Cori (00:00):
Hey guys, this is Cori from Redefining Strength. Welcome to the Fitness Hacks podcast. This is a show where I share all my free work, workout, and nutrition tips. I’m not going to ever fill this episode with sponsorships or ask you to buy anything. All I ask in return is if you’re enjoying the podcast to leave a review or leave a five star rating or even better share with somebody you think it might help. This will only take a few minutes and would mean the world to me and possibly change the life of someone. So let’s jump right in. Let’s talk about balancing blood sugar. What does this even mean? Why is it important? Why do some people really stress over this? Let’s talk about everything going on. Julia, thank you so much for joining me to really dive into this subject today.

Julia (00:44):
Of course, I’m so thrilled to be here.

Cori (00:47):
So first off, what is blood sugar in the first place?

Julia (00:52):
So blood sugar or blood glucose as we hear, is the main sugar that’s found in your blood. So when you eat carbohydrates, they are broken down into glucose which your blood transports to your cells to be used as energy. So the way we can think of this is after a meal, our blood sugars are going to be a little bit higher, and then our pancreas is going to respond by releasing what we call insulin, which then stimulates that uptake of glucose into our muscle cells. And then a few hours after a meal, our blood sugar is going to run a little bit lower. And during these times, our pancreas will release what we call glucagon, which stimulates the breakdown of those of that glucose storage known as our glycogen for our body to use for energy when we need it.

Cori (01:36):
And so when we hear this term high blood sugar, what does this really mean?

Julia (01:42):
So with diabetes, we know with type one diabetes they are insulin deficient, meaning that their bodies do not make enough insulin and with type two diabetes they are insulin resistant. So this is really important because when we talk about high blood sugar, insulin is really a key player here. I always explain it that insulin acts as the key that unlocks those muscle cells and allows glucose to get in there for us to use as energy. So when our cells become resistant to insulin as they do with type two diabetes, this process doesn’t run as smoothly, which causes glucose to remain in our blood, hang out in our bloodstream, and that shows up as high blood sugar.

Cori (02:21):
Now this being said too, and I like to bring this up because I think we can hear about a health concern, an issue, and then we start to demonize things. I just want to touch on the fact that insulin is not a bad thing. People will just demonize it. Can you talk a little bit about that because I think it’s really important we do understand the nuance of things and just don’t write something off.

Julia (02:43):
Yeah, of course. It’s totally normal to have insulin in our bodies throughout the day, like you said. I think it can be something that becomes a little bit demonized because that term insulin resistance, we get nervous and with speaking of type two diabetes, our bodies do continue to produce insulin to try to get that glucose into our cells. But for even healthy individuals, we need insulin to be able to use it every day. So it’s definitely kind of thrown around sometimes and not talked about in the best life, but it is definitely still essential for living a healthy lifestyle overall

Cori (03:19):
Or we understand these things, the more we can make sure that we’re meeting ourselves where we’re at. Because there are some negative side effects, so to speak, of having high blood sugar. Can you tell me a little bit more about those and what we need to watch for with that?

Julia (03:33):
Sure. So long-term, some of the consequences that we’ll see, things like chronic diseases, things like cardiovascular disease, non-alcoholic fatty liver disease, kidney disease, metabolic syndrome. We can also run into hormonal imbalances. So high insulin levels can lead to increased estrogen. So in women, this can manifest in things like estrogen dominance, which leads to lower progesterone, which we can see in things like polycystic ovarian syndrome. And similarly in men, this also has consequences. So this high estrogen can lead to decreased testosterone levels. And then finally, just if you’re someone out there who maybe you don’t struggle with blood sugar necessarily, maybe you’ve never gotten any bad news from your doctor, but you’re just someone who wants to lose weight and you want to live a healthier lifestyle overall, managing your blood sugar is really important for weight management. This is because insulin helps your body store glucose in the liver and muscles to fuel your body. So if you’re someone who you want to complete a body reup, this is also going to be so key that extra glucose is stored as fat, which can lead to weight gain and trouble losing weight. So also super key there.

Cori (04:41):
So whether we want to lose weight, improve our health, what can we do to balance our blood sugar?

Julia (04:49):
First off, nutrition building balanced meals. This is going to mean consuming adequate fat fiber and protein at meals. And this is because these foods really increase the time required for digestion. So that rate of gastric emptying into the small intestine is slowed, which ultimately reduces blood sugar spikes. And then in addition, since these foods are all pretty satiating, you won’t experience cravings soon after mealtime and kind of get thrown on that blood sugar roller coaster that most people feel. So you have steady energy throughout the day and you don’t have those kind of crazy sugar cravings that some people may experience. And then the second step is building the muscle mass. So increased muscle mass increases skeletal muscle glucose uptake and improves our insulin sensitivity as well. So building balanced meals and improving lean muscle are really the two best things we can do from a lifestyle perspective for managing our blood sugar.

Cori (05:42):
I love that you mentioned building lean muscle because I think that’s something that’s so often overlooked to and building lean muscle has such an impact on even our metabolic health in terms of seeing better body recomp. And when we think about, oh, I burn more calories because I’ve built lean muscle, it’s not just the actual muscle that you’re maintaining, it’s all the other bodily processes that it is promoting that also increase your energy expenditure. So I love that you bring that up because muscle’s so magical for so many different reasons. But on top of that, we are balancing our meals, we’re focusing on building lean muscle. What other little habit changes can we make that can really pay off?

Julia (06:18):
Sure. So some other things, even just walking after meals, a simple walk can help blood, that immediate glucose spike that we experience and lower those overall levels of insulin research has shown that even just walking 10 minutes has been shown to lower your blood sugar by 22%. So a pretty drastic amount. Other things to look out for managing stress when we’re stressed or insulin levels fall and more glucose is released from the liver at the same time growth hormone and cortisol levels rise, which cause the body tissues to be less sensitive to insulin. And then finally, aside from nutrition, lifestyle, all of that, something we hear so, so often but is so key, so I have to touch on is prioritizing sleep. We know that not getting enough sleep has been linked to increases in our hunger hormones or stress hormones and other things leading to an increase in glucose levels throughout the day

Cori (07:15):
And adding in more walking is only going to help us potentially sleep better. We can do a last thing in the evening after dinner. It can keep us from gnashing on other things, which might be good too to help our weight loss or body recomp efforts, but it can help us relax before going to bed sleep better, which then promotes better blood sugar balance overall, better body recom. So all these things are interconnected and we can really use them to our advantage. Going back to diet and nutrition, low carb diets are definitely popularized when it comes to balancing blood sugar. If anybody has any sort of different health concerns. Can you talk a little bit about the nuance to that and the benefits, but also the downsides

Julia (07:56):
Of course? Yeah, I mean we see so much about low carb diets today, and of course it is going to help if we’re talking in terms of blood sugar management, insulin resistance because it is essentially lowering carbs, whether it’s restricting them completely or managing the amount that we’re having to a very small portion size. So essentially, yes, it’s going to help with balancing blood sugar, but it’s important to recognize that with any low carb diet or any restrictive diet for that nature, there will be some drawbacks. So with low carb diets, we know that carbs provide fiber and energy, which really work to support our gut health, our hormones, our liver and gallbladder health, our thyroid health, our muscle growth in our body recomp efforts. So cutting out carbs completely might not necessarily be the answer for you, but instead focusing on quality and the quantity of the carbs, we can make sure that we’re managing our blood sugar and supporting our health overall versus just cutting them out completely.

(08:55):
So as far as quality, focusing on really fiber rich carbs, things like whole grains, whole wheat or sprouted bread, quinoa, brown rice, oats, beans, legumes, fruits and vegetables. And then as far as quantity, focusing on the amount that we’re having and making sure that we’re including them in balanced meals. So if you’re someone who hasn’t counted macros, this is where this can be so, so key because you can dial in on those carbohydrate amounts and make sure that you are managing that typically anywhere from a 20 to 30% or even more if you’re training really hard, can really help you at make sure that you’re managing that quantity factor of the carbohydrates.

Cori (09:34):
I think you touched on something that’s so important, and it goes back to the not demonizing anything, but understanding the nuance to it. It might not be that you even need to cut back on your carbs depending on your carb intake, it might be that you need to adjust the timing or the type, but also low carb doesn’t mean no carb and low carb can be very different for different people. Low carb for one person because of their activity level could be different than someone who’s not as active. So understanding that there might be some variation in what’s right for us is super key, but also understanding the drawbacks to something as we might try and address another health concern that we have. Now off of this, if we are looking at adjusting our carbon intake, if we’re looking at adjusting our training to building muscle, all these different things to balance our blood sugar, what are some ways we can maybe monitor our blood sugar levels if we feel we really need to?

Julia (10:21):
Of course. So first off, just asking your doctor to run some basic tests, a great one to get would be a glycosate hemoglobin A1C. This shows really a snapshot of the past two to three months of your average blood sugar over time. So a lot of times we’ll hear people say, I just got blood work done and my blood sugar was a little bit high or something. But it’s important to note that that just shows one kind of point in time, whereas that A1C really shows a snapshot of how blood sugar is controlled over those two to three months. And then you can also monitor them throughout the day. So I know some people have access to a continuous glucose monitor through their healthcare, and what this does is it tracks your glucose levels 24 7 throughout a tiny sensor that is inserted under your skin. So you can review how your blood glucose changes after meals over a few hours or day to day to really find those trends and find those things that may be spiking it or help you balancing it a little bit better.

Cori (11:18):
So off of this, there are a lot of things that we could stress over, which again, we’ll only raise our stress levels and potentially negatively impact a lot of things we’re trying to work to control, but there are a lot of different things that we could focus on or worry about or get tests done for. Who would you really recommend maybe focus on this aspect or this type of testing?

Julia (11:41):
I would say, I mean first off, obviously if you are someone who has gotten some news from your doctor regarding high blood sugar levels, a high A1C, either pre-diabetes or diabetes diagnosis, or if you are someone who maybe you’re around that menopausal time period, you are really struggling with weight gain, we know that we do become a little bit more insulin resistant during that time due to the change in hormones. So that would also be a really beneficial time to focus and dial in on balancing your blood sugar.

Cori (12:11):
I love that. I think knowing even where we can sort of bring some of these things in or pay more attention to specific things can help us not feel like we have to stress over everything. And it is remembering that the more we take things back to basics, the more we’re going to hit on a lot of different health concerns or even help ourselves avoid having certain things pop up. So don’t stress all the details before you need to, although be aware of where some of these things can come in and really play a part if you aren’t seeing the results that you want. Snowball. So final takeaways, Julia, if someone’s considering really diving into balancing their blood sugar because they have gotten some news from their doctor or they might be worried about the results and the fact that they’re not seeing them as quickly as they want, so they might think that this is part of the issue, what would you tell them to really start to focus on?

Julia (12:57):
Just main key points that you can balance it through nutrition, focusing on building balanced meals like we talked about with protein, fat, fiber and complex carbohydrates. And then secondly, maintain lean muscle mass, whether that be exercising daily, even going for the walks after meals. There’s other little things that we talked about that’s also going to be really, really huge to improve that insulin sensitivity. But also just going off of what you said, don’t feel like you need to override everything you’re doing. For some people, just focusing on one simple thing like just adding more protein into your diet, that in itself will help balance out those meals and balance blood sugar. So it doesn’t need to be a complete override of your diet. Just focusing on those small things and taking it one step at a time.

Cori (13:42):
You as a dietician, I’m sure are all about the diet. Not that I’m not all about the diet, but I have to admit I really like the tip of adding in the walks even right after meals when we can, because I think that can also be a pattern interrupt into other habits like snacking that we might be struggling to control. So a lot of these things can have other benefits in terms of changing our environment, changing our other habits, creating new routines and patterns that really help us see the results we want. Thank you so much, Julia, for joining me today. This was fabulous. Guys. If you do have any questions, comments, or concerns, don’t hesitate to comment. We will go back through and link out to any other helpful resources, answer any questions you have to really help you make sure that you’re balancing your blood sugar and seeing fabulous results. Thanks for listening to the Fitness Hack podcast. Again, this is the place where I share all my free work, workout, nutrition tips. I’m never going to run sponsorships or ask you to buy anything. All I ask in return is if you’re enjoying the podcast to leave a rating review or share it with somebody you think it might help. This will only take a few minutes and it would mean the world to me and possibly change life of someone you know

*Please Note: this transcript is auto-generated and there may be some errors in the transcript

Cori (00:00):
Hey guys, this is Cori from Redefining Strength. Welcome to the Fitness Hacks Podcast. This is the show where I share all my free workout and nutrition tips. I’m not going to ever fill this episode with sponsorships or ask you to buy anything. All I ask in return is if you’re enjoying the podcast to leave a review or leave a five star rating or even better share with someone you think it might help. This will only take a few minutes and would mean the world to me and possibly change the life of someone. So let’s jump right in. You can do hard things. Many of you know that my favorite or one of my favorite sayings is suck it up Buttercup, because I think that a lot of times we have to encourage ourselves to overcome the hard, to embrace the difficult situations and sort of pick ourselves up and keep on moving forward. And that’s why I’m super excited today to dive into the power of grit with Sara. Sara is one of my fabulous coach managers. Sara, thank you so much for being here with me today.

Sara (00:56):
Hi, Cori. Thank you so much for having me. I’m super excited as well.

Cori (01:01):
So talking about grit and us being able to do hard things, can you talk a little bit about why this is so important, what grit really is, and then how it can contribute to our success?

Sara (01:13):
Yeah, absolutely. And I would say I want to start with, it’s so important because I felt it in my own life. Just like you said, one of your favorite things is suck it up buttercup. I think so too, and I’ve had to tell myself a similar saying of that over the years and going through hard things for myself. I found that overcoming them, and you can’t get it from going through it. You can’t go under it. You can’t go over it. You have to go through it. And by going through it yourself and overcoming it, it gives you this confidence that you just can’t have by not doing it. Right. So what is grit? I think grit is the secret sauce to getting to your full potential. It’s really finding, well, let me do the definition of it because I think this is important as well.

(02:06):
The definition is courage and resolve or strength of character, and then to have the drive stamina and determination to push through any challenge or obstacle thrown your way until you succeed. And I think that’s so important for us, whether we are on a fitness journey, a health journey, any part of our life, because we can’t earn competence. I’m sorry. We do earn confidence. We don’t just magically get it. We don’t just have it. It is by earned. And so how can we look for hard things is going to give us that confidence that we may be lacking and are wanting.

Cori (02:48):
I love that you bring up that you’ve seen this in your own life. Play out because I think so often we can feel alone in our struggles. We feel like we’re the only one going through the hard that has to encounter it, that they run out of willpower. But really everybody has encountered some sort of struggle in their life and success isn’t the opposite or not having struggles, it is just overcoming them. It’s how many times can you keep picking yourself back up? And we see this confidence, the strength being built physically and mentally and often even on our fitness journeys. We see some of the things that we overcome as translating into confidence in everyday life, like other areas of our life. In terms of how you’ve seen this really play out with clients or how you work with clients to build that grit, what do you do in terms of encouraging it, helping other people overcome struggles? As you said, we’ve all gone through them, but it’s not necessarily easy to embrace that.

Sara (03:42):
I think when working with clients, I will always like to having them take a step back because when we’re in it ourselves, sometimes we’re in the hard, it just sucks, right? You think that you’re the only one. You’re like, oh my gosh, I can’t believe this is happening to me again. And I like to have them really take a step back and really think about, if you were talking to your best friend or your niece, would you say those mean things you say to her or him as you say to ourselves? Because our thoughts and the things we say to ourself are part of that. And so I always say, let’s take a step back. Let’s look at how we’re talking to ourself and then let’s look at this as a challenge and as something that, oh my gosh, think about something in the past you’ve overcome in the heart and you got, how good did you feel on the other side?

(04:34):
Now sometimes it’s a little hard to recognize that when we’re in it, but yet if we have think of it as a challenge and as a growth, this is going to help us grow. Even though it’s hard and even though it sucks, I always share, you’re not alone, but going through that, you’ll come out the other side. And even if it’s just accomplished that you got through it, maybe you don’t win. Maybe you don’t win the race, maybe you feel like a failure, but I believe there’s no failure. It’s always learning. And if we can use that, even that mindset, just like we have to suck it up sometimes, but yet if we think if we’re failing and reframe it as we’re learning and we can actually help our brain refire and feel like it’s learning instead of failing and feeling like a failure,

Cori (05:25):
It really is all that reframing. And going back to talking to yourself as you would a friend, what would you say to them? You wouldn’t say that they were a failure ever just because they didn’t necessarily hit their goal or they didn’t win the race or they did have a little setback. Instead you would encourage them to keep going. You’d say, well, hey, what did you learn from this experience? So I love that you brought up that reframing and even taking that step back to talk to yourself as you would a friend, because I think so often we don’t even recognize the language we’re using with ourselves and how different it would be from how we would encourage somebody else and how that might be holding us back. Speaking about failures, it is something that I feel like often stops us from even getting started, that fear of failing. And I love that you mentioned that it’s really a learning experience. How can you start to embrace the struggles might lead to some setbacks, might lead to not seeing results right away might lead to what feels like failing and recognize that is part of the journey.

Sara (06:22):
I think the thought process around what we’re doing, and a lot of times it’s not actually the fear of failure necessarily, it’s the fear of being seen at somebody’s watching us fail. And I say this myself as well because as I’m just going to use an example. When I ran my first half marathon as a trainer, I felt like I should win. I should be the best. And honestly, I wasn’t very good. I barely finished. And so that kind of felt like a failure in that moment. I mean, I felt really, really proud, don’t get me wrong, but it kind of felt like a failure in that moment, and I just had to really think about it. I would’ve just ran 13 miles. There is no failing about that. I would’ve been happy if I crossed across the finish line. But it’s that mindset of like, okay, are we actually failing or are we worried about what other people think?

(07:18):
And I think that recognizing that too, of if you are afraid of other people seeing you fail again. Because as we go throughout our life, lots of people we’ll say, I’ve tried everything and I failed. But the reality is is that, well, you haven’t tried the right thing, I always say, but it’s also learning to recognize that, don’t use that as letting it down or letting you get down. Use it as this isn’t a failure, this is learning. And at least I’m trying. I do say the cheesy thing, at least I lapped everybody on the couch. And that has gotten me through a lot of times too. But it’s cheesy, but it’s true. There’s lots of people who are not trying and therefore they’re not going to fail, but they’re also not going after their goals and probably feeling super, feeling underwhelmed as well.

Cori (08:11):
What you just mentioned with someone saying they’ve tried everything and failed, it sparks something that I’m like, this is actually very interesting because we think, oh, I’m afraid of failing publicly. There is that sort of not peer pressure, but we don’t want to be seen as a failure in other people’s eyes, but we are trying. And if you’re not trying, that’s more potentially true failure, but then you’re also not putting yourself to actually fail. So there’s a safety mechanism there. But in thinking about that, I’ve tried everything and failed often. We haven’t, as you said, tried the right things, but we haven’t truly tried anything. We’ve said we’re going to do something and we halfheartedly go about doing it. But the second we get to that same hard, we turn back. Instead of risking failing at that next challenge, failing to get to the next level, failing to push our comfort zone, we turn back.

(09:02):
And so in our fear of failure, we fail and we still tell ourselves we’re a failure. So if you start to think about it that way and be like, Hmm, every time I’m turning back, I feel like a failure anyway. Why not push through the hard? Why not take that risk and fall down? Because if you’re going to feel like you failed anyway, might as well actually put yourself out there to be a little uncomfortable, because that’s where we get ourselves stuck in that change loop. We make a new change, we start a new program, but at that same hard point where the going gets rough, where we’re really pushing that comfort zone where we have to stick with things even though results aren’t snowballing, where maybe now we’re publicly announcing a goal and other people might know that we didn’t do it or we didn’t do as well as we’d like, or whatever else it is, we turn back. But again, you can fail in the way that you know, had that setback and that failure, you didn’t accomplish what you wanted or you can just not do it, not put yourself out there for the risk, but still tell yourself you’re a failure anyway. So if you think about that, it’s a very interesting mindset where it’s like, why not do the hard, right?

Sara (10:01):
Yeah, absolutely. And if you think about just what you said with comfort zone, our brain naturally wants to stay in our comfort zone. It wants to keep us safe, and comfort zone is safe. And so just like you said, if we get out of that comfort zone and we push ourselves either way, and I don’t want to say either way, we’re failing because we’re not going to fail either way, but we’re definitely going to learn and grow and feel more like accomplished at the end of the day, if at least we’re trying. And at least we’re focused on what is going to help us, whether it be, again, have a lower body fat percentage, a higher muscle, have it be the clothes you wear, the fit the way that you want to, and or your life, your dream life, those big goals that may be stuffed down.

(10:53):
We all have them and sometimes we got so used to hiding them and stuffing them down because maybe we shared with the wrong people who were stifled our ghost. You can’t do that. Who do you think you are? Maybe somebody really knocked you down when you shared their goal with them. And I like to share, we have to share our goals and our dreams with the right people because people who are farther along than you are never going to put you down. I would never ever find somebody who’s going after their goals and be like, you can’t do that because I’m fighting for mine too. And you’re too, right? But the people who are feeling bad about themselves and aren’t getting to their goals are the ones that are going to stifle everybody. So that’s where I say sharing with the right people and getting around people who are going after their goals, getting into fitness, doing some of those healthy things with their life makes a big difference.

Cori (11:51):
You have to find that community because as you said, the people that often are going to punch down on your goals, trample your goals are the people that are feeling maybe they can’t work towards theirs as well. And it actually came up on a coaching call with clients yesterday, well, how do you even know what’s possible? How do you know what’s a lofty goal and something achievable and something that’s delusional? And I commented back and I just said, I think we all need to be a little bit more delusional in our goals because we don’t truly know what is possible until we prove it possible. And no, there are some things you’re like, okay, realistically I’m not going to accomplish this, or genetically I’m not going to get any taller. There’s certain things we can’t change at the same time. There’s so much that we really can control if we give ourself the opportunity to move forward.

(12:35):
And if you shoot for 10 times and end up only achieving two times, you’re still going to have moved forward and probably seen a lot more progress than you thought possible than you even wanted before. You might amaze yourself in what you’ve overcome, and that can translate to even success in other areas. So it is very important that we find that community, but also in finding that community, you’re going to recognize how the most successful people have failed the most. I mean, think about the movies we like to watch, we to watch people who have overcome things that have had setbacks and keep going. And so we’re our own hero or heroine. Why don’t we want to write that story ourselves and celebrate our failures as part of our journey to the success that we’ve had, knowing that we wouldn’t be where we are without them? Right?

Sara (13:21):
Yeah, absolutely. I think sometimes we just with that example of we don’t always want to share while we’re in it don’t always, sometimes we’re embarrassed. We have thoughts that aren’t. We’re like, oh, I don’t want to share, but we recognize what we overcame and then we’ll share more down the road. But I find the most value is that if we can share with people, whether it be a coach like me or with your bestie or with people that while you’re going through it and really learn while you’re going through it, because the most we forget really fast, all of us do, right? Sometimes, sometimes it’s like, what did I say yesterday? So if we write it down, if while we’re going through it, and even if it’s writing down everything that you can think of and journaling, and then maybe a day, maybe a week, we reflect on it and we reflect of what could I have done differently?

(14:19):
If anything, sometimes it is, sometimes it’s like say we feel we failed at a party. Sometimes it was that what we could have done differently is that we ate more protein before we went. We were more cognizant of going and starving. And sometimes it’s like I did the best I could with what I had. I wouldn’t really change anything. And now I know moving forward I can get through that, not always feeling like I’m failing at it, but yet at the same time, moving forward, going through it while you’re in it and learning from it. And I think that growth piece of there is just like you said, being your own heroine, your own hero. What would you do? What would you say to somebody else? And I say that a lot to my clients as well, because we are the worst critics to ourselves.

(15:02):
Believe me. I’ve said the meanest things to myself and I’ve ever said, I would never say what I’ve said to myself in the past to anybody else, but at the same time, we can learn to capture those thoughts. We can capture those maybe the mean girl inside of you and use it to our advantage to then find more hard things because we went through this hard thing. And sometimes if you do something hard and you go through, it could be totally non-related of I want to do more hard things, nervous, even me this morning, I’m nervous, but yet nervous and excitement are so close together. I’ve changed my words. I’m no longer nervous. I’m excited. And so I’m excited to look for hard things. That doesn’t mean I don’t still feel fear, but we just learned to move through it and grow through it and really find then afterwards, man, it feels so good.

Cori (15:54):
It is reminding yourself of how good it feels in overcoming something. And even in embracing more hard things, you become more comfortable being uncomfortable in different ways. So it is that growth mindset and there are lots of different ways to approach it, and you’ve got to find what works for you. It might be saying, Hey, I turned back at a specific wall. I’ve got to lower the wall a little bit in order to go over this first hurdle. Maybe you break down the changes so they’re not quite as hard and it’s just pushing your comfort zone a little bit. So it’s slowly expanding versus you just punch punching through and running away from it. So you can maybe sometimes break things down, but even off of that, sometimes the other approach of overwhelming yourself even more makes it easier. We talk a lot about breaking down habit changes, breaking down the hard so that it’s more manageable and it’s not pushing your comfort zone quite so much so that you want to run away in fear.

(16:42):
But I also think that sometimes just giving yourself way too much can be good. While it can create overwhelm often it can also create a feeling of, well, I’m going to fail, and that’s almost freeing this thing of like, well, this is just way too hard. There’s no way I can do all of this and this time, therefore I’m just do what I can. And there’s something freeing and feeling like if it’s too much and you’re just guaranteed to fail, it’s like, okay, well, I’m not a failure because it’s sort of guaranteed, so then I’m just going to see what I can accomplish. And then getting that momentum going forward. Ultimately you do achieve that goal and you overcome a lot of hard stuff. So I think it’s really stepping back sometimes, as you said, to learn about yourself, reflect on the experience, but see how your mindset is and how you’ve handled hard things in the past and trying to overcome them.

(17:25):
Because it might be that you’ve overwhelmed yourself and you need to back off, or it might be that maybe you’re giving yourself two small pieces. And so when you fail at these things that you feel like should be easy, that makes you turn back. And so if you actually overwhelm yourself and tell yourself that you’re just, it’s going to be hard, you’re going to fail. You’re automatically freed from that because it’s just sort of an assured thing. And so anything you accomplish is great in terms of how you approach stuff with clients, getting them to take that first step because again, it is that growth mindset. It is reminding ourselves of how we’re talking to friends and using that language with ourselves. What would be one step you would have a client take forward if they’re like, I’ve always turned back at the heart and I feel myself hitting that ceiling right now.

Sara (18:06):
I always like to in that moment, go back to your why. And I think that our why is one of the most important things I have seen ultimately, clients overcome so many things when their why was strong enough. So for example, this is a one that I’ve seen a lot of big ones, is that they get a diagnosis from their doctor, and it’s either this or this. It’s either you’re on medication or you’re doing something or that type of thing. So that is a big smack in the face, but we don’t always get that right. So to think about it as a smaller thing, what is your why? Because when we take away all of the nitty gritty, how hard maybe exercise is or how hard tracking our food is or how hard it is to say no to our favorite drinks when we’re out on the boat in the summer, those things are challenging.

(18:59):
But if we think about what our why is and typically our why is related to inspiring others, whether it be our children, our grandchildren, or our nieces, nephews, that type of thing. And so when we think of that and we think about our deep why, it comes back to I don’t want maybe someone else to go through what I went through. And that makes the hard things, the hard small things, maybe that roadblock, like you said, right? That roadblock that we ran into of like, well, why are you doing this? Why is it important to you? Is this, even though it feels big at the time, being very aware of this probably feels like a big roadblock to you right now. But in that grand scheme of things, what would you do if you got gritty and you climbed the wall with a rope, right?

(19:45):
Think about your hands bleeding and get very visual. We think about our hands bleeding, climbing that rope, but that’s what it takes to get over it. So in our mind, we’re using that as a roadblock and it feels like a roadblock. But what about just like a GPS? You turn it on and they’ll reroute, reroute, and that’s what we have to do. Maybe the path that we’re on isn’t the exact path, but don’t quit. Don’t go to the easier thing. Don’t jump to the next thing, but use that. This is hard in the moment. I have to go back to my why. I have to remember why I am doing this, and then go through the hard and visualize those hard things. It makes me laugh when I say it out loud, but these are things that when you think about your really hard part and physical, the rope in your hands and how much that hurts and the blisters you might get, that’s what this is about. It is about the hard parts in our brain and overcoming them as well,

Cori (20:45):
Maybe it makes me really sick, but the second you’re talking about climbing that rope your hand’s bleeding, but you keep going. I’m like, yeah, that’s instantly what my brain does. The motivation comes back. You talk about how motivation is sweeting, but we can create it through that. And even in that, when you’re talking about your why, sometimes we go, oh, well, I want to lose five van 80 pounds. Maybe I’m not really motivated to do this. But it’s always tied to something deeper. And part of what it can simply be tied to is us proving to ourselves we can accomplish something we thought we couldn’t, that we had the commitment, the willpower, the drive, the determination, the confidence to accomplish something that seemed like it was habits, challenges, or changes that we weren’t able to do before. Because I bring this up a lot of times where I first wanted to get leaner, I would make the excuse, I liked food too much, I can’t do this.

(21:32):
It’s not really important to me. And at some point I was like, but it’s not really about the aesthetic goal. It’s about the fact that I keep telling myself I can’t make all these hard habit changes because I just don’t have the willpower. And I want to prove to myself how much stronger I actually am that I can have control over anything I choose to have control over that I can work towards any goal I set, even if this one might be more of a vanity goal. But we have to remember that that confidence, that strength is built through what we overcome, and it’s only through pushing the hard that we’re going to achieve it, that people aren’t just naturally sort of gifted with this. Yes, people have more confidence, less confidence, it can seem natural, but a lot of it is built through how they push themselves to keep moving forward through things. And I love that visual because for me, right away when you’re saying that, I’m like, yes, okay, I’m going to go. I’m going to do this. Let’s climb. Let’s go push through the heart. There is a good feeling to it.

Sara (22:24):
Exactly. And I think I always laugh, and we talked about this before too, but as trainers, we almost love that physical piece of where you hate us in the moment, but you’re going to love me in about two hours. So I think when we can learn to recognize that in ourselves as well, I know why it’s so hard in the moment because we’re pushing you past your limit. And then in, like I said, a couple hours, whether it’s the endorphins, the endorphin rush that we get, or when you get those goals, that’s what all that hard work was about. And being like you said, maybe it feels it’s just not that important. However, when you get up every morning, what do we have to do? We all have to put on clothes. Well, I hope we do. Right? Some sort of clothes, some, and if you feel confident right out of the gate in the morning, yeah, I feel good. I got my clothes. Or you feel frumpy and you feel down, how do you think that affects our day? It either sets you on the trajectory of, and I’m not saying you’re always going to have a great day because your clothes fit, but it sets you on the trajectory of having a small win, just like making our bed a small win in the morning that helps set the other day, the rest of the day, excuse me, to be on, even if it’s a little bit better of a mindset.

Cori (23:46):
And it comes back to you have so much power and control over that. And even just looking in the mirror and smiling at yourself to yourself, as silly as it might seem, can really change that mindset. Flip the script, put you on that trajectory to want to overcome more things. Because the more you do, the more you do, the more you put yourself out there to overcome things, the more confident and stronger you feel. Any closing thoughts, Sarah? For somebody who’s like, I’ve really struggled to have that grit to believe that I can do hard things.

Sara (24:16):
Yeah, I think, and one of the things that I hear a lot too is like, well, I don’t have confidence in myself because I have not things. And I would say kind of like you said, mentioned earlier about setting realistic goals, and I agree sometimes we have to go with something so big that is exciting. I’m a big dreamer and I share this a lot. I have to go so big. So it’s exciting. So that way, and again, you have to then chunk it down to make smaller goals. So something like, today I’m going to drink more water. You start there and then you follow through with one small thing and then you’re like, right, got four days, got seven days. Maybe one day you had a crappy day at work and you forgot. Instead of beating ourselves up and being, see, I can’t even do the small things.

(25:11):
We’d get back on again because if you do six out of seven days, it’s still better than zero out of seven. But we’re recognizing that it doesn’t always have to be this huge, huge thing that you’re going to get right away, but for having a big goal and for doing something exciting, having that and knowing that each little thing matters and each little thing that you’re going to do. And I always say, what is the biggest needle mover? Because I do think that there are many things that we can do and we can get overwhelmed with, I have to eat good, I have to exercise, I have to do. That’s kind of how my brain feels too. I’m like, but if we start with the small thing and we think of it as this small thing is going to get me to the next thing and then to the next thing, it takes away that fear of the big, hard, big failure, but yet it keeps you excited because maybe it’s something that you are really passionate about.

(26:05):
That’s where grit comes. We have to have that passion. We have to have that perseverance and then the resilience and that resilience is by going through it, maybe taking a couple steps back, but the great saying, get up, dust off your jeans and keep going. And so last thing I would say is instead of feeling like you are stuck or in a really hard spot, even though you may truthfully be knowing that finding hard things, getting around, having your community, getting around people who are doing things, you are naturally going to want to do it. You’re going to feel the energy, you’re going to feel how they feel. Maybe you go watch something and you feel that energy. And so getting around them, getting around people who are doing hard things and you recognize I can do hard things too, because you can.

Cori (27:02):
I love that finding that energy because I do think that’s so key. And whether it’s creating it through the community, through your visualization, through remembering the purpose of all the little things you’re doing, you can really create that motivation in the moment to keep going. And then it’s celebrating each of those things. And I do like that you said break it down with purpose and the find the biggest needle movers, because I think those things give us motivation in that we’re seeing progress forward. We have the purpose to each thing we’re doing, so we understand why, because that’s so important over just being like, well, I’m doing this because I was told to do it right. You see a greater bigger picture with it basically. And then on top of that, it’s like celebrating each of those things that you’ve accomplished as an accomplishment, because so often we write them off and only focus on where we have to go still.

(27:44):
Instead of looking back in our rear view mirror to recognize how far we’ve come and when we see all that we’ve already even overcome on the journey, it can help motivate us to keep pushing. But I love that idea of finding that energy because I think often we do get psyched up by those things, and that can give us that little extra to push through on those times where we’re feeling a little down or we’re counting that hard to have that grit to keep moving forward because we can do hard things and strengthen confidence or built through what we overcome. Thanks for listening to the Fitness Hack podcast. Again. This is the place where I share all my free workout and nutrition tips. I’m never going to run sponsorships or ask you to buy anything. All I ask in return is if you’re enjoying the podcast to leave a rating, review or share it with someone you think it might help. This will only take a few minutes, and it would mean the world to me and possibly change life with someone.

Cori (00:00):
Hey guys, this is Cori from Redefining Strength. Welcome to the Fitness Hacks Podcast. This is the show where I share all my free workout and nutrition tips. I’m not going to ever fill this episode with sponsorships or ask you to buy anything. All I ask in return is if you’re enjoying the podcast to leave a review or leave a five star rating or even better share it with somebody you think it might help. This will only take a few minutes and would mean the world to me and possibly change the life of someone. So let’s jump right in. We can define how we age. I am a big believer in not letting that number, our trips around the sun define what we can and cannot do, but we also need to address that as we get older, our body needs and goals change, even if it’s purely because our lifestyle has evolved over the years. And a lot of times when we go to addressing these changes, we think let’s adjust our workouts, let’s adjust our macros. But our micros can have a huge impact on how our body is functioning on the energy levels that we have, how we’re conquering our day, how we’re conquering our workout session, which is why I’m super excited to be joined by Michelle today to dive into those micros and how they can really help you define how you age. So Michelle, thank you so much for joining me today.

Michelle (01:11):
Thanks for having me.

Cori (01:13):
So a big micro we want to focus on is magnesium. And I think it’s funny how much you nerd out about this and it makes my nerd heart happy. So I’d love to go straight into magnesium and the impact it can really have and all the nuance to this micronutrients.

Michelle (01:33):
Yeah, so magnesium is in over 300 enzymatic reactions that your body actually does. So it can help from anything from muscle cramps to stress, anxiety, sleep, constipation, and hundreds of others. But those are the big things that people like to focus on, and those are the biggest complaints people have as they age is actually their stress increases, anxiety increases. They may all of a sudden notice that they’re more sore after workouts and are dealing more with more muscle cramps and all of a sudden sleep is being affected from the cramps or just in general, they’re having sleep difficulties. And magnesium is one of the very first things I want to look at for them because as we age, our need for it does actually increase. So it is something that we do want to pay a little bit more attention to.

Cori (02:24):
It’s so important that we realize how interconnected everything is. I love that you brought up cramps and not sleeping because a lot of times we won’t think, oh, well I’m not sleeping because of this. And so the more we start to see how everything is so connected and then boil it down to, well, what’s one small change I can make that can impact multiple different things at once, the better off we’re going to be. But it’s not as simple as just get more magnesium. I know there are a lot of different variations that we might want to focus on, and I think when we oversimplify or over complicate, we get into a lot of trouble. So the more we can learn about the nuance and really the variations that can help us, the more we can make sure that we’re getting exactly what we need or we’re just throwing a whole bunch of spaghetti at the wall hoping something sticks. So can you talk a little bit more about the different types of magnesium and how to really determine what we might need?

Michelle (03:11):
And I’m just going to remind everyone we did post at magnesium quiz that will actually lead you to a type that may be more beneficial for you. So if you haven’t taken that, go ahead and take it because it will also kind of help guide you. But the main ones we’re going to focus on, and there is quite a few, but the top three are going to be magnesium glycinate or BG glycinate. You may see either one kind of on the shelf, but that’s really going to help your sleep. It’s going to help improve a variety of inflammatory conditions, including the heart. So this is one, if you are someone that may have some heart health related issues or a family history of heart related diseases, that may be something that you want to actually pay a little bit more attention to. It’s easily absorbed and it does help with anxiety, depression, stress, and even insomnia.

(04:02):
So that’s going to be kind of the first one to kind of look at. The next one I do want to cover is magnesium malate. So again, it’s going to be well absorbed in the digestive track. It is a great option for of course replenishing your overall magnesium levels, but this one’s a little bit more gentle on the system and it does have less of a laxative effect. So if you’re someone that isn’t really suffering from constipation, because I will say if you incorporate magnesium, almost every single type of magnesium is going to help your bowel movements. So if that’s not a big concern, this may be kind of the type that you want to lean more towards because it isn’t going to have as big as a laxative effect as the other types. The last one I’m going to bring up is, and always going to say, I’m probably going to say it wrong, so bear with me, but magnesium L 3 0 8 and this form, again easily absorbed. It’s often used because of its brain benefits. So if you are someone that is really suffering from high anxiety depression or even if again, if you have a history or family history of dementia, Alzheimer’s, any age related memory loss, this is going to be one that’s going to actually benefit you. And again, all of them are going to benefit the other areas as well. These ones just tend to be better absorbed and are better for either the brain or the heart or just may have a little bit of that less laxative effect.

Cori (05:32):
It’s really interesting hearing about all the different purposes and benefits of the different types of magnesium because I think a lot of times too when we just use an overarching one, we might be like, oh, well this really isn’t paying off. And then ultimately stop doing something that really could benefit us just because we didn’t select the right type. And even going off of that a little bit, you brought up, we need more as we get older. And I think that’s something we don’t often, we think, oh, I’m not deficient in it. Not, Hey, my needs have actually increased for X, Y, and Z reasons and be it aging or be it even hormone changes. I know especially during menopause, you often recommend magnesium. Can you talk a little bit more about why it can be really helpful during menopause? Help us manage those symptoms.

Michelle (06:17):
Yeah, so you are going to experience lots of changes that are just going to happen. You have no control over it because when your body changes, hormones are going to change during menopause and a lot of times this is actually going to affect your muscle function and it actually includes muscle tension cramps. So this is why I focus a lot on muscle cramps, muscle soreness and kind of sleep because a lot of people recognize they maybe have a little bit of restless leg syndrome when they’re trying to go to sleep or they start to fill things cramp when they’re going to sleep, and that actually is their hormones actually are playing a part into that. Another part of that is you simply require more water when you are in menopause as well, which also can lead to increased muscle tension when you’re working out. I loved, again, I’m going to say if you haven’t even go back to the comment sections on the post that we did on Monday, because I was loving seeing people even what they were accommodating because someone had made a comment of I started taking magnesium and I didn’t even recognize it, but now that you’re saying it, I’m looking back and I am feeling less sore after I do my workouts.

(07:24):
So sometimes you had mentioned, sometimes you may not even notice, but once you start connecting the dots, you’re going to see that this actually plays effect in multiple ways. And one of the biggest things that I think magnesium does not get enough credit for because it’s harder to recognize is anxiety and depression. When you hit menopause, your hormones do actually affect your anxiety levels and your depression. So when you take magnesium, that can actually be a huge benefit to it. And I don’t think that gets talked enough about people who are going through menopause is kind of the mental health side of it. And one of the biggest things that I love about this is if you’ve ever been someone that has dealt with depression, and I sometimes compare postpartum depression to perimenopause and menopause because the hormones are kind of similar and your reaction is similar, but when you are dealing with that, you do not recognize how low you are in the moment. It’s only after you kind of start coming out of that fog that you kind of look back and you’re like, oh yeah, I was. So if you were in that stage, you may not even realize right now that, oh, that would benefit me. But it may be something that if you connect the dots and you think about and kind of reflect, you’ll find that the magnesium actually is allowing you to have a more calming effect in your day, help you reduce some of that stress and even calm some of that nervous system for you.

Cori (08:52):
I also think so often these days we talk about different things like hormone health or mental health even as being slightly out of our control and something we just have to manage or accept instead of really diving into our lifestyles and seeing all the things we can do to make improvements in our mental functioning, in faculties and in our hormone balance and health. And so instead of just saying, oh, well this is the way it is, this has to impact everything else. Say, okay, well this does impact everything else and I want to navigate around it and own it, but what else can I adjust to see better improvements? Because by focusing on magnesium, by really dialing in your micros, you’re going to improve your health. And then if it has these other payoffs, all the better and you don’t even realize how much that snowball can really impact so many other areas that you weren’t even trying to impact.

(09:42):
And that’s why diving into the nuance and while this can feel like it’s overcomplicating things because there’s so many details, it can really help you get to the one thing you need and know that there are opportunities and options out there. So moving on from Magnesium Next Micro, you want people to pay attention to really help us define how we’re aging and age so that we feel our most fabulous to our final day on the planet, this planet, because I’m sorry, I’m never going to accept that I can’t control enough to keep moving and feeling my best. So next micro,

Michelle (10:13):
I really want to kind of cover Selenium. And this one doesn’t necessarily increase with age, but it has a pretty powerful effect. And again, I just don’t think it gets the recognition that it actually deserves. And one thing that I think is huge is a lot of times what I hear when people are aging is, and how it would actually increase the needs is a lot of times people just find through age that their thyroid activity levels change. So whether you are recognizing that you have low T levels, selenium actually helps increase your thyroid activity. So just ensuring that you’re taking adequate amounts is going to make a big difference. And it does also not just help with your thyroid health, but it’s going to help with your antioxidant defense, your immune function, and even potentially your cognitive health. So again, it’s also going to help that brain health.

(11:10):
I think that’s so huge. I am going to give a little warning. I know when people hear magnesium, when people hear me going off on a particular mineral, oftentimes the response is, well, I’m just going to eat a ton. I’m going to get tons of it. So especially with Selenium, I’m going to say with the caveat, there’s always going to be such a thing as too much. And Selenium is one of those, which I think is why it doesn’t get recognized as often because it can be overdone and you can have some negative effects if you overdo it. But this is really again why I think it’s so crucial to make sure you’re getting adequate amounts even though this is a trace, it’s an essential trace mineral, but it is critical, has critical roles in various bodily functions.

Cori (11:57):
And going off of that on thyroid health and getting older, we often don’t realize, and I always take it back to the lifestyle, all the different factors that can really accumulate and have an impact where as we’re going through menopause, we might’ve heard the lower carb is really key to helping us navigate some insulin resistance. We might be seeing it might be more beneficial for fat loss during that time. But on the flip side, if we cut our carbs too low, that can have an impact on thyroid health as well. So you want to make sure that you’re really tracking what you’re doing as you’re making changes to make the most accurate ones. And I know it can feel a little overwhelming to start. I know it can feel a little tedious, but the more you’re tracking these things, the more you can make sure that you’re making changes that actually meet you where you’re at, whether you’re adjusting those micros or even paying attention again to those macros and the impact they’re having. But don’t just write yourself off or say, this is something I can’t control or change. See all the different ways you can really adjust your lifestyle to move and feel your best. And going off of that, if someone was now like, oh no, what if I’m getting too much? How would I know what are some of the negative side effects they might see just so they can be aware?

Michelle (13:01):
So there’s going to be big things like hair loss, a lot of gastrointestinal distress. Those are going to be probably the two biggest signs, but a lot of it is you’re just going to kind of feel crummy overall. But if you’re starting to notice hair loss and you’re getting enough protein, you’re getting enough of the other essential nutrients and calories, you may want to look at selenium because that’s going to be kind of a tell sign that you may be overdoing it. And this is something I do recommend for a lot of people who again are in the menopausal age or have low T levels, I’ve actually had people be able to up their selenium and actually lower their thyroid medication. And one of the best sources of selenium is actually going to be Brazil nuts. But because it is so rich, again, this isn’t you all of a sudden sitting down and having half a cup to two cups of selenium, or sorry, Brazil nuts, this is really, there’s enough in about one or two Brazil nuts that you are more than covered for your daily needs.

(14:04):
So if that’s something that you can incorporate, it’s one of those things like you can eat it as a healthy fat and you’re going to get your selenium. And I love so much that you brought up how your diet can actually play a huge role in your micronutrients because it is something that as you are adjusting your intake, oftentimes selenium is one that kind of does get decreased. So I think that is so huge to know that you can get it from a food source like Brazil nuts, but often I’ve had lots of people that also are just like, I really just don’t like Brazil nuts. That’s not going to be something you’ve ever see me snacking on. And that’s okay too. There are of course you can always supplement with it as well.

Cori (14:45):
And off of that when someone’s adjusting their diet to make sure they’re really getting enough, we often talk about eating the rainbow, but I know that a lot of times too, it’s focusing on those macro portions. So even paying attention to how you’re hitting your protein sources, so not just getting more fruits and vegetables, but even diversity in some of those other things that can be very helpful as well. Correct.

Michelle (15:07):
Yeah, absolutely. Seafood and meat and poultry, those are also going to have selenium in them. And I know we’ve talked about this before in past even podcasts and videos, but protein is full of micronutrients and you’re not just sitting down and just getting amino acids from your protein. You are getting lots of micronutrients as well.

Cori (15:30):
And now moving on to another micro, we’ve talked about this a little bit more recently because it hasn’t gotten the love that it really deserves. I think in terms of bone health and bone health is something we need to pay attention to as we get older. I’m sorry, I want to avoid falls and fractures and I think almost everybody else does too. We want to move our best, we want to be strong. We don’t want to be out with aches and pains and injuries. So taking care of our bone health to stay our most fabulous is really key. We talk about calcium, we talk about vitamin D, but vitamin K is also really important. Can you talk a little bit about what it really does, why it’s so important and how it contributes?

Michelle (16:04):
Yeah. So vitamin K is a protein that’s going to be actually involved in the bone mineralization. So it actually is essential for that protein to come in and actually be able to mineralize your bones and make them stronger. So as you mentioned, we are at a huge increased risk for osteoporosis as we age. And one of the things too that I think it’s kind of overlooked and we were talking about how diet changes and that changes is kind of what your intake is. But one of the thing that is very common is that as women go through menopause, they actually find they can become a little bit lactose intolerant or lactose sensitive. So all of a sudden their dairy actually decreases. And we know you can consume calcium and vitamin D and those things from other sources, but your intake does kind of go down.

(16:54):
And this is really where it’s even more important to kind of pay attention to vitamin K because you kind of want to capitalize and make the most out of what you are consuming. And vitamin K is actually really going to be useful in actually making sure that the calcium and vitamin D is being brought in to your bones to actually make them stronger and harder. And another thing with vitamin K is it actually is very important for your cardiovascular health estrogen. I know we’ve mentioned this before in the past, but estrogen is heart protective. You actually are at lower risk for heart related diseases prior to menopause. Now once you hit menopause, your risk actually becomes the same as men. So up until that point, our risk is at a lot lower than men and then once we hit menopause, all of a sudden it’s equaled out. So we do want to make sure that we are also paying attention for vitamin K, vitamin K because it’s going to help prevent the calcification of arteries and other soft tissues that can lead to cardiovascular diseases.

Cori (17:59):
And off of this we talk about how much our body does change with age and hormone changes have an impact. We also have to consider previous dieting practices when we’re talking about some of these nutritional gaps that we might need to address. Because a lot of times in trying to diet down and achieve a specific aesthetic goal or in a training for different things, our fueling might not have been our focus in terms of our health. We often have like, okay, I just need to eat enough to get through this race or this training session or I need to eat to lose weight. And so our focus isn’t on these micronutrients or even the types of foods that we’re restricting. And so because of those previous dieting practices, sometimes we’ve created elimination of foods that are really key to helping us to address those nutritional gaps as we get older.

(18:45):
So as you mentioned, if you’ve ever feared dairy for weight loss, because I know that was something that became a topic in the bodybuilding realms where it was like, oh, would this cause inflammation and I’ll allow you to lose that belly fat. So if you’ve ever feared something, you need to address how it can fit into your diet and why you actually feared it, because a lot of times that might not be serving you well when addressing the nutritional needs as you get older. So just also note, it’s not just your age, it’s not just hormone changes, it’s all the previous diet practices that we’ve even done that can now have an impact on what we need and the changes we need to make to meet our body where it’s at now. So talking about anything else on vitamin K or any other micronutrients that you really think are key that people need to pay attention to as they get older and even how that might impact how they go about achieving an aesthetic goal with the changes they’re seeing, they don’t fall back into old patterns.

Michelle (19:41):
Yeah, I think the biggest thing is, like I mentioned, is really capitalizing on what you are intaking because you brought up some key points. So often have I seen people that are looking to diet down or slim down, they immediately go to the elimination. And what’s really hard with that is you are going to all of a sudden be losing out of a whole food source that was going to be high in certain things. So it is going to make sure that you are capitalizing on your intake and also making sure that you are addressing what actually is what those nutrients are that you are kind of eliminating if you do choose to do that route. There are other ways to get calcium vitamin D besides dairy, it’s going to be harder, but there are other ways. So that’s really where you want to pay attention to those green left leafy vegetables that are going to be rich sources.

(20:33):
But another thing to kind of make sure is if you are going to be doing that, you need to make sure you’re supplementing and supplementing smart. And that was something I wanted to cover too is the mistakes I often see when people are actually going supplementing and that is really going to be over supplementation. I know I already brought it, I already kind of talked about this earlier on, but so often I will see women be like, okay, I’m taking my women’s health multi, I’m taking this bone health that’s going to have, and most of the time that’s going to have calcium, vitamin K, vitamin D and some other nutrients in it. And then they may hear something was good for hair, so they’re going to take that hair, skin and nail one and they heard this was good for skin, so they’re going to be taking this skin specific supplement.

(21:22):
Well all this sudden you now are taking tons of pills, but you’re also probably over consuming certain nutrients and vitamins because this supplement probably has some of that. That woman’s health multi probably has calcium and vitamin K and vitamin D, that bone health is going to have the same thing and you’re going to get similar things in that hair, skin and nail stuff. So all of a sudden we kind of have this cross where people are really overdoing certain nutrients. And as I mentioned, there’s a balance. You’ve got to have that balance. So we want to make sure we’re not deficient, but we also want to make sure that we are not hitting toxic levels either. And sometimes that toxic levels is going to actually interfere with the absorption of other vitamins and minerals. So you may be supplementing and all of a sudden you’re still deficient in some of the things you’re supplementing with because things are blocking them. There is a science to supplementing

Cori (22:19):
And it’s super interesting, this whole thing of it’s systems working together. We constantly add more and think more is better if I just throw all this at it, something’s got to work because I’m covering everything. But in trying to cover everything, you’re not necessarily addressing the one thing you need. And for some reason the visual comes to mind of you have this machine that cranks out products perfectly, it’s turning out new toys and it’s working really, really well and you think, well, if it’s working really well and there could be this one little thing that maybe I make better, but now I’m going to add on 15 other things, you wouldn’t do that, right? You wouldn’t add on 15 things you didn’t need just because those were really good pieces too. If it was working pretty well, you’d go in and maybe oil, the one thing that isn’t working as perfectly, you’d be very nuanced and specific in how you’re addressing adjusting the systems versus just throwing everything on there because in adding all these cogs and wheels and pieces, you could end up making it not work.

(23:10):
And I know that’s a slightly strange visual, but that’s what my brain always comes back to and that’s how we approach our nutrition is how we approach our workouts. We think I’m just going to throw in more good things and in theory that should work and it doesn’t really work that way often that just busts the system so that it’s not working as well as it should. So really diving into the nuance of some of these things through how you’re tracking, how you’re adjusting, making 1% changes is super key. And it can be very simple. It doesn’t have to be overly complicated. You don’t go to all these different things. You say, Hey, what are the symptoms I’m having that I need to address? Or what are the problems that I think are the most important? And then go to something that covers more of those at once and say, Hey, I’m going to try this one thing first.

(23:49):
Just try magnesium. I’m just going to make this one adjustment right here. And then see where that goes. And in making that change, even if you are including a supplement for something, maybe you say, Hey, I’m going to diversify the foods I’m eating. I want to get more leafy greens. But instead of complicating that, say, Hey, I’m going to just put a different thing at lunch and dinner and already I’m getting two different things in the course of the day. It doesn’t have to be 50 different things. So it’s like the more we can really be specific in how we’re addressing problems and changes, the better off we’re going to be.

Michelle (24:20):
Yeah, and I love what you said, it is a hierarchy. Your body has a hierarchy of needs and you need to be approaching that with how you’re supplementing because as you mentioned, you may be starting up here and there may be tons of things that could help, but is magnesium possibly going to cover multiple of those things for you? Probably. So you can probably cover lots of areas with one thing. So it’s really making sure that you are going about it really smart and you’ve got to do your research. You have to be paying attention. And it can’t just be, oh, well I heard this was good, so I’m going to start taking it. And I think one of my biggest struggles as a dietician is when I have someone and they are just taking so many pills, just tons of pills because pills are why I’m all for supplementation.

(25:09):
And yes, it’s needed. Yes, it’s there. I supplement. When you are taking tons and tons of pills, that is going to be hard on your gastrointestinal tract. It is. Your body absorbs things at certain spots and when you are cram packing a bunch of things all at once, your body is going to try and process that and have to break it down. And it’s not always easy, which is often why I know I’ll tell someone what the RDA level is and they’re going to be like, oh, well my pill is this high in it. Yeah, your pill’s that high in it because the chances that you’re actually going to absorb all of it isn’t that high. So you may be coming in thinking, well, there’s no way I’m deficient in this because I have a hundred percent of the supplement. The chances are that you’re actually not absorbing it, especially if you are taking multiple pills at once. That, like I said, I know I said this earlier, but it will interact with other ingredients that can make it so you’re not absorbing things as well or as easily as you should.

Cori (26:11):
And while we want to simplify things as much as possible, being aware of the impact, other things you’re consuming with the different supplements with even specific foods can be very important to help you make sure that you’re getting the most out of the micros that you are consuming. So off of that, there are a couple of questions that I wanted to touch on. I think that they’re very, they will lead to some interesting discussion and also answer some questions for other people. It says recommendation on selenium dose first off, and then also does vitamin K need fat to be absorbed? Michelle, I will hand it off to you.

Michelle (26:45):
So to start with, you said it was Selenium, you were asking right? For the RDA

Cori (26:51):
Or just recommended dose.

Michelle (26:53):
Okay, so with selenium, the RDA for that is typically about 55 micrograms, but you can go, that doesn’t mean that’s all you take, right? Again, there’s a higher level. So typically the recommended amount of actually dosing it is going to be around 200 mcds or micrograms for it

Cori (27:15):
And then vitamin K and best to take with fat to absorb it.

Michelle (27:20):
Yes. So it is a fat soluble vitamin, so you do want to make sure that you’re consuming some fat when you’re doing it. And so I know vitamin K is often found in green leafy greens. So if you’re thinking about either SA it or the cal with a little bit of olive oil or even just making sure that you are consuming things with a vinegarette that’s going to have a little bit of that oil is going to make it more easily absorbed for you.

Cori (27:51):
And even with noting the best way of taking these different things, remember guys, it’s also about making something sustainable. So while we want to pay attention to these things to get the 1% improvements, do not stress yourself out too. Our body is really good at trying to use what we give it. Just remember that while we want to pay attention to the nuance while we want to do what we can to make those 1% improvements, you also want to make sure that you’re doing something you can do consistently because that will pay off as well. Michelle, in terms of that, is there anything people should really worry about with taking some of these supplements or these micros that you mentioned today and in terms of timing for best practices?

Michelle (28:30):
So the big thing is I often recommend magnesium to take at night, and I say this just because it is, like I said, it is going to help with bowel movements. So oftentimes you’re going to set yourself up so in the morning you’re going to have that and be able to go about your day. And some people do find magnesium to be a little bit, sometimes a little bit harder on the stomach. Like I said, there are lots of different types, so don’t take one and just think, oh, I can’t do magnesium, it makes me sick because there are going to be going to be some that are going be more gentle. But that would be my biggest thing for magnesium is to actually take it at night for selenium. That is something that I really like to encourage people if they can to take it kind of in the nut form.

(29:14):
So I typically just recommend that as kind of being a part of your midday snack. Again, it doesn’t have to be that time. That’s just typically what I tend to recommend for people because it tends just to sit better. And then vitamin K is one that you can really kind of take. That one pretty much is pretty open to any time of the day, but as long as you mentioned, most of the time you’re going to be consuming it with a fat source just because a lot of the times that’s how we consume those vegetables anyways. So that’s not something that you necessarily need to worry about so much. So a vitamin K is kind of fair. Green magnesium, I’d recommend more at night.

Cori (29:57):
I guess you could technically make a salad with your leafy greens and put some Brazil nuts on there. Although I think if people really don’t like those Brazil nuts, would you ever recommend someone eat something just because it has something? I’m guessing the answer is no, because usually we try and say, Hey, you’re not going to keep doing it if you really don’t like doing it. So find a different source of that micro, but I don’t know your thoughts on that. Still so easy. Maybe you do it, but I don’t know.

Michelle (30:25):
This is mean. I have a little different view on this one. I will be honest because quite frankly, Brazil nuts, that’s not the nut that I’m going to be like, oh yes, I can’t wait to snack on my Brazil nuts. But I do look, I kind of look at it as I’m taking medicine and I’m taking two Brazil nuts. It’s really one of those. If you can tolerate it and if it’s something that you can be like, you know what, I’m just going to treat it like I’m taking my medicine, great do that. It’s a cheaper, it’s going to be cheaper. So that would be the one time that I’d maybe say, look at it, you’re just kind of taking your medicine and if you can do it and you can tolerate it, great. But I will say with the caveat exactly what you said, but if you truly really hate something, you’re not going to stick to it. So that would be when I would say, yeah, let’s look at a supplement.

Cori (31:15):
I would find a way to work it into something where then I couldn’t taste it if I didn’t like it. That’s my thing, how can you bury it? Although Ryan’s like shaking his head at me because I like putting protein powder in different things. I don’t feel like I can then taste it and I think it enhances the thing. He thinks it just makes anything nasty, so he’ll chug it on the side. So I think he would actually agree with you on the Brazil nut things, but I would try and find a way to work it into something if I was going to eat that I wanted someone now commented, I’m a little worried that I may be overdoing it with supplementation. If I’m taking a multivitamin for women, is it okay to take a separate magnesium pill? Your thoughts on this, Michelle?

Michelle (31:52):
So it can be, I would definitely want to know what level of magnesium your multi is having because you may find that it’s actually already covering you. And I didn’t say this, but multis are actually typically something I also tend to recommend to take at night too, because again, you just tend to, there’s so much going on that sometimes taking it more in the evening is just going to be easier on your GI system. So I know that wasn’t a direct answer, but it kind of depends. It could be fine. It could be that the multi you’re taking is already pretty high. I will say most multis aren’t going to be high enough in magnesium, so you’re probably okay. I mention though too, we do do person for, so if that is something that you are really curious about and you’re worried that you may be over consuming some things you can actually get on with our dietician who will go over that and actually present with you what they would actually have you do and give you a multi or a pill that’s going to cover all of your needs.

(32:56):
Like Corey was talking about the hierarchy of needs. So we’ll focus on that for you. And what’s kind of cool about it is you are able to kind of adjust things in the future. So if your needs change, because we all know the human body is not stagnant. Oh, that did not come out, but we all know we’re not going to stay the same. So things are going to going to change. So if things do change, you can actually get reevaluated and meet with the dietician as well and readjust your supplement. So if that’s something you’re really wanting, you’re curious about or concerned about, I would highly, highly recommend to just schedule a call with our dietician and get on with that.

Cori (33:35):
It also would be based on the type of magnesium you might find that you need extra of or the symptoms you’re addressing versus the type in your multivitamin. Can you maybe speak a little bit Michelle to what you generally find in the multivitamin with those things? Because I think that nuance is really key to also recognize because it might not be the form of magnesium that you need.

Michelle (33:56):
Yeah, so one thing I’m going to say with multis, there are some great ones out there, don’t get me wrong. But oftentimes when it comes to supplements, a lot of this is marketing. They want to say like, oh, we’re going to give you a hundred percent of this, 200% of this, and that’s not necessarily bad. You’re probably not going to absorb all of it. But the other reason why they’re able to do that is oftentimes the bioavailability of the source they’re using isn’t as high as another source, and usually it’s because it’s a little bit of a cheaper option. So this is really, again, it’s something that you just kind of want to be aware of and I know honestly I could go off on just bioavailability and what’s actually used, what is actually best. Because again, multis are often they’re going to try and say they cover every box, but they’re probably not always going to have the best sources for your body to absorb. So that’s going to be my one thing with them. I know like you said, oftentimes we take it and we’re like, okay, I’m covered. I took my multi, but you may not actually be able to absorb all the whole multi that you’re taking. So this is really where I look at third party testing needs to be kind of a big thing. This is where it’s more important to actually be able to see if they have good business practices, but a big thing is going to make sure that they actually are third party tested.

Cori (35:20):
Thanks for listening to the Fitness Hack podcast. Again, this is the place where I share all my free work out of nutrition tips. I’m never going to run sponsorships or ask you to buy anything. All I ask in return is if you’re enjoying the podcast to leave a rating review or share it with someone you think it might help. This will only take a few minutes and it would mean the world to me and possibly change the life of someone.

(00:00):
Hey guys, this is Cori from Redefining Strength. Welcome to the Fitness Hacks Podcast. This is the show where I share all my free workout and nutrition tips. I’m not going to ever fill this episode with sponsorships or ask you to buy anything. All I ask in return is if you’re enjoying the podcast to leave a review or leave a five star rating or even better share with somebody you think it might help. This will only take a few minutes and would mean the world to me and possibly change the life of someone. So let’s jump right in. I don’t have enough time. We’ve all made this excuse as a reason to skip our workouts and just not do anything, and there is a finite amount of time in each and every day, and sometimes the day does get away from us, but we can always design for the time we have and we have to recognize the value sometimes in doing something that’s not necessarily our optimal, our planned workout, but still keeps us in the routine and habit because often on those days where we say, I don’t have enough time and we don’t do anything, we end up letting the habit slide and then it’s easier the next day to not do anything and the next day after that and we’re not owning our current situation and we’re not planning for what’s realistic for us, and that’s where we see those habits slide and we get off track and we lose the progress that we’ve made.

(01:12):
And part of it isn’t just the miss workout, yes, the movement itself is key. That build is key, especially if we want to gain muscle, but a lot of it just goes back to keeping in the habit and that success mindset. So as silly as it might seem to just do five minutes, sometimes the fact that we did something when we didn’t want to do something often makes us feel better than even doing what we just had planned because we did something on a hard situation where it would’ve been really easy to let ourselves off the hook. So doing that keeps us in the success mindset. It keeps us the routine, it helps us move forward, but we can also design for the time we have. I think too often we use, I don’t have enough time as an excuse because we have some ideal that we have to hit in our head of six days a week, training for one hour, but you don’t need that ideal.

(01:57):
You can design for the time you have three days a week, 30 minutes. You can make it work five days a week, 15 minutes. You can make it work, but you have to own what actually is realistic for you to design for that time because how you design for those times will be different. How you break down your workouts, what you’re working each workout, how you’re using moves will all be different. But also noting that just because you have an hour doesn’t mean you need to use an hour. I see too often people just filling the hour and in that they do a lot of wasted volume, they do a lot of quantity, but it’s not quality because they’re not staying focused and intentional. Now, when we’re short on time, it can be really hard to be as intentional because a lot of times we feel like we’re going through the motions just to do it or we’re rushing through to get it done.

(02:39):
So I want to really help you find a way to make the most out of those sessions. And the first key I think to designing quick and efficient and effective workouts is using timed circuits and sets and even timed intervals of work over reps. And the reason I say timed is because if you have minutes and you set a timer for 15 minutes, you know you’re going to be done in 15 minutes. There’s no rushing through to make sure that you’re done. There’s no being worried about finishing in time so that you skip certain things and then don’t do your warmup. You can make sure that everything truly fits that time. You can take one minute to roll out the tightest area, you can take one minute to do a dynamic stretch. You can then take even 30 seconds to do an activation move and then you can get into the rest of your workout.

(03:24):
And so you can really have that time, but you’re also secure in that you know are going to be able to fit it into the time that you have. So using those time circuits, using those timed intervals of work can be really key for that reason because it gives us the mental security. Not to mention when we feel rushed, when we have less time, we do need to increase our training density. That means that we need to do more work in the set amount of time because we can’t do more work adding on time. So we want to increase the amount of work done in the set time that we have. So by using an interval of one minute on squats, instead of doing 12 reps and trying to do 15 reps the next week or increase that training density in that way, even if the time goes a little bit longer, we’re going to see can I get more reps in this set amount of time?

(04:08):
And that can increase your training density to help you see results, but it can also help you stay focused and intentional with moves. Again, not rushing through just because you’re short on time when we know we have that one minute to work, we’re going to make the most of that one minute and we’re going to really push through because we have one minute and sometimes that can even push us to do more than we would’ve done had we counted reps, especially when we are short on time and it’s really key that we get the most out of every single movement. When you have that one minute, you might keep going past the point you would’ve stopped. So say you had eight to 12 reps, maybe you stopped at 12 and you could have done a few more with a weight. So you do go up the next round, but with that one minute all of a sudden you’re like, well, I have this whole minute I need to use it.

(04:45):
So you’re doing 15, 20 reps with a weight that you thought you could only do 12 with, even if you use a little rest pause, but it can help you push past the point you would’ve stopped otherwise to getting that really quality progression with movements as well. So consider using time circuits intervals of work that are timed out instead of just counting reps because it can help you make sure you’re confident you can get the workout in that time and stay focused and intentional where you aren’t even counting the reps or trying to rush through. Then also really focus on ways to make the volume that you can do more challenging. Again, you can’t just add on more sets, more reps because you only have a set amount of time, so you have to increase the training density within that time. This also means making fewer reps feel harder.

(05:28):
So even though you could do eight to 12 reps with a front lunge, maybe you don’t have weights and maybe you don’t have a time to get out four sets of 12 reps. So how can you make it so that you fail at six reps instead of just doing a front lunge? Maybe you do add loads if you have it, maybe you add a pulse when you launch forward. Maybe you make sure that you’re doing a variation where there’s more instability or there’s a bigger range of motion because you’re having to do that front lunch stepping up onto a step to sink with your back knee down to the ground. But you have to find a way to make the volume more challenging if you want to see results from your training. But 15 minutes if you’re making every move, the hardest move you can do is going to feel devastatingly challenging at points and not in a bad way if you’re just trying to slaughter yourself from your workouts, but that you are trying to drive that progression, drive that growth.

(06:15):
When I know I have 10 minutes, I’m finding ways to make myself fail at a move with five reps over trying to do 10, and if I can do 10, I’m going to find ways to make it more challenging. So really think how can I make this move so challenging that I don’t want to nor can’t necessarily do more than five reps, especially with those times circuits too. If you’re then cycling areas worked, which is another way to make workouts very efficient when you’re short on time because then you don’t have to fully rest. You want to think, okay, how can I keep moving this entire interval, this 10 minute circuit? How can I keep moving by doing a really heavy lower body move then a really heavy or challenging upper body move so that you’re using the other areas being worked as rest to keep moving, but you’re also able to really work that area because you’re then cycling out of it, but it is challenging you for the reps that you do and you’re building up that volume over time.

(07:02):
Five reps done over 10 minutes is going to add up to 25 reps, 30 reps, so it’s going to add up to that volume you need within that set amount of time and then the next week you’re going to try and either get a few more reps or go a little bit heavier or advance the move in some way, but going now into that next phase. So you’re trying to find ways to make the volume challenging that you can do, but you’re also going to try and find ways to include rest without including rest. We don’t want to just cut out rest. Rest is very important for us to be able to maximize the movements, be more intentional, train harder. You don’t want to try and lift really heavy and then cut out the rest however you do want to design so that you’re not doing that one rep max lifting or that maximal strength work necessarily during workouts like this while you’re short on a time, you can save that for longer workouts, but you do want to find ways to still lift heavy and create that progression.

(07:47):
And that means giving areas rest before you go back into that advanced variation because otherwise you’re going to hit that point of diminishing returns. You’re not going to be able to work at the true a hundred percent intensity, but with shorter time just standing around is not necessarily going to be an option. So maybe you do use it as that mobility work. Maybe you use it as a little activation, maybe you just cycle areas. Work the less frequently we can train, the shorter we can train for the more we want to focus on more full body esque splits that could be anterior, posterior or full body where we are touching on everything. But we want to do that because that allows us to work more big muscle groups in a session which can help us build muscle. It can help us burn more calories. It helps us get in that training frequency for areas while training less frequently.

(08:29):
It also gives us the opportunity to use other moves as rest so that we’re maximizing the time we have because if you work legs, then upper body like a chest, then you do even legs, but the opposing muscle groups, so quad and then hamstring in one and then you do back, you are cycling. The areas work to be able to go hard on each of those movements and work each of those areas intensely, but you’re giving other areas rest. And again, this is where you can also add in mobility work, especially if you tend to skip it because that can be active. Rest could potentially, depending on how you’re designing your workouts, if you’re doing more metabolic strength, include a cardio move and then also include a strength move to sort of change up the intensity at which you’re going. You can use more intense moves, less intense moves, even depending more isolated moves with more compound, but you want to think, how can I rest without rusting?

(09:14):
And those are some of the different ways that you can do it. Even knowing that using unilateral moves, so if you do a single leg deadlift, one side is resting as the other is working, so that can even be a way to add in rest as well. While even getting in that focused work or making a move more challenging by the instability of the unilateral exercise, it’s a great way to also correct imbalances if you are dealing with any imbalances, which most of us we’re not fully balanced creatures. And then just remember with this, you’re not making everything cardio. You want to think about using that strength to cardio continuum and that one rep max lifting, you’re going to need more time for that really steady state long endurance training you’re going to need more time for. So when we’re short on time and we might even be training less frequently, we need to use that middle ground of that metabolic strength type work, that strength conditioning.

(10:00):
And so we want to think about how we can make sure that we are getting our heart rate elevated, but also not just turning everything into being so out of breath that we can’t challenge ourself with progression in the lifts, especially to build that strength. So that’s again where cycling the areas work, cycling the intensity, including even an AB exercise in that circuit as active rest can be very valuable. But make sure that you are designing everything with a purpose too. You don’t want to just think about making your workouts hard to burn more calories with these sessions. You want to think about how is this truly moving me forward towards my goal? Do I need more mobility work? So if you’re short on time and you’re not able to do your usual six days a week, one hour of training and you have five minutes this one day, maybe you’re like, Hey, I think it’s better that I shift my workouts, but I’m going to put in a five minute workout to still do something that’s mobility work to keep me moving forward.

(10:48):
Again, it goes back to that success mindset. Something is better than nothing and we don’t often value that, but we have to remember that one minute today, one minute tomorrow, one minute the next day, that one minute adds up over time and generally does get us to do 2, 3, 4. And it goes back to even the way our momentum is going. The less we do, the more our momentum goes towards doing less. The more we’re keeping our momentum towards doing something, the more we tend to want to do and the more we even find that we get re-motivated to do a little bit more. If we are finding our motivation has sort of faded. So if you’re finding it a struggle to push yourself to do your usual routine, embrace shorter workouts. If your schedule is dictating that right now, you need to embrace shorter workouts.

(11:29):
Again, focusing on designing for the time you have, using those intervals or time circuits can be a great way to make sure that you’re getting in the workout, you’re increasing the training density to see results. Really maximize the volume you can do by finding ways to progress moves. And guys, I love loads, but they’re not the only way to advance movements, tempos, ranges of motion unilateral, so that instability, there are so many different ways to do that. Even creating hybrid moves and touching on that too, when you’re shorter on time, as much as we want to include some isolation moves for those stubborn areas, you need to be very strategic in how you do that because compound moves are going to give you more bang for your buck. Hybrid moves, which might work upper and lower body together. So those are things like where you can even do a lunch curl and press that you could do a single leg deadlift with row.

(12:12):
Those things can be very efficient when we’re short on time. And yes, there’s going to be a limiting muscle group with some of those things where if you do a single leg deadlift with row, you’re going to be basing it off of the weight. You can row over just the deadlift. There’s benefit to those things too because we’re working more muscle groups at once. So you want to think about how you can work more muscle groups at once, use more multi-joint movements when you are shorter on time using maybe one isolation move for a specifically stubborn area strategically, but it’s not better or worse. It’s just designing for the time you have and you can see fabulous results and the more you embrace that, the better the results you’re going to see. But again, using even that strategically designed rest so that you are able to go at a true a hundred percent intensity, not just turning everything into cardio, but even using the fact that these are going to be a little bit more metabolic to your advantage, but still creating that progression in your training.

(13:01):
But again, it goes back to always designing for the time you have and also not just using the hour because you have it. If you’re doing a sprint workout, stretching it out to an hour is probably a lot of wasted volume and you’re going to see a point of diminishing returns and you could have saved your time, especially because most of us do at some point use the excuse, I don’t have enough time to do other things. Maybe you meal prep then so you have more time on another day to do that strength workout. That should have more rest, more mobility work needs to be a little bit longer. So always design for the time you have and remember that something is better than nothing because part of this is not just what you’re actually doing in your workout, but the mindsets and routines and habits you’re creating. So jumping into the group to see if there are any questions, comments or concerns or even thoughts on how you are designing your quick workouts, making things really work for you.

(13:53):
It doesn’t look like anybody has posted anything and hopefully it’s just because I gave such fabulous tips. Everybody’s writing them down and ready to really implement them, but I would love to hear how you guys design workouts that really fit your schedule, how you are embracing maybe doing more full body splits, anterior posterior splits when you’re training less frequently and have a little bit shorter to train versus doing more potentially body parts splits or hemisphere training with longer to train. Remember, you can always design for the time you have. If you are watching the replay and do have any questions, comments, or concerns, don’t hesitate to write in. I will go back through and even try and link out to any other helpful resources to get you guys rocking because I know especially during the summer, we can find ourselves a little out of that consistent routine. Finding reasons not to work out traveling where we don’t have as much time, but I don’t have enough. Time is not an excuse. You can always design for the time you have. Thanks for listening to the Fitness Hack podcast. Again, this is the place where I share all my free workout and nutrition tips.

(14:50):
I’m going to run sponsorships or ask you to buy anything. All I ask in return is if you’re enjoying the podcast to leave a rating, review or share it with someone you think it might help. This will only take a few minutes and it would mean the world to me and possibly change the life of someone.

Cori (00:03):
Hey guys, this is Cori from Redefining Strength. Welcome to the Fitness Hacks Podcast.. This is the show where I share all my free workout and nutrition tips. I’m not going to ever fill this episode with sponsorships or ask you to buy anything. All I ask in return is if you’re enjoying the podcast to leave a review or leave a five star rating or even better share with somebody you think it might help. This will only take a few minutes and would mean the world to me and possibly change the life of someone. So let’s jump right in. Will you be the victor or the victim? Call me a control freak, but I always like to try and choose to be the victor in anything, and I’m super excited to dive into this topic, this mindset with Ashley, who’s one of my fabulous trainers and coach managers. Ashley, thank you for joining me today. I’m super excited to jump into Victor, our victim, how we create that victor mindset.

Ashley (00:53):
Yeah, absolutely. I’m excited to be here. This is one of those philosophies that personally I live and breathe and one day may die by. And this is one of the things that I think really sets the course for success for anybody who’s starting on any method of transformation, mental or physical.

Cori (01:17):
And so we often hear mindset matters most when it comes to making habit changes, achieving success. Can you talk a little bit about what that really means, like the subconscious versus the conscious and how we can go about changing our mindset to see results?

Ashley (01:34):
Yeah, absolutely. So within each of us, we have our conscious brain and our conscious brain. I usually think of it as like the prefrontal cortex or the front brain. It’s doing most of your thinking for you. So if you have a thought that’s going to be in your conscious brain, and most of us think that we rule our lives by the conscious brain, but actually we’re living about 95% of our life with the subconscious brain, which is patterns of recognition experience, the way that we really view the world and the subconscious brain is actually formed from the time we are in the womb until about seven years old. And this is where it can get a little bit tricky because while we’re going through those first seven years of life, we are developing essentially the way that we process the world, the way we think about the world, our own capabilities, ability, and even disability.

(02:30):
And the problem is most of us don’t have control of our life from the time we’re in the womb till we’re seven years old. We are almost a victim to our parents, our circumstances, the thoughts that are imbued into our brain during that time. And we don’t make conscious choice during those age. We really are just moving out of instinct and everything that we’re learning and sponging up from the world around us. Now after seven years of age, we start to have a little bit more independence. We start to assert ourselves more as and really develop our personality, our thoughts, our ways of being. However, the subconscious brain is still acting underneath all of that, which means as we get older and we start getting curious about the world, we start exploring and we start really taking ownership over our life. A lot of our actions and our habits are actually driving from the subconscious versus the conscious brain.

(03:30):
And so what we see is we make decisions, we make choices, we even pursue different actions that while we might think we’re consciously making that choice, what’s driving us is all of those habits and experiences that have been rooted on a subconscious level from the time that we are young, when essentially we really are a victim, a victim to the circumstances around us, to our parenting. Sorry, parents, I’m not trying to tell you. You were terrible to me, but we don’t have a lot of control and we take all of that subconscious wiring, if you will, and we bleed that into our adulthood. And so we hear this a lot from a person or from a client that might be saying, I don’t know why I keep doing this. I don’t know why I keep following the same pattern and the same cycle. And then they feel shame and they feel guilt and they feel fear about it. Like, well, I’ve done this the same way a hundred million times, I don’t know how to break it. And it’s because most of the time what they’re trying to do is behavior modify without getting into the root of the subconscious of really changing the way that they think about themselves and changing the way that we experience the world, the identity and the truths that we hold about ourselves. And this was very much my experience, and that’s where I started diving into all of the neuroplasticity, understanding how the brain works, understanding new ways of being.

Cori (05:04):
I think it’s so interesting how in describing that you use the word victim because I think instantly hearing that my brain was like, oh, it’s crazy that that is the allure back sometimes for some of us. And we have to build that self-awareness of where that mindset is really coming from. Simply writing it off. Doing behavior modification as you mentioned, doesn’t really get to the heart of the fact that we might have this innate belief to some extent that we are a victim. And so in creating that victor mindset, it comes back to controlling what we can control, but in controlling what you can control, recognizing things that were out of your control, and then having that self-awareness to make changes on that. How would you go about building that self-awareness? Because I think it’s hard to not just say, oh, well, this is a pattern I keep repeating, or even just feeling guilt and shame because you’re repeating something that feels outside of your control. How do you start to go back into building that self-awareness, diving into those things to then gain the power to adjust your mindsets behind those actions?

Ashley (06:11):
Oh my goodness, yes. So this is that root, because most of us are functioning on our subconscious level on autopilot throughout our day. Most of us don’t take the pause or the stop to really reflect and ask even the question, why am I doing this? Or one of my favorite questions is like, are you thinking about what you’re thinking about? We have so many thoughts that just fire into our brain daily, one after the other, after the other, and we just almost succumb to them. But most of those thoughts are rooted somewhere along the line of our life of a belief that we developed. So in asking the question, where do we even start with this? I think identifying, and this is where some of the deep work comes in, where if I can just use a personal example, I had a lot of beliefs from my childhood that really were seeped into my subconscious, and I’m just going to give you a really brief overview, but I spent a lot of my younger years in foster care and then went through an adoption process, an un adoption process, and a adoption process with a new family throughout from my ages of zero to six years old.

(07:30):
So right in that time where your subconscious brain is being developed. And so I say all of that to say is during that time, there was some limiting beliefs or a narrative that started forming in my mind of I’m not wanted, I’m not loved. I’m going to constantly be rejected. However, I didn’t realize that was a limiting belief or even my narrative. I’m just going through life and going through high school and then college and in college is really where that subconscious brain started just flaring up all over the place in pursuit to get the things that I wanted, which was love and acceptance. I started making a lot of decisions that were incredibly self-sabotaging, so overwhelming my plate with every extracurricular that I could think about that would give me esteem or prowess or make think people think highly of me while simultaneously at the same time pursuing a lot of romantic relationships and really trying to just fit in with every single crowd that I could.

(08:37):
And I really almost ruined my life at that point. And I say I almost ruined my life at that point because in the midst of making all of these decisions that I thought I was making and not understanding why behind them, I lost a full ride scholarship in college. I actually ended up dropping out of college my last semester before graduation, and there was a flurry of other choices in there. And at that point I just succumb to the idea of this is just who I am. I’m a person that’s always going to mess up. I’m a person that I can’t handle high pressure situations, a lot of anxiety. I’m just a person that has a lot of anxiousness and therefore I can’t perform.

(09:25):
And it wasn’t until the point that I got pregnant that I took a really hard stop and look at my life. And this is where I say for each of you that’s watching, you’re like, why is this lady going on and on about that? The point is, my subconscious brain was kind of acting for me to receive love, affection, attention, and then feeling like when I started failing, I started pulling back a little bit. And it wasn’t until I had a ton of pressure and pain almost applied to that situation and something that was beyond the circumstances of just trying to receive adoration or trying to get my college degree. No, here was a baby that could not live in the circumstances that I was living in. And it was almost like so much pain applied to that moment and fear of beyond myself what this was going to do to this young child.

(10:22):
If I continued living my life in that way, that made me pause and go, why do I keep making these decisions that keep causing me to backtrack or fall down? And that’s when I went back to the fact of like, oh, well, so many of these decisions that I’ve made have come from the fact that yes, I was a victim to choices that other people around me made, but if I didn’t start taking some ownership and control, I was going to imbue those same circumstances on my child, which is kind of heavy when you think about it. So it was really that moment of I have to do something different that caused me to go, I have to start discovering why I’m making these decisions and do something different because there’s no way that this pattern is going to repeat anymore. And I think that can be applied to a lot of our clients where they reach a point of something has to change and something has to give, and I need to uncover what the beliefs are that I’m believing about myself and about my circumstances before I can move forward.

(11:34):
Some of my favorite work I do with my clients when they suddenly have an aha moment of, oh my goodness, why do I keep repeating this pattern? Oh, it’s because I actually believe that I’m not worthy. I actually believe I’m not important enough or that my sole purpose is just serve everybody around me, and it’s not okay for me to take time for myself. It’s not okay for me. Or even the fear of if I take time for myself, is that going to be hurting someone else? And this is the deep stuff that’s the reflection point.

Cori (12:11):
But I think you’re hitting on, I mean, you hit on so many key points, and just to even unpack those, we can dive in a little bit more. But the key question of why I think so often we repeat a behavior, we do something, we make a statement, but we never look at what’s driving that statement, what’s driving that thought and that question of why do I hold this belief? Why am I stating this? Why do I think I can’t do this? Why do I believe I’m a certain way? We don’t ever look at the driver. And in that we perpetuate the narrative about ourselves that we’ve always sort of told. And the only way to make a change from one, even if you wholeheartedly are thinking right now, well, hey Corey and Ashley, that’s all well and good, but I am this way. Ask yourself why.

(12:56):
What proves in your life this narrative? Are they things that you are actually doing to repeat this, to perpetuate it, to make this cycle true? Because I think like what you said, you were a victim to outside things. We all are a victim to outside things. We can’t control everything. However, we can always control our response. So in even owning the things we were victims of and taking ownership of them, which is giving ourselves back that control, that victim mindset, we can then move forward. And so in taking ownership in your own journey and how you help clients do that, can we talk a little bit more about techniques, tips to start doing that hard reflection to start making those hard changes?

Ashley (13:38):
Absolutely. So you just hit on one of the biggest techniques you can use right there is the stop and pause method. We live in a crazy busy world, and like I said, most people are functioning on autopilot throughout their day. Now, given you need your subconscious brain to function on autopilot, if you’re talking on the phone and driving, we please pray that your subconscious brain is taking you where you need to go, and you’re also noticing the things around you. So don’t think that the subconscious brain is working against you, it’s actually working for you. And this is the coolest part about change, is that we have the power to actually rewire our brain and rewire our identity, the way we think about things, our core commitments. We have the power to do that. But the first thing that you have to do is you have to stop and ask yourself the question of, am I thinking about what I’m thinking about right now?

(14:36):
You just got down to the root of it, Corey, where you said, am I asking myself why am I doing what I’m doing without judgment, without shame, without guilt, without anything, but really getting curious about yourself and diving into that. For instance, I have a client that we were just talking about alcohol, and she was like, I had such a great day. I had a perfect day. And then we went out to eat and I had my macros lined up, and then I still chose to drink. And she’s like, why did I do that? I said, okay, let’s pause. Let’s spend a couple of questions. Getting curious just about, well, why? What caused that? What was it going to give to me that I was missing? Why am I seeking out alcohol in this season of my life right now? Not that the alcohol is good, bad or ugly or anything in between, just what is it?

(15:28):
And I think that’s the first step is taking the pause to ask yourself what produced a behavior or a choice that fell out of your control in the moment? And then with every step, and I’m a big believer, I’m a big believer that therapy is incredibly important, and then you also pursue coaching to help propel you forward from that awareness, right? So if you understood the why, now we have to say, I have to replace that with something because I can’t just sit in the place of going, and this was my biggest fault. I am a victim. All of this bad stuff happened to me. It was out of my control, and therefore, my life is always going to be out of control and I’m always going to make these decisions. And I realized, and it was stepping into the gym that made me realize this, because the coolest thing about a muscle development is you either work the muscle or you don’t.

(16:22):
You either show up and do the exercise, and I keep thinking of an upright route. I’m either going to develop the shoulder muscle or I’m not going to develop the shoulder muscle. It’s up to me. Life is the same way. I can either sit into the place of saying, well, I am just a victim and these hard things happen to me, or this person in my life is doing this to me, or the weather just keeps pouring rain outside and it’s just the way it’s, or I can say, okay, I understand why I am doing this. Now I have to replace that with something else. And this is where the power of visualization is incredibly important. If you want to rewire the brain on a subconscious level, you have to feed that brain a new image, a new idea, essentially give it a different experience that it hasn’t experienced before.

(17:19):
And I’m just going to warn you all this is going to sound a little woo woo for a moment. It just is going to sound woo woo, but I firmly believe in it because I’ve witnessed it in my life and in my client’s lives throughout the last 10 years where your subconscious brain only has all the circumstances in life that have led up to it until you start giving it something else to feed on. So if I’m sitting here right now with you, Corey, I can be in the present, I can be thinking about the past, or I can be forecasting to the future. And my subconscious brain can’t tell the difference between what is actually happening right now between you and I and what happened in the past in the future. Meaning if I focus on my past and say, this was awful, this was terrible, and it’s just who I am.

(18:10):
My subconscious brain is going to keep programming thoughts, habits, and actions that take me in the direction of that version of myself. Or if I start visualizing and forecasting my future, meaning I can sit here right now with you and I can pull out three months from now, who do I want to be? What does life look like? How am I operating? How do I wake up in the morning? Am I energized and I can start daydreaming and actually giving my subconscious brain a different goal, a different experience, something that is powerful, joyful, wonderful, and my subconscious brain will start producing thoughts, actions, and habits that lead me in the direction that I want to go versus the direction I do not want to go. And this is where we really settle into the victor mindset. The victor mindset says, I may not have had control over that, but I can state it for what it was. I can announce it, say goodbye to it, and I can move in the direction I want to go. And even right now as I sit with you, I might not be exactly where I want to be, but I can bring my life in the direction that I want it to go through this process of literally daydreaming about where we’re going to go and then letting my actions line up with it.

Cori (19:40):
I think of that as acting as if the visualization, because for me, that makes it a little less visualization in my head, but gives me the direction and also makes it action based. So I love that you brought that up, and I think there’s so many key points in the stages that you need to go through with this because there is a taking ownership of the past. It’s never running from what happened. It’s always recognizing it because when we recognize it, we can then take back control. We can’t just write things off or say, this is the way it is. Again, it’s reflecting on it to learn from it to not make those mistakes in the future. And it’s truly diving deep with the why, because I think that’s something that we don’t often do. We say, well, this is why, right? I want alcohol because I’ve always had alcohol in these things.

(20:25):
Instead of saying, okay, well, I’ve always had alcohol at these things and I’m afraid of how my friends are going to perceive me and judge my new habits because maybe I feel this peer pressure because of X, Y, and Z thing. And in going deeper than that, we get to the real root of it where we can then find what really truly makes us happy. Versus I think so often we ask the superficial why, and then we try and replace the behavior. We do some modification, we go on a diet instead of adjusting our diet, so to speak. And so in the end, we don’t really make a lasting change. But that comes back to the acting as if when you’re visualizing something, you’re not just visualizing stuff to fake it till you make it. You’re not just putting things on that you won’t actually want to do or do. You are thinking about where do I want to go? Who’s the person I want to be? And what are the true habits that person is doing to then take action on those things? You’re giving yourself that clear roadmap to results, but it’s giving yourself the things that that person is doing so that you recognize you have the choice to move forward and create that new narrative, it sounds like.

Ashley (21:27):
Yeah, you hit it spot on, spot on by knowing who you want to be and by almost again, taking that control, like you said, to say, no, this is who I want to be. This is what she does on a day-to-day basis. This is how she wants to act in those, even that situation where you’re feeling the peer pressure of people around you being like, oh, just one more. Just have one more. You’re such a drudge and having the power to say, thanks, I’m having a great time as is, and carry on with life where you’re saying, this is who I want to be. And you’re so settled into that, that it’s not a question of do I drink the alcohol or not drink the alcohol? It’s really a question of I am making the choice to drink the alcohol or to not drink the alcohol, and I get to own that for myself.

(22:27):
No one else has control over it. I get to make the choice, and it always cracks me up because people will be like, oh, you probably never drink and you never do this. And I always kind of push back on that and I said, no, I find a way to work it into my life, but I also make the decision about when I want to and when I don’t want to, and I don’t feel bad about it. I just continue on with my life. I also think, and this could go on another tangent, but so I won’t go too far, but I think it takes away the anxiety of making the decision because instead, you settle into your power of being able to make the decision. It’s not about do I or don’t I? It’s just about you saying, no, I have the power to choose. No matter my circumstances, I get to choose who I want to be, how I show up and the future that I’m building for myself. And there’s something so empowering about claiming, always picture it, take the crown, claim your crown as a victor, and put that on top of your head to say, no, I get to make the choices that best serve the life I want to build for myself, and this is the choice that I’m making.

Cori (23:37):
Putting the crown in your head is a much better visual than mine, which generally taking back my power in a situation where people might question my decisions, I give the kiss the bicep example because that’s my go-to maybe just because I like to be more awkward. But the crown example is definitely a little bit better visual, taking back your power. So I really love that. Off of this one final question I have for you, because I think it’s sometimes the hardest thing to do and something that people need a little help with. How do you actually create that interruption, that pause in your brain to step back and assess when it’s very easy to just keep moving forward or fall back into that victim mindset over realizing you had the choice, you had the power, it’s a narrative you’re repeating. How would you recommend that someone helps themselves start to create that pause, that interruption to be able to reflect?

Ashley (24:28):
I think it’s two part. And so one of the biggest impacts that really helped me to interrupt my life is I sought out help. This is going to sound very, very corny, but my first personal trainer, I walked into the gym and I was like, I want to be a bodybuilder. I want to be on stage and I want to be a bodybuilder. And this is right after I had my child. She was like six months old, and I in her little baby carrier, I walked in like, I want to do this because what I thought it was going to give me was more attention and admiration because my body would look so nice, and it did, it does. I won’t lie. But the reason why I say that interruption, that was the interruption point, was I sought out another perspective and someone to help me kind of step outside of my day-to-day life and help me recognize what my patterns were, help me to recognize what was serving me and wasn’t serving me.

(25:33):
And I think this is where having someone in your corner that is outside perspective, looking in and just observing and helping you recognize your own patterns without judgment, but with so much care and empathy and so much support is incredibly important. I think the second thing on a more of a day-to-day basis, that a person could do just very brass tacks, bones taking about five minutes every day, five minutes where you recap your day and really reflect on how did that day go? What were the choices and decisions that I made throughout the day? Was there a point where I felt like a little bit stumbling? Or why did I make the choice I did? And really taking that five minutes to observe, reflect on oneself, and then to say, well, if there’s anything, what would I change in this? Why would I change that? What do I want to change about it? It’s a very, again, people do call me booboo sometimes because I’m all about the brain and what the brain can do for you, but having just that five minute reflection and then application for your next day can be incredibly powerful. And then spending an additional five minutes just visualizing how you want that next day to go can be really, really powerful and helping set up someone for success.

Cori (27:00):
It’s not woo though it’s doing something that for a lot of us might be slightly outside of our comfort zone. And I think that was both of the things you mentioned, hiring somebody, working with somebody else, stepping into a new competition, writing stuff down. These are all things that might challenge what we’re doing now and might be uncomfortable for us. And I think that’s often what we need. Just saying, oh, this feels uncomfortable. I’m going to do it. And that little interrupt there gets us starting to question different things. It’s even with coaching where someone’s like, oh, well, maybe I’ll do this next month, or now’s not the right time. If some day is going to be the right time, why not make that day today? Because if you don’t face that hard today, maybe someday doesn’t come, and then you never make that reflection.

(27:44):
You never change that mindset. So if you’re pushing up against the hard right now or the uncomfortable say, Hey, I’m going to do this today, because that might be the pattern interrupt, you actually need to make the changes. You need to become that victor to create that mindset. So Ashley, thank you so much for joining me. I do just want to take a quick look in the group to see if there are any questions comes or concerns. And guys, if you do watch the replay and have anything, Ashley and I will go back through afterwards to reply to stuff. I do see one question right now or comment from Darla. This is so enlightening and helpful. Having worked on behavior modification for a very long time in this program with great success, there’s still a part of me that has imposter syndrome, fear of waking up at square one is real when we know that we started this journey after having had slowly lost our way.

(28:29):
I guess it’s just as important to learn to trust ourselves as well as trusting the process. So I want to get your input on this as well, Ashley, but to give my feedback on this, you’re never going to not doubt yourself and doubts can be a good thing, but when we doubt ourself, that’s again where we have to question why, and we have to go back to what the data is saying because there are going to be blips and progress results. We don’t like happening, but we can’t let those detract from what’s actually going on. That’s where you have to say, Hey, I’m worried I’m going to fall back into these old patterns. Okay, well, what does your daily consistency say in terms of your food tracking? What are your workouts and your logs say in terms of your progress with movements? What does other data, like clothing fitting or energy levels or any of these other things actually telling you?

(29:12):
And the more you look at those things and you pause when you’re feeling like maybe things are going backwards or not the way you want, you’re worried you’re falling back into that old identity, that can really help. And maybe even as you’re moving forward saying, Hey, at the end of each day, I’m going to reflect on did I do all the things I did to give myself that little check mark so that I can trust in the process? But we’re always going to have self-doubts, and that’s not a bad thing. That is what helps us. The fear of going back to where we were is what drives us constantly forward to improve. We just have to recognize the flip side of that, that can make us sabotage the current habits we have and seek out something new. Seek out something better, seek out something different instead of just staying consistent. Ashley, your thoughts on this?

Ashley (29:54):
Yeah, I think specifically to speak to the imposter syndrome, understanding that you are creating a new identity. The old version of you, the old version of you has died and has gone away, but the old version of you was comfortable for 18, 20, 29, 40 years of your life. And our brains are hardwired to want security stability. And so I think, again, what Corey said, the recognition and almost the acceptance of, well, of course I’m going to have fear of going backwards. Of course, this is going to feel a little unfamiliar to me because this is a brand new version of myself that I’ve built, I’ve created, and also, I don’t want to lose her, right? And I think this is where settling into the discomfort and the unfamiliarity and getting excited about the fact that this is new. It’s a whole new, it’s a whole new identity that you’ve owned and almost saying, well, I’m comfortable with the uncomfortable right now, but I’m not going backwards. I’m just going to be taking another small step, another small step. And also just celebrating what a badass I’ve become. Let’s give her a pat on the back and say, all right, girl, this is uncomfortable, but we’re going to keep going forward,

Cori (31:15):
Forward. And even off of that, one final thought is just in maintaining even the progress we’ve built. It’s hard because part of what we do seek in life is constantly sort of growing new, more better, all these different things. We have shiny object syndrome for a reason, and this helps us keep pushing forward, but we also have to recognize that it is those boring basics done daily at times. We don’t want to do them that ultimately keep us moving forward. So sometimes recognizing our own need for growth, our own desire for growth, and even the fact that that might come from some subconscious thing that even happened when we were younger too, and reflecting on that and owning that so that we don’t sabotage ourselves in getting distracted. And we said stay focused, because I do think sometimes it’s very tempting to just want something new and exciting when often results are built off of things that aren’t as exciting. But sorry, Ashley. Yeah,

Ashley (32:12):
No, I was just saying yes to that. Yes, to that.

Cori (32:16):
Thanks for listening to the Fitness Hack podcast. Again, this is the place where I share all my free workout and nutrition tips. I’m never going to run sponsorships or ask you to buy anything. All I ask in return is if you’re enjoying the podcast to leave a rating, review or share it with someone you think it might help. This will only take a few minutes, and it would mean the world to me and possibly change the life of someone.

*Please Note: this transcript is auto-generated and there may be some errors in the transcript