Ep 15 - A Day In the Life - How Two Busy Working Moms Make Time For Fitness And For Starting A Calories Up Revolution

Professional careers, children, fit physiques, and a very fun side hustle.  Sound too good be true?  It's not!  Allison and Jo talk about a day in the life, explain how they fit it all in, and reveal their inspiration for starting Couture Fitness & Lifestyle Coaching.   

One thing they have realized is that once you figure out effective nutrition and exercise strategies, it frees you up for all sorts of other things!  It's very hard to live a life you love running on fumes and running for hours on the treadmill.  Not to mention this is not a good strategy for achieving or maintaining a healthy weight.   Instead, they've realized that a Calories Up approach to nutrition has made all the difference.

They also share THREE  strategies for success that apply equally to getting fit and starting a business.

Join our April Metabolic Makeover Program where we will optimize your nutrition, workouts, and help you create a body you adore with no weird diets!  Doors will close when spots fill up or April 1 - whichever comes first!  Reserve your spot here:   Weight Loss Programs Kansas City | Work with Us | Couture Fitness & Lifestyle Coaching — CoutureFitnessCoaching

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Transcript

Unknown: 0:08

Welcome to the Boost Your Metabolism After Age 30 Podcast. I'm Joe. And I'm Allison and we're your co hosts and the founders of couture Fitness and Lifestyle coaching. We're on a quest to help women design lives they love and bodies they adore. We were fed up with the dieting industry and decided to create something different. We're starting a calories up revolution where women are nourished, their metabolisms are healed and their bodies and brains start working for them in the battle against weight loss. If you feel like your metabolism is wrecked and you want to lose weight once and for all, you are in the right place. Okay, well Hello everyone. Today you've got both Alison and Joe. And we're today going to be talking about how we fit working a full time job running this side hustle to our fitness, parenting and fitness into our everyday schedules. And some might say that it can't be done. But we're here to tell you that it can be and how we do it, it can be done. But first we want to tell you a little bit about what's going on at couture Fitness and Lifestyle coaching right now. So we are actually gearing up for our April metabolic makeover program to begin, and we want to tell you guys about that before we get into the main topic of our podcast. Today, we open spots in our coaching programs at the beginning of each quarter, which means we are enrolling clients in our April program right now. And what you'll get if you work with us is a personalized fitness and nutrition plan that is calibrated specifically to your goals, your background, your lifestyle, what's worked for you in the past what hasn't worked for you in the past, and you also get more support to follow the plan that we designed for you than you could ever imagine. First, you're going to have a personal coach who was going to check in with you each week over email and also occasionally over zoom and guide you through this process. And then you also get weekly lifestyle and mindset coaching from Joe who is our head lifestyle coach. So you can figure out how to incorporate all of this, this plan and this information that we're giving to you into your lifestyle. And then you also have access to our Facebook community. It's a private group for other couture fitness clients. And that's just a way for you to connect with our other clients. It's also loaded with recipes and tips and tricks and motivational stories and inspiration. There's just a lot of support there. And we like to say get ready to lose weight like you've never lost it before. So we are enrolling right now, like I said, just go over to our website, which is couture fitness coaching comm we're also going to link this in the show notes. And if you still have questions after looking at our website, you can absolutely schedule a call with us we'll have that link in our show notes as well. We also have a link to schedule a call with us on the main page of our website, enrollment is going to close either on March 31, or when our spots fill up. And I will say they are filling up pretty quickly. I think this is a pretty popular time for people to think about maybe getting in shape. So we already have a lot of people signed up. So if you are interested, please get signed up quickly. So you don't miss out. We will not open our enrollment again until July since that will be the start of the next quarter. So if you want to get started looking good, and your shorts and your swimsuit get signed up quickly. Alright, so now we're going to get back to our main topic, we're actually going to talk a little bit about how couture fitness came to be. Yeah, I think I think that'll be interesting for everyone to hear. Allison, why don't you tell us kind of the evolution of this business for you because you were doing something similar before we combine forces? Yes. So I started it was back in 2019, late 2019, a very small fitness coaching business. And so I did, basically I did macros and workout plans, I did not do the mindset piece at all. But really I started that business because I was coming across so many women who just like me, and what I did in my early 20s were dieting themselves, their metabolism into the ground. And I remember being at the gym with a friend of mine, and she was telling me that she'd been eating like 1200 calories a day. For years. She said she still had 40 pounds she wanted to lose. And I heard that story so many times. And hers was just like the last straw. I was like, Okay, I'm going to coach you. You're going to be my first client, I'm going to coach you for free. And then I'm going to start this business helping women get out of this terrible spot. And so I did that very casually. I didn't really advertise it I vary drastically under charged. But it was a really good way just to start helping people it was really mostly just friends and acquaintances that I that I had as clients but I loved doing it. It was a good outlet for me and a good creative outlet and just a way to share all the knowledge I had gained after making the same mistakes myself and then spending years and years and years researching the metabolism and hormones and how to get in shape and stay in shape. Yeah, and I know you you really helped me during that time period, and Alison was the one when Alison and I used to work together once upon a time and when COVID hit Allison made us all workout plans that we could do at home because the gyms had closed out about that. Yeah, so for me, this all actually started in the summer of COVID. So summer 2020. And I was actually at that time a little though I was not in the greatest professional environment, I would say, I would call it maybe like a toxic work environment. And so I hired a life coach that summer. And I just needed something to sort of take my mind off of what was going on at work. And we didn't even try to tackle me finding a new job or making a career shift. And so that life coach, just in the process of working with her, we kind of figured out some things I was passionate about. And she challenged me to do another fitness competition. I had been thinking about doing one for a while now that again, everything was shut down. So it wasn't like there were even fitness competitions happening. But she said, why don't you do a fitness competition and blog about it. I thought that sounded fun. I was a little dubious that anyone was going to want to read a blog about someone in there a woman in their late 40s doing a fitness competition, but I started doing it. And the first call I made was to Alison and she told me that the first thing I would need to do if I planned on doing a fitness competition was to stop dieting and get my calories up to a reasonable level, all the things that we've talked about, cut out some of my cardio and start lifting heavier. So I started doing that in the summer of 2020. I was so inspired by the process of having a life coach and and she helped me so much that I decided I was going to get certified as a life coach I told my husband at this was my healthy midlife crisis that instead of buying a convertible, I was going to go get a life coaching certification. And so I did that I continued to work, I was still working, that's about a nine month process. So fast forward to the spring of 2021. It was about April or so. And two things happened that eventually led to couture fitness. So I had finished up my life coaching certification and was trying to figure out what to do with it. Basically what a life coach does is helps you learn how to get yourself to do things that you either don't want to do or afraid of doing and how to stop self sabotage. That's a very simplistic explanation of how a life coach can help you. But as you can see, it's applicable in a lot of settings. So I was trying to figure out what to do with that. And I went to like a free seminar over lunchtime one day. And the woman that was hosting the seminar was like a marketing seminar for life coaches. She said, You know what, you can be a life coach on anything, just pick your favorite hobby or passion and you can be a life coach regarding that topic. And I thought, You know what, I could be a weight loss and fitness coach, and I could actually marry those two passions. So that happened. And then I would say about a week later, I ran into a friend at CBS. And at this time, my blog was still going I was about to do my fitness competition. So I had some followers, mainly friends and acquaintances. And I ran into a friend at CBS. And she told me, she said, Oh, Joe, you know, and we had not seen each other a long time because of COVID. I just said, I'm following your blog. And I really, really have been inspired to get fit and lose some weight. And I told my doctor, and he referred me to another doctor in town, and I went and visited him, I paid him I think it was several $1,000 For just a consultation. And he wants me to eat 800 calories a day, I have to buy all my food from him. And it's going to cost 1000s of dollars. And I was so horrified. I think she saw the look of horror on my face. And she said I don't think I'm going to do it. I was grateful for that. But I was so that I actually anger would be the emotion I had that made me so angry that a doctor would tell a woman to do that. And this woman is not like drastically overweight, but just to tell any woman to do that to her body angered me and I knew there I knew there was a better way. And so I came right home from CBS and decided right there that I was in fact going to combine life coaching with everything I knew about fitness and nutrition. And I called Allison and I said do you want to do macros and mindset coaching together? And she immediately said, Yes, there was no hesitation. And so we started and we went out and got our first client, she's still with us today. I'm happy to report having a lot of success. But I will say I don't think we had any idea what we were getting into in terms of working full time and starting this business on the side. But I think we were both so sick of hearing these horror stories. And we knew that we could do something about it and make life so much better for these ladies. And for both of us. Yes, we wanted to give women a good science based strategy for losing weight. But the lifestyle component of this was also very important to us. We wanted to start a business where we could meet women where they were and help them fit all of this into their lives in a way that worked for them. And I think what we really wanted was to create something that we wish that we had had all those years ago when we were trying to figure out ourselves how to stay fit and healthy and both went down some very bad paths. So Allison, where do you think you'd be if you hadn't learned about you know how to really feel Your body properly efficient and in good ways to exercise and stay fit in a manner that preserves your metabolic health. What do you think would be going on for you now, I think I'd be chubby. I do, I think I would be doing a lots and lots of cardio, I think I would be eating away less than I am now. And I think I would not look like I was fit at all. And I know that sounds very backwards. But that's the path that I was on until I kind of learned the right way, I'll say the right way to do this, I was under eating, I was over exercising and the weight was just gradually coming on slowly. It's not like I was gaining a ton of weight quickly, but the scale just kind of kept going up. And so it is absolutely crazy to say that if I had kept doing that, if I had kept exercising as much as I was, and eating as little as I was, I would not look as fit as I am today. You know, that might not make sense. If you read read our blog and, and download some of the materials on our website that will hopefully make more sense. But that's where I think I would be I think I would be so frustrated. Because honestly being that has always kind of been part of my identity, being athletic. And I think I would be so so frustrated if I hadn't, you know, done all of the research that I did and figured out that you know what, honestly, to get the body you want, it's going to mean doing less cardio, lifting more weights and eating more food. So I would be frustrated. If I had to sum it up, I would say I'm sure I would be really frustrated. And I wouldn't look as fit as I do. Now, what about you? Well, I think in some regards the same, I think I probably would definitely not have the same level of fitness or health that I do right now. And I'm sure I would weigh more and have a higher percentage of body fat, like a worst body composition. But I think the worst thing that would be true is that most if not all of my mental energy would probably be spent on trying to restrict food, figure out how to do tons of cardio, how to figure out how to fit that into my schedule, I would be doing a lot of diet hopping and probably lifting. But frankly, if the nutrition wasn't there, that would be just a bunch of wasted time in the gym, I think and this was my life really before I kind of figured it out. I would say I think I thought I was unique. And that this was just something running in the background for me was unique. I mean, it just was like, why can't I figure this out? Now, if you went to lunch with me or met me, you know, on the street, you wouldn't have realized that was running in the background, you probably would have thought oh, she's a professional, confident woman. But always I mean, I just would try all these different things, they wouldn't work. And I just I thought it was me. I thought I was doing everything wrong. And it was embarrassing. I mean, like, I just could not figure it out. And I remember saying that to myself, like Joe, what is wrong with you after all these years? Why can't you figure this out. And what I have come to realize is that as we work with women, this, this conversation is going on all the time with lots of women, women that you would think are very professional, have it all figured out are still you know, having this internal battle with weight loss, I think it's endemic. And I think it's pervasive, especially for women. And it's very, very sad to me. And the reason it's still going on is because of all the bad information out there that the mainstream diet pumps out all all the get skinny, quick diets and fixes and keto and whole 30 that just tell you to cut out entire groups of food and you know, run for hours on end, and it doesn't work. And so then you're left thinking, and they don't tell you that and so you just think like, Well, gosh, I must be doing something wrong. And so really all of that mental energy. And that's what I've experienced all that mental energy I spent trying to figure it out, I am now using in a lot better ways. I don't dwell on like, why can't I figure this out? I know exactly what to do to maintain my fitness to maintain the weight I want. I mean, maybe not to like a pound. But I am very proud of my health and my fitness level and I know how to keep it into hopefully my 60s 70s and 80s So I just think a lot of mental energy would have been spent on really useless worrying and frustration for me i It wasn't like I wasn't I wish I could figure this out. It was What's wrong with my body because like when I first started on my fitness journey in my late teens, I lost my weight super easily. But then when the weight started to come back on, I was like, Do I have a bad thyroid? I would constantly every time I would go to the doctor, I would ask them to test every possible thyroid test that they could do. I was convinced that I had a bad thyroid it always came back in the normal range not optimal and it actually is optimal now because I'm fueling myself properly but it wasn't that I was just convinced that this was just the way my body was and that my body it was my body's problem not that I couldn't figure it out, but I remember being so frustrated I was like why can all of my friends who eat more than me and don't work out nearly as much as me how come they can maintain these these good weights and now I get it now I understand why it was me you know putting so much stress on my body but at the time that was what I was thinking it wasn't why can't I figure this It was, what is wrong with my body? Yeah, yeah, I think people internalize it in different ways. I just, I thought I was like just not doing it right, I needed to be more disciplined, I needed to restrict more. I was goofing off too much. I now know that none of that was true. So now we're going to get into the very practical piece of this, how do we fit it all in. And I'm here to tell you that neither Alison nor I are super humans. We have the same number of hours in a day as everyone else. We're not uber rich. We don't have servants at our beck and call. But I will say that we do have a very good support system that we have coaches, which we highly recommend for everyone. Absolutely. So maybe Joe, you can start out and just tell us what a typical week looks like for you. So maybe go through like your weekday schedule. You can also touch on maybe weekends, how you fit in your workouts, your food, prep, all of that stuff. Yeah. Okay, so I do work full time, which means, you know, 830 to 530 or so I will say that I I am an attorney, but I have a very reasonable professional job that I really, really like and enjoy. But I am working during that time period. So I'll just go through kind of our different pillar habits and tell you how I make it work. So to nail my nutrition, I do love to cook. And if I didn't have a day job, I probably you know, would enjoy being a food blogger. But I do have a day job. And actually, being a food blogger seems like it's very, would be very time consuming. Like you know, taking all the pictures and trying all the recipes. But when we started this business last summer, I was very fortunate to be approached by a neighbor who was looking to earn some extra cash and wanted to know if I needed help with food prep, she didn't know anything about my business, or that I had just started a business or that I you know, did fitness competitions or or any of that. And she just thought I was a busy mom and might need some help. So I did not hesitate for one moment I said yes. And so she does my food prep, which just means she makes dinner for my family three nights a week. And so I tell her, you know, I've given her all of my macro friendly food blogger websites, all of my macro friendly cookbooks, I tell her what to make at the beginning of the week, I pick out the recipes, tell her what to make. And then I order Instacart once a week to fill out the rest of our grocery needs. And I should also mention I have two teenagers, I have a 12 year old and a 15 year old. That's what my husband so that's what my family life looks like. But really when I was doing the cooking, but I would absolutely be doing all of my own cooking if we didn't have this job. Or if we didn't have the side hustle, I made the same types of recipes, lots of protein with veggies and you know, rice potatoes, normal carbs that I have my neighbor makes. So it doesn't really look that different in terms of what we're eating, I'm just not actually doing the food prep. And then when I was doing food prep, I would usually do that on Sundays. And I would you know prep a couple of things like maybe some vegetables and protein and then it just whenever I did cook, I just cooked double so that it would serve two meals. So that's how I did that. And that cut down on time preparing food and but in terms of the rest of the meals, I eat the same thing for breakfast every day. That's right now oatmeal with protein powder and a few other things. For me lunches and snacks are almost the same thing day in and day out some version of a turkey sandwich. I've been doing that for years. And basically I've just learned how to prioritize eating protein, every snack and meal has a serving of protein practice makes perfect. So I've just figured that out. I do. I think I mentioned this before I do do my shopping via Instacart. And I just don't particularly like going to a grocery store. And then my husband loves to go to Costco, so I let him do that. But I have really just learned to cook in a very macro friendly way. I've thrown dinner parties before in a way that would hit my macros and calorie budget and no one even realize you know that they were quote unquote, eating healthy. So this is something that's going to get easier and practice has just definitely made perfect over the years in terms of what we call maxing out muscle or resistance training. I do it first thing in the morning I get up at 530 or six and head straight to the gym. I like working out in a gym. I like having all that equipment at my disposal. I have fitness competition coaches, and they do all my workout programming. So I just do what they tell me to do right now. Because I'm in show prep, I'm lifting six days a week, that's a lot. No one needs to work that day that hard, or lift that much unless they're preparing for a show and I basically live for an hour, sometimes less. Sometimes my workouts don't take that long. But if you know I don't finish a workout I still fit I'm done in an hour because that's how much time I have to allot to that in my off seasons. I lived about four times a week I do upper and lower body splits. So one day I'll work upper body the next day I'll work lower body and I call it eating the frog first thing in the morning and it's just it's how I get my brain working. I usually put on a podcast and then just go in and get it done. It's not that I actually necessarily love doing the workouts all that much but I love sort of the ritual and the routine of doing it and if I weren't working out I would otherwise just be sleeping. So I don't, I'm not really having to, quote unquote make time for it in terms of the third habit that we promote, which is what we call taking a hike right now. I have to get in about 12,000 steps a day. And so I just walk throughout the day. That's what I do. When I'm resting in between lifts, I walk the dog, when I can we have a dog that needs locked, my husband would say he walks the dog most of the time. But I bet I do usually try to do it at least once a day when the weather is nice, my husband and I take a 45 minute or so walk each evening that gets a lot of steps. But I just tried to move around during the day if I'm on calls that I'm not, you know, actively participating in and I can be on mute, I will pace while I'm listening to those calls. If I'm talking to friends or my parents, I walk while I'm doing it, I have a rule for myself that I don't scroll social media unless I'm up walking around. And that helps. And I used to be someone who didn't think walking counted. That was me not very long ago at all. So I have just had to get it in my brain that walking is good. If I have to get up and walk across the house to get laundry or get something from the basement, I have convinced my brain that's a really good thing because I'll get in extra steps. The other thing I've tried to do is like do walking dates with girlfriends instead of lunch dates. We've done that a lot, Allison er, and we did that a lot. Last year before we even started our business, we met up with girlfriends and would walk for an hour instead of go to lunch. And I really enjoyed it's a really great way to catch up with friends. The last thing I'll say is I use the strategy of peering which is if I have I have a lot of steps that I need to get in I you know, head to the gym and get on a treadmill and watch a favorite TV show while I'm walking and the time goes by really quickly. So you probably wouldn't catch me sitting on the couch watching like hours of Netflix unless I was moving around. So if I had to say anything that's had to go to work all of this and it's like binge watching Netflix or something. And then the last thing cardio, the last we call it q the cardio i right now do a bit of cardio, again, because I'm in show prep. So one thing I do is I do an orange theory class once a week. I don't love cardio at this point. And so that takes the pressure off of me, there's some accountability built in there that I am paying for the class. So I don't want to waste money. So I show up and I just like getting it over with and having someone tell me what to do. If I have to do more cardio than that. I usually do it in 10 or 15 spurts minute spurts right after I work out. So that's how I do that in terms of our side hustle. So this will be different between Allison's in a different stage of parenting than I am. But our kids are in middle school in high school. So when they are doing their homework in the evening, that's when I do couture fitness, quote unquote, homework. And that could be a myriad of things. But I just call that my homework. I do all of our coaching calls during evenings and weekends. But I will say I love it. This is we both said this is our patch passion project. So it doing work on this business usually energizes me not to say that there aren't times of frustration or some monotony, but most of the time, it's really energizing. The other thing and I'm sure they'll speak to this is we have delegated a lot. And we've had to since we have kept our full time jobs. It's the only way that we could have created anything. So we have a virtual assistant hired coaches. And so that's how we've fitted that we fit that in and I like I also said I delegated cooking. So we are big fans of delegation, I think you have to get comfortable with that if you want to prioritize things that you want to do and things that you want in your life, especially if you're working full time. So that's how I fit it all in. What about you like what does a typical week look like for you? And how do you fit it all in? Yeah, so I'm going to go through mine a little bit differently. So I'm just going to kind of walk through my schedule. And I want to walk through my schedule now compared to what my schedule was like five years ago because it's things look pretty different for me. Now some things are easier, some things are harder, but I think that where I was at like five years ago is probably a little bit more typical to what a lot of our the situation a lot of our listeners are in so I want to touch on on that too. So I'll start with what my schedule looks like now. So I also am an early bird I wake up at 530 I love waking up early. I'm a total morning person I always have been and I will either on any given morning I will either lift weights, which I do in my basement, I have basically a almost a full gym in my basement. I've got a squat rack and dumbbells and bands and then we've got some cardio options too. So I lift weights first thing or I play tennis tennis is one of my other passions right now I am obsessed. So I'll either be one of those two things. And then when I'm done working out I usually have like 30 minutes to an hour to work on our side hustle. So I have three kids. I have a 10 year old an eight year old and a two year old the 10 and eight year old are very self sufficient. So in the mornings, I'm not like making them breakfast or helping them get ready. They do that all on their own. But usually when I'm done working out the two year old is still sleeping until I'm able to get in a little bit of couture fitness work done and then when she does wake up she watches a little show on the iPad for 30 Minutes. That's just what she does. When she wakes up and she eats her breakfast though that gives me another 30 minutes, I can usually get in a good 30 minutes to an hour of work in the mornings, I am working from home 100% of the time right now. And so my nanny arrives at 730. And I go upstairs and start working my full time job which like Joe, it's very flexible. I truly truly love my my full time job. It was very important to me, even before I had kids, I was kind of looking for something that would be flexible, because I knew I didn't want to have kids. And so I very much sought out a job that I knew would have good work life balance that has been key for me in so many areas of my life. So I work that well, usually one or two days a week over lunchtime, I might play tennis one day a week over lunch, and then I'll usually try to go for a walk maybe another day or two over lunchtime. I really like to get away from the computer and just get moving over lunch. It helps me to be more energized again in the afternoon. So I get a lot of my steps in that way. I mean, like Joe, I also paced during calls when I can so that helps me get some steps in as well. And then in the evenings it's really all about the kids. They do a lot of sports. So we're you know, either taking them to their sports or we're just playing we're super active as a family. So if it's nice out, we're playing outside, if it's not nice out, we in addition to having our gym in the basement, my girls who are gymnast have lots of gymnastic equipment in the basement, so they like to play in the basement in the winter. So we'll do that. And then again at the end of the day, when my two year old is watching her show before bedtime, I can get a lot more couture fitness working then as well. As you can see, the only time I'm really able to work on this business is when I am not watching my two year old is just not really possible to get anything done when there's two year old around. So that's kind of my schedule my weekday schedule on the weekends, if I haven't already gotten in my for lifting workouts of the week, I will lift again on the weekends. Sometimes I play tennis more on the weekends. And other than that our days are really just centered around the kids we do a lot of things as a family like we like to play badminton and volleyball and go to the park and go to any sort of like indoor playground. So that's that's usually our weekends were pretty active. And then as far as food prep, I will admit I do I do have a full time nanny who was awesome, I would not be able to I would not be surviving life the way I am if I did not have her. So she actually does all of my grocery shopping now and preps most of my food. So that's that is another reason why I'm able to spend time on the side hustle is that I am not spending really any time cooking or buying food. She is absolutely amazing. She does a lot for us besides just watch watch the kids. Okay, so now I want to talk about my scheduled five years ago, because I do think this is probably more typical of more of our listeners. So I mean, five years ago, for most most of my life when I was a mom, this was my schedule. So back then I was going into my office three days a week, and I had about a 30 minute commute. So that definitely took up a little bit more, you know, just ate in a few more hours of my day. So I was waking up at 445, which is crazy to think about now. But I did that every day for many, many, many years. And I would lift or you know, sometimes do cardio if I was doing cardio at the time, if I was like training for a show. And then I would drive into my office or if it was a day I was working from home, I would just go upstairs and start working. And then over lunch pretty similar to now I wasn't necessarily playing tennis much back then. But I would either go for a walk over lunch or do some yoga. Or if I didn't make my early morning lifting session, I would go to our work gym, we always had a nice a decent I should say maybe not nice, a decent gym in our building. So I could lift over lunch if I needed to. And then I would drive home, pick the kids up from daycare, and then the evenings were all about the kids. So that's kind of how I fit it in when life was a little bit different a few years ago was really just by getting up earlier. And that's really how I how I got my workouts in. I was doing my own grocery shopping and cooking back then. So I would just go grocery shopping usually one day on the weekend, I never cooked anything fancy and I still don't cook anything fancy. I would eat a lot of things and we still do like rotisserie chicken with noodles and a vegetable or salmon with a vegetable and potatoes just really simple meals. And that's just what my kids like. And that's what I have time to prep. So that's how I did that. And I never really had a food prep day. I know some people like to say Sunday I'm going to spend a few hours prepping food. I didn't really do that I would just make a really large batch of anything that I made so that we could use the leftovers. That is my typical schedule. So let's talk a little bit about maybe those non typical days because I feel like a lot of people they they feel like they can you know stick to a plan and eat well and exercise when they're just in their normal routine but what about when things are different? Like let's say you have to travel for work, you know any sort of non typical days usually a non typical day probably means travel but Joe Do you Do you travel and are you able to stay Do you feel like It's hard for you to stay in shape because you're traveling that stuff a little bit about that. Yeah, well, I mean, I think before I put unquote figured it out for myself traveling, I did do a lot of traveling, I traveled traveled a lot more for work than I currently do. But it was really stressful. I think I you know, we traveled more recreationally as well. And it meant usually meant weight gain. Because I would just be out of my routine and but more so because I was eating so little that any diversion from the strict Calorie allowance I had for myself, which was all I'll say was 1500 calories. That probably doesn't sound that small or that little to most people. But it is we're here to tell you that it is. So it was a lot of mental gymnastics of trying to take food with me or figure out ahead of time, make sure there was a gym, but most of that has gone away. Now I'm eating a lot more. So it doesn't mean like when I travel, there are going to be these huge, you know rollercoasters of calories, and caused me to gain weight. So it's really hard for me to talk about before COVID travel because I was kind of still in the in the dieting rut. But now we have taken some big trips, the main rule I have for myself is like I just have to get the protein in early because when you if you track your food, when you travel, you will realize like the carbs and fat you meet that allowance, very easily buy protein, you will eat a pittance or a small percentage of the protein you're used to eating. So I will take things like protein bars, protein powders, when I call portable protein and just to make sure I'm fitting it in, make sure to fit it in early in the day, try to stay really active when I travel, what's blocking, exploring, that's usually not a problem, I'm on vacation, we're getting ready to go to an all inclusive resort for spring break as we're recording this, which is a few weeks before this actually airs. So I'm not going to worry about it. I know there will be plenty of food at my disposal, probably eat lots of fish and chicken and vegetables, there will be a gym there and I'll be able to be able to lift and I will keep my workout regimen up because again, I'm training for a show. If I wasn't I would probably and if there was a gym available, I would probably do some lifting but not worry about it too much. If I am traveling now and there's no gym available, I take it as a D load we you need a week off every now and again. And so that's how I handle that. What about you, I'm the opposite of you where I would say I didn't travel all that much. Several years ago, we would maybe go on one big family trip. And I did not travel much for work, I would say on average, maybe one or two short trips a year. So so not a lot but in the last year, and I think this will probably continue to be our trend for the foreseeable future, we went on four big trips last year, actually, three of the four I was not dieting, so it was really, really easy. My calories were high meaning 2000 or more. So I really didn't have to plan ahead much with my food, I just like you tried to make sure I get enough protein. But really the only thing I would pack is protein bars partially because I love them. And they taste like dessert to me. And it's just a good way to make sure I was getting in my protein. But other than that I didn't really have to stress about food for most of the trips. And then as far as workouts for again, most of the trips except for one that we'll talk about here in a bit, I just use it as an off week. Now, if I was traveling every single week, obviously, I would not use every single trip as an off week. But since mine were usually a few months apart, that's a great time to take a break from lifting and just use that time to be generally active and you're not going to lose any of your progress if you do that. So that's how I handled our trips. For the most part. However, I did go on one trip that was about three weeks prior to Joe when you and I took some pictures and we were going to be wearing sports bras and showing our abs. So I was doing a short cut, I cut for about eight weeks to lose maybe five pounds to get ready for that photoshoot. And you can see some of these pictures on our website. It's the ones of us in the sports bras and the the brick wall. But since I was three weeks away, I did not have the luxury of saying oh, I'm just gonna, you know, not really plan my food and not work out. So what I did for that trip is I brought my bands with me so I was able to get in some body weight slash band workouts. And we were staying in an Airbnb, which is mostly what we stay in now because we are a family of five and it's really hard to stay in a hotel when you're a family of five. So we had an Airbnb, we ate breakfast and lunch every day at our house that we were renting. So I was it was really easy for me to get in lots of protein and vegetables to keep me full. And then we went out every night for dinner, which was fine because I'd already you know I'd done the planning and eating really clean I guess you could say the the first half of the day. So I was able to enjoy dinner out every night and since my calories were not super high, I was probably eating 1600 calories which for me, I'm hangry on 1600 calories now which is funny because that's literally what I ate every day for like five years back when I had all my metabolic issues. But now when I get that low, I'm starving. So I just try to fill it with my day with as many filling foods as I can and I just told myself, you know what, you're just not going to probably have room to have ice cream and dessert on the strip and I was totally fine with that because I knew in just three more weeks I would be eating those things again. So I said, You know what, you're going to have them again soon, you're going to enjoy some other yummy, healthier foods right now and enjoy your ice cream again in a couple more weeks. So that's how I handled the one trip when I was dieting. Okay, I think we're going to end with maybe talking about some of the parallels between, you know, starting a business and getting fit and some of our advice for anybody who's looking to get fit. Yeah. So what we have learned, I mean, once you get the fitness and stuff figured out, like for us at this point, I think it's not new to us, we kind of have figured out how to fit, you know, the nutrition and the workouts into our daily schedule. But starting a business has been a different story. But we both learned that there are a lot of parallels between starting a business and getting fit and probably doing anything new. But we're here to tell you that when you get your health in order, it really does free your brain and energy to do bigger and better things. And you absolutely do not have to choose between being on a horribly restrictive diet and diet, or just giving up and thinking that looking and feeling how you want is not possible. Those are not the choices you have to make. It may take longer than you want to kind of get your health and fitness in order. But if you do it in the manner we prescribe, you will have it for life, you will be done. With the dead end diets. I think if we've learned anything, this all probably starts in your brain with mindset. And so we're going to tell you some of what we've learned kind of in the last year starting a business and our best advice as to how it applies to getting fit and healthy. first piece of advice is don't worry if you don't have it all figured out right now, it is totally normal to feel overwhelmed. When you're starting something new. The more important thing is that you just get on the path and the how of what you're going to do. And the goal that you want to achieve is going to reveal itself while you're on the path support will reveal itself. Your job is just to avail yourself of it and take advantage of it. But we see a lot of people get hung up on the how and the practicalities. And I think both of us could come up with 500 practical reasons for not starting this business, cut your fitness. But we would also say that we've figured it out everything we've needed to figure it out. We've figured it out every step of the way, we could not have known the things that we needed to figure out at the beginning. We have delegated we've hired coaches, we've hired a virtual assistant as we needed to, you know, and we figured it out as the time came and you will figure out this fitness and nutrition thing too. And I know I had people when we started the business asking like Joe, why are you doing this? Why are you biting this off? But now I'm so I have zero regrets. I think I have the best job in the world. I feel creative. I feel professionally fulfilled, this work truly brings me joy. And even if it fails or flops, I'm not sure what that would even look like I guess if we lost all of our clients and coaches, I would have zero regrets. Allison, what do you have to say on this topic? Anybody overwhelmed? stop you. Yeah, I mean, of course, we there's so many excuses we could have come up with and I could still come up with of why this was a crazy idea to start this business. But I agree it's super fun. It also brings me a lot of joy. And I also have zero regrets. And I remember when I agreed to do this, I remember one thing I told myself and maybe I told you I don't even remember was that I'm only going to do this. While it's fun. And it is still so much fun not to say it's not hard work. And sometimes there are things that are frustrating, of course, but it is definitely been an amazing journey. Yeah, so you know, guess overwhelmed was part of it. I've been overwhelmed many times this past year, but it hasn't stopped us from moving forward. And don't let it don't let overwhelm prevent you from getting on the path to health and fitness as part of the process. Our second piece of advice is to give yourself permission to delegate to make health your health a priority and to hire the coach if you need the coach. And I do think this is actually something we have never had a problem with. Personally, I've never actually had an issue seeking help and getting help when I when I need it. Patience is definitely not something where either of us are strong on. But I think we've had we've been pretty good at delegating. So I think if getting healthy and fit and the way we described sounds just the tiniest bit exciting or attractive to you give yourself permission to do it. And then you got to lean into the support, you know, make yourself a really good support system. So you can have success. If you have a busy job. I think that means hiring someone you know, to help you food prep, if that's where you're stumbling. If you can't get the workouts in, it might mean hiring someone for a short period of time to watch the kids. So you can get that done. It might mean investing in some equipment at your house. So you can get it done at home. But that's all okay. And sometimes you have to make those investments to, to kind of take yourself to the next level. What do you think about that? Allison? I would agree. And I would say a lot of times I think people are hesitant to you know, to hire a coach or get the help that they need because they think well I should be able to just figure this out for free. The internet has all the information anybody could ever need to figure out essentially anything nowadays and we could have said that about our business too. But I will say if we had not hired our business coach, we would probably be 20 steps back from where we are today, I mean, she took us from zero to 60. So so so much faster than we ever could have. And we did not have to fumble around. Make them. She saved us from a lot of mistakes, I'm sure and a lot of frustration. And I think the same is true for health and fitness. You sure you can Google this like I did, I spent literally a year or more obsessively researching all of this stuff. And you could do that too. But even when I figured it out, I was afraid to do it when I knew your problem is you're under eating and doing too much exercise. I bet you it took me another year to actually do it because I was so scared. So that's where I think a coach can help you. If you just put all of your trust in them and say, All right, I'm I trust that you're the expert, and I'm going to do what you tell me to do thing is a lot easier to make yourself do something that is scary. So one, they can help you figure it out much quicker than you could then you can on your own. And two, they can get you to do the hard things that you would be way too afraid to do on your own. Totally true. Okay, then our third piece of advice is that wherever you are in the process, you got to look at it as a gift. And I'll explain what I mean here. So constraint has been a real gift to Allison and I it's made us prioritize hire coaches, again, delegate things. And I think creating this business looks very different. Having that constraint then had we both not had full time jobs. And I used to curse this and use it as an excuse. But now that we've settled in, I really wouldn't have it any other way. I've had to learn a lot of things, I've had to let go of perfectionism and learn a lot of patience. So if you come to us and you need, you're in a situation where you need to reverse diet and eat more, that's something you need to learn, you probably need to learn to relax the rules that you have around food and learn that food is not the enemy and how to really fuel your body. If you have been maybe overeating and under exercising and we're able to put you immediately into a weight loss phase. That's probably you know, there are things you probably need to learn there, like some intention and maybe some discipline and again, how to feel your body and your life. Whatever it is you have to learn all of these things will evolve you as a person and just look at that as a gift and allow yourself to be the student and you will not regret it. What I would say is at the end of the day, we are all every single one of us, Allison me every single listener we are all capable of so much more than we think we are. I think one year ago, neither of us we would have laughed if anyone had told us that we would have started this business, had a business coach hired several coaches to work for us that we had this podcast of clients all over the country all while keeping our day job staying fit and having really a good work life balance. I 100% would have told you that that was not possible. But it has all worked out. And the only thing that we did was not let fear or self doubt get in the way. So believe us when we say we can or you can have a life you love and a body you adore. It's totally attainable if you go about it in the right way. And if you don't let fear and self doubt, keep you from even getting started. Yeah, very, completely agree. Okay, so you were like I said, we are all so much more capable than what we think we are. Okay, I think that's what we have for you today. We would love to see you in our next program. So go sign up if you're interested. Otherwise, we'll talk to you next time. Bye, everyone. That's what we've got for you today about how you can invest in your metabolism and start losing weight by eating more and exercising less. Trust us you aren't too old and it's never too late. If you want to learn more about this topic, head over to our Facebook group, Boost Your Metabolism After Age 30. You can also follow us on Instagram or Facebook at Couture Fitness Coaching. And if you want to work with us, join us for our next 12 weeks session.