Rest Is Not a Luxury—It’s the Foundation of Your Health

Do you feel like you're constantly pushing yourself to do more—but no matter how much you accomplish, it never feels like enough? Our culture glorifies overwork and hyperproductivity, rewarding us for burning the candle at both ends. But what if the key to better health, sustainable weight loss, and true success isn’t doing more—but learning to rest?

In this episode, I dive into the science and mindset behind rest, revealing why it’s the #1 factor that separates those who thrive from those who struggle. I break down how rest supports everything from metabolic health to muscle recovery and share practical ways to incorporate it into your life—without guilt. If you’ve ever felt like slowing down is a luxury you can’t afford, this episode will change the way you think about rest forever!

References
Season 1 of the Premium Podcast: The Obesity Guide: Behind the Curtain

Learn more about The 30/30 Program

Audio Stamps
00:30 - Dr. Rentea discusses the importance of rest, how it impacts health and success, and why prioritizing recovery is just as crucial as effort.

03:50 - We explore the definition of rest, its natural rhythms in life, and how true rest varies for each person based on what feels restorative to them.

06:55 - Dr. Rentea emphasizes the importance of consistent, small moments of rest to regulate the nervous system and avoid the stress of "emergency relaxation."

10:30 - We hear some of Dr. Rentea’s favorite forms of rest, including walking, coloring, and playing with her son.

16:36 - Learn the importance of cultivating rest to regulate stress, support fat loss, and reduce emotional eating.

17:54 - Enrollment is open for the April round of the 30/30 program! Dr. Rentea shares important updates to the program, including new call times, fresh content, and expert guest sessions.

Quotes
“[Rest] is something that we don't glorify in our society because we really teach people that if you overwork and if you're overproductive, you're rewarded for that, you're amazing, look at all the things you've done.”

“It's such a fallacy to think everyone's only focused on the push, the hard phase, doing the things. We don't talk enough about the importance of rest.”

“Rest is not necessarily where I go and I lay in bed and I'm doing nothing. Rest is whatever is relaxing and refreshing for you that gives you back strength.”

“It doesn't need to be often, but it needs to be consistent. And realize that you can get this rest in little micro moments.”

“We need your body to k

All of the information on this podcast is for general informational purposes only. Please talk to your physician and medical team about what is right for you. No medical advice is being on this podcast.

If you live in Indiana or Illinois and want to work with doctor Matthea Rentea, you can find out more on www.RenteaClinic.com

Premium Season 1 of The Obesity Guide: Behind the Curtain -Dive into real clinical scenarios, from my personal medication journey to tackling weight loss plateaus, understanding insulin resistance, and overcoming challenges with GLP-1s. Plus, get a 40+ page guide packed with protein charts, weight loss formulas, and more.

April 30/30 registration.

Transcript

0:33

Welcome back to another episode of the podcast. I cannot believe that I'm sitting right now recording a podcast for the first time in my new office. This is absolutely surreal. I can only describe my previous offices up to this point. I've had two of them up to now and they can be described as a matchbox, just absolutely small, but this is incredible to have actually a big room. This is not just a little office, an entire room. And so what had happened, the reason we decided to do this is that it got to the point where I was having to set up and take down quite often, whether it be like, let's say I was recording a question and answer call or making a program or doing different things like that or making videos. It's actually a production when you put up lights and you do things versus when you take it down. By the way, you never realize when you're watching these things, the effort that goes in behind it. So it just got to the point where it said, look, this really makes sense for us to do this. But I feel incredibly grateful to have when I walk in that there's built in bookshelves and there's this beautiful artwork behind me. I'm looking at it right now. It's sort of pastel colors or sort of like, it's like flowers that are in a modern way and it just makes me very happy and it's amazing when I talk to patients. I just feel like it's cheerful. I'm incredibly grateful to be sitting here. And it really fits with actually the topic today that we're going to talk about, which is the importance of rest. A lot of times when I work with people, actually, I just got asked this the other day, I was doing an interview for another podcast and she said, what is it that makes some of your patients really successful? And then what is it? that the ones that are struggling that they are or are not doing. And of course there's aspects like some people are going to have worse insulin resistance and need more help metabolically. 100 percent reality. But then the other thing that I have come to realize is the biggest factor, biggest is if people can rest. And this is something that we don't glorify in our society because we really teach people that if you overwork and if you're overproductive, we can call this hyperfunctioning, that you're rewarded for that, you're amazing, look at all the things you've done, gold star for you, you probably internally you feel good about yourself, you get told a lot of amazing things in society, and so it's really a brownie point situation. And the problem becomes that when we're working on our health, it's a lot of energy to do that. And so even let's just come from the physiologic standpoint of you're starting a strength train. Yes, you strength train, but then you need the rest and digest with food for the nutrients to get to the muscle for what get what got broken down to rebuild during the rest periods. I often hear this with the gym that, yeah, you break it down in the gym and then you rebuild it. with nutrition and rest and sleep. And so it's such a fallacy to think everyone's only focused on the push, the hard phase, doing the things, and we don't talk enough about the importance of rest. So today I really want to talk about a little bit, what's the definition, What are some examples of where this exists all over nature? And why do I think that it's so important that you prioritize it? And how could you really bring it into your life more? So the first thing that I want to bring up is the definition. So it can either be a verb or a noun. Talk about us getting academic on here. If it's a verb, here's the definition. Cease work or movement in order to relax, refresh oneself, or recover strength. Isn't that interesting? When I think about rest, it sounds so passive, but listen to this, you're refreshing, you're recovering. I love that definition. And then if it's a noun, it's an instance or period of relaxing or ceasing to engage in strenuous or stressful activity. So, it's really, I just, I love going over definitions because it really shows the richness of the word that we're talking about. I wanted to give, to start out here, a few examples where everything in life that occurs naturally has rhythms. We are awake during the day. In fact, we have certain brain waves with that, and then we go to sleep, and those brain waves are different. And we have different things that happen during the day versus when we're resting at night. Maybe our heart rate is higher during the day, and the heart rate goes down at night when you're laying down. These are natural cycles. All the time, a high heart rate, right? When you're working out, the heart rate's up. The rest of the time, it should be coming down. So that's one example. The other example that I think about is with eating. We sit there and eat food and we need the rest and digest period where we can absorb those nutrients. We need the blood flow to change where it's going to. It's not the same the whole time. And I think about the last example here with work. So you go to work for, I don't know. 6, 10, 12 hours, 16 hours for the day, and then you have a period where you're not there so that you can recover your strength. So this is all of life. There's times when we're on and times when we're off. And I think that we forget that our body does need some off time. And I want to really go over that rest is not necessarily where I go and I lay in bed and I'm doing nothing. In fact, some of you really don't feel good with that, but rest is whatever for you is relaxing, whatever for you is refreshing that gives you back strength. So that's why I started with the definition because For some of you, if you're an extrovert, relaxing for you is going to a party and engaging with a bunch of people, having a bunch of conversation. Unless it's people that I'm really close to and love and already like that I know talking to them, that sounds horrible to me. That sounds like something that's going to be a lot of energy and not rest. So again, rest is different depending on What for you is relaxing, gives you energy, refreshes you, that's going to be different for everyone. A lot of times, you don't even know what it is that's restful for you. By the way, I'm going to pause right here. I mean, write down or think to yourself, What is it where I feel like I've had rest? If you already know you are a million times ahead of the curve, seriously, you're just leap years ahead. But if you don't know, this is an area that I would encourage you to give some thought to this week. And think about, how can I get some rest for myself? Now, you know how I said that it's not necessarily you I mean, for some of us it is, but maybe that's not for you. The other thing too, is that rest notice nowhere in the definition, did it say it's a 24 hour period or gave some kind of discrete time. And so what's really nice about this is that we don't need to, depending on what our lives look like, have hours and hours and hours of this. But what I do find is helpful for people is that there has to be some type of consistent cadency to which you can get this. And the reason that I bring this up is that. If you're not doing these things consistently, usually when we're resting, we're regulating our nervous system. And if we're not doing that routinely, then it turns into what I call an emergency operation, right? Like, you're, I'm so super stressed, and then you try to, you try to say, what can I do right now? Bubble bath, read a book, chill. And your mind is not used to that. Being able to relax you have not practiced it. It's not doesn't feel normal for you You maybe then feel guilty when you sit there and you say I really should be doing other stuff And you're running over a to do list in your mind. You see how that's not restful. You have not practiced this You're and that's okay. You haven't practiced doing this. So it doesn't need to be often But it needs to be consistent and realize that you can get this rest in little micro moments So I always give the example of maybe when you come home to help with contact switching and to start the process of being in a more rest mode when you come home, maybe you come home and you change your clothes and you sit for five minutes on the edge of the bed and you just do some deep breathing and you say, okay, I'm home now. Now I don't do work mode. Now I do family mode and you just really allow yourself to rest for a few minutes. Or maybe even as you're going to sleep, you say, Gosh, this is some really good rest that I'm getting right now. You acknowledge that this is happening right now. Instead of saying, you know, again and again, repeating in your mind, I can't believe I'm doing so many things. And this is how, you know, how am I going to make it tomorrow? And you're just sort of catastrophizing the whole thing. You tell yourself, I'm so grateful for what I'm getting right now. So your body needs to know that this is coming. The example I like to give here is I think so many people have diet trauma, and so think about, if you didn't have diet trauma, hunger might not feel like the worst thing in the world. You would get hungry and you'd think, okay, you know, I'll, I know at home I have some food, you know, I'll get it in an hour or two, we're good. And you would be okay with it, but think about when we, again and again and again, were doing programs where the calorie numbers were too low, where we were hungry and we couldn't eat anything anymore because it was like, now you're done with food for the day. And you have this trauma associated with it. When I'm hungry it equals panic because I can take no action for myself. I'm told that you can't listen to your body and this is what you have to do and you have to suffer and so you start to learn that hunger is something to be feared and it's not just a natural process that's occurring that's beautiful in our body. It lets you know that hunger signaling is working, working, right? So this is something where We need your body to know that rest comes in regular intervals. Your nervous system needs to start to realize it's okay for me to to be on during the day and do the things that I need to do but then I will get times where she will honor That she's going to rest some. It needs to know this. And this can't be like a one and done situation. So this is not a perfection thing where we plan this whole long day and everything's amazing and yeah we went to the spa that day and you know these I always say the grand reveal. No, that's not what we're asking for. It's not about perfection. We want things where you can routinely put these things in. Where you can repeat them, where you can practice, where you can iterate on it. So this is going to take time for you to figure out. I want to go through a few examples here, but I know that there are so many more out there. I would love to hear from you. Let me know, what are your favorite versions of REST? I know I've made a video on this a little while back on social, and people had so many amazing ideas. And it's just phenomenal when you start to hear people's ideas, and you think, oh my gosh, my version of REST was so limited what I thought. And then I'll hear, for example, they'll have A party where everybody comes together and makes different cupcakes and I'm like oh that sounds really fun and so you get all these different ideas here are my versions of rest. Walking. Walking for me is a time when I don't care what mood or what is going on for me. I notice about 30 40 minutes in I'm a whole different person. I just come down 3 4 stress points. So for me, that's why the end of winter gets really hard because we've been dealing for a long time then with shorter days and the inability if it's very cold where I live to go outside and do long walks and that really starts to impact me. And it doesn't matter how much you use a walking pad, a treadmill, a high school walking track, it just starts to get to you because walking is really a way that its rest for me. And especially also because I pair that with talking to my friends. So that okay, that is rest for me now other people might feel like that's a lot of energy for them And that's actually a workout and that's something that you have to kind of gear yourself up for and you wouldn't qualify it as rest That's fine. We're all different Another example for me is coloring. So I know I've talked a lot about this these adult coloring books, you know, cutesy comforty Cats, hot chocolate pictures, whatever it is. And I have a nice set of these alcohol markers and I just, I'm not worried about perfection. I'm not trying to make it the cutest thing in the world. It just turns my brain off and I'm thinking, what color, where do I put this? And I'm just in a different zone. And that's been incredible. I've been doing that about four months now and I see that really sticking around and I think why did I not? I I know I know why I didn't come to this sooner because before I was always seeing the really intricate adult coloring books and I was seeing pencils the the colored pencils and I don't like that. I really like the the um, the sort of bleeding alcohol markers, right? Where it's like very easy to cover big Amounts of space. And so I just realized like wow, I just didn't realize that all this was available, right? So and obviously we live in a different world now where you can see, you know Things go viral all the time on social and you get different ideas, right? But so coloring is a newer thing for me For me another form of rest if my kid is in the right mood. It can be playing with him I'm not talking about a rambunctious play But if he, like right now, he's been really liking to play the game Sasquatch. It's in Apple Arcade and it's this little character that goes around and takes food from different campsites and goes and drives a car in a town and so the whole thing, like, and this little character can take food from the fridges of the restaurants but then has to sit down and eat every so often. So it's just this cute little game and he wants me to play it and him to watch and he's always laughing and thinks, oh this and that. So that can be restful because we're, we're connecting, we're talking. He loves it. Okay. That can be, that can be something like that for me. Other things that are The highest form of rest. This I think is at the pinnacle. It's listening to podcasts. Listening to podcasts and audiobooks. I have so many podcasts where I subscribe to the premium versions of them. So for example, some of them are Esther Perel, she has several podcasts, she's a therapist, and her, just the conversations are phenomenal, and I love hearing additional content, so I subscribe to hers, and another one, for example, The Pitch, they have behind the scenes where they have the episodes where they're unedited, so this is where people are pitching a show to venture capital, capital firms, and they have to present their company, and it's just really interesting to hear all of this. When the episode gets edited, it might be 20, 30 minutes, but they might have actually spoken an hour, and I find that you learn so much from the behind the scenes that gets taken out. You hear these little sounds. side comments that sometimes a small side comment makes all the difference in your life. And the producer had to make the decision to take that out and cut it out, but it's actually incredible what's being shared. So I love listening to all this. It's probably why we now, we're going to have seasons a few times a year of premium episodes that will drop because I know that there's additional stuff I want to share, but it just doesn't have a place on the regular podcast. So by the way, that will be out by the time you hear this. So if you're wanting to. To get the premium season one for this podcast. We'll make sure that you have the link for that and it's a 12 episode drop. So a lot of fan mail, a lot of behind the scenes. I definitely talk about my journey. Someone asked specifically, okay, why was it that you changed from semi glutide Wacovi to Zep And then what else did you add to that? And again, I just sometimes. You don't necessarily want to share every single thing on a main podcast, but that's definitely, uh, on the, the premium one if you want to listen to that. But the point is for me listening to podcasts, super privilege. I love it. I'm in another world. There's so many that I listen to weekly and they have actually a very special place for me. Some of them will get paired with my walk. Some of them I might listen to if I'm doing certain work where You know, it's like I've got to get it done, but I don't need to focus too hard on it. That might be a time when I bring it in. So it, it's not even that I'm not working sometimes, but listening to that is so incredibly helpful. So those are just some of my examples. Oh, and I want to throw in there too, sitting in silence. I can't tell you. how, underrated this is. Uh, sometimes, for example, even if I'm picking up my stepdaughter from, from theater practice, right? I just will not play something the five minutes there and the five minutes back. And listening to silence, again, you're driving, but it's rest. That's the thing I want to impart on you is you need to search your life for What are things that I can do where I get rejuvenated with this? And, and I know you just heard me say, well, I love podcasts. But the reality is I also love when there's silence. I can hear my own thoughts. I can process things. Different stuff happens. So what I want you to get out of today's episode is that We need you to cultivate rest just as much as you cultivate this taskmaster side of you where you're deciding every day. Do I do a walk? What do I do with my protein, my fiber, my exercise? That's all amazing and great. I need the rest part to show up as well. Because if you're not regulating that, your nervous system is completely jacked up. Your stress hormones are through the roof and you will hit more. Fat loss plateaus. You will struggle more. You can never figure out why emotional eating is constantly showing up. It doesn't matter sometimes how much we plan and prep and do your veggies and all the things when you are stressed out all the time. And you don't need to quit your job. You don't need to do anything radical. We need to start to find Honestly, a lot of it's gratitude within, within your life. But even if you're going through a hard time, we need to start to find opportunities where we can give you back some of that rest. So hopefully today you got a few ideas for this. I would love to hear what are the ways that you like to rest the most. And I'll see if we can share a little bit of that in a future episode once we sort of compile a few more ideas from everybody. But I hope that you are having an amazing rest of the week here. If you're listening to this on a Monday, See if you can get some rest in this week. It matters. The last thing I want to leave you with here, if you're listening to this, when this episode airs, this is the time when we are enrolling for the April 30, 30 program. I have to tell you that. April round is going to be action packed. So we've made a lot of changes to number one, how the calls are done. So I used to do them on a Monday night, and I'm not saying in future rounds, we won't get back to that. So every round we might have different call times and different things, because I'm always trying to accommodate different people in different needs. But this round, we're going to have Sunday sort of reset and planning calls. They're going to occur on Sunday mornings at 11 a. m. Eastern. So I picked that time because some people, if they're Pacific, that won't be too early in the morning for them. And Those calls, we're going to really get together. The workbook has been entirely redone for the April round. And so there's a lot more of sort of doing a brain dump for the week and thinking about, okay, how do I want to approach veggies and protein and, and movement? You know, all these different things that we talk about in the program. So we'll sort of do a guided thinking through that. planning different things for the week. And I find that there has to be this period where you get your brain on board for what you're gonna do the rest of the week. So we're actually gonna do that together on Sunday. And the reason that I did that is that some people do best with what's called body doubling which is when you're doing it together. I know I for sure am one of these. And so If you do better when you're doing stuff with people, you're going to have that opportunity on the Sunday calls with me to do that. And I'm literally gonna be doing my planning right along with you. And then you'll also have time if you need to go to the grocery store that day, you need to bring the things in the house. Again, you can also ask questions, all that. So it'll be a really nice sort of group time to get together, reset and plan for the week. And then we're going to meet. Every Thursday night at 6 p. m. Eastern and that's gonna be sort of our midweek check in if you would. How is the week going? What's been working? What's not? We troubleshoot through things. Again, there's always topics each week where there's videos within the course site that we might talk about that stuff, but a lot of the time natural topics or things that aren't working for people come up, and so we'll go through that. The other thing that's been added into this round, I'm really excited that Dr. Ali Novitski, she's going to come in for a Q& A call. It's really going to be everything about nutrition and fitness. I also have, again, I absolutely love, we have a therapist, Amy, that is absolutely incredible. She did two different topics in the past round and she's coming in for some different ones this time and they are really upbeat this time and they're really exciting topics. And I have to tell you, if you have not worked with Amy before, she has the. best energy. She is someone where you are just going to want to sit in the session and just take on her calm presence. She is absolutely the best. I cannot speak highly enough of Amy. So she's going to run two sessions and then. Also, as a bonus, when you come into this program, you get to attend the two, the monthly question and answer calls that I do. It's within my mini course. And so you will get to attend that as well. You can ask questions in there. We always send the week before, a document. We say, Hey, do you have any questions for me? So again, all of that is happening in there and I'm sure I'm yes. And then also within my clinic. Brooke Simonson from the Health Investment. She comes in once a month and does a nutrition call. And again, you get access to that as well. So a lot of the time when you do my program, you get access to a lot of things. Oh, and I'm so glad I'm mentioning this right now. You also get free access to season one of the premium podcast. So that is a lot that's happening. That's in this April round. Every single round we have different calls, different structure. There's always a different energy based on who signs up and what we do. So if that's something you've been looking forward to, make sure you sign up. We do limit the spots. So once they're gone, we take down the checkout page. So if you've been thinking about it, hop on it. We are having a few more enrollments this time just because I know that we're going to have more calls and so I know that we can handle if there's a few more people because I want you to know if you join this program, by the way, And everyone will say, hopefully, everyone will say this that's done the programs before. I do not do calls where everyone's muted, video off, there's no engagement. You're like, you don't even know who's in the group. This is something where you get to know people are sharing. It's really, deep stuff that we're talking about. I don't know in other groups where we're talking about these type of challenges with health and body image. I don't know where it exists. That's the reason I created the group. And so, yes, we're working on protein and fiber and the diversity of the foods reading and all those things. But at the end of the day, everything else is getting in the way. How do you do new habits? One of the things that I love this round. People were so busy at times and they said, but I got a five minute walk and it's so inspirational. You are going to be so inspired by the WhatsApp group. That's another thing that you can get support anytime in there. I'm trying to think if I missed anything else. I'm sure I did. We have, we have it all on the page if you want to check it out. So we'll make sure to have the link in the show notes for this. So if you've been thinking about it, that we're going to have the April round and then the only other time we're going to do it this year is going to be September. And I always reserve the right, by the way, if I find my energy is lower, it's not great timing. I can't ever guarantee that there's going to be the next time in the year, but at least for now we know that April is happening. likely September. But again don't count on that. If that is something that you know, you're thinking, I want to do it at some point, but don't know when I would do this April round. So it is technically a six week course, but really ends up being two months, like an eight week course by the time we do a welcome call a week before all this starts, because there is so much going on in this program. You need to be oriented to all of it before it starts. So once you have that orientation, then we start the week later so that When we're in week one, you hit the ground running. You're not like, I don't know where stuff is. I don't know what to do. Also, let me say this. There's no getting behind. So there's this fallacy that people think, Oh my gosh, I'm busy and I couldn't make this call or that call. You get months afterward to listen to the replays. Again, it's not like unlimited lifetime, but you know, if you're not going to get in and do it at some point, you're not going to do it. So we need to motivate you to actually get through it. But the calls go up literally right after the call because Those replays because we know that if you are not staying on top of it You're just you're not gonna end up consuming or you're not gonna end up doing it And my thing is really you commit to yourself We were I'm really big into this when the program starts that you say I have joined this I have invested in this and I'm gonna get What I need out of this and that means from minute one you have to care about it It can't be like three weeks in but there's no getting behind We're super supportive and honestly part of it is realizing that Sometimes the best times to do these things are when you're really busy and when you're really stressed out That's when we have to help you with what what can we do so that you can find some rest that you can find some protection so that you can prioritize yourself again. So if you've been thinking about the April 30 round, I would definitely jump on that. The reason we enroll so soon, it's because It takes about two weeks when we order the workbook to be mailed to and so we can't, I think I said that people that sign up before March 14th will get that mailed to them. If you sign up after that day then you'll have the digital copy of it, but it's really nice to get it. Printed in front of you because we're going to truly I mean literally on the Sunday call We're going to be opening that up and using it So that's something that we want to have enough time to confirm with you your shipping address to be able to ship it to you And it's just really nice to have something in hand. There's a lot of good nutrition information and and everything like that so All right. I didn't realize I was going to talk that long about it, but I wanted to make sure that you knew about it. I hope that you all have a great rest of the week. And if you're thinking about that, we'll make sure to have the link in the show notes for you for the April 30, 30 round. If you wanted to participate in that, have a great rest of the week.