Comparison is Holding You Back

Millie gets real about the protein DMs, social media comparison, and what “doing health” looks like in different seasons. Simple, doable basics > shiny trends. Plus, a gentle invite to find your middle with Core Girls Club. 

In this episode…

• Why Millie shared her own 120g protein target, and why yours can be different
• How to scroll without spiraling: using social for ideas, not comparison
• The boring-but-powerful basics: protein, fiber, sleep, movement, sunlight, community, faith
• Postpartum reality checks: nausea, one-handed meals, and giving yourself grace
• Protein 101 for healing, hormones, and strength as we age (no guilt, just facts)
• Finding the middle ground between “surviving mom-life” and “all-in gym rat” with short, smart training

Links:

Reconnect With Your Core in Just 5 Days

Join the waitlist for Millie Schweky and Zoe Corin's Core Girl's Club!

Follow Millie:  @milliedpt

Join the Core to Floor community: https://millie-schweky.mykajabi.com/intimacy 

Transcript

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Hey sis, and welcome back to What They Didn't Tell You from Core to Floor. I'm your girl, Dr. Millie Schweky, your favourite pelvic floor PT, and on today's episode we're going to be talking about protein, if you should care, and how to balance being a mom with caring about your health goals. I posted an Instagram story last week where I made a joke about how much protein I eat in a day.

I said I eat 40 grammes of protein at each meal, and so I can't just sit down and eat three eggs, I need to add cottage cheese to it. I was kind of joking in the tone of my post, but I also was being kind of serious that I do eat 120 grammes of protein a day, and that's just something that's my personal protein goal. Now I want to talk about social media for a second, because I got a lot of messages from women saying, oh my gosh, I wish I could hit that goal. 

At the end of the conversation, I just kind of felt like even though I was being supportive and trying to empower the people that were messaging me, I felt like people saw my post and were comparing themselves and were actually feeling bad about themselves. Now when you log on to Instagram or any social media platform, you could log off feeling either really good about yourself and really bad about yourself, and if you know anything about me, all I ever want to do is empower women, and so when women were replying to me saying like, oh my gosh, I don't do that, and like I felt like they were feeling bad about themselves, I was like, oh my gosh, this is not empowering. Like am I just giving them another thing to do? That's just not attainable right now. 

Like a lot of my patients are pregnant and really nauseous and not feeling well and can't go near protein, and some of my patients are postpartum and just like trying to survive. Like most of the women that come into my office with kids under the age of six months, I ask them how many meals a day they're getting, because of course the protein is essential for recovery, and they tell me they're only getting like one-ish meal a day, and then they're just like picking at random things throughout the day, like that's just where they're at, and like I just don't want to come off as tone-deaf to my audience of like, oh you should be eating 120 grammes of protein a day, like that actually comes with a lot of planning. Like you need to make sure you have chicken prepped, fish prepped, you know, you have to be stocked up on your yoghurt and whatever, and like there's always the person that doesn't eat dairy, the person that doesn't eat meat, and there's always going to be something that like gets in the way of it, and I just would never want to make someone feel bad for not taking care of like a specific health goal.

Listen, I'm in a very different stage of life than a lot of my audience, even though I'm the same age as so many people, because I'm 30, I have two kids, and my youngest is about to turn three, should probably be three like when this episode comes out. So I'm not pregnant, and I'm like pretty removed from the early postpartum phases, like I'm pretty much in like the my body is mine, and I'm able to focus on my fitness phase, and I'm not taking that for granted. I really am so honoured that I get to experience this, because most women my age don't get to, they're just like having kids back to back pretty quickly, and so they don't get this opportunity until they're done having kids or until they're older, and I'm just in this like really selfish mode right now where I'm able to just focus on myself and my own health.

I also train during the week a lot. If you heard my episode last week, I did an exercise for two days, and I actually felt like my whole entire life was on the rocks and slipping away from me, but I like to lift weights four to five days a week, do cardio once a week, take tennis lessons once a week. I'm pretty active, I try to get steps in throughout the day, like I'm just an active person because that's what works for me, that's what I go out of my way to achieve, it's what makes me feel happy and fulfilled, and also helps me with my long-term goals of health.

You know I'm working on my muscle mass and my bone density, and it's really paying off. I have checked these metrics, and the exercises that I'm partaking in are immensely helping, but what's really important to me is also locking in on my nutrition to make sure that I'm meeting these goals, and so just because you see Millie Schweke posting an Instagram story that she's eating 40 grammes of protein a meal doesn't mean that you need to eat 40 grammes of protein a meal. Every time you go on social media, you don't have to compare yourself to the person you're seeing, and I would hate, it would be just so icky for me for people to go on my page and think like, oh she's the authority, whatever this person that's in healthcare does is like what the standard is. 

Sometimes people forget that I'm just a girl, and I'm just posting like what works for me sometimes, and I forget that sometimes people come to my page and look at it as like, oh this is a health account, so everything she says is blah blah blah. When you go on social media, you really need to, I'm talking to myself also because I've fallen into this trap also, like you need to know why you're going on, like are you looking for inspiration, general guidelines, like you shouldn't be going on social media to compare yourself to other people because you're never going to feel good, and you're never going to feel like you're doing enough. I totally had a phase where I was postpartum with my second kid, and I had just moved to Israel, and I was like looking into all these wellness trends, like seed cycling, and cycle syncing, and lymph drainage, and like all these things, which are like, there is somewhat truth to some of them, but it really just comes down to basics.

At the end of the day, it's eating well, protein, fibre, fruits, veggies, sleeping, moving your body, getting sunshine, having meaningful relationships, some sort of spirituality. I think I could boil it down to like kind of that, community people, right? And those are my basics, and I like stopped getting involved with like all the frilly, cute, shiny other things, and I've seen my health improve. I've seen my bone density go up.

I've seen my recovery time decrease, which means like between workouts, I actually feel much better. I've seen my periods regulate nicely, and it's just what's working for me. And again, like I'm just a girl.

I'm not a nutritionist. I'm just posting what works for me. Again, I don't want to come off as tone deaf of like not knowing my audience. 

I know some of you are just trying to like get through the day, and you're not thinking about how many grammes of protein you're having. My job that I take seriously is to empower women, and I was getting so many DMs after my protein posts, and I was like, I'm trying to be supportive and empowering, but I feel like people are just starting to feel bad that they're not doing X, Y, and Z. And I just feel like in general, when I post about like lifting weights and doing cardio and not making Pilates your main source of exercise, like people just will feel bad that they're not doing the exact thing that I'm posting. But like I'm just giving you one opinion.

Like you need to do what works for you. If you're my patient, taking my recommendation is different because I've like actually evaluated you. But like online, it's a very different situation.

Like you could totally disregard every single thing that I'm saying because I am by no means an authority. I'm just your favourite pelvic floor PD, and I'm also just a girl. Like I'm just a girl.

So I just want to make it clear that I get you because I am you. There were times in my life where I was just so nauseous from being pregnant and stuck on the couch and like all I was eating was pretzels and pita with cheese on it. Like that's what it is.

Like you follow me for health information. I'm giving you whatever comes to me. There's not like an insane strategy behind it all the time.

Sometimes I'm more strategised about what I post. Sometimes I'm literally just posting like a picture and I just want to play devil's advocate with myself, which is I do understand that some of you are just surviving, but at the same time, and we're going to go back to the protein example, eating enough protein actually is very important, which is why I posted about it in the first place. A lot of you are coming to me for recovery, and if you're not eating enough protein to actually help the muscles synthesise, then your results are going to be a lot slower. 

If you're postpartum and you're nursing, you definitely want to be eating protein. If you had a C-section and your body's recovering or even a vaginal delivery and your body's recovering, you got to have enough protein. If you're getting older, as we all are, like not one person on this planet is not ageing, you need to eat protein because you don't want to get osteoporosis and have low bone density. 

You don't want to get injured, God forbid. Eating protein, I could list for hours the importance of it for your hormones, for your neurotransmitters, for your nervous system, for your gut. It just doesn't end. 

Eating protein, I think it's just like a basic building block of health, but I just don't ever want to come off in a way with any health tip of like, oh, I'm better than you. Like, oh, I drink matcha. I'm better than you. 

I lift heavy weights. I'm better than you. Like, ew, I'm not.

It's so not like that. But I just felt like my DMs were coming off as if like, oh, I wish I could do that, what you're doing. Like, it's so not like that. 

You need to do what works for you. I'm just one opinion in a sea of opinions, and I just don't want to be a source of overwhelm. I think there's so much information out there, and it's like really hard to weed through it.

It's funny because on one hand, I'm like, just listen to one person and like, cancel out all the other noise. And on the other hand, I'm like, don't listen to me. Don't listen to me. 

You know what I mean? So I think the answer to my own question here is you need to take all this information that you're finding online and narrow down the accounts you follow to who resonates with you and who doesn't. There has to be a balance between I'm a mom and I'm trying to survive and actually doing something for your health. A lot of women will message me about exercise because I like to lift and I like to really be committed to my gym and show up consistently.

And a lot of you are like, oh my God, I wish I could do that. So I'm actually bringing that to you now. I'm about to release our six week programme, the Core Girls Club, where we walk you through transforming your strength from the inside out, learning how to breathe so that you can engage your core better, working on your mobility so that your muscles can fire better so that you feel safe and strong in your body.

This is amazing for any woman, but especially if you're here and you're like, I don't really exercise as much as I want to, or I'm exercising and I'm not seeing results, or I just feel like there's something missing, like my back hurts, I leak, my core just doesn't feel like it's on when I'm trying to engage it. I feel like I don't breathe well. I feel like my posture is not good. 

This is especially for you. So I feel like this programme is kind of like the middle between I'm a mom, I'm just trying to survive, and oh, I'm a totally dedicated gym rat. It's just somewhere in the middle so that it's approachable for everyone.

Because even if you're a gym rat, you need to slow down sometimes and just do a programme that focusses on the basics, and you could totally make the videos your warm up or your cool down, because they're only 10 to 20 minutes each three days a week. So it's totally attainable for anyone. It just depends on how you want to fit it into your life.

And so I leave you with that. The waitlist is in the show notes. It's coming out in the next few weeks.

I'm so excited to be with all of you who already signed up for the waitlist. There's quite a lot of you. And it's going to be amazing.

Moral of the story, eat your protein, move a little bit. Don't take it too seriously. Don't take social media too seriously. 

And just find the balance. If you like this episode and you feel like you have a friend that needs to hear it, go ahead and share that thing. Please rate us five stars and leave a review if you feel like it. 

I'll be forever grateful. Love you, bye.