Let's Have a Yap Sesh

In this episode, we’re having a yap sesh. I’m talking about life lately, what I’ve been feeling, what’s been on my mind, and a few things I’ve been doing in this season. 

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/addisonhardinfit/
Tiktok: https://www.tiktok.com/@addisonhardin?is_from_webapp=1&sender_device=pc

How to work with me: Apply for Embody You👇🏻

addisonhardinfitness.squarespace.com/embodyyoucoaching

Fill out the application, book your free call and let's chat!

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Hello and welcome to the embodiment lab. My name is Addy, and I just thought for today's episode, I am not feeling like talking about anything serious. So I kind of just want to yap and just catch up with you guys and just tell you what's going on in my world. I think it'd be fun to do episodes like this every once in a while. I'm trying to decide how frequently I want to do them, maybe like once a quarter, once a month. I don't really know. But I kind of just want to yap and just tell you what's going on in my life. So I have a couple ideas of things I want to talk about today. But I think the first thing I want to tell you is like honestly the most exciting thing that's going on in my life right now. And that is it is as I'm recording this, it's April 3rd, and I am moving this month. So if you don't know, I just recently moved from Dallas, Texas, to Florida in January. My boyfriend and I were doing long distance for about a year and a half. Um, I met him in Dallas and he moved to Florida about a month after meeting him, which was insane. So we did long distance basically that entire time, and we have recently ended long distance, which has been amazing. So I moved here in January, and since I've been living in Florida, I have been staying with his parents, which has honestly been like the best experience I could have possibly had. It's been so fun staying with them and getting to know them and just getting even closer with them. It's been really, really nice. And we've been waiting for Zach's lease to be up, and it is up this month. So we are officially moving in gosh, about two weeks, which is so exciting. Or I guess when this episode's coming out, we're moving next weekend, which is so crazy. So we are going to be getting a place. Um, it's gonna be a little bit closer to like where he works and where we work out, and just I've even started training some clients in person. And so I'm training at it's super cool. It's like a private personal training facility where I it's not like a public gym. I just I bring my clients to this facility and train them there without having to be in a public gym. It's really amazing, and that's further south than where I'm living right now, and so I'm really excited to be living in that area where we're just right there by everything. Everything's like within 10, 15 minutes, which is super exciting. So I'm really looking forward to that. So, with living with his parents, obviously, like I shoved all of my life belongings into my Mini Cooper and I drove it. Well, Zach and I drove it across to Florida, and so I literally have everything that can fit into my car. And so, you know, I've kept most of my stuff pretty much in boxes just to make this move easier. So I'm very excited to get into our new apartment and start unpacking and just making a space my own again. I I really am somebody who enjoys having their own space that is decorated and really pretty and comfy, cozy that's specific to me. And I'm I'm so excited to do that. Like I I love that. I think in another in another lifetime I would be like a designer or something because I just find it so fun. So, like, I definitely I have my Pinterest boards, I have ideas. I already like looked at the floor plan of the apartment, and I already know which room's gonna be my office and which is gonna be our bedroom. Like, I already know where everything's going, and I'm so so excited. So, like Zach has given me basically like creative control. He's like, you are the designer, you do whatever you want. That's up to you. You have a hundred percent control over that. And then this man has the audacity to offer an opinion about what color comforter we do for our bed. And I'm like, okay, wait, do I have a hundred percent control, or do you have an opinion? Like, what what do you mean? So, so we were talking about, or I was talking about, he was like, I couldn't care less, but also like I have this tiny opinion. We were talking about this the other day, it was kind of funny. And I asked him, like, okay, well, I kind of want to do like an olive green comforter, and he's like, I'm gonna get so sick of green. I don't want to do green. What if we did like navy? And I'm like, okay, let me see if I can find a cute navy comforter in my head. Navy's basic, and I don't want to do basic, I'm gonna do fun. And even several months ago, I'm scrolling through Pinterest and I see these cute bed spreads, and it's this shade of kind of like a mauve-y, like pinkish rosy tone bed spread, and I saved it, and I really liked it because if you know anything about me, you know I love anything like pastel pink. I am a pink girl, I love it, and if it were up to me, we would have lots of pink things, and to be honest, we're probably gonna have lots of pink things. Um, and I was like, I don't know because I don't want Zach to be like, oh, I have a pink bed, but I saw this and I actually found the comforter on Amazon, and the color is brick red, so it's like kind of a reddish pinkish tone, but it's really pretty. And I actually found that on Amazon, got him to be like, you know what? I wouldn't hate you if you did that. So we're gonna do that, and this is something I've never done before, but this is so silly. But like usually when I do a fun colored comforter, I do like white sheets or gray sheets, something kind of neutral to go with. This time, I'm actually thinking I'd do like a monochromatic look. So we're gonna do kind of I found a similar color, brick red, muted, mauve pink, whatever color you want to call it, sheets. So we're gonna do that with the comforter and the pillows, and then I'm gonna find like a creamy off-white throw blanket to just have on the bed as a little pop of something fun and different to break up the monochromatic look. So am I the most excited about that? Um, yes. I'm also excited about just so many things with moving. Like, for instance, I'm obviously between like two kitchens right now that aren't mine. So I usually like eat my dinner and stuff at Zach's, and then the rest of the day I'm at his parents' house. And so I have super quick, easy meals that I throw together, but I haven't done like I haven't cooked anything fun and different in about four months. So I'm excited to have my own kitchen with my own dishes and freedom of I could make a mess, I could have dishes in the sink, and not have to care so much about like keeping things perfect because I'm in somebody else's home. So I'm really excited about that. Um, not to say that like I'm a messy person because I am not a messy person by any stretch of the imagination, but you know, when you're living in somebody else's house, it's less about just kind of doing whatever you want and more like, okay, I need to make sure that I'm respectful of their space because it's not mine. So I'm just I'm excited for that. I'm excited to build out my office. Like I already have a desk in mind that I want. I already like I'm so excited to just put together my space. And I say my space, but it's also our space. But Zach did give me freedom of design, right? I I can do whatever I want, so yeah, my space. But, anyways, I'm I'm really excited about that. So that is happening in about two-ish weeks, and I cannot wait. It cannot come fast enough. So that is my first update as we are officially moving, and I'm officially getting space that is ours and not like split between two homes. So that is super exciting. Another thing that I want to talk about is I am currently in a growth phase. And if you follow me on Instagram or TikTok, you know I talk about um my growth phase quite a bit on there, and it's going really well. So I started it about six weeks ago. So, like beginning of February, I decided, you know what? I'm gonna call myself out out of your being a bitch. And so let's actually back up a little bit. So I decided, let's go to like January of last year. Zach is a bodybuilder, he competes. He started prep last January, and I thought it would be fun if I kind of did a similar thing alongside him, obviously not as intense. I went into a deficit phase. So I started lowering my calories and I went through a little bit of a fat loss phase. It was my first ever deficit. I've never done an intentional deficit phase before, so I really wanted to experience it for myself. So I did that from about January to June. He competed in June and I got real lean. My abs were popping. It was super fun to be that lean. It was so cool. Okay, so I did that for about six months, and then obviously I reversed out of that deficit starting in like end of June, beginning of July. And my plan was to go into another growth phase. And what ended up happening was I just kind of ended up hanging out at maintenance because I wasn't actually pushing myself. I was going through a really weird gym slump where I was like hating the gym, like it was not the place that I wanted to be. But I also knew that that phase was going to pass. And guess what? It did. So yeah, I was in a little bit of a gym slump, and then right around Thanksgiving, I got super, super, super sick for about three days where I did lose quite a bit of weight and my muscles were super flat because I like couldn't really eat for three days because I was so incredibly sick. Um, so like that kind of threw me off. And then obviously, like with the move and all of the things that were happening at the end of last year, I just kind of was at maintenance. I didn't really do anything to like push myself. And so once I got settled here in Florida and got back into a nice routine and got like my eating figured out, like being between two different living situations, got that squared away and was like, you know what? I'm calling myself out. You're being a bitch, you need to get your food together. And I started going through my growth phase. So I entered a surplus, I went from eating about 2,500 calories pretty consistently to 2800, 2900 calories pretty consistently. My goal was to go from I was 136 at my starting point, and I would like to get up to 150. And that is a little bit of a scary goal for me because as somebody who's been pretty lean, pretty small her entire life, 150 is a push for me. But I want to see all of that go into my quads and my glutes while maintaining my upper body because I'm pretty content, pretty happy with where my upper body is. So that's what I want to see. And then obviously throughout the growth phase, I'm maintaining as much leanness as I possibly can. I'm not doing like a dirty bulk or anything like weird like that. I am going through the process of building muscle, and with that comes a little bit of body fat because it is not possible to build muscle and not like gain a little bit of body fat, just the same as it's not possible to lose body fat without also losing a little bit of muscle. The goal is just to, in both situations, gain as little body fat as possible in your growth phase, just as you want to lose as little muscle as possible in a fat loss phase. And all of that comes down to your macros and how you have your food set up and if you're doing it smartly or not. But that's a little side tangent. So obviously, through the process, I am focusing on staying as lean as I can and just being smart about my food. But I wanted to go through this first of all, because my goal is always, always, always, I'm just a girl. I just want to grow my glutes. Okay. We know this. This is not new information. So I want to grow my glutes. And to be honest, like one of the most transformative parts of my journey was, let me see, probably about like 2023 time frame. So if you've listened to any of my past episodes, um I go through my journey. I think like in my second episode, if you want to scroll back and listen to that one, I was probably around like 125 somewhere in there when um I started getting real serious about my nutrition. So I am somebody who has always worked out. I grew up a dancer, I've been pretty lean and small my whole life, but I was also like terrified of the scale and didn't really understand how the body worked and how food worked and how all of the pieces went together. I didn't understand that. So I was somebody who was scared to eat. I was somebody who was scared of the scale, I was somebody who was scared of carbs, like all of these things. And then what kind of helped me get out of that mindset and actually be able to take my body to where it is now was I had this really weird switch, and this is probably a little bit of a hot take, but I decided, you know what? Fuck the scale. I want to challenge, and again, I was 125 at this point. I want to challenge myself to see if I can weigh not just 130, I want to see if I can hit 140. And so I did that. I took myself through a reverse diet focused on building muscle, and I broke my fear of gaining weight because you know what happened? Suddenly, my glutes doubled in size, doubled. And here's the crazy thing: I was still lean, I was 140, I loved my body, I had muscle, I had curves for once in my life, and I wasn't fat. Crazy. So now I'm doing that again. I'm like, okay, I made it to 140, and I love my physique now more than ever. What would 150 look like? And here's what's also super cool is I go through this phase of building muscle, gaining some weight, keeping my lean shape throughout the whole process, get up to 150, and then eventually get to a point where I go through another deficit, another fat loss phase. Could you imagine? My physique will only get better and better. So I'm super excited to go through the growth phase and then be able to do another deficit and just see even more muscle and my body just look even crazier. Like I'm so excited for that. I'm a little nerd when it comes to all of this. It's so fun for me. But that is what I'm doing right now. So started about six weeks ago, my starting weight was 130, 136, and as of last week, I actually saw the scale at 142, which is pretty cool. Now, the scale fluctuates a little bit. I think I waived myself yesterday and I was like 139.6. So like it goes up and down, but it is trending up, and I am seeing some size little by little pack on in my glutes, which is super exciting. So we're gonna keep on this, we're gonna keep pushing because where I'm at right now, consuming 2900 calories, my body's responding really nicely to it. So we are just gonna stay the course and keep going. So that is the update with my growth phase. Again, I'm just I'm so excited to be going through this. Also, like I love a growth phase, I love feeling like extra curvy. I love the pumps that I get during my growth phase because my body just has a little bit extra energy just to do a little fun, extra something, something during my workouts. Love it, super fun. Honestly, I think that's all that I really had to yep about. Um, I had so much fun recording this episode. If you liked it as well, definitely let me know and I can do some more. Um, again, don't really know if I want to do this like quarterly or monthly, so we'll just kind of see what ends up happening. But yeah, if you enjoyed this episode, definitely let me know on Instagram. I love getting messages from you guys, just telling that you love the podcast and that you listen. Um, share it to your story, share all the things, rate, review, comment, do all the things. And yeah, that's all I got for you. I hope that you enjoyed this episode and I will chat with you in the next one. Bye.