Episode 181: 3 Health Tips I Wish I Knew When I Started

Looking back, there are three things that would have changed everything. In this episode, discover the simple habits that can help you avoid common mistakes, improve your energy, and make your weight loss journey so much easier.

Check out my (free) workshop, How to Fire Up Your Metabolism in Menopause and Beyond & Book You Free Strategy Session right here: www.MindStrongFitness.com

Transcript

Becoming MindStrong Episode 181: 3 Health Tips I Wish I Knew When I Started


Speaker 1  0:00  
You will not be healthy, lose weight in a menopausal body without. In today's episode, I want to share with you the three pieces of advice that, if I could go back in time and give newbie Rachel, this is exactly what I would say to her, and my hope in sharing this is that if you are newer on your journey, you can save yourself a lot of time, a lot of heartache, a lot of injury by learning from my past mistakes. Because very often the thing we struggle with the most becomes the thing we're most passionate about teaching. Thing number one that I would tell past Rachel is that you have to eat, and here's a little backstory to go with that. When I first got into my own health and fitness journey, I was a vegetarian at the time, and I was one of those young adults. I was around 30 at that time. I'll call that a young adult. Which what is time? How are we here? Anyway, back when I was around 30-ish, and I was starting on my health and fitness journey, I was a vegetarian. I ate a lot of salads. I ate a lot of vegetables. I ate virtually no protein, and I was very into diet culture. This is a bad food. This is good food. This is allowed. This is not allowed. So when I started going to the gym, I got really into weight training very quickly. I had a friend who was super into weight training. I started going with her. She was shorter than I was, but she was a beast, and it drove me nuts to no end. Like how this girl was stronger than me drove me crazy. So as someone who has a very goal-oriented mind, I loved not only trying to lift heavier than her, but also trying to quote-unquote beat myself. Right? Meaning, if I could only bench the bar, I was like, no, no, no, no. I see her putting weights on the bar. I want to be able to do that. I want to be able to beat my past self, who could only bench the bar and get stronger. All that to say, I started working my butt off in the gym really quickly because I loved it straight out of the gate, which I'm grateful for. Not everyone loves it straight out of the gate. It worked really well with my brain, still does. Well over, I keep saying 10 years. It is not 10 years. Holy cow! What is time? Anyway, because I was not eating protein, because I was not eating enough, because I did not understand nutrition, nothing changed. I was going to the gym, I was working my butt off, and my body was not changing. And the friend that that was stronger than me that I used to go to the gym with, she used to always tell tell me, "You need to eat. You need to eat. You need to eat. And I was like, Yeah, I'm. I'm eating, but it wasn't until I really understood what that meant. And spoiler alert, I'm going to circle back to it with number three of this list. That's when my body changed. When I learned how to fuel my body correctly, that's when I started seeing the results. So thing number one that I would tell Pastor Rachel is especially if your goals involve weight training, you have to eat. I could go down a rabbit hole right now of if you are in menopause and you are under eating and not losing weight, you also have to eat. That is the basis of 90% of what we talk about here on this podcast. Every human needs food. It is literal air fuel. Your body will not respond without it. 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 two might surprise you if you've been hanging out here for a long time. This one might surprise you.

Speaker 1  3:37  
I would go back in time and tell younger Rachel to stretch more, and the reason I say that might surprise you is I don't talk about stretching very much here, and to this day, all these years later, I am not very great at very good at stretching. I'll do a few minutes in the morning. I've got my little morning routine that involves like three, four minutes of stretching, and over the years, a lot of the injuries that I experienced in the gym, and now as I'm getting older and there's more snap, crackle, pop, I know a lot of that is because I have spent years and years pushing myself in the gym, and didn't do as well with the recovery side. Now I will say I do great with the recovery side when it comes to eating, when it comes to hydration, when it comes to things like Epsom salt baths and massages, and there have been periods of my life where I will make sure, come hell or high water, I'm doing 10 to 15 minutes of stretching, and I have never felt better than in those periods of life. The thing is, I haven't prioritized it. I didn't build the habit when I first started, and I haven't held my feet to the fire as I've gotten older to prioritize it. And I know, reflecting back on all my years of lifting, a lot of the injuries that I experienced along the way, and a lot of the injuries that flare up for me now, could be seen. Significantly lessened and/or avoided with some stretching. Now it doesn't mean I have to go become a yogi. Doesn't mean I need to put aside an extra 45 minutes a day of stretching. But what I'm now trying to develop all these years later is a little morning routine. And right now that morning routine again is just a few minutes. What I would love to get to a place to, and saying this out loud, maybe this will be the turning point where I hold myself accountable. So, what I would love to hold myself accountable for, and what I wish I had started doing from a younger age, is a set block of 1520 minutes a day that's devoted to stretching. It would have saved me a world, literally a world of pain. Now I'm practicing baby steps and momentum to get there. So, if you are a long time listener or watcher, depending on if you listen to the podcast or watch on YouTube, that one might surprise you because I don't talk about it much, and I think it makes sense why I don't talk about it much because it's not a focal point of my routine, and it would benefit me to do so. So three things I would tell past newbie Rachel who's just getting going. Number one, you need to eat. Number two, stretching. You're not only going to feel better in the moment; it's going to save you a world of pain as the snap, crackle, pop starts to set in in this beautiful thing we call aging. Number three ties straight back to number one. I would have sat down with newbie Rachel day one, and I would have taught her about macronutrients. Again, you heard me say in the beginning of this episode, the thing we struggle with the most is the thing we become passionate about teaching. This is why, and I'm going to do my best because I want to keep this episode short and punchy. But there's a lot of reasons to this. Reason number one, you heard me mention earlier, and I tell the full story about it in my book. I lived a diet culture life. This is a good food. This is a bad food. This is a loud food. This is not a loud food. If you've hung out here before, you know Krispy Kreme donuts are a part of my soul, they are part of my self identity. I love Krispy Kreme doughnuts, and this is the story I tell in my book because I had deemed them a bad food when I took a trip one time to California. It was the first time being in one of those Krispy Kreme factories where the conveyor belt's right in front of you and the donuts are being made right in front of you, holy smells!

Speaker 1  7:21  
Oh, best thing ever! And I was there with a friend at the time, past partner at the time, and some family members of hers. So the kids were all getting donuts, but in my world, donuts were a bad food, right? In my world, I hadn't had donuts in I don't know how many years at that point. So I'm sitting there using all my willpower, smelling the smells, watching the kids go to town on these donuts, and I'm like, I can't, I must not, I shouldn't, right? All the all the diet culture beliefs because donuts are a bad food, and finally, finally, one of the kids was on like their third donut. They had half of it left, and they're like, Could you throw this out for me? And I was like, Yeah, no problem. So I start. This is a true story. I start walking to the trash can. I'm holding this Krispy Kreme glazed donut, which is my favorite Krispy Kreme donut. I'm standing over the trash can. I'm like, I'll just have a bite, right? They don't eat half the donut. I could flip it around to the other side, not not get the little kid cooties, and I could take a bite of it. No harm, no foul. So I did. I took a bite of this donut. You can already guess what happened. By the time we left that store, I had eaten six donuts, and I had a bellyache that lasted the rest of the trip because I hadn't had a donut in years, and I just ate six freaking donuts because I caved and binged and went down the rabbit hole. I lived a life of all in, all out. I was so quote unquote perfect with my nutrition, and then I would take one cheat day. And if you've hung out here, you know we don't do cheat days; we do an overage day. And here's why: because on my cheat day, I would go so hard. I remember specifically once I went to this pizza place, Italian place, and the waitress was like nine months pregnant. Like this lady looked like she was about to burst at any moment, and this was my cheat day. I ordered so much food that this lady literally said to me, "I'm nine months pregnant and I can't eat that much food. And that's how I lived. I was so quote unquote good during the week that when I took my cheat day, I went to town, and in reality, knowing what I know now, I don't like the word undoing what I was doing during the week. But my nutrition from a weekly basis, it was not net positive, right? Because I was eating so much on that cheat day that my weekly averages in terms of how many calories I was eating, I was not. If I was trying to lose weight at the time, I was not in a deficit. So, reason number one that I teach myself about macros would be to get away from diet culture all in all out thinking. Number two goes back to what I said earlier about you got to eat. I was working my butt off in the gym, but I wasn't seeing. Results because forget about carbs or fat for a second. I wasn't getting anywhere near enough protein. I was also wildly under eating on carbs. Thank goodness I nipped that in the bud before I got older because now as I'm in that perimenopausal stage of life, looking at menopause, I would have shot myself in the foot if I didn't start eating carbs. You will not be healthy, lose weight in a menopausal body without carbs, carbs, fat, protein, total calories-you name it. I was severely under eating. I was not getting anything near what I needed, so my body wasn't taking shape. So those two things combined-if I had known about macro straight out of the gate, number one, I would have seen results in the gym a heck of a lot faster, and number two, I wouldn't have fallen for the diet culture all in out think all in all out thinking for as long as I did. I'm gonna repeat the the saying one more time: the thing you struggle with the most becomes the thing you become most passionate about teaching for some people, and that is my truth.

Speaker 1  10:57  
When I look back, if you've hung out here before you know this about me. One of my my hell on earth is being on my deathbed, looking back at life and saying, "Where did the time go? Right. I have this. I don't want to call it an obsession, but I have this thing about life of like it is so short, it is so fleeting. We do not know what's going to happen tomorrow. I don't want to waste a minute. My hell on earth is looking back and thinking I lived the same day every day, and then I called it a life. So I do not feel that way about my younger self. And when I look back, it's like, ugh, how much faster could I have gotten results? Ooh, if I had only known this end right. And I'm not someone who's big on regret. I fully, wholeheartedly know, not even believe. I know that the path we're on is the path we're meant to be on. So I am grateful that I learned the hard way because I truly believe it's one of the things that makes me so passionate about teaching. This is like, look, I learned the hard way. Let me save you a whole bunch of time. I got this weird thing about time. Let me save you a whole bunch of it by teaching you how to do this, what I call capital C correctly, straight out of the gate. So all that said, 30-year-old Rachel, if you could hear me now in some other universe, you have to eat, get into a routine of stretching. I know you don't like it. You don't have to spend much time on it. Just get the snowball rolling down a hill and start developing it, and there's this beautiful thing called macros. You're going to master it as a skill once. You're going to have it for the rest of your life. It's going to be one of the most powerful things you do for yourself, not just because of how your body shapes up, but most importantly because of your energy. So if you are newer to this world, welcome. And my hope is that some of these lessons I learned the hard way I can teach to you, so we can we can skip ahead and we can hit the ground running. 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. www.mindstrongfitness.com.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai