Strength Training Through Every Season of Life with Lolly Albison

In this episode of The Rooted Method, Kaycee Hines sits down with Rooted coach Lolly Albison to talk about training through different seasons of life, from pregnancy and postpartum to building strength, confidence, and long-term health.

Lolly shares her journey from CrossFit and nutrition coaching to becoming a BirthFit certified coach, as well as her personal experience navigating pregnancy, postpartum recovery, and the mental shift of learning when to push and when to pull back.

Together, Kaycee and Lolly talk about why “just because you can doesn’t mean you should,” how to avoid the comparison trap, what it really looks like to listen to your body, and why strength training matters for women in every stage of life.

They also discuss remote coaching, gym intimidation, body image, the return of “skinny culture,” and the power of building muscle not just for aesthetics, but for confidence, capability, and longevity.

If you have ever wondered how to adjust your training through life changes, felt pressure to “bounce back,” or wanted to feel stronger in your body, this conversation is for you.

Connect with Lolly on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lollyc_albi/

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The Rooted Method is produced by the team at Palm Tree Pod Co. 

Transcript

SPEAKER_03 0:15

Welcome back to the Rooted Method. I'm Casey Hines, CEO and founder of Rooted Coaching, and I have Lolly Albison here with me today, one of our amazing coaches. So Lolly is a birth certified coach, a CrossFit coach, a nutritionist. You wear all the hats, and I'm excited for us to talk today about training through different seasons of life.

SPEAKER_01 0:34

Yes, thanks for having me. Excited to be here. Of course.

SPEAKER_03 0:36

So first of all, I would love to know a little bit of background on like how you got into coaching, the coaching space in general, fitness, nutrition, all of it.

SPEAKER_01 0:43

Gosh, it's such a whirlwind. I feel like I've worn a ton of hats, but how I got here, I've always been into sports, been into lifting, those kinds of things. And really, honestly, what got me into nutrition was when I was in training to be a flight attendant. That happened for seven years. Um, one of my friends, yes. One of my friends that I met in training, she had done prep shows and she had actually done that whole thing. So she was all about macros. She taught me about that. And I got educated through her, and then I started tracking my food and was very eye-opening to what I was consuming, what I was not consuming. And then I just kind of evolved from there, got into the CrossFit community and really got into fitness that way. Saw my body start to change, realized I could gain muscle, the scale would look different because of that. I was okay with that, and then just learned how to fuel my body. And then with moving to Greenville, kind of stepped into more of an official coaching role once you and I started chatting. And I've just always wanted to help people at some capacity. And so helping them with nutrition was one of those options that kind of revealed itself. And so I've just kind of been doing that and really loving to see that change with clients and having those light bulb moments with just realizing, hey, food is actually something that we need and we don't need to deprive ourselves of. And we can really do a lot um with managing different things in different ways with nutrition.

SPEAKER_03 2:05

And something, something you won't say, but I'll say is that you're an incredible athlete, which is, you know, well, thank you. You are. But it it not everybody can be a great athlete or be a great, you know, great at taking care of themselves and their health. And then that always transition into becoming a great coach. So I would love to know for you when was the moment, and I think it might have been CrossFit coaching, when you realize, like, oh, I'm actually also really good at helping people with this.

SPEAKER_01 2:31

Yeah, it's it's a good point because with I started I did start with CrossFit coaching first. And I always viewed the gym as kind of my space to go, and I just did what I was told from my coach. I didn't have to worry about, you know, it being a workplace or anything like that. And with moving here from Dallas, I kind of had that opportunity come up also from you at the time. And I thought about it, and I really do enjoy, like I said earlier, people having that light bulb moment and things clicking for them. And with having so many years of experience in CrossFit, it's a lot of fun to coach somebody through a movement or anything like that in order to see them progress and see success. And so I think it was just an opportunity where I I kind of thought, you know, I feel like at the time I wasn't utilizing some skills that I had as far as the coaching aspect goes. And so stepping into that role and being able to just kind of evolve and gain some confidence too of hey, it's okay to tell someone they're doing something wrong, but okay, what's the right way to approach them? So you have to read the person, get to know the person as well. And that kind of helped me be able to also do nutrition coaching because it was, you know, not every person's gonna respond the same way when you give them correction. How do you go about that? You know, the sandwich method is that best or just direct? So it was definitely a learning curve, but I think I had to build some confidence in that area to kind of not have um oh, what's the phrase?

SPEAKER_03 4:00

Imposter syndrome? Yes, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 4:01

Imposter syndrome was stepping into that role because it was like, no, like you knew you do know what you're talking about.

SPEAKER_02 4:06

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 4:07

Um, and so going from that coaching CrossFit into nutrition as well, it was kind of like, no, you do know what you're talking about. Yeah. They just need to listen and, you know, do the things.

SPEAKER_03 4:17

Yeah. Well, I think something that's always interesting, like you now have the education behind you, the certifications, the mentorship through us, all of these things. But at the end of the day, to be a good coach, you have to be able to read people. Like you have to be empathetic, you have to be able to put yourself in their shoes, which I think that you are just naturally good at. Wouldn't you say that that's like a pretty hard skill of yours? Not a soft skill. The hard skill.

SPEAKER_01 4:40

Yeah. I think reading a room and reading an individual, and with what we do being remote, you have to ask questions. So a lot of times, you know, asking the right questions is key. Like, how do you appreciate feedback? How do you, you know, what drives you? What are things that, you know, give you life, what really tears you down, you know, what's gonna make you just kind of claim up. Um, and so understanding, yeah, how to talk to people and just kind of, you know, not be overwhelming and give them a step-by-step process in something is super helpful.

SPEAKER_03 5:12

Totally.

SPEAKER_01 5:12

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 5:13

So I want to talk a lot about training because you're phenomenal, not like just as an athlete, but a great programmer too. Um, and so you coach a lot of men and women, but we're gonna talk about training through different seasons of life. So even though you, you know, I we'll talk a lot about women because you also just had your first baby. Yes, little baby Jack. And he's sleeping in the other room. So we'll pause when it's time for us to pause. But um, I want to talk about like how has that journey looked for you specifically? And then we'll talk about clients and whatnot too. But like, what has that training journey looked like for you? Because I think that we have certain expectations, and then we might not necessarily, it might not be the reality once we're going through pregnancy and postpartum all the things. So I'd love to know what that's looked like.

SPEAKER_01 5:52

Yes, it was I had some sort of expectation because I've had so many friends that have been pregnant, you being one of them. And I've also with doing the birth fit course had some preparation as far as changes in your body, when to kind of back off of things. And it really going through everything, it was very humbling to say the least, because you have to listen to your body. And with CrossFit, there's a lot of high-impact movement, there's a lot of gymnastics, there's a lot of dynamic movements. And I kept some of those in the mix, but some of those, the second they started feeling iffy, I just stopped doing them. And for me, being a more competitive athl athlete, it was one of those things where I was like, okay, I could do this, but should I do this? You know, it's the phrase that I love.

SPEAKER_03 6:40

I will never forget you saying that to me.

SPEAKER_01 6:42

Just because you could doesn't mean you should.

SPEAKER_03 6:44

Yep. And you said that to me when I was postpartum with my first baby. And I, I mean, I like listened to that. I heard you in my head over and over and over again. And that's what a good coach can do.

SPEAKER_02 6:54

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 6:55

But even through my second pregnancy, I remember being like, ah, dang it, Lolly. Just because I can doesn't mean I necessarily should. And there's a fine line between that, right? Like of, oh, I'm just gonna, I don't want to say be lazy, but like for lack of better words, right now. But like there's a fine line between that. Yeah, right.

SPEAKER_01 7:11

Because some days, especially being pregnant, you don't want to go work out. And on some days, it's appropriate for you not to, and you need to listen to your body. But you have to also determine, okay, am I just like, should I go do the things or not? Like that's you know, and you know yourself the best. Like I, as your coach, like I can tell you, you know, hey, you have to draw where that line is because you know yourself better than me. Um, but you know, for jumping, for instance, or even running at 13 weeks. I I remember it was a Saturday workout, it was a partner workout, and I was running. By the end of the day, I was limping. And while I was running, it was getting more and more uncomfortable. But I was like, okay, maybe this is just part of it. I don't know. Like I'm brand, this is my first time doing this. I've never been pregnant before. And by the end of the day, I was limping because my round ligaments were so exhausted and I carried low my whole pregnancy. And so I didn't run after 13 weeks and I was kind of bummed. But because I was like listening to my body and listening to my pelvic floor and all of those things, you know, I started doing step downs instead of box jumps and um and step-up, step-downs, I guess. But you got to get up there first. Yeah. I only went downstairs. I never went upstairs.

SPEAKER_02 8:20

Perfect.

SPEAKER_01 8:21

Um, but yeah, listening to the response of your body even 24 hours after doing a workout, not just the immediate response, but what how do you feel 24 hours after? Yeah. And that really helped has helped me on the postpartum side. I've had an amazing recovery with my pelvic floor, with diastasis recti, because you're gonna get that during pregnancy. It happens to everyone. But, you know, doing your breath work, doing deep core work, like while you're pregnant, and then being diligent on the back end on the postpartum, easing back into things, letting your body do what it needs to do is is just crucial.

SPEAKER_03 8:56

Yeah. Well, I think a great point that you make is like it is so different for everybody. So you might have these expectations of like, I'm gonna be able to run till the end because a lot of people do. And it's like, well, but that's that wasn't the reality for you. My mom went into labor the day after she ran multiple miles. I could not run at all during my pregnancy without feeling like I was gonna pee in my pants. So, like, what's the the line? And it's like, it's so individual. And I think something I would love for you to talk about is like that comparison trap that we fall into. And I think you fell into a little bit of, you know, when you were first pregnant.

SPEAKER_01 9:27

Yes. I remember seeing on Instagram there was a very elite athlete for me to compare myself to as irrelevant. Like, I should not have been doing this. Two weeks postpartum, doing butterfly chest to bar pull-ups, and I was like, oh man, well, I guess I should probably like that should be a good goal for me to do too. Absolutely not. I had not been on a rig during my pregnancy. My stomach felt so uncomfortable just hanging and going into extension and flexion at a certain point that I stopped getting on the rig. And then seeing other people's, you know, weight loss journeys postpartum or what they were doing way into their pregnancy, because I started a fun little like, oh, I'm gonna back squat my body weight as I gain weight. And at one point, like everything hurt when I was back squatting. And I just thought, all right, I guess I'm not gonna do this anymore. Yeah. And so for me to follow through with what I said I would do and listen to my body was hard because I was like, no, well, I said I would do this thing, but when it started feeling uncomfortable, I needed to listen versus push through that. And to see other women, you know, doing these things, I I thought I was being weak, kind of like we mentioned earlier, you know. Well, am I just making an excuse? And no, you just need to listen to your body. And just because so-and-so is out there doing it doesn't mean it's appropriate for you to do those things. And just because their body looks a certain way doesn't mean your body's gonna look that way. And, you know, one of our mutual friends, she only gains in her stomach. Her legs stay lean when she's pregnant, she looks amazing. And I'm like, well, shoot, you know, like I gained everywhere. Like, well, what is that like, you know? But everybody's just gonna be so different. Yeah and your journey is your journey to own. And it's not saying that you can't, you know, postpartum, you can't have the body you once had, but your body will never be the same, yeah, period.

SPEAKER_03 11:19

As it should not be.

SPEAKER_01 11:20

Correct. You've gone through the most athletic event you'll ever do in your life with giving birth and you know, going through that experience, and your body's never gonna, you know, be the same because of that experience. But it's not to say you can't have, you know, amazing progress and aesthetically look a certain way postpartum. Yeah. I mean, you're a great testament to that personally.

SPEAKER_03 11:42

So it's but it's just, I think, really trying to avoid the bounce back culture side of things for women where like we have this expectation that I'm going to look a certain way within a certain time frame. And it's just, it's wild, you know. And now, you know, two years postpartum with my second baby, I have put in a lot of work and I feel like I am stronger than I've ever been. And I feel like I'm more confident than I've ever been as a mom of two. Yeah. And so it's like you can get to a place where you feel so confident and comfortable. But the problem with most clients is that they're comparing themselves, whether they're comparing themselves to other people or social media, like other friends or on social media. Yep. And that's the trap that we just cannot let ourselves fall into. Yeah. And even, you know, not just pregnancy and postpartum, right? Like in general. Every client, even my male clients, everybody is looking at someone or has some expectation of like comparison.

SPEAKER_01 12:31

Yeah. And your body's gonna do what your body's gonna do. I'll never forget one of my friends that I had in Dallas. She wanted to go on a cut just to see what she would look like at her leanest. And when it wasn't her expectation, because she thought she would lose from certain areas and that ended up not happening just because of her body type, she said, okay, this is what I look like at my leanest. I guess that's it. I'm not gonna look like so and so. Right. And so I think it's a very hard but mature thing to be able to do to understand this is my body type. And hey, like I may not look like so and so, but I've worked my tail off to get where I am.

SPEAKER_02 13:08

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 13:09

And I'm happy with that.

SPEAKER_02 13:10

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 13:11

And, you know, even postpartum, you know, I'm eight weeks postpartum. And am I aesthetically where I want to be or strength-wise or you know, um uh performance-wise where I want to be? No, but it doesn't matter because I'm putting in work daily, weekly to get to that point. And it's just a slow uphill, and I'm still learning my baby's rhythms, you know, and he's gonna do what he's gonna do. And in the middle of a workout, if he needs me, you gotta go grab him. Yeah, you gotta whip out a boob sometimes. Just whip it out, you know? Not right here, but you know. Not here.

SPEAKER_03 13:43

So I, you know, with your postpartum experience, I think one thing that has surprised me in a great way is well, one, you've adapted to motherhood incredibly well, which is not surprising.

unknown 13:53

Oh no.

SPEAKER_03 13:54

I'm gonna cry. I love you. Um, but one thing that has surprised me with you postpartum is that I think you have gotten back to training a little bit more than faster than you anticipated in a great way. But I want you to talk about that because I, you know, people are gonna look and see like you're like you're doing a competition soon. Like you're you're you're getting back to some normalcy. And a lot of that is due to your recovery and your prep through birth. And I just want to talk about that a little bit. I want you to, you know, talk about how that's different than what you expected postpartum.

SPEAKER_01 14:23

Yeah. One of my coaches at my gym said, you're gonna be able to do things before you think. And I, even though I was being diligent while pregnant, in my head still, I was like, I don't know. Like, I'm huge right now and I haven't been doing the things. And granted, I'm not, you know, things feel heavier than they used to for sure, like with the barbell. Um, but like I said, I think because I stopped doing certain things while I was pregnant, I worked with a pelvic floor, PT, uh, postpartum. That is huge. Yes, huge. And she was super helpful um here in Greenville. And so just getting the green light to try certain things from her was really eye-opening because she said, you know, your core's healed. You should be doing this. Okay, jumping feels okay. Okay, we're gonna basically do a progressive overload into building some volume with jumping and and understanding, you know, getting impact back in and all that. And so I was surprised with being able to do the open workouts, the CrossFit open workouts. Um, the first one had box jumps, had not actually jumped, I think, since about, I don't know, maybe five months of being pregnant or maybe even before that. And I did, you know, a lot of box jumps and felt good. There was no leakage. I didn't feel like I was gonna pee myself. And so I that was what was kind of the green light as far as all right, you've done this the right way. Like your body's now telling you that volume was okay. Let's add on more. And am I ready for double unders or those kinds of things yet? Probably not. And I'm easing back into running volume, you know, it's building that volume over time. But it was kind of surprising, you know, being able to get back on the rig and do some butterfly pull-ups. I did my first strict pull-up postpartum the other day, and I was like, oh, and then I did too, you know. So, but I've done a lot of banded work leading into that. I've done crossover symmetry, I've done, you know, um, a lot of been over rows. So there's other things that I've done to build back into those movements, but it has been a little bit faster than I anticipated and has helped me with the confidence that I think I need to just kind of be able to like push things a little bit more. But to our point that we keep making, this is, you know, my experience. And if that's not what, you know, if you're watching this and you're like, that's not been my experience, that's totally fine. Right.

SPEAKER_03 16:42

You know, like you this wasn't your experience you're explaining right now was not mine. Like it took me forever to do box jumps again or double unders again. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 16:50

And so it's gonna be different for every single person and your recovery. And those aren't, you know, if you can't do those for a couple months, you know what? It's fine. Yeah. You know, you can still get in really good workouts without having those things in the mix. Yeah. And so I think that's something to remember is just because you're not doing the workout, doesn't mean you're not doing the workout. You're doing the right thing for you and you're still sweating, you're still breathing heavy, you're building that gap, that building back that capacity in order to get to do those things in the future. And that's the fun part to see is building it over time. But yeah, it has been fun to just kind of see, okay, let me try this and see how it feels. And if it feels off, then you reset and do some kind of scaled of that movement.

SPEAKER_03 17:32

And you can trust yourself. You know that you have the wherewithal to say, okay, I don't need to do that, I don't need to push that envelope further. Whereas a lot of people don't necessarily have that wherewithal just yet. So I think that is where good coaching comes into play, is like you especially you can coach people through that. Like, hey, if you feel X, Y, or Z, or if this is what's happening in your body, whether that's this is not just saying pregnancy or postpartum, but coaching in general. But you know, you brought up a point of like this is also individual. So when it comes to training, I think that when people first come in to work and they're gonna work with you, they anticipate, like, okay, I guess I'm gonna do CrossFit, or what I'm I'm gonna, that's is that what I need to do now? Because Lolly does CrossFit, my coach does CrossFit. So tell me a little bit about how are you helping people decide that don't necessarily know what they train their training needs to be.

SPEAKER_01 18:15

A lot of times I'll ask people, what do they have experience in in the past? Have they ever worked out? What um types of equipment are they comfortable with or have access to? Sure. And from there, we normally start off with something that is a more progressive overload style so they can get comfortable with movement and understand, okay, if I need to push to an RPE of eight, what does that mean? Right. And how do I get there? Because if you've never worked out before, you know, first of all, you're gonna be like, what is RPE? And second of all, you you won't know what an eight is for you as far as that effort goes. So we have to kind of lay that out, lay down that foundation of understanding the movement, understanding how to um engage certain muscles for that movement and what's the best form for you to do that in order to get to that point where you know you are pushing to like a maximal effort set or something like that.

SPEAKER_03 19:08

Um what are some ways you're gonna like get that feedback from people? Because I think that people are always like, I I'm not surprised that we offer programming, but like don't know what it would look like to have remote coaching. And it's like, oh no, we can do a lot. Like, talk about some of the things that we do with remote coaching, like whether it's video feedback or whatever, to like coach and make sure that they're still doing the right things.

SPEAKER_01 19:28

Yeah, video feedback is huge. I always ask clients uh to send me that because you can see, you know, I can see, okay, where are they overcompensating? Are they, you know, using too much of their lats when they should be locking down their um or using too much of their traps when they should be locking down their lats, like you know, getting space between their shoulders and their ears to really engage their lats on a on a pool or something. Um, so video feedback is huge. And then also them telling me how um how they felt at the end of a set. So, hey, like were you making faces? Were you breathing hard? Were you, you know, holding your breath, or um, you know, did you fall over afterwards when you were done? How did you feel after that set? If it's supposed to be a maximal effort set or anything along those lines. So I think video is huge with the remote coaching. Um, sometimes people feel weird to set up their camera and all of that stuff. So I get that as well, but I try to get videos as much as I can.

SPEAKER_03 20:21

Yeah. On that note, like I being in a gym can be super intimidating for people, especially if they haven't necessarily it's not something that they're used to. Um, and I I try so hard to coach people through like just not caring what everyone else around you thinks because they're not looking at you.

SPEAKER_01 20:35

Bro, nobody cares about you, they only care about themselves a hundred percent. We should probably do some funny videos on this and do ridiculous things in a gym setting. Yes. And show everyone in the background not looking at you. No one cares. Nobody cares. Everybody's only looking at themselves. If there's mirrors, you're gonna look at yourself in the mirror. Yep, and nobody cares. And I think, you know, there's some gyms that'll have like a female only room, and so some females like prefer that, but I always encourage, you know, clients like, hey, just do your thing. Like nobody's watching you.

SPEAKER_03 21:03

Yeah. I had someone recently ask me, like, how do I feel so comfortable going into the dumbbell section? Because usually the dumbbell section at a bro gym, at a bodybuilding gym, whatever, is just like a bunch of dudes that are huge. And I'm just like, I don't know, I just I don't care. I'm just gonna walk right in, grab my weights, do my thing. I don't even need to make eye contact with you. Knowing me, though, I'm gonna chit chat and be like, hey, what's up? How you doing? What you doing today? But you don't have to be like me, just go in, grab your weights, do your thing, walk out. No one's looking at you. Nobody. And even like, you know, yes, there are weirdos in gyms, I'm sure, but like nine times out of ten, it's not that. So I wanna encourage so many more women to be confident with it. And when it comes to videoing yourself, I think a lot of people do that now because a lot of people have coaches or they're form correcting themselves. Yeah, for sure. So no one's gonna look and be like, oh, what do you think? You're an influencer? Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 21:48

Like, no. Unless you like whip out the whole situation, like lights on a tripod, then I then you're probably gonna get lucky.

SPEAKER_03 21:54

You mean our setup right now?

SPEAKER_01 21:55

Oh shh, we're not talking about them.

SPEAKER_03 21:58

But yeah, I think that more people should try. Hopefully, you know, get over that that fear of that because who at the end of the day, who cares what anybody thinks?

SPEAKER_01 22:04

Yeah, yeah. And your progress is gonna be your progress. And hey, if you are doing the wrong form and you're not doing it right, like wouldn't you want your coach to know at the beginning versus the end of a cycle?

SPEAKER_03 22:13

Yeah, 100%. Um and really, truthfully, you need a I need a short video. You don't have to have you don't have to video your whole dang workout. Please don't. I need actually I can't watch all that. Um, I need, if I've got three sets of 10, I want you to film your last set and I want you to send me your last five reps of your last set so that I can see when does our form break down? Is it breaking down? Are you giving maximal effort? And I can correct your form in the worst part of your workout because that's when you're the most tired from that specific movement. That's all I need. That's a very short.

SPEAKER_01 22:40

Those are the only videos that I would ever send my coach was when I was fatigued or my last set or I knew it was a bad set and I needed to know what I did wrong, or if I missed a lift, a snatch or a clean and jerk or something like that. Those are the only videos that I would ever send because if it felt really good, you know, you did it right. Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 22:56

But there's a lot, I think there's a lot more that can come from remote strength training than people even realize. All right. So I want you to dive in and tell us a little bit about why should people be strength training? And it's not just women, it's women and men, but I want to talk about women specifically. Why should women be strength training?

SPEAKER_01 23:13

In a culture where skinny is coming back, I think we don't understand the consequences of not maintaining muscle mass. As we age, we you're going to lose muscle. It's just something that happens as you age. And so you have to take advantage of in your younger years building that foundation of muscle mass on your body because homegirl don't want to be stuck on the toilet at 85 years old and not be able to stand up. Yeah. That's like one of the main reasons people go to a nursing home, is what I've heard. So I think maintaining muscle mass is so important for the longevity of, you know, feeling good in your later years. Um, there's so much science behind it, but I'm not really a science nerd, so I don't want to spit all those words out there but um and you know, miss misspeak about anything. But the the crucial point of being strong, like, do you want to be able to get up off the floor when you have kids holding your baby, like postpartum and feel good with that? Do you want to be able to play with your kids as you age? Do you want to be able to run around with your kids? I know, like one of your goals is like, hey, I'm gonna arm wrestle until you know, like they beat me and keep going from there and then, you know, come make a comeback. And race. So yes, and race. And so, like my sister with her three boys, you know, she's sprinting with them and the, you know, beating them until they beat her. Yeah. And so it's just like, what do you envision for your life as far as like movement and as far as like strength? Um, and you want to stay active and you want to build that foundation because as you age and as you get older, it it does dwindle. You can take the best care of yourself, but you want to feel good in those later years in order to really have, you know, the best life you can as you get into those late years. And I think too, I've never felt more empowered when I've been strong. Like even the month and a half of not touching any weight postpartum, I was like itching to get back to some kind of weight because I just felt weak. I felt like, ugh, I have to do something. And it's the craziest feeling to not touch weight.

SPEAKER_02 25:18

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 25:18

And I think once you have that feeling of, all right, I'm building some strength right here, it's there's nothing like it. And I think for a person, like from a personal perspective, to feel better about yourself and just have that confidence of like, oh yeah, I can pick that up. Yeah, like I can, I can lift my baby, I can move things across the room, I could, you know, move the couch if I needed to. And the empowerment that comes with that is amazing. But also just for your overall health and like the longevity of maintaining that muscle mass, because you know, it it's not going to be there forever and you have to lay down that foundation totally.

SPEAKER_03 25:52

I think it is wildly empowering to be a strong female. And I know that we both feel the same way. I love my husband more than anything, but I also feel empowered that, like, if he's gone, I got it. I can handle it. I can pick it up. I will figure out a way, I will functionally lift this massive box or I will move that couch because I feel I'm strong. And I think that that is wildly empowering, or I can throw both kids on my hips and carry seven bags and be totally fine, right? Like, I think that that just it, I don't know, it feels empowering. You don't understand it until you do it, especially as a woman. But then also to your point, like, I mean, as we age, man, if we don't have those muscles pulling on those bones to help increase bone density, men and women both, like, yeah, it's both of those things are gonna dwindle. So not only are we not gonna have this muscle mass that we need to functionally move, but now like our bone density sucks too. Yeah. So your point about the skinny culture comeback, which is like really disheartening to see and really challenging to see, uh, especially knowing what we know about the long-term impact that that is gonna have on so many people. Yeah. It's really hard to watch. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 26:54

Sometimes I feel like I live in a bubble in the CrossFit community because like everybody wants muscles in CrossFit. Right. And so I'm like so good he feels this way. Nope. And that's not the case. And so I have to remember, you know, that not everybody has that mentality. And you don't have to be like a muscle mommy and like, you know, bulk up or anything. It's very hard for us to bulk up as females, anyways. You'd have to train for a really long time and take some extra things that you don't need to take in order to bulk up. So um, you know, doing CrossFit for years, I'm very happy with like the musculature that I built. And I think I don't know if I mentioned this earlier, but when I first started CrossFit, my weight was always 150, 150, 150. Putting on muscle, my normal weight that I would sit at was then 165. That's 15 pounds, most likely of muscle.

SPEAKER_03 27:44

Yes, and I love this point.

SPEAKER_01 27:46

Yes, and so it's like the scale is not gonna look the same, but I've never gotten more compliments on my body composition.

SPEAKER_03 27:53

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 27:54

And so it was like it's fine. The scale freaking doesn't matter at this point. I'm performing better than I ever have. I feel healthier, healthier than I ever have, I'm stronger than I've ever been. More capable, and I can eat more than I've ever eaten.

SPEAKER_03 28:06

Right. And who doesn't want to do that? And as cheesy as it sounds, that translates into other aspects of your life. Like you become more confident in work, you could become more confident in your day-to-day life because you're confident in yourself. And like that, it just translates to everything. Yeah. And I know that we are obviously biased to coaching, but like I think that it can change everything about your life. Yeah. It's wild.

SPEAKER_02 28:25

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 28:26

Um, so with the skinny culture topic, like I get to your point that not everybody wants to be a muscle mommy, not everybody wants to get bulky or anything along those lines, but it is really crazy and and very toxic right now, as far as like the, I mean, celebrities that are walking out on the red carpet looking borderline emaciated. Um, and so I want to talk a little bit about body image as women and that it is challenging. And I want to know have you struggled at all, you know, through pregnancy and postpartum with body image? Because you are one of the most confident people I know. But also those those thoughts are gonna creep in for everybody.

SPEAKER_01 29:00

A hundred percent. I think, especially first trimester, because I had been lean for a very long amount of time, and not in an unhealthy way, but just the way I was training and the way I eat, I was pretty consistent with my body composition and being on the leaner side. And with first trimester, I was looking at my body in the mirror and thinking, what is happening? This is a hundred percent out of my control, and I'm not doing anything wrong. And I had that back and forth of reminding myself that you're building a human, it's fine that your body's changing. Holy crap, my body's changing and I hate it. It was both in the in the same thought process. Yep. And seeing fat in places that I didn't like, not being able to wear my clothes. It's hard as a female because your your body's doing these changes and you have no idea what your body's gonna do when you get pregnant. Because everybody, like we mentioned earlier, everybody's body gains weight differently when you do get pregnant. Some people gain everywhere, some people only gain in their stomach. Some people's faces get super puffy, and you know, by the end of pregnancy, you feel so swollen and like your lips are massive and your nose is massive, and you're like, How did that happen? You know, so it's like you can't control that. No, you can't, and you're retaining more water, and I had a fun time just weighing myself through pregnancy because I wanted to see how much I gained, and it was it was interesting. I think I ended up gaining about 40 or 45 pounds, and I'm five nine, and so I everybody was like, Oh, but you're so tiny. And I was like, How dare you tell tell me I'm tiny right now? I feel massive. But you know, but you looked great, and and that's hilarious to me because I felt huge. Of course, and so you know, that's another thing to remember is you're gonna view yourself a certain way in the mirror and be give yourself grace because you have to remind yourself this is for a season, it's for a wonderful purpose to bring a little human into the world, and I can make changes postpartum that, and my body's gonna change postpartum, that will gradually put me into a position where I can regain that confidence. Will you have a period of time where you may not feel as confident? Yes, and that is the reality of it. You probably will be like, dang, I'm not really loving that, but remind yourself, this is not forever, it's just for now. And there will be a time when you will look in the mirror and you'll be like, wow, my body did that. Like, I did that. And it will be crazy. And I think I've gotten to a point now where I appreciate everything that my body has been able to do, whether it was give birth, breastfeed, and like keep a human alive through doing those things. And uh it's just really cool. And you can evolve and kind of, you know, not snap back, not bounce back with that mentality, but just do the things you know you need to do to help your body recover at the pace that your body's going to recover.

SPEAKER_03 31:56

Yeah, I love that. So many more, so many more people need to learn to be a little bit more patient in the journey. Post bottom, weight loss, whatever the journey may be, learning to just be a little bit more patient with the process. It takes time. So I think if people take two things away from you, you said, oh, you said one tagline just now that I couldn't, can't remember. But the first one was just because you can doesn't mean that you should. That was one of what you just said. It was really good. It was good. Listen back, you you'll figure it out. Yes. Um, this was so fun. Thank you for doing this with me. Thanks for tuning in to the Rooted Method with us. If you want to follow along with uh Lolly on Instagram or with our coaching page, we're gonna put those Instagram handles down in the show notes, and then we'll also put a link down there like we always do. If you want to schedule a consultation call with one of our coaches, get some free advice. Uh, you can talk about coaching or not, and we would be more than happy to just help you.