Marriage, Parenting & Fighting Fair: How We Balance Two Careers & Talk to Our Daughter About Food

Balancing Life, Fitness, and Family with Anne & her husband, Matt

In this special Valentine's Day episode of the Muscles and Mindset Revolution podcast, host Anne Jones welcomes her husband Matt, a full-time police officer & Emergency Response Team member, to discuss their journey as a couple.

They share humorous anecdotes about how they met, insights into their relationship dynamics, and how they manage life with Anne's busy business and Matt's shift work. The couple also delve into their different eating habits, navigating diet culture as parents, and how they stay active and balanced.

Matt offers a candid and honest look into his job in law enforcement, how it affects him, and how he manages to keep work and home life separate.

Tune in for practical advice on building a strong relationship while juggling careers, parenting, and personal growth.

00:00 Welcome to the Muscles and Mindset Revolution
00:30 Meet My Husband, Matt
01:03 How We Met
03:16 Navigating Life as a Team
07:04 The Challenges of Shift Work and Parenting
10:01 Mastering Conflict Resolution
15:42 Balancing Life with Shift Work
19:42 Balancing Work and Parenting
20:05 Managing Shift Work
21:08 Meal Planning and Food Prep
22:10 Diet and Eating Habits
24:37 Family Meals and Eating Together
30:26 Navigating Diet Culture
35:59 Work-Life Balance and Job Satisfaction
39:22 Conclusion and Final Thoughts

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Transcript

0:00

Welcome to the muscles and mindset revolution. The podcast for ambitious women who want to build strength feel confident AF, and lose fat for good, without counting calories, endless cardio or BS quick fixes. I'm your host certified life coach, personal trainer and mindset expert, Anne Jones. After 15 plus years in the fitness industry, I know the real key to lasting change isn't just what you do. It's how you think. If you're ready to shift your mindset, build a lifestyle you love and feel confident AF you're in the right place. Let's dive in. For those of you who are listening on audio, my husband's head is sneaking sideways into the frame here. This is my guest. Matt Horsfield if you're new to the podcast. Welcome. And if you're returning, thanks for coming back. So to celebrate Valentine's day today's guest is my lovely husband, Matt we have done lives before that are always requested back by popular demand. So we're doing the podcast together today. You're welcome. Hello? Hi. So the first question people have is how we met. Do you want to tell this story or do you want me to tell the story? Sure. Do I have a time crunch or. No, you just go for it. I was working up in the frozen north of British Columbia. And Anne was working as a newspaper reporter up there. And she decided she was going to do a story about my coworkers and I guess, well, I guess my job. And so she did a ride along with one of my colleagues and I met her. She came into the office. Tried to take me away from my important typing. You thought I was rude. Because I waved at you instead of turning around. Yeah. When I first came in. And this person introduced me to him. He didn't even turn around just like. I was busy. I was typing away. So I didn't care about you, but then you came back in and you were like, oh, you guys are going for coffee. Maybe I'll come. But I didn't think that had anything to do with me. There you go. When the guys went for coffee later on, she was at the coffee. I went there as well. She kicked me a bunch of times in the leg. Under the table. I assume on purpose. after that you sought me out and started dating me. I'm pretty sure that's the main bullet points. Most of that is accurate. I was under the impression that you came for coffee because I was going or no, I was not. No, it was because you were there. Sure. And then what actually happened after that? Cause I didn't seek you out really. Did I, did we have text messages yet? Was there texting or did I phone you? I think we had texting, but you did phone me cause I was at work at the newspaper office and I remember taking the call outside and I was like taken aback by how deep your voice was. I remember that vividly. I was like, oh my God. But I think that's your way of saying that you then asked me out. Yeah, I think so. We went for coffee and then they went back to your office or something. I don't remember. that was a long time ago. I agree with the most of that. I think that you told that the most accurately you ever have? Probably, I don't know what I normally change that you would think was inaccurate. I feel like you leave out some of the details about how really, like you were interested in me. Yes. Very much so. Yes. Okay. The rest is history. And then we were. Okay, how do we operate as a team? I don't know. I don't think we've ever really structured it. I mean, We're relationship as a team. Because yeah, I think we operated as a team when we didn't have a kid, we operate as a team, more so now that we have a kid. I feel like we have grown in this though, and I can kind of think of the timeline. Do you want to hear what I think? Sure. I think that when we were young. So I'm thinking of like, when we were super young and we lived in Fort Nelson, it was like, We don't really have any responsibilities. But then when we first moved to the lower mainland, you were working a lot and you were gone a lot. I feel like that was a harder period in our relationship. If you recall, I think it was challenging because you were gone a lot. Sometimes you were overseas. I couldn't even talk to you. So I think at that time, and I wasn't working as much, so I took on more of the just running of the house. But I do remember one thing that I learned at that time, Was we would fight a lot when you would come home from traveling. Cause I hadn't seen you for days and then I hadn't been able to talk to you and I would be like, you can come in the door, jet lagged, and then I'd be like, Hey, I need you to like this and this and this. And it always caused a fight. Right. So I think that was one of the first things that I learned was; I started a policy. And I think I shared this with you at that time was just to not bring you anything that night, like to give it a day. And that really helped. One thing that I learned, this is also when I started going to therapy and one super annoying thing that my psychologist shared with me that. I always come back to is, and I have heard this from clients all the time that it's like, he didn't X, Y Zed, or he just didn't like, he didn't do this. And I remember my psychologist saying like, You mean, he didn't do it the way that you would have done it. And that was really big for me is to recognize. That you are not me. And we do things differently. Yeah, I think our dynamic from living together in Fort Nelson changed a lot when we went to the lower mainland because I was gone so much that it almost like we pretty much became like, Dating people who sporadically lived together. Yeah. Which put a lot of burden on you because we still had to pay for our hosts and do all the logistics of housing. And I was away so much. It was like I would come home and be home for a few days, but then I'd be gone. And like we had to like separate lives. And at the same time, like you were doing schooling. A lot of schooling and stuff and doing all your, your Zumba and stuff like that. And I was away. So even when I was home, you'd be gone a lot of the time at work or doing something. So we didn't really have to work as a team because they're so separately, we have so much time to ourselves all the time that there was like, whatever we wanted to do, we were basically doing. And the other stuff, unfortunately just kind of fell on you because I was home very limited time. And the first day I was home in variably was a gong show. Yeah. Cause I was wrecked. I'm leaving at school too. And then kind of like 2015 when I was done school. And you started working on. ERT. I feel like we felt a little bit more into a rhythm because your schedule is more regular. I created my own schedule. We were both very busy, but I think that's when we got into more of that, You know, I went to trader Joe's. You made pizza on Fridays. You started doing the Costco shop cause like you were around more. I think that's where we fell into our division of labour. Our life stabilized a lot more because yeah, a hundred percent Once I was home all the time, we started to kind of figure out things. I don't think it was as challenging as it was going to get, because we still had an abundance of free time. It was very easy to demarcate. Things a little more clearly. And a little easier. It was much more consistent. You still did the lion share of house logistics, but then you started cooking more. I took over more of the physical operations of the home, wheras you did all the money logistics. And then once we had Sophie, I didn't get maternity leave of any kind. So you took paternity leave, which was great. We went through figuring it out again then because it's like, One person is at work and has expectations of this person who's at home. I wanted to come home to like a clean house and a happy baby at a home cooked meal. And usually I did, I was gonna say, I think, I think it was just another like relearning and then you went back to work and then it all changed again. My life just disappeared. Although it was like, so like my, when we had Sophie. Like it was not a transition. It was like an instant. The time, my time was gone. Like no more. Never again was I like spending hours. Like playing video games or like going out and being away for eight hours, like leaving to go the range out in mission. Drive an hour and go shoot for like four hours. I wasn't gone for six hours from the house. Like it was a pretty much a night and day switch for me. You had a little harder to keep going to work. But yeah, I think we fell into those roles without a lot of friction. And then by the time we moved here, we were in a pretty routine, like it was pretty smooth. I think. Like having a toddler and then both of us were working full time. I had started my business. And then we went through another tough transition when we moved here, which was really hard for both of us. Sophie was three. And then that's when you returned to shift work, which was one of the questions that we had, which was another tricky transition. Probably one of the hardest ones actually. Toddler, my business was growing. You were here working shift work, and then half the time you were on the island doing ERT stuff. So fully away for at least a week, a month, like fully away, away, away. I'm single parenting, which I'm now quite used to. But it was a lot in the beginning and this was like a new place and this house had a lot of things and that was really, really hard. That caused some tension between you and I, which was mostly individually about us, but we figured it out. I think our transition friction was predominantly individual. It just was a storm over here, a storm over here. And they were just whacking to each other here and there. So that was the main parts of it. I was probably the larger hurricane. Yes. Your piece out of the way, That forced me to learn how to be independent of you, like be here for you and not Take on your storm. Which. I needed to learn. Spoiler alert, shift work sucks. Yeah I just hate it. Yeah. I mean, we are used to now, but oh gosh. Yeah, I really do hate it. If those probably the hardest. That's probably worse than the flying. shift work is worse. I don't know. It's hard to say, but I don't think it's, I don't like it. Well, I mean, we couldn't do the flying these days with a kid probably, but I mean, people do it but yeah. one thing that I wanted to touch on with something that you brought up recently, when we're discussing someone else, and you said that we have practiced fighting. Like we've got it down, which I remember hearing when I was younger, like, why would you, but I totally get it now. that's a big topic. Like we have two very different conflict styles. Yeah. Informed by; me, my job. Yeah. And you, I guess your upbringing or just how you've, you've moved to deal with things. I think our styles of conflict came into alignment. That is what resolved. It sounds like we're fighting all the time, which we don't. but we almost never fight now. And when we do, it's done in like 10 minutes. I think that's the biggest thing. It's like, we bounce back so much faster, which, and I've talked to lots of my girlfriends about this too, is like when you're young and you're in your twenties and you're so dumb, everything is like so dramatic. It's like so explosive and such a big deal. And it goes on all night. And in the past several years, it's like, First of all, we fight way less. And when we do, we are generally on the same team and it wraps up like pretty quick, because yeah, I think that we've practiced. And let's just say what it is when you're saying we have two different conflict styles or fighting style, yours is to compartmentalize. You want to leave the situation. How do I say this without sounding judgey. I don't want to be like the people I deal with. So I hate drama and I hate everything I see has taught me or at least I get the impression, if you just leave, like just don't be in that situation that situation's not going to occur. So yes, I want to. I prefer to just leave and separate from the situation. Whereas yeah, you're really, you really want to hash it out, which is funny because a lot of the people I've talked to, a lot of my colleagues who I've talked to, like if we get in conversations about like conflict with your spouses, we, all we do are very similar in wanting to like, Nope. I don't want anything to do with this, but it's probably, I suspect that might be a job- related thing. I've gotten better at, I know, I know what pisses you off. Yes. And I've gotten better at not doing that. When we fight. Yeah. And I've gotten better over the years. I mean, it took awhile, but of me communicating that to you. Do I not do anything to contribute to our relationship? You're very aware of what you... I'm the self. You're smiling. I'm self-aware. I'm the one doing all this work, like mindset work. Which I don't think you don't always employ this totally. You are always aware of what you're doing. Well, and we have a, I haven't done this for a long time. I used to have this pattern. Do you know what I'm gonna say? I think so, but we'll see. Yeah, I probably do, but I don't need to explain it before you explain it. My nighttime thing. Yeah. Yeah, I had this pattern of getting, and this was about my anxiety, which if I wasn't self-aware, I wouldn't know. Right. I was just like, he's the worst. This is all because of him. And I would have these sort of like before bed meltdowns, and then, you know, you go to bed and it's like, I need, this is not unique in couples. I'm sure. It's like, I need to talk to you. And then I would be so upset and I would go to bed angry. I'd be very confused. And then I'd wake up in the morning regulated and be like texting, like, oh my God. I'm so sorry. I was like being so crazy last night. Ah, I shouldn't call myself crazy, but that was a pattern that I recognized was about me. Which I nipped in the bud. While you knew it was happening, You just accepted it for awhile. I just was like, I'm going to get beat on for a while. Figuratively. Mostly. Yeah. It's very, it's extremely sporadic these days. I really dealt with my anxiety in the past couple years. Yeah. You're a pro. You take my mindset advice too. You just don't know it. You just absorb it like two years after I employ it. Sure. I feel very solid in our connection and our teamwork now. So I feel confident in saying Not that we're perfect, but that if I were to give some takeaways, It would be to probably practice fighting work on your own shit and your own self-awareness. if you're fighting. Probably think about like, Assume that it was probably based on something you did. Like it was probably your fault for some reason, like for both people to assume that I mean, I always think about like Our fights tend to be, because I don't like the way you bring things to me. But they're generally because of things that I am not rectifying or some failure that I have of like that I was supposed to take action on something or that there's something that I consistently do. And I recognize generally that I'm like, yes, this is something I did. That was wrong. And it part of what makes me annoyed because yeah, it's typically, it's a failure that I committed, which I dislike strongly because I come from a background where like everything on ERT is about accountability. So I hate it. And all ERT guys hate making a mistake. I mean, we get jumped on it a lot worse on ERT than at home. But yes, I recognize it like. It's typically. I think the best takeaway is, think about it. And there's probably something you did that you have to own that you did wrong. I think the reason we fight is because I tend to get upset the way you bring things to me. Sometimes. And I get that. working on it. And you have things that have nothing to do with me. Yeah. I do that spark you too. And I think that I can. You're getting better, but I can only see those things. If I worked on that, I think like I'm saying like clean up your own side of the street. Really. Yeah. Okay. So there was a question about how we balance life with shift, work craziness or something like that. So we addressed it a little bit already, but, Matt works shift work 12 hours, which is usually more like 13. Anyways, and then you're gone also like at least 25% of the time. Gone gone, gone by then. How do we quote unquote balance it? Do you want to go first? No. We don't. Yeah, that's true. there's no balancing. There's what I learned when we did this. And you basically have to surrender to the fact that like, Well, no, I was going to say you surrender the fact that your life is gone. Like, no, it's not. And I don't mean that in a negative way, what's the best way to put this, like, so I have a full-time job takes up 48 hours of my week. Over four days and effectively for, for four days for 24 hour periods, plus I'm gone. My shifts are 12 hours. I'm gone at like, Six in the morning till call it seven 30 or 8:00 PM at night. Like I'm not, not coming back. That day is gone. There'll be a few things I can get done. But mostly I come home. We hang out a little bit. We go to bed. And I do that again. For one more day, then the next day I'm asleep for half the day. I'm up for a bit of it. And I go to sleep to try and get ready to work nights. And I worked 12 hours nights and I'm asleep. I work another 12 hours nights and I sleep. Typically till like noon and I have three and a half days off, basically. While that's happening, you have a full-time job that takes up a whole bunch of your time. Like you're always working, You'll walk on the go. You have a lot on your plate to do. On top of that, we have Sophie, Sophie has five days of school. She has activities. Our time has gone and it's all earmarked. I'll qualify this after, but like you don't get hobbies. Like there's no hobbies, there's no life leftover for that. And that's fine. That's our obligation as parents who both have full-time jobs, if your hobbies are like, I'm lucky photography kind of, if I want to duck away for 20 minutes, 25 minutes and sit on the computer editing photos. That's doable. Like I can, I can leave. I have little periods like that, but I'm not going out. For like multiple hours a day. I'm not going to leave for like a six hour travel out into the Bush to go look for photos. Sometimes I'll qualify it. Yeah, you need me to plan that Early on, which is fine. Like occasionally we can jump away to do that. But our day is full. Like it's pretty earmarked. When I'm working, you take on a whole bunch, like you have to cook, you have to look after Sophie or your mom helps. Which is a benefit, obviously that not a lot of people have, like we have grandparents to help out now that we're here. But basically like when I'm not working. I do everything. That's the household stuff. So that I can You could work. Yeah. Which means making Sophie's lunch, Sophie goes to school. I pick Sophie up from school. She comes home. I spend some time with Sophie that I'm making dinner. So I'm prepping all the food and cooking the food. After that I'm cleaning up the kitchen. We take turns doing teeth time and bedtime with sophie and stuff. But I mean like it's a full day. I pretty much always do drop off school, drop off. You always do pickup when you're here. And then sometimes like, I leave bedtime to you a little bit more when you're here, because when you're not here, you're like not here. No. And I'm doing it. But we manage it because I just accept I mean that's part of being a team. Our choices are we either do that or I come home from being away for a week or I'm on my days off. And I'm like sorry, Anne you get to do everything, but you're making it sound like we don't have any fun. We do for sure, but I tell you this and I whine about this on the regular. we have a whole lot on the go. And the only recourse was if I was a jerk and I was like, no, you're, you're the wife. Like you do it, which I'm not going to do because it's not my style. It's not my attitude. I don't believe that's your role. it seems fair. I'm gone a week a month for training. Otherwise I'm gone for shifts. So I guess we have obligations, I do them when you're working and vice versa. So yeah. I think that's how it works. There are a few things which we can talk about, which. Are probably more influenced by me no, cause you're kind of the food prep guy that make our lives easier. I also think just have to let go of the idea that it's going to be perfect. This is what so many people run into is having two adults to be working full time and parenting, and then to expect all the other things that you're going to do on top of that. I think shift work blows. And. communication You don't manage shift work is basically the answer to it. Like shift work manages you. basically the only option for shift work is one partner is doing everything when the other person is away. And the other partner has got to be prepared to basically take over 99% of the stuff. For the period that they're here. Some families, two parents do shift work. Well, well, then that's a terrible choice. I don't know. That's fine. But now you're doing, it's the same thing. One person is working. I'm assuming they're not doing shifts at the same time. Otherwise they clearly have some sort of separate caregiver. we have hobbies and I go to yoga and you can go out and, if you want to go to that Jitsu summit or whatever, that's cool. Most of my trips are for work. the point is I think that's the nature of having young kids and working. It can be fun, right? It sounds It's not like your life is over to go, jump in the ocean. It's just different. But some things that help is, when we were in the lower mainland and we were both working and Sophie was in daycare, we got really into the swing of this. that's when we really kind of started, like you would do a Costco shop every three weeks. I would go to trader Joe's every three weeks. you would kind of do like a food prep. And then we still kind of do that here. I do more of the meal planning if you're home, you'll cook. So I'm like, what do you want to cook? But put it on a plan if he's not around or I'm doing the cooking then I plan the meals. And I plan the shop and I plan the pickup and then one of us gets the pick up, does a little bit of prep. that makes our life a lot easier. We're pretty practiced at just swapping out for workouts. Like, cause that's a priority to both of us. It's like we did that yesterday. We both want it to work out. And so you were like, I'll do it first And then I did it after, because. That's important to us. I think that's what works for us is like, and I know you don't like the planning piece, the planning piece really works for me, but. You can buy into the prep and I can buy into the planning. And then we're both pretty good at execution. Sure. So speaking of prep, there is a question, I think the question was specifically How do you operate when one of you is on a diet? And the question really was like, do we ever eat differently or how do we manage it? And definitely are we all eating different things? Are we all eating the same thing? So do you want to answer this one? I mean, you have a pretty set way of eating. What. You eat. Chill eater ever. Well, I know. But your way of eating, you eat the same stuff over and over again. So do you. Yes, but my point is you're consistent. Your diet is consistent forever. you don't change things. tell people what I, what all these things are that I apparently eat all the time. So in the morning Anne puts a frying pan on the oven. If we back up about 12 hours, I've cleaned the surface of with soap and water and scrubby. It's very nice.'Cause I cleaned the kitchen. Sometimes I clean it So anyways, you put a frying pan on you put oil on it. Then you put something on the oil, which causes it to splatter and grease up the surface that I've cleaned up. As well as the surrounding countertop and probably the floor. We're going to make the meatballs. Get to the me eating part So you make a huge mess. You eat your English muffin with an egg and stuff, or like some, basically some egg bread. Combination. And fruit and vegetables. You buy green onions that either go bad or you add to that. And then at lunch you make a salad typically. With tuna. And then the tuna can sits in the sink with a combination of water that you've poorly rinsed it with and tuna juice. And I have to clean it. And look at it. I hate it. You eat your salad with tuna. And then I only eat tuna once a week. And then honestly that's about it. Like you don't graze You like your Greek yogurt that's how you eat consistently. That's the thing. I'm probably the one who's more often changing what I eat or how frequently I eat. Like I'm Way less consistent about my eating. sometimes I'm eating lots. Sometimes I'm not eating a lot. Depends other times, you know, like I going to fit into a bikini for summer. So like I'm trying to lean out. I'm a member of the eating disorder response team. So I'm frequently, frequently trying to lean out or get more muscle or lean out or one of the two and then, so yeah, It's easy for me because I feel like 90% of the time I'm cooking, so I really control it, but that's not true. Like you're probably cooking. 50% of the time. Cause you're not here.. we eat the same thing over and over again. So it's not difficult. the dinners I make are basically the same. Do you want to know what I think about that? Sure. Everybody gets what they want for breakfast. Everyone does her own breakfast. Everyone does their own lunch. I, this is funny cause I grew up in a family where like you eat lunch as a family. We eat breakfast, lunch and dinner as a family, which is good. But like somebody makes lunch and then everybody eats it, which is weird for you because your family people still don't eat lunch and there's just no food at your house. But like lunch, wasn't like a family meal. So that was weird for me. And that's probably because we were like, your family was all in different places. My dad did shift work. Yeah, your mom was out of the house. Yeah, my mom's working. We were all at my mom was at home. I was homeschooled. Everybody was just ate lunch at the same time. That was a thing. So that was weird for you, but a regular lunch is very normal for me. those things have come together and we always have family dinner. even you and I, before we had Sophie, we would always eat dinner together unless one of us was working or something. So now I think we just have found a place where you have your things that you like to make. And, you know, the things that I really don't like that I will like tolerate, but really don't like, like we noticed you make that veggie thing all the time. And we noticed that I was bloated like every time,'cause he's loading it with Parmesan cheese, which was delicious, loading it with Parmesan cheese, regardless, you were open to collaboration and eliminated the Parmesan cheese because it hurt my stomach. So thank you for that. And then I have really grown as a domestic goddess in the past four years. And as a cook. I have some things that I like to make and you tell me which ones are make again, and which ones are don't make again. And I make them make, again, ones that we both like. And then Sophie, we just offer her to eat, whatever. Yeah. So it's kind of like a little compromise. How do we manage? Do you guys eat differently?" first of all, like, oh, I'm never dieting. That question is not for me. I'm never on a diet. I'm never like, I can't eat that. If you were like, we're going to eat lean cuisine every night for a year, I'd be like,"no, no." I think we just make whatever the other person is eating. Fit within whatever. Goals are totally. So like for me, I will adjust whatever else I'm doing in my day from a, like a macros point of view. I'll just make it fit. if you're making spaghetti. Then I'll just make that fit with my day. you seem to do the same. we just make it fit within We'll talk about it and plan it. sometimes you are counting macros. so you'll track, whatever I give. Right. If I do a good job with macros, but well, whatever. And then I just want to know if it's balanced. So if you're cooking, I'd be like,"what are we having for dinner?" Cause that's going to inform what I'm going to have for lunch. So it's a collaboration. I think we also eat overall, probably really healthy. Yeah. So it's not difficult to really fit anything in. we do eat pizza every single week. Yeah. But I mean, look separate from that. Like our dinners are vegetables, meat. A meat, a vegetable and A carb of some kind or just vegetables and meat. we don't have a lot of junk in our life. Separate from pizza. Yeah. Occasional munchies. Yeah. weekend beer. And I'll have wine or whatever. The only other time we're eating out is if we go on a date. I had a goal last year for us to go on 12 dates and we managed 10. So this year we're going to do 12. So probably once a month, at least once or for traveling, it's a little bit more, every once in a while we have like an emergency sushi. But that's pretty rare. There will be days when it's just not worth it. it's not happening. You want to talk about what happens when I don't have access to food and how you? I'm just thinking of the ferry. at Christmas. Anne is so consistent. Yeah. So the downside of consistency. And regular eating is. like, let's say Anne's got to go to a conference and the Pacific coastal flight crash lands in the wilderness. And Anne has to sustain herself by not eating for a day, to build shelter, the hierarchy of needs. she would just die. On purpose. Like she just be like,"well, I'm not going to eat every two hours. So I guess I'll die." That's not accurate. I don't need every two hours, every four hours. I don't graze. don't make that mistake. Can you back me up? Your priorities are skewed when it comes to eating versus accomplishing a mission. Yeah. Eating sleeping on my top priorities after Sophie. Yeah. Yeah. Like I will get off the ferry in Comox and drive to Victoria. And if your goal is to get to Victoria, you don't need to eat or stop a bunch of times to source food. Like you need to get there. But Anne will die. Yeah. I won't die, but I will. I got pretty hangry about it. Yes. It will cause some frustration. But the thought of potentially not getting to eat will make you angry. just to conclude all that, it's easy for us because we are pretty congruent in our lifestyles, like our lifestyle around food and exercise is very similar. Which means it's not difficult for us to work around one another for food. we also know that about each other. This is something that I'll talk to clients about a lot When they have a difference of priority with their partner. I will often say like, okay, like as a couple, what's your personal policy around that? And usually they don't have policy, which is why there's conflict. But it's like, we know what is important to one another. And so it's easy to make decisions and plans through that lens because it's like, we both know what our policies are around. X Y and Zed. If we were very much different in our priorities for fitness and nutrition, I think it would be tougher. I mean, I know how you'd work around it, but you just do your own thing, but you'd also probably have to cook. Definitely. If your job is to cook for your family, you're probably going to have to cook for your entire family and prep your own stuff separately, which is just going to be a pain in the bum. Collaboration and communication. Okay next question. Question was how do you all talk about diet culture as a family? Does it have a negative impact? How do you talk about it? You want to take that one? In my house, like when I grew up, I had two brothers, which meant that there was obviously a scarcity of resources food-wise anyway, because perceived scarcity. We were always fighting for food. Not a real scarcity. I have routinely been on the receiving end of no Turkey at holiday dinners. Either due to some sort of deceit. Or just failure to fight for it. But we grew up like a very much, like a you'll finish everything that's on your plate. before desserts, that was a big, a big thing. It wasn't a real choice thing. It was like, this is what's for dinner. If you don't eat it, Then you don't get anything, which is fine. But like, that's what I grew up with. It's like, you will finish what's on your plate. So dessert was always like a reward for finishing your food. And it was always about like, you have to finish all your food. I mean, it was the eighties. So nobody was talking about like, what are your hunger cues and things like that. It was like, You'll finish this. And occasionally my mother would assault with a carrot. It was a raw carrot. it would break and she hit my brother with it once. So that's what you learned. Not that we ate like super poorly or anything, but like my parents didn't have any sort of nutritional knowledge. they're not big, athletes they took up running and exercise at anyone did like as a parent, but like we, weren't a exercise focused family. I hated sports. So I didn't really do much of that. And it was like, we didn't regulate anything, which is fine. I was definitely a cookie sneaker full show. And I also, as you well know, I'm like a goldfish, I don't have an off switch. if there is a bag of something like it's job is to be finished, but you will accomplish the task of finishing these cookies. So that is, that's something I grew up with, that was definitely what I have as my background. I fall back on that a lot of the time. Which you're very much not on board with like the bad food, like good food, bad foods. You don't use that language though. No. And that's when I was going to get you, like, I was going to let you say your piece, but effectively, I know that my method doesn't work. the reason that I have such a tough time. I'm constantly in a state of either gaining weight or losing weight, be it positive or negative for bulking for muscle or leaning out, the reason I'm doing that all the time and it's such a yo-yo is because of the way I was brought up. I would a hundred percent opt for your method than mine because mine takes way more mental bandwidth than I would like. I follow your lead when we deal with Sophie. I don't talk about bad foods. I don't say"You're going to get fat, you're not going to get fat." I don't use that kind of language. Around her. Cause obviously I don't want her to have that burden. Like life's tough enough when you're a kid. So I follow your lead for a lot of that. Well, we don't talk about that about anyone else either though, no. for sure. At all, like we just don't talk about people's bodies. I can't really remember. I think that I also had that, like, you have to finish your plate to get dessert thing, but it must not have been so strong cause I can't remember it to be honest with you. I mean, we know that I developed some things later on, but I had a very healthy relationship with food growing up. Like I've shared, like you eat three meals a day as a family, you eat like snacks are a priority. When you're hungry eat, like that's kind of how I was taught. I have a pretty healthy relationship with food. It was the nineties. So there was some, you know, liquid cheese. But for the most part, we had a salad every day, if not with dinner, like with lunch. I just grew up like really fortunately with some really good habits. everybody here probably knows my story about my disordered eating and university. Because I know that, and then I was really interested to learn, like when we had a kid, how do we create a healthy, mindful eater? So I really have done a lot of research on it, which I'm grateful that you were willing to learn the approach that I wanted to take, which I think has worked quite well. Sophie's a pretty easy eater. She's more recently gotten a little bit more picky, but I think she's just like learning what she likes. I mean, just watching her compared to like her friends, I just would say that she's definitely more regulated than some kids that I see around her She will pick up a cookie and then be like, yeah, I don't really want this. Or if she eats half a candy cane and then she's good. I don't want to say it's like a cop-out, but I think it's easier for her because I think having two parents who are relatively focused on like eating healthy exercising. I think that behaviour just kind of becomes normal. That's what she knows. You know, what I was thinking of their day is cause like she doesn't have the experience of having TV with commercials. But Amazon has commercials now. And I was watching something with her yesterday and this commercial came on and I was just kind of taken aback first off because I forgot that there was like, why are there commercials? And then it was like this really thin woman doing yoga. And I was kind of like, why is this like on a kid's show? And it just made me think that kids of her generation, have this whole other mess up problem with YouTube, which is like why she's not allowed to have a free for all on YouTube, but it's a benefit that they're not just being exposed to commercials. That's how we learn about so much junk food. Is like Dunkaroos commercials and I don't know. They get that in other ways now on the internet and stuff. But all that to say how we navigate diet culture, I think was the question. So I think that we just don't talk about bodies. We don't talk about good food, bad food. We encourage eating when you're hungry. Sometimes you're not hungry yet, but you still have to eat because when you get hungry, you're going to be swimming or at gymnastics or on a boat, Very confusing for seven year old. It is because she's like, So I would say that's like one that we're working through right now. we just don't talk about it that much and we try to keep it neutral. And that's it. one last question, which is just for you, is what puts a smile on your face about your job and how do you keep work and home life separate. I think the first question, what puts a smile on my face for my job is twofold. My job is the front row ticket to like the greatest show on earth. Like the world is a circus. I think I have a good sense of humour, but There is something hilarious about half the stuff I deal with the most ridiculous nonsense is I would say there's always a shift, something that is hilarious, even if it's I will say sometimes it's at someone's expense or like it's just from something being so gross or just so terrible like you can't even imagine, but. Like the job is. Always, there's always something funny going on, like just the most ridiculous nonsense you will see that you would never see anywhere else in your life. I think it's part of it. On the GD(General Duty) the street side of things, I have a really good group of people that I work with and I really enjoy. I think you get the same mindset as a lot of the people you work with. And so we're always having a good time. Like we're always laughing typically, on the ERT side of things, I love working with the people I work with. I've never had a better group of people that I enjoy spending time with than my ERT colleagues, second being the people I work with on the watch and it's a very close second. Like I love working with all those people. They're super great. So that I think is the positive. That's what I really like about my job. Like working with those people. How do you give it separate? you don't. I think it was probably the answer. I think some people do. Really well, some people have got a really good hang of it. I think some people have a good mindset. For keeping it separate. I think some people have a healthy way of dealing with it that keeps it separate. Like I know guys that I work with here who when they shut down at the end of the shift, like it doesn't go with them, it's there and they're not so deeply invested in the outcome of everything that they do, that it believes into their life. Even from the onset of my career, I adopted a bad method of dealing with it and I compartmentalize and I was really good at compartmentalizing, but compartmentalizing is just building a wall around stuff. And that wall is only good until it's not. And then stuff starts to leak out. I don't think it often overtly leak out into our life. But it definitely leaks out of the way I respond to things sometimes. It will never be like so acute that you could say, oh, well, that's something you dealt with in your job, well, unless I'm telling you directly about something that occurred. But the ways that it starts to leak into the facets of how you communicate with people, whether you communicate with people separate from your life. I don't think I do keep it separate. I do for the most part. And I think you get better and worse, but it's something that you become more skilled at the longer you do the job, but it's also something that the longer you do the job, the more that cup fills up that you're trying to keep separate. So. I think I would say I don't. A hundred percent. I think I just manage it. And for the most part. It works out. I think I've done it. Okay. But. You can always do better. Thanks for having me on the muscles and mindset revolution podcast, the podcast for, ambitious women. Want to get fit. And other stuff. Yeah, you got it and want to do other stuff good, too. That's sponsored by Muscles Mindset. Sponsored by muscles in mindset.

Speaker: 39:22

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