Mental Health Over Abs | How to Overcome Anorexia & Diet Culture

26:47There's stuff we can potentially take to make us bulky, but we're not going to get bulky. I'm not bulky and I can, you know, I can squat, you know, 140 pounds or I can, so I can do things. I mean, I, I, I worked out before I got here today and I single arm wrote a 45 or 50 pound dumbbell for 12 reps, three times. So, and I'm proud of that. And I will tell you that increases your metabolism and we can go down a little bit with that, but when women lift heavy, their metabolism will increase, right? You are putting on muscle muscle. Obviously it's, it's something that we need for protection of our bones because women get osteoporosis as we're osteopenia as we get older.

27:30And the protein source is what happens in here too. So what happens is the balance of lifting weights and protein. I personally am a pesco-ovotarian, meaning I only eat fish and eggs. My body does not digest chicken or meat very well. I tend to have a histamine response. So for me, that's where I'm talking about the bio-individuality. It's all different. So I tend to, you know, based on my body weight, they say you should eat your body weight in protein grams. I personally can't. So I, I go, let's go into, I go small and then I take it one step at a time because digestibility is just tough for women too.

28:08As you get older as well, your metabolism and your, your rate of how you digest things can get a little bit slower. So it's, what do you pair those things with and, and stuff like that. So I am all about lifting weights that are heavier than the pink dumbbells, making sure you hit your protein goals. It doesn't necessarily have to be four to five times a day. My work schedule is completely erratic. I start my day at 6 AM. And sometimes I can train straight through until three. Wow. And I have to rely on a somewhat clean, I do plant-based protein because it's easy for me to digest. I have to rely on a protein shake for me, but if not, I'll coach meal prepping, bring things that you like that.

28:50You know what? you give yourself little 15 minute breaks in between, you have something that's small or you make sure you're hydrated. That's the other thing in this area. Now that I see, we are doing too much cardio because in the past cardio was cardio burns fat. Cardio doesn't burn fat. Cardio causes you to lose muscle mass, which causes you to have like all of my women talk about their arms. What, what, what is this? What is this? What's the cellulite? All of that's from not having the proper muscle mass on your body and training in that slightly uncomfortable position of, of your weight training.

29:28And, um, again, if you're not comfortable, get a personal trainer. That's why we're here. And if you don't understand nutrition, hire someone that really knows what they're doing. Don't follow somebody else's nutrition plan on social media, because I'm telling you, I can't even begin to, you know, explain that I have gotten people that have come to me that have done all of these yo-yos because they followed somebody else's plan and they're miserable and then they mess up their hormones. Women are insulin resistant when we go through our hormone stages, which means that we are not burning the sugars at the same rate that we used to burn in our twenties and our thirties when cardio was great.

30:05When I was 20, I ran 20 miles. I ran a full marathon. I was shredded. Now I'm like, God, I'm exhausted. Yeah. I mean, I honestly, like I, I don't do much cardio. We talked about it before. Like I really, I really don't. The only amount of cardio I do is just where it's going to be good enough for my heart. You know, I don't look at it as a weight loss strategy. I don't look at it as anything other than how do I strengthen my heart? You know, and I, that's why it's called cardio. That's true. It's not, it, that's what it's for. But back in the day, like in the late nineties, early two thousands, you know, when I was training for baseball, it was like, you got to do cardio five days a week, you know, and, you know, do the elliptical for 35, 45 minutes, you know, like, dude, that's a lot.

30:50Like if you, I'm going to tell you something, if somebody were to get on that moving Stairmaster and do 15 minutes, three times a day, I mean, three times a week, that's, that's good. Cause that, that thing is tough. And I love that damn thing. That thing is fun. But, but to your point, you know, you made a comment about when you put a 35 pound dumbbell on the floor and you tell a woman to single arm row it like that has to, and that this, I don't want to bulk. It has to be a woman in their forties. Right. Because what I'm seeing is some of these college girls in the gym, like, Oh no, they're like, give me all the weights.

31:25They are strong. Oh, I see them glute drive for 45 pound plates on each side, which is great. I'm excited. I'm happy for that. But to your point too, like my women, even in their 60s or their 50s or their 70s, if I have them on a cable machine, I'll put 20 pounds on there and say, let's do some tricep extensions. If they're gonna row, I'll put 55 pounds on there and say row. And at first they don't think they can do, but once they do the first two reps and you see that smile pop on their face, I'm like, you can do it. Yeah, it's really cool. It's confident, it's mental. And that's why this book that I'm reading really talks about the mind and the body.

32:02what you think about, you bring about. If you think you can't lift that, you can't. But if you look at it and you, maybe you try the first two reps and you're like, Ooh, this is great. And then you have someone that is encouraging you. You're like, okay, let's maybe try five. Then you hear them going like, can we try five more? Can we try another? So that's how you build it for sure. You know, as you get into it, it gets to be a lot of fun. Right. Cause you get to test things in the gym. You know, you test things from week to week based on your progress, based on what you ate and what's working for you.

32:32And where I'm going with this, you talked about biomechanics of a body, but also people's digestive systems, like you say, are completely different. So I'm going to ask you to break me down real quick. Okay. Cause I want to, I want to know clinically why I'm the way I am because I don't know. All right. So I used to be the school of thought that in order to be stronger, I had to also have complex carbohydrates in my system. like, you know, post-workout, before workout, whatever. But for me, I didn't make much progress. And I was always so frustrated. As long as I kept those carbs in, I would crave the sugar.

33:15I would crave the, the, the breads. I would, I would do all that. The moment we talked about, you know, we're both very close to Jeff Delaney. Once I got with him over at tea clinics and over at new viva with his staff, like it's completely fixed. So what we decided to do with me to see how my body responded is we took carbs completely out for an extended period of time, but we started with just eating detox fruits, like the blueberries, the pineapples, the green apples. And then eventually after I did that for a month and a half, we went carnivore and it just fell off. And then now I'm to a point where the only carbohydrate I take in is my intro workout carbs.

34:02And, and that's all based on what my DEXA scan looks like, what we're trying to do for the next three months, where he's pushing me, but my body does not need carbohydrates. I mean, for me personally, I can, I can speak with a hundred percent certainty when someone says you need to eat carbs i could go no i don't now do i enjoy them sometimes sure you know but but hey for for me my body just operates completely different i haven't had a carb in three days because i had a cheat meal right i don't look tired i don't feel tired right so why would somebody like me um my blood type is a plus by the way uh operate so efficiently on basically just protein and fats.

34:52That's funny because your body operates the same way mine does. That's literally all I do. But this goes back to the bio-individuality, right? So every body is different. No two programs are alike and it's not a one size fits all. It's a one size fits you. So I call it my total body approach. So for you, and when I break people down, so if you, if you were one that was constantly craving sugars, right? One of the reasons you're craving sugars is because you're lacking a macro. Now, most people think that a macro is just, and you hit it because you said what you're doing. Most people think a macro is bread, bagels, pasta, oatmeal.

35:38It's not, it's fruit, right? It's those types. Something that is a natural sugar that you're probably ingesting earlier throughout the day is working for you. Plus, if you're feeding your body stuff that takes a slower amount of time to break down, which are the proteins and the fats, your body's satiated longer, right? But if you came to me and told me something completely different than what you just said, you're like, friend, I am like dropping like a fly at three o 'clock. I need my caffeine jolt. I'm craving a snack at four o 'clock, which I get. Like the, I would say that you and I, and a lot of people that are super dialed into health is the, we're not the majority.

36:22No. Okay. So the most of the people that are probably listening to this or that I'm working with, or that maybe you are in your circle too, they're going like, I, there's so much noise going on in their head. And when with carnivore, carnivore is not great for everybody. I have clients that I had done carnivore with and they were like, they felt horrible. They were like, I can't use the restroom. They're like, I feel brain fog. I feel bloated. Interesting. So that's what, that's the beauty of the bio-individuality. And, and that's what was happening with me when I was eating chicken or beef or ground Turkey, my joints became inflamed.

37:03I was bloated. Like you can't believe. And I was like, this is horrible. I can't do this. So I found that fish and, and eggs, and I got a, I started following a little bit of a moderate, like plant based for a while. I play with everything on myself. Um, I found that that was a little bit better for me for, um, so let, yeah. So back to you. So it really all depends. So if you found through trial and error with working over there, that that works for you, then that's great. But for some people it's completely different. But if you told me something else, like you, again, I get all the other stuff we talked about.

37:40If you had like, you were like, boom, you're, they were downward spiraling in the morning. Like I have people that have to eat first thing in the morning. So I make sure they hit their 30 grams protein first thing in the morning. I have people that if they eat something too much in the morning. They're like, they're nauseous throughout the day. Um, and I have people that rock intermittent fasting. You know, I personally love to intermittent fast in the morning. I I'm too early for food. So I get my third, I use a, like a pro a collagen, a bovine collagen in my coffee that gets me 30 grams. And then by like 11 o 'clock, I have like something that's, you know, protein based that I can have, but everybody's different.

38:18So that's the beauty of this. And, you know, I've had people that have been on, you know, certain programs, like what you're describing. And they've just like, I can't do it. Like I need something different. Yeah. I had a buddy that did carnivore a few years back and like, he had to go in and get checked. Like his blood markers were off and he felt like absolute dog shit. And like, for me, I'm like, wow, this is like a dream. I get to eat meat and that's kind of cool. Um, no, it's interesting though, because as you say, it's just, it, everybody's different. And, and that's the, that's the message that I want the audience to really key in on.

38:54Like what works for me, what works for Fran is not gonna necessarily work for you. It might could, but we don't know unless we try. And, you know, for me, I just, I'm finally happy because I know what works for me. And I don't have those cravings. So there's, I'm not saying I'm perfect. Like there's, you know, a couple of times a month where I'll, you know, sit there at night and I'll binge chocolate straight up. But here's the difference. I don't shame myself for it. Right. And I wake up the next morning and move my damn body. It doesn't torpedo me like it used to. Right. And I think that's all a part, like you said, just the balance of, hey, I'm going to enjoy these things every now and again.

39:36I'm going to eat my concrete mixer from Culver's dude, like straight up. Like I'm, you know, once a week, I'm going to have that. And I don't, and I don't care because, you know, what's happening is, is I'll do it on a day where I know I got a major body part, right? The next day. So like I'll have it the night before I do legs or I'll have it the night before I do chest and back. So I know I'm going to utilize that energy, right? To the best of my abilities. But you know, this is such an interesting conversation because, you know, we keep saying there's noise, there's noise. And there's people out there right now that just don't understand where to start.

40:13If you're, if you're an individual that doesn't know where to start, and maybe you don't have the resources or the funds to hire someone like you or to go to a NuViva or to have that external support to guide you through it, where would you start? You know, there's some really great, you know, I actually, I started when, before all of this was, I started reading. So I was looking at some of what some of my symptoms were before I found out I had the gluten allergy. Oh boy. As we all know, starting something new isn't just hard. It's absolutely terrifying. So much work goes into the thing that you're not entirely sure will work out.

40:53And it can be hard to make that leap of faith. Trust me, I know this feeling. And you may be thinking like I did, what if no one buys my products? Don't worry. Shopify is on your side to help. Get started with your own design studio. With hundreds of ready to use templates, Shopify helps you build a beautiful online store that matches your brand style. So you can get the word out like you have a full marketing team behind you. Easily create email and social media campaigns wherever your customers are scrolling or even strolling. Best yet, Shopify is your commerce expert with world-class expertise in everything from managing inventory to international shipping down to processing, returns, and beyond.

41:34It's time to turn those what-ifs into Shopify today. Sign up for your$1 per month trial at shopify.com slash TDS. TDS go to shopify.com slash TDS. That's shopify.com slash TDS. I was, uh, I was, this is God. I was in my like early twenties. And every time I went out to dinner and I had pasta, I would go home and I would be doubled over in pain. And then it kept happening more and more. And I'm going like, what is going on? And then I was watching a program And this doctor who wrote the Wheat Belly book was talking on a program. And I was like, oh my gosh, I'm like, I have that. So I started, I bought the book and I read it and I implemented a couple of things.

42:19And I realized by going to my GI doctor and asking him for a test, that that was what I had. Wow. So I think that learning is a very big thing. The thing with, you can't follow somebody else's program, but there's a lot of great resources, real resources. social media, Instagram and Facebook from a person that goes to a gym is not real. No, someone like myself or like we were talking about earlier, Jeff or something like that, where we've gone through the rigamores of the education and we've done the meta-analysy reading and the, you know, reading the different types of case studies where there's proof that these are things.

43:01Not everything works for everybody, but read, understand the beauty of stuff is you got to understand your body. I think that a lot of us are just like, oh, I think I have this symptom. Know what's going on with your body first. And I always say, baby step the process, start with nutrition before you start with fitness. And one of the reasons that new year's resolutions die the second Friday of January is because everybody goes all in with everything. If you go all in with everything, you're going to get zero. So what I always say with nutrition is start with one thing first. Like if you know that you're eating a lot of carbohydrates, maybe you take one meal and you have no carbs for that meal.

43:42And then maybe you do that for two weeks. And then the next time, because again, habits form. But if you try like everything all at one time, it's just, it's a recipe for disaster. and with fitness, if you are one that sits all day, sitting is the new smoking, right? If you're one that sits all day, maybe you, you buy one of these watches, not maybe an Apple watch, if you can't afford an Apple watch, but there's all these different tracking devices, your phones. And what you do is you aim for a certain, we talked about this before, aim for a certain amount of steps per day. So right now they used to have it really high.

44:16It's between eight and 10 ,000 steps a day for overall health. Aim for that. And then when you're comfortable, go to the gym. And what you could do is a lot of these gyms do complimentary programs, right? Where you could go and you can meet with a trainer and you can get a complimentary program. And maybe you get assessments and you can meet with them like biweekly or something like that. There's means to do things. It's just, where's your mindset and how important is it? Is it something like, you know, don't wait. Like I'm a big believer in preventative medicine and preventative medicine is not like going to buy all the supplements you can possibly take.

44:53It's, it's preventing the disease by doing the things that are important to not get those things to happen. Movement, hydration, proper food, sleep, stress reduction. Like those are your five, right? There's probably more, but at the top of my head right now, those would be my top five. and what I would do with those is just focus on you know implementing a little bit of that and keeping you know and and keeping track of yourself keep a log if you need to but there's means but if you're following and I think that's what's happened is we scroll all day long and it's like oh because I get it all the time I read this or I read that no preventative medicine is really you do those five things to prevent disease and illnesses from happening but what happens is we wait until it happens.

45:41And we get the blood mark that says your A1C is high. You have to reduce your sugars. And then that's when we go into freak out mode. So just be mindful. I think that we all know what we're supposed to do. I think we just are so over. We're so overwhelmed by what everybody's saying that, and this is what I get all the time. I don't know what's right and what's wrong. I love that. I love that. You know, you said something that I was like, oh my gosh, Sean, Don't forget this. Like, hold on to that. You know, you mentioned, you know, how bad do you want it? Right. And I think that people really do want it.

46:18They do want to feel better. They do want to be healthier. They do want to look better as a consequence of doing all the right things. Because I truly, at this point, I look at the aesthetic portion of it as a side effect. I like feeling better. That's a good way to put it. I like feeling better when I wake up in the morning. I like being able to move my body and not worry about it. Right. Right. But I always look at things is like, it's, it's, this is where people, including myself have gone wrong. Cause I went wrong with this in the past. Oh my God. I got to go work out today. Yeah. It's a chore.

46:53Yeah. It's, it's like a punishment for being overweight, unhealthy when, do you know how many people out there, probably just in Naples, Florida that wish every day they can just get up and go lift weights, but they don't have legs. They may have one arm. They don't have certain things that we do. They don't have able bodies, but they would give anything to go do that. Movement is a privilege. You know, it is, it is not a chore. And so I think that the mindset, you know, all of it could be fear-based too. I want to be very empathetic about that because there's nothing worse than going to the gym when you're 30 pounds overweight.

47:36There's nothing worse. You feel it in your waistline, you know, when you're sitting down, like one of the things that I have never shared on the air is like when I was going through the, I started in late 24. Right. And I remember getting to the gym, sitting down and then my underwear band would flap over my shorts. that's that's some uncomfortable shit nobody else can see it but i know it's there and i'm thinking wow somebody's looking at this no one cares you know that no one no one cares right the the only person that cares what you look like in the gym is yourself trust me but i think that a lot of people listening right now are hesitating because they're waiting to feel comfortable to go to the gym and they're looking at it as a chore of something that they have to do as a punishment How do you combat that?

48:25That's, you know, that's very poignant. And it's true. I get a lot of people that say to me, when I get to a certain point, I'll do X. It's kind of what you just said. Yeah. And it's funny that you said that because I owned my own personal boutique training because I was afraid to go into a big box gym. because I felt like I wasn't, there was a lot of, I'll use, there was a lot of women in there with the small little jog bras and the shorts. And I didn't have the body confidence to do that. So I'm like, I'm going to go sit there and like work out. So I stayed in a small box gym where I was comfortable.

49:04It was my little safe space. Now I don't care. Now I'm like, I'm out. Like I'm good. So that was a little bit of a challenge. So I understand that. I think that when, I think that that's a, it's a tough one, but when I have people that come to me and they're like, look, I'm just embarrassed. I think that, you know, from a training, from a trainer standpoint is you almost have to work with the mindset first before you're focusing on how much weight they're lifting. It's like, let's just get to the gym. And even if you buddy up with someone or something like that, but get to the gym and don't, maybe you just focus on a couple of movements first, right?

49:44And maybe you put some good music on to distract you. But I think what happens is we've got to focus on the mindset first and not think about when I get to A, then I'll go to the gym. Or when I lose five pounds, I'll go on a nutrition program. Well, you're not there. That's not what happened. And I think what happens with this whole wellness world is that, you know, it's become such an intimidating factor. And to what you just said, I had a grandfather that was a diabetic and lost both of his legs to diabetic neuropathy. And but he was always outside. So and now I work in a facility where there's people that are 100.

50:22I train an 88 year old. I train and he's the bench press. That's so amazing. And I say to them all the time, you are my inspiration. Even the women, I see women in there. I'm like, you are my inspiration. I'm like, tell me why you do this. Because if I don't move, I'm done. Hustle. If I don't move, I'm done. I'm like, wow. And the guy, one of the clients that was a hundred, I said, what's like, he said, he's been working out forever. And the guy just comes in and moves through the machines. And he's like, if this is part, it's like, for me, exercise is like brushing my teeth. It's a part of my life.

50:58I'm not going to not brush my teeth. I'm not going to not brush my, I'm not going to not wash my hair. It's part of my life. And when I heard him say that, he said, you know, he goes, if I don't move, I'm done. He goes, and every day, even when he was, and some of them have had cancers. Some of them have had illnesses. And I'm like, so what got you out of bed? One person had a heart valve like replaced and he's there working out. I said, talk to me. He's like, this is what, this is my drive. this is important to me because if I don't do this and I just think about the fact that I have what's going on, it's going to take me away.

51:33Wow. And I was like, I, that makes complete sense to me, but to some people, they, you know, we, we've, we've fallen into a society and not everybody is in this, but you know, it's always like, if you're sick, you've got to lay down and you've got to not move. And then you've got to wait for a doctor to tell you to do this. One of the clients I had and my doctor told me not to do anything. And all I did was walk. And then when I got back to him in a week, he says, what did you do to yourself? And he goes, I walked. He goes, this is remarkable. He's like, I've never seen, he's like, I've never seen this, you know?

52:06And it's also too, I think it's like, it goes back to, you know, education of physicians and what people are teaching us. I think the older generation, the people that I'm working with do not understand nutrition, do not understand fitness. It was like the Jacqueline era. It was, it was a different time period. People didn't exercise a lot the way we're doing it now. Laborous work, like my grandfather, my grandfather was in the garage working on cars. He was outside working on the, the, the grass. My father was the same way until probably the last, you know, maybe 20 years. He was corporate America throughout his back was, was 225 pounds.

52:48He's now 165 pounds follows the balanced nutrition plan, obviously. But it's his whole life now. Every day he's like, I'm going to the gym, going to the gym. And maybe it's just to go for a walk and he lifts weights and my mother is the same exact way and they eat well. But he learns that from like this generation, my generation really, because he's like, I never, he never stepped foot in the gym. Yeah. Nobody did that. So you learn almost like the mindset of the older adult that's just like, we just do what we have to do because you've got to keep moving. And it's like, if I don't, then I'm done.

53:23And our mindset with our generation, I feel is, is sometimes we go too much where we hit a wall and then that's when we just crash and burn and then we stop doing things. Yeah, I, you know, to your point, I think now there's more people wanting to get healthy. Yes. And I think the social climate and everything that went on in 2020 with COVID and everything like that, I think it really propelled that. Yeah. Because that's when I started being really conscious about my health and then, you know, I make some progress and I fall back down again. Admittedly, I would never, I would never lie about that.

53:55Right. Everybody that doesn't listen to the show, everybody who's incorporated with me knows my story. Like, cause I tell it, right. I'm not speaking from the top of the mountain. I'm speaking from like currently climbing it with everybody. Right. But I noticed that more people said, you know what? I don't know what's going to take me out. And I think for me, when I, when I look back in 2020, I remember walking up the stairs and getting winded. I'm like, okay, I'm 41 years old at that time. I'm 47. Right. And so yeah, 42, 42. I'm like, I should not be this winded walking up and down stairs. I don't live in a seven level house.

54:42It's a two, you know, two story house. And so I started paying attention. I'm like, I should probably get healthier because, you know, at the very beginning, like, hey, nobody knew what, what COVID was. Right. I've had it probably seven times. Right. Since then. So, you know, and I'm blessed because it didn't take me out. Oh boy. As we all know, starting something new isn't just hard. It's absolutely terrifying. So much work goes into the thing that you're not entirely sure will work out. And it can be hard to make that leap of faith. Trust me, I know this feeling. And you may be thinking, like I did, what if no one buys my products?

55:18Don't worry, Shopify is on your side to help. Get started with your own design studio. With hundreds of ready-to-use templates, Shopify helps you build a beautiful online store that matches your brand style. So you can get the word out, like you have a full marketing team behind you. Easily create email and social media campaigns wherever your customers are scrolling or even strolling. Best yet, Shopify is your commerce expert with world-class expertise in everything from managing inventory to international shipping down to processing returns and beyond. It's time to turn those what-ifs into Shopify today.

55:56Sign up for your$1 per month trial at shopify.com slash TDS. TDS. Go to shopify.com slash TDS. That's shopify.com slash TDS. I think there's a lot of people really understanding the value of preventative maintenance, right? To work on their body, to eat healthy. And again, I want to stress the audience. I'm not talking about how you look. I'm not talking about what you look like in a bathing suit, what you look like when you're walking down the street in your clothes, talking about your system. How do you feel? Like, are you healthy? Because there's plenty of people out there that are jacked out of their mind, look great, but are very unhealthy, you know?

56:42And so I just think it's, it's this thing where we're in this, you know, this, this, you know, what are we looking at? Like a half decade, a little more than half a decade now, six years of like people really realizing like, I need to be ready for the next go around. Cause I don't know when it's coming in. Yeah. You know? And that's where the key. So I've been doing a lot of talking on some of the key trigger words that are kind of leading to how you feel inside is inflammation, right? There's a lot of autoimmune going around. There's a lot, you're, there's a, I can't even tell you how much I talk about your gut.

57:15You know, there's your gut and then your hormones. Those are all of the four kind of like things that, um, I think we, if we can understand, if we can just understand inflammation, you can really understand why the body's doing what it's doing, because a lot of what's going on internally is caused by what we're eating and the types of foods that we're eating. And, and that's causing this visceral tissue. It's causing inflammation. When we have high amounts of inflammation, our cortisol levels elevate our blood pressure, our cholesterol, our, you know, and, and all of the, the, the, the visceral tissue goes around your organs, your lungs, your, your, you know, your kidneys.

57:58I mean, I can't even tell you how many people that I work with and I put them on these plans and that they're exercising, but the number on the scale is not necessarily going down, but their waist is going this way. And they're like, my pants are smaller, but my number is the same. What is going on? I'm like, we're focusing on the types of food and they feel good. They feel good. They're like my energy, my skin, my hair. Like, what is it? I'm like, it's simple. It's, it's simple. It's what works for you. Like, let's give you stuff you really like, but those things. And we started really talking about that during the pandemic too, not to make it a big pandemic conversation, but that was the stuff.

58:40I think that everybody had the aha moments because obviously our gut is the center of our immune system. It's our second brain. So if that's off and that gets a hit with some type of an infection, it's, it's just completely erratic, but that gut is being triggered by inflammation. That inflammation is being fed by, you know, if by the GI system being off. But if you have autoimmune and you're not even realizing that you have it, you're just putting flame on the fire. and internally you're just like like i don't even know what's going on so it's almost like no matter what you do unless you figure out what's going on with you personally like as as far as like how i fix your health will it like really get better and that's what was happening to me like i felt good before but i was like why does my stomach always hurt and it was it was the gluten and then it was so there's all kinds of stuff and i i love when i work with an individual like i had an individual I worked with that had like crazy GI stuff and doctors didn't understand what was going on.

59:41They were putting her on a certain type of medication. It was making it worse. We, we did some elimination things. We added a few stuff and she has not had an issue. And she's like, this is the best I ever felt. I didn't do exercise yet. We just did that. Let's see. That's just amazing. Okay. So let's dive into that. Okay. Because I don't think people realize how much pain and weight is involved in inflammation. Oh my God. Like if you are inflamed, everything hurts. Absolutely. You to a point where you think you're sick. Yep. And the weight that comes along with it is a ton of water retention, right?

1:00:16Like, like, man, the moment you focus on just nutrition and eating things that are good for you and testing, what can I have? What I, what can't I have based on me? You start to truly understand yourself. And the biggest benefit that I've gotten, yes, how I look is much better. And I am not afraid of the camera anymore. I'm not afraid of how I look on camera. Like I, I know what it's going to look like now. But the one thing that I want people really to understand here is, and I'm speaking directly to the audience is guys, give yourself the opportunity to understand how it truly feels mentally to be in shape, to, to eat well, to lift heavy shit, to execute what you need to execute because the benefit of my mind or what gave my, I am extremely sharp.

1:01:10Like I do not have brain fog. I feel amazing. And for me, oh, and by the way, less anxiety. I do get anxious, right? I live a very stressful life. I have three children, you know, under the, under the age of, I mean, I have a 12, nine and seven year old. I'm in, I'm in the shit, right. I'm in the trenches right now. And two of them are girls. So, you know, but adore them, love them, you know, blessed to be a father and a husband, but the level of anxietized moments I have now, I would say on a daily basis, I used to have three to four episodes. I may have one every three weeks now, I mean, I'll get the normal anxiety, like, Ooh, you know, like business stuff.

1:01:56Like, but I think that's also just fire. That's just, I need to, I need to move. I need to do this because I'm a high achiever and I want to win. But the opportunity that I think that people are leaving on the table is in between the years. Like that to me has been the biggest benefit in my journey. A hundred percent. I mean, one of the things that people laugh at me is I am, I've, I'm a high energy, look, I'm type a, I'm the same way. I am like an overachiever. I am a, a very, I I'm passionate. I care. Um, but I have found through this journey, even till this day, like present moment, I have a huge sense of calm now.

1:02:41I'm allowing myself to embrace the health I've created for myself. And I want that for other people. And when I see other people kind of not get so crazy about their food and exercise and smile and see that it all is just coming together and it doesn't have to be so complex, you're a hundred percent right. And that's one of the things like, you know, what people are like, Oh, that like certain foods for energy. I'm like, I just have energy because my food is clean and I move every day and I'm drinking water and I'm enjoying the beautiful environment of where we live. Right. And I make sure I get out in nature and there's, there's certain things that you can go all out or you can just do something small.

1:03:25So I find where that balance works and you're a hundred percent right. Right. Inflammation is horrible. Most people don't realize that their back pain, their neck pain, their headaches, their, you know, their IBS or whatever it is, that's is a lot of that is due to the food that's causing the inflammation. There's only so much our bodies can take. There's only so much our bodies can take. And when we start to pull just a little bit of that out, your body starts to feel a lot better. And you have such mental clarity because you're like, whoa, like, why did I? Then you wonder why you did that to yourself.

1:04:01And it's no fault. I put no fault to any of this, to anybody. It's like, that's why we're here. And that's why we're doing this today. Just education is everything. And I think that once you really put that out there for people and you let them understand that it doesn't have to be like, let's measure every little minutia that we put into our diets or into our mouth. You'll, it flows better. It's less stressful. And I think that you have, if you mentioned earlier, if you follow an 80, 20 rule through most of your nutrition and your fitness is 80 % of the time your nutrition is on point and you're moving and you're drinking water.

1:04:36If you decide you want to have a piece of pizza or you want to have a piece of cake, or you want to have a glass of wine, it's okay. You know what I mean? It's okay. And I was one of those that beat myself up like you did, but I like, but I say you can't go there first. So if you're in a 230 pound, you know, um, outside of your health range, you know, physique, you can't worry about that yet. You've got to worry about getting you to the goal. The goal is to get you to be healthy and maybe drop 20 pounds or 30, whatever that is for whatever individual. Then once we're there, we can plug and play is what I call it.

1:05:13Like then you can, you know, worry about a little bit of a cheat here or something there. But everything with life is about, I know a lot of people don't like to plan, but health is a plan, right? You've got to plan going to the grocery store. You got to plan how you're going to prep your food, how you're going to cook it. Are you cooking with seed oils, non-seed oils? Are you cooking real food, processed foods? Are you cooking things in a box? Are you cooking things that are already spiced? Salt? There's so many different things. So you've got to plan. So you've got to plan the grocery store, plan how you're going to cook the food, plan when you're going to eat the food based on your schedule.

1:05:48And only you know that. So you can have coaches that help you, but only you know that. And then you've got to like, you know, really plan how you want this to flow for your lifestyle. My coaching is all based on lifestyle. It's not based on diet. I hate that word. It's just a word that just like makes me cringe. It's a lifestyle plan because you, this is supposed to be for the longterm. It's education. So if you could fit that into your life and it works for you, go. You know, it's interesting because, you know, again, just back up a little bit. We were talking about inflammation. You talked about pain, like, and I talked about pain, the amount of back pain I had, lower back pain.

1:06:31Like, I don't know if it was cause I, I mean, obviously I had a lot more weight on my joints. Right. There's a lot of things that hurt that do not hurt anymore, but the neck pain, the lower back pain. Right. And then even just like extremity pain at times, fatigue, it just, it just hurt, you know, and, and now it doesn't, you know what I mean? So I think it's important. And, you know, you talked about tracking all the minutiae in your, in your nutrition plan. You know, I think, you know, I think another breakdown with nutritionists, not real ones, but, but like the Instagram ones and like people that are out there trying to make a buck cause they lost weight.

1:07:12Listen, I lost almost 50 pounds. I'm not trying to start a fitness program for people. I'm not a fitness coach. I just know what worked for, for this guy. It can be done is what you're saying. It's like, it can be done. Like somebody else can teach you how to do that. Like, I'm going to tell you what worked for me. And you know, like you, you work backwards from there, but if it works for you, cool, try it out. If it don't, don't throw it out. But everybody talks about tracking food. And I, I truly believed in the very beginning of tracking my food. But the problem is for somebody like me that gets super obsessed with something OCD has that body dysmorphia.

1:07:49If I don't hit this certain, you know, macro for the day, then my whole progress is off. Right. For me, I just know what I can eat. Like that makes me feel good. And I make sure for me, as soon as I wake up, I'm, I'm taking two scoops of intact grass fed. That's 60 grams of protein. And then I'm going to fill up my water for the gym with my carbolin, my creatine, my glutamine and my electrolytes and I'm gone. Right. And after my workout, I feel expanded because of the intracarbs. So I wait an hour. There's no anabolic window. Okay. So I, I literally wait an hour and I'm like, then I'll have my four eggs and I'll cut up a little bit of steak.

1:08:36And so by the time I hit seven 30, I've already got a hundred grams of protein in, you know? And so I know I only got a hundred grams the rest of the day because I'm 180, 185, but I, I like to get 200 in still, you know, I'm looking for body recomp. Right. So I just think that, you know, for, for the audience, you know, this is, Oh my God, I got to track all this food. I got to weigh it. I, I personally don't think that they do. I think that you need to keep maybe a journal, right. For the first couple, maybe three weeks and write down, this is what I ate for breakfast. This is what I had for a snack.

1:09:09This is what I ate for lunch. So to have her snack, this way for dinner, then I cut it off at this time and be honest with yourself. If you had a couple of licks, bites and tastes, put that down because then someone's going to go to you and say, I don't understand, Fran. I followed your plan. I'll look at this. These are all my meals, but they left out, you know, 800 calories of licks, bites and tastes. Yep. Right. So I just think it's important to have, this is what I did. So that way they can, you can go back and you can look, that's what worked. Yeah. And so I don't want people to think that they have to go on MyFitnessPal.

1:09:47No, no. Use a pen and paper. Honestly, so in my coaching programs, that's what I do. I'm old school. I love it. I'm a little old school. I'm a lot of old school. They also, I love photos. Yeah. I want to see what you're eating. So when I go through my coaching programs with my clients, the most success I get is the people that do the journal work that take the photos. And then that, what they do is they send it to me. And to your point, yes, you know, I, I, the, it doesn't have to be, cause I understand the, look, I understand the stressors of, I went on my fit pal and they didn't have like the natural peanut butter.

1:10:24They only had this one. And I'm like, all right, this is, that's just too much. It's just too much. It should not be that much work. So just take a piece of paper and write down like three eggs, one cup of spinach and cooked in olive oil, like done. And everybody has to find what works for them in the morning. Like I love my, my, my, my family laughs at me because I legit carry around, it's over there, a big 40 ounce jug for water. I have my water in the morning with my electrolytes, my vitamin C. And I am like, that's my jam in the morning. That's what I do. I put my collagen in my coffee. I don't even drink coffee.

1:11:02I drink mushroom coffee. Okay. So I just, and, but that works for me. So, you know, I do a shot of apple cider vinegar every morning. I do wheatgrass shots too. So I, but that's, so people look at me going like, Oh my God, that's a lot of work. It's me. Right. I'm a little bit of the extreme, but for my, my people that I work with, yeah, just keep it simple. Keep the log, write it down. And then if you're working with someone like myself, then that is the best accountability you can give to yourself is just jot it down. If you've, I don't care. I'm, this isn't, whenever I do coaching, it's a no judge zone.

1:11:35It's not a judge zone. It's about helping you get better. So if you're not going to be honest with yourself, this will never work. Man, it's so good. It's never going to work if you're not going to be honest with yourself. So just be honest. Say like, yeah, I two scoops of, you know, ice cream. Okay. Then now when you, the scale goes up three pounds, I had a, I had a, the big quick example was I had a client and she was doing amazing. We were losing a pound to a pound and a half a week. She was crushing it. And then all of a sudden we went and she's like, I don't understand. I had, it was three pounds a week.

1:12:09She went out to dinner. I think they got a factor of salt. And then she goes, well, yeah, I had a little bit of bread. Okay. That that's why. And it's okay. It's totally okay. Nothing is perfect. So you're never going to go into fitness and nutrition and wellness with the perfect plan. Cause there's no such thing. And I know that on Instagram and on certain things, they, they, they show you like, Oh, everything is, I drink hydrolyzed water. I have 120 grams of protein a day. I sleep on these special pillows and life is great. Like that's not how it works. I sleep. I slept on these pillows for seven weeks and gain 27 pounds of muscle.

1:12:48I don't know. I can't tell you it's a pillow, but it happens. I mean, and I get these people coming to me going like, so if you do lymphatic draining in your neck, like, does that help you lose weight? I'm like, lymphatic draining has a purpose, but not for that. So that's my thing. It's wild, you know, but that's, that's the point though. Like what's the quickest route? What's the cheat code? What's the gimmick, right? Instead of like, guys, let's just let's, let's start small, you know, because if you go all in, you're going to burn out. Oh, I say that all the time. You know, I think it's important for people starting a journey to just, like you said, eat one meal without all these carbs and do that for a whole week.

1:13:27There's going to be a calorie deficit there because their body's used to eating more. They're going to see a change in the scale. And then you go, oh, okay, now I can scale back on this. Let's not try to overcomplicate it. let's make one small change at a time so we can see what's working and what's not and then move forward from there um but this has been amazing and and thank you for coming on and and having a real conversation about nutrition and fitness because i think it's needed in this world my audience definitely appreciates any type of self-development yeah nutrition fitness because they i love you guys you guys are a bunch of learners they love being taught things um but as we close down the show, I would like for you to let the audience know where they can find you.

1:14:13If they want to work with you remotely, a nutrition plan, or just maybe just reach out to you be like, Hey, I want to work with you at what's the best way to do that. Absolutely. So I'm all over social media, Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn, YouTube. Um, it's under my first and last name, Francesca Scurbo. Uh, my three cookbooks are on Amazon. So you can purchase any one of the three cookbooks on Amazon. You could reach out to me through any one of those platforms. My website is FrancescaScarbo.com. You can link through that there as well. You can send a submission. I'll call you back. I'm very easy to find.

1:14:53I work with everyone all over. I work here in Florida with people. I work remote with people up in New Jersey, New York, Minnesota, Michigan, all over. So I'm very much remote. That's the beauty of the Apple products. And, uh, and yeah, I mean, I do a lot of talks. So if you wanted to do, and if anybody wants any kind of talks for, I do a lot of stuff with women's groups and non-women's groups or panels reach out to me and I'm, I'm happy to discuss, um, working private or doing talks or anything like that. I love it. Thank you so much. And, uh, thank you for tuning in once again. And I, I do want to remind you to go to the determined society.com and sign up for the damn newsletter.

1:15:34All right. It's the only thing I ever ask you guys, you know, I don't ask you to buy programs and I actually buy a bunch of bullshit. I just need you guys to support me in an additional route. That's going to give you more value. So sign up for the newsletter. You're going to see a ton of opportunities for free coaching behind the scenes stuff, but also a lot of, you know, insight for me on each episode per week. So thanks again. I appreciate you guys share this episode with someone you know, love and trust that may be going through a little bit of a battle in the nutrition and the health and maybe the weight aspect of their life.

1:16:08And until next time, guys, stay determined.