Ep 34 - What We Wish We Knew About Nutrition and Fitness as Teenagers

In today's episode, Allison and Jo discuss what they wish they had known as teenagers about nutrition and fitness. They each share the top three things they wish they had known or done differently as teenagers. They wrap up by sharing how they parent their teen and pre-teen daughters and discuss how we can best influence others' nutrition and fitness behaviors.

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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. Welcome everyone, This is Allison. And I've got Joe with me today, we're going to be talking about things that we wish we had known when we were younger. So we'll get into more of that in just a minute. But first, I want to talk a little bit about what's going on at couture Fitness and Lifestyle coaching. So we are well into our October one on one coaching program. Each of our clients get assigned to a personal coach, they've got a customized plan, they're working with their coach and doing check ins each week and jumping on calls with us. So that is well underway. We will before we know it will be enrolling people for our January program, if you have any interest at all, in being a part of our one on one coaching program that will kick off at the beginning of January, I would highly encourage you to book a consulate call with us, you can do that by simply going to the homepage of our website couture fitness coaching.com. And you can schedule a call straight from there. And then finally, I would before we really get into this, add that if you if you like our podcast, and we've been helpful to you please leave us a five star review. It really just helps other people who are interested in this sort of content find us a little bit easier. So please consider doing that if you have liked this podcast. Alright, so onto the topic at hand. So one of our clients actually asked us to cover this topic in a podcast, they wanted us to talk about how to raise teenage girls with healthy nutrition and fitness habits. And we've talked a lot about creating a program or some sort of education for teenage girls. But it's tricky because first we have to get the moms on a good path first. And it's really hard to get a teenage girl to embrace this calories of lifestyle if they see the mom maybe restricting food or fasting or constantly just obsessing over every morsel she puts into her mouth. So we thought we would start we would do a podcast on things that we wish we had known when we were teenagers. So Joe, do you want to kick us off? Yes, I do on big disclaimer, I have to say as a life coaches that I don't believe that regret serves any sort of practical purpose, I don't recommend that anyone wallow around in regret, I think it's really the only positive purpose that serves is if you are going to make an amends or behavior change based on things that you've done in the past. So I tend to believe we are all exactly where we're supposed to be, even if it's not exactly where we want to be. So the question should always be what now what comes next, but we do get asked a lot about what we would tell teenage girls about fitness and nutrition. And so like you said, Allison, that that's slippery, because you know, they may be watching moms who are very restrictive with their food or doing some things that we wouldn't recommend. So what we thought we would do first is go back in time, and talk about what we wished our younger selves could have known. And for sure, with hindsight, there are some things I would have done differently with regard to nutrition and fitness. But you and I, Allison, we're about 10 years apart in age Allison is 10 years younger than me. And I'll bet some trends and things are different from or different when you from when you were a teenager than when I was a teenager. So I am really interested to hear what advice you'd have for your younger self because I do think some of these things, run in cycles intergenerational, so So Allison, what are your top three things? Okay, so my top three and if you have listened to Episode 23, of this podcast where I talk about some of the things that I did to myself in my late teens, early 20s, with under eating and overtraining, none of these things should come as a surprise to you. So definitely check that episode out. If you haven't listened to it already. I'll summarize my three things first, and then I'll go into some detail so they all kind of follow a similar theme, but my top three are, one cardio is a terrible long term strategy for weight loss to under eating for the long term is not a good thing and will cause issues. And then three, don't skip leg day and hit training is not really a good method for for building muscle. So those are my top three. So I'm gonna go into some detail on each of those and Joe, you can jump in after each one and maybe tell me what you think or what maybe you would have thought when you were a teenager. So for me I think I got a lot of my, I guess the knowledge that I had about how to lose weight from like teen magazines. I don't even remember what teen magazines were around that I know, there was one called 17. I think there was one called Teen, and then cosmopolitan. I mean, there was really, yes, the internet was a thing. But I think I got most of it just from magazines, I didn't really do a lot of like googling about this or anything, Google may not have even been a thing then. And then some from my parents who my parents actually were, you know, they're healthy people. And, and they definitely put, you know, wanted us to eat healthy, and we ate family meals every night. So they had given me some awareness of like, Hey, if you eat, you know, 20 cookies every night, you're probably going to gain weight, you know, a little bit from them. But what I thought you had to do based on reading these teen magazines was if you wanted to lose weight, you should eat 1500 calories, because I feel like every magazine, that's what it told you when it was like here's a sample diet to look for weight loss. So I thought that's what you were supposed to do. And then I also just thought you were supposed to run and I don't know where I got that in my head necessarily. I guess I just figured that was the best way to burn calories. I'll touch on this first one here. This cardio is a terrible, long, long term strategy for weight loss. What happened to me is when I decided that I wanted to lose a few pounds when I was like 16 years old, I did it by two ways. I cut my calories. And then I also started running, I got to the point where Yes, I did lose weight very quickly. But then I was just like stuck. And so I just kind of kept running. And then this went on for years. And eventually my weight started to creep back on. And I just thought well, maybe I need to run more maybe instead of running like three miles at a time, I should run like four miles at a time. And I just I did this for years and years and years. And I didn't necessarily love doing this running but it was kind of something that I just felt like well now I have to do it. Now my body needs to do this just to you know, maintain this level of leanness that I'm at and this weight that I'm at but then, you know I kind of realized when I did my first bodybuilding competition Wow, I'm already doing this much cardio if I want to actually like change my body from here, I've got to do even more. So that's probably one of my biggest regrets was just doing all of this cardio like I remember even one year I did a bunch of triathlons thinking, okay, you know, running is not enough. Now I've got to do these like super long distance things and I only did sprint triathlons, which I don't know why they're called a sprint. They're still very long. It's like swim. I don't know maybe I don't remember how much let's just say like a 20 minute ish swim and then bike about 10 miles run three miles, which is still quite a bit and I just remember being like, is this what it's come to I have to do this in order to like stay in shape. This is crazy. So for me, that's probably my number one regret was thinking I had to do all this cardio. I mean, I don't run it all anyway, so much better. So did what thoughts did you have as a teenager about cardio or were you doing any cardio as a teenager, I was on the dance team. So I think that counted as cardio. And I danced a lot but I don't think I was doing any other you know, like structured cardio outside of that. But for sure, running was like in my brain, the epitome of fitness and then after high school, I probably started running a little bit in college thinking that that's what would do the trick. I also was really big into step aerobics in college. Yeah, I did a little bit of that. I thought some of that actually. Yeah, so cardio was definitely how you manage your weight and like the signature of fitness and then yeah, it to me it was you know, that I ended up doing like running a marathon and a half marathon. I'll talk about that more in my portion of the podcast. But yeah, that was going to be what was going to keep me getting me the skinniest keep me lean for life. Like I thought if you can run a marathon like you will look like a supermodel I think I thought I thought at the end of it and you will never have to like worry about your weight again. And it was like the epitome of like discipline, you know, all the things that you think a fit person is to me running signified. I mean, I was my 40s before, you know, I heard about weightlifting and that kind of thing. I thought it was just like a cross training. I didn't ever think of it as the primary form of exercise or that's what would actually change your shape. So yeah, running cardio. But I would say running in particular to me was like the epitome of fitness. Yeah, Yeah, same. So it looks like we had some similar mentalities and I'm pretty sure I was a staple. I will speak of the teen magazines too. They I hope they are all banished at this point. But yeah, it was a subscriber to Runner's World I mean, all the things so again, those things talked about weightlifting, but it was more kind of secondary very to you know, cardio was going to be what, what affected your weight? Yep, Yep, I agree. I wish and I know you said regret is a kind of a pointless thing, but I wasted a lot of hours of my life just doing cardio. Okay, my number two and these went hand in hand because I did them in combination was restricting calories for the long term will cause problems. So once again, go back and listen to episode 23. I talk all about this but at the same time I started running, I also started doing this 1500 calorie a day diet because I saw not not a diet, I just started eating 1500 calories a day, because that's what the magazine said to do to lose weight. And it did work. And it worked quickly and easily. But then I got stuck there. And I just thought, well, this is just what I need to eat now. And as a very active, young person, it was far, far too little. And so what happened to me is, I mean, I did this for years, and eventually, like, all of my weight just started to gradually creep back on. And eventually, I weighed more than when I started this whole, you know, trying to lose a few pounds journey, but I was eating far less and exercising so much more. And I was confused and frustrated, I didn't have anybody to help me and guide me through that time to say, you're you literally just need to eat more and workout less, that's literally your only issue. So I was stuck and frustrated for many, many, many years. And I was hungry. I mean, that's not a lot of food. And it you know, life would have been probably a little bit better in some ways. If I knew then what I knew now that I could eat so much more and maintain a weight that I'm very, very happy with. Maybe that's even my number one. I don't know that the top two are tied. That's a big one for me is do not under eat for a long period of time. And for me that long period of time was literally years, I eventually lost my period mine went to an extreme, it was really tough time fitness wise. What about you? Anything to add on that one? Yeah, that this little this, I have a theme on this. What I would say is that I think the teen magazines maybe got a little better, because the menus that I think were being provided in my teen magazines were more along the lines of like 800 calories a day. So to me like 1500 calories. I know now like you know, with perspective that that's not enough for a for especially for an active young woman. And I think as active as you were growing up and as active as I was growing up, that's just not enough. But the magazines I was reading were much more restrictive than even 1500 calories a day, I don't know why I don't really have a lot of regret around this or negative feeling I Like You I screwed a lot of things up, I spent a lot of time spinning my wheels, a lot of mental energy spent trying to restrict when it was unnecessary and, but not restrict, like to the point that like I needed to be like hospitalized for an eating disorder or something. But it's like just so I think in my DNA, like I now know logically not to do it. But it just was like the culture of how I grew up. So I just kind of have to check myself and logically go back to logic. And you know, and really, who I feel for as you know, we have so many clients who are actually older than me, I think and did this for years, and they are really not in a great spot right now. You know, they've done Weight Watchers their entire life, they have eaten around 12 or 1300 calories, most of their adult life and their bodies are gonna look broken, but they are not in good repair. Yeah, and very, very weight loss resistant. And so I would probably be pretty bitter if I was in that spot. Oh, I was and I didn't even do it in the grand scheme of things. I did this for maybe like five years or so five to 10 years maximum. Yeah, I mean, if I'd done it for longer, I can't even imagine where I'd be now. And I will I will add, I do think 1500 calories when you're trying to lose weight is is a decent place to be losing weight. I mean, that's about where I need to get to, to lose weight. Now, however, things these magazines didn't tell me is do it for a short period of time and then stop doing it. Because if you do this for too long, you're gonna screw yourself up. So I will add that caveat. I don't think 1500 calories is like a bad place to be losing weight on I think that's actually a good place to be losing weight on but you can't do that forever. Oh, great. Okay, so my third one is hit training is not a good way to build muscle. Don't skip leg day, even if you think your legs are big, and you think oh, I don't want to add any size to them, I will tell you that my legs never looked better than when I started really training them heavy and not doing the cardio and the hit training. So if you've listened to me talk on other episodes, you know, that's where I carry most of my weight. I do have very strong legs and I do carry muscle there but that's where I carry a lot of my fat as well. And so I remember back you know, when I was doing all of these these wrong things saying well you know, your legs are already really big and muscular. Honestly, they were probably just had a lot of fat on them but I was like you don't need to do like they just do like some sprints and some you know plyometrics where you're jumping around and stuff. huge waste of time. Once again, I my time would have been much better spent not doing that stuff at all. And simply doing some of the basic things that that I do now and then I tell clients to do you know, heavy or squatting deadlifting lunges, good old fashioned weight training for my legs. So I did all kinds of things. I just remember doing all the spring workouts and, you know, just this high intensity stuff thinking, well, this is gonna, you know, get my legs to look leaner and more toned. I don't I don't need to put muscle on them big, big mistake. So do you have anything to add on that one? Oh, well, I mean, I don't even think we knew what hit cardio was back when I was a teenager and it was definitely you know obsessions with you know, reducing spot reducing parts of your body and trying to avoid having a big butt or a big legs or, you know, I don't think muscle was really a thing then. Or it wasn't like a look that you went for. Although I don't think any of us even knew the difference between like being toned and muscular, and, you know, well defined versus overweight. So yeah, that the concept of hit cardio is well beyond my teenage years. So I actually have cardio probably would have been better than some of the things that we did. You know, it's not great. So but now, now I see it is the trend if you just think it wasn't a trend then. But now like, if you Google a picture of someone like like we mentioned in one of our past podcasts like Carrie Underwood their workouts they show you are basically HIIT workouts, they're not showing you the boring, progressive overload lifting routines of these women, they're like, hopping around on one foot on a medicine ball and doing dumb stuff like that, that isn't really going to spot reduce anything. Nope, huge waste of time. So although I say these are my three biggest regrets, they're also three of the biggest reasons why I wanted to create something for women to help them, you know, maybe not make the same mistakes that I did, or to help them reverse some of the mistakes that they also made. Because you're never broken. I mean, you can you can bring your body back from whatever you've done, it's just gonna take some work and time and maybe a lot of time. So it is definitely why I'm so passionate about helping women who have maybe gone down a similar path as me. And it also has made me very passionate about sharing this knowledge with my children, I have three girls, and they hear me talk all the time about, you know, clients stories, and what under eating has done to people in the importance of being strong and doing strength training, and not overdoing cardio. And so I'm constantly, you know, sharing that message with them. And they get it I mean, they definitely get it, they're like, Oh, we don't want to eat too low, we got to keep our metabolism. So very passionate about making sure they don't go down the same path. Yeah, that's great, you do raise a point that I think is important, which is I do think it's important to make peace. With the past diets you've done if you're if you're going to embark on something new. And we are, we are actually doing a class on that over to her fitness, this session called to all the diets I've loved before and you just can't move on until you kind of I think make peace with the past and fully understand the allure of some of those things and understand you know why something different is better now. So you make a really good point that you can make peace with things in different ways. And I feel the same way as you if I hadn't done all these dumb things, I wouldn't have kind of the perspective that I do now. And my hope is that we can save people from doing some of the things that we've done, or at least spend less time doing them and find a way out. So here are your top three. Okay, so my first one is very practical. My other two are kind of more in the mindset, kind of existential category. So my first what I wished I would have known when I was a teenager, number one is the power of protein. So I'll talk about that more in a second. And then second, I wish I would have seen exercise formed a relationship with exercise when I was younger, that was something more than punishment, or just a means of keeping the weight at bay and just sort of this obsession with like the calorie burn of exercise. So I'll talk about more about that. And then the third thing is that and this I think, is man, if we could spread this message that it is under eating is not virtuous. And I think the corollary to that as that is that food is the ally, not the enemy. I wish I would have understood that step starting really in middle school, I think that's where all of this sort of dysfunctional stuff starts is this belief that somehow people who under eat or don't eat very much are more virtuous or more disciplined, or that there's something sort of noble about that? And it's not because I think I think that is what keeps people from eating more and getting their nutrition turned around is, you know, they think that they're lazy or undisciplined to fee more and that's just not the case. But I'll go into that more about where that came from. And kind of my thoughts about it now. So the first one here are the power of protein. So I now start my days with about 30 grams of protein. And my friends joke with me that the epitaph on my gravestone will be eat more protein, which is true, that's probably what it will be. Always preaching and asking like, are you eating enough protein so I do I do have like some blood sugar regulation issues. I'm like, Very, very sensitive to eating naked carbs, which is just you know, carbs with no fat or protein paired with them. And so in high school and probably through college, I would start the day eating a big bowl of cheerier Cheerios or cornflakes for breakfast with some milk. And then within a few hours, I would just be miserable, I'd be shaking and sweating, my blood sugar would have plummeted. I think at some point, I finally did figure out that toast and peanut butter was a little bit better, but still was not eating any protein at breakfast. And if I could have known then how much better my days would have gone. If I just kicked my days off with protein, I probably could have ruled the world I mean, it would have got I had so many headaches, just remember pretty much all of elementary and high school being like, you know, a big headache until it got to lunchtime, and not feeling very good and not having very good energy and being on a blood sugar roller coaster. So that that wasn't fun. And the answer to it was really protein. And I wish I would have known then that what you eat for breakfast, you know, or the first thing in the day really does prime your blood sugar for the day, I think every time I had tried to lose weight, or did one of my crazy extreme fitness endeavors, so training for a marathon or half marathon. If I had also focused on eating more protein, I probably would have had a lot better results. Now I did have coaches when I trained for a marathon and half marathon, but I had no clue how to fuel my body for those races or to how to recover from training. I mean, if I had known I can't even imagine how different my performance and recovery would have been. But no one ever talked to us about nutrition or what not optimal nutrition was or like, if you're running 20 miles in a day, like what you really need to eat to recover from that not not once and only thing we were told is to eat a bunch of spaghetti the night before the race. So I think when people come to us, they get very obsessed with cutting things out from their diet. I was just talking on a conference call last week with someone. And she was very worried about the banana she had for a snack each morning. She was like I think if I could just get breakfast figured out a little better than I could cut out that banana from my snack and probably start losing weight. Like honey, the mediana you're having for a snack is not the issue. And so my advice to everyone is always before you start slashing stuff out of your diet. Make sure you're eating enough protein and our rule of thumb or what we call our goal. Our first goal for everyone is to get them up to 100 grams of protein a day. If you do that, you might be shocked at how much you don't crave sugar anymore, or you don't crave alcohol anymore. I was always someone who craved sweets, you know, hit the evening running on empty and I could not walk by a donut or baked good without eating part of it just kind of evolved to me. But really, those days are long gone. And I really don't have physical cravings for sugar and carbs and stuff. It doesn't mean I don't eat them, but I don't crave them or think about you know, how am I going to restrict myself for them or better put a lock on the cabinet. So I don't go eat all the sugar. That's just not an issue. And protein was really the game changer for me. Do you have any thoughts on this? Yeah, I mean, I think I do remember back then knowing that like, protein is good. And it's going to keep you full and help keep you strong, but not at all to the degree that I know today. Like I remember, just like you I would eat a bowl of cereal for breakfast and I would be starving like two hours later and then starving all the way up until lunch. And I don't know why it never occurred to me like maybe you should eat something different. But it didn't you know, I didn't get to college, and I think maybe change that up a little bit. But it wasn't until I honestly started competing that I really was very conscious about putting protein in every meal and it makes a massive, massive difference in satiety among other things. Yeah, I mean, it's just all things that changes. I don't even know if I knew what protein was when I was in high school. And you know, I think the funny thing is we both grew up on farms like Yeah, we had an entire deep freeze of protein grown on it my parents were very good. You know, I think I had a lucky because we definitely had, you know, lunch and dinner and we're protein based there was always protein available, but I don't know how I think we even had farm fresh eggs. I have no idea how you know? Well at that time. I know what it was. eggs were evil because they thought that they caused people to crawl and heart attacks. So eggs were banned for breakfast. Yeah. And that was really pretty evil when I was growing up. So like the cornflakes and you know, I think Raisin Bran and skim milk would have been like what you would find in a teen magazine as the Yeah, yeah, just trashed me. It like ruined my day if I can't even imagine trying to eat that right now. And oh, well. Sounds terrible. Yeah. Okay, so my The second thing I wish that I had known in my younger years is that exercise is not punishment or is more than punishment, and I wish I just would have valued the mental health, social connection, confidence building and other benefits of exercise more than you know how many calories it burned. earned No, I got all of those things from exercise for sure, but I just didn't value them. And I don't know if that makes any sense because I, you know, going on a walk and counted for nothing, going on a walk with friends that did not count as exercise that was just goofing off to my thinking. So really exercise only counted if it burned a bunch of calories and was something that a magazine said would keep the weight at bay, and there was always more that you can do, you can always hit it harder, and you should always hit it harder. So it just made this very torturous, anxiety riddled sort of relationship that I had with exercise. Now somehow I ground through it, I have always been very active exercise has always been a high priority in my life. But I would have enjoyed it so much more, I would have made it so much easier. Had I really valued just said, You know what, this is like my antidepressant. And no matter what form I get it in, I'd have to move my body today that I actually would have exercised a lot more and not developed any all or nothing thinking around exercise, I probably would have gone to the gym a lot more. Not that I didn't go to the gym, but I just would have not had the mental anguish around around it. So you know, like I said, I don't have any regrets. I've run a marathon, I've done a half marathon, I've done some other extreme things, apparently I go big or go home. I did, you know, those things were not worth doing unless they were going to produce some sort of insane weight loss result. And I but I will tell you, I think I lost a little weight. When I did my half marathon It was after my son was born. So I was just he was I think four when I did that. So I hadn't really done anything kind of that extreme for years, certainly since I had children. So I did lose a little weight from that, again, was paying zero attention to my nutrition being very unintentional with my nutrition. But you know, I don't think I lost a damn pound running that marathon. I don't know that I had any weight to lose, but that it was almost like in my brain, it was a failure. The marathon was a failure. Even though I ran it and completed it met a ton of friends, you know, learned a ton in the process, because I didn't lose any weight. So the weight loss of doing those things was pretty much non existent. And really the least of the benefits I received from doing them. So really, if I look back on the years, the things I've gotten the most from exercise, or the friendships I've made, I've gotten to four, you know, start this business that's really amazing, kind of the human connection. And I learned I could do really hard things. And I learned that if you're gonna go do something crazy, like a marathon, or a fitness competition, go get a coach, there's a process. So those were all valuable lessons to learn, I just didn't appreciate them at the time, because I was such a slave to using it to manage my weight and wondering, you know, making sure I was burning enough calories. So exercise is an important piece of weight loss, especially resistance training. But I think I My best advice to someone is like make that secondary and really like look at you know, really focus on the mental health benefits that you get from it, how good you feel after you do it, and you are probably going to stick to it for a lot longer. It's to me lifting weights is like the ultimate empowerment pill, regardless of what it's doing for my body. And if I would just focus on that, it probably would be a lot more enjoyable. So this is a work in progress for me. But I do think it's a big piece of making peace with all of this and doing things in a productive manner. What do you think? So for me, personally, I never did use exercise as a punishment. I've actually always I will say that even when I was doing like a lot of cardio and a lot of working out, I actually did like it. I've just, you know, I grew up being super active and doing sports. And I still just love being active. So for me like, especially because I did a lot of this with people like when I did run, I ran with my neighbors. And so it was actually it was enjoyable. So that's probably one thing that we were a little bit different on I definitely didn't really think of it as punishment. However, I will say I was very obsessive about making sure I got it in every single day, I wouldn't let myself just say, oh, you know, I'm tired. I'm going to take a couple days off. Nope, I wouldn't do that. And I also wished I would have just let my general activity count as my exercise. That's what I do. Now. I just set my step goal. And if I get it by picking up after my kids and playing with them in the yard, great if I get it by maybe taking a walk, right. But before it had to be like oh, I had to go for this like official run for the counters exercise, even if I would have maybe, you know, been active later on that day. That didn't count because it wasn't hard enough. So I do wish I would have had a different mentality there. I mean, I still and always have loved being active. Nothing makes me feel better than being active in some way whether that's walking or playing a sport or just moving my body so I have actually always loved exercise. Yeah, and I think I have to It's just I just had this very neurotic relationship with it that probably my share my spouse, my children that was that was very apparent when you are neurotic about something it doesn't really it's kind of a repellent So anyway, make friends with exercise, I swear it is the best antidepressant mental health medicine that there is. So So my last the third thing that I would wish I had known this is a big one, when I was younger is that, you know, there's no virtue in not eating. And like, as I said, the corollary to that is that food is the ally, not the enemy. So this probably did all start with me with the stupid teen magazines probably in middle school. And they I think the drumbeat of those were just there was always a diet section, or there's always like a before and after picture. And so probably in middle school, I started thinking like, well, you know, eating was like the ultimate if you could eat nothing, that would be like the ultimate status symbol. In my brain. Restrictive eating was definitely where it was at No, and I could not do it, I kind of have always had kind of a bigger appetite, I happened to be very food motivated, looking back now that really saved me and I was never overweight. As a teenager, really, in my whole life. I've never really been, you know, even what you would call like, probably chubby or pudgy. So I was kind of I kind of joked around that I was like the big eater, I just, I just could not starve myself, it just didn't work, it would last for maybe half a day. And then I would have to eat everything that probably stems from those blood sugar issues I mentioned earlier, but I really especially remember that probably my junior year in high school, all of my girlfriends stopped eating lunch. And they were worried about their legs and their booties getting big. And so the big thing in high school was like, you know, sipping a Diet Coke at lunch, or maybe eating some saltines with your diet coke, or maybe like an apple and a Diet Coke. And that was lunch. And then they would go do a two hour sports practice. And that was a status symbol. I mean, that was something virtuous or something to be admired, that they had that sort of willpower that they could not eat any lunch and then go practice for two hours, they probably weren't eating much for dinner either. Now, none of them, I don't think you would ever call them like anorexic or need to be like treated for a while they that is pretty disordered eating, but they were never, you know, maybe at that point in time, we didn't really anorexia and bulimia and all those things weren't really as surface level as they are now. But I just in my brain, if you could, if you had that amount of power and willpower, that you could just, you know, ignore your hunger and not eat. And that was really something to be admired. And what it did was set me up for a lifelong pattern of yo yo dieting, and I was constantly looking for the diet that would extinguish my hunger, and make not eating possible and make me even skinnier, because then that would be you know, I would have everything. But if instead, you know those dumb teen magazines had focused on like what optimal nutrition was or how you properly fuel your body, if you're active, what even had been somewhat in the range of a healthy calorie range, rather than focusing on restrictive nutrition, it would have freed up so much mental space and time and ultimately led to a much more desirable physique. I see this and so many women that we coach that it's very, very hard for them to move past the very ingrained belief that it somehow makes you a better person, the less you eat, and it was just as a real bummer. I mean, I don't know how else to say it. I mean, it's, it's a very bad trap to fall in eating really isn't a moral thing. At the end of the day, hunger is going to win, if you are hungry, you are going to eat for these women that are caught in this like, you know, not eating sounds like they're not eating all the time, I think it just kind of results into in some binge eating patterns, where maybe they don't eat during the week, or very restrictive during the week, and then go they're hungry. And so you know, on the weekends, they eat more and but their body has, you know, adjusted down to those very low calories. And it makes weight loss very difficult. And it's just a terrible pattern to be in you feel out of control around food. And that's no fun. No, I think the corollary to that also is, you know, if you were just someone who doesn't enjoy eating very much, and you don't eat very much, and you have no health repercussions, and you enjoy your physique, there's also nothing wrong with that. It just we should just take morality out of eating. Yes, some people do emotionally eat or you know, over eat and you know, to deal with like emotional issues, but I don't even think that's a moral issue. It's just maybe it's something that you need to work on. So I think, you know, if we could just remove morality and virtue from from this topic, it would help a lot and really help people form much more functional relationships with food. Do you have any thoughts on this? You know, there's, this could be a generational difference, possibly because I definitely do not remember anyone or any, you know, lots of people like trying to just not eat. I remember me thinking I was the weird one because nobody else in high school and even college really seemed to be that conscious of like, how much or what they were eating, and I was and I pretended that you know, I didn't let on that I was but all you know, in my head I'm doing all these calculations of like, how many calories was lunch and how many calories is dinner and how many calories do I have left? So for me, it was just me thinking. I'm the weird one. On and I, I've always known I'm extremely, you know, type A and super disciplined. So I didn't really have that experience where it was like this virtuous thing to eat less. I remember me thinking, you're the weird one. And it was almost like this game where I was trying to like be more disciplined than anybody else in some way. So, yeah, well, yeah, I mean, it sounds like it definitely did give you like an era of like feeling super disciplined or superior. But you know, like, not not here because I remember thinking like, I don't want anybody to know how neurotic I am. Well, I mean, it, you know, it's all neurotic, right? I mean, sitting around sipping on a diet coke when you're starving. And you know, I don't know maybe they didn't have an appetite these girls, but I just it was just became a thing. And so yeah, I hope I don't, I haven't heard of any of that from my daughter. And she's kind of a loud mouth. Like, she spills her beans a lot. So I would hear about it. She was like, I don't know why, you know, so and so never eats at lunch. So I hope that was very generational, and it's something we've moved beyond. Yeah, eating what you eat, what you don't eat should not be tied up in, you know, any sort of moral judgment or how virtuous you are. It's truly a tool should be used to fuel your body and let you have a good life and have energy and not condemn you or, or be a source of why you're so lazy or something. So yeah, that's my soapbox on that. Okay, so what is your approach to teaching all of this to your girls? Yes, I love talking about this. So I think it's so important that we set our daughters especially and sons, but you know, this daughters really are the ones who get caught up in this, I feel like set them down the right path. So I know I touched on this a little bit earlier, but I am just trying to teach them to be strong. And so some of the things we talked about eating protein at each meal, they know that they cannot get away with having a meal that doesn't have protein, they wouldn't even consider it, they'd probably be like, I'm still hungry if they just if they didn't have protein with their meal. So we talked about eating protein at each meal, they know that they're allowed to eat desserts, we definitely don't do restricting. But they know eating like five cookies at a time is not good either. So just having what we want so that we don't feel the need to then go eat like five servings of dessert or something when we finally are allowed to so you know, just kind of not restricting will usually not always but can help prevent like binging. So we definitely focus on lots of healthy food, fruits and vegetables, and then just kind of being active, we don't really talk about, I mean, they see me and my husband both like in the mornings, we go down to our basement gym, and we lift weights, and they we talked about that. And they know that we lift weights to be strong. But for them, they're all gymnast. And so they actually get a lot of strength training through that. And they realize that they realize that they're very strong because of that. And so I'm hoping that when they eventually are no longer gymnasts, they will continue to do things that they know will keep them strong, but we just kind of try to be active and keep it fun. I'm never like, Hey, let's go take a walk. Because we need to burn some calories. It's more like, Hey, let's go play volleyball in the backyard. Because it will be fun, and it will keep us active. And it's better than you know, sitting inside and watching TV or let's go down in the basement. And we have lots of gymnastic equipment down there. So like let's go downstairs and do gymnastics maybe in the winter. So it's more about that. And they I mean, they love hearing about this business and they do know, you know, some of the situations that our clients get themselves into, and they think they hopefully are learning that restrictive dieting is, you know, not a good thing for them to do. So those are some of the things that we talked about at home. Yeah, sounds like very much a lead by example kind of approach and that too. Yeah. Okay, well, I'm gonna be very honest here. Not that you weren't honest. I think like girls are younger. They haven't. Right? Yeah, I was gonna ask your burgeoning teenager but yeah, teenager. Yeah, right. So how old are your girls? They're 11 nine and three. Of course, the three year old doesn't understand any of this. She just knows that. If she doesn't eat her dinner, she doesn't get dessert and then she screams. But yeah, so the 11 year old. She hasn't really rebelled against anything yet. Yeah, okay. Well, I I'm going to tell the truth here because I think it doesn't help you know anyone not to so I'd love to pretend and say that my daughter, I think she understands the virtues of eating protein. And you know, she's certainly really been told but I don't know that she embraces eating protein. I wish I could say like she turns her nose up at fast food never eats anything processed and you know is in the gym with mom lifting a few times a week that that is not what's happening. I have a 16 year old who has a bit of a rebellious streak and is inclined to do basically the polar opposite of what I do and we live on crumble cookies if she could write although man those things you can't really eat, I can't eat very much when they are so For rich, oh, good, good, I can eat in front of me, sadly. But I know you know, I know from being a life coach that you can't coach what you don't know or what you haven't experienced. And I think in this category, similarly, you can't give someone something that you don't have. And it's you have to make peace with food, you have to demonstrate that you're able to cherish and nourish your body. You have to fuel and move your body in ways that make you strong, you have to learn to break up with the scale, you have to learn not to use alcohol and food as food and entertainment, you have to focus on getting strong versus being obsessed with being skinny. And before you can give that to your daughter. And so, you know, those are the things that I try to work on. Then I think I'm there with most of the things and my hope is that someday she'll like what she sees, and she'll be able to emulate that they are watching us, our kids definitely are watching us. I know that she is watching me, we have so many clients tell us, you know, hey, I fell into this under eating pattern because I grew up with a mom who only drink some fat shakes. You know, they these things, Randy so I know she's watching me, I do try to encourage eating protein and make sure it is readily available. And at the center of most of our family meals, we try to have family dinner and protein is the star of that meal. I also don't harp on it, she is pretty active. And I'm very supportive of any decisions that get her in the gym and lifting like she took a conditioning class last last year. So I just was like, hey, that's great. What are you learning, but I really do let her lead. She loves her love of soccer. She also loves volleyball, she's gonna give cheerleading a try this year. So I just really generally try to support her love for being active and not make it at all about keeping the way that they are good thing you're so active. So you know, you don't the weight doesn't creep on. I don't of course ever say anything like that. But my big hope is that she just sees a mom who is equally strong on the inside. As you know, I am on the outside who really does like I'm at peace with my body that I'm not hating on it or saying other things mean about myself that I'm not using wine or treats as a consolation prize for the life I want to live that I'm happy, thriving, strong and living a good life. So that's that's been my approach. I don't know if it will work, I guess. No, I think in the long term, it will like she'll I think she'll come around. And when she's like 25 I think you'll be like, Okay, I sent her a good example. And look, look what she's doing. Yes, I am happy to report though that my son is very interested in all of this. So he lifts weights kind of on a regular basis. He on his own set up My Fitness Pal account. I was asking me about tracking, how do I eat more protein, he does make himself a protein shake almost every day. And he's he's really until he's an eighth grader. So he's 13. So he is maybe starting to care what girls I've noticed some, you know, combing his hair before school, which is a new thing. So he might be a disappearance. But he's asking me all the time like, Well, how do I get big shoulders? Or how do I lift for my chest and the other day? He said, Hey, I'm gonna go do Arnold's you know, shoulder workout. So we talked a little bit about that. So they did have to live through some of my weird diets. I were old enough to remember they called it ketto. But when I did the keto diet, I don't know if they understand like, what it entailed. But they were aware of the name of it. And I think like they were able to at least so you can't eat carbs. But I haven't done anything like that in a long time. So what I hope they see now is a mom who's not you know, obsessed with the latest fad diet or talking with my friends about how much I hate my belly rolls or anything like that. I don't I don't think that's that's something that's good for kiddos to hear. So anyway, I think my best advice is lead by example. You fix these things for yourself, you stop under eating or if that's not your issue, if you're I have no idea what your nutrition is, and you're eating a bag of chips at the end of the day because you haven't bothered to eat for the rest of the day. You clean that up. And you will do them a favor. They are definitely watching. Yep. Okay, so I think that's this has been a really fun, good podcast. I'm glad our client recommended it to us. I'm not sure we would have done it on our own so soon, but it's it's been a good one to think and reflect on but let's end it with our in the usual way. Any fall treats that you're enjoying. You know, I'll keep mine super simple. And I'm gonna say apples. So you know, I'm not a big pumpkin spice latte, fall foods type of person, but it is Apple season and I eat an apple almost every single day. They're just, they're fresh. They're good. They're simple. They have lots of fiber. So I'm gonna go with apples. Nice. Well, this isn't a seasonal tree. I'm going to give an update on I went to New York City with my daughter and some friends a couple of weeks ago. So this is not a foul treat. This is a New York treat. But we had we indulged in New York pizza so two brothers or two bros. I can't remember what it was there a couple locations around New York City. I thought that was the best pizza was not greasy it was really, really yummy. And I think it was like two slices and a Diet Coke for $5. So I really enjoyed that. And there is nothing like New York pizza. So I like Chicago. Chicago pizza, the crust is more my style, the deep dish. Oh yeah, deep dish. Oh my gosh, so good. So if you're listening, if you're in New York, if you live in New York, maybe you have a different favorite, but if you're visiting New York, I really recommend two brothers. So or it might be two bros. I should have looked that up before we did the podcast but it was yummy. So. Okay, I think that's all I got for you today. Have a good week. Talk to you soon. Bye, everyone. Bye. 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. 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