January 22, 2024 • 45 mins
Today on Feminine Roadmap guest Kelly Howard, founder of Fit is Freedom, shares how to be active and ageless for life. Kelly’s goal is to empower women to get back to moving their bodies, get fit so they can have fun and live well. The beauty of her message is to do things that make you happy, have fun moving your body and regain your health. She wants listeners to go beyond being motivated by their outside appearance and reconnect with what will make them feel strong and healthy. If we give our bodies everything it needs to be able to do everything we want to do, then we can have fun and live the life we desire. Kelly shares some inspirational stories of women who turned their physical health around, and in the process accomplish some big dreams. If you are looking to have energy, feel good and wake up excited about your life, this episode is for you! You can do more than you think you can, live the life you want to live, just decide to give it a go. Find a way to take action- start small because, as Kelly reminds us, small matters. Grab a cuppa something wonderful then gift yourself with 45 minutes to be inspired! https://fitisfreedom.com/
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Episode Transcript
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(00:03):
Hi, Him, Jennifer 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 Meppers, Welcome
(00:29):
back to the Feminine Roadmap podcast,the podcast that helps you navigate the challenges
and the changes of midlife and empowersyou to live a more vibrant second half.
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(00:50):
Our topic today is how your brainis where your fitness starts. And having
fun and excitement gets you to dosomething to look forward to. It gets
you up and out and getting active. Today, my guest is Kelly Howard.
She's a fitness consistency expert. She'sthe founder of Fit is Freedom,
the host of the Fit is Freedompodcast, and the best selling author of
(01:14):
Fit Active and Ageless for Life.Kelly, thank you so much for being
on the show today. Thank you. I just realized that's a lot of
fit, isn't it. It is. It's almost like fit fit fit fit.
But I like it because I'm notunclear on what your passion is.
Why don't you tell us a littlebit about your passion? Sure? And
what if you were to say,hey, Kel, what's your passion?
(01:37):
Passion? It's that I get tohelp women who are you know, generally
in that stage where you know,forty eight up up up, get back
into or get consistent with their movementso that they can live a life of
freedom and fitness and fun and allthe things that I think really matter.
M h Yeah, And now youhave an interesting way of helping women.
(02:02):
Do that tell us a little bitabout your business? Sure? So I
do a couple of things. Likeone thing I do is I work with
women in group settings. And infact, we just had an an amazing
group call last night where it wasfunny because what I was thinking about after
the call were the words you arenot alone, because like we were talking
(02:27):
about balance and you know all ofthese things because it kind of balance is
where fitness starts, right, Andso we're talking about this last night on
a group call, and I'm watchingpeople just kind of like the faces are
very very stoic, right, likeno one's no one's really saying anything.
And so I unh hit record.So I'm sorry, I hit unrecord.
(02:50):
Stop that recording quick, And Ijust said, I said, so,
tell me, does this ring withanybody? Does this matter? And all
of a sudden, everybody's like,oh my gosh, like and they just
start connecting and they just start talkingabout how certain things have happened. Maybe
their balance was a little off,they used to be really Like one lady,
she used to be a big sailorand now she doesn't sail anymore because
(03:14):
she feels like her balance. Sheactually said. What she said was I
think I'm too old. Oh you'renot too old. And that's where my
passion comes in. Like, right, we think that we can't do something
because of our age, and it'sreally because of maybe we just aren't as
strong as we should be or asfit as we could be. Maybe we're
(03:35):
letting our brains run away with allthe things that go on that really aren't
true. Like people women are supervibrant at this age. I fifty sixty
seventy eighty, doesn't matter. Ihad a seventy five year old on one
of my retreats. It was lastyear, I think, and she was
(03:58):
absolutely kill it on these hikes.It's like, my gosh, you're amazing.
So it's just like, I justwant women to really get the fact
that we don't well. Age isa number, right, right, Age
is just a number. And ifwe if we move and we move right,
and we do it consistently, thenwe can do it forever. Do
(04:20):
you have any stories of women thatmaybe thought they couldn't do it kind of
you know, told you they couldn'tdo it, but then it they turned
around and were able to do somethingamazing. About a million of them,
but let me just tell you oneof them that is probably my favorite.
And this goes back several years ago. I was leading a hike in person
(04:45):
in my town. I live inHouston, Texas, and it's pretty flat,
right, It's it's you know,it's flat attack but there's one area
that has some ups and downs.We're getting ready to head out into this
you know, ups and downs areafor Houston hou hiking, and this lady
pulls up and she's she's timid.She gets out of her car and she
(05:06):
has a cane. She does nothave hiking poles. She has a cane.
And I'm like, okay, that'sinteresting. And so I said to
her, I said, come on, let's go. We're you know,
we're getting read to leave, andshe's like, oh no, I'm not
going. I just told myself,if I got here, if I just
got to this parking lot, itwas a win, and maybe next year
(05:30):
I'll come back and go with youguys. She didn't know me. I
was like, yeah, that's notgonna happen. So let's just, you
know, join us, and we'vegot it, like we've got you.
And it really was basically at oneof those it takes a village moments because
she didn't need help up and shedidn't need help down, and the hike
was slower maybe than we had originallyanticipated, but nobody cared because everybody was
(05:56):
like hitching in and helping out andjust like that community that happens when people
are having fun. Right, Sowe finished, we get back to the
parking lot. She's beaming like likeshe never thought she could have done this,
which is like a really great story, except it doesn't in there,
because about five years later, giveor take I get an email from her
(06:17):
with a photo. She's at thetrailhead of Yosemite Falls hike and you,
Si, Falls is a bear ofa hike. I've done it. I
know this one she and she sendsme this photo and she says, guess
what. It's my sixty fifth birthday. I just took a couple of friends.
We just did this hike, andI am I am leaving to go
(06:39):
hike across the country in all thenational parks, and That's what I'm going
to keep doing. Like I reallyhad that feeling in that moment that I
could just stop, like right,really, I had just actually accomplished exactly
what I needed to do in life. But the thing is is that I
see it that all the time now, Oh, I see it all the
(07:00):
time, and it just makes melike so grateful. Now I know that
you take people on adventures. Let'stalk a little bit about that side of
what you do. Sure, Sure, So the adventures actually started at the
end of we had just finished somethingI do called sugar Freedom, which is
like thirty days of no sugar,and it's like it's a bear quite frankly,
(07:24):
and so everybody was so excited andthey were like cheering each other on.
We're all on a big call andI'd been thinking about this for a
while, but I hadn't brought itup to the group, and so I
was like, hey, who wantsto go to the Smoky Mountains with me?
And everybody's like, yeah, let'sdo it. So so I mean,
I already have the house picked out, so I show them the house.
I said, these are the dates, let's go, and they're like
(07:44):
all excited, and then all ofa sudden, you know it said deer
in the headlight. Look. Everybodyrealized was that they have just you know,
said that they would do this thingthat involves a lot of activity.
So that was the first one,and everybody rocked it. I mean everybody
did so amazing. We trained virtually, so like you know, everybody's from
(08:05):
around the country, out of thecountry, so what we did was we
trained. You know, I wouldgive them all a training guide and we'd
trained virtually, so everybody showed up, did great, amazing things, right,
all the stories are so much fun. And we got done and someone
said, when are we doing thisagain? I went, well, I
(08:26):
don't know, right, no problemfor me, And that's what started it.
And now we're like this year we'redoing Actually, when we're recording this,
they we have a group that's gettingready to leave for dog sledding.
They're going to do a dog sleddingtrip and this is like five days of
(08:46):
mush. And then I have anothergroup that's going to Portugal, and another
group that's going to the San JuanIslands kayaking. We're taking a group to
Glacier for a hiking trip, smokeagain, and then Costa Rica because you
got to go to Costa Rica everyyear. So that's kind of the general
(09:07):
thing. And what I've found isthat we make these trips in a way
so that anyone can do them right. I mean, I know how to
lay out a trip so that itcan be hard for like, one person
can go as hard as they wantand another person can go easy and everyone
still gets a great trip. It'sjust like, you know, the way
you put together the hikes and stufflike that. But at the same time,
(09:31):
what I find is everybody pushes themselvesand everybody tries new things, and
they like, once you've pushed yourselfout of your comfort zone, you never
come back to who you were before. And then you know, people go
on these trips and they make likegreat friendships and they make you know,
lifelong buddies, and they go againand again and again because a lot of
(09:54):
us really have put off living lifewell while we took care of everyone and
everything else. And my job withthese, with the retreats is to say,
hey, you know, it's yourtime, let's go play. M
hm. I find that doing thingsin community is sometimes that push that we
(10:15):
need, Like showing up for myselfmight be harder than Oh I told these
people, then I'm going to bethere. It's true. I mean,
and I think that's a little bitbecause we're female, right, and we
want to we want to do whatwe said we want to. We want
to support people like you know,we've got big hearts. So yes,
(10:35):
if we say we're going to godo something with somebody, we're going to
show up because we don't want tostand them up right. And it also
has a little bit of that accountabilitypiece that is a big part of my
business. We do. We doaccountability groups and via usually the via tech.
Sometimes there be a like boxer,but we do the accountability groups to
(10:56):
keep people on track and connected.Once again, I mean, when we're
when we're recording this. We've justgone through this huge weather thing in the
States, and a lot of peoplewho are already isolated. They're working at
home, maybe they're single, ormaybe you know, they see their partner
(11:18):
occasionally, whatever it is, sothey're more isolated than they used to be.
And then you have this weather thathappens, and then they become even
more isolated. And that's tough,Like, that's tough on us. It's
not good for our health. Sothat's where you know, community and accountability
really make a big difference. AndI would imagine and you can confirm this,
(11:41):
Kelly, that when you take peopleinto an exotic location, to them,
you know, it's exotic, it'ssomeplace they've never been. Maybe it's
somewhere they've dreamt of going. Youknow that it's it puts you in a
different mind space. I would think, doesn't it do these ductures help people
a little bit? It does?It really does. I mean there's so
(12:03):
many shifts too. The funny thingis, like, you know, first
is that shift where we talk abouthaving to always take care of everyone else,
and then all of a sudden you'renot with everybody and the work and
everything that you normally do. It'sjust you and some friends that maybe you
didn't even know until you, youknow, got on the airplane, and
(12:24):
usually there's about ten women. Sowe've got this group and it becomes camaraderie,
but it also becomes this whole newworld. Like one of our people,
I think she was with me inCosta Rica a couple of years ago,
and when we got there she saidsomething. You know, it was
just like, oh, wait,wait a second, what are you telling
me? She said, do youknow that I've never ever ever disconnected from
(12:46):
my work. She was in realestate, so she was allways available,
and I just like in passing,said hey, guys, you know you're
not You're not gonna have cell phonecoverage, so just you know, and
people kind of looked funny at me, but I was like, that's just
the way it is. She hadnever not disconnected, so here she was
(13:07):
with We were probably there ten daysten days. In the first couple of
days it was tough, and thethird day she's like, hallelujah, this
is where I live life going forward. And she never ever went back like
she came home. She still runsher business, but she takes time off.
She turns her phone off. Sheturns her ringer off like it's a
(13:28):
whole new animal. So it's socool to see that happen. And that's
a that's a mental fitness if youwill. That was a mental fitness growth
for her, wasn't it. Yeah? It really is. And I mean
a lot of times I tell peoplethat fitness starts in our brains, not
our feet. And a lot oftimes when people first start working with me,
(13:50):
they think it's you know, it'sall about what food they're going to
eat to lose weight. Okay,how am I going to eat few enough
calories that I lose weight? Howam I going to do all the exercise
that I need to do right nowto get in shape in a month?
Right? You know, all thosethings we have this in our heads.
But a lot of times, ifI can get people to start realizing that
(14:13):
our brains are our biggest fitness assetand our biggest fitness problem, right,
and it finishes it, it does, you know. And if we can
just go to our brains on boardand quit quit thinking that you know,
this is it's now or never andor maybe it's time to give up and
(14:35):
all of these things that go throughour heads. If we can settle that
down and then just start allowing ourbody to do things. Bodies love to
move. Yeah, and they allneed to move differently, right. I
guess that's another piece of all ofthis is that a lot of times when
I first meet with somebody, they'llsay, Okay, I'm not going to
the gym three days a week,or I'm not going to gym five days
(14:56):
a week, whatever it is.I don't like the gym. I'm like,
fine, and we don't do thegym, No big deal. We
just do things that make you happy, have fun, get your body moving,
get your brain happy. And youcan do all those things and still
get fit and fitness. You know, how do you define fitness when you
(15:20):
say fitness? Because that's a wordthat's like buzzing all the time. Right,
So you, Kelly, fit isfreedom. When you say fit and
fitness, what do you mean bythat? I mean having a body that
can do the things that you wantto do. Sometimes, like sometimes people
(15:41):
have desires to change the way theylook a lot, and that's fine,
But deeper than that, if wecan give our body everything it needs to
be able to do everything that wewant to do and have the fun and
the life that we really desire.That to me is fitness. Yeah,
(16:03):
It's that ability to live in away that feels good. Yeah. Yeah.
I feel personally that while I liketo work out, like with weights
and things, I'm not currently doingthat. It's like this year I need
to get moved back into that.But getting outdoors and just walking, getting
(16:26):
on to your point, some kindof incline decline, you know, But
even on flat ground, there's somethingto the movement of walking that can unravel
some of the stuff that's cluttering ourbrain. Oh yeah, I mean,
especially if you can get outdoors andmove away from like cement, yes,
(16:48):
and residential areas and things like that, and sirens and helicopters, sirens and
move into the woods or to thebeach or along a river or whatever it
is. I mean, I'm sure, I'm sure you've heard this. I
think everybody has. But for yearsin Europe they write scripts, they literally
prescribe people to go out and getinto nature. It changes us. It
(17:14):
makes us happier, it makes ushealthier, it makes our brains better,
It gives you clarity. It's sucha fascinating thing when you're outside. There's
just something about being the air isdifferent. You know, if you've probably
heard this when you go to theocean, the ions in the air because
the motion of the waves is stirringup the atmosphere. There's something about the
(17:38):
way the trees, I mean,they're purifying the air. We know this,
but hearing the wind in the trees, for me, it's like the
most calming feeling just to hear it, like I'm not even doing any activity
but standing perfectly still and allowing theno noise to minister. And then the
movement with that is like a meditationsort of it is. That's a great
(18:02):
way of putting it. I meanit is, it's like a walking meditation.
And all of those things are goodfor us, like every piece of
that. Yeah, I know inmy mind, you know, we think
of fitness, you picture like youand I know in the eighties, you
know, you had the leotards andthe egg warmers, right, the aerobics
(18:22):
and the restriction and all of thosethings where it was like you had to
look like Jane Fonda in order tobe successful. And I would like to
talk a little bit about when youhelp women with their fitness and you're doing
these adventures or you're doing these calls, how do you help their mind shift
to what success is for them?Good one. So I think that I
(18:48):
don't really have to do anything becauseif you think about it, right,
like it's like you just said,when you get outside and you're doing you
know, you're walking outside, you'reno walking meditation, you automatically shift.
So when you when you go ona retreat or you know, one of
these hikes or whatever it is,you suddenly shift out of all the restriction.
(19:15):
How do I look all of thosethings? And it's suddenly just about
doing it, like just being outthere and doing it. And when you're
out there doing it with you know, a group, then it's that camaraderie
and it's the stopping and like youknow, pointing out the monkey and the
tree when you're in Costa Rica orthe you know, the butt, what
(19:38):
it like fireflies when you're in thesmoky It's like it's just stopping and just
like experiencing. So you don't reallyhave to you don't really have to do
anything but allow somebody to get intoa space that works. So basically what
you do is you create the opportunityto get them in a space where you
(19:59):
know what will have happen, willhappen. Well, that's true. It's
you're curating it for them, right, It is a curation, you're exactly
right now. There is, ofcourse prior to it, usually about three
months prior we do do the virtualtraining because I want someone to show up
and not feel like they're in overtheir head, yeah, or they're so
(20:19):
out of shape that they can't doit. Like it really doesn't take for
most of us. It takes aboutthree months to go from zero to good
enough to have a great time.I like that you don't have to look
like, you know, a fitnessmodel. You just be good enough to
have a good time. I meanthat's really it, right, Yeah,
(20:42):
yeah, what kind of feedback doyou get from these ladies? Like what
is the mental outcome of these physicalcommitments? So I think the first always
is like relief. There's suddenly thislike sigh, Like we've been waiting to
(21:03):
ex heal for years and years andyears, and all of a sudden,
you know you're safe. Like youknow that because and I will tell you
why, Like a lot of times, we've tried everything right, you know,
to lose thirty pounds in thirty days, all the restriction, diets,
all this stuff right, but there'sa piece missing, and so we don't
(21:26):
stick to it, and then everytime we don't stick to it, we
feel a little bit worse. Andthen it's just kind of like, oh
is this it? Is this asgood as it's going to get, Like
I'm in trouble, and when allof a sudden people realize, Like a
new client said to me recently,she's sixty seven, sixty five. She's
(21:48):
three years older than me, twoyears older than me, And so we
put together a plan for her,and I'm really excited about the plan.
I think this is really good,you know. And I always tell everybody
just that first, we're just gonnait's an experiment. We're just gonna try
this out, see how it works. You know, what do we need
to change? Et cetera, etcetera. And so we put this plan
(22:10):
together. I'm super excited. Shelooks excited, and then the next day
she calls me on boxer and she'slike, so, Kelly, I need
the truth. I'm like, Okay, is this really going to work?
Like am I ever really going toget muscles at my age? And I
was like, huh, of courseyou are but but you don't have to
(22:33):
take my word about it, poorperson, because now all of a sudden
she ends up with like twenty twoarticles in her inbox people, and you
know how muscle growth can happen atany time. So that was like a
relief for her because she just waslike, oh, okay, this really
will work. So relief is first. The second piece is always like excitement,
(22:59):
right, like, hey, maybethis is gonna work. And then
the third piece is everybody. AndI just hate to say the word,
but I'm going to say it.Everybody hits a place where it's not working.
Yeah, all of us do whateverit is. Like for right this
minute, I have an injured knee, so that whole lower cardio isn't working
(23:21):
for me. But it's okay becauseI know what to do. But it
happens to everybody, and when theyhit that spot and then they figure out
or understand that there are ways aroundit, and I'm going to help them
get through it, and afterwards it'sbetter and better and better and better.
Then there's this like giddiness because wego from oh my gosh, this is
(23:44):
the end of the world to huh, well, all we have to do
is restart just in a different way, and it's okay. So it's it's
that's kind of the progression, andthen after that, like sky's the limit.
I'm I mean, I was justgoing back yesterday through some of the
old testimonials, right when people hadsaid you know this or that or whatever,
(24:07):
and I came up with one ofthem and I'm like, oh,
my goodness, I have forgotten thatwhen she came to me. This is
one of my clients who's like she'sa rock star now, like she is
she is doing everything and she's solid, literally solid muscle, and she's doing
all these things. And when shecame to me a couple of years ago,
(24:29):
she was just hoping that she wouldquit feeling bad. And I was
like, wow, I completely forgotthat. So it's just you know,
it does take a little time.Oh that's the encouragement that I'm hearing you
say is there is a path fromhere to there, and it may not
be a straight path, right,but that it's possible, you know,
(24:53):
always possible. Yeah, Yeah,it's always possible. And there's just like
finding those there's just there's a lotof different things and this is I'm going
to just run off on a tangentfor just a second. But there's so
many different things that we can dowhen it comes to our health and fitness.
(25:14):
That is not the usual that everybodythinks about. You know, everybody
thinks about diet and exercise, andthere's lots of other pieces and when we
bring those in too, it's exponential. Yeah. Yeah, you know,
I think as you're talking to me, I'm picturing how we may think we
have all the pieces because we've heardall the things, but we don't know
(25:37):
how to put them together, Likewe're we might be doing the things,
but maybe not in a way thatwill get us where we need to go.
They just make us feel defeated.Does that make sense? Oh?
Absolutely, I mean that's a great, great idea, because you're exactly right.
I had never really thought about itthat way, but that's exactly what
happens. It's like legos that gotdumped out and you're like, I don't
even know where to start. Iknow that that's green lego, I know
(26:00):
that's a red lego. I knowthat's a yellow lego, right, and
then what you know what I mean, like, how do I put those
legos together? Those bits of fitnessand health and food and brain all together
to end up with something solid thatfeels good for me. And I feel
like as women, maybe that's wherethe disconnect is for us. We feel
(26:22):
like we know everything and none ofit works, whereas it's more of a
we haven't put it together, right. Yeah, that's a brilliant thing to
say. Quite frankly, I lovethat you said that. I mean,
and pieces of that are like whenwe were back in the Jane Fonda days,
it was like, we know,it was easy to lose weight because
(26:42):
our bodies were different than they arenow, just a little right like they
but they their job was to youknow, react very quickly and to do
all the things. And you couldlike go train for a five k or
you know, not eat for amonth, whatever whatever your thing was,
(27:03):
and then you know you were down. You were down that size you want
to lose Now, our bodies aren't. Our bodies just don't do that.
That's that's not their gig. Theonly way that we're going to survive is
by gaining muscle, eating, well, you know, moving, maybe less
cardio than we think like that's that'sthat's one of the things I get a
(27:26):
lot of people who I call mycardio addicts. I'm one of them.
Like I love long cardio, buttoo much long cardio burns too much muscle,
and we're we're working against ourselves.Interesting, Okay, that makes sense.
Right, So then you're gaining weightbecause even if you're doing you know,
even if you're doing the you know, all the long cardio, you're
(27:48):
burning muscles, so you're gaining weight. So it's like just these little nuances
that are different. There's such aneed. What I'm hearing is there's a
need to have some graciousness with whereour physical body is now and not comparing
it to our body when we werethirty. Right. Well, yeah,
(28:12):
I mean we're completely different. Thinkabout our minds, right, who wants
to go back and be twenty again? No? Thank you, no,
thank you. Once was enough.I'm good all the wisdom that we have.
And it's the same thing with ourbodies. I told someone who this
recently, and I mean the lookon our face was pretty funny, but
(28:34):
I said, you know, thetruth is is that we're not supposed to
live past thirty years old. Likethat is if you look at at our
bodies and how they change, andlongevity tables and everything else, Like that
was basically what we grew, whatwe were going for one hundred years ago
or two hundred years ago, andnow we're doing these things where we're like
(28:57):
doubling and tripling that thirty. Right. Yeah, we have to be to
use your word gracious with our bodiesand figure out like how can we how
can we give the body everything theyneed so they can really enjoy it.
Yeah. Yeah, It's one ofthose things where I see what you're saying,
(29:19):
and then I see the other side, which is the what we're being
told. Like there's two very strongmessages out there. Right there's the message
of oh, you hit the stage, you just need to retire and write
off in the sunset, as ifyou've done all you can and now you
(29:40):
just wait, right you fade you, yes, fade. That's one message.
The other message is fifties, thenew thirties, sixties, the new
forties, seventies, the new fifty. And I think some of that,
if I could be honest, itfeels like I like parts of that,
but it's almost exhausting it exactly.That's what I'm saying, Like, I
(30:00):
want my biological age and my timelineage to have a gap I do.
I want to feel good for notjust for my age, but I just
want to feel good. Do yousee what I mean? So those there's
very conflicting things coming at us interms of mindset around you know, age,
and you're capable of you're right,and and I think there's the trick
(30:23):
is is to be able to navigatedown the river and yes, you know
the middle. I like that becausethere's what do you say, take what
take what works for you and leavethe rest. Yeah, right, I
mean because really and and and Ihave I'm not this is no judgment,
okay, but I'm just going tosay that. You know, if I'm
(30:44):
so I'm sixty three, if Iwant to be you know, if I
want my sixty three to be myforty, if that's the way you say
it, then it's something I cando a lot of stuff, right,
Yeah, the face is going toneed some serious some serious phil Yes,
yes, you know. I meanthere's just things like that, and I'm
like, yeah, I all havetime for that stuff. But if I
(31:07):
can feel as possibly good as Ican, like I mean, honestly,
one hundred percent, I feel betternow when I get up in the morning
than I did twenty years ago,right, And it's not like life's easier,
it's just different. And I've gotall the energy I need. That's
that's what I want. Like,that's what I want for everybody. It's
(31:30):
first to have the energy and tofeel good and to wake up and be
excited. Because what a heck ofa deal. Like here we are kitting
to outlive our biological age of thirtyyeah, and have some fun doing it.
And there's so many opportunities, right, Like what fitness looks like for
one person? I mean, Ithink there's some foundational building blocks though,
(31:53):
what would you say are like thekey kind of components the right colored lego
for success would be what there's threepieces when we talk about movement. One
of them is mobility, Okay,And mobility is not it's not stretching,
it's warming up our joints. Ourjoints are one of the potential weak links
(32:19):
in our body. So if wecan warm up our joints before we do
something with them, then they're goingto have more longevity. And it doesn't
take much, right, Like mytypical mobility before I workout is eight minutes
or less. That's it. Soyou're warming up your joints. Then you
need some cardio berries for everybody,right, I mean, you know,
(32:44):
if you look at I don't know. I think if you look at it,
if it's an American Heart Association,I think says that if you do
a half an hour a day ofcardio, seven days a week, then
you're done. I beg to differon that one. Like I think you
can go up and down on yourcardio. Your cardio should be steady cardio,
and it should be some some toughernot doesn't have to be long,
but it just has to be,like you know, some high intensity cardio.
(33:07):
And it can be all kinds ofthings, like there's a the sky's
the limit, and so you needsome cardio, and then you need some
strength. And your strength can fallinto like body weight. It can be
resistance bands, it can be weights, like it doesn't really matter, but
we need it. And if wedon't do that one particular piece, that's
(33:30):
probably the piece that in the endis going to be the problem for us.
That's you know, I'll give youlike this is a very very minute
example of one. Okay, nota scientific example, but an example of
one. So a month ago Igot my knee was hurt. My dog
(33:50):
sideswiped me and that was that.So I haven't been doing lower body workouts.
Still doing effert but not lower body. And what I note was when
I was leading the crew and someballot stuff that my balance had changed in
just thirty days. And the reasonthat was was because I had lost strength
in just thirty days, like notawful, like you know, I'm not
(34:15):
going to just crumple up, butenough for me to go, wow,
thirty days, that's not very long. Yeah, right, So I would
like to everybody to start realizing that, you know, we need to do
some sort of some sort of strengthwhatever that looks like. It could be
pilates, it could be yoga,it could be walking with weights not in
(34:37):
your ankles but in your hands.There's a lot of different ways that you
can get some strength in there.But we do need that. Yeah,
And so I think what I'm hearingyou say is if you take these basic
building blocks and you investigate what combinationof them feels good, but it should
(34:59):
also challenge us a little, amI right? Yeah? Yeah, I
mean we do need to challenge ourselves. And don't worry somebody works with me.
I know, nor goodwill, andI'm in a challenge them but they
aren't right and it doesn't have tobe hard, Like I never want someone
to push themselves past the point ofa problem. You're right, you know
you have to. You need tolike push but stop, push but stop,
(35:21):
push but stop, and eventually oneday something changes. M hm.
I will say this in my book, I have like gosh, I think
I came up with probably one hundreddifferent things that are options for people,
because like in the mobility piece,I always hear, well, I don't
like to do that, or Idon't like to do that, or I
don't like to Like fine, it'slike I don't want to eat my spinach.
(35:43):
That's okay. I can figure outa way to get the spinach in
you. It's the same thing withthe exercise, right, So like if
somebody doesn't want to do the warmup videos that I give them, I'm
like great, Like yoga, onceyou go do some yin yoga, like
really slow easy poses that you holdfor a long time, right, Like
(36:05):
you know, there's different ways ofdoing it. If you don't want to
go you know, run or walk, then how about you know, or
bike. Maybe you don't want todo any of those things. Fine,
we'll find something. Maybe you cango to the rowing the rowing club,
or you know, there's maybe youjust do. Like back to Houston being
flat. If if I want totrain for somewhere far away that actually has
(36:30):
hills, I have one ramp thatgoes down to the bayou behind my house.
It's not much of a ramp,but I can use that ramp to
train for any any place in thecountry. I can use parking garages,
I can use stairs. Right,Like, there's just so many things that
we can do, but we haveto think outside the box. And it's
(36:52):
just you know, that's that's partof the thing is it comes back to
what you said earlier about like there'sthose two sides of it. Yeah,
and so much of it is thatwe've always been told that there's two things
like you run and then you canno longer run, you walk, and
if you want to lift weight youhave to go to the gym and you
know you're going to get all bothbalked up. None of that's real.
(37:15):
Sorry, Yeah, it's real.Like there's so much other things that we
can do. There's something powerful aboutseeing your body change and feeling the energy
that that gives you and the confidencethat comes with that. Right, Oh
yeah, Like I mean, it'sjust I shouldn't tell the story, but
(37:35):
I'm going to. This is thekind of story that everybody that's listening and
saying, I'm never going on aretreat with Kelly. What this is such
a good story I have to tellyou. So I have a client and
when she first came to me,this was her goal. Her goal was
to be able to walk down herstairs one foot after the other without holding
(37:57):
on to the rail. Okay,okay, pretty marginal. And she knows,
I mean she knows I called itmarginal. I've told of that as
being I had a low goal,but you know that was that was where
she was at the time. Sohere we are in Costa Rica this year,
this last year, and it's raininglike it's raining. We have big
rivers, and in these big rivers, we have to we have to get
(38:22):
across the river, right, wehave to raft down the river, get
to the end so that we canget out of the jungle. That's the
way it is. And so whathappens is that the water is so big
that we get pushed against a rockand held there. Now I've done a
lot of rivers in my life,and I've never had this happen before.
(38:42):
So here we are. We're stuckagainst this rock. The river is raging
right and left, and so peopleare We're trying to get some of the
people off the raft. And here'smy person who, at one point her
goal was to just be able towalk down her stairs. She is getting
out of our in a raging river, standing on a rock in the middle,
(39:04):
stepping down to the other side toget to the other raft. And
I'm watching this and I'm thinking,that's a little bit more than the stair
thing. We've gone beyond the stairs. We've gone past the stairs. And
then afterwards she said to me,she's like, I have a new goal.
I'm like, okay, what's yournew goal. She's like, next
time I get stuck with you inthe middle of a raging river and I
(39:28):
have to get out on the rock, I want to be able to stand
on one foot and do my ballet'swork. Right. So you just like
you just never know, never knowwhat what's gonna happen and how things are
going to change for people. Well, from that story, what I get
is, look what I can dothat's exactly right. And you know what,
(39:53):
at the time, everybody was alittle bit maybe not super excited about
being where they were afterwards, thatis the number one story everyone has told
is like, look what we did, and it was true. It was
a huge deal. Yeah, Andhaving a level of fitness in their mind
first and then their body is whatmade that situation navigatable. I think you're
(40:17):
right because otherwise she would have justfroze mm hmm, and some people did,
but she was on a path andshe'd been on this path for about
a year and she is rocking it. So yeah, that's an incredible thing.
I don't know that we're fully capableof understanding until we're in it what
our bodies can do and what potentialwe still have untapped. Oh yeah,
(40:43):
yeah, we have so much untappedpotential, right, Yeah, there's so
many things we can do. Andit's like, you know, my lady
with the cane mm hmm, shewould have never in a million years thought
she could do that, and thennow here she is, you know,
running around running around in national parksall over then doing hikes. But you
know what I hear from those storiesthat you're sharing is this was inside of
(41:06):
them. Oh yeah, it justhadn't been it hadn't been given the opportunity
to be possible because of beliefs thatthey probably held. So the desire that
dream had to kind of be dugup, dusted off, washed and presented
to them as what if. Yeah, yeah, it's kind of cool,
(41:32):
it's amazing. And there's so manytimes, like so many times when I
know people are wish that they hadn'tsaid it to me. Well, if
I could do something, it wouldbe this. I'm like, well,
there you go, Well there itis. I didn't even have to think
(41:52):
hard. You just told me.Well, I would love for you,
Kelly, to give us three keytakeaways. You've given us many excellent ideas
and strategies, but if you reallyneeded to like sit someone down and say
these three things are really going tobe the start of the journey, what
(42:12):
would those be. I think thefirst one would be to understand exactly what
you just said. We can domore than we think we can. There
is so much more life to belived, and it's up to us to
actually figure out that we can dothat. And then once we're willing to
(42:35):
give it a go, find finda way, find a coach, find
a person, find a friend,find a I don't care what it is,
but find a way to start takingaction to start doing those three kinds
of movement. Start small, doesn'thave to be like start small, small
matters. And then once you reacha point where you know you're doing better,
(43:01):
then look for something new, findsomething fun to reach for, do
something that you're really excited about,and then just keep going like life is
life is here. Let's play.Mm hmmm hmm. That's fantastic, Kelly.
How can people find you and yourresources? Easiest place is on my
(43:21):
website fit isfreedom dot com. Youhave a podcast and that's on all podcast
podcast is on there, the bookson there, all the events that we
do are on there, and soyeah, I just send people over the
web website and you can go followit from there. Okay, awesome,
(43:42):
Well, Kelly, I want tothank you so much for being on the
show today and bringing your wisdom,your passion, your desire to help unleash
and unlock women's ability to live alife more fully by becoming capable of doing
the things maybe they thought they couldn'tdo anymore. You just empowering their brains
and bodies and opens up so manyother doors for them. So thank you
(44:04):
so much for the work that youdo and the tenacity that you have to
push a little bit when people needit. Thank you. Thank you so
much, Gene, I really appreciateand to everybody listening, thank you all
for being here. Fantastic friends today. If you find us on YouTube,
just look down below, the linkwill be there to Kelly. Also,
if you're driving and you need toget to the website, it's at www
(44:27):
dot Feminine roadmap dot com. ForwardSlash episode three, five four, all
of the links will be there aswell. Friends, this conversation is here.
It's more than fitness. It's actuallya good life. It's living a
good, complete, full life.It's the ability to show up in a
way that feels good, that empowersyou to do the things that you want
(44:52):
to do. Get down on thefloor with your grand children if you have
them, take walks with your dogs, climb a hill, swim in the
ocean, whatever it is, nomatter how big or how small. Like
Kelly said, the small matters.It's okay. Let's shift the way we
feel about fitness and our bodies andour age and just do the next best
thing that feels good to our bodyand allow ourselves to get curious about our
(45:16):
actual potential. And so we encourageyou to get out, get moving,
find a community, reach out toKelly see what she has to offer,
and thank you so much for beingwith us today. We would love to
hear your success story, so pleaselet us know how this has impacted your
life. Thank you so much forbeing with us today. I look forward
(45:36):
to bringing more inspirational people's strategies andstories with you in the weeks to come.
Take care of my friends. Byebye,
Hi, Him, Jennifer 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 Meppers, Welcome
(00:29):
back to the Feminine Roadmap podcast,the podcast that helps you navigate the challenges
and the changes of midlife and empowersyou to live a more vibrant second half.
If you happen to find us onYouTube, please don't forget to subscribe
and ring that bells you don't missany more of these amazing conversations. If
you're on a podcast platform, pleaseremember to subscribe, rate and share.
(00:50):
Our topic today is how your brainis where your fitness starts. And having
fun and excitement gets you to dosomething to look forward to. It gets
you up and out and getting active. Today, my guest is Kelly Howard.
She's a fitness consistency expert. She'sthe founder of Fit is Freedom,
the host of the Fit is Freedompodcast, and the best selling author of
(01:14):
Fit Active and Ageless for Life.Kelly, thank you so much for being
on the show today. Thank you. I just realized that's a lot of
fit, isn't it. It is. It's almost like fit fit fit fit.
But I like it because I'm notunclear on what your passion is.
Why don't you tell us a littlebit about your passion? Sure? And
what if you were to say,hey, Kel, what's your passion?
(01:37):
Passion? It's that I get tohelp women who are you know, generally
in that stage where you know,forty eight up up up, get back
into or get consistent with their movementso that they can live a life of
freedom and fitness and fun and allthe things that I think really matter.
M h Yeah, And now youhave an interesting way of helping women.
(02:02):
Do that tell us a little bitabout your business? Sure? So I
do a couple of things. Likeone thing I do is I work with
women in group settings. And infact, we just had an an amazing
group call last night where it wasfunny because what I was thinking about after
the call were the words you arenot alone, because like we were talking
(02:27):
about balance and you know all ofthese things because it kind of balance is
where fitness starts, right, Andso we're talking about this last night on
a group call, and I'm watchingpeople just kind of like the faces are
very very stoic, right, likeno one's no one's really saying anything.
And so I unh hit record.So I'm sorry, I hit unrecord.
(02:50):
Stop that recording quick, And Ijust said, I said, so,
tell me, does this ring withanybody? Does this matter? And all
of a sudden, everybody's like,oh my gosh, like and they just
start connecting and they just start talkingabout how certain things have happened. Maybe
their balance was a little off,they used to be really Like one lady,
she used to be a big sailorand now she doesn't sail anymore because
(03:14):
she feels like her balance. Sheactually said. What she said was I
think I'm too old. Oh you'renot too old. And that's where my
passion comes in. Like, right, we think that we can't do something
because of our age, and it'sreally because of maybe we just aren't as
strong as we should be or asfit as we could be. Maybe we're
(03:35):
letting our brains run away with allthe things that go on that really aren't
true. Like people women are supervibrant at this age. I fifty sixty
seventy eighty, doesn't matter. Ihad a seventy five year old on one
of my retreats. It was lastyear, I think, and she was
(03:58):
absolutely kill it on these hikes.It's like, my gosh, you're amazing.
So it's just like, I justwant women to really get the fact
that we don't well. Age isa number, right, right, Age
is just a number. And ifwe if we move and we move right,
and we do it consistently, thenwe can do it forever. Do
(04:20):
you have any stories of women thatmaybe thought they couldn't do it kind of
you know, told you they couldn'tdo it, but then it they turned
around and were able to do somethingamazing. About a million of them,
but let me just tell you oneof them that is probably my favorite.
And this goes back several years ago. I was leading a hike in person
(04:45):
in my town. I live inHouston, Texas, and it's pretty flat,
right, It's it's you know,it's flat attack but there's one area
that has some ups and downs.We're getting ready to head out into this
you know, ups and downs areafor Houston hou hiking, and this lady
pulls up and she's she's timid.She gets out of her car and she
(05:06):
has a cane. She does nothave hiking poles. She has a cane.
And I'm like, okay, that'sinteresting. And so I said to
her, I said, come on, let's go. We're you know,
we're getting read to leave, andshe's like, oh no, I'm not
going. I just told myself,if I got here, if I just
got to this parking lot, itwas a win, and maybe next year
(05:30):
I'll come back and go with youguys. She didn't know me. I
was like, yeah, that's notgonna happen. So let's just, you
know, join us, and we'vegot it, like we've got you.
And it really was basically at oneof those it takes a village moments because
she didn't need help up and shedidn't need help down, and the hike
was slower maybe than we had originallyanticipated, but nobody cared because everybody was
(05:56):
like hitching in and helping out andjust like that community that happens when people
are having fun. Right, Sowe finished, we get back to the
parking lot. She's beaming like likeshe never thought she could have done this,
which is like a really great story, except it doesn't in there,
because about five years later, giveor take I get an email from her
(06:17):
with a photo. She's at thetrailhead of Yosemite Falls hike and you,
Si, Falls is a bear ofa hike. I've done it. I
know this one she and she sendsme this photo and she says, guess
what. It's my sixty fifth birthday. I just took a couple of friends.
We just did this hike, andI am I am leaving to go
(06:39):
hike across the country in all thenational parks, and That's what I'm going
to keep doing. Like I reallyhad that feeling in that moment that I
could just stop, like right,really, I had just actually accomplished exactly
what I needed to do in life. But the thing is is that I
see it that all the time now, Oh, I see it all the
(07:00):
time, and it just makes melike so grateful. Now I know that
you take people on adventures. Let'stalk a little bit about that side of
what you do. Sure, Sure, So the adventures actually started at the
end of we had just finished somethingI do called sugar Freedom, which is
like thirty days of no sugar,and it's like it's a bear quite frankly,
(07:24):
and so everybody was so excited andthey were like cheering each other on.
We're all on a big call andI'd been thinking about this for a
while, but I hadn't brought itup to the group, and so I
was like, hey, who wantsto go to the Smoky Mountains with me?
And everybody's like, yeah, let'sdo it. So so I mean,
I already have the house picked out, so I show them the house.
I said, these are the dates, let's go, and they're like
(07:44):
all excited, and then all ofa sudden, you know it said deer
in the headlight. Look. Everybodyrealized was that they have just you know,
said that they would do this thingthat involves a lot of activity.
So that was the first one,and everybody rocked it. I mean everybody
did so amazing. We trained virtually, so like you know, everybody's from
(08:05):
around the country, out of thecountry, so what we did was we
trained. You know, I wouldgive them all a training guide and we'd
trained virtually, so everybody showed up, did great, amazing things, right,
all the stories are so much fun. And we got done and someone
said, when are we doing thisagain? I went, well, I
(08:26):
don't know, right, no problemfor me, And that's what started it.
And now we're like this year we'redoing Actually, when we're recording this,
they we have a group that's gettingready to leave for dog sledding.
They're going to do a dog sleddingtrip and this is like five days of
(08:46):
mush. And then I have anothergroup that's going to Portugal, and another
group that's going to the San JuanIslands kayaking. We're taking a group to
Glacier for a hiking trip, smokeagain, and then Costa Rica because you
got to go to Costa Rica everyyear. So that's kind of the general
(09:07):
thing. And what I've found isthat we make these trips in a way
so that anyone can do them right. I mean, I know how to
lay out a trip so that itcan be hard for like, one person
can go as hard as they wantand another person can go easy and everyone
still gets a great trip. It'sjust like, you know, the way
you put together the hikes and stufflike that. But at the same time,
(09:31):
what I find is everybody pushes themselvesand everybody tries new things, and
they like, once you've pushed yourselfout of your comfort zone, you never
come back to who you were before. And then you know, people go
on these trips and they make likegreat friendships and they make you know,
lifelong buddies, and they go againand again and again because a lot of
(09:54):
us really have put off living lifewell while we took care of everyone and
everything else. And my job withthese, with the retreats is to say,
hey, you know, it's yourtime, let's go play. M
hm. I find that doing thingsin community is sometimes that push that we
(10:15):
need, Like showing up for myselfmight be harder than Oh I told these
people, then I'm going to bethere. It's true. I mean,
and I think that's a little bitbecause we're female, right, and we
want to we want to do whatwe said we want to. We want
to support people like you know,we've got big hearts. So yes,
(10:35):
if we say we're going to godo something with somebody, we're going to
show up because we don't want tostand them up right. And it also
has a little bit of that accountabilitypiece that is a big part of my
business. We do. We doaccountability groups and via usually the via tech.
Sometimes there be a like boxer,but we do the accountability groups to
(10:56):
keep people on track and connected.Once again, I mean, when we're
when we're recording this. We've justgone through this huge weather thing in the
States, and a lot of peoplewho are already isolated. They're working at
home, maybe they're single, ormaybe you know, they see their partner
(11:18):
occasionally, whatever it is, sothey're more isolated than they used to be.
And then you have this weather thathappens, and then they become even
more isolated. And that's tough,Like, that's tough on us. It's
not good for our health. Sothat's where you know, community and accountability
really make a big difference. AndI would imagine and you can confirm this,
(11:41):
Kelly, that when you take peopleinto an exotic location, to them,
you know, it's exotic, it'ssomeplace they've never been. Maybe it's
somewhere they've dreamt of going. Youknow that it's it puts you in a
different mind space. I would think, doesn't it do these ductures help people
a little bit? It does?It really does. I mean there's so
(12:03):
many shifts too. The funny thingis, like, you know, first
is that shift where we talk abouthaving to always take care of everyone else,
and then all of a sudden you'renot with everybody and the work and
everything that you normally do. It'sjust you and some friends that maybe you
didn't even know until you, youknow, got on the airplane, and
(12:24):
usually there's about ten women. Sowe've got this group and it becomes camaraderie,
but it also becomes this whole newworld. Like one of our people,
I think she was with me inCosta Rica a couple of years ago,
and when we got there she saidsomething. You know, it was
just like, oh, wait,wait a second, what are you telling
me? She said, do youknow that I've never ever ever disconnected from
(12:46):
my work. She was in realestate, so she was allways available,
and I just like in passing,said hey, guys, you know you're
not You're not gonna have cell phonecoverage, so just you know, and
people kind of looked funny at me, but I was like, that's just
the way it is. She hadnever not disconnected, so here she was
(13:07):
with We were probably there ten daysten days. In the first couple of
days it was tough, and thethird day she's like, hallelujah, this
is where I live life going forward. And she never ever went back like
she came home. She still runsher business, but she takes time off.
She turns her phone off. Sheturns her ringer off like it's a
(13:28):
whole new animal. So it's socool to see that happen. And that's
a that's a mental fitness if youwill. That was a mental fitness growth
for her, wasn't it. Yeah? It really is. And I mean
a lot of times I tell peoplethat fitness starts in our brains, not
our feet. And a lot oftimes when people first start working with me,
(13:50):
they think it's you know, it'sall about what food they're going to
eat to lose weight. Okay,how am I going to eat few enough
calories that I lose weight? Howam I going to do all the exercise
that I need to do right nowto get in shape in a month?
Right? You know, all thosethings we have this in our heads.
But a lot of times, ifI can get people to start realizing that
(14:13):
our brains are our biggest fitness assetand our biggest fitness problem, right,
and it finishes it, it does, you know. And if we can
just go to our brains on boardand quit quit thinking that you know,
this is it's now or never andor maybe it's time to give up and
(14:35):
all of these things that go throughour heads. If we can settle that
down and then just start allowing ourbody to do things. Bodies love to
move. Yeah, and they allneed to move differently, right. I
guess that's another piece of all ofthis is that a lot of times when
I first meet with somebody, they'llsay, Okay, I'm not going to
the gym three days a week,or I'm not going to gym five days
(14:56):
a week, whatever it is.I don't like the gym. I'm like,
fine, and we don't do thegym, No big deal. We
just do things that make you happy, have fun, get your body moving,
get your brain happy. And youcan do all those things and still
get fit and fitness. You know, how do you define fitness when you
(15:20):
say fitness? Because that's a wordthat's like buzzing all the time. Right,
So you, Kelly, fit isfreedom. When you say fit and
fitness, what do you mean bythat? I mean having a body that
can do the things that you wantto do. Sometimes, like sometimes people
(15:41):
have desires to change the way theylook a lot, and that's fine,
But deeper than that, if wecan give our body everything it needs to
be able to do everything that wewant to do and have the fun and
the life that we really desire.That to me is fitness. Yeah,
(16:03):
It's that ability to live in away that feels good. Yeah. Yeah.
I feel personally that while I liketo work out, like with weights
and things, I'm not currently doingthat. It's like this year I need
to get moved back into that.But getting outdoors and just walking, getting
(16:26):
on to your point, some kindof incline decline, you know, But
even on flat ground, there's somethingto the movement of walking that can unravel
some of the stuff that's cluttering ourbrain. Oh yeah, I mean,
especially if you can get outdoors andmove away from like cement, yes,
(16:48):
and residential areas and things like that, and sirens and helicopters, sirens and
move into the woods or to thebeach or along a river or whatever it
is. I mean, I'm sure, I'm sure you've heard this. I
think everybody has. But for yearsin Europe they write scripts, they literally
prescribe people to go out and getinto nature. It changes us. It
(17:14):
makes us happier, it makes ushealthier, it makes our brains better,
It gives you clarity. It's sucha fascinating thing when you're outside. There's
just something about being the air isdifferent. You know, if you've probably
heard this when you go to theocean, the ions in the air because
the motion of the waves is stirringup the atmosphere. There's something about the
(17:38):
way the trees, I mean,they're purifying the air. We know this,
but hearing the wind in the trees, for me, it's like the
most calming feeling just to hear it, like I'm not even doing any activity
but standing perfectly still and allowing theno noise to minister. And then the
movement with that is like a meditationsort of it is. That's a great
(18:02):
way of putting it. I meanit is, it's like a walking meditation.
And all of those things are goodfor us, like every piece of
that. Yeah, I know inmy mind, you know, we think
of fitness, you picture like youand I know in the eighties, you
know, you had the leotards andthe egg warmers, right, the aerobics
(18:22):
and the restriction and all of thosethings where it was like you had to
look like Jane Fonda in order tobe successful. And I would like to
talk a little bit about when youhelp women with their fitness and you're doing
these adventures or you're doing these calls, how do you help their mind shift
to what success is for them?Good one. So I think that I
(18:48):
don't really have to do anything becauseif you think about it, right,
like it's like you just said,when you get outside and you're doing you
know, you're walking outside, you'reno walking meditation, you automatically shift.
So when you when you go ona retreat or you know, one of
these hikes or whatever it is,you suddenly shift out of all the restriction.
(19:15):
How do I look all of thosethings? And it's suddenly just about
doing it, like just being outthere and doing it. And when you're
out there doing it with you know, a group, then it's that camaraderie
and it's the stopping and like youknow, pointing out the monkey and the
tree when you're in Costa Rica orthe you know, the butt, what
(19:38):
it like fireflies when you're in thesmoky It's like it's just stopping and just
like experiencing. So you don't reallyhave to you don't really have to do
anything but allow somebody to get intoa space that works. So basically what
you do is you create the opportunityto get them in a space where you
(19:59):
know what will have happen, willhappen. Well, that's true. It's
you're curating it for them, right, It is a curation, you're exactly
right now. There is, ofcourse prior to it, usually about three
months prior we do do the virtualtraining because I want someone to show up
and not feel like they're in overtheir head, yeah, or they're so
(20:19):
out of shape that they can't doit. Like it really doesn't take for
most of us. It takes aboutthree months to go from zero to good
enough to have a great time.I like that you don't have to look
like, you know, a fitnessmodel. You just be good enough to
have a good time. I meanthat's really it, right, Yeah,
(20:42):
yeah, what kind of feedback doyou get from these ladies? Like what
is the mental outcome of these physicalcommitments? So I think the first always
is like relief. There's suddenly thislike sigh, Like we've been waiting to
(21:03):
ex heal for years and years andyears, and all of a sudden,
you know you're safe. Like youknow that because and I will tell you
why, Like a lot of times, we've tried everything right, you know,
to lose thirty pounds in thirty days, all the restriction, diets,
all this stuff right, but there'sa piece missing, and so we don't
(21:26):
stick to it, and then everytime we don't stick to it, we
feel a little bit worse. Andthen it's just kind of like, oh
is this it? Is this asgood as it's going to get, Like
I'm in trouble, and when allof a sudden people realize, Like a
new client said to me recently,she's sixty seven, sixty five. She's
(21:48):
three years older than me, twoyears older than me, And so we
put together a plan for her,and I'm really excited about the plan.
I think this is really good,you know. And I always tell everybody
just that first, we're just gonnait's an experiment. We're just gonna try
this out, see how it works. You know, what do we need
to change? Et cetera, etcetera. And so we put this plan
(22:10):
together. I'm super excited. Shelooks excited, and then the next day
she calls me on boxer and she'slike, so, Kelly, I need
the truth. I'm like, Okay, is this really going to work?
Like am I ever really going toget muscles at my age? And I
was like, huh, of courseyou are but but you don't have to
(22:33):
take my word about it, poorperson, because now all of a sudden
she ends up with like twenty twoarticles in her inbox people, and you
know how muscle growth can happen atany time. So that was like a
relief for her because she just waslike, oh, okay, this really
will work. So relief is first. The second piece is always like excitement,
(22:59):
right, like, hey, maybethis is gonna work. And then
the third piece is everybody. AndI just hate to say the word,
but I'm going to say it.Everybody hits a place where it's not working.
Yeah, all of us do whateverit is. Like for right this
minute, I have an injured knee, so that whole lower cardio isn't working
(23:21):
for me. But it's okay becauseI know what to do. But it
happens to everybody, and when theyhit that spot and then they figure out
or understand that there are ways aroundit, and I'm going to help them
get through it, and afterwards it'sbetter and better and better and better.
Then there's this like giddiness because wego from oh my gosh, this is
(23:44):
the end of the world to huh, well, all we have to do
is restart just in a different way, and it's okay. So it's it's
that's kind of the progression, andthen after that, like sky's the limit.
I'm I mean, I was justgoing back yesterday through some of the
old testimonials, right when people hadsaid you know this or that or whatever,
(24:07):
and I came up with one ofthem and I'm like, oh,
my goodness, I have forgotten thatwhen she came to me. This is
one of my clients who's like she'sa rock star now, like she is
she is doing everything and she's solid, literally solid muscle, and she's doing
all these things. And when shecame to me a couple of years ago,
(24:29):
she was just hoping that she wouldquit feeling bad. And I was
like, wow, I completely forgotthat. So it's just you know,
it does take a little time.Oh that's the encouragement that I'm hearing you
say is there is a path fromhere to there, and it may not
be a straight path, right,but that it's possible, you know,
(24:53):
always possible. Yeah, Yeah,it's always possible. And there's just like
finding those there's just there's a lotof different things and this is I'm going
to just run off on a tangentfor just a second. But there's so
many different things that we can dowhen it comes to our health and fitness.
(25:14):
That is not the usual that everybodythinks about. You know, everybody
thinks about diet and exercise, andthere's lots of other pieces and when we
bring those in too, it's exponential. Yeah. Yeah, you know,
I think as you're talking to me, I'm picturing how we may think we
have all the pieces because we've heardall the things, but we don't know
(25:37):
how to put them together, Likewe're we might be doing the things,
but maybe not in a way thatwill get us where we need to go.
They just make us feel defeated.Does that make sense? Oh?
Absolutely, I mean that's a great, great idea, because you're exactly right.
I had never really thought about itthat way, but that's exactly what
happens. It's like legos that gotdumped out and you're like, I don't
even know where to start. Iknow that that's green lego, I know
(26:00):
that's a red lego. I knowthat's a yellow lego, right, and
then what you know what I mean, like, how do I put those
legos together? Those bits of fitnessand health and food and brain all together
to end up with something solid thatfeels good for me. And I feel
like as women, maybe that's wherethe disconnect is for us. We feel
(26:22):
like we know everything and none ofit works, whereas it's more of a
we haven't put it together, right. Yeah, that's a brilliant thing to
say. Quite frankly, I lovethat you said that. I mean,
and pieces of that are like whenwe were back in the Jane Fonda days,
it was like, we know,it was easy to lose weight because
(26:42):
our bodies were different than they arenow, just a little right like they
but they their job was to youknow, react very quickly and to do
all the things. And you couldlike go train for a five k or
you know, not eat for amonth, whatever whatever your thing was,
(27:03):
and then you know you were down. You were down that size you want
to lose Now, our bodies aren't. Our bodies just don't do that.
That's that's not their gig. Theonly way that we're going to survive is
by gaining muscle, eating, well, you know, moving, maybe less
cardio than we think like that's that'sthat's one of the things I get a
(27:26):
lot of people who I call mycardio addicts. I'm one of them.
Like I love long cardio, buttoo much long cardio burns too much muscle,
and we're we're working against ourselves.Interesting, Okay, that makes sense.
Right, So then you're gaining weightbecause even if you're doing you know,
even if you're doing the you know, all the long cardio, you're
(27:48):
burning muscles, so you're gaining weight. So it's like just these little nuances
that are different. There's such aneed. What I'm hearing is there's a
need to have some graciousness with whereour physical body is now and not comparing
it to our body when we werethirty. Right. Well, yeah,
(28:12):
I mean we're completely different. Thinkabout our minds, right, who wants
to go back and be twenty again? No? Thank you, no,
thank you. Once was enough.I'm good all the wisdom that we have.
And it's the same thing with ourbodies. I told someone who this
recently, and I mean the lookon our face was pretty funny, but
(28:34):
I said, you know, thetruth is is that we're not supposed to
live past thirty years old. Likethat is if you look at at our
bodies and how they change, andlongevity tables and everything else, Like that
was basically what we grew, whatwe were going for one hundred years ago
or two hundred years ago, andnow we're doing these things where we're like
(28:57):
doubling and tripling that thirty. Right. Yeah, we have to be to
use your word gracious with our bodiesand figure out like how can we how
can we give the body everything theyneed so they can really enjoy it.
Yeah. Yeah, It's one ofthose things where I see what you're saying,
(29:19):
and then I see the other side, which is the what we're being
told. Like there's two very strongmessages out there. Right there's the message
of oh, you hit the stage, you just need to retire and write
off in the sunset, as ifyou've done all you can and now you
(29:40):
just wait, right you fade you, yes, fade. That's one message.
The other message is fifties, thenew thirties, sixties, the new
forties, seventies, the new fifty. And I think some of that,
if I could be honest, itfeels like I like parts of that,
but it's almost exhausting it exactly.That's what I'm saying, Like, I
(30:00):
want my biological age and my timelineage to have a gap I do.
I want to feel good for notjust for my age, but I just
want to feel good. Do yousee what I mean? So those there's
very conflicting things coming at us interms of mindset around you know, age,
and you're capable of you're right,and and I think there's the trick
(30:23):
is is to be able to navigatedown the river and yes, you know
the middle. I like that becausethere's what do you say, take what
take what works for you and leavethe rest. Yeah, right, I
mean because really and and and Ihave I'm not this is no judgment,
okay, but I'm just going tosay that. You know, if I'm
(30:44):
so I'm sixty three, if Iwant to be you know, if I
want my sixty three to be myforty, if that's the way you say
it, then it's something I cando a lot of stuff, right,
Yeah, the face is going toneed some serious some serious phil Yes,
yes, you know. I meanthere's just things like that, and I'm
like, yeah, I all havetime for that stuff. But if I
(31:07):
can feel as possibly good as Ican, like I mean, honestly,
one hundred percent, I feel betternow when I get up in the morning
than I did twenty years ago,right, And it's not like life's easier,
it's just different. And I've gotall the energy I need. That's
that's what I want. Like,that's what I want for everybody. It's
(31:30):
first to have the energy and tofeel good and to wake up and be
excited. Because what a heck ofa deal. Like here we are kitting
to outlive our biological age of thirtyyeah, and have some fun doing it.
And there's so many opportunities, right, Like what fitness looks like for
one person? I mean, Ithink there's some foundational building blocks though,
(31:53):
what would you say are like thekey kind of components the right colored lego
for success would be what there's threepieces when we talk about movement. One
of them is mobility, Okay,And mobility is not it's not stretching,
it's warming up our joints. Ourjoints are one of the potential weak links
(32:19):
in our body. So if wecan warm up our joints before we do
something with them, then they're goingto have more longevity. And it doesn't
take much, right, Like mytypical mobility before I workout is eight minutes
or less. That's it. Soyou're warming up your joints. Then you
need some cardio berries for everybody,right, I mean, you know,
(32:44):
if you look at I don't know. I think if you look at it,
if it's an American Heart Association,I think says that if you do
a half an hour a day ofcardio, seven days a week, then
you're done. I beg to differon that one. Like I think you
can go up and down on yourcardio. Your cardio should be steady cardio,
and it should be some some toughernot doesn't have to be long,
but it just has to be,like you know, some high intensity cardio.
(33:07):
And it can be all kinds ofthings, like there's a the sky's
the limit, and so you needsome cardio, and then you need some
strength. And your strength can fallinto like body weight. It can be
resistance bands, it can be weights, like it doesn't really matter, but
we need it. And if wedon't do that one particular piece, that's
(33:30):
probably the piece that in the endis going to be the problem for us.
That's you know, I'll give youlike this is a very very minute
example of one. Okay, nota scientific example, but an example of
one. So a month ago Igot my knee was hurt. My dog
(33:50):
sideswiped me and that was that.So I haven't been doing lower body workouts.
Still doing effert but not lower body. And what I note was when
I was leading the crew and someballot stuff that my balance had changed in
just thirty days. And the reasonthat was was because I had lost strength
in just thirty days, like notawful, like you know, I'm not
(34:15):
going to just crumple up, butenough for me to go, wow,
thirty days, that's not very long. Yeah, right, So I would
like to everybody to start realizing that, you know, we need to do
some sort of some sort of strengthwhatever that looks like. It could be
pilates, it could be yoga,it could be walking with weights not in
(34:37):
your ankles but in your hands.There's a lot of different ways that you
can get some strength in there.But we do need that. Yeah,
And so I think what I'm hearingyou say is if you take these basic
building blocks and you investigate what combinationof them feels good, but it should
(34:59):
also challenge us a little, amI right? Yeah? Yeah, I
mean we do need to challenge ourselves. And don't worry somebody works with me.
I know, nor goodwill, andI'm in a challenge them but they
aren't right and it doesn't have tobe hard, Like I never want someone
to push themselves past the point ofa problem. You're right, you know
you have to. You need tolike push but stop, push but stop,
(35:21):
push but stop, and eventually oneday something changes. M hm.
I will say this in my book, I have like gosh, I think
I came up with probably one hundreddifferent things that are options for people,
because like in the mobility piece,I always hear, well, I don't
like to do that, or Idon't like to do that, or I
don't like to Like fine, it'slike I don't want to eat my spinach.
(35:43):
That's okay. I can figure outa way to get the spinach in
you. It's the same thing withthe exercise, right, So like if
somebody doesn't want to do the warmup videos that I give them, I'm
like great, Like yoga, onceyou go do some yin yoga, like
really slow easy poses that you holdfor a long time, right, Like
(36:05):
you know, there's different ways ofdoing it. If you don't want to
go you know, run or walk, then how about you know, or
bike. Maybe you don't want todo any of those things. Fine,
we'll find something. Maybe you cango to the rowing the rowing club,
or you know, there's maybe youjust do. Like back to Houston being
flat. If if I want totrain for somewhere far away that actually has
(36:30):
hills, I have one ramp thatgoes down to the bayou behind my house.
It's not much of a ramp,but I can use that ramp to
train for any any place in thecountry. I can use parking garages,
I can use stairs. Right,Like, there's just so many things that
we can do, but we haveto think outside the box. And it's
(36:52):
just you know, that's that's partof the thing is it comes back to
what you said earlier about like there'sthose two sides of it. Yeah,
and so much of it is thatwe've always been told that there's two things
like you run and then you canno longer run, you walk, and
if you want to lift weight youhave to go to the gym and you
know you're going to get all bothbalked up. None of that's real.
(37:15):
Sorry, Yeah, it's real.Like there's so much other things that we
can do. There's something powerful aboutseeing your body change and feeling the energy
that that gives you and the confidencethat comes with that. Right, Oh
yeah, Like I mean, it'sjust I shouldn't tell the story, but
(37:35):
I'm going to. This is thekind of story that everybody that's listening and
saying, I'm never going on aretreat with Kelly. What this is such
a good story I have to tellyou. So I have a client and
when she first came to me,this was her goal. Her goal was
to be able to walk down herstairs one foot after the other without holding
(37:57):
on to the rail. Okay,okay, pretty marginal. And she knows,
I mean she knows I called itmarginal. I've told of that as
being I had a low goal,but you know that was that was where
she was at the time. Sohere we are in Costa Rica this year,
this last year, and it's raininglike it's raining. We have big
rivers, and in these big rivers, we have to we have to get
(38:22):
across the river, right, wehave to raft down the river, get
to the end so that we canget out of the jungle. That's the
way it is. And so whathappens is that the water is so big
that we get pushed against a rockand held there. Now I've done a
lot of rivers in my life,and I've never had this happen before.
(38:42):
So here we are. We're stuckagainst this rock. The river is raging
right and left, and so peopleare We're trying to get some of the
people off the raft. And here'smy person who, at one point her
goal was to just be able towalk down her stairs. She is getting
out of our in a raging river, standing on a rock in the middle,
(39:04):
stepping down to the other side toget to the other raft. And
I'm watching this and I'm thinking,that's a little bit more than the stair
thing. We've gone beyond the stairs. We've gone past the stairs. And
then afterwards she said to me,she's like, I have a new goal.
I'm like, okay, what's yournew goal. She's like, next
time I get stuck with you inthe middle of a raging river and I
(39:28):
have to get out on the rock, I want to be able to stand
on one foot and do my ballet'swork. Right. So you just like
you just never know, never knowwhat what's gonna happen and how things are
going to change for people. Well, from that story, what I get
is, look what I can dothat's exactly right. And you know what,
(39:53):
at the time, everybody was alittle bit maybe not super excited about
being where they were afterwards, thatis the number one story everyone has told
is like, look what we did, and it was true. It was
a huge deal. Yeah, Andhaving a level of fitness in their mind
first and then their body is whatmade that situation navigatable. I think you're
(40:17):
right because otherwise she would have justfroze mm hmm, and some people did,
but she was on a path andshe'd been on this path for about
a year and she is rocking it. So yeah, that's an incredible thing.
I don't know that we're fully capableof understanding until we're in it what
our bodies can do and what potentialwe still have untapped. Oh yeah,
(40:43):
yeah, we have so much untappedpotential, right, Yeah, there's so
many things we can do. Andit's like, you know, my lady
with the cane mm hmm, shewould have never in a million years thought
she could do that, and thennow here she is, you know,
running around running around in national parksall over then doing hikes. But you
know what I hear from those storiesthat you're sharing is this was inside of
(41:06):
them. Oh yeah, it justhadn't been it hadn't been given the opportunity
to be possible because of beliefs thatthey probably held. So the desire that
dream had to kind of be dugup, dusted off, washed and presented
to them as what if. Yeah, yeah, it's kind of cool,
(41:32):
it's amazing. And there's so manytimes, like so many times when I
know people are wish that they hadn'tsaid it to me. Well, if
I could do something, it wouldbe this. I'm like, well,
there you go, Well there itis. I didn't even have to think
(41:52):
hard. You just told me.Well, I would love for you,
Kelly, to give us three keytakeaways. You've given us many excellent ideas
and strategies, but if you reallyneeded to like sit someone down and say
these three things are really going tobe the start of the journey, what
(42:12):
would those be. I think thefirst one would be to understand exactly what
you just said. We can domore than we think we can. There
is so much more life to belived, and it's up to us to
actually figure out that we can dothat. And then once we're willing to
(42:35):
give it a go, find finda way, find a coach, find
a person, find a friend,find a I don't care what it is,
but find a way to start takingaction to start doing those three kinds
of movement. Start small, doesn'thave to be like start small, small
matters. And then once you reacha point where you know you're doing better,
(43:01):
then look for something new, findsomething fun to reach for, do
something that you're really excited about,and then just keep going like life is
life is here. Let's play.Mm hmmm hmm. That's fantastic, Kelly.
How can people find you and yourresources? Easiest place is on my
(43:21):
website fit isfreedom dot com. Youhave a podcast and that's on all podcast
podcast is on there, the bookson there, all the events that we
do are on there, and soyeah, I just send people over the
web website and you can go followit from there. Okay, awesome,
(43:42):
Well, Kelly, I want tothank you so much for being on the
show today and bringing your wisdom,your passion, your desire to help unleash
and unlock women's ability to live alife more fully by becoming capable of doing
the things maybe they thought they couldn'tdo anymore. You just empowering their brains
and bodies and opens up so manyother doors for them. So thank you
(44:04):
so much for the work that youdo and the tenacity that you have to
push a little bit when people needit. Thank you. Thank you so
much, Gene, I really appreciateand to everybody listening, thank you all
for being here. Fantastic friends today. If you find us on YouTube,
just look down below, the linkwill be there to Kelly. Also,
if you're driving and you need toget to the website, it's at www
(44:27):
dot Feminine roadmap dot com. ForwardSlash episode three, five four, all
of the links will be there aswell. Friends, this conversation is here.
It's more than fitness. It's actuallya good life. It's living a
good, complete, full life.It's the ability to show up in a
way that feels good, that empowersyou to do the things that you want
(44:52):
to do. Get down on thefloor with your grand children if you have
them, take walks with your dogs, climb a hill, swim in the
ocean, whatever it is, nomatter how big or how small. Like
Kelly said, the small matters.It's okay. Let's shift the way we
feel about fitness and our bodies andour age and just do the next best
thing that feels good to our bodyand allow ourselves to get curious about our
(45:16):
actual potential. And so we encourageyou to get out, get moving,
find a community, reach out toKelly see what she has to offer,
and thank you so much for beingwith us today. We would love to
hear your success story, so pleaselet us know how this has impacted your
life. Thank you so much forbeing with us today. I look forward
(45:36):
to bringing more inspirational people's strategies andstories with you in the weeks to come.
Take care of my friends. Byebye,
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