Speaker 1: Personally with.
Speaker 2: Rynga Fuelsman. This week we are focused on the body
Speaker 2: and all in good ways, nothing to be concerned about.
Speaker 2: I'm hoping this episode empowers you to do things that
Speaker 2: are helpful for you and your body. First, I'm bringing
Speaker 2: on Kara Clark, who is an integrative nutritionist and wellness
Speaker 2: educator in integrative health, blood chemistry, and sports and clinical nutrition.
Speaker 2: She's going to share her story of how she got
Speaker 2: into this line of work and how she balances health
Speaker 2: and wellness in her home as a mom of four girls.
Speaker 2: And she's going to share a lot of her perspective
Speaker 2: on the health industry and how she's helping people understand
Speaker 2: their bodies better.
Speaker 3: Then, I'm bringing on Lindsay Kite.
Speaker 2: She's one of the co authors on the book More
Speaker 2: Than a Body and has a PhD in the subject matter.
Speaker 2: We will talk about body image, resilience, why body positivity
Speaker 2: is more than a movement, and how your body is
Speaker 2: an instrument not an ornament. I'm super excited this week
Speaker 2: to be joined by Cara Clark.
Speaker 3: We were just talking about our love for the Midwest,
Speaker 3: for both Midwest girls. Hi, Kara, how are you?
Speaker 2: Hi?
Speaker 4: I'm good, How are you.
Speaker 3: I'm doing good.
Speaker 2: Thanks for joining me and being on here beyond you
Speaker 2: being a Midwest girl along with me. You are also
Speaker 2: an integrative nutritionist and wellness educator. You've done all types
Speaker 2: of clinical nutrition. You're just telling me how you were
Speaker 2: an athlete in college and now you have a book
Speaker 2: coming out, So walk me through your.
Speaker 3: Story a little bit. How you got to the path
Speaker 3: that you're on.
Speaker 4: Yeah, first of all, I love the name of your podcast.
Speaker 5: I think it's really cute and catchy and I don't know,
Speaker 5: I'm excited to share personal things.
Speaker 3: That's where we're going to go with this. We get things.
Speaker 3: We really want people to take this person. There's a
Speaker 3: reason for you.
Speaker 5: Yeah, when I listened to podcasts, I want to know
Speaker 5: about people because I can find what they teach on
Speaker 5: their website or whatever.
Speaker 4: But I'm like, how did you get there?
Speaker 2: Yeah? I love that, and it gives background to who
Speaker 2: you are. Like, you're telling you what you want me
Speaker 2: to know. But why should I listen to you?
Speaker 1: Right?
Speaker 4: Exactly? What is your experience? Because you know, everybody has
Speaker 4: a story.
Speaker 5: And you know, ironically, when I was getting into nutrition,
Speaker 5: it was still really fitness space, human calculator. So to speak,
Speaker 5: calories in, calories out, very calorie oriented, very number oriented,
Speaker 5: and everybody had this big weight loss testimony. And I
Speaker 5: was a college athlete, so I did not have a
Speaker 5: weight loss testimony. I had issues with weight because my
Speaker 5: coach waited us every two weeks. That's another story that
Speaker 5: led me into more of a disordered eating path. So
Speaker 5: when I found myself in a path that like I
Speaker 5: lost a little bit of control, I had to reevaluate
Speaker 5: what did I want for my own life, and like,
Speaker 5: how do.
Speaker 4: I reach people who are in this phase?
Speaker 5: Because this is hard. I don't want to I didn't
Speaker 5: want to do that. I'm a faith based person. I
Speaker 5: didn't want to offend God and hurt my temple, so
Speaker 5: to speak.
Speaker 4: So yeah, twenty two.
Speaker 5: I started credentials to become a certified nutritious. But it
Speaker 5: was partly because in Bascala and college I knew like
Speaker 5: that level of performance was achievable, but nobody could guide
Speaker 5: me on how to get there.
Speaker 4: I had to discover it on my own.
Speaker 5: I was always sick during playoffs, like immune system breakdown?
Speaker 5: Why's my immune system breaking down? What am I supposed
Speaker 5: to be eating? Everybody's drinking gatorade and it hurts my stomach.
Speaker 2: You're having these chronic issues. Yeah, chronic issues or something
Speaker 2: that often isn't talked about or able to be discovered
Speaker 2: in traditional medical.
Speaker 5: Because they're invisible. Back then, seventeen years ago, people wanted
Speaker 5: this visible breakthrough.
Speaker 4: That weight loss.
Speaker 3: How do we easily fix this? Yeah?
Speaker 4: How do you easily fix it? For sure?
Speaker 5: So my thought process when I created my business, which
Speaker 5: you know this will tell you a little bit more
Speaker 5: so since we're taking it personally, I decided to start
Speaker 5: my own business officially right when I got married without
Speaker 5: telling my new husband.
Speaker 3: Oh god, okay, what was that like?
Speaker 4: And by the way, I was pregnant.
Speaker 2: A lot happening in there, and now you're a mom
Speaker 2: of four girls, which again it just seems like there's
Speaker 2: this thing that has happened with you in your life
Speaker 2: where there's always been a lot happening there.
Speaker 5: Always chaos is normal. I'm one of eight from the Midwest,
Speaker 5: like we talked about, so chaos has been normal for me,
Speaker 5: which is ironic because a couple of my breakdowns in
Speaker 5: my body were because of stress, but not because I
Speaker 5: was more stressed, because I never dealt with the stress
Speaker 5: at hand. So yeah, got married, got pregnant on her honeymoon,
Speaker 5: even though I text my mom from the Dominican asking
Speaker 5: her if I was fertile on day nine or whatever,
Speaker 5: and she said I wasn't.
Speaker 3: She said you were, but she was. Did you already
Speaker 3: know at this point or no?
Speaker 5: I had no idea, Like I only just started tracking
Speaker 5: like fertility and stuff when right when I was getting married,
Speaker 5: I didn't think anything of it. So yeah, I was fine, though,
Speaker 5: Like I wanted to be a mom my whole life.
Speaker 4: I could have skipped the wedding. That wasn't for me.
Speaker 4: I wanted to be a mom.
Speaker 5: But yeah, I never said to my husband do you
Speaker 5: care if I quit my well paying job to start
Speaker 5: my own?
Speaker 3: It was just like, hey, by the way, and what
Speaker 3: was the well paying job?
Speaker 4: I was working at a law firm.
Speaker 5: I was like running a department I shouldn't have been
Speaker 5: running only because I was in Orange County?
Speaker 4: Did I get the job? By the way, I looked.
Speaker 2: Okay, wild but also crazy jump yes, athlete nutrition stuff.
Speaker 4: You were broads journalism in college, and then.
Speaker 2: You were working at a law firm and then you
Speaker 2: started your own business, which I'm assuming is this what
Speaker 2: you're doing.
Speaker 4: Yes, huh.
Speaker 3: Why?
Speaker 2: What was like, I need to start this business and
Speaker 2: leave this.
Speaker 4: Job the urgency to heal my own disordered eating. And
Speaker 4: that's what it always is.
Speaker 5: It's our own chronic issues that we want to heal from.
Speaker 5: Like I said, disordered eating is very invisible and a
Speaker 5: lot of people don't go to the doctor to get
Speaker 5: a diagnosis. You know, but it controls your mind, It
Speaker 5: controls every part of your day, It controls your energy.
Speaker 5: And so when I was trying to figure out food,
Speaker 5: I wanted there to be a purpose involved, and I
Speaker 5: wanted it to be providing energy. I thought, as a
Speaker 5: performance athlete, everyone wants to perform on a daily basis. No,
Speaker 5: no way, nobody wants to stop performing or not have energy.
Speaker 5: And so what I built into my philosophy was to
Speaker 5: help me get out of my eating disorder, but also
Speaker 5: give people purpose and performance in their everyday life. So
Speaker 5: then I created my nutrition philosophy, so seventeen years ago,
Speaker 5: I've stuck with it for seventeen years, but I've added
Speaker 5: into my credentials.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you've evolved in a lot of that.
Speaker 3: For you, What did the disorder eating look like?
Speaker 2: Because that's another thing with it is it looks different
Speaker 2: for everybody.
Speaker 3: Yeah, for you, what was that like?
Speaker 5: It wasn't like binging or bolimia or anything like that.
Speaker 5: It was more like what they would call orthorexia, like
Speaker 5: overly working out and overly calculating calories and stuff like that.
Speaker 2: And was that because you had mentioned in the beginning
Speaker 2: of this a coach who was weighing you.
Speaker 3: Was that part of this? Were all this start?
Speaker 5: I mean I didn't weigh myself then, but I did
Speaker 5: move from Oklahoma to California, so looking a certain way
Speaker 5: felt like it was a high priority for a twenty
Speaker 5: two year old.
Speaker 4: A cultural shift, it's a huge culture shift.
Speaker 5: And yeah, I was just finding myself and like my
Speaker 5: identity outside of being a student athlete and going into
Speaker 5: the work world. I was broadcast journalism in college. I
Speaker 5: fully thought I would be like a sideline reporter until
Speaker 5: I found out what their lives looked like and their
Speaker 5: hours looked like, and anyway, I wanted a family. I
Speaker 5: met my husband like five weeks after I moved to California.
Speaker 2: Oh wow, okay, And so what was that like to
Speaker 2: your going through this? You had just made a big move,
Speaker 2: You just met your husband, well now husband, obviously he
Speaker 2: wasn't then.
Speaker 3: But what was that like for you?
Speaker 2: Like you were experiencing in your body as all of
Speaker 2: those things are happening.
Speaker 5: I've always been somebody who goes with the flow. What
Speaker 5: do they say, ask forgiveness, not permission. That's kind of
Speaker 5: like the way I am, and it's not something I
Speaker 5: think about. So I do have to apologize a lot,
Speaker 5: and I'm really good at apologizing. I can, you know,
Speaker 5: say things I didn't mean or whatever. But anyway, it
Speaker 5: wasn't like this crazy experience, but I did know that
Speaker 5: for myself, I needed to feel right with God. And
Speaker 5: so actually it led me to this very adult spiritual
Speaker 5: experience that you don't realize when you're a kid, that
Speaker 5: your world view is just what you learn from your
Speaker 5: parents and your church and stuff, you know. And so
Speaker 5: when I was able to adopt that, I was like, oh,
Speaker 5: I can feel faith and that feels good. And so
Speaker 5: I actually got with a spiritual director and he told me,
Speaker 5: and I've shared this many times, but I feel like
Speaker 5: it's really powerful for people to hear. He said, if
Speaker 5: you count your or if you keep a prayer log
Speaker 5: like you keep your food log you'll be a saint.
Speaker 5: Interesting and that was like groundbreaking for me.
Speaker 2: I was like, oh yeah, well and especially with your
Speaker 2: experiences that you had, and that probably was just such
Speaker 2: a powerful correlation for you. Yeah, So that was this
Speaker 2: shift then into this world the nutrition wellness. How long
Speaker 2: did it take you to get your body back to
Speaker 2: the track that you would feel was healthy.
Speaker 5: The second I got pregnant, I was like, it's not
Speaker 5: about me anymore, and that was what healed me. And
Speaker 5: so for me, it was like circumstance when I don't
Speaker 5: know if that happens for everybody.
Speaker 4: I still not like being weighed while.
Speaker 2: I was pregnant, understandably, so you're growing another human that
Speaker 2: comes with.
Speaker 5: Something story, yes, And I wasn't even somebody who gained
Speaker 5: a lot of weight being pregnant. But from the second
Speaker 5: I found I was pregnant, I was nurturing the baby.
Speaker 5: And that's when I really focused on my macros and
Speaker 5: not so much the calories, but making sure I was
Speaker 5: getting the combination of carbs, fat, and protein every time
Speaker 5: I ate, and eating real foods. So I was just
Speaker 5: really focused on nourishing the life growing inside of me,
Speaker 5: and not really myself anymore. So being taken out of
Speaker 5: myself is how I healed.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and that makes sense.
Speaker 2: I don't think it's uncommon to hear you talked to
Speaker 2: a lot of parents and there's just a shift that happens,
Speaker 2: And it sounds like for you it was especially a
Speaker 2: shift in your health and wellness, but also what you
Speaker 2: were doing when it comes to nutrition and integrative health
Speaker 2: and stuff. It's kind of this I don't want to
Speaker 2: say untapped market, because people have been researching nutrition and
Speaker 2: diets for years, but the integrative health.
Speaker 3: Is just a little bit uncommon.
Speaker 2: It still is today as far as trying to really
Speaker 2: blend all things natural along with traditional medicine and just
Speaker 2: finding the.
Speaker 3: Right flow for each individual person.
Speaker 2: So when you were getting into this, how are you like, Okay,
Speaker 2: how do I figure out how to do this for
Speaker 2: myself and then start to teach people about this because
Speaker 2: you don't have a lot of studying material, right.
Speaker 5: Yeah, And I wouldn't say I was integrative then. I
Speaker 5: was really focused on just nutrition, okay, and so learning
Speaker 5: how to be a nutritionist and help guide people on
Speaker 5: the energy of food and not so much like the
Speaker 5: calories of food, even though calorie is a measurement of energy.
Speaker 5: I started working with sororities all over southern California because
Speaker 5: I knew they were probably battling the same thing that
Speaker 5: I was, and I trained them through boot camps and
Speaker 5: then I taught them how to grocery shop on their budgets.
Speaker 3: Wow.
Speaker 5: So that gave me so much purpose. That also helped
Speaker 5: me understand like human behavior. So huge part of guiding
Speaker 5: anybody on anything wellness is understanding human behavior and being
Speaker 5: patient and like being a good listener. Because in my
Speaker 5: argue that I'm a good listener, but I'm a really
Speaker 5: good listener for my clients.
Speaker 2: That's different in clients versus marriage.
Speaker 3: Yes, we're walking different territories there.
Speaker 2: You were mentioning too, how everybody's very different and the
Speaker 2: body's different for everybody. And you're talking about listening to
Speaker 2: your clients.
Speaker 3: How do you when you.
Speaker 2: Get a client, what are some things that you're paying
Speaker 2: attention to about their lifestyle that's going to help you
Speaker 2: on the nutrition side of things.
Speaker 5: Yeah, that's a really good question and comprehensive question at that.
Speaker 5: I'll just start with saying why I became an integrative
Speaker 5: practitioner as well as an integrative nutritionist and not holistic
Speaker 5: and not functional, okay, because I think, you know, there's
Speaker 5: natural paths, there's functional medicine doctors, there's Chinese medicine doctors,
Speaker 5: there's all these things. But I knew that at the
Speaker 5: root of people's food issues, they were coming most of
Speaker 5: the time. People were coming to me at the in
Speaker 5: the early days, so in my twenties were weight loss
Speaker 5: or sports performance. I had a lot of people being
Speaker 5: referred to me for sports performance. That was always fun
Speaker 5: for me. My next health breakdown happened in my thirties
Speaker 5: when I was just burning the candle at both ends.
Speaker 5: I had four kids in five years. I was pregnant
Speaker 5: and nursing for seven My business blew up turned into
Speaker 5: a business. I thought it was a hobby. I was
Speaker 5: pursuing my passion. My husband was earning the money. And
Speaker 5: you know, for seven years, it did not matter what
Speaker 5: I made, you know, I just got to pursue my passion.
Speaker 5: I got to be a mom, I got to have
Speaker 5: the kids. And then overnight, like I had this huge
Speaker 5: influx of people and I was like, okay, and I
Speaker 5: had I was having my third child at that point,
Speaker 5: so I got a thousand emails in a day.
Speaker 4: I'm not even kidding about.
Speaker 3: Where did that come from?
Speaker 4: Orange County House Life?
Speaker 3: Okay, you got mentioned on there.
Speaker 5: I got brought into the scene of celebrityism and I
Speaker 5: always avoided it, to be honest, and it was hard
Speaker 5: to avoid where I lived.
Speaker 3: Yep, Well everybody there once to be everybody.
Speaker 5: Yeah, everybody wants health health like it's just never ending
Speaker 5: in that area of the world. So overnight I had
Speaker 5: to build. I had to streamline something without any employees.
Speaker 5: So I built my challenge programs and those are seasonal,
Speaker 5: and then years later I built this membership so and
Speaker 5: I have this whole team of nine amazing women that
Speaker 5: do all the things. But anyways, while I was having
Speaker 5: kids and then running a full scale business, which I
Speaker 5: didn't necessarily intend for, I just I really did, just
Speaker 5: have always been the hardest worker I know, but it
Speaker 5: really did just happen.
Speaker 4: Does that make sense?
Speaker 3: Yeah? Absolutely.
Speaker 4: I didn't have the strategy in mind, but I worked
Speaker 4: my butt off.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you were doing the hard work and it just
Speaker 2: paid off. You just didn't realize it was going to
Speaker 2: happen in that quickly, right, right, It was literally that
Speaker 2: part was overnight. But they say overnight success takes ten years,
Speaker 2: and in that case it was eight.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it always does.
Speaker 2: There's always everybody wants to look at the moment that
Speaker 2: it happened to all the years leading up to.
Speaker 5: Me, right, And it is crazy how in a blink
Speaker 5: of and I like all that work paid off. But
Speaker 5: for me, I didn't have any intention of hiring a
Speaker 5: nanny or nout like my motherhood. So to have grown
Speaker 5: a business as a mom and then years later deal
Speaker 5: with some health issues with one of my kids and
Speaker 5: got pretty sick myself because, like you, I was waking
Speaker 5: up at three thirty in the morning so that I
Speaker 5: could get my work done before my kids woke up,
Speaker 5: and then I could get another three hour window while
Speaker 5: they took naps. So I had a beautiful structure of
Speaker 5: routine of sleep.
Speaker 4: In my house.
Speaker 5: But I didn't realize like how much it was hurting me,
Speaker 5: and how much it was hurting my nervous sys some
Speaker 5: and my adrenals and my cortisol. And you know, first
Speaker 5: my skin broke out. You know, I'm in my thirties.
Speaker 5: I'm like three years post nursing my fourth child. I
Speaker 5: should be like in my prime, right, Like I did
Speaker 5: all the hard things, and now I.
Speaker 4: Should be flowing.
Speaker 5: My skin started breaking out, and then I got really lean,
Speaker 5: like to the point where I couldn't put weight on.
Speaker 5: And then so I'm like thirty three thirty four. Then
Speaker 5: I got insomnia, and I thought it was all spiritual,
Speaker 5: So I like did all the prayer work, I got
Speaker 5: the spiritual advisors again. For me, I always go to
Speaker 5: spiritual first. And so I have acne, I have insomnia,
Speaker 5: I have nervous system issues, like I'm on the brink
Speaker 5: of feeling like death all the time. And I'm a nutritionist.
Speaker 3: And You're like, I thought I'm doing all the right.
Speaker 4: Thing that was invincible. Yeah, I ate right.
Speaker 5: I exercised, I did what I was told by the
Speaker 5: fitness industry and by my original credential. So I started
Speaker 5: working with a functional medicine doctor and a Chinese medicine
Speaker 5: doctor and started putting my body back together. Started to
Speaker 5: understand I had to I mean, if I was going
Speaker 5: to take care of for kids all day and run
Speaker 5: a business, I had to optimize my.
Speaker 4: Sleep, not sleepless.
Speaker 5: So started putting the pieces back together and then exploring
Speaker 5: further and the reason I became integrative rather than functional,
Speaker 5: quote unquote, which are similar. To be honest, I feel
Speaker 5: like functional tries to throw solutions at the problem, whereas
Speaker 5: I wanted this.
Speaker 4: Root cause approach.
Speaker 5: So even years later, I still had some madrinal stuff
Speaker 5: coming up. Like I was doing all the supplements. I
Speaker 5: was doing like thirteen supplements a day. For some people
Speaker 5: that doesn't sound like a lot, but I like my
Speaker 5: clients to be like five or under a day unless
Speaker 5: they're on a healing protocol. So for me, integrative is
Speaker 5: using aer vidic, which is ancient six thousand years old,
Speaker 5: like the original saunas and castor oil wraps and the
Speaker 5: Doscha body type and stuff like that. I like assessing
Speaker 5: the body with this ancient medicine. In mind, I like
Speaker 5: exploring Chinese medicine. Like I said, Chinese circadian rhythm. They
Speaker 5: have this clock that helps us identify what organ systems
Speaker 5: might not be optimal based on the weakness in the
Speaker 5: time of day, our sleep cycle. If we're waking up
Speaker 5: at a certain time every night. We can look into
Speaker 5: the Chinese circadian rhythm.
Speaker 4: So I use little.
Speaker 5: Chinese biomolecular is supplemental, but it's also therapeutics. It's botanicals,
Speaker 5: and herbs and that kind of so it's not just
Speaker 5: like vitamins and minerals. And I don't like to just
Speaker 5: supplement people based on their labs either. I want to
Speaker 5: find the root cause and help the body be able
Speaker 5: to activate.
Speaker 2: That's so hard to do too, because the root cause,
Speaker 2: you're like, I've learned, the body's just kind of this
Speaker 2: onion that you're just constantly appealing back to be like, Okay, what.
Speaker 3: Are we going to find?
Speaker 1: Now?
Speaker 3: What's next? We took care of this? Now, what's this well?
Speaker 5: And especially because I sounded so invested, especially okay, we
Speaker 5: like them, especially because a lot of our root causes
Speaker 5: were brought to us by birth. Yeah, we came into
Speaker 5: the world with them, and so it's our normal and
Speaker 5: so any different, Yeah, you don't know any different. So
Speaker 5: about thirty three thirty four I did a bunch of
Speaker 5: integrative functional work, and then around thirty eight I did
Speaker 5: a bunch of root cause stuff and that really opened
Speaker 5: my eyes.
Speaker 4: Talk about peeling back the onion.
Speaker 1: You start to.
Speaker 5: Not relive but see some of these like trauma experiences
Speaker 5: like I started getting hives at eight? Why did I
Speaker 5: start getting hives at eight? Well, once I started addressing
Speaker 5: the root cause. I figured out why I started.
Speaker 4: Getting hives at eight. I'm not gonna go okay, okay,
Speaker 4: I mean it's related to trauma. Right, Kids forget.
Speaker 5: Things and your body, but your body doesn't. Your body
Speaker 5: does keep score. I love that saying your body keeps
Speaker 5: score because it's so true. So when I started doing
Speaker 5: root cause through using bio energetic medicine, and then I
Speaker 5: use quantum so light therapy, pimp therapy.
Speaker 4: Are these you have you heard of these?
Speaker 3: Yeah? I'm just see. I wasn't sure how far it went.
Speaker 4: I mean it goes pretty far.
Speaker 5: I won't get too far into it, but I like
Speaker 5: incorporating all of it because it depends on going back
Speaker 5: to the bioindividuality of the person first, like what are
Speaker 5: their epigenetics, meaning their lifestyle practices?
Speaker 4: Now, can they be compliant with the food because I
Speaker 4: can do.
Speaker 5: Like a pull for a full pullback of all the
Speaker 5: food that they're eating, and like only put in food
Speaker 5: that their system can optimize.
Speaker 2: With interesting, which would be super helpful for anybody.
Speaker 4: It's super helpful for anybody.
Speaker 5: I discovered it by working with autoimmune people and then
Speaker 5: I'm like, so, why doesn't this work with anybody inflamed. Okay,
Speaker 5: it does like this is a full body reset and
Speaker 5: you're not restricting calories or food. You're restricting certain types
Speaker 5: of food that are harder for the body to digest.
Speaker 5: So if the body if a food's harder for the
Speaker 5: body to digest, it's going to take energy to do it.
Speaker 5: So the energy is going towards digestion and not healing.
Speaker 5: So if we like really pull it back and we
Speaker 5: just put food in the body that can be used
Speaker 5: that's bioavailable immediately, then the body starts to resource. So
Speaker 5: people want to like always.
Speaker 4: Add things in. I'm like, what can we take out?
Speaker 5: That's true, but it has to be like mentally, emotionally,
Speaker 5: and physically available to the client.
Speaker 2: And it is true because that's why I ask lifestyle wise,
Speaker 2: because so much of health and wellness where people struggle
Speaker 2: is convenience and accessibility.
Speaker 3: And that's where you have a lot of people who
Speaker 3: are like, yeah, I want to do these things.
Speaker 2: I want to take care of myself, but I don't
Speaker 2: have the tools, I don't have the time, and how
Speaker 2: do you start to do that? And then you start
Speaker 2: to do your own research, which you've been able to
Speaker 2: find your way through, right. But to the normal person
Speaker 2: who has no knowledge or any version of training, they
Speaker 2: go online and you have so many options. Which option
Speaker 2: do you go down?
Speaker 4: Okay, this is they take They want to take something,
Speaker 4: and I always want to take stuff.
Speaker 2: Everything is is just a different journey, a different battle
Speaker 2: that you have to go down.
Speaker 3: So it's interesting to hear that perspective.
Speaker 2: Not once in all of my research that I've personally done,
Speaker 2: have I ever heard somebody be like, well, let's remove
Speaker 2: some things.
Speaker 3: But also keep stuff in. Yeah, that's just a different strategy.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I want to go a few different areas here
Speaker 2: on some of the things you said.
Speaker 3: One of them you mentioned supplements.
Speaker 2: Supplements are very common, especially as people are trying to
Speaker 2: understand their bodies better. Supplements tend to be something that
Speaker 2: people go down, especially coming out of traditional medicine and
Speaker 2: into a more functional lifestyle. Why do you say five
Speaker 2: and under and what's this deal with supplements.
Speaker 5: Because most of the time when people are coming to me,
Speaker 5: they've already been here or there, like five different other places,
Speaker 5: and typically they're loaded up with supplements and they have
Speaker 5: all kinds of gut issues.
Speaker 4: So in order for a supplement to work.
Speaker 5: It has to go through the gut and then get
Speaker 5: to the blood stream, and it gets to the blood
Speaker 5: stream from the gut. So if you don't have like
Speaker 5: pretty optimal gut health, then there's not a lot of
Speaker 5: encapsulated unless it's wrapped in fat, which is like a zoma.
Speaker 5: So life is almost a better option for somebody who's
Speaker 5: really trying to heal. So my rule of thumb is
Speaker 5: foundational support, So foundations with food, foundations with movement. That
Speaker 5: doesn't mean more workouts, it means like matching what the
Speaker 5: body is able to do with its stage stress and otherwise.
Speaker 5: And then foundations of activation, so we activate the body
Speaker 5: in general with a active multi in, a Mega three
Speaker 5: or balance oil, and a probiotic.
Speaker 4: So these are the three starting point. If you can
Speaker 4: only afford four dollars a day, that's where you start.
Speaker 5: If you're somebody food is not pleasurable because it's like
Speaker 5: always disrupting, meaning like bloating gas. Everyone complaints they're bloated inflammation.
Speaker 5: We are going to do digestive enzymes with that foundations.
Speaker 5: If you're somebody super high stress or high strung like me,
Speaker 5: then we're going to do magnesium and optimize the body
Speaker 5: that way, are likely going to do an active bee
Speaker 5: because somebody like me is burning the adrenals out, so
Speaker 5: we're burning our bees, burning the bees.
Speaker 4: That's five, right, five, And.
Speaker 2: You had mentioned these and again you can go online
Speaker 2: and you say everybody.
Speaker 3: Needs this like you can see it.
Speaker 2: You got influencerschool, or you have so much content that's
Speaker 2: happening out there. But truly, is there supplements that every
Speaker 2: single person needs? Is there things that every single body
Speaker 2: is going to need? Does that actually happen or is
Speaker 2: it more so often that your body is unique and
Speaker 2: you need to treat.
Speaker 3: It as such.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I mean, if you have the resources to really
Speaker 5: do the bio individual approach one hundred percent tests, don't guess,
Speaker 5: but functional medicine testing and integrated medicine testing is going
Speaker 5: to be if you want to find out your biomarkers
Speaker 5: on all of your vitamins and minerals, it's going to
Speaker 5: be like twelve hundred dollars.
Speaker 4: So that's not available to everybody.
Speaker 3: Back to the accessibility.
Speaker 5: See yeah, right, so I just general rule of thumb,
Speaker 5: I'm going to suggest, you know, an active multi like
Speaker 5: thorn or equolife. Right now, I really for somebody that
Speaker 5: is aware that they have MTHFR, I like this supplement
Speaker 5: called end Light for their active multi So if I
Speaker 5: have a little bit of data on them, I can
Speaker 5: make suggestions. But yeah, if we're just generalizing this, go
Speaker 5: with an active multi. Even Mary Ruth's vitamins, which are
Speaker 5: accessible on Amazon and most people can pay for them,
Speaker 5: are good.
Speaker 3: Okay, that's good to know.
Speaker 2: I think for a lot of people too, because just
Speaker 2: like I said, the accessibility thing is what is so difficult,
Speaker 2: and that's why I think people turn to the internet.
Speaker 2: They're trying to financewers the best way.
Speaker 4: They can h and yet they end up burdening the body.
Speaker 2: Yes, because it's often that a lot of things band aid.
Speaker 2: We're back to the root cause it's again onion.
Speaker 3: It's all onion, and.
Speaker 2: You're just there's so many different layers and a lot
Speaker 2: of complexities of human which is why health and wellness
Speaker 2: I think so much beyond understanding just your nutrition and
Speaker 2: the things that you're supposed to have in or not
Speaker 2: have in.
Speaker 3: It's right, it's understanding things as a whole.
Speaker 2: And I yeah, I love that's what you're practicing that
Speaker 2: you're also preaching that in your own life. Yeah, you
Speaker 2: were talking to of your high stress and you shared
Speaker 2: its and pieces of your story as a mom of
Speaker 2: four daughters and you have a husband, like you have
Speaker 2: all the reasons to not be doing health and wellness.
Speaker 3: You're busy, you have your own business, Like.
Speaker 1: How do you do it?
Speaker 3: How is this working for you?
Speaker 2: Well?
Speaker 5: Part of it is I have to if I don't
Speaker 5: stay pretty straight and arrow on my choices. It's easy
Speaker 5: for me because I'm obsessed with feeling good. Let's face that,
Speaker 5: I want to feel good every single day.
Speaker 4: I don't like feeling bad.
Speaker 5: Ever, I'm a whimp when it comes to any symptoms.
Speaker 5: If my ring here is even Oh you're showing some
Speaker 5: mild symptoms, Like.
Speaker 2: You're like, okay, great, I have to restart everything.
Speaker 1: So I have to.
Speaker 4: I chose this.
Speaker 5: This is my dream life that I'm living right now.
Speaker 5: I'm not going to watch it fade away. So I
Speaker 5: being having four kids keeps you in the present moment.
Speaker 5: And that's the nice thing about the chaos of my life,
Speaker 5: as I'm always in the present moment, So I'm not
Speaker 5: having to do all this meditation work to get in
Speaker 5: the present moment because I'm in the present moment. My
Speaker 5: meditation work is to, you know, bring out my nervous
Speaker 5: system a little bit.
Speaker 4: So the why do like, why do I do it?
Speaker 4: How do I do it? I think people should just
Speaker 4: come love with me and see. I don't know how
Speaker 4: to describe it, but generally I follow my food philosophy.
Speaker 5: I eat within the hour of waking up. I don't
Speaker 5: drink coffee on an empty stomach. Those are two big
Speaker 5: ones that I think a lot of people don't do.
Speaker 5: I try to exercise every day for thirty minutes, and
Speaker 5: I don't like the only reason I say try, I'm
Speaker 5: obsessed with working out, like I mentioned from the beginning,
Speaker 5: but my day doesn't always a lot for it, and
Speaker 5: so by life style, I have a lot of meat movement.
Speaker 4: Have you heard of that?
Speaker 3: Tell me?
Speaker 4: Exercise thermogenesis?
Speaker 3: Okay, what is it?
Speaker 4: It's tracking the movement of our body. I'm up and
Speaker 4: down the stairs.
Speaker 5: We're talking about the stairs, you know, putting laundry, way,
Speaker 5: doing dishes. I have a lot of movement, walking my
Speaker 5: kids to school, walking the Dog's just a lot of movement.
Speaker 5: And I try to prioritize movement over going to a
Speaker 5: workout class because I know it's not realistic for me
Speaker 5: in my stage of life, and I'm okay with that,
Speaker 5: because when this is said and done and the girls
Speaker 5: move on, that'll be like the hard part for me.
Speaker 5: I'll have a harder time saying structured and regimented. Then, Like,
Speaker 5: right now, I have to drink my water, I have
Speaker 5: to take my detax bads, I have to do take
Speaker 5: my vitamins or I pay for it, you know. But
Speaker 5: when I don't have to anymore, when like space is
Speaker 5: totally cleared up and I'm gonna have to deal with
Speaker 5: all my issues.
Speaker 3: You're like, there's a lot of purpose behind this side
Speaker 3: right now. So I'm just.
Speaker 2: No. But that's also very real, right because it's easy
Speaker 2: to look at somebody like you who has all this
Speaker 2: knowledge and has the experience and be like, well, yeah,
Speaker 2: that's easy for her, but you have a very busy
Speaker 2: and full life and you've made it a priority.
Speaker 3: But that's your drive.
Speaker 2: So I think that's something for people to think of,
Speaker 2: is what's their.
Speaker 3: Drive, what's their reason?
Speaker 2: That's your reason, and this is why every day you're like, Okay,
Speaker 2: I have to do these things, right, you have your purpose,
Speaker 2: So finding a purpose I think will help people in
Speaker 2: attaining these goals. Yes, when it is you want to
Speaker 2: look at it and be overwhelmed and say there's no
Speaker 2: way I can do this.
Speaker 3: Right, So I think that's a well I in.
Speaker 5: My membership this year, I started the year off with
Speaker 5: the coaching session of having them reprioritize and not.
Speaker 4: Just what's important what's not like, what's relevant to what
Speaker 4: you're aspiring to do? Why are you here?
Speaker 5: You're in my membership for a reason, So let's lay
Speaker 5: it out with priorities instead of goals.
Speaker 4: And I felt like that even helped me. Like I
Speaker 4: was telling my team the other day, I.
Speaker 5: Don't have time to help in my daughter's school quote unquote,
Speaker 5: but that's what gives me great joy. So I'm reprioritizing
Speaker 5: that in my schedule. So I go do that every
Speaker 5: Tuesday for an hour or whatever. People think I'm crazy.
Speaker 5: I coach my kids' teams because that's a priority to
Speaker 5: me because it gives me so much joy. You know,
Speaker 5: I don't not do things because I don't have time.
Speaker 5: I restructure my schedule for my priorities.
Speaker 4: Does that make sense?
Speaker 3: It absolutely does, And it is.
Speaker 2: It's something that is difficult, right because a lot of
Speaker 2: topics on this podcast in general has always been.
Speaker 3: It's easier to do stuff that's not hard.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's just true, unfortunately, and it's easy to get
Speaker 2: stuck in ways where it's just you're taking the easier
Speaker 2: route or you're repeating the same cycle.
Speaker 3: What you're talking about is a hard choice to make.
Speaker 2: You have to make the choice to make things a
Speaker 2: priority and read structure your life to make that happen,
Speaker 2: which we love to think that we can do, but
Speaker 2: when we're faced with.
Speaker 3: That decision is often I'm okay, yeah, mine.
Speaker 4: It's true to cook dinner, grab dinner, for sure, it
Speaker 4: really is.
Speaker 2: And then back to the convenient side of things and
Speaker 2: understanding all of that. So understanding that things are a
Speaker 2: priority is necessary. I also want to mention to you,
Speaker 2: so on my side of things, you're gonna probably have
Speaker 2: a lot of tips in this area. I've been a
Speaker 2: vegetarian since I was eight years old.
Speaker 3: It was a decision that I made.
Speaker 4: Very in the middle of Kansas, no less, yeah, very young.
Speaker 2: My sister told me where my McDonald's cheeseburger came from,
Speaker 2: and I said, I am absolutely not eating this anymore,
Speaker 2: and declared right then and there too, my parents very
Speaker 2: strong opinion of me not to, but I did, and
Speaker 2: I've stuck with him.
Speaker 3: I'm not thirty one years old. It's a long time
Speaker 3: of being vegetarian.
Speaker 2: But one of my biggest struggles, and I think so
Speaker 2: many people's struggles, regardless of vegetarian, vegan, or eating all
Speaker 2: kinds of meat, is getting protein in all the time.
Speaker 3: That's and it's so important, but it's so hard to do.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it is.
Speaker 4: I don't know why.
Speaker 5: I mean, that's why I think it trends to say
Speaker 5: prioritize protein, because really I prioritize all three macros.
Speaker 4: But it is the one thing that you don't naturally grab.
Speaker 5: Fat's easy to get fat as twice as nutrient dense,
Speaker 5: you don't need as much, so by looks of it,
Speaker 5: you eat half the fat as you do carbs. And protein. Yeah,
Speaker 5: protein is not a natural thing for people to grab.
Speaker 5: You're one hundred percent right. I wonder what's involved in
Speaker 5: that human nature and evolution.
Speaker 4: I'm with you.
Speaker 5: It's hard to think about the animals. And I have
Speaker 5: actually a friend from Kansas who found out where her
Speaker 5: pet pig went oh no and never eat meat again.
Speaker 3: So no, that would traumatize me.
Speaker 4: I know it is traumatizing.
Speaker 5: And I went through a stage where I was vegetarian
Speaker 5: and it was so inflammatory for my body that I
Speaker 5: had to make the hard toste to like but yeah,
Speaker 5: and like when I'm working with somebody, there are emotions,
Speaker 5: and there's physiological things, and there's physical things and there's
Speaker 5: mental things, and so I have to help the person
Speaker 5: build back regardless of my beliefs.
Speaker 4: Does that make sense? So anyways, what was the original question?
Speaker 1: Oh?
Speaker 2: Protein, Well you can also talk about too, because you
Speaker 2: had mentioned that you do the three groups together than
Speaker 2: just protein too.
Speaker 3: So if that's better, feel free. This is just the hot.
Speaker 4: It's because it's hard to get. It's not natural. Even
Speaker 4: like my daughter that came home early today, she made
Speaker 4: herself a huge and.
Speaker 5: She's I just don't know a protein to add. So
Speaker 5: it's just not natural unless we're like deferring to dairy.
Speaker 5: Everyone wants cheese and yogurt.
Speaker 2: But yeah, oh yeah, as a vegetarian, that's the one
Speaker 2: reason I can't go vegan.
Speaker 3: I've tried, and it is to that point.
Speaker 2: And because often like when people think about protein, when
Speaker 2: they think about a healthy meal, it'd be like veggies, rice, protein.
Speaker 4: Yes, and people are so tired of doing that right again,
Speaker 4: indoctrinated by the fitness.
Speaker 3: World exactly, and they're tired of that.
Speaker 2: So they're like, Okay, well, how can I find other
Speaker 2: ways to get in protein? Then you start looking like, well,
Speaker 2: maybe there's really not all that many options here.
Speaker 4: Well, there's not like very many pure complete proteins for vegetarians.
Speaker 4: That's just the truth.
Speaker 3: Dairy is one, So you're right on that, and even
Speaker 3: how she is like my best friend.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I love cottage cheese.
Speaker 5: I did a bioresonance scan with physics measuring my voice,
Speaker 5: so I do all the testing and cottage cheese came
Speaker 5: back perfect. I was like, all the wavelengths matched cottage
Speaker 5: cheese in my body, which is ironic because I don't
Speaker 5: do well with most dairy.
Speaker 3: Okay, so cottage cheese though, was the same one.
Speaker 1: Huh.
Speaker 3: I need you keep telling me all these things, and
Speaker 3: I'm like, okay, I do eggs?
Speaker 4: Are you pascytarian?
Speaker 3: I do eggs.
Speaker 2: It's like a weird I have a weird relationship with eggs.
Speaker 2: Sometimes I'll be like, yeah, let's eat them.
Speaker 4: Nobody can have a relationship with eggs. Anymore. They're just
Speaker 4: confiscated permanently, they're gone.
Speaker 1: They are there.
Speaker 3: I saw a place what was doing in New York.
Speaker 2: They were doing like lucy eggs where they're just telling
Speaker 2: like one, I'm like, imagine you just go and buy
Speaker 2: five lucy eggs and you're trying to make it home
Speaker 2: with these lucy eggs. You're like back in high school
Speaker 2: when they gave you that as a baby to take
Speaker 2: care of.
Speaker 3: Oh my gosh. Yeah, And I'm like, what are you
Speaker 3: going to put your lucy eggs in now? Because you
Speaker 3: don't get a carton, it's a whole eggs.
Speaker 4: That's funny. I didn't know that.
Speaker 5: Yeah, And then like when you take the deeper dive
Speaker 5: and I know we don't have all the time in
Speaker 5: the world, but vegetarian protein is plant based, and a
Speaker 5: lot of these plants are not organic and they're not
Speaker 5: grown enrich soil, and they're high in arsenic, which is
Speaker 5: a heavy metal. And so then you're like where do
Speaker 5: I turn. And then the nut milks and stuff they're
Speaker 5: unless you make your own, which like who has time
Speaker 5: for that?
Speaker 3: It is getting to the point where you're like, I
Speaker 3: might as well just have my own garden, my own things.
Speaker 3: Don't go to the store.
Speaker 4: I know, never need to go to the store.
Speaker 3: Hope we end up in an apocalypse. I suppose that
Speaker 3: would help everybody else.
Speaker 5: Every time I hire instacart and ship, they put me
Speaker 5: over the edge with their replacements, so we're lack thereof
Speaker 5: yep every time.
Speaker 3: Well, well, that is like a big topic. But what
Speaker 3: is something to do for you?
Speaker 2: Because you've been in this so long you personally, maybe
Speaker 2: it's something for other people. However you want to walk down,
Speaker 2: you can, But what's something you wish you had known
Speaker 2: sooner about, whether it's nutrition, health.
Speaker 5: Yeah, the biggest thing I wish I had known is
Speaker 5: about adrenals and.
Speaker 4: Taking this more integrative.
Speaker 5: Our dreanals are on top of our kidneys, and our
Speaker 5: kidneys and Chinese medicine are heart so American women our understanding.
Speaker 5: The kidneys are the air filter to the body, and
Speaker 5: so if the adrenals are down, it affects the kidneys,
Speaker 5: which affects your dreamage pathways, which you know, and then
Speaker 5: affects a lot of other things. Obviously, But if I
Speaker 5: understood supporting my dreanals through my pregnancies, through starting my business,
Speaker 5: I don't think I would have had the major two
Speaker 5: year breakdown that I did, where I thought everything is
Speaker 5: going to lose everything. So you know, supporting your adrenals
Speaker 5: is not a simple topic. It's different for everybody. It's
Speaker 5: not vegetarian, they all are.
Speaker 1: I know.
Speaker 4: So that was that's one thing. And then obviously the
Speaker 4: nervous system.
Speaker 5: I think that, like I said, we define things as
Speaker 5: normal for ourselves because we're used to it and because it.
Speaker 4: Became our normal.
Speaker 5: But having balance in the body and regulation of the
Speaker 5: different systems is what we should be seeking, not keeping
Speaker 5: our normal.
Speaker 2: That's really good information for other people to to have.
Speaker 2: But crazy I the adrenals I learned about too when
Speaker 2: I also had went into some You said, the supplemental side.
Speaker 2: What would that be referred to as in medicine, Oh, biomolecular, Yeah,
Speaker 2: more supplement And one of the biggest things high stress.
Speaker 2: I had bad adreanal because I had such a like
Speaker 2: high stress job, and I was.
Speaker 3: Like I didn't even know those existing, No, what are
Speaker 3: you talking about?
Speaker 5: And it seems like a loose term, like a drenal fatigue,
Speaker 5: because for me, I was hyper. I wasn't tied like
Speaker 5: I couldn't even go to sleep.
Speaker 3: Yeah, you're like, this feels like that's not Yeah, didn't.
Speaker 4: Sound right until I really started the path of discovery.
Speaker 2: Yeah, well I could listen, Kara, we could sit here
Speaker 2: all day. No, because I love everything that you're doing.
Speaker 2: Your story is amazing. But I do love to end
Speaker 2: the podcast with a motivational tip if you will, or
Speaker 2: something that you feel like can help other people, or
Speaker 2: something that you just feel like on your.
Speaker 3: Heart to share.
Speaker 2: So something motivationable to end us here on a high note.
Speaker 5: Yeah, that's awesome that you always share motivational things. I
Speaker 5: think for most people when they do start health journeys,
Speaker 5: it's fleeting that they don't see results.
Speaker 4: So really tap into how you feel. How do you
Speaker 4: can measure how you feel? Do you have energy?
Speaker 5: Do you feel good? Rather than what the scale says
Speaker 5: or what your clothes say. If you feel good, change
Speaker 5: will come.
Speaker 2: That's a really important one, especially right now because the
Speaker 2: impact of social media has a lot of us seeing
Speaker 2: ourselves differently and thinking that the scale is still one
Speaker 2: of the most important things when it.
Speaker 3: Really isn't right. It has a lot to do with
Speaker 3: how you feel. So, Kara, thank you for joining me.
Speaker 3: Thanks for being here sharing your story. You do have
Speaker 3: your new cookbook that's coming out.
Speaker 2: I did want to mention too, because weird connection by
Speaker 2: way country music.
Speaker 3: You have a forward in there from Carrie Underwood. Yeah,
Speaker 3: what's that connection?
Speaker 4: We went to college together in Oklahoma.
Speaker 3: Okay, now this is making sense. So been friends since college?
Speaker 5: Well, well, yes, there was a window of time where
Speaker 5: we lost touch, but we moved here because they were
Speaker 5: very welcoming to us.
Speaker 1: Wow.
Speaker 2: Okay, And have you guys worked together at all on
Speaker 2: the nutrition tye because I know she's also huge.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 5: I was a contributor to her book, and I'm the
Speaker 5: nutritionist on her app. I developed the recipes for her
Speaker 5: fifty two app. But yeah, we try to keep our
Speaker 5: relationship super like friendship and you know, personal and not
Speaker 5: so much work. Nice thing with somebody like her is
Speaker 5: you're not even working with her, you're working with her team.
Speaker 5: So you know, we always keep our relationship friendly.
Speaker 3: No, that's a good thing.
Speaker 2: Well, I love that, and it's friends supporting friends. You've
Speaker 2: helped in some things, but also the core.
Speaker 5: People always say, oh and Carrie Underwood's nutritionist, I'm like,
Speaker 5: we're just French.
Speaker 4: She doesn't listen to me.
Speaker 2: You're like, well, I mean, Karena was in great shape.
Speaker 3: I know at some point you just be like and.
Speaker 4: I can't even claim it.
Speaker 5: It takes her five years when after I say something
Speaker 5: for her to follow through.
Speaker 3: Well, hey, Karena would just like the rest of us.
Speaker 3: You know, we're all learning.
Speaker 2: But I'm really excited to see your cookbook take off,
Speaker 2: just like everything else has happened for you.
Speaker 3: But again, thank you for being here you.
Speaker 2: I am joined by Lindsay Kite. She is one of
Speaker 2: identical twins. They are two twins who promote body image
Speaker 2: resilience after getting their PhDs from the University of Utah
Speaker 2: in the study of female body image. But they also
Speaker 2: have a book called More Than a Body.
Speaker 3: I'm just so excited to have you on. How are you, Lindsay,
Speaker 3: I'm good.
Speaker 1: Thanks so much for having me. Morgan.
Speaker 2: Yes, I'm excited to get a talk with you because
Speaker 2: your book is so powerful for so many people. I'm
Speaker 2: shocked how I hadn't heard of it until I stumbled
Speaker 2: upon you guys on social media and I was like,
Speaker 2: these guys are perfect.
Speaker 3: I need to have them on the podcast.
Speaker 2: So tell me a little bit how you guys got
Speaker 2: into this line of work.
Speaker 1: Sure, yeah, thanks for this invitation. Whether or not you
Speaker 1: had heard of our book or our work or whatever,
Speaker 1: I'm glad you stumbled upon us. So love that, And
Speaker 1: I can fill you in on the whole background. I
Speaker 1: would say Lexi and I first got started in this
Speaker 1: work because we had been so affected by our culture's
Speaker 1: really crazy, harmful ideals about bodies and weight and beauty
Speaker 1: growing up, and so we were kind of primed to
Speaker 1: recognize this as a real issue within ourselves. I'll start
Speaker 1: from when we were both in college and we were
Speaker 1: trying really really hard to be different, but we both
Speaker 1: took separate sections of the same class on media literacy.
Speaker 1: So it was basically just the ability to see and
Speaker 1: deconstruct media messages, why images and texts are curated the
Speaker 1: way that they are and engineered the way that they are.
Speaker 1: And one of the elements of that was on gender
Speaker 1: and how women are represented and portrayed in such specific, narrow,
Speaker 1: one dimensional ways. So Lexi and I grew up feeling
Speaker 1: so abnormal, just so embarrassed of our bodies and like
Speaker 1: we were just so gross and overweight and will never
Speaker 1: be good enough and always striving for more, and in college,
Speaker 1: once we both were in these separate classrooms learning this
Speaker 1: message that we had kind of been tricked into thinking
Speaker 1: that we were wrong, that our bodies were uniquely gross
Speaker 1: and problems in need of fixing, and instead that was
Speaker 1: something that media was literally profiting off of that. There
Speaker 1: are so many industries, corporations and people that were banking
Speaker 1: on us feeling so insecure, always needing to buy the
Speaker 1: next product or the next diet plan, whatever it may be.
Speaker 1: Lexi and I, being identical twins, I think were always
Speaker 1: really hyper fixated on what we looked like because everyone
Speaker 1: else was about us meeting people growing up. Really still
Speaker 1: to this day, when we're together will meet someone for
Speaker 1: the first time, they will look us both up and
Speaker 1: down to scan our whole bodies and phases, and especially
Speaker 1: when we were little, they would pick out those little differences. Oh, okay,
Speaker 1: so you're the one with straight or teeth, or you're
Speaker 1: the one with the round or face. And it was
Speaker 1: always just kind of a competition, but it made us
Speaker 1: really really fixated on what we looked like and how
Speaker 1: we compared to each other. And I remember constantly scanning
Speaker 1: my twin sister's body up and down to see, Okay,
Speaker 1: that's what I look like in those pants that we share,
Speaker 1: and just being really self conscious. So learning about that
Speaker 1: in college and starting to figure out that actually, your
Speaker 1: body images this whole. It's a construction. It's built by
Speaker 1: our society, and so many of us have it regardless
Speaker 1: of what we look like. We feel so negatively. That
Speaker 1: was the start of so much more. That led to
Speaker 1: how many years ten years of higher education. Lexie and
Speaker 1: I both earned our masters and PhDs, and we did
Speaker 1: it together and did really complimentary research about the objectification
Speaker 1: of women. Now we see ourselves as objects, not only
Speaker 1: why that happens, but how to fix it most importantly,
Speaker 1: and that's the body image resilience that you mentioned earlier.
Speaker 2: It's so cool that you guys, as identical twins, had
Speaker 2: planned we're going to have our own lives and we're
Speaker 2: going to do our own thing, and somehow it still
Speaker 2: panned out that you guys ended up studying the same thing,
Speaker 2: coming together and really focusing and understanding this stuff together.
Speaker 3: I think that's awesome.
Speaker 1: So, yeah, isn't that wild? We wanted to be different
Speaker 1: so bad and just couldn't do it. We just couldn't.
Speaker 1: We have the same interests and had such similar experiences
Speaker 1: that we decided we were just going to use our
Speaker 1: powers for good instead of evil, and stop fighting so
Speaker 1: much and being in competition and instead focus on the
Speaker 1: same thing and try to do some good. Thinks it's
Speaker 1: really helped. I think our work has gone a lot further,
Speaker 1: and we've been able to do so much more than
Speaker 1: we could if it was just one of us solo.
Speaker 1: Things have evolved in the oh Man, We've been doing
Speaker 1: this for teen years. Sixteen years. We started in two
Speaker 1: thousand and nine when we finished our master's degrees, So yeah,
Speaker 1: this has been an ongoing process.
Speaker 3: I think that's super cool.
Speaker 2: And sometimes you just got to let life work out
Speaker 2: how it's supposed to work out instead of fighting it.
Speaker 4: So it sounds like that's what happened totally.
Speaker 2: I don't think that we can really start the conversation
Speaker 2: about why the work you guys are doing is so
Speaker 2: important without discussing the root cause of body image issues.
Speaker 2: You know, before you came on, I also had a
Speaker 2: friend on Kara Clark who's an integrative health really is
Speaker 2: focused on you feeling good in your body, and that's
Speaker 2: the focus rather than focusing on the diet and trying
Speaker 2: to change your body, how do you feel good? Let's
Speaker 2: find a way to make you feel good. And we
Speaker 2: talk a lot about root causes, and I think this
Speaker 2: is also a topic where there's a root cause to this,
Speaker 2: and there's something that created this and is part of
Speaker 2: this story that we often don't get to the bottom
Speaker 2: of when we just feel I hate my body and
Speaker 2: that's that.
Speaker 3: But there's something behind that. So can you share a
Speaker 3: little bit about what that might be.
Speaker 1: Yeah, definitely the root of all of this, and the
Speaker 1: research that Lexian I have done has really pointed to
Speaker 1: the objectification of women's bodies. So in our culture, all
Speaker 1: of the media images that all of us have been
Speaker 1: surrounded by since we were growing up has been really
Speaker 1: curated so that women look one particular. So think of
Speaker 1: the media images that you were surrounded by growing up.
Speaker 1: Of course, media was a little bit more limited then,
Speaker 1: but we all shared these same cultural images and messages
Speaker 1: about which women were worthy of being featured or depicted
Speaker 1: in media, whether it was your local news anchor a
Speaker 1: national news anchor, what girls look like in your favorite
Speaker 1: TV shows, movies, magazines, advertising, you'd walk fast on the street.
Speaker 1: Like literally everything we generally saw only very thin women,
Speaker 1: often white women, or women with light skin tones if
Speaker 1: they were women of color, long hair, flawless faces and
Speaker 1: bodies meaning no cellul light, no stretch marks, no acne,
Speaker 1: no wrinkles, no gray hair, typically very young looking faces
Speaker 1: and bodies. So we have this one very particular idea
Speaker 1: of what it looked like to be not just an
Speaker 1: attractive ten out of ten woman, but what it looks
Speaker 1: like to be a normal woman or a healthy woman.
Speaker 1: All of this has been really curated in our minds
Speaker 1: through media messages, and some people say it's like a
Speaker 1: chicken or the situation. Did people have these preferences for
Speaker 1: one particular body type, or did industries create these preferences,
Speaker 1: or did media start that and reflected it to us,
Speaker 1: And now we just take that in and try to
Speaker 1: emulate it and reflect it back. The truth is, I'll
Speaker 1: use a word that I don't think people love to
Speaker 1: talk about often in a lot of circles, but patriarchy.
Speaker 1: When men are largely in power, when decision makers are
Speaker 1: overwhelmingly male, then often the images and the messages that
Speaker 1: we'll see in society will reflect those types of preferences.
Speaker 1: So we talk about a male gaze that is perpetuated
Speaker 1: through media, all types of media. That means the women
Speaker 1: that you'll see depicted or featured at all are typically
Speaker 1: seen through the lens of what a straight male would
Speaker 1: look at. So the way the camera pans up and
Speaker 1: down a woman's body and zooms in on certain parts
Speaker 1: of her body. Think of your favorite TV show. It
Speaker 1: could be a reality show or scripted show, whatever, even
Speaker 1: one that is specifically for women, You'll still see the
Speaker 1: camera zoom in on parts of her body and the
Speaker 1: dialogue will focus on what she looks like. It was
Speaker 1: even worse when we were growing up in a lot
Speaker 1: of ways. So that patriarchy and what sells and what's
Speaker 1: deemed attractive or desirable or okay enough to be shown
Speaker 1: or celebrated was really very one dimensional, and it's created
Speaker 1: these generations of women who feel defined by how we look.
Speaker 1: Not just that we don't feel beautiful, but we feel
Speaker 1: obsessed with what we look like. Period. Some people do
Speaker 1: feel beautiful, and that's what when we talk about self objectification,
Speaker 1: that means you grow up in a society where you're
Speaker 1: surrounded by the objectification of women and then you turn
Speaker 1: that lens on yourself. You learn to self objectify it,
Speaker 1: to see yourself as an object, so not a dynamic,
Speaker 1: fully thinking, feeling human being with agency living inside this body.
Speaker 1: You start to see yourself as the rest of the
Speaker 1: world old sees women's bodies, and that is as bodies
Speaker 1: and not as people. We learn to self objectify and
Speaker 1: moderate everything we do through the lens of how do
Speaker 1: I look right now? Who is looking at me right now?
Speaker 1: Do I need to suck in? Do I need to
Speaker 1: sit in a different position, Do I need to keep
Speaker 1: my chin up? So my double chain has been showing.
Speaker 1: All of this follows us throughout our whole lives, and
Speaker 1: we learn it from a very very young age to
Speaker 1: self objectify.
Speaker 2: You mentioned so many different details here that I want
Speaker 2: to get into. I am one of those people, much
Speaker 2: like most women are. I watched so many Disney shows,
Speaker 2: I watched all of them. I loved consuming media. I
Speaker 2: loved looking at magazines. I was a young girl that
Speaker 2: was so fun to me to do. But now, as
Speaker 2: an older woman, you look back and you see the
Speaker 2: things that you were consuming, and now I'm having to
Speaker 2: retrain myself to see things differently. And I think this
Speaker 2: is so difficult to do for people because you're retraining
Speaker 2: decades of things, like you mentioned, that have been ingrained
Speaker 2: in our heads. So how do we start to retrain ourselves?
Speaker 2: What does that start to look like for someone who
Speaker 2: is quote unquote waking up and realizing this isn't the norm.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's such a good question. And I just want
Speaker 1: to acknowledge how amazing it is that so many people
Speaker 1: are even thinking about that, Like, how incredible is it
Speaker 1: that we are in this day and age our generation
Speaker 1: is starting to push back on these ideas about what
Speaker 1: it means to be desirable or healthier, normal, or whatever.
Speaker 1: And we're doing that not only for ourselves, but for
Speaker 1: the generations to come, and even for the generations before us.
Speaker 1: I do this stuff for my mom and my grandma
Speaker 1: who's still fixated on what she looks like and how
Speaker 1: many calories and carbs and sugar she's eating. All of
Speaker 1: this I think is so important, And I want people
Speaker 1: to think of their motivation for why they're even asking
Speaker 1: this question, Why do you want to retrain your brain?
Speaker 1: It's probably because you have been harmed by this stuff,
Speaker 1: because you have wasted too many years of your life,
Speaker 1: fixating on what you eat to become smaller, instead of
Speaker 1: worrying about how you feel right now. And I don't
Speaker 1: mean how you feel about how you look. I mean
Speaker 1: literally how you feel, how you feel about experiencing the
Speaker 1: world and moving in the world in this body that
Speaker 1: you were born into and that you will live every
Speaker 1: second of your life in. We should be so at
Speaker 1: home in these bodies, and instead we feel so separated
Speaker 1: from them. We watch ourselves being looked at. We imagine
Speaker 1: how we look as we live our lives, and that
Speaker 1: holds us back. It stops us. Think of little girls
Speaker 1: in middle school who stop raising their hands in class,
Speaker 1: and they start sitting out in pe class and they
Speaker 1: drop out a dance and volleyball and anything else where
Speaker 1: they don't want to be looked at. And for me,
Speaker 1: it was swimming. Once I got into high school, I
Speaker 1: completely quit swimming because I was too worried about these
Speaker 1: boys from my high school seeing me in a swimsuit.
Speaker 1: Think of what you've lost and missed out on. So
Speaker 1: a lot of us are starting from that baseline of
Speaker 1: can't do this anymore. And maybe it's even for your daughter.
Speaker 1: The people who are having babies right now are waking
Speaker 1: up to these ideas that I don't want my kids
Speaker 1: to deal with what I've had to deal with, even
Speaker 1: if I'm still dealing with it right now. I got
Speaker 1: to fix it for me so I can help them,
Speaker 1: and let that be your motivation. Honestly, keep that kind
Speaker 1: of rage and that willingness to fight and push back
Speaker 1: and let that fuel you in this journey. So when
Speaker 1: I talk about body image resilience, I'm talking about something
Speaker 1: that's a few steps beyond just body positivity. I'm not
Speaker 1: just telling you you're beautiful just the way you are.
Speaker 1: You should feel great because your flaws make you beautiful,
Speaker 1: and everyone thinks you're prettier than you think you are.
Speaker 1: That's been kind of the messaging that we've heard over
Speaker 1: the last couple decades. That's the really just public, kind
Speaker 1: of big mass campaign sort of messaging. That is nice
Speaker 1: and it's good and there's nothing wrong with it. But
Speaker 1: the problem is we need to go a little bit
Speaker 1: further than that, because if you really think about it,
Speaker 1: all of those messages are keeping us fixated on beauty,
Speaker 1: whether or not we feel beautiful, whether or not we
Speaker 1: are beautiful. Beauty remains the key to our power and
Speaker 1: self esteem, and it shouldn't be with body image resilience.
Speaker 1: You are coming back home to your body, your body
Speaker 1: not as this beautiful thing for you to display and
Speaker 1: to be admired by others, but this instrument that is
Speaker 1: your home. The subtitle my book with Lexi is more
Speaker 1: than a body. Your body is an instrument, not an ornament.
Speaker 1: And we named it that specifically, with your body as
Speaker 1: an instrument not an ornament as the subtitle, because that
Speaker 1: is this mantra that we've been sharing for the last
Speaker 1: fifteen years or whatever, and that kind of sums up
Speaker 1: this mission that we are on that in order to
Speaker 1: really progress and to make any headway toward feeling comfortable
Speaker 1: and at home in our bodies, we need to see
Speaker 1: our bodies for what they really are, instruments for our
Speaker 1: use and our benefit and our experience, not ornaments to
Speaker 1: be looked at and to be admired. I'm not your journey.
Speaker 2: I'm really glad you brought that up. I love that
Speaker 2: saying that you guys came up with. And I'll get
Speaker 2: into that a little bit more here in a second,
Speaker 2: but something that weighs super heavily for me and I'm
Speaker 2: sure for other people, I have struggle striking this balance
Speaker 2: between I know that I want to love my body
Speaker 2: and I want to be comfortable in my skin, and
Speaker 2: I don't want to listen to things, but I also
Speaker 2: want to be healthy and what does that look like?
Speaker 3: And we balance the two of those things.
Speaker 2: Is such this very delicate area because when you start
Speaker 2: to get into the health side of things, you start
Speaker 2: to look at yourself in a certain way and you're
Speaker 2: obsessed with a scale or you're trying to focus on
Speaker 2: what your body looks like.
Speaker 3: But so much of what I think is important.
Speaker 2: Is again striking that balance of I'm comfortable in my skin,
Speaker 2: but I want to be strong and I want to
Speaker 2: be healthy, and I want to feel good because I
Speaker 2: feel good and I'm.
Speaker 3: Nourishing my body in the right way.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but how do we do that?
Speaker 3: Because I know for me that's a daily struggle.
Speaker 2: I know that it's a lot for everybody else, And
Speaker 2: we're constantly inundated on social media with so much content
Speaker 2: on multiple levels of this. So how do we sit
Speaker 2: there and find that delicate area where we're honoring the
Speaker 2: fact that we don't need to change, but also we
Speaker 2: want to be healthy.
Speaker 1: Yeah, your question is great and it reflects one that
Speaker 1: everybody in especially our society, asks when they start to
Speaker 1: be confronted with these these topics. And it's actually what
Speaker 1: my whole dissertation research was based on. My research was
Speaker 1: on how women define health and fitness for themselves, how
Speaker 1: they understand it, What does it mean for a woman
Speaker 1: to be healthy and fit, and how do we fix it?
Speaker 1: Because at the root of your question, it shows this
Speaker 1: confusion that almost all women and all people in our
Speaker 1: culture share, which is the idea that help means looking
Speaker 1: a certain way or when a certain amount. And when
Speaker 1: you really dig into the real research on what health
Speaker 1: and fitness truly means and how to truly define it
Speaker 1: in an effective way, you find out that your weight,
Speaker 1: your appearance, your body fat percentage, all of that is
Speaker 1: actually a really flawed way of thinking about a person's
Speaker 1: health and fitness. So mass research since the seventies shows
Speaker 1: that the most effective way to determine a person's health
Speaker 1: or fitness is their physical activity level, not how they
Speaker 1: look while they're engaged in physical activity, not whether they're
Speaker 1: running marathons every month, not how jiggly their thighs are
Speaker 1: while they are engaging in that physical activity. It's simply
Speaker 1: how often you are moving your body and getting your
Speaker 1: heart rate up. That is how you can judge health
Speaker 1: or fitness. For most people, obviously, go to the doctor,
Speaker 1: get all of the testing done that you possibly can
Speaker 1: to find out what's really going on in your body,
Speaker 1: because everybody's body is different. But the reality is you
Speaker 1: can judge whether or not you're healthier fit by internal
Speaker 1: indicators like your blood pressure, your cholesterol, your blood sugar,
Speaker 1: your respiratory fitness, all that kind of stuff that a
Speaker 1: regular doctor can help you really get a handle on,
Speaker 1: and how often you are active and getting your heart
Speaker 1: rate up. People who are totally healthy by all of
Speaker 1: those measures look a huge variety of different ways and
Speaker 1: weigh a huge variety of different weights. So when I
Speaker 1: say your body is an instrument not an ornament, that
Speaker 1: is actually the answer to your question. I want to
Speaker 1: be healthy and I want to love my body means
Speaker 1: I'm going to use my body as an instrument because
Speaker 1: my body is important to use. How I feel better
Speaker 1: about my body is by using my body, honoring my body,
Speaker 1: engaging in enjoyable activity, and that is truly the best
Speaker 1: way to improve your body image is to think of
Speaker 1: your body as an instrument and to actually use it
Speaker 1: that way. My research showed that most women define health
Speaker 1: their fitness by their weight, their body mass index, or
Speaker 1: their pants size, and so my whole dissertation research was,
Speaker 1: how do we intervene to share accurate information about how
Speaker 1: to define health and fitness so that women can have
Speaker 1: a better understanding for themselves and then set better goals
Speaker 1: for their own health and fitness. And what it showed
Speaker 1: was that women often would start by they would pick
Speaker 1: goals for themselves like New York's Resolutions. Basically that would say,
Speaker 1: I want to lose x pounds by this date, or
Speaker 1: I want to get back into these pants that are
Speaker 1: in the back of my closet, or I want to
Speaker 1: get into this weight category. And those goals, though they
Speaker 1: sound like they're pointing toward health, are often not only unachievable,
Speaker 1: but they lead to worse health outcomes because when you
Speaker 1: are striving to lose weight instead of to improve all
Speaker 1: of those internal indicators of health or to just move
Speaker 1: your body at a pace and duration that is healthy
Speaker 1: for you, then you are getting hung up on factors
Speaker 1: that are not always within your control, especially for women,
Speaker 1: because these measures, we might have a weight number in
Speaker 1: our head. It's a total lie that we heard on
Speaker 1: the internet that women who are the most beautiful weigh
Speaker 1: this amount for this height or whatever it is. It's
Speaker 1: all such a weird, arbitrary system. And you know that,
Speaker 1: you know that people's weight fluctuates, and you're shocked when
Speaker 1: you hear what someone really weighs, and you think she
Speaker 1: looks so great, and wow, I can't believe it's that much.
Speaker 1: Everyone's weight is just like a whole different, independent story,
Speaker 1: and it really doesn't have much bearing on their health
Speaker 1: or fitness. So the better sounding goals, not even better sounding,
Speaker 1: but actually more effective goals for women's health and fitness
Speaker 1: would be to say, I want to get my heart
Speaker 1: rate up to x rate for thirty minutes, five days
Speaker 1: a week. That is kind of baseline what doctors recommend.
Speaker 1: But the most important thing is to do something that
Speaker 1: is is motivational and fulfilling for you. So whatever activities
Speaker 1: it is, don't do something you hate. Don't do something
Speaker 1: that's a punishment because you hate too much, or because
Speaker 1: you think your body's disgusting. So you've got to go
Speaker 1: run on the treadmill late at night for two hours
Speaker 1: a day. Pick activities that are actually enjoyable that you'll
Speaker 1: look forward to, and they will help you have this
Speaker 1: greater appreciation for your body and how it works and
Speaker 1: what it allows you to do and to experience, rather
Speaker 1: than just measuring it's you know, it's way it's relationship
Speaker 1: to gravity that can be so discouraging and doesn't actually
Speaker 1: improve your health.
Speaker 2: I'm so glad you refer to it as a relationship
Speaker 2: to gravity, because that's really all it is. It's right
Speaker 2: and it always it is, and something that's really helped
Speaker 2: me in this area I have focused on. When I
Speaker 2: say I want to be strong, it's not to look
Speaker 2: a certain way. It's I'm a single woman. I have
Speaker 2: to take care of things by myself, so I want
Speaker 2: to be able to lift things. I want to be
Speaker 2: able to take care of stuff by my own, so
Speaker 2: I got to be strong to take care of myself.
Speaker 2: And I want to feel good because feeling good means
Speaker 2: I am a good person. I can be out there
Speaker 2: living in the world and interacting with the world because
Speaker 2: I feel good because I'm nourishing my body in a
Speaker 2: way that feels really good to me. And that's so
Speaker 2: important to find. But even someone who like me feels
Speaker 2: like I have this whole grasp on what I'm doing
Speaker 2: and what that means. Doesn't mean I don't go on
Speaker 2: social media and see all kinds of things and be like, dang,
Speaker 2: I wish I looked like that, or I wish I
Speaker 2: had that body, or I don't have that.
Speaker 3: Do I need to do this?
Speaker 2: Or you can get so derailed so quickly because of
Speaker 2: everything that's out there, And that was something I would
Speaker 2: love for you to share your input on because I
Speaker 2: work in social media. I love social media for the
Speaker 2: fact that it can bring people together, and it can
Speaker 2: bring people like us together who may never come together.
Speaker 3: I think it's a beautiful tool.
Speaker 2: But it's also a place that people have used to really, gosh,
Speaker 2: just hate on women in every way in which they
Speaker 2: do something. They could do everything correctly, and they're still
Speaker 2: hatred toward them. There's still this insane goal of making
Speaker 2: a woman feel worse about herself. Yeah, and I don't
Speaker 2: know why that continues to keep happening. But I just
Speaker 2: love your input on that because I know when I
Speaker 2: get on social media as a woman, I hate being
Speaker 2: there sometimes because I know that I'm going to get
Speaker 2: hate simply for existing.
Speaker 1: Yeah, well, it comes back to what I said at
Speaker 1: the beginning about it being profit driven and sexist. Really,
Speaker 1: these beauty ideals are a way to keep women in
Speaker 1: our place. Women aren't really able to progress as much
Speaker 1: personally in our individual lives and in society collectively when
Speaker 1: we're so fixated on how we look, and when we
Speaker 1: are measuring ourselves against these really unattainable and really hyper sexualized,
Speaker 1: out of reach images that we're comparing ourselves to, often
Speaker 1: totally photoshopped and filtered and edited and everything else. But
Speaker 1: I just want to honor how difficult it is to
Speaker 1: live in a society like this and to be surrounded
Speaker 1: by these types of images and messages for our entire lives.
Speaker 1: You could be the most educated, the most successful, the
Speaker 1: most loved, well informed person who's totally at ease with
Speaker 1: yourself in every other category. But if you're a woman
Speaker 1: who lives in this Western society where we are being
Speaker 1: evaluated by how we look, and we're judging ourselves according
Speaker 1: to those same measures, then you're always going to come
Speaker 1: up short. And so this is not a you problem.
Speaker 1: This is not an individual problem. Of anyone, any one
Speaker 1: of us not being strong enough, or having high enough
Speaker 1: self esteem, or having enough willpower just to abstain from
Speaker 1: eating all that stuff that I know I shouldn't have eaten,
Speaker 1: or having the discipline to exercise more. All of that
Speaker 1: points back to me as the problem. You as the problem.
Speaker 1: You not having enough self control, you not doing all
Speaker 1: the right things in order to be as hot and
Speaker 1: thin and sexy and young looking as you think you
Speaker 1: need to be in order to be happy. What I
Speaker 1: want to point out to you is that that's not
Speaker 1: the case, and our whole society, our whole culture, and
Speaker 1: so many industries are engineered to put that blame on you,
Speaker 1: when the reality is that this system that we're surrounded
Speaker 1: by is really the thing to blame. It's been so
Speaker 1: carefully curated to drive those feelings in us so that
Speaker 1: we will then buy the products and follow the people,
Speaker 1: and engage in the activities and the services that make
Speaker 1: people money and that keep this hierarchy in place where
Speaker 1: women were never quite good enough. We're always going to
Speaker 1: need to try to be better because we're not quite
Speaker 1: worthy of love, We're not quite worthy of empowerment and
Speaker 1: happiness and confidence, in whatever else we want, because we
Speaker 1: just don't quite look the part. Even if everything else
Speaker 1: in our lives is ten out of ten, that is
Speaker 1: a losing system. It is a rigged game. And that
Speaker 1: is the game of objectification, where we are objects, and
Speaker 1: these objects, the rules for what makes a good object
Speaker 1: a perfect object are ever changing, are impossible, always perpetually
Speaker 1: just out of breach. And how do you know, Because
Speaker 1: even the most beautiful ten out of ten women in
Speaker 1: this world don't feel perfect. They don't feel like they
Speaker 1: are always worthy of that love, or their images are
Speaker 1: getting edited one hundred percent of the time. They are
Speaker 1: still getting cheated on, They're still having major health issues,
Speaker 1: they are still going through the same difficulties that all
Speaker 1: the rest of us are dealing with in our bodies
Speaker 1: that are blawed compared to theirs. And I also just
Speaker 1: want to point out that these things that we want,
Speaker 1: like what you said, we want love, we want confidence,
Speaker 1: we want these success in our careers. These are all
Speaker 1: universal human desires. We want all of this, and yet
Speaker 1: men are able to achieve all of that without having
Speaker 1: to have a body that is exactly perfect and up
Speaker 1: to these really particular standards. And I'm not saying it's
Speaker 1: not difficult for men because men are being faced with
Speaker 1: a whole variety of appearance related ideals and ideals on
Speaker 1: a variety of other factors about their success, their wealth,
Speaker 1: everything else. But for women, we have to have all
Speaker 1: of those other attributes and always be judged by whether
Speaker 1: or not we have a body that is perfect. And
Speaker 1: the ideals for women are incredibly hard to achieve because
Speaker 1: they are based on thinness and youth, and you cannot
Speaker 1: have thinness in youth forever because our bodies change, and
Speaker 1: by our very nature, through puberty and through pregnancy and
Speaker 1: through all of the hormonal shifts and age and everything else.
Speaker 1: Our bodies are changing every single day. So this is
Speaker 1: a losing game, and when you try to play by
Speaker 1: that system, you fail, even when you are amazing in
Speaker 1: every other way. This just should point out to you
Speaker 1: how rigged the system is, and not how wrong and
Speaker 1: at fault you are. We all want all of those things,
Speaker 1: and we have been taught by well meaning family members,
Speaker 1: by the media that we've been surrounded by, especially the
Speaker 1: social media, but also movies and TV and everything, especially advertising,
Speaker 1: that in order the best way to achieve health, happiness, success,
Speaker 1: empowerment and especially love and desirability is to be more hot,
Speaker 1: to be thinner, to look younger, whatever. That is all
Speaker 1: not true. It is not true. I just want people
Speaker 1: to be so critical when that thought enters our minds,
Speaker 1: we think we are improving our lives by losing weight
Speaker 1: or by getting the new cosmetic surgery or whatever procedures,
Speaker 1: when in reality, we are just striving for this bar
Speaker 1: of perfection that continues to be raised further and further
Speaker 1: out of reach, and the closer we get to it,
Speaker 1: the further we feel from it. So much of the
Speaker 1: time it is a losing system. But we can feel
Speaker 1: happy and confident and at home in our bodies regardless
Speaker 1: of how we look. Literally, this body that you're sitting
Speaker 1: in right now, I'm talking to everyone who's listening. This
Speaker 1: body that you are in right now, you can be
Speaker 1: at home in that body because it's yours. It does
Speaker 1: not matter what you look like or what you've done.
Speaker 1: And you might feel like, well, no, I don't deserve
Speaker 1: that because I have no self control and I haven't
Speaker 1: done all the right things and gotten all of my
Speaker 1: shit together. The reality is you are worthy of love,
Speaker 1: of empowerment, of confidence, no matter what you look like
Speaker 1: and what choices you've made, because you were born into
Speaker 1: this body, and this body is important and it's yours.
Speaker 1: We need to start from that standpoint that your body
Speaker 1: is your home, it's not your enemy.
Speaker 2: I love that I put myself in the position then
Speaker 2: to have you share that, because again it's back to
Speaker 2: what you're saying, where we all have these feelings.
Speaker 3: We're human and this is a real thing that we're
Speaker 3: experiencing day in and day out.
Speaker 2: And so as much as somebody can be so well
Speaker 2: versed and so you know that the right things and
Speaker 2: you know the right way to see it, it doesn't
Speaker 2: mean it's not going to creep in and try and
Speaker 2: come back at you all over again. Something that I
Speaker 2: really feel that has helped me because it's also in
Speaker 2: this all these beauty trends and the fashion trends, and
Speaker 2: you need to be doing this cosmetic thing. To what
Speaker 2: you said, something that's really helped me is that I've
Speaker 2: taken the power back and all of that where I
Speaker 2: don't participate in trends unless it's something I love, unless
Speaker 2: it's something that shows up and I'm like, yeah, I
Speaker 2: look good in skinny jeans.
Speaker 3: I look really good low.
Speaker 2: Rise, or you feel great because you decided to get botox.
Speaker 3: Cool.
Speaker 2: I love that for you.
Speaker 3: If you chose that for you, then I think that's
Speaker 3: what helps us a lot.
Speaker 2: To take the power away from it and say I
Speaker 2: like this because I do not because they're telling me
Speaker 2: to not because I'm seeing it on somebody else and
Speaker 2: it looks really good, and oh, I'm gonna make it
Speaker 2: work on me. There are so many trends that come
Speaker 2: down I have. I learned this the very hard way,
Speaker 2: especially in my early twenties. So much does not look
Speaker 2: good on me that is not built for my body.
Speaker 2: I say that often, especially when it comes to the
Speaker 2: fashion industry. I have a very short torso I'm very short.
Speaker 2: Most things do not fit me. And I had to
Speaker 2: stop falling into the trap of the advertising and say
Speaker 2: I have to do this for me, and if I
Speaker 2: will like this trend for me, cool, I'll get it,
Speaker 2: but I'm not gonna participate just because it's the cool
Speaker 2: thing to do. And taking that power back really helped me.
Speaker 3: I like that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, there's so much freedom. I think sometimes that comes
Speaker 1: with age a little bit, where it's like I remember
Speaker 1: the last time that trend was around, and it didn't
Speaker 1: look out on me then and when I was in
Speaker 1: seventh grade trying so hard. I don't have to do that.
Speaker 1: Now I'm thirty nine years old. I get to wear
Speaker 1: Guinea jeans as long as I want to, or I
Speaker 1: wasted jeans even when low rise jeans are coming back,
Speaker 1: because I know that I physically cannot withstand another round
Speaker 1: of low rise jens.
Speaker 3: I can't exactly.
Speaker 2: And I hope that having conversations like this and grains
Speaker 2: it even sooner for people in their lives we've had to.
Speaker 2: Your point is it comes with age, it comes with wisdom.
Speaker 2: But I hope that us talking about it and grains
Speaker 2: it even earlier and continues that, and maybe someday we
Speaker 2: finally push it all the way back and there isn't
Speaker 2: this lingering thing that's existing.
Speaker 3: Out in society. Long game. I love a long game.
Speaker 1: So we are here for that totally.
Speaker 2: Yeah, we're fighting that hard, Vive, But lindsay, thank you
Speaker 2: for joining me, thank you for being on.
Speaker 3: Is there anything else.
Speaker 2: You want to make sure you want everybody to hear
Speaker 2: that you feel is so so important.
Speaker 1: I would say that I would put this all in
Speaker 1: this model of body image resilience. I mentioned that word,
Speaker 1: and I just want to point out that the last
Speaker 1: things we were just talking about, you know, wanting to
Speaker 1: be able to feel good and make choices that help
Speaker 1: you feel more comfortable rather than more at odds with
Speaker 1: your body, All of that fits in this model of
Speaker 1: body image resilience. Where we start out what we call
Speaker 1: a state of normative discontent, where most of us feel
Speaker 1: pretty crappy and uncomfortable in our bodies, our body image
Speaker 1: is poor. Then we are always faced with what we
Speaker 1: call these disruptions to your body image, something that makes
Speaker 1: you question or rethink your relationship with your body. So
Speaker 1: it might be comments from another person about how you look.
Speaker 1: It could be going through a breakup, pregnancy, really, anything
Speaker 1: that makes you change your relationship or your view of
Speaker 1: your own body. We are forced to respond to those things.
Speaker 1: So some of us will respond and try to feel
Speaker 1: okay and ease that shame that we feel by numbing ourselves.
Speaker 1: And I call that sinking deeper into shame. So maybe
Speaker 1: you numb yourself through disordered eating, or through compulsive over exercise,
Speaker 1: or abuse of alcohol or drugs or anything like that.
Speaker 1: Cutting self harm fits in that category the other things
Speaker 1: you just mentioned, where you're trying out the latest fashion trends,
Speaker 1: or you are planning for the next cosmetic procedure, maybe
Speaker 1: you're getting botox, maybe you're saving up for rest augmentation,
Speaker 1: or whatever the thing is that you think you need
Speaker 1: to fix. All of that is a way we try
Speaker 1: to keep ourselves, keep that shame at bay, and just
Speaker 1: stay comfortable and stay in that comfort zone. Unfortunately, those
Speaker 1: things don't last very long. So even if you do
Speaker 1: get the botox, and you do get the new fashion,
Speaker 1: whatever you do, go on the liquid cleanse for the weekend,
Speaker 1: it doesn't ultimately solve your problem because we come back
Speaker 1: to the same place we always were, that normative discontent,
Speaker 1: and we're always going to be disrupted from that state
Speaker 1: of normative discontent. The way out is to start building
Speaker 1: your body image resilience. So when you're faced with a disruption,
Speaker 1: the next time you read a negative comment about yourself,
Speaker 1: you see a video or a picture of yourself that
Speaker 1: you hate. If you gain weight because of a health
Speaker 1: problem or whatever the thing is, that's when you're disrupted.
Speaker 1: Your shame is at the surface, and you can choose
Speaker 1: how you respond to that. You could do the same
Speaker 1: things you've always done, and maybe it's through prescription drugs
Speaker 1: or self harm or a crash diet, or you could say,
Speaker 1: I don't want to be in that same cycle for
Speaker 1: the rest of my life. I don't want to slap
Speaker 1: a band aid on it. I instead want to build
Speaker 1: these skills to be able to respond better this time
Speaker 1: and next time, and next time at next time, and
Speaker 1: it gets easier every single time. That's what I want
Speaker 1: people to know. You might still be struggling now at
Speaker 1: this at your old age, but you don't have to
Speaker 1: struggle this much the next time a disruption comes along.
Speaker 1: And that is if you take the time now to
Speaker 1: learn how to come back to your body as your home,
Speaker 1: to see your body as your ally instead of your enemy.
Speaker 1: And you do that through building up your media literacy,
Speaker 1: learning to question media images, learning to curate your social
Speaker 1: media feeds and all of the images that you take
Speaker 1: in because they are teaching you what is valuable and
Speaker 1: what makes you okay or not okay every single day.
Speaker 1: You need to use your body as an instrument instead
Speaker 1: of an ornament. Learn how your health and fitness really
Speaker 1: can be defined personally for you, and how you can
Speaker 1: build that and grow it in ways that are really empowering.
Speaker 1: There are ten thousand other things you can do. I
Speaker 1: would highly recommend starting with my book More Than a Body.
Speaker 1: Your body is an instrument, not an ornament. There's a
Speaker 1: workbook that goes along with it, called the Official Workbook
Speaker 1: for More Than a Body that Lexi and I just
Speaker 1: published last year, and it has these daily tips and
Speaker 1: strategies that literally walks you through this process to build
Speaker 1: your body, image, resilience. And there's ten thousand other ways.
Speaker 1: You could follow us online at Beauty Underscore Redefined to
Speaker 1: see some of those other tips in action. But I
Speaker 1: still love people to know this is achievable, this is doable.
Speaker 1: I'm almost forty. I'm thirty nine. From a very very
Speaker 1: young age, was so self conscious, so fixated on how
Speaker 1: I looked and just felt disgusting. And I sit here
Speaker 1: today bigger than I ever thought i'd be at this age.
Speaker 1: I'm still single, I have a great life. I say
Speaker 1: those things thinking that if I saw myself, my sixteen
Speaker 1: year old self, if I knew that I was going
Speaker 1: to weigh this much and be single and whatever other things,
Speaker 1: I would be horrified. But I sit here truly at peace, happy,
Speaker 1: feeling great, feeling successful in all of these ways regardless
Speaker 1: of how I look. And I am able to be
Speaker 1: at peace because I have built my body, body image
Speaker 1: resilience by facing these disruptions head on and proving to
Speaker 1: myself that I am fine, that I am okay, and
Speaker 1: I am at home in my body, and I know
Speaker 1: everyone can do the exact same thing. So that's what
Speaker 1: I'll leave you with a long winded way of saying
Speaker 1: that you are fine and you're gonna do great.
Speaker 2: No, it's perfect. It's a testament. You're not only preaching it,
Speaker 2: you practice it. You're living the lifestyle that you want
Speaker 2: other people to be able to also live. I love
Speaker 2: the work that you guys are doing, and thank you
Speaker 2: for shouting all those things out and sharing just all
Speaker 2: the different pieces. I think it's helpful in our journeys
Speaker 2: as we continue to fight the good fight and keep
Speaker 2: fighting for ourselves. I think that's very important. So thank
Speaker 2: you for being here, Thanks for talking with me.
Speaker 1: Of course, thank you if.
Speaker 3: You're new to this podcast.
Speaker 2: Every episode features a different topic that I've found are
Speaker 2: very important to discuss through ways of experts to give
Speaker 2: us tools and and understanding and then friends who share
Speaker 2: their journeys of hardship. We've talked friendships, careers, dating, grief, therapy, relationships,
Speaker 2: mental health, confidence, you name it as always, thank you
Speaker 2: for being here, and I'll talk to you all next
Speaker 2: week