Speaker 1: I won't lend my body out, be out everything that
Speaker 1: I'm made do. Won't spend my life trying to change.
Speaker 1: I'm learning to love who I am. I get I'm strong,
Speaker 1: I feel free, I know who every part of me
Speaker 1: it is beautiful and I will always out way if
Speaker 1: you feel it with your hays in the air, She'll
Speaker 1: some love to the poet there say good day and
Speaker 1: time did you and die out? Welcome back Otway, fam A,
Speaker 1: Lisa and Amy. Here just a little quick intro before
Speaker 1: we get into our episode with Danielle Wilson. And this
Speaker 1: episode is really rich in how we can bring emotional
Speaker 1: strength to physical strength when it comes to training and
Speaker 1: working out and becoming stronger in our physical bodies. That
Speaker 1: being said, as we were kind of walking through, it
Speaker 1: just jogged a memory and me that I'm not sure
Speaker 1: I've ever really spoken about and I wanted to share
Speaker 1: it with you. And that was the time of my
Speaker 1: life after my very restrictive eating took place that I
Speaker 1: got very focused on fitness and performance and glute size
Speaker 1: and how many reps I could do. And it was
Speaker 1: under this new guys of health and I was doing
Speaker 1: things like Spartan races, which are these three hour intense things.
Speaker 1: And even though I wasn't as focused anymore on eating
Speaker 1: very little or shrinking my body in the same way,
Speaker 1: I really can look back and see how my obsessive,
Speaker 1: not compassionate nature kind of just shifted into something new,
Speaker 1: something a little bit more palatable for other people. Even
Speaker 1: you know, people would love to say, Wow, you look
Speaker 1: so fit, you look so strong, And I thrived off
Speaker 1: of that for a while before I was able to recognize, Okay, well,
Speaker 1: can even take a rest day? Why are you scared
Speaker 1: to take a rest day? And I pushed myself and
Speaker 1: pushed myself so Amy and I were just talking a
Speaker 1: little bit about this. I was sharing that story with her,
Speaker 1: and Danielle kind of just reminded me of a time
Speaker 1: in my life when I took what could be a
Speaker 1: positive relationship to exercise, and because of my history, I
Speaker 1: really got obsessive about it. Amy, have you ever been there?
Speaker 1: Or you can't relate to this at all? Oh? No,
Speaker 1: I can relate. I did a marathon in college, and
Speaker 1: I really honestly did it so I could lose weight.
Speaker 1: I thought, oh my gosh, after I get done training
Speaker 1: for this marathon, I'm probably gonna be so skinny. Well
Speaker 1: I wasn't. I ended up using every moment to carbo
Speaker 1: load like crazy. My body hated me. I reacted in
Speaker 1: such a way that when I finished the race, I
Speaker 1: was the puffiest person you have ever seen because my
Speaker 1: body was not built to run marathons. I just was
Speaker 1: not other people. Yeah, maybe for me personally, I got
Speaker 1: a knee injury early on, I had to do training
Speaker 1: in the water, but I was determined. Now, I will
Speaker 1: say mentally it helped me because I did set a
Speaker 1: goal and I wanted to finish it, and I think
Speaker 1: that following through with goals is important. However, I did
Speaker 1: not listen to my body. I pushed through because I
Speaker 1: kept chasing the dream of being skinnier from running. I
Speaker 1: never got that runner's body that I envisioned. And so, yeah,
Speaker 1: I totally relate to exactly what you just said, Lisa,
Speaker 1: And I think that it's not that running a marathon
Speaker 1: is bad, but you got to check yourself. What's your
Speaker 1: real motivation? Why are you doing it? Does running make
Speaker 1: you happy? Like is that something that really brings you joy?
Speaker 1: And maybe it does for some people. There's this high
Speaker 1: they get and this that's what they want to do.
Speaker 1: We're not saying that it's bad if you do marathons.
Speaker 1: But then I found myself doing the same exact thing.
Speaker 1: When I was out of college. I got into triathlons
Speaker 1: mainly because I thought, oh, wow, okay, this will be
Speaker 1: easier on my knee. I can swim, bike and run
Speaker 1: and guess what, I'll probably lose weight and let me
Speaker 1: tell y'all in the marathon, and then later in the triathlons.
Speaker 1: Because I did multiple I never lost weight, And then
Speaker 1: it caused this whole mental thing because I was in
Speaker 1: it for the wrong reason. And I don't think I
Speaker 1: would have admitted to you at the time that I
Speaker 1: was in it to lose weight. I would not have
Speaker 1: now we're looking back, I can tell you that wholeheartedly.
Speaker 1: It's why I was doing it. So then I had
Speaker 1: this horrible relationship with myself because I was so angry
Speaker 1: at the fact that was putting in all this work
Speaker 1: and training all the time, and I wasn't getting the
Speaker 1: results that I wanted. But my body was responding to
Speaker 1: what I was putting it through, and I wasn't happy
Speaker 1: and I wasn't enjoying it. So I just want you. Yeah,
Speaker 1: when you get into this episode, I think it all
Speaker 1: It may cause you to reflect when you're working out,
Speaker 1: why are you doing it? What is the motivation? And
Speaker 1: is it so that you can like feel good and
Speaker 1: connect with your body and feel strong mind, body and
Speaker 1: spirit or do you always have this lingering, oh, it's
Speaker 1: going to help me lose weight goal? Because that's going
Speaker 1: to get you nowhere. And because Amy and I are
Speaker 1: super transparent with our background and obsessive nature, and if
Speaker 1: you're a listener, you can probably relate to either amy
Speaker 1: story or some of mine, or one of the guests
Speaker 1: that we've had on that a program, like a lot
Speaker 1: of the things that I see online not I've actually
Speaker 1: never done Danielle's program, so I can't speak to that one,
Speaker 1: but a lot of the ones that I see online
Speaker 1: that were very trendy for a long time, I know
Speaker 1: straight up that that's not a good fit for me.
Speaker 1: Even though they talk about body positivity in some light,
Speaker 1: I know that that's not for me. And I just
Speaker 1: want you to listen and make sure that whatever you do,
Speaker 1: whether it's going to a class or not, or going
Speaker 1: to the gym or not running a marathon or whatever
Speaker 1: it is that you check in with yourself and say,
Speaker 1: am I being obsessive? Or am I doing this for
Speaker 1: the right reasons? And I think that there's so much
Speaker 1: to Daniel's story that I absolutely love, especially you know,
Speaker 1: her story about how young she was when she started
Speaker 1: thinking about her body differently, and she brings so much
Speaker 1: wisdom to how our emotions play a role with our
Speaker 1: physical strength. And I think just learning how to figure
Speaker 1: out that balance within ourselves is kind of the job
Speaker 1: we all have. Yeah, And I love that Danielle is
Speaker 1: is a coach and a trainer that wants to to
Speaker 1: motivate you from the inside and wants you to believe
Speaker 1: in yourself. So hopefully that's what you take away from
Speaker 1: today's episode, and then you just reflect on why you're
Speaker 1: doing whatever it is you're currently doing for your body.
Speaker 1: What what does your body need? Do checkens daily, checkens
Speaker 1: with yourself? What does my body need to day? Love that?
Speaker 1: All right, let's jump in, welcome back to that way.
Speaker 1: We've got myself, we've got Amy, and we've got an
Speaker 1: amazing guest, Danielle Wilson today. And Danielle is an athlete
Speaker 1: turn trainer on the Tone and sculpt app But what
Speaker 1: I love about Danielle, what drew me in, is that
Speaker 1: fitness to you and the way you talk about fitness
Speaker 1: is a way to boost your confidence and your mental
Speaker 1: strength rather than being just about the pounds and the inches.
Speaker 1: So we're so excited to hear your story of how
Speaker 1: you came to really shift your mindset and make fitness
Speaker 1: such a positive place in your personal life and your career. Welcome,
Speaker 1: Thank you so much for having me. Yeah, I'm excited
Speaker 1: to jump into it with you. Guys. So you were
Speaker 1: a gymnast your entire life, right, Yes, I started gymnastics
Speaker 1: when I was two years old, so I have been
Speaker 1: you know, tumbling really since I could walk. So yes,
Speaker 1: And a lot of our audience comes from a background
Speaker 1: of also being an athlete since they were very young.
Speaker 1: Whether they started at too maybe not, but you know,
Speaker 1: for most of their life they're spending a lot of
Speaker 1: times training and a result of being an athlete is
Speaker 1: oftentimes your body doesn't fit the traditional medium mold of
Speaker 1: what is beautiful. So for you, as a gymnast, did
Speaker 1: you feel like that was a personal struggle that you
Speaker 1: went through. Absolutely, I think especially in a sport like gymnastics.
Speaker 1: Why and your body, you know, is kind of it's
Speaker 1: the main thing that you're putting on display during competition.
Speaker 1: It is something that at a very young age I
Speaker 1: became concerned about. And you know, I remember with my mom,
Speaker 1: like tearful conversations with my mom not understanding why God
Speaker 1: gave me such broad shoulders or why I had, you know,
Speaker 1: such strong arms. I honestly I used to call them
Speaker 1: man arms, which you know, looking back, that's just so
Speaker 1: sad to even hear my younger self say. But absolutely,
Speaker 1: you know, looking at magazines and everything and you being
Speaker 1: the complete opposite of what everything is telling you is beautiful,
Speaker 1: what is um the gold standard of what you should
Speaker 1: look like As a young girl. Also, growing up in
Speaker 1: a predominantly white area, I'm the only little black girl
Speaker 1: on the gymnastics team. I'm just completely different from everybody
Speaker 1: around me. So, you know, especially growing up when all
Speaker 1: you want to do is fit in and feel beautiful,
Speaker 1: finding those things and find that beauty and yourself was
Speaker 1: absolutely something that I struggled with for sure. And being
Speaker 1: a gymnast, you're in a leotard very early on. That
Speaker 1: certainly doesn't make it easy. I know, when I was two, three, four,
Speaker 1: or five, I was not thinking about what my body
Speaker 1: looked like in a leotard. Do you have really early
Speaker 1: memories of that already being an issue for you? Yeah,
Speaker 1: you know I was. I was always pretty petite, slender, musty,
Speaker 1: like I hate to say petite, because I wasn't petite.
Speaker 1: I was definitely like this little brick house of a girl.
Speaker 1: I was very muscular, broad, and at that time, my
Speaker 1: body was fighting me. I was always supposed to be
Speaker 1: tall and five eleven and the best gymnast in the
Speaker 1: world or four eleven, you know, so my body was
Speaker 1: fighting me in that sport. My dad was a professional athlete,
Speaker 1: so I've always kind of had this bigger, you know, broader,
Speaker 1: more muscular frame. One thing that I will say possible
Speaker 1: trigger warning for anyone out there. We did get weight
Speaker 1: in monthly, so as a little girl, I we would
Speaker 1: all line up in our leotards and get weight in
Speaker 1: in front of our entire team. Because I was the
Speaker 1: tallest on the team, I was always the heaviest. And
Speaker 1: while that never really it never took me to the
Speaker 1: point of, you know, altering my food patterns and eating
Speaker 1: patterns or things things like that it was something that
Speaker 1: was prevalent that I, you know, would come home and
Speaker 1: not understand why I was so much heavier all the time.
Speaker 1: So yeah, definitely early memories of worrying about my weight.
Speaker 1: I think that's something that a lot of people can
Speaker 1: relate to. Not that they were gymnasts, but because of
Speaker 1: their sports, they felt they needed to be a certain weight.
Speaker 1: But I remember watching athlete A on Netflix and feeling
Speaker 1: so awful, specifically for the gymnasts because of the pressure.
Speaker 1: Or you think of dancers or ballerinas and like they
Speaker 1: have to weigh a certain amount according to their teacher
Speaker 1: or their coach or whomever, and they're willing to sacrifice
Speaker 1: and do whatever they have to do to make sure
Speaker 1: that they're there that goal. And I can't imagine. As
Speaker 1: a kid I was, I probably put that pressure on myself.
Speaker 1: I weighed myself all the time, So I don't know
Speaker 1: what it's like to have a coach or somebody weigh
Speaker 1: you all the time and tell you like, this is
Speaker 1: what you need to be. So then, therefore, did you
Speaker 1: see girls around you that would try to find ways
Speaker 1: to drop weight quickly? I don't think so. I don't
Speaker 1: want to like it wasn't ever really out and exposed. Um,
Speaker 1: I don't think it was something that no one really
Speaker 1: talked about, which is honestly even a little bit more
Speaker 1: just consturbing because I don't know what was going on
Speaker 1: behind the scenes. I know, for me personally, the only
Speaker 1: way that I was able to be okay with the
Speaker 1: weighing in front of the team was the fact that
Speaker 1: I did have one coach that always told me, you
Speaker 1: know what, like you are so strong, like you are
Speaker 1: so powerful there. You know, there's all these awful sayings like,
Speaker 1: especially gymnastics when you're younger, you hear these awful things
Speaker 1: like that people don't go as high when you're tumbling,
Speaker 1: and just terrible things things that you would never want
Speaker 1: to say to a little girl. All she wants to
Speaker 1: do is, you know, be this phenomenal tumbler and go
Speaker 1: to the Olympics. You know. So for me, I never
Speaker 1: saw any you know, disordered behavior like out in the light.
Speaker 1: But that doesn't mean that you know, it wasn't going
Speaker 1: on behind the scenes by any means. But for me,
Speaker 1: I really was able to hold onto the idea of like, yes,
Speaker 1: like I might be heavy, but I'm powerful and I'm
Speaker 1: so strong and I that kind of has been ingrained
Speaker 1: in me through my parents and through one of my
Speaker 1: coaches that always kind of continuously reminded me of that.
Speaker 1: Because I was a very small I wish I could
Speaker 1: show use some pictures of what I looked like. I
Speaker 1: was a tiny package, but there was a lot of
Speaker 1: muscle mass packed in that tiny package, so I just
Speaker 1: weighed more. I'm glad you brought up that your parents
Speaker 1: were a good encouragement for you during that time, because
Speaker 1: we have a lot of moms that listen to this,
Speaker 1: and I think that they can hear you say that
Speaker 1: and then be reminded to make sure if they've got
Speaker 1: kids that are in a certain sport or doing gymnastics
Speaker 1: or dance or cheerleading or whatever, that they make sure
Speaker 1: and have some conversations when their kids get home from
Speaker 1: practice and like see how they're really feeling and what's
Speaker 1: going on inside of them, and make sure that they
Speaker 1: know that they are strong and they are amazing, because
Speaker 1: I mean, who knows our kids are just off at
Speaker 1: school and doing these sports and we don't know how
Speaker 1: they're being spoken to, and they may not come home
Speaker 1: and really share it with us. Right. It was one
Speaker 1: of those things where we just kind of lined up
Speaker 1: and they would write the number on. They would look
Speaker 1: at our bodies, move the little scale thing back and forth.
Speaker 1: I would I do remember looking at that and always
Speaker 1: just hoping that I would be able to move it
Speaker 1: down a little. Do you remember those scales where it
Speaker 1: kind of like balanced out. I would remember always like
Speaker 1: wishing that she could tap that little thing a little
Speaker 1: bit farther down so I could get a little bit
Speaker 1: lighter and a little bit lighter. So that was is
Speaker 1: something that I do now that I'm thinking about it.
Speaker 1: I just got a flashback of that. But that, for
Speaker 1: you is a flashback to your childhood. But so many
Speaker 1: people listening right now that was the reality for them,
Speaker 1: maybe even this morning, and again again put on themselves.
Speaker 1: So how do you encourage women and people and clients
Speaker 1: that you work with to not get fixated on the
Speaker 1: scale going down that direction? Yeah? I mean that's the
Speaker 1: reason I don't even have a scale in my house today.
Speaker 1: I used to, I would say, you know, it was
Speaker 1: that wasn't just a one and done thing in childhood.
Speaker 1: It was all throughout high school, all throughout college, even
Speaker 1: when I transition to cheerleading. Um that was still you know,
Speaker 1: you're in a little uniform in front of a crowd. Um.
Speaker 1: That was always still something that was on my mind,
Speaker 1: even after even maybe even more so after I stopped
Speaker 1: playing sports, because you know, I don't have to go
Speaker 1: to practice anymore. I don't have a coach telling me
Speaker 1: exactly what to do in the gym. So I'm even
Speaker 1: more worried about my weight going up now since I
Speaker 1: don't have that activity that I used to with my sport.
Speaker 1: So one of the main things that I try to
Speaker 1: ingrain in my especially my TONU sculpt athletes. Day one,
Speaker 1: before you ever start a program with me, you do
Speaker 1: a benchmark performance test. That test is how I want
Speaker 1: you to start to shift your brain from solely a
Speaker 1: mindset of what my body looks like to what my
Speaker 1: body is able to do and what my body is
Speaker 1: able to achieve. So day one we're testing lower body strength,
Speaker 1: core strength, upper body strength, and endurance. So then one
Speaker 1: you know your why going throughout the program, right, you
Speaker 1: understand why you're doing all these workouts, but you know,
Speaker 1: eight weeks down the line, sixteen weeks down the line,
Speaker 1: after you finish this program, you have real numbers of performance,
Speaker 1: real other ways to quantify progress rather than solely just
Speaker 1: seeing a number drop on a scale. No, we want
Speaker 1: to see these numbers increase. We want to see our
Speaker 1: lower body strength increase, to see our upper body strength increase. Um.
Speaker 1: So really being able to switch that mindset from what
Speaker 1: my body solely looks like, what it weighs, what the
Speaker 1: things are I want to change about it to know,
Speaker 1: I'm so grateful that I was one. I was able
Speaker 1: to get up today and move and to I can't
Speaker 1: see my body getting stronger and the confidence that that
Speaker 1: gives you When you can see the numbers going up
Speaker 1: for your performance, that is when that that light bulb
Speaker 1: goes off, like this is it? This is it? I
Speaker 1: feel like for you, the physical strength and the emotional
Speaker 1: strength kind of go chicken and egg like is it
Speaker 1: your physical strength that's bringing you emotional strength or is
Speaker 1: it your emotional strength that's helping you get physically stronger.
Speaker 1: But for a time being after you left college, you
Speaker 1: no longer had your coaches to tell you what to do,
Speaker 1: and nowhere to show up for trainings all that stuff.
Speaker 1: Did you then find that because you didn't have that
Speaker 1: physical strength on an ongoing basis to check in to
Speaker 1: find your power house, if you will, the one way
Speaker 1: you've kind of been taught. How did you find your
Speaker 1: emotional strength during that time? For a period, I wouldn't
Speaker 1: have to admit that I was lost. Um, I would
Speaker 1: have to say after college it was kind of the
Speaker 1: first three years out of college was a very weird experience.
Speaker 1: More kind of fell into possibly unhealthier behaviors with alcohol
Speaker 1: and things like that. But you know, there was a point,
Speaker 1: and I strictly remember this. It was after St. Patrick's Day,
Speaker 1: which is, you know, a heavily inebriated holiday in Chicago.
Speaker 1: Will say, and you know, I woke up the next
Speaker 1: morning and I looked in the mirror and I was like,
Speaker 1: I don't recognize this person, Like who is this person?
Speaker 1: And that was kind of one of those moments where
Speaker 1: it was like, Okay, I'm gonna give myself some time
Speaker 1: to feel this emotion, feel what this feels like, to
Speaker 1: not feel like myself. I'm gonna give myself some time
Speaker 1: to be sick of feeling this way. And the next day,
Speaker 1: you know, I'm I'm gonna I'm gonna do something about it.
Speaker 1: So you know, it really came down to a decision
Speaker 1: of being sick of feeling a certain way about myself
Speaker 1: and understanding that I'm the only one who has the
Speaker 1: power to change that for myself and really stepping into
Speaker 1: my power and making a better decision each day and
Speaker 1: every day. You know, I'm not saying from there on
Speaker 1: out it was perfect, because that's not. That's just not
Speaker 1: the case. Ebbs and flows with every journey, for sure,
Speaker 1: But you know, it really was a mindset shift of Okay,
Speaker 1: how what can I do to get back to feeling
Speaker 1: like me again? Since the athlete piece was not missing,
Speaker 1: how can I bring that athlete back? Do you feel
Speaker 1: like we all have athletes inside of us, because even
Speaker 1: if we're really not athletes, Absolutely no, honestly. And I've
Speaker 1: I've had this conversation with my athletes before because I'll
Speaker 1: have women that look at my videos sometimes or like
Speaker 1: that's phenomenal for you, but I can't do that, And
Speaker 1: I'm like, yes you can, yet you just you telling
Speaker 1: yourself that is setting yourself up for failure. Yes you can.
Speaker 1: If you have a body, you have the ability to
Speaker 1: move it in an athletic manner. Being an athlete is
Speaker 1: more of a mindset than anything else. I always like
Speaker 1: to say, if you're just going in the gym and
Speaker 1: you're exercising to burn a certain amount of calories and
Speaker 1: check a box, that's not how an athlete operates. An
Speaker 1: athlete operates knowing that, Okay, I'm competing against the version
Speaker 1: of myself I was yesterday. I'm competing against those benchmark
Speaker 1: numbers that I set for myself day one of my program.
Speaker 1: I'm doing this because I want to get better. I'm
Speaker 1: training these specific movement patterns because I want to be
Speaker 1: able to move more freely. I want to be able
Speaker 1: to create longevity. It's more of a mindset committing to
Speaker 1: getting better every single day, rather than going into the
Speaker 1: gym and exercising to check a box. That's the big difference,
Speaker 1: the difference between training and just exercising and Amy and
Speaker 1: I know firsthand from our own experience and also just
Speaker 1: talking to our audience and number registered dietitian working with people.
Speaker 1: That's sometimes exercise addiction, even if it's not about the
Speaker 1: calories and shrinking yourself, but maybe it is about the
Speaker 1: performance and the you know, hitting those benchmark numbers. People
Speaker 1: can become just as obsessive about those numbers. Is that
Speaker 1: something that you've experienced or some of your athletes have,
Speaker 1: And if so, how do we kind of come back
Speaker 1: to the emotional strength that we're cultivating when we're at
Speaker 1: the gym and when we're not. Yeah, I think you know,
Speaker 1: the longer you're in the game training that way, you
Speaker 1: know you're it's a law of diminishing returns. So in
Speaker 1: the first couple of weeks you might improve your strength
Speaker 1: by but the longer you're doing it, those increases are
Speaker 1: going to get smaller and smaller. So for me, someone
Speaker 1: who's really been really training training for four or five
Speaker 1: years now, my increases are definitely small. So, yes, there
Speaker 1: is frustration when I'm not seeing those numbers go up
Speaker 1: on my squat or my dead lift like I used to.
Speaker 1: But the main thing I'll always say, because you can
Speaker 1: turn anything into an obsessive behavior. Anything that's deemed healthy
Speaker 1: quote unquote can turn into something that is unhealthy with
Speaker 1: the wrong mindset. But what I like to remind people
Speaker 1: of is, you know what, you don't have to do
Speaker 1: this today. You get to do this today if you
Speaker 1: have the mindset of leading with gratitude first, it really
Speaker 1: helps put things in perspective, and it really helps you
Speaker 1: understand that, Okay, maybe I didn't hit this number that
Speaker 1: I wanted to hit today. Maybe something isn't going my
Speaker 1: way today, But you know, I woke up today, I
Speaker 1: got to walk to the gym on my of my
Speaker 1: own free will. I am extremely fortunate. How do you
Speaker 1: meet people sometimes where they need to be met when
Speaker 1: it comes to having compassion for themselves if if they're
Speaker 1: not quite that athlete every day. First of all, I'm
Speaker 1: loving that now I can call myself an athlete simply
Speaker 1: because I moved my body. But for me, that might
Speaker 1: be having a dance party with my kids in the kitchen,
Speaker 1: Like that's me celebrating and moving my body that day.
Speaker 1: It might not be that I make it quite there
Speaker 1: yet too, dead lift as much as I need to.
Speaker 1: So how do you encourage people that might be stuck
Speaker 1: and wrapped around trying to constantly achieve, achieve, achieve. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I think when in the manner of meeting people where
Speaker 1: they're at, you have to understand that everybody needs a
Speaker 1: different style and of movement, and each day is going
Speaker 1: to look different for what each person needs. If I
Speaker 1: was sitting here and telling you that I feel like
Speaker 1: going into the gym and going hard combine style training
Speaker 1: every single day, and that's that's just not the case.
Speaker 1: Some days, you know, I might need a hot yoga flow,
Speaker 1: or I might need a dance session with my godson.
Speaker 1: You know that like that can be acceptable forms of
Speaker 1: movement because at the end of the day, going back
Speaker 1: to what I said, we're celebrating what our body is
Speaker 1: able to do. And if that for you that day
Speaker 1: is just having that dance party and feeling positive about that,
Speaker 1: you know that that's a step in the right direction.
Speaker 1: That's not something that you should, you know, be ashamed
Speaker 1: of in any way. I always have this tough love approach,
Speaker 1: and I feel like it comes off kind of tough love,
Speaker 1: but at the end of the day, it is coming
Speaker 1: from a loving place. And always you have to give
Speaker 1: yourself grace when you need it. Everybody's needs are going
Speaker 1: to look different, and as long as you're doing your
Speaker 1: best to meet those needs for yourself, that that is
Speaker 1: a step in the right direction. And I know you
Speaker 1: have the do it for you mentality when it comes
Speaker 1: to fitness. Is that the do it for you mentality?
Speaker 1: What you just described or does it go a little
Speaker 1: bit further. That is part of it. I would say,
Speaker 1: taking that a step further, is that anytime, especially busy moms.
Speaker 1: You know, I've seen my mom struggle with this. I
Speaker 1: have seen, you know, the moms in my life struggle
Speaker 1: with filling their cup first. You know a lot of
Speaker 1: times it is what do my kids need? What? Did
Speaker 1: my husband need? What? And I feel bad even talk
Speaker 1: about this because I'm not a mom obviously, but you know,
Speaker 1: for everybody, we all have these things where we feel
Speaker 1: like we're being pulled in a million different directions. And
Speaker 1: it's important to understand that you cannot be that best mom,
Speaker 1: that best daughter, that best employee, that best boss unless
Speaker 1: you are first taking the time to fill your cup.
Speaker 1: So when I say you have to do this for you,
Speaker 1: that kind of is explaining the fact that, yes, I
Speaker 1: want to be that best version of myself, so I
Speaker 1: need to do what it takes for me to be
Speaker 1: the best version of myself for myself so that I
Speaker 1: can then have that cup runneth over for everybody else
Speaker 1: in my life. I'm a big subscriber to that notion.
Speaker 1: And I know I'm not a momm eitherre but Amy
Speaker 1: is a busy Mohammad a busy everything ing um Amy
Speaker 1: do you do you find that that to be true,
Speaker 1: especially as you add more things to your plate, that
Speaker 1: if you don't start with you, whatever that you is
Speaker 1: of the day, you have nothing to give either. Absolutely,
Speaker 1: And I've stopped apologizing for it or feeling guilty, whether
Speaker 1: it's like making sure I try to get eight hours
Speaker 1: of sleep or making sure that you know, I have
Speaker 1: time to go for a walk, catch up with some friends.
Speaker 1: Sometimes you just get so go, go go. The sleep
Speaker 1: has been a big one, speaking of mind, body, spirit,
Speaker 1: You're not, if used to anybody, if if you're not
Speaker 1: getting rest. I feel like society has told us oh no,
Speaker 1: no, no no, you know, you just need to eat right
Speaker 1: and work out. But there's another component there. We don't
Speaker 1: even have to do both of those all the time,
Speaker 1: but what we do need to do all the time
Speaker 1: is get rest. And so that's why where I can
Speaker 1: speak specifically to that, I've stopped feeling guilty about making
Speaker 1: sure that I'm in my bed at a certain time
Speaker 1: tim and heck, yeah, I'm going to get a lot
Speaker 1: of sleep. And I used to feel guilty about that.
Speaker 1: I'd be like, oh my gosh, I should be up
Speaker 1: until eleven midnight working getting extra things done like making
Speaker 1: I mean no and then waking up extra early to
Speaker 1: get that workout in meanwhile messing with your hormones and
Speaker 1: all that exactly, Danielle, I think you could speak to
Speaker 1: that part a little bit more, especially as an athlete
Speaker 1: turned coach. I think what a lot of people that
Speaker 1: perhaps don't go through the rigorous life training that you've
Speaker 1: been through miss when they turn to fitness is the
Speaker 1: importance of rest. Not just rest because you need it
Speaker 1: for your mental health, but to also meet your physical
Speaker 1: goals for recovery, to be able to show up with
Speaker 1: power the next day or the next day or in
Speaker 1: three days. So what is the importance of rest days
Speaker 1: And how can we really remember that when we want
Speaker 1: to kind of just keep pushing a little bit too hard.
Speaker 1: One thing that I'm always talking to my athletes about
Speaker 1: is that rest is just as much a part of
Speaker 1: the process as those active days. If you are not
Speaker 1: let allowing your body to recover after you've broken down
Speaker 1: those muscles, if you're not allowing those muscles to rebuild
Speaker 1: and replenish, you're actually doing more harm than good, Like
Speaker 1: overtraining is a real thing. And there's one mindset that
Speaker 1: I can't stand. Every time I see it, it's like
Speaker 1: a buzzword in it. It just makes me mad. Every
Speaker 1: time I see no days off, I'm like, absolutely, we
Speaker 1: need days off. Like, don't tell people that this is
Speaker 1: a rest day for me today, because I know that
Speaker 1: people are, especially if they're signing up for a training program,
Speaker 1: they're they're all going all in on something. They're gonna
Speaker 1: probably try to go seven days a week or they're
Speaker 1: gonna try to go six days a week. So what
Speaker 1: I do is to try to make them combat that
Speaker 1: is I'll program a mobility day, I'll program a rest day.
Speaker 1: I'll program something that is going to make them take
Speaker 1: the speed down and that's gonna make them, you know,
Speaker 1: just do something but is going to like feel good
Speaker 1: and it's not gonna be as intense. I definitely think that,
Speaker 1: you know, high intensity interval training is another like buzzword
Speaker 1: these days, but you should not be doing high intensity
Speaker 1: interval training every single day. Um. That is not a
Speaker 1: good way to upkeep your muscles. That doesn't sustain activity
Speaker 1: for a lifestyle. UM. So you absolutely have to have
Speaker 1: those days to rest. Um. If you're not sleeping while
Speaker 1: your muscles aren't recovering, You're gonna have brain fog that
Speaker 1: is just gonna Your mood is gonna be off. You're
Speaker 1: not gonna get the same endorphments that you would from
Speaker 1: a well rested workout. Um, it's just gonna throw and
Speaker 1: you're just again, you're not gonna be your best self
Speaker 1: for any other aspect of your life. So absolutely, I
Speaker 1: love hearing you say I don't feel guilty about that,
Speaker 1: because that's something I have to remind myself of to
Speaker 1: social media. You know, it's twenty four set in, so
Speaker 1: I'm I've really been trying my best to turn my
Speaker 1: phone off or turn turn off my brain really about
Speaker 1: an hour before bed, just so I can actually get
Speaker 1: that well rested sleep so I can wake up and
Speaker 1: show up to be my best the next day. You're
Speaker 1: definitely right. I'm a big fan of time blocking, not
Speaker 1: being on your phone for social media. I'm even right
Speaker 1: now on a very long Instagram break. I think it's
Speaker 1: been like five weeks or so, but it's it has
Speaker 1: allowed me to rest in a different type of way
Speaker 1: and check in with my body's needs without any sort
Speaker 1: of Obviously, there's noise all the time, but without that
Speaker 1: infiltrated noise of the wellness industry which can sometimes be loud.
Speaker 1: But there was one word that you said that I
Speaker 1: just want to pick up on before we wrap up,
Speaker 1: which is you said for a lifestyle, And I think
Speaker 1: we can go a little bit further to say that
Speaker 1: this is about moving your body so that you can
Speaker 1: move it for a lifetime. And when we outrun our bodies,
Speaker 1: our bodies outrun us. It's not just about your muscles.
Speaker 1: It's about your joints and all these different things that
Speaker 1: allow us to keep going. And I think too often
Speaker 1: I won't say the name of the program, but my
Speaker 1: brother used to do this fitness program that was ninety
Speaker 1: days straight and while he was on day you know,
Speaker 1: thirty sixty, it was all about I'm so strong, I'm
Speaker 1: so whatever. And then day ninety, you know, it was
Speaker 1: over and it was three more months or maybe six months,
Speaker 1: or maybe even a year till he did it again.
Speaker 1: There's something about slow, steady, making it a sustainable thing
Speaker 1: that feels good for you that can kind of get
Speaker 1: lost when you jump into the fitness shuffle and don't
Speaker 1: prioritize rest. Right, Yeah, I think any program that you
Speaker 1: start their need. If you look and you don't see
Speaker 1: your rest day in there, if you look and you
Speaker 1: don't see a recovery day or something like that, I
Speaker 1: would say that they are being irresponsible with your body.
Speaker 1: And that is something you know, you kind of need
Speaker 1: to be your own captain in that sense and say, Okay,
Speaker 1: now that I know that rest is this important, I'm
Speaker 1: going to make that a priority. It's really about making
Speaker 1: that a priority so you can stay in the game
Speaker 1: for a lifetime. That's that's the beauty of functional strength training.
Speaker 1: You know, step ups, things like that. We're training movement patterns.
Speaker 1: We're keeping you walking up the stairs easier. We're keeping
Speaker 1: you playing with your kids longer. Um, we're keeping you
Speaker 1: playing with your grandkids, chasing your grandkids around like. That's
Speaker 1: what we're training for. We don't want to burn out
Speaker 1: in our twenties and our thirties. Um, I want you
Speaker 1: in your seventies ready to go. I love that. Yeah,
Speaker 1: me too. Thank you so much for sharing your strength
Speaker 1: with us, your mental, emotional and physical strength with us,
Speaker 1: and for you know, giving me a new title to
Speaker 1: add to my Instagram bio. Both of us athlete literally
Speaker 1: absolutely to our athletes, thank you so much for having on.
Speaker 1: This was so fun. Thanks Daniel for being here. We'll
Speaker 1: put Daniel's in formation in our show notes below, and
Speaker 1: we'll see you see them. Bye bye m HM