner monologue that's supporting what we'redoing. Because if you're not doing that
work, which most traditional diets don'teven talk about that part, right,
you're absolutely it's science. You're absolutelygoing to self sabotage because your brain can't
exist in the world where both aretrue. I love that piece about alignment.
You know, it feels as thoughwe're removing the emotion from the conversation
(36:51):
and we're replacing it with this isexactly what it is, Yes, right,
the process that you bring is howdo we bring the external and the
internal into alignment so that our mental, emotional, physical, psychological health becomes
more and more balanced. Because youtalk about you know, we think A
(37:13):
to Z. You know, I'vegot to get to this goal. But
I think these peaks and valleys thatyou talked about really are the building blocks,
because it's so easy to look atthe goal and miss the process and
what the beauty in that process thatyou're teaching people. And that's what I'm
hearing is these are the building blocks. The goal will come if you do
(37:36):
this thing. But what about theit's you know how they say in your
born date and your passing date?You know, what are you doing with
that dash? This feels like thesame conversation to me. Yeah, I
love that, and I love thatyou just said taking the emotion out of
it. There. There is avery real time and place for emotion in
this conversation, right. Food isa very emotional thing. Our bodies are
(37:57):
a very emotional thing. And whenit comes to the process, whether we're
talking about the logistics of nutrition,whether we're talking about the logistics of rewiring
our brain, those are very emotionlists. We can remove the emotion,
say here are the steps to dothis, and when you follow them,
they will work. Now does thatmean we suppress our feelings? Does that
mean that we're like, you know, put your head down and do the
(38:19):
work. Absolutely not. But alot of the exercises that we do that
are very important is you know,we talk about emotional eating a lot,
and we do exercises where we identifywhat time is it, what am I
doing right now, what's the feelingI'm feeling, what am I tempted to
grab? What am I choosing instead? Because this is one of the greatest
paradoxes to me of humans. Thisis what I love about humans. We
(38:43):
are such deep feeling individuals. We'reall so individual and we have so many
feelings and when you step back andlook at us, we're all the same.
Right. There is a very scientificreason for why we make the choices
we do. So if I'm feelinglonely, and I can see that on
paper, and I can start toidentify a pattern that every time I feel
lonely, I reach for sweet foodsor I reach for salty foods. All
(39:07):
the emotion behind that is valid,and we can have conversations about that,
we can cry together, and nowwe have scientific data of Okay, if
every time I feel lonely, Icrave sweet foods, what if I start
to swap out those skittles for anapple? And now we've removed that emotional
piece and we've got our hands inthe dirt and the scientific part of it.
(39:28):
And I just I love how youphrase that, because that is so
much of it. It's not sayingemotions are bad, it's not saying they're
not valid. It's saying, let'sget those all out, let's cry about
them, let's hug each other,and let's have faith, let's have confidence
in the fact that we are stillhumans who are wired a certain way,
and we get to be in controlof those wirings. I love that.
(39:51):
That's the most empowering part of theneuroscience piece of what we're talking about,
because fundamentally the whole thing is aneuroscience conversation. It is, I mean,
because if we're going to change ahabit, we have to change our
mind, and that that's a nice, deep, wide, fascinating conversation as
(40:14):
well. But because this is oneof those ongoing mind shifting, emotion tapping
conversations, if you had to anchorin three things that you know might help
our audience, you know, begina process or how you want to encourage
them. What three things are comingup for you that you would like to
(40:34):
share. So Number one, there'sone of my favorite exercises that we do.
We've we've referenced it a few timeshere, is called do the bare
minimum. So it's a feeling exercise. It's not a thinking exercise. You
just you sit still, you closeyour eyes, you take a deep breath,
and you ask yourself, what isthe bare minimum I can commit to
this week? And the second youidentify that bare minimum, maybe it's tracking
(40:57):
my food, which I'll talk aboutin a second, maybe it's two twenty
minute walks. The second you thinkof it, that little inner monologue is
going to kick in telling you whyit's not enough. So just keep in
mind, being an overachiever in thisgame ruins the game. You will feel
it in your body. The secondyou start adding to it, you're going
to feel tension. The second youfeel at piece, that's your answer.
(41:19):
And from there, the key,like we talked about, is to throw
yourself that mini party when you doit, to get that dope imine release.
So number one, play the dothe bare minimum game. Number two
if you want to jumpstart. Nomatter what people go on to do,
anyone who works with us at atany investment level, we always start them
in the same place because to makechange, we have to shine the light
(41:39):
of awareness. So if you downloadany kind of macro tracking app, the
one I use is called my FitnessPal. I'm not affiliated with them.
They're just a common one. They'regoing to suggest macro numbers for you.
Do not use them, they're notpersonal enough. But for the next five
days, do your best to eatas you normally eats. Easier said than
(42:00):
done because you're shining the light ofawareness, and just input your food into
the app. We just want tosee again, talk about that emotional distance.
We just want data, right.This is going on, whether we're
aware of it or not, Sodoing our best to release the emotion around
it. Just eat as you normallyeat for five days and track your food.
You'll be surprised how much knowledge yougained from that in terms of what's
(42:22):
currently going on in your body.And the third thing is kind of just
a bigger mindset piece to all this, and it's really wiping the slate clean
that If you remember a while ago, I said, you know, if
you've tried one hundred and fifty diets, you haven't really You've tried one hundred
and fifty versions of one diet,and that diet was never designed to be
sustainable. Restrictive diet and cutting outcarbs, cutting out points, system shake
(42:45):
systems. They are literally fighting againstyour human nature and the forgiveness and release
that we can experience when we fullythis kind of a nutrition pun when we
fully digest that, and we canwipe the slate clean and say, you
know what, it's not like I'ma huge fan of radical personal responsibility,
(43:05):
but it's not actually my fault thatthose didn't last. They weren't designed to.
So now is the day that Idraw the line in the sand and
I say this is it. Thisis the day I do something new.
I stop dieting, I learn askill, and I step into my power.
That's more of just an understanding amindset shift, but it's one of
the most powerful ones we can doto show our bodies and minds that we're
(43:25):
ready for change. That lasts.I love that it's a skill that we
can learn that removes a whole lotof the baggage. Yes, you know,
it's the guessing game out of it. It's not oh, I hope
this is a thing that works forme. It's are you a human?
Do you have a heartbeat? Doyou have a pulse? Yes, this
will work for you, whether you'remenopausal, posts you know, whatever,
(43:46):
your Hashimoto's, vegan, diabetic,you name it. This works for you.
So there's no more hoping and praying. And is this the thing?
When you stick with it, itworks. It's human biology when you stick
with it. Yes, there's themagic. And that's why the mindset peace
become so clear because when you doboth, you will stick with it.
(44:07):
But we won't stick with it ifwe're not addressing that inner monologue as we
talked about. That's amazing. So, Rachel, how do people find you
and your resources? The best placeto find me is on our website mindstrongfitness
dot com. There you can youcan set up a call, you can
look through our programs. My bookthat you mentioned at the beginning is called
(44:29):
Becoming Mind Strong, The Truth aboutHealth, fitness and the BS that's holding
you back. That's available on Amazonand if you're listening or watching this.
I'm assuming that you're a podcast andYouTube person. I also have a podcast
by the same name, Becoming MindStrong, and that's a really great place
to just dive in and absorb alot more of these topics that we touched
on today. M hm. Youhave a YouTube as well. Yes,
(44:52):
it's not as active as the podcast, but we do throw them on there.
When when I remember to keep itactive, I know it's right.
It's like edit and create and putand you're like, where did we put
that? Where do we need toput that? Do I have to put
it there? Well, Rachel,I want to thank you so much for
being on the show today and forsharing your passion and your expertise with us
(45:12):
as women and continuing to build theconversation around true health, mental, physical,
and emotional health and how important itis for us to begin to acknowledge
ourselves and take time for ourselves andto believe that we can be healthier.
I really appreciate the practical way youremoved the veil of what we have believed
(45:38):
fitness and health to be, andI really appreciate your perspective and your wisdom
today. Thank you so much forhaving me. This was a blast.
Yes, friends, today, ifyou find us on YouTube, if you
just look down below those links thatRachel shared, they're going to be right
there for you. And if you'reon a podcast platform, you can go
to www. Dot Feminine roadmap dotcom Forward Slash episode three five three and
(46:02):
the show notes will be there aswell. Friends, This is a conversation
that I look at it like adiamond, right. I talk to different
people and I have different guests becausewe all have a perspective and a gift.
Each one of my guests has apurpose and a passion that they bring
to the table. And this isanother piece in that process of us understanding
the beauty of this body we've beengiven and what it is capable of,
(46:28):
what it has done, what itis doing, and what it will continue
to do, and how important itis that we strengthen the base of our
foundation of health so that we cancontinue to serve in the world the way
that we're meant to serve health.If you don't have your health, you
really don't have anything. So,as Rachel said, play that game.
(46:51):
What's the smallest, littlest thing youcan do, not the biggest thing.
Where can you start? What canyou do with what's in your hands now.
Thank you so much for joining ustoday. I do encourage you to
share this conversation with your friends,read the book, do the things together,
because doing these things in community canbe very, very powerful. Thank
you for joining us today. Thankyou for being a part of this conversation.
(47:14):
I look forward to sharing more inspirationalpeople, conversations and resources with you
in the weeks to come. Takecare of my friends. Bye bye,
Popular Podcasts
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
CrimeLess: Hillbilly Heist
It’s 1996 in rural North Carolina, and an oddball crew makes history when they pull off America’s third largest cash heist. But it’s all downhill from there. Join host Johnny Knoxville as he unspools a wild and woolly tale about a group of regular ‘ol folks who risked it all for a chance at a better life. CrimeLess: Hillbilly Heist answers the question: what would you do with 17.3 million dollars? The answer includes diamond rings, mansions, velvet Elvis paintings, plus a run for the border, murder-for-hire-plots, and FBI busts.