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Divas That Care Network
Feel good for Summer
Join Host Candace Gish as she interviews a variety of inspiring women weekly, whom are working to make the world a better place! #DivasThatCare
BIO: Real life and real coaching. Rhonda understands the demands on time, feeling torn between career and home life. Nutrition, exercise, and overall self-care, often fall last on a long list of priorities. She lived this life, but chose to make her own magic and share that to empower other people. Rhonda offers nutrition and lifestyle coaching that blends with your life. She creates an accountability system that works for the individual, developing specific techniques and queues that work just right for her clients
Nutrition and lifestyle coach Rhonda Armour shares practical wisdom on breaking free from diet culture and creating sustainable wellness habits that actually work for real life.
• Caution against getting caught in social media's summer "bikini ready" diet mentality
• Focus on baby steps and small, sustainable habits instead of drastic changes
• Start trusting yourself again rather than following diet rules not designed for your lifestyle
• Remember that stopping and starting strict programs wreaks havoc on both physical and mental health
• Prioritize sleep as the foundation for all other healthy habits
• Maintain some routine during summer while still enjoying social events
• Be proactive by planning ahead—like bringing healthy options to gatherings
Coming this fall: Rhonda's new book sharing personal stories and practical wisdom about the real struggles of self-care and how to overcome them. For more information about Rhonda's coaching, visit RhondaArmourCoaching.com or follow her on Instagram and Facebook @RhondaArmourCoaching.
For more Divas That Care Network Episodes visit www.divasthatcare.com
It's Divas that Care Radio Stories, strategies and ideas to inspire positive change. Welcome to Divas that Care, a network of women committed to making our world a better place for everyone. This is a global movement for women, by women engaged in a collaborative effort to create a better world for future generations. To find out more about the movement, visit DivasThatCarecom after the show. Right now, though, stay tuned for another jolt of inspiration.
Speaker 2:Well, hello everyone and welcome back to the Divas that Care. My name is Candice Gish. Well, guys, we have our amazing monthly guest coming back on our program and I'm very excited to be chatting with her. But if this is your very first time tuning into the Divas I Care, a huge welcome. Divas I Care is now in its 12th season. We are listened to in over 30 countries around the world and it's because of all of our amazing listeners that we're able to do this. So you know what thank you? Please thank the person that introduced you to the Divas I Care, because we really appreciate them also. All right, today's amazing monthly guest is Rhonda Armour. Thank you so much for having me. I can't believe it's April and we're back at it, but I'm super excited to be here.
Speaker 2:Thank you, oh, you're welcome. I'm always so excited about this and we always have a great show. But could you, Rhonda, could you introduce yourself to our new listeners tuning in today? Absolutely so.
Speaker 2:I am a nutrition and lifestyle coach as well as a personal trainer, and sometimes that can be sort of a daunting thing to hear because people are like, oh goodness, like she's, you know, got everything straight with her nutrition and workouts and things like that. But I'm really a realist. I really represent real life and real coaching and I'm working with real women that have real struggles, sort of putting their self-care back at the top of their priority list, because I know personally how difficult it can be and I work with primarily women and it's all virtual. So, no matter where you're listening from today across the world, I am happy to help my clients always on all aspects of their self-care, not just what the food they put in their bodies, but just make sure that they're being kind to themselves and they're just taking such good care of themselves so that they can be great employees or business owners or parents or sisters and brothers and all those types of things and really just taking a real approach so that we can take good care of our health physically, mentally and emotionally. I love that and you really are making a difference.
Speaker 2:The last couple of years we've had a lot of stuff going on and we really need to get back to feeling the best that we can feel ourselves. I am so happy that you've been teaching us so many things that I use on a daily basis because of what you've shared with us. Thank you so much. Yeah, you're right, it has been a rough couple of years and, you know, we've sort of been hibernating because we've been forced to and I think that it can be really helpful to start to, you know, come out of our shell and out of our homes and really start to refocus on what's important to us around our wellness and our health and self-care. And that just means taking baby steps.
Speaker 2:We've talked about that before. Right, integrating small habits, you know, daily, over time, build your confidence and your ability to follow through on those habits and you will get to where you want to be. You don't have to change everything all at once, but I think it's a great time, especially, as you know, spring is here, trying to really put our self-care back. You know, on the priority list, that maybe it's sort of fallen to the bottom and we've sort of forgotten about how to take care of ourselves and really just putting it as a priority and saying, okay, enough is enough. I'm ready to do this and I'm ready to feel amazing again. Oh, I absolutely love that, and we're getting ready for summer too, because I don't think depending on I guess where you are.
Speaker 2:We haven't really had the opportunity to really experience summer in so long. I know it feels like it's been forever and I feel like you know people I talk to, everyone's so excited, you know. I mean, I'm here in Ontario, canada, and you know it's technically spring but it's not as warm as we'd maybe like it to be. So we're getting there. But you're right, everyone's excited for summer again, depending on where you are in the world. But we all know that the nice weather can really drive us to feel really good and to get back out into nature and to feel our best. So, yeah, we need to talk about how we can feel our best going into summer. Today we are really excited because, like Rhonda said, we are excited to get into summer. I have all these amazing plans and I want to feel good. So, rhonda, let's talk about that. How are we going to be able to get to that point so that we feel good this summer? I think the first thing I wanted to make sure that I mentioned is you know, I'm very aware that you know social media can play a really big role in what we're seeing in terms of how to take care of ourselves and when summer approaches, we will often see a lot of things around dieting and about sort of what I think are drastic measures to, you know, whether to lose weight or to just, you know, tone up your body, and all these like bikini ready type things. And I really don't subscribe to those, that sort of mentality, and I really encourage people to, instead of getting caught up in that sort of mentality where you have to make drastic changes so that you can, you know, feel good over the summer, I think we should take a step back from that. I think that's the first thing.
Speaker 2:Sometimes we get really desperate because we, you know, have been sort of we just talked about hibernating, not just because it's been winter, but because of COVID as well and we've been at home and maybe we're not feeling the best that we could, and so we want to sort of jump into these drastic things to make a quick change, and we're really not looking for a quick fix.
Speaker 2:We want to make some changes to our nutrition, to our fitness, you know, getting out in nature, which does wonderful things for our health, making sure we're sleeping, you know, start drinking that water again to stay hydrated, all the small things, instead of ascribing to sort of a thought or a program or a diet around one way in order to feel good for summer. So that will be the first thing I would sort of mention and caution you on is to really unsubscribe from that. You know, sort of mentality, that diet mentality, drinking shakes to lose all this weight in a certain amount of time. It's just not realistic and it's not going to have you feeling good about your habits, you know, I think I like that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I just I want people to be realistic about what you're willing and able to do with regards to your self-care habits and not getting caught up in sort of the latest fad that you might see on social media. So I would definitely start there, candice. Well and you know we've definitely talked about that over some of our other programs is that there's so many things out there and we get really overwhelmed with what we should be doing for ourselves, and I think, honestly, that's what the problem is.
Speaker 2:We always want to try things that we think are going to work for us.
Speaker 2:And then in the long run they don't, and we always want to try things that we think are going to work for us and then in the long run they don't, and then we get discouraged and it's just that it's happening all the time and I honestly feel that the majority of us go through that because we really think we're doing a great job. You know, we're listening to all this advice and it's not getting us anywhere Absolutely. And part of that in my experience, in doing you know what I do on a daily basis and with my own experiences too. Trust me, I get how hard it is to take good care of yourself. I understand it. I have a busy life, I have a business, I have two kids, so I get it.
Speaker 2:But I think a lot of it comes from the fact that we don't trust ourselves. So when we buy into different diets and different sort of fad things, especially around summertime, that apparently promise us all these results that we're so looking for and we're just so desperate to have change, that it's because we don't trust ourselves. We don't trust ourselves to make good choices. So we need to. We feel we need to follow a set of rules, that that are associated with the diet right, and so what I would encourage people to do is to start trusting yourself again. You know what it takes for you to feel good. We all know what's healthy food versus unhealthy food. We know that we need to move our bodies. We know that we need to manage our stress. We need to get, you know, a certain number of hours of sleep. You know a night. We know what we need to do.
Speaker 2:I want everyone to start to trust themselves again, versus putting their trust in some sort of program that is not made for you, and go back to some of the basics around just good health, like I said, eating good, healthy food. You know, preparing that in advance, doing some planning, getting out in nature and walking and being active. We know what we need to do and we need to start trusting ourselves a little bit more. I think to you know. Get to where we want to be, instead of putting our trust in another program or diet that isn't going to serve us very well. I like that. Like I'm going to ask you is it true that when you're stopping and starting different types of cycles, different types of programs, is that when it's really bad for you Because you're very strict and then all of a sudden, you stop, and that's when you gain weight. So how is this on your health? Actually, it wreaks havoc on your health, not only physically and we can't see what's going on inside of our body.
Speaker 2:But physically, when we stop and start these things especially when they're very drastic measures but the mental impact it has on us, right? We start something, we think we're really excited because we're going to do X, y, z and we're going to do all these things. And then when we don't do it, we beat ourselves up about it. There's shame associated with it, we feel bad, we feel guilty. Then we're like, oh well, what's the point of this? I can't do this. I feel like. And then we go to the extreme of really not taking care of ourselves, right, because we think what is the point? Right? And then you get sick and tired, of sort of feeling like that. So then you start something else, versus, let's just take baby steps and change small things We've talked about this in previous shows right, take some small steps.
Speaker 2:What is one thing that you could fix today or start to work on today? Maybe that means you know what, I'm just going to start walking outside more, or I'm going to start drinking more water, and you build on that, versus going all in right on some sort of program or diet that you think is going to be the answer. Because it's not, and you're right, stopping and starting that whole cycle is vicious. And I think it's the instant gratification no-transcript good at being patient, right, we're not good at like I said earlier, trusting ourselves that we're on a path that's going to work for us. And you're right, we want instant results. And it doesn't work like that and it's unfortunate because people don't allow for time to pass and for changes to just take place. And you know, I want to remind people that when you go super strict with you know some sort of diet or program that you think is going to work. I want you to remember that whoever put this program together, right, or diet, was not thinking about you, right? They were not thinking about you as a human being and what your likes are, what your dislikes are, what your schedule is like in your life, what is your family like, what are the dynamics. It's not made for you.
Speaker 2:So trying to integrate habits from a program that are not about you is not going to work long term, and that's why it's important to trust yourself and say, okay, this is what's going to work for me, because I know me best, right, and whether, again, around the area of nutrition and the food you're putting in your body and how you're going to implement those habits when you're going to get your exercise in, how you're going to get good sleep all of those different habits and make it about you and a custom plan versus a plan that you've seen online or your friend is doing or you know versus a plan that you've seen online or your friend is doing or you know.
Speaker 2:Whatever it's not made for you and I want you to start to think about that and that's why it fails. Right, it's not you that's failing, the program has failed you. You have not failed, and that's the difference. Right, and you're right about the instant gratification. And then the other thing about a diet is what happens if you do see results and your patient is out to have results and then you get to the point where maybe you reach your goal right of whatever that might look like.
Speaker 2:It's not always tied to weight loss either at all. But what if you reach your goal with this particular program or diet, then what have you really learned? How to take care of yourself without somebody else telling you how to do it right? So I really want people to take ownership right and take that ownership back and trust yourself and be strong in who you are and what's going to work for you, instead of trusting some other person program you know, diet, whatever it might be and instead create a plan that's going to work, custom for you that's been created by you. So, rhonda, talk to me about when you're meeting with somebody.
Speaker 2:Tell me the steps on how it works. So when I initially meet with someone, you know they fill out a bunch of paperwork just so I can get to know what their life is like, and we start small, you know, based on the paperwork that they filled out. I think it's very, you know, obvious, very quickly what some of the main issues are and again, it could be about any particular. It could be the food, which is often the food tends to be a big step. It could be the fitness. It could be maybe they're not sleeping at all, Maybe they're really stressed because they have a high stress job, but then we zero in on little habits related to each of those areas.
Speaker 2:So if it is food, you know we don't just I don't have, I don't give out meal plans, I don't tell people what to eat because, again, that's not about them, but we explore what are you eating right now and how can we sort of make some small changes. Let's focus on just breakfast, for instance. And how do we make some small tweaks while giving you lots of choices that you can turn to, so that you feel like you're back in control. You're in the driver's seat. It's not me saying, okay, listen, you have to have a protein shake every day for breakfast, and then the person says but I don't like protein shakes. Well then, there you go.
Speaker 2:That's not going to work, right but, if we can give you, you know, four or five other choices that work for you, then you feel like you're back in the driver's seat, because now you get to decide what's going to work and we build the meals and the choices. Same with fitness, you know, I don't tell people how to work out or what specific plans you know to do. I want you to do what you love, because then you're going to do it right. So so when I work with people, we're just doing small habits. You know if, if they're going to bed at one in the morning and not getting enough sleep, can we back it up and try 12, 30, you know. And we just make small things. So it's not like we're turning the world upside down and whether you're working with me or you're just trying to do this on your own, it's the same thing.
Speaker 2:Let's pick out, so the big things and then really narrow them down and zero into some specific habits under that sort of umbrella of either nutrition, fitness, sleep, whatever, and pick some specific habits. But every person is going to be different on what sort of a priority for them and where we need to start. But we start small, candice. We really, really start small. But that's what builds their confidence, because then when they see, okay, I can do this, I can do this, and then we build from there. Well, and I really like how you mentioned that sleep is a big part of it. You know, people don't realize how important, you know, getting enough sleep every night will really change things Absolutely.
Speaker 2:It's really one of the foundational pieces, because we all know how we feel when we don't sleep. You know we don't feel well, we don't feel alert, we don't have energy. We know we don't make good choices, you know, around food or whether or not we're going to get our workout in that day or whatever else it has to do with. If we're just not, we're not on our game right. We don't have as much control over everything as we would like, because we're just too tired to handle whatever life is sort of throwing at us and we're just sort of barely keeping our head above water, and that's not how we want to feel. So if you can think of sleep as foundation, if you can have, you know, be getting good sleep, that is what creates a strong foundation for you being able to implement the other healthy habits that you're looking to implement. I love it.
Speaker 2:And what a simple way to get started, to start feeling better for summer, and that's what we're all about today. So, rhonda, what other kind of tips do you have to help some of our listeners today? We definitely want to share how they can get a hold of you. But besides that, how? What kind of tips can you provide us today? Yeah, so for summer, you know, we talked about it being like you know, a fantastic time of year.
Speaker 2:It's something we're all looking forward to, and I just, you know, want to remind people that summer can sometimes, you know, take on a life of its own in terms of barbecues and gatherings, and weddings and all these, you know, cottages and all these fun things that we like to do, which we find, you know, I often have people say, well, I find it really hard to, you know, eat healthy in the summer and I find it hard to, like you know, dedicate myself to my work, my workouts.
Speaker 2:And I want people to remember that just because it's summer doesn't mean that we still can't have some routine. That we can't, you know. We can still have some planning involved and think ahead, be proactive and really make it work for you. It doesn't mean you need to give up all the fun by any means, but let's not let it be sort of a free-for-all where, by the time we are finished with summer, that we feel worse than when we went into summer. Right, it's a great opportunity to find some balance with the fun, but also taking back control over your health. So that still means, you know, being able to attend that local barbecue at the friend's house down the street, but it also means that you know, maybe you're bringing some food to the occasion so that you are, you know, contributing something healthier, so that there's not, you know, limited options for you.
Speaker 2:It's all sorts of you know, contributing something healthier, so that there's not, you know, limited options for you. It's all sorts of, you know, strategy that has to go into having a successful summer, not only from the fun perspective, but from your self-care perspective as well. So be proactive, plan, follow some routines still and, of course, have fun, because that will propel you to, you know, continue to move forward in your self-care journey. I love it. That's what it is. It's just a journey, guys.
Speaker 2:It doesn't happen overnight. Rhonda provides amazing tips to help you live your life to the best that you can live it, you know, really enjoy it, have fun, you know, but have those good, healthy habits and then you'll feel better and then you'll be happier. And that impacts the people around you, which I really love. And that's why I love having you on here, because, rhonda, it's not just the person that you're working with that it's helping. It's helping everybody around them, trickling effect that it just works with everybody else. So, rhonda, how can our listeners get a hold of you so that they can work with you, they can follow you? What's your social media handles? So you can find me at Rhonda Armour Coaching on Instagram and Facebook and my website is RhondaArmourCoachingcom. You can see my different programs there and sort of my methodology around coaching, which I talked a lot about today. It's real life, it's real coaching, and you get a feel for that on my website as well, and then you can reach out if you just want to touch base and see how it all works and more details. For you, there's no pressure to commit to anything. I love to just chat with women to see how we can, you know, maybe put their self-care back at the top of the priority list.
Speaker 2:And, rhonda, one last question I have for you Do you have any upcoming workshops, anything like that, for our listeners? I don't have any current workshops, but I was thinking about this because I kind of teased it last week and I thought maybe it's time to spill the beans a little bit. And this really goes in line with what we talked about today around not subscribing to diets and programs that don't work for you and really trying to start small and build on those habits. I actually am working on a book right now, candice, which I'm really excited about a lot of my own personal stories around. You know my relationship with food and some of the battles I have faced around my own self-care. I have some stories about clients that are, you know, often amazing, inspirational stories, but also just sort of some real tidbits of information that I feel that kind of the everyday woman can really zero in on and relate to. So I have that in the works.
Speaker 2:So it won't be coming out until probably the fall, but I thought I'd throw it out there because I think it's going to be sort of a must read in terms of just like, let's call things how it, how they are, and let's be real about this and the struggles that we all have about taking good care of ourselves. And then you know, there's there's some, hopefully, like I said, some helpful tidbits of information that might be inspirational for those out there. I am so excited about that, rhonda, congratulations.
Speaker 2:I can't wait to be able to read it and have you back on you know when the book obviously is going to be launching and getting that information to our listeners. Thank you so much. I appreciate your support. I think it's going to be. I tried to be as real as I could in it so that it wasn't just you know another diet book. It's not like that at all. Just you know another diet book. It's not like that at all. It's a complete polar opposite of that. That's not what we need right now.
Speaker 2:We need some real discussion and real conversation about what we're all sort of going through and and so hopefully it it it touches some, some hearts and, and you know, people get something out of it. Well, I'm pretty sure they will I. This is amazing and we're really excited about that.
Speaker 1:Rhonda.
Speaker 2:I am so happy that you took the time today to chat with all of us today. I love chatting with you and learning from you and for all of our listeners, Rhonda does have quite a few shows with the Divas that Care. We do have a playlist now that we have posted on SoundCloud with all of Rhonda's shows that are really easy to access.
Speaker 2:You can also listen to all of Rhonda's shows at divasetcarecom. Rhonda, I'm really excited because next month we will have you back on the program to chat more. Thank you so much, Candice. It's always an honor to be here. You do amazing work, so I'm very grateful. Thank you again for having me. It is my pleasure. I love chatting with you honestly and to all of our listeners, thank you so much for tuning in today.
Speaker 2:We have such a great time on Divas that Care. We have so many amazing new hosts. We have so many amazing great guests that come onto our show. Thank you, guys, so much for taking this call. Please share it with your friends and family. Go check out all of our other programs. You know that's what the Divas that Care is all about is supporting, inspiring, empowering, sharing, collaborating. Everything that we can do to get people to have conversations, to share amazing stories and to uplift you. We really want that. That's what we want is to make the world a better place, and we always say that, one podcast at a time, we hope to be able to do that. So thank you, guys, so much for tuning in to the Divas that Care. I hope that you have a great day and please do something kind Until next time everyone.
Speaker 1:Thanks for listening. This show was brought to you by Divas that Care. Connect with us on Facebook, on Instagram and, of course, on DivasThatCarecom, where you can subscribe to our newsletter, so you don't miss a thing.