Episode 179: 5 Things I Don't Do as a Fitness Pro That I "Should”

I don't do everything "right" when it comes to health, and that's exactly the point. In this episode, I'm sharing the five fitness "rules" I break, the three habits I refuse to compromise on, and why consistency will always beat perfection when it comes to building a healthy, sustainable lifestyle.

Check out my (free) workshop, How to Fire Up Your Metabolism in Menopause and Beyond, and schedule your schedule your free 1-1 Strategy Session right here: www.MindStrongFitness.com

Transcript

Becoming MindStrong Episode 179: 5 Things I Don't Do as a Fitness Pro That I "Should"


Speaker 1  0:00  
Welcome back to the Becoming Mindstrong podcast. My name is Rachel, and I'm the founder and CEO of Mindstrong, where for almost a decade now we have been working with peri and postmenopausal women, not just to get healthy, not just to lose the weight, but as an educator, what's most important to me is to put you in the driver's seat. I want you to understand the how and why of what's going on in your menopausal body. So on the other side of this, you don't need me or anyone else. One of my favorite expressions: if you know how to ride a bike, try to fall off the bike. Right when your brain is wired for a skill, it is very difficult to unlearn a skill, and that's what we're here to do. going to share with you five things that I shouldn't be doing as a professional fitness person that I do, and I want to share with you the non-negotiables that I absolutely do, which allows me to get away with not doing the other things that I should do. I hope that makes sense. All right, so let's start with the five things that I quote unquote should be doing according to the rules. Said sarcastically that I don't do. Thing number one is eating breakfast. Now let me. I'm gonna. I'm gonna obviously explain all of these. I'm not just going to make you a list. When it comes to things like cortisol control, when it comes to balancing your blood sugar, breakfast is incredibly important. I'm going to also add getting enough protein in. Right, breakfast is such an important part. If you can get enough protein in at breakfast, it's going to keep you full longer. It's going to help you balance your blood sugar. It's going to keep your cortisol under control. Breakfast is fantastic for you. I highly recommend eating breakfast. And what I hear from a lot of our women is, "I already messed up today. Interesting. Tell me more. Well, I know I'm supposed to eat breakfast, and I didn't eat breakfast. My day's ruined. Okay, if that were true, I'd be in a world of trouble because if you've hung out, you hear me talk about this a lot. I have been trying to build the habit of eating breakfast for I don't know how many years now. I'm doing better. I'm at a point where I drink water before I drink coffee. That I I count that as a win. I have not established the routine of eating breakfast after all these years, I know all the benefits of it. I know how much better I feel on the rare day I do it, and it's just not a part of my morning routine. So, if you can eat breakfast, I highly recommend eating breakfast for all the reasons we talk about: blood sugar, cortisol, getting protein in, hunger. It is a fantastic habit to build. I do not do it the vast majority of days. When I do, I feel great, and it hasn't been enough to establish the routine. So, thing number one that I quote unquote should do, and I do not as a fitness professional, is I more days than not do not eat breakfast. Thing number two, if you know me at all, you know what I'm going to say. I don't do cardio. Now, there are periods of time where I will. I went through a couple months ago. I went through this this solid two weeks where I did like 20 minutes of cardio every workout, and actually kind of enjoyed it. On a a general daily basis, I do not do cardio. It would benefit me to do some cardio. Cardio is great for your lungs. Cardio is great for your heart. Right? There's lots of health benefits to cardio. I hate it. I personally hate it. And as my work schedule continues to get busier, as my calendar continues to get more packed, holding my gym time sacred is a non-negotiable for me. And expanding that gym time to also include cardio after my workout-that's not a non-negotiable for me. So if I know I have an hour, an hour and a half that I'm going to hold sacred for the gym, tacking another 20 minutes onto that to do some cardio is not a must for me. So I don't hold it sacred.

Speaker 1  3:53  
I'll go through periods of time where it's like, ah, we've been going out to eat a lot more, not feeling so great. I'll adjust my macros, most importantly, and then maybe I'll add a couple minutes of cardio in at the end. It is not something I do on a consistent basis. It would benefit me health-wise to do it. Getting a bit of cardio in, a 10-minute walk after meals, 15 minutes at the end of your weight training session-fantastic for your health. Highly recommend. I don't do it consistently, so I don't eat breakfast consistently. This is a great podcast episode. I'm just knocking myself. I'm sharing this number one again to validate, and number two because I'm I'm going to share with you my non-negotiables of how I can get away with this stuff in a second. So I don't eat breakfast consistently. I don't do cardio consistently. Thing number three is alcohol. We all know alcohol is not the healthiest thing for us, and it can impact your body's ability to lose weight. And your girl loves a glass of whiskey now and then. So, do I drink it every day? Absolutely not. Do I drink it consistently throughout the week? Absolutely not. Do I drink it every single weekend? Absolutely not, and most weekends there will be one night at least where we go out to dinner. Maybe we do a wine tasting. Maybe I just have a glass of whiskey with with dinner. Whatever the case may be, whiskey is not something that I want to give up. And I've gone through periods of life where my where I have when I was when I was heavy into boxing, I completely stopped drinking because even if I drank on a Friday, I could feel it in my training on Monday because that training was intense. It was very cardio heavy. I sweat more than I'd ever sweat in my life, and the pain pleasure principle kicked in. It was not worth it. So I found that I felt a heck of a lot better if I just stopped drinking. So I did. Now I don't feel it impacts my training as much. Can I feel it if I drink on a Saturday night and work out on a Sunday? Absolutely. Does my body feel inflamed because alcohol can lead to inflammation? Absolutely. That's the biggest way I feel it is. I feel puffy the next day, and pain pleasure principle. I still want to be able to go out with my partner, with my friends, have a drink on the weekend, so I choose to include some alcohol. I'm sure there will be periods of life, especially as I get older, where the pain pleasure will not be worth it, and I will cut back more. the The more advanced in age I get, the less I drink. I'm sure that will continue to be true. For right now, it is not something that I've cut out completely. It is not great for my health. I feel I feel puffy and inflamed the next day. There's not much good that comes from it, except in the moment I enjoy the experience. I I monitor how much I drink. I'm not someone who's going out doing shots on the weekend, and a glass of whiskey now and then is something I enjoy. So I don't eat breakfast all the time. I don't do cardio as much as would benefit me, I still drink alcohol. If you are loving this video, you will love my deep dive training: how to fire up your metabolism in menopause and beyond. You can use the link below to reserve your seat, and I'll see you in there. Number four is one of my least favorite expressions in the health and fitness world. I will miss a Monday. All these 2030-year-old, trainers who are spitting in our face, making us do burpees till we want to puke, and telling us never miss a Monday. Why, right? Why is the world going to end? Is anyone going to love you less? Is your week ruined? This is really the key for me. Is your week ruined if you miss a Monday. In a second, when I tell you my non-negotiables, spoiler alert, workouts. I make sure that I get my weight training, and I'll talk about that more in a second.

Speaker 1  7:29  
I know how many days a week I'm going to work out. I do not care what days I get them in. So, do I feel better if I start the week off with a workout? Absolutely. And I think this is such a dangerous mindset of never miss a Monday because then you miss a Monday, and that leads to diet culture of well, my week is already ruined. I'll start next week. I'll start next month. I'll start next year, and we never actually start. I don't care if you miss a workout. What I care about, or a Monday, what I care about is if you set I'm gonna work out come hell or high water this many days this week get your days in. I don't care if it's Tuesday Thursday Saturday Monday Wednesday Friday does not matter. Yes, it is true that starting your week off on that foot probably feels great, and I think it is a dangerous mentality of setting yourself up for failure because the grandkids had soccer practice on Monday, and God forbid we missed a workout. I do not buy into never miss a workout. I never have. I never will. I think it's dangerous. Number five is going to be the most obvious one. This is kind of a this is kind of a lame one to be honest, but I'm going to put it in here because it encompasses everything we're talking about. I whole body reject diet culture. I whole body reject all in all out thinking. I whole body reject black or white perfectionism. I think this is an industry that has set so many people, especially women, up for failure because we are so conditioned to believe this is good. This is bad. This is allowed. This is not allowed. I said I was going to work out three days this week. I only did one. I've ruined it. I'll start again next month. You will never hit your goals that way. I'm going to be blunt about it because it's important. You will never hit your goals this way. I believe I'm going to zoom out. Bigger life statement. Hashtag bigger life statement. I believe one of the keys to happiness, one of the keys to leveling up your life, one of the keys to success in business and life, in health and fitness and relationships, is getting comfortable living in the gray. Is getting comfortable living in the mess, and that is so wildly uncomfortable for most people because we don't practice it. I'm going to go down a rabbit hole here, and then I'm going to tell you my non-negotiables. But this is important. If you've read my book, or if you've hung out here before, you've heard me talk endlessly about the fact that I was raised in such a black or white family. Right? I share in my book my dad's favorite expression growing up. I played softball. My brother played baseball. You touch, you catch. Me. If the tip of your glove can touch that ball, there is no reason that you cannot catch it. Meaning, we are Fryman's. We do not half-ass in this family. You touch, you catch, you do something, you do it whole body. That served me well in some areas. I have an insane work ethic, thanks to thanks to my Fryman upbringing, and what I've learned as I've gotten older is that really held me back because it became a self-identity thing. If I don't know that I can do something 100% I am not going to do it because who am I if I'm not doing it the best? That is a dangerous mindset. Do you know how many risks? Do you know how much leveling up you miss out on because you are living in your little bubble of safety, in your little bubble of perfectionism. One of the keys to business success, to entrepreneurship, to life, to relationships, to health, to fitness, is coming in with this mindset of Yeah, I have no idea what I'm doing. I'm gonna suck at this in the beginning, this is going to be a hot mess. Express this is probably going to be a little embarrassing. This is going to feel wildly uncomfortable, and on the other side of it, I am a smart, driven, intelligent woman.

Speaker 1  11:12  
I will cross the sea of mess, and I will get to the other side, the other shore. The humans who can do that are the humans who are most likely living the life of their dreams? I fully believe, as an entrepreneur, that the reason that what's the stat? 90 95% of businesses don't make it. This is one of the heavy hitters because most people will not be comfortable in the discomfort, and you cannot grow a business without getting comfortable in the discomfort. You cannot establish a new workout routine. You cannot establish new nutrition routines and stick with them if you are not comfortable in the discomfort. If you are not comfortable letting go of perfectionism, which is a fear-based badge of honor that we have made up and nobody actually wants, we want it. The the society, our friends, our families don't want it. It is not a powerful thing like we like to tell ourselves. Are we have a I have a whole podcast episode about perfectionism? It is fear based. It is holding us back. It is not the badge of honor that we think it is. When we can release that, when we can go into this saying, "I am going to do my best this week, and it is not going to be perfect, this is where we start to level up. One thing we tell our members endlessly is, if you are doing this 100, I used to do this with my members. I used to not let them do it 100. If they came to me and said, "Rachel, I've been on this program for two weeks. I haven't missed a single day of tracking, I would literally give them as a homework assignment, "You're not allowed to track tomorrow, because 100% is not sustainable anywhere. 80% 70-5%-that sustainable. And the more we can release this BS, black or white perfectionist thinking, and we can embrace the mess, we can get comfortable being uncomfortable, we can live in the gray, we can live in the imperfection of this. The more successful we are going to be. So number five, that's kind of my cop out one, but it's the most important one. Is I fully, fully reject diet culture, all in, all out perfectionist thinking. Getting comfortable in the uncomfortable, living in the mess, living in the gray is how you level up your life. And bonus, that's what humans actually connect to, right? Let me zoom out for a second. The reason that I've heard for a decade, I love when you talk about donuts. I love when you talk about whiskey because it makes you a real human. We don't connect to these fit. Some of us do. Most of us don't. We don't connect to these fitness trainers on social media who have the perfect body and the perfect life and they only eat perfectly. First of all, it's all BS. It's all a facade for social media. We know that's not what their life looks like, and we can't relate to that because who actually lives like that? The answer is no one. We know it's a facade. We're too smart for that. So what I've heard time and time again is like you're just very real, and it's like cool because this is my life. You talk to my partner, she will tell you, yeah, the girl loves whiskey, the girl loves donuts, right? I'm not BSing. I'm not hiding behind a veil, and I share that because living in the mess, showing the quote-unquote imperfect part of us, which I don't even think is imperfect. I think it's just real. That's what humans connect to by human design, we are connect. We are a connecting species, and we connect to vulnerability. We connect to what's real. We don't connect to perfectionism and facades. Okay, that was a big that was a big rabbit hole, but it's important. Now, I can get away with those things. I can get away with skipping breakfast. I can get away with not doing my cardio. I can get away with including alcohol. I can get away with missing a Monday is a different topic. I think get away with that, and I can get away with rejecting diet culture because I have three non-negotiables. Which means I don't want to say come hell or high water because there's weeks this doesn't happen. Right?

Speaker 1  14:54  
If I'm traveling, I'll do my best. I'll look at hotel gyms, but I have for the most part three non-negotiable. Number one is nutrition. I don't track my food anymore. I track macros for years, for almost a decade, and now I eat intuitively. It is a non-negotiable that, to the best of my ability that day, I am going to work to get the right number of calories, the right balance of carbs, fat, and protein into my body. Is it perfect? No. When I travel, I bring my protein-based snacks. I don't do it perfectly on days where I'm in front of my computer for 15 hours and I forget to eat. I do my best to catch up at the end of the day. It is not perfect, and it is a non-negotiable for me that I am going to do my best to focus on nutrition the vast majority of days. Non-negotiable. Number two, workouts. I work out minimum five days a week. Sometimes I put a bonus six day in there, but five days a week is my most of the is my non-negotiable, and it is not perfect. In my workouts, I'm going to push myself. I don't ever go to the gym and just like kind of go through the motions. Like if I'm there, I am in it to win it. I'm going to practice progressive overload, pushing my muscles to do what they can't yet do. I'm going to go hard. Some days hard looks different than others, right? Did I eat enough? Did I sleep enough? It's not always perfect, but I'm going to go in and give it my best for that day. Are there weeks I don't get five days a week in? Absolutely. If I am sick, if I'm traveling and I can't get to a hotel gym and I miss a day, the world does not end, and it is non-goshable for me that I'm going to prioritize it, and number three is I focus intensely on my cortisol levels. This is not just a perimenopause, menopause type of thing. This is something I focused on my whole life. I think most people get to the end of their life and they're like, "Why was I so stressed? Why did I sweat the small stuffs? What was I so worried about? And I've shared in past episodes, losing a friend very early on in life changed my mindset. I don't ever want to be my hell on earth. Is looking back at my life with regret. Is letting fear run the show. Is feeling like I spend all day every day stressed out about things that don't really matter. So from a very early age, this is why I'm so into the neuroscience work, I decided that I am going to consciously focus on. I didn't think of it as cortisol levels at the time. I thought of it as mindset work. As I've gotten older and I know the impact of cortisol, this is a priority for me. So every single morning, part of my morning routine, it is not hours, but it is part of my non-negotiable. Is I wake up, we have a infrared sauna in our house. I go in the sauna for 15 minutes. I meditate for 10 of those minutes. It is not hours in my day. I'm not joining a silent retreat in India. It's a little routine. I do 10 to 15 minutes. I meditate. I stretch for like two minutes. That's a newer thing as as age has has crept in, and then I start my workday. During my workday, if I feel myself getting stressed, I make myself pause, breathe, get out of it for a second, shake it off energetically, get back to it. Again, back in the day, I thought of it as more mindset work. As I've gotten older, now I'm focusing on cortisol control because I have the terminology for that; those three things are my non-negotiable. My nutrition is always number one. My workouts are always number two, and my cortisol control is is in there as well. Because I've been focused on those things as heavily as I have for so long, I can get away with not doing a lot of the shoulds. Right now, for you, your non-negotiables might be different. I highly suggest that nutrition be number one.

Speaker 1  18:27  
Right, it is very hard to get away with things if nutrition isn't isn't number one. Workouts would be a fantastic number two. Cortisol would be a fantastic number three. The one that's most important to to me because as an educator, I want you to have the keys to the kingdom. Is nutrition? Here's the point of this entire episode. If we are trying to do things perfectly, you will never stick with this. And I say that with all the love in the world. I say that knowing that I'm speaking to a lot of people, not individuals, and I feel very comfortable making that statement. If you are trying to do this perfectly, not because you're terrible human, not because you lack willpower, but because of human nature, if you are trying to do this perfectly, you will not stick with it. One of the keys to life, and one of the keys to making this a sustainable lifestyle, is getting comfortable in the uncomfortable, which for a lot of us means living in the gray, living in the mess, being comfortable doing this imperfectly. I don't see it as imperfect; I see it as sustainable. So maybe if it helps you, we change that word. Instead of "I'm doing this imperfectly, I'm doing this in a sustainable matter. That that might help your your perfectionist mind if your mind is worried in a perfectionist matter. At the end of the day, I reject diet culture. It is not all or nothing. It is not black or white. I will always, always, always prefer that you do this 70-5% or 80% to 100% because 100% is not sustainable, and we are here for a sustainable lifestyle. For more information on Mindstrong Fitness. Or to apply for a free one-to-one strategy session with my incredible all-female team, visit www.mindstrongfitness.com.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai