Welcome everybody to the Conquering Chaos podcast . My name is Sydney Crow and I'm your host today , where we are going to balance everything for mums day in and day out . Today we have the amazing guest Alicia , who lives down in Oregon . She is a wife and a mom and a non-diet lifestyle coach .
Speaker 2Alicia welcome to the show . Hi Sydney , thank you so much for having me .
Speaker 1Thank you for being here . Why don't you tell all of our listeners a little bit about yourself and what a non-diet lifestyle coach is ?
Speaker 2Yeah , so , as you alluded , I am a mom . I've got two kids , so my oldest is a sophomore this year in high school and then our son is a seventh grader . We do live in Oregon , we're in the beautiful Willamette Valley , but this time of year it's a little rainy , as I was kind of sharing with you before . So we've lived in Oregon pretty much my entire life , our entire marriage . We are what I would consider kind of a part-time military family . So my husband has a civilian job , but he's also in the military , in the National Guard , and so that kind of adds to just sort of the normal chaos that happens within a normal family structure .
Speaker 2In terms of what I do as a non-diet lifestyle coach , I really center my work on helping women feel better in their bodies , feel more confident , take better care of themselves . I think any mom can attest especially if you're also kind of trying to juggle a business or a career outside of the home that we oftentimes are last on the to-do list , if even at all . And so the non-diet approach really is about helping you heal your relationship to food , to exercise your body , but at the end of the day it's yourself . So it's approaching health and wellness and fitness through a non-diet lens . So it's really about making friends with food , friends with your body , friends with the scale , and truly I think when we take kind of that inside out holistic approach is where we end up finding long-term success in that arena .
Speaker 1I love that and I love that you are taking like a whole approach to this . It's not just , you know , fitness or diet . You are really looking at wellness for moms overall . We know a lot of that in common and I don't know about you , but my journey started with me going through it and then realizing that I wasn't on my list , and so how did you get into this space ? Was it a similar journey ? It ?
Speaker 2was . For me , it actually started a number of years Well , I was gonna say a number of years before I became a mom , but I actually think I got pregnant on our wedding night . So my fitness journey happened about nine months or maybe a year before I became a mom , but at the time I was actually working behind the chair as a hairstylist and we were getting married , you know July of 2007 . And , like most women , I was like , oh , I wanna feel good going down the aisle , I wanna look good and of course , I had , you know , a specific number on this scale , a specific way that I thought my body needed to look . And that was really , for me , the first time that I had embarked on any sort of like a weight loss journey and actually had success . And so for me , that year , working on , you know , losing weight or getting in shape , however you wanna describe it for the wedding , I learned how to stay consistent with a workout program .
Speaker 2At the time I was running , so I started training , you know , for a 5K and then did some 10Ks and things of that nature . I learned how to start kind of navigating nutrition in a way that really made sense , that didn't feel like a diet at the time , and so for me it was kind of it was through my own journey in this and feeling noticing how I was starting to feel differently about myself based on the way that I was treating myself through working out , through being a little bit more , I think , careful , cautious or intentional about how I was eating , and I just was like man . I want to bottle this up , I want to give other women the same kind of a feeling . Now , what I didn't realize is that , you know , for a number of years , while I would maintain the specific weight loss , it really kind of started to come out of toll to my mental and my emotional health , which is really where kind of the non diet approach to food and fitness kind of kicked in for me .
Speaker 1I love that , and so how did you start to implement more of a emotional and mental wellness into your program after the ?
Speaker 2Yeah , so , like I said , you know , back in 2007 was the first time that I was able to lose and maintain weight loss , and I had maintained a lower weight for about 10 years but really started to notice that food was kind of all I was thinking about . It felt like I was in this constant struggle with my body to keep my weight down and it just felt really heavy and hard . And at this point I had transitioned out of working behind the chair as a stylist . I actually went back to school , got my degree in exercise science , studied nutrition , studied behavior change . You know I felt like gosh . I have a really solid education and foundation in this .
Speaker 2Why does it still feel so hard ? And for me , with you know my faith and my belief system , I just remember distinctly standing in the kitchen in a bikini or something , taking before pictures again and feeling super deflated , super discouraged , super defeated and just really feeling , I think , a lot of shame and heaviness around . Why do I keep messing up ? Why ? Why do I keep failing at this ? Or why does it feel like I'm always having to work so hard ? And I feel like it was , you know , the whisper of the Holy Spirit , but it was that still small voice inside that was like it's because you've been dieting this whole time and calling it a lifestyle , and that , for me , really stopped me in my tracks and it was from .
Speaker 2There is where I started to kind of look at not necessarily the actions of what I was doing , but really like , what was that head and heart space that I was coming from ? And that , for me , was when I noticed , you know , it really isn't about what we're doing , but it's about kind of the why and how that we're approaching things . And so that kind of sparked me to start to look at , you know , okay , what is this ? That was when I first learned even about diet culture and the anti diet movement and looked into intuitive eating and health at every size . And while I used some of the intuitive eating principles and there are definitely some aspects of health at every size I think now I'm kind of saying , you know , there might also be some issues , you know , if we go to the extreme in the other direction . But that really was kind of the catalyst for me to start looking at , you know , eating and exercising and just a general healthy lifestyle , without the pressure that dieting and approaching it from that diet mentality puts on us .
Speaker 1Well , I got chills there .
Speaker 1Like you , I could really feel that moment that you described , where you were able to hear that voice or the Holy Spirit , and just go full in on to what your beliefs and change the mentality around this , because I think it's a really important conversation .
Speaker 1I mean , we have these societal pressures where we have to look a certain way and , along with the specific number on the scale and a certain way of eating and all of these other things , and when we start to feel like we are just chasing that perpetual carrot for a lack of a better term you're just running on that cycle , right , and it's exhausting and it's mentally draining and it's emotionally tolling , right . So kudos for you for leaning into that and hearing that voice and changing the conversation around this , because I think it's really important that we learn how to live with intention around how we feel about ourselves . It's a one size fits all , but there's definitely , you know , extremes on both ends of that for sure . So you mentioned earlier that you love to help women find balance and self-care . How does that play a role for you ?
Speaker 2In my business or for myself and just life , yeah , yeah . So I think I mean probably not by fluke I tend to work with a lot of women that I can identify with on some deep level , right .
So we tend to be kind of the high achieving women . You know , we want to have it all , we want to do it all very independent , very strong , strong willed , right , and sometimes , you know , we place that burden of perfectionism on ourselves of you know , I have to do it perfectly , I have to , and , kind of like you alluded to , I have to conform or I have to meet the certain societal or familial right . It could be sort of these expectations that have been passed down or that we saw in our own families of origin . And so a lot of times the women that I'm working with come and they are burning the candle at just about every which way , which angle that they can , feeling drained , feeling exhausted , feeling super depleted , feeling like their life is just kind of chaotic and sprinting from one thing to the next . And they recognize , you know , I want to take better care of myself . A lot of times , initially that does start with I feel like I want to lose some weight . I want to lose , you know , 10 , 20 , 50 pounds . But when we really start to kind of dive in , it's like well , what's underneath that number for you ? And you know it's . I want to have energy to , to play with my kids . Or some of my clients are even thinking , you know , when I'm a grandma , like I want to be able to still be active . You know I want to feel like I'm doing things well between balancing my career , taking care of my family , and right now I feel like the things that really matter to me are kind of slipping through the cracks .
Speaker 2So I think initially it's important to kind of take a pulse or get a baseline of where you're at right . So there's a super simple tool . You can Google it just even using something as simple as like a life wheel right where you put kind of your key areas of life in each little segment and you give it an honest assessment . So a lot of times that's on a scale of one to 10 , one is it feels totally depleted . Nothing is going right . Tennis man , I feel like everything in this area of my life is going really well . I don't really know what else would make it even better . So just taking a baseline assessment in the key areas . A lot of times I'll have people focus on their family , maybe their marriage relationship , if they have that , if they have a career or a field that they're working in , their fitness or their personal health , maybe your spiritual health , your mental health , your emotional health . You could even look at things like finances . So you really can kind of customize that to like what are the most important areas for you . But you just wanna get a snapshot of here's where I'm at in each of these areas .
Speaker 2If you wanna take it a layer further , then I would ask some prompting questions of what makes it this number for you . What would make it a 10, ? Right ? Because a lot of times we're very ambiguous in our brains where it's like , oh , the week was good or oh , yeah , yesterday was horrible . And then when you really start to dive in and you're like , okay , well , what made this good ? We can capitalize on that , we can actually do more of what's working and what is making it feel like it's a successful area of your life , and then when we ask , well , what would make it a 10 , then that's gonna give your brain , it's gonna help it kind of fill in the gaps from where you are to where you wanna be . So again you have a more clear picture of what to work toward After you have kind of that baseline assessment .
Speaker 2I would say , you know , start on the area that maybe feels like the lowest hanging fruit , the area that sort of feels the easiest and the area that also might feel the most depleted .
Speaker 2So sometimes those are the same , sometimes it's a little bit different , but then we just wanna start working on kind of one area at a time .
Speaker 2And for me , how I saw this play out was I felt , like you know , when I did a life wheel kind of around that time that I was describing , you know , my fitness felt like it was a 10 . It was like , yeah , like I didn't really feel like there was anything that I wanted to change . But when I looked at everything else I could see how it was sort of unbalanced , like there was so much of my energy kind of going to this specific area and that really was like okay , like we , what's like the minimum I have to do to kind of keep this area feeling like a 10 or a nine ? That will allow me to kind of pull some of that energy , attention , focus and put it into these other areas . So yeah , that's where I think it's great to have kind of that initial baseline know for yourself what would make it a 10 , what's already working , and then kind of go from there to figure out what specific area to work on next .
Speaker 1I love that and I love doing those wheel of life assessments about every quarter just to kind of see where I'm improving , where I'm maybe falling a little short for myself and just really dial in that focus for the next quarter . So really great advice . What's one thing that you do personally to find more balance in your life between career and family ? I mean having two kids it's busy . I have two kids myself , so I understand the demands of all the things . So what's one thing that you do personally ?
Speaker 2Well , the first thing that comes to my mind is that I feel like over the last few years , kind of I mean , slipping sounds potentially bad but being a little bit more relaxed when it comes to the house .
Speaker 2So I think that was one thing that used to really stress me out , as it was like I would get done with a long day of work and then felt like , oh my gosh , I have to get the house nice and clean before everybody got home , and I love having a clean house . Thankfully , my kids are at the age where they can be easily influenced to do the housekeeping for me for a small housekeeping fee . So I'm thankful
for that . But I think , just looking at what are the areas that I'm kind of stressing myself out about that , in the grand scheme of things , aren't really that big of a deal , right ? It's like if me stressing out over having a clean house is keeping me from really connecting with my kids or connecting with my husband , or being short and being snippy and being impatient , then what I've learned is that it might be okay to let the house be a little bit messier and really have more of that connection in that relationship with the kids .
Speaker 1I love that there's a saying it's not going to matter in five years and it's not worth spending five minutes on , and I agree .
Speaker 1I mean , obviously we all need to have a clean living environment , but it's not going to be in five years if you let the dishes sit in the sink for an extra day or whatever it is , or an extra hour . So yeah , spending that quality time with the kids , especially as they're getting older . I mean it's for me and my kids are eight and 10 now and I just I look back at how much time I kind of wished away while I was in that survival mode and I'm like I would almost give anything to go back and just redo it with the mental capacity that I have now . So having that quality time with them is really , really important . You touched on dropping the unspoken expectation of perfectionism . Have you noticed that in other areas of your life or do you just kind of notice it in the housekeeping day to day ?
Speaker 2No , I mean , I think I think I notice it in a lot of areas now and I would guess that probably the first place that I really started to challenge and question these was when it came to my body and what weight I thought that I should have been .
Speaker 2I would say , you know , that really was kind of the beginning of a huge transformation in my life in terms of really just looking at , okay , what are kind of those unspoken expectations that I've just been maybe subconsciously living by , that have gone unchecked , unchallenged , that don't really matter to me in the grand scheme of things , and so for me it really was .
Speaker 2You know , okay , society says that my body should look like this and that , you know , my body shouldn't necessarily change after I have kids , that I should be able to bounce right back and get right back into shape . And I do know , for myself , between our daughter and our son , I did kind of have that goal of , like , I'm going to be in better shape after every pregnancy , and I think there are maybe some good aspects to that in the sense of like wanting to like stay healthy , stay active , stay taking care of myself . I think , probably , like if I were to reflect back and some honesty and transparency . The motives there were probably , you know , maybe a little bit more vain than I care about now . So , yeah , I think that was kind of the first place that I started to really question and sort of push back .
Speaker 1I love that . The last thing I want to talk about is you mentioned that being strong willed is a gift . Can you talk to us about that ?
Speaker 2Yeah , so I do think that strong , being strong willed now , of course , raising two kids I probably would challenge that idea that it's a gift , just because it definitely tries my patience from time to time . But I think when I look at myself as being strong willed , that lends itself to a lot of tenacity and a lot of resilience . Right , I think it's about knowing what is maybe like the right or the healthy things to be strong willed on , and also knowing sort of when to yield and when to surrender , which is definitely a little bit more of where my growth is coming from . I think when I look back at how I was raised , it's so easy for me to see like how I developed a lot of that strong willed nature . It was probably in part , a little bit of a survival mechanism , but I do also think that we're kind of born with it . But being strong willed for me it really it's kind of like you know when you get a vision or you have a goal or you set your sights on something , like there is a lot of fight to kind of keep you going until you get there , and so I think it really it's a gift when we know when to use it and it's not always kind of pushing and fighting for those things Like sometimes being strong willed does also have us kind of yielding to things outside of our control so that we don't break .
Speaker 2I think about an image that comes often and it's about the trees that are able to withstand the hurricanes . They're not necessarily the strongest or the most rigid , they're the ones that know when and how to kind of bend and yield to the wind without breaking . So I think for me that's been a really good image when I think about being strong-willed . They're still strength and they're still structure and whatnot in those trees , but they also can kind of go with the flow and go with the storms that life throws at them and they don't break entirely .
Speaker 1I love that . That's such a powerful image that you shared . You know , having a strong-willed blessing , as I call my daughter myself , it does inspire your patience , but I have hopes that it will serve her well in the future and , like you mentioned , just allow her to be able to bend and have strength when needed . And , yeah , that's a really powerful way to look at it . So thank you for sharing that . If there is any last encouragement for moms that you would like to share , I'd love to hear it .
Speaker 2I mean , I think it's something that you sort of alluded to a few minutes ago I remember when my kids were so young and I think you know I was putting so much pressure on myself to get through school , to get a career off the ground . And I do sometimes look back
. I have very few things that I feel like I regret , but I do think sometimes it is that maybe I didn't slow down more to really savor those moments and I know if you're in the thick of it right now you probably want to punch me because you're like I'm so exhausted , I'm so drained , but it really won't last forever and so I think finding kind of those silver lining , lovely moments , even when you are feeling drained and exhausted For me , you know , it was savoring the times that my kids would fall asleep on my lap or you know just those sweet little moments and continue to look for those as they get older . One thing that really kind of helped me is seeing that when our kids are little it's so much more physically draining and exhausting , and then somewhere along the lines it becomes less physically draining and maybe a little bit more mentally and emotionally exhausting , which is where I feel like we're at in our parenting with teenagers .
Speaker 2But just be intentional . Think about , you know , at the end of your life or when your kids are grown up and out of the house , what's the story that you want them to remember ? What's the story that you want them to tell their kids about how they were raised and then just spend every day , you know , trying to be as intentional as you can , taking the breaks when you need it . You know , have those good mom friends and don't be too hard on yourself , don't beat yourself up . Know that you're doing the best that you can and every day you can probably aim to do a little bit better .
Speaker 1I love that so much . Thank you for being here on the show . I will make sure that everybody knows where to find you in the links below the episode and I just really appreciate you sharing all of your insight on the non diet culture and parenting and strong little blessings . I really appreciate you being here . So this is sitting crow . Signing off will help you conquer the chaos one day at a time .