Pilates vs. Everything

Today we're breaking down the difference between some of the most popular fitness modalities. You've seen these classes all over your timelines and I want to help you understand which class is right for you. I also give an update on my own pilates journey before we dish about a tv show that I feel is a must-watch.

Transcript

Hey girl, hey, welcome back to another episode of Tia's table. I'm Tia asserted by group fitness instructor and nutrition coach. I help women develop healthy habits, that align with their health, wellness, and fitness skulls if you or someone you know is interested in living a healthier lifestyle, feel free to reach out to me I would love to connect with you and have you joined our community or in the app, where I help you do all of the things that you want to do. Okay. I'm trying to take a deep breath because there is a lot just going on in the world right now. So we're courting this today feels just crazy, but I told people an episode was coming out by the end of this week and I want to keep my word about that. I honestly should have recorded this on Tuesday, but with Tuesday be an election day, even though I had already voted, I don't know. I think my emotions were too all over the place on Tuesday to record during the day and then obviously Tuesday night was a lot to process and then on Wednesday, it was like, girl, it was the same. And today is Thursday, and to be honest with you, I'm not doing any better, but um, you know, I got to be a woman of my word. And I can't take too many days off from work. I don't I don't think so. Girl, here I am, so please just bear with me and let's have a beautiful conversation today. I want to talk today about something that I'm going to be doing a lot of coming soon and in my research for that, I came to the conclusion that people really don't know what's what in terms of Pilates anymore. And I kind of wanted to break that down so that we were all on the same page with what it means when we say we're going to take a Pilates's class. But before we get into that, I want to talk about what I have been eating lately and kind of share that and go from there, which honestly the main thing that I've been eating lately is this delicious salad that I was told about over at Costco. It is a I think on the label, it says grain and greens or something like that, but essentially what it is is couscous or like Quinoa. I think it's like a mix. There are some almond slivers, chickpeas, red onion, there's kale. I do believe there is some chopped asparagus every now and then in a fork full or so. um cranberries just the most delicious salad and it comes with like an apple, champagne vinaigte. And I know that sounds like a lot when I say it. Like it sounds like all of the healthy things that people are probably like, ugh, girl, nobody wants to eat that. But you. But I promise you, whatever is in that salad and it's a big tub. It's like a twel dollar tub of salad. You have to go get it from their deli section, right? And it is just amazing. Now, I have been eating it with some of the rotisserie chicken from Costco, and when I mean to tell y'all, I'm hooked, it's like my new thing. It is my new favorite thing, and I cannot imagine going to Costco now and not getting it. Like I will be getting that salad on every trip and because y'all know me. I'm going eat it until I feel like I can't do it anymore. And that is what I am obsessed with at the moment. I'm obsessed with that and you know what? We talk about chipotle every now and again on this on this uh on these conference calls. Are we going to call them conference calls? I don't know what we should call them. But we talk about Chipotle. Let me tell y'all something. I am in a chipotle mood lately, right? But I've got to say the last time I ate at Chipotle, that bowl was so light that if I lived closer to Chipotle, because of course you don't figure out that your bowl sucks until you get home and you open it. If I live closer to Chipotle, the way I would have gone back up there and been like I know you got to be kidding me, like you've got to be kidding me. You b you did not. What am I a toddler? You literally gave me enough of everything? to basically keep me from coming up here. But it wasn't how my bowls normally are. Like it wasn't nowhere near what a chipotle bowl is supposed to be. And I'm like chipotle, that's why people be talking about y'all. It's because of this right here, even if the flavor is consistent and the food is good, you have got to be more consistent with the portions that you give out. Normally, and I'm going to tell you all how light this bowl was. Normally, a chipotle bowl, it takes me like two meal times to eat a chipotle bowl, right? I was able to eat this bowl in like one sitting. That's how light it was. That's how light it was. I was able to eat it all at once when normally I have to break that bowl up into like dinner time and then lunch the next day or something like that. So, Chipotle count your days. Count your days, y''s rewards program isn't good anyway like it takes people forever to get any points and earn anything over there. If I get chipotle one more time and that bowl is not what it should be, it's going to be a wrap for me because like I'm done giving second chances now. I'm done. You only got to fool me once from here on out and like it's going to be a rap. So I'm really in the mood for chipotle and I know people say like, oh, you can make it on chipotle la home. It's like girl, do you know how many things you have to make to do that? You got to make the rice, you got to make the beans. And yes, there are quick ways to do that a little microwave here, a microwave there, cook certain things on top of the stove. But it's like, no, if I want that that to me is stoveop and I want it to be good, like Chipotle, that to me is stove top all the way. And I I that's why I get it from Chipotle because I don't want to make a hundred million different things and then put it in a bowl. But, you know, whatever. So chipotle, then I got a pasta attachment at Kroger, so I tell people all the time, I shop the clearance rack at Kroger all the time. Like every time I'm in the store, I checked the clearance rack because you never know what's going to be back there. On my most recent trip to the grocery store, that veggie chopper thing that's really popular online where you can make salads and you just like put the ingredients up there, you push the top down and it chops everything for you and it falls into the bucket. They had those for five dollars, the last time I went to Kroger, right? They also had ninja cookwear, like pans and skillets for seven dollars on clearance, but the visit before this or a few visits before this, and I shared this on Instagram already. I was minding my own business, scanning the clearance section and to be honest with you, this particular day, nothing was jumping out at me. I really didn't see anything worth buying. Not even kidding you. as I'm walking away, I noticed that there's a box kind of laying flat on its side. So me being me and the sh shopper that I am, I'm a pick the box up and I'm a see, you know, like see what what's what's in this box. When I saw that it was the pasta attachment to the kitchenade stand mixer, the next thing I said was oh my gosh, is this really on clearance. When I saw that reduced price sticker on the bottom of that box and it said60, I put that box in my cart so quick. I almost did a happy dance. I almost did appraise twerk, right there in the clearance section at Kroker because I have wanted one of those for years. If you remember, I shared a long time ago on the podcast that my parents got me to Kitchenade stand mixer back when, I wanted to get like really deep into my baking bag. So they bought me one as a birthday gift maybe or maybe a gift just because I can't remember, but I know like I remember telling my mom like, oh my gosh, I'm going to learn how to bake. Like I got to master that because I feel like that's something that I really wanted to do and like learn Yada, yada, yada. The next thing I know, I have a kitchenitchenate stand mixer. My mom is definitely one of one. One of one. So I had been studying baking and I shared that like on Instagram too, but I wanted to see what all my kitchenates dam mixer can do. And when I learned about the attachments and how to use them, I also learned about how much they cost and I'm like, ooh, girl, like these attachments are like $200 apiece. So you know, you'll have to get one when you get one. And to be honest with you, it was never how my priority list of things to get when I felt like spending $200. I'm going just keep it real with y'all. So when I see this one and it's $60, I said, oh, we're making pasta today. We're making pasta today. I'm buying this. This is going to my cart, and then for the rest of that shopping trip, as I was like buying things, I kept like looking back in my cart to make sure to make sure nobody took my pasta attachment out because I'm like, no, I don't want anybody else to see this and see how great of a deal it is. and take it because, you know, this is Atlanta. I don't I don't want that to happen. I don't want that to happen. So when I got the pasta attachment home, I told myself I said, you know what? I'm not even going to make pasta today because that seems to be like crazy because it was already late in the day. But then as things tend to go, the more I told myself not to do it, the next thing I knew, I'm cleaning off the counter and we are making pasta, and for my first attempt at pasta making that pasta was not bad like I totally get where Nara Smith is coming from now, because number one, it wasn't hard.umber two, it's very few ingredients. Number three, the pasta was good. Like it was so good and four, I'm like, yeah, if you do this, like if you make the dough early enough in the day or whatever, and it has time to rest, you I could see where you could potentially have fresh pasta every single time you wanted to sit down and have it, because it really wasn't like time consuming to do. So love that for me and the fam. I will be getting deeper and deeper into pasta making, I think over this holiday season and as we go into 2025 is really one of the things that I would like to master next year. I'm going to make it one of my New Year's goals to continue to study pasta making. So stay tuned for that and we'll go on that journey together. But I have been at least attempting to make all of the pasta. So that's what's on my table right now or what I'm doing food related right now. Let's talk about Pilates. Girl, because next week, the Pilates studio is finally going to open and I have been waiting on this for what feels like forever, right? I got my membership months ago. The Pilates studio was under construction. They finally finished and I think they had the soft launch or the soft opening on Halloween or maybe the day before Halloween. I don't know, but whatever night they had it, I was like, ooh girl, I who can come over there at seven o'clock on this particular night, not me. So I didn't get to go to that event and I had already registered for all of the classes that I wanted to take, I think, all this month and maybe a few of the classes next month. I had already, you know, signed up for everything that I wanted. So I really wasn't pressed about going to the opening night um event. But I am very excited about attending, of course, my first group of classes next week. And as I enter into my Pilates era, I said to myself, you know, I am a group fitness instructor. I taught a Pilates fusion class, the class that I taught was called pio. It is a fusion of Pilates and yoga together. It was a very intense, but like low impact class that was amazing and produced really amazing results for everybody. And it was also like one of the favorite classes at the studio. I love teaching it. But when I'm on the Internet now and I'm looking at what people are claiming to be Pilates, it is starting to be confusing to me because I'm like, oh, this is not Pilates, um or even when you take a bar class, I take bar classes with Peloton quite a bit and a lot of what we do in those classes is not bar. And I think the line is starting to get blurred with all these different modalities because people are trying to do what's hot and trendy instead of sticking to the true description of a class. So I thought it would be helpful to kind of break down the differences between all of these things and perhaps help you understand which one is going to be the best fit for you based on where you are in your own personal fitness journey. So let's start with Pilates, right? Pilates is a system of exercises using special apparatus designed to improve physical strength, flexibility, posture, and enhance mental awareness, and it is created by Joseph Pelates. Kathleen, Stanford Grant was one of the pioneers of the Pilates movement. She is a black woman, and she currently still teaches Pilates down in Atlanta. So if you live in this area, you can literally take classes with her at her studio down in Atlanta. Pilates is a mind body class. It is very, very, very low impact. Do you feel a really good burn when you take Pilates? Absolutely. It focuses on building your core, making sure your core is nice and strong, but then it also works your arms, your glutes, your legs. You get a little bit of upper bat work and depending on what apparatus you're using, because Pilates has lots of different pieces of equipment. I think people are most familiar with the reformer and Matt Pilates, right? And no matter which class you you pick, it should be a challenge to your body because your body doesn't normally put itself in the positions that you find yourself in in Pilates. Now, people will argue that Matt Pilates is a little bit more challenging than reformer Pilates because they'll say the reformer helps you get into these different positions and it's just easier to kind of allow your body to flow when you have the reformer assisting you. I think it kind of just depends on you and what your fitness level is. To me and my personal opinion, Matt Pilates is actually I feel like Matt Pilates is easier because you don't have any resistance working to get you, except for that of your own body and because you live in your own body every day, you know the limits of your own body. and you know how far you can push yourself in any one position. You know how many reps of something you can do. You know that you can slow your arms down when you're doing those hundreds. You know you can slow them down or you can speed them up. You know how to make it more difficult or challenging for you when you're doing those leg raises. You know exactly which point in the leg rays is going to take you over to the, oh my gosh, this is hard. side of things and sometimes I feel like in Matt Pilates, we are our own worst enemies because we don't allow ourselves to to push to that point of like trembling and shaking, which in all honesty, when you're in a class like Pilates or Barr, you want to have your form so good that it does cause that that shaky burn, right? So that is Pilates. Bar is a full body exercise that combines vali inspired movements with streng training, flexibility, and core conditioning. So, like Pilates, Bard does aim to train your core, but it is a more f full body experience. Bard does have some cardio element to it, and it is supposed to be a dance inspired workout. Now, what you will find when you go to most bar classes is that you don't do that much dance. You might get into first position, second position, whatever, like they might call out a few ballet terms while you're in there. But for the most part, y'all, it is not bar. Like it's it's not with what they are doing is like a wee bit of bar and then everything else is kind of like functional string training or it's like Pilates's adjacent. or it is the ever so popular what is currently trending online, sculpt class. Now I know people have been seeing what they're calling hot Pilates all over the Internet. Hot Pilates is not even Pilates. Now they might do a couple of Pilates movements, but just because you're class has a downward dog in it is it doesn't mean you're doing Pilates and it doesn't mean you're doing yoga. Okay? Sculpt is a full body exercise that combines cardio, strength, yoga. Okay, yoga posing in a heated environment, also known as hot Pilates and or hot bar. So to me, sculpt is basically Pilates or bar or a fusion of the two with the heat turned on. That's it. and I'm sure it's a great workout whenever I see anybody online doing it like everybody is soaking in sweat, people are drenched, right? So I'm sure it's a good workout. I'm sure it's great, but I would just hate for anybody to sign up for a class like that that I know for a fact utilizes weights. I know for a fact that's going to have you doing a lot of body weight exercises and you're going in there thinking like, oh, this is going to be Pilates and it's like, oh, no girl, this is actually tougher than Pilates. And I'm I'm reviewing these in order of like least intense and terms of intensity, I'm going from like zero to ten, right? Starting with what I believe to be the less intense class all the way up to the most intense. And we are at skulpt. So number one was Pilates where I think you'll get like a slow burn, but like little to no sweat. Bar is intense, right? Bar is intense, and you might get like a a little mist to a full on sweat in that class. Sculp isn an intense burn, and you will be dripping in sweat in a in a sculpt class, and then lastly, we have what we call legree. Now Lagree is an extreme intensity, and you will be soaking in sweat Lagree utilizes string training along with a reformer that is similar to a Pilates reformer, but it is not Pilates. Legree is what people do when they go to solicore, so it is a step up. It was in my opinion it is a few steps up from Pilates. And to me, it would be the most intense class you could take, or like the most difficult. So if you're a person who is at the beginning of their fitness journey, or let's say you are someone who is trying a class like that for the first time, you definitely want to go to like their beginners's class. You do not want to find yourself in a legree class that isn't the intro class or like a class for beginners. And I would also highly recommend that for Pilates as well. If you've never taken reformer Pilates before, definitely make sure the first class that you take is the intro or like the beginner's course, because in those classes, they'll move a little bit slower. They'll probably offer more modifications and they'll actually cue the modifications, whereas in an advanced class, you might find that they will just cue things because they're expecting you to know and like be familiar with your body, how your body feels on the reformer, the reformer itself, and they're expecting you to be strong enough or agile enough or flexible enough or whatever to do the things that they're calling out with very little support from them. So it is very important that you start off with beginners classes and kind of work your way up through what they have determined to be um the flow of their classes. So if you are someone who has seen solid core classes or you live next to a solid core studio, great workout. I researched all of these before coming up here in calling y'all. Great workout. Just make sure that you start with the intro class and based on what I solve, um from the studios that are closest to me, which which you know, when you live in the Atlanta metropolitan area, these places not close to me. So when I say closest to me, I don't even really even mean that, but you know what I'm saying? The studios that are in Atlanta. The studios are that are in Atlanta. They only tend to offer an intro class like every so often. I notice when going through the schedules that they don't have many of them and the classes that they did have on their website were already like booked up. So if that is something that you're interested in, you may have to be willing to wait. It might not be like a same day thing. And I totally understand how some of you might be like me. It's like, oh my gosh, I feel like I want to go do Pilates today or this week or whatever. And when you're hot about it, you want to do it like then. So you get on somebody's website and you're looking through the schedule and you're like, dang, well, they don't have an intro class until like, I don't know, let's say December 15th and you're like, well, by December 15th, I might not even want to do this no more or I might not be in the mood that day or whatever, but I say all of that to say you might just have to be open minded to the fact that you're going to have to book that class far enough out, so if you know this is something that you're interested in doing, go ahead, get on their website, book the classes, and then find some other stuff to do between now and then. And that can also go for some of these Pilates and bar classes, too, because they are so popular right now, just keep them in mind when you're looking up studios and you're looking at class schedules and all of that. It might be a situation where you got to book classes and then wait for them. Now, another place that I think, I don't I know I haven't seen much about it online, so I'm actually going to like Google it and TikTok it after we get off the phone. But Hot Works is another place that I know offers those heated workouts they offer heated Pilates and different classes, but I don't know enough about how their whole situation is set up enough to be able to get up here and tell you all about it. Like I know based off of the commercials that I've seen, I know the rooms are hot well and the girl that does my lashes, she has been to a hot work since she told me about her experience and she said the room is hot. You can kind of pick out whatever workouts you want, but see in the commercials there's always like a group of three in that little hot room and you know, when I see people taking hot sculpt or hot Pilates or whatever they're calling it, the rooms are large, so it wouldn't bother me to be in one of those classes with the lot of people because I feel like the rooms are large. So Eric can kind of circulate, but even with that, I'm like, ugh, because it's a lot of sweat happening in here and we're all kind of, you know, right next to each other on these these mats and sweat is probably going everywhere. And that kind of grosses me out a little bit. So when I think about hotworks, I'm like, no, I don't think I want to be in there with two other people in this very small room unless they're like my friends or people that I I came with. So I don't know enough about the booking of that situation to know if you're getting booked with random strangers or if you only go in there with people you know, is it a um is it a service that you can book where you get to reserve room all to yourself? Like I don't know, but I'm going to look up hotworks and then the next time we talk, girl, I will have those details for you. But hopefully this helps us kind of break down which one of these is right for you. You gotta always consider your fitness level. You gotta consider whether you want to start as a beginner, somewhere in the middle or closer to the advanced level. And then you should also consider your goals. If your goals are to get like super ripped, I would say that solid cor laree style workout is probably a great choice for you because it is going to have a lot of string training, elements to it. If you want to build like a very, which I hate to use the word sculpted, but if you want like a very sculpted tone body that still looks really lean, maybe not too muscular, I think bal Pilates's bar and sculpt can definitely get you there. I have been doing a lot of sculpt at home on my own, and I feel like I can tell a difference. You just keep the weights kind of light to like medium. You're hitting those reps. You're moving very slowly and intentional through all of your movements. and I feel like I've gotten some really good results from sculpted workouts. So just consider your goals and pick whichever modality is going to match up with the goals that you have for yourself. I think that when you go, make sure you pay attention to how the teacher is instructing things, pay attention to like the vibe of the class and the room, the playlist, make sure that all of these things are things you like. And as long as you're happy with all of that, you can really get some good results being consistent going to classes that are like this. I think one of the main things that people look for when they're going to a Pilates studio or like a pure bar class, I think people want a really good instructor that knows what they're talking about and that can queue them through different things. I think people want to feel challenged when they're in the workout. And if you ever go to a class like this and you don't feel like it was hard or you don't feel like it was what you were expecting in terms of intensity, that just might mean you need to progress to the next level of classes. It doesn't mean that that studio wasn't good or like that instructor wasn't good. It just means that you might you just might need a different class that's offered on their schedule. And I think once people figure out which classes are really working for them, which classes push them, but the classes, you know, is something that they enjoy too. That is a very nice, sweet spot. and it'll help you stay in your Pilates girl era a lot long. Like it's really Pilates season for me. And I almost considered I really did, but see, and this is how I know I'm growing up. I know I'm growing up because I said to myself like, ooh, my Pilates classes start next week. I should get on Amazon and order myself some more like cute little matching two piece um little workout outfits, right? But then I said to myself, girl, no, for so many reasons, one, because I have workout clothes, two, because before I buy more, I really should get rid of some more stuff. And I still don't know what the hang up is about getting rid of clothes. Like I really I really don't know what that's about, but I almost wanted to buy myself like a little Pilates's wardrobe because my goal is to go to classes at least twice a week and I felt like for whatever reason, like, oh, you should treat yourself till some like some new stuff so that every time you go to class, you feel really cute and all of that. But then I also had to tell myself like, girl, no, you got three kids. You do not need another pair of leggins and you don't need another sports bra, like chill out. So that is all about Pilates versus Barr versus sculpt versus solichore. And for the workout report, that's basically what it is, I'm still walking. I'm still streng training doing sculpt at home, being sick, the last well, not the last week, but the week before did kind of take me out of my routine for a little bit. And then once I felt better, it was basically time for Halloween. And so then I've been busy with that. I had to volunteer at my child's school today for career day teaching about nutrition. And so I'm trying to get back into the swing of things. And I also recognize now more than ever that it's really the food for me. It is, I mean, it's the workouts too, but because I did have little treats and snacks with them on Halloween, I feel like I notice a difference and it really is the processed sugar for me. So I'm going to have to get to a place where I know that and understand that and I allow myself to have the things that I want and the things that I enjoy. But if it's really not a must have for me, I need to be okay with just being like, no, I don't eat that or, you know, and that's hard to do as a black woman. It's hard to tell people you don't eat something because people really be wanting you to explain to them why you don't eat something or they'll have like a snide remark or a joke about it, and it's kind of like, no, this is not a joke to me. It's not a joke to me. I, and it's not that anything is wrong with whatever the item is. It's just that I know my body doesn't respond well to it. And because I really do like the way that I feel when this particular thing is not inside my body, I don't want to consume it. So that's something that I'm working on too, but when my classes start up, I'll be doing Pilates twice a week. I will still walk, and on the days that I'm not doing Pilates, I will still be streng training at home. I know I keep saying that I'm going to make my way back to the gym, but you know I don't know. I just feel like I've been doing perfectly fine at home so like why mess up a good thing? Why mess up a good thing and what I would love to do is just spend November doing the routine that I just said so that I'll see what that's like and in December I'll look at those results and that'll give me a true indication on whether or not the gym is absolutely necessary because I feel like right now it's just not extremely necessary to like what I'm doing. So we'll see. We'll we'll see. We'll see we'll see. Okay. So for some of the random things we've got to discuss here, okay? I have been watching three women. It is on stars. Three women is a show that follows Shalene Woodley, which on this show her name is Gia and she's a writer. She's writing about these three women who all have different very different lives, right? The first woman is a lady named Sloane and she's played by Dwanda Wise. Sloane is like a caterer party event planner entrepreneur, and she's married to Blair Underwood. Whose name on this show, I don't know, but we all know him as Blair Underwood, so we're going to call him Blair Underwood. They make a beautiful couple on this show. Now, on this show, they are a fascinating married couple. And if you are listening to this and you have children in and around you, well, not not girl if if you were pregnant with a child, they can't hear me. But if you've got kids like with you in the car, like just in your room, put on headphones or girl just put me on hold and call me back later. But they are in a relationship where they really enjoy watching each other with other people, right? Which is fascinating to me, but I'm like, okay, all right. I suppose so. And it seems as if their relationship dynamic is very much so based on Sloan, though, like it's almost like he's only participating in any of this stuff because I guess he loves her so much and he wants her to be happy and she has this desire or this hunger to like be with other people. And he allows her to do that because that is how much he loves and wants to be with her. Fascinating to me. Fascinating to me. And I don't want to give up too much of what happens in the show, but that is the gist of their relationship, okay? The next woman that she writes about is a homemaker named Lena. Now, Lena is in a marriage a long-term marriage with a guy who for whatever reason just stops showing any interest in Lena. just stop, and so then Lena joins the support group of married women who basically get together and they share like their feelings and what they're doing to kind of cope with the fact that they feel like they're in these dead and marriages, right? Lena somehow and I can't remember right now how she she comes into contact with her high school boyfriend. Did he write her on social media or like text her or something? I don't know, but she somehow reconnects with her high school boyfriend. And because she is in what she feels to be like a loveless marriage, she ends up hooking up with the high school boyfriend and then they start a full on affair. Like it is a full blown affair and she separates from her husband. Once and as and as the story goes, once she separates from her husband and she tells the high school boyfriend like, yeah, I'm leaving him, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. He instantly like starts to draw back and away from her. Because in his mind, he was probably thinking, you know, that he really didn't want to be in a relationship with Lena. He just wanted that old thing back. Lena, I think, was probably hoping that it would be something more, but you could also tell she was open to the idea of if it not being anything, right? Lena Lena and Gia, because Gia is like the mediator for this group of women, right? They become really good friends until they end up exchanging words and not being friends anymore. Lena ends up at the end of this whole thing pretty much kind of like by herself, but I think on the other side of things where she feels really empowered to like make changes in her life. I hope you guys watch the show because I'm trying to talk about it without giving everything away. And then the last woman that she writes about is a woman named Maggie. Maggie Maggie, Maggie is a high school student who is sleeping with her English teacher. and the way the show tells it an apparently this part is a true story, like Maggie's story is supposed to be a true story. The way the show portrays it is like oh my gosh, the teacher and Maggie would like text each other, sneak off, be with each other. They would be hooking up at school. Like it was a lot. It was a lot. He was definitely a child predator, right? But of course, Maggie, being 16, does not know this. And I think what made Maggie fall into this situation with her teacher is that over the school break, like the summer before, she had gone to visit her sister in Hawaii, her sisters married to somebody in the military. She goes to a party with um her brother-in-law and like some military guys. Of course, she ends up sleeping with one of those guys who ends up being 30some, right? Ends up falling out with the sister and the brother-in-law. She goes back home. And so when her teacher starts to groom her, she like falls right into it because of the experience she has already had this summer. And then it's not until Maggie graduates from high school and is out of that situation that she realizes that that should have never happened to her, like that that was a bad thing. And so she presses charges against him and that story begins to like tell itself. The way they tell these stories and the way this show is filmed is just so good, it's so gritty and like provocative and raw, very messy, though, too. Very messy, but I don't know. It's just these stories are just told with so much honesty that the whole time you're watching every episode, like your jaw is like on the floor, like, oh my gosh, I can't like I can't I can't believe this. Even though we know two of the stories aren't true, but knowing Maggie's story is actually real, you're like, oh my gosh, I can't believe this is somebody's actual life story. And then they do tell a story about Gia too, the writer. Gia is a single woman who's trying to make a name for herself as a writer, so she gets advice from a mentor that says basically travel the country and tell all these stories about the women that you meet and the relationships that they're in, right? And then while you're doing this, also document your own experience, too. Like if you're dating or you see some or if you're seeing somebody, whatever, document your own stuff and then we'll put it together and put it in a book. But the night before she leaves on her cross country trip for this, she ends up meeting a guy in a bar and they hit it off. They hook up the night before she's supposed to leave. Obviously, she's going to write about that. They but then I think she ends up either postponing her trip or something happens and she ends up spending more time with him and you can tell they have an instant connection. She gets to like Indiana or somewhere that's not New York City. She gets there. She's supposed to be meeting up with a woman who had been messaging her about wanting her story to go into Gia's book. And when she gets to the restaurant, he walks in. The guy from New York City walks in. Then they end up having like a pretty big story and like I said, I want you to watch it so I don't want to tell everything, but they end up having a really big story and even the way they tell her story, I think she's the main character, but she's not and the way they tell her story is just so good, not that it's relatable, because I don't I obviously, like I can't relate to what Gia is doing in the movie, but what I will say is some of the thoughts in the feelings that she has, I think are very relatable. So if you have stars or access to stars, please watch three women and then come back and let's talk about it or hit me up in my DMs and talk to me about it because I just feel like that show is really good. And I hope whoever put that show together, I hope they earn something for it because they did a great job with that. And then I also kind of wanted to talk about HBCU homecomings and the outfit scandal of it all. People have been all over my timelines or at least they were when I initially made this podcast outlined for this episode. They have been all over my timelines talking about what the kids are wearing to homecoming and I'm just like if you don't like what they're wearing to homecoming, maybe you shouldn't be going to homecoming anymore. I don't know. I just feel like trends come and go the way young people express themselves changes with every generation. I know back when I was like in school. It was like a mix of things. It was kind of like, are you a um, are you like a a 400 degrees hot girl, right? Or are you one of the business casual girls? Or are you a little bit of both? Like depending on what the situation is, you decide which way you're going to lean in terms of your outfit. But whatever these bubble skirts are it's got everybody in a deep tizzy and everybody has been upset about seeing these skirts at home coming. and I'm just like, y'all are upset because you're saying alumni offer networking opportunities and jobs at homecoming. So you need to be dressed like so-and-so. People were saying, I take my kids to homecoming and it's supposed to be a family event and they're dressed like so-and-so. And I'm just like, these are college kids. They're college kids. They're going to dress however they want to. And it's their homecoming. Like I know in your mind you think it's your homecoming because you're going to it. But when you're not an actively enrolled student like this is not your four years of college anymore, right? And to me, the the people who are actually experiencing this in real time for the first time, this is their homecoming. And when you go back to school for homecoming, you you're a guest, right? And you kind of have to accept whatever the current student body thinks it's popping. That is what I think. You just got to accept whatever you think or whatever they think is trendy at the moment. And if it is those bubble skirts, but I get it, y'all are like, ooh, but we don't want to see people's butts. We don't want to see this. We don't want to see that. And to that I just say well then maybe you got to start staying at home, baby. I don't know what to tell you. I don't know what to tell you, but I felt like some of that that I was seeing a little uncalled for. Maybe because I'm like, just let those children be great. Like, let them be great. And if you wasn't out there trying to hire nobody, don't even bring the whole, you can make connections. You can network with people. If it wasn't a networking event. And I know what y'all are trying to say that homecoming in general falls. It's like it's a huge umbrella, like homecoming is a big umbrella and then underneath the umbrella are all these different opportunities or like social out and now we get that we've all been to homecoming. Now, I went to a PWI, but within the PWI, there's always a black student body. And that black student body tries its best to give the black students a real quote unquote homecoming experience. It's nothing like the experience at HBCU because I have all I have been to several HBCU homecomings and the two are not the same so so let's start there. So I can imagine that at an HBCU, you might just see way more people, therefore, the the opportunities are probably great. You might run into somebody or somebody might introduce you to somebody or whatever. And I get it. You could probably get it intern or a first job or a contact or what have you? And people are saying, but if you get introduced to somebody and you're dressed like so-and-so, like that's not going to be that's not going to be good. You You're probably not going to get a job or you're not going to get the opportunity, because of how you're dressed. And I'm like, yes, but at some point, y'all just got to let people y'all got to let these kids be kids. You got to let them be kids. You got to let them party because they're in a certain space of their life and in time where if you're going to be a little bit ratchet and have the time of your life unapologetically with no fear, that is their time. They're in that time right now. But y'all want them to be thinking about, but somebody can give me a job. And it's kind of like, don't they have the rest of their lives to think about getting a job? And also how has that worked out for the rest of us being adults and being grown and having to think about my job and getting hired and do I need to go back to school and and and and and like truly how has that served any of us? I feel like not, I mean, not well, I feel like if most people could rewind time and go back to college, you probably would because let's keep it all the way real. College is like that perfect time in your life where you're not living with your parents, but you're not really an adult. You just so happen to have money to go do random things on these random adventures, participating in all of the shenanigans, while also still being responsible and it goes by so fast. So I'm like, let those kids just be kids. Let them have so much fun and let's try not to be like the generation before us and be trying to police every single last thing. Every single last thing. And then lastly, before I go and we'll probably talk about this a little bit more, if you have my other number, but I did want to touch on the election just ever so quickly before we hang up, girl, because I know I'm having a hard time just absorbing everything. I'm having a hard time just coming to grips with it all. I think when you do have so much hope for something and then, I mean, I won't speak for everybody, but I know for me, I just really thought it was a sure thing and maybe that was a mistake on my behalf because I thought everybody could clearly see what I saw and I thought everybody was voting that way. I think that I'm in a state of angry shock because I'm like, how is how did this happen? How is it not so? Like what did we miss? And at the sake of not working up a mad because I really don't want to and I also don't want to cry on this podcast. I will just say that of all of the emotions that I have felt over the last couple of days, the one that I'm going to choose to focus on the most well, I'm I'm not going to lie. I'm going to focus on two. I'm going to focus on two. One is the fact that I am mad. I'm mad, but the other side of that that I'm choosing to focus on, I saw a young woman on TikTok's put this together so eloquently and it really did help me shift my thinking and change my perspective on what I thought before. And it is that I really am proud to have been in the 92%. I love being a 92%er. I really do. I love the fact that black women came together. We put our money, we're our our mouth was. We, you know, pushed all her stuff out on social media. People donated their time. People really amplified their voices. People held Kamala Harris up in the highest of light and I'm just so proud of her proud of her because she gave the world an opportunity to see what a happy black woman looked like, what a happy successful black woman looked like, an unbeknownst to me I don't think people had seen that before. I think people were only used to that tired, angry black woman stereotype, right? I think people were only ever. Only ever thinking that we were all like that. I think RBF is a real thing, which is resting bitch face. I I think that's a real thing. And so what if a lot of us have it? But that doesn't mean that we are women that don't have joy or happiness in our lives. It it's just if I'm at work, why do you think I'm going to be here like, you know, why do you think I'm a being here overjoyed? Like the girl, this is work. I came here to do a job. Like I came here to do a job. And for whatever reason, what bothers me the most about her campaign is the fact that people would say things like she's always smiling. She's always laughing. She's always like she always looks so happy. And I'm like, well, what's wrong with that? Maybe she is. Maybe she is because from what it looks like, as we know her life story to be, she has a lot to be happy about. She has a lot to be at peace about in terms of how her life has gone, she's married to what appears to be like the love of her life. She has had a successful career. She's very active and like her nieces' lives and she mentors women and she probably just has a piece about herself that allows her to be so content that it radiates as joy and I don't see what the problem with that is and the fact that people use that against her really bothers me because it lets me know that people are not used to seeing real happiness in true authentic genuine joy from black women. It's almost like we've been put into a box where it's like they're either, you know, upset or mad about something or I don't know, girl, check up check another box. Check another box for an emotion, but they're just not used to seeing us in a way that is positive. So what I'm taking from that is, oh, we should be showing up more often and whatever are true emotions are. So if that's mad and angry, girl be mad and angry. If that is, you know, so happy that like you can't you literally cannot stand yourself, then girls show up so full of joy that it is intoxicating to the people around you, because now we understand that whether you're angry or your joy runneth over, like girl, it makes no never mind. Like it's truly it is not going to make a difference In the eyes of people. So be who you want to be and do what you want to do. Be who you want to be and do what you want to do, because it it truly doesn't make a difference one way or the other with how the world is going to view us anyway. And like I said, there is a lot of feelings and thoughts that I have about this whole thing, but I think that I'm going to leave it there because as I try to transition out of like the the disappointment and like the heartbreak of it all. I'm trying to really focus and like grasp onto the fact that maybe it's possible that over the next four years, I can truly just focus on finding more real joy and then actually putting that into practice. And letting my joy illuminate the world around me because truly that's all I can do. And I know we talk about that a lot on this podcast anyway, like just showing up as ourselves in a way that even if it makes other people uncomfortable or they are confused by it, at least quite possibly what that will do is start making our joy the norm and no longer the exception. And that is my hope for all of us over the next four years that we can start changing the narrative that like, oh no, they I think people are going to expect us to be like enraged and sad and like heartbroken over all of this in like, sure, we probably will be until we're not, but at some point, I'm like, yeah, we we as a community can definitely start and I'm just trying to hold back myself. We can definitely start showing up in the world in a way that makes the joy we see in Kamala very normal to people. So moving forward, they can never use that as a reason to disqualify you for anything. Because how can that even be a real thing to begin with? But it just lets me know that like, oh yeah, no, they they just weren't used to seeing it. I don't know what they expected her to be. And like I said, I don't even want to go into all of that because we already know either what they expected or it didn't even matter. You know, it didn't even matter. And that to me also kind of reminds me of the Martha Stewart documentary, which I'll definitely talk about that on my other number. But it's all the same at the end of the day, they don't really want to see women rise higher than a man and certainly if you are a black woman, they don't want to see you rise at all. They kind of want to keep you in that box where they are comfortable with you. And most oftentimes the night, that box is where they feel like they're stifling you, which which if they believe you to be stifled, then they also believe you to be unhappy, right? And that's just not the case. Like that's just not the case. We are not that. True, some of us have, well, everybody has bad days, everybody has bad moments, and some of us just don't play, like especially at work, like I'm not here to play with y'all. I'm here to do my job, earn my money and go home and that's perfectly okay and some of us are literal joy on a silver platter, like Kamala Harris is, just imminent, perfect joy. that radiates out of her. And even then that wasn't enough to make some people feel like she was qualified to run this country. But what I do know is that I have grandmothers. I have aunts, I have my mom. I am a mother. I have a daughter and I have friends from well, I have friends from like 30 years of age all the way up and out of all of the women that I know, especially like the ones in my telephone, out of all of the women that I know, not that we have the same qualifications as Kamala Harris's girl, we we'd we haven't had her her resume is not something that we can copy and paste, right? So I'm not saying that, but what I am saying is that the way that I see black women move and the things that I see them do and like the motion that they have, yeah, I would feel comfortable saying that she's probably not even the only black woman I know that could have that job. That could have that job. She's probably the best candidate number one for sure, but she's probably not even the only black woman I know that could have that job and do a stellar job at it and I'm going to try not to cry. And I think that's what breaks my heart is that Kamala Harris is not she's not an exception to me. Like I know women like her. Like I know women that are smart. I know women that are progressive thinkers. I know women that are great organizers. I know women who know how to get things done. I know women that are great speakers. I know women that are highly intelligent. I know women that can walk into a room and own it. I know women who are able to get someone on the opposite side of a situation to at least meet them in the middle. Like I know negotiators. So she was not an exception to me. I feel like I've known a million, Kamala Harris's. And I think that is the heartbreaking part of it is one of the heartbreaking parts of it is that enough people thought she was an anomaly. Like they thought she was just this weird kind of woman that they had never come across before, even though she's been in politics for a very long time. I guess it wasn't until she decided to run for president that of course they zeroed in on her and start picking her apart. But I'm like, yeah, to be a black woman is to know that there are a million Kamala Harrises, but also to be a black woman is to know that you can be a Kamala Harris and it just won't matter. It just won't be enough. So I don't know. I hope everybody takes their time and works and processes through all of their emotion and emotions and kind of just eases their way into a mind set shift as we all will eventually, I wish us all the best over this next four years. Girl, take your rest, just know that at least until 2028 it is above us now, like we tried to show you all the light we gave you the best of the best to ever do it and you chose something else and so now like blue let the let the chips fall where they may because fool me one time, shame on you fool me two times shame on me and that's why I said from here on now, I'm only doing crazy stuff one time. So this time right here, when crazyziness starts to ensue, it is above me and get someone else to do that because I I can't. I'm going to be somewhere. I'm going to be somewhere immanating joy, like Vice President Harris would want me to do. But she did also tell us to like roll up our sleeves. And I'm going to have to tell the good sis, I'm not there yet. I'm not in a place where I'm planning on rolling up my sleeves. I think I'm in a place where this is the origin story of my villain era, right? And I feel like I'm truly about to be deep into my bag that is full of myself. And I'm going to just go I'm just go from there unless one of my fellow 92 percenters, you know, unless one of y'all need something, you need help with something. You need some donations for something and girl, I got you. Girl, I got you. But if it's not from a 92 percenter, girl, that ain't got nothing to do with me. That ain't none of my business and I plan on only doing the things over these next few years that are only my business. or the business of those that live in this house, so, you know, we'll all get through this eventually in time, but for now, just know that you are not alone in your feelings and I feel like she cracked the ceiling and somewhere somebody has a daughter that's going to come after her. and when that young woman runs for president, we'll have more time because you got to also remember we didn't have that much time to kind of organize and pull it together. And like the girl on TikTok pointed out, even in our short amount of time, we really did make a lot of moves. We were just behind the curve with a couple things. But the next time, though, since the ceiling has already been cracked a little bit more, we'll have a full campaign season to work with and they will not be able to stop us, because look at what we did and just a couple months. So job well done. 92 percenters job well done. Well, that's it for this episode of Tia's table. Thank you for joining me when you're out, compliment woman, say something nice to her, make her day. Don't compete, don't compare don't complain what God has for you is for you, and never knock another woman's hustle. I love you girl bye.