Discover the transformative power of tuning into your body's needs with Katie from we Shape, as she guides us through the uncharted territories of health and fitness. This episode sheds light on the profound shift from quick-fix dieting to the lasting benefits of mindful movement and sustainable lifestyle changes. Katie's expertise in setting meaningful intentions that transcend mere numbers on a scale will inspire you to uncover your inner motivations. We're not just talking about weight loss here; we're delving into the essence of undieting and how it underscores the importance of mental health and self-connection.
Venture into the realm of F squared consulting with us, where fitness meets financial freedom, and understand why your well-being is the real wealth. Katie's approach to exercising as a natural antidepressant could very well change your life. We confront the toxic temptations of weight loss culture and discuss how personal responsibility and a supportive environment are key to a healthier self. We also scrutinize the intricacies of obesity without succumbing to shame or strict regimes, advocating for a balanced approach to nutrition that celebrates the joy of eating. This is not just another health podcast; it's a call to reshape your life, one intention at a time.
Discover the transformative power of tuning into your body's needs with Katie from we Shape, as she guides us through the uncharted territories of health and fitness. This episode sheds light on the profound shift from quick-fix dieting to the lasting benefits of mindful movement and sustainable lifestyle changes. Katie's expertise in setting meaningful intentions that transcend mere numbers on a scale will inspire you to uncover your inner motivations. We're not just talking about weight loss here; we're delving into the essence of undieting and how it underscores the importance of mental health and self-connection.
Venture into the realm of F squared consulting with us, where fitness meets financial freedom, and understand why your well-being is the real wealth. Katie's approach to exercising as a natural antidepressant could very well change your life. We confront the toxic temptations of weight loss culture and discuss how personal responsibility and a supportive environment are key to a healthier self. We also scrutinize the intricacies of obesity without succumbing to shame or strict regimes, advocating for a balanced approach to nutrition that celebrates the joy of eating. This is not just another health podcast; it's a call to reshape your life, one intention at a time.
Hello and welcome to Health and Fitness, free Defined. I'm your host, anthony Mann. Join me today as we take a dive into Health and Fitness. We're going to go over to my university, take a look at that career's fiction and see Health and Fitness in a whole new light. Welcome, guys. Hope you've been enjoying these episodes. If there's anything you'd like to hear in this new year, whether it is fitness related, health related, you name it. You like the quick tip episodes more than the long format episodes. You let me know. I will be there for you. I appreciate you guys listening to this show for the last four years. We're pretty much at now. So thank you so much to all of my listeners. I wouldn't be here without you. So without further ado, though, let's welcome today's show, katie. Katie, it's an absolute pleasure to have you today.
Speaker 2:Hi Anthony, Thank you for having me.
Speaker 1:Really excited to do this episode. As always, health and Fitness is something that I love, especially this time of year, because everyone's thinking about Health and Fitness. So, before we jump into a little bit of what we're talking about today, why don't you just introduce yourself and tell us everyone how you got started?
Speaker 2:Absolutely. Yeah, I'm Katie. I'm one of the co-founders of we Shape. My co-founder and I started we Shape about two years ago. We are an at home technology driven real time customer. We're a customized workout program.
Speaker 2:So we're looking to solve two major problems in the fitness industry. One we're trying to get people to connect with more mindful movement, like learning more functional movement patterns in their body that will serve them for the long haul. And we're also trying to get people to have mentality shifts. So a lot of people get really stuck in the pattern of dieting and really obsessing about weight loss. And we actually my co-founder and I used to have a different company before we Shape where we helped people with body transformation through a prescriptive diet and exercise programs and we watched thousands of people lose a lot of weight and transform their bodies and most of them were still not happy. So that journey led us to closing that down, closing that company down and starting we Shape with sort of a new intention and a new path that we think will better serve people for the long haul.
Speaker 1:Okay, you're at the unfortunate or fortunate side effect of being right at the end of the year, so I'm going to ask you some fun questions related to that Just end of. I think works perfectly with your company anyway. So the first question is what trends do you see coming in the new year from 2023 to now? I can't believe 2024?.
Speaker 2:Oh man, anthony, I would like we Shape to start a new trend, which is we tell people all the time to bail on their scale and find a more meaningful intention. Like we. I think people are waking up to the idea that like diets don't really work and we keep thinking that like, oh, if I just do keto, if I just do paleo, if I just do a vegan, if I just do this, like this will be the magic solution. And I think we're all discovering that it's not the magic solution and that it really doesn't last or doesn't really work for many of us. So I think the new trend is going to be centered around undiating and kind of deeper exposing what's going on behind the curtain, if you will.
Speaker 1:I love it. Undiating is definitely where we need to head in the direction.
Speaker 2:I hope it's not a trend, because it really is meant to serve us in a different way. Trends don't work.
Speaker 1:Yeah, couldn't agree more. So what would you like to see, I guess, as we shift into the new year? Is it more you would like to see people fade out from those diets? Is it more you'd like to see more focus on mental health? Is there anything in particular that you really think we should be focusing in?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think that focusing on our intention is really powerful. I think we can just kind of brush that off. But if you sit and think about that for a while, what is your intention? Like, for instance, when people go into the new year and they want to lose weight, we often hear like, oh, I need weight loss. And when I dig deeper I often find that people are really saying.
Speaker 2:What people are really saying is I want to feel worth it, I want to feel lovable, I want to feel accepted and valuable and if I'm this weight, then the society and the culture I live in will offer me that validation. So if we come from that intention and use weight loss as the means, we often find that we're at a dead end. So I think if we really sit back and go, ok, why do I want that goal? And if it's really to feel validation and feel love and feel self-worth and value, that actually comes from self, not from other. And so if we pivot our intention to focusing on greater connection with self and understanding the deeper layers of how we can get closer to that version of ourselves, I think that is a more powerful intention and will take us much further than a diet.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I'm going to pivot into a sales tactic Anthony White talking about a sales tactic in a public fitness podcast. It's important. That's why. So we do this in sales and I think this is important for people to actually do to themselves in general in life. And it's the five Ys.
Speaker 1:Yes, someone asks, tells you something I want to lose weight, why I want to lose weight to feel better, why you jump into and you dive into the real underlying reason about why that person or why, if you're doing it to yourself, you want to feel that certain way the weight losses. Like you said, is that outer culture response that you think is what we want to say? No one wants to say well, my husband isn't having sex with me anymore, I notice my clothes aren't fitting, my friends are giving me clients, I'm batters to walk into a public place Like those are hard just to walk into with someone you just met and just say that. So instead we say I want to lose weight when realistically, that's the real solution, and then I think what happens is we sell in our minds as individuals, like as a client, which is, I forget the reason I initially came in and I resold myself.
Speaker 1:The only reason I came in was to lose weight, because that was reiterated to me over and over and over again. That's what I told my trainer or my health coach or whatever. And by the end of it it's you obsess over it, thinking I need this, why I need to lose weight, and it's just weight, and it's just weight. And you just get torn down that rabbit hole instead of being reminded about the real reason you came in to find that real motivation to help you.
Speaker 2:I love that we actually, when people join our community, when they log into the product for the first time, we actually have a why section why are you here? And we actually say that a very thing Like the first time you asked that, answer that like ask it four more times. So I love that you said that. I really actually appreciate that you're bringing up this idea around motivation. It's not my favorite word but it's a very popular word when we talk about our health journey.
Speaker 2:Like, I just kind of get motivated and one of the things that I've really discovered is not only in my personal journey but working with clients is that when people are focused on something outside of themselves you know, validation, meeting a societal standard, anything that's not really truly them at their core they're looking to quote unquote motivate themselves to achieve that external validation. When we shift the intention, go a little deeper and kind of get willing to get a little bit uncomfortable with some of the things that are driving this and like really addressing like how do I cultivate self worth? How do I cultivate my own validation being enough? How do I care for myself in a meaningful way, what I notice is we go from extrinsic motivation to intrinsic motivation and I think that that's a really important like it's really important to highlight that difference, because intrinsic motivation is ease, it's not oh, I'm going to just shame myself and judge myself and punish myself into doing this.
Speaker 2:I want to do this. I want to care for my body. I want to move Huge distinctions there.
Speaker 1:So what are some ways people can get there? Because personally I feel like working with clients takes anywhere from three to six months Constant working on that to see that shift. But I don't know if you have any tips or tricks you could throw on there to help people make that shift towards intrinsic motivation.
Speaker 2:I'll be honest with you, anthony. People ask me this all the time and it's my least favorite question because I never have the answer that people want. And the answer that people want is the tip or the trick. But the truth is this is a journey. This takes time and we are not going to diet, tip or trick our way into doing this. This is me saying I'm open enough to understand how I can go down a path of cultivating a deeper connection with myself.
Speaker 2:I'm open to understanding my pain and my history. I'm open to understanding some of the deeper things that sit beneath the surface, and that openness to me is the first step that takes us down a journey. Before you know it, you're like oh, this book fell on my lap, this podcast came to me. Like, these things start unraveling. It takes a willingness, it takes a curiosity and if we're tipping and tricking ourselves, I think it's important to highlight that, from my personal experience, that's not where I have found most meaningful change. The most meaningful change has been when I'm open, when I'm curious and when I'm available for the path. That is a lifelong process, not a 60-day diet.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I'm going to throw some ringers in there for you, which I think you're going to appreciate.
Speaker 2:Love it.
Speaker 1:So my accident, which I've talked about a bunch of times I did the typical let me find the extremes in option Let me go to the experts, let me go to the doctors, let me go to the surgeons, let me go. I wanted to find a validation through somebody else to tell me that, hey, you're going to be OK, we got you, we're going to take care of you. And it took two and a half years of pure agony to realize that no one's here to help me.
Speaker 1:No one's going to actually really sit down and work with me and help solve it. They're all thinking to my head. This is kind of blows my mind and I need to do it myself. So that was the first reality shift is stop relying on other people, start pulling it all internally and figuring out how I can then help myself. Same goes for my business, any business owner or anything in life really. Somebody else is going to come in and I'm going to get a bunch of clients and I'm going to be successful. Oh, people aren't coming in. It's got to be because of my advertiser, it's got to be because people just don't want XYZ.
Speaker 1:And the last place we look is internally, and 99.99% of the time it's something you're doing or saying, whether it's to your employees or to your clients, that's causing you to not build your business All stuff that you could sit there and work on yourself. You fix it, it shifts and it moves forward, which is why we always use the example of blame yourself for everything. I always say this to my entrepreneurs if everything's your fault, I can't control the government. Now. It's your fault, it doesn't matter. Government shuts down. Why weren't you online? You weren't ready. Well, why weren't you ready? What were you doing? Where you're blowing off what? How much free time do you have in less year? Why didn't you get this done? You start looking internally to start fixing problems internally, because if everything becomes easier, because you blame other people for your issues, you can just easily say can't do anything about it, it's somebody else's fault, when really, if you start blaming yourself for everything, things get done quicker.
Speaker 2:I hear that I definitely think that it's the scarier path Like this is the path that I think as human beings, it's a condition that we don't we're conditioned to not want to go down that path, because self-reflection is scary, it brings up shame, it brings up judgment, it brings up trauma for most of us and it's a really difficult thing to have to look in the mirror. And I do think that, being willing, that I just think that people are always like, well, what do I do? I'm like, well, the first step is just be open, and I really do believe in the magic of that. I've started this journey myself personally, three or four years ago. I just want to be open to unsubscribing to the projections and conditions that are placed on me and knowing who I am and what I want out of this life. And just that little cracking of that door to curiosity has evolved a whole journey, which is, yeah, a lot of personal responsibility, but also a lot of trust in, maybe a force greater than myself that is maybe at work.
Speaker 2:And I see that when I'm faced with various challenges and really trying to shift my own perception, kind of going back to that self around is this happening to me or is this happening for me? My co-founder always says it's really our responsibility to understand how things are happening for us, and so it is this balance of trusting a greater force while really going inward to understand how things are aligning and why things are coming up in the way that they are, especially when things are happening repetitively. So if something is happening to me over and over and over again, it's really indication, in my opinion, to pause and go. Ok, what is the deeper meaning here? What is the greater lesson that I am avoiding? And I think just being curious and open is the best step that we can take to go forward in that path.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's like the definition of a sad is you're in the same thing over and over again, expecting a different result. Yes, even externally looking at, why does the same thing always happen to me? Why does this thing always, always, always, always happen? And instead of sitting there and being like it's God's way or it's just my home life situation no, it's your fault You're reacting the same way every single time, so your reaction is causing that same response over and over and over again. That same stimuli is constantly coming back. But if you need help with anything like this, guys, just don't forget.
Speaker 1:Keith and I came together and started a brand new company called F squared consulting fitness and financial freedom. I was sitting there one day saying hey look, listen, I've helped people all across the globe over their health and fitness, getting them in shape, making sure they're eating right, making them feel better. But you know what? People focus way too much on their health and then don't focus on their wealth. And then you guys see it on the flip side with entrepreneurs. I've seen way too many of them take care of their finances, make sure they got a home, make sure they got money saved, and they don't take care of themselves. But those two things go hand in hand. The most successful people have both of things taken care of because their phones are positive reinforcement cycles. So that's how we created F squared consulting. It is wwwfitbodiesfatwolletscom. Again, that is wwwfitbodiesfatwolletscom. Go check it out. Today we're offering 10% off to all of our podcast listeners.
Speaker 1:Hopping back to what we were talking about, kay, which I think is I don't want to be a dead horse, but I really can't stress enough this playing game for everything in life and it's all relatable and especially mental health. Like when we're sitting there and we're depressed and we're blaming everyone else for our depression, like that's going to lead us down that rabbit hole of getting into darker and darker places. And, as you all know, I'm speaking from experience like you got to blame yourself. Your way you react to things is your fault. You could choose to react differently. You could choose to change your life. You could choose to think differently when certain things happen to you, like that's things that you have a conscious choice over. You could choose, for example and this is a good branch for you, which is, you know, the easiest way to get over mental health or at least help with most issues start moving.
Speaker 1:Exercise is the world's most underutilized antidepressant. It's way more efficient than every single antidepressant in the world. You don't believe me? Go look it up so that, in and of itself, if you're not doing it's your fault, like you could take these steps to feel better today, not tomorrow. I said today, like right now, like start doing squats, kind of deal. But I know you want to answer that. I see you, so go ahead.
Speaker 2:Well you're just reminding me of.
Speaker 2:I just was reading this book and the author had quoted Albert Einstein saying like we can't solve a problem from the same consciousness that created it.
Speaker 2:And so, like, just, I think we all as human beings, we just it's just inherent that we try to do that right. Like, oh, I'm going to solve this problem, but I'm not even pausing to have mindfulness or awareness of like am I actually solving the same problem but in the same way? Right, we like talk ourselves into believing that this way is different. And so just creating that mindfulness around understanding that if we're, if we're trying to solve a problem in the same way we have in the past, it's likely not going to have a different outcome. And this is why we focus so much on the mentality side at we Shape, because we feel like a mindset shift really then can move people in the path of deeply, intrinsically wanting to care for their body and moving right. So we really center the base of our mission around getting people to have that mentality shift, because that is what really lasts. Like we're not going to get people to shame and judge themselves into working out it's not a long-term solution.
Speaker 1:Yeah, how do you create that mentality shift?
Speaker 2:So one of the things that we offer is we offer a number of resources so when people log into the product, we actually have calls that they can join on a daily basis. Some of those are movement related questions with our coaches, but some of them are share calls or expert panel calls where we can connect with experts in the field. So we're trying to create community and education and awareness. We also have our own podcasts where we bring in a lot of different experts around, sort of debunking some of the myths around. You know some of the toxic weight loss culture messages that we're a part of. So it's just. It's just educating people and and and offering resources for people and community and connection. We think that that can be really powerful.
Speaker 1:Yeah, love it. So you mentioned a lot a couple times the Toxas weight loss culture where you have branched upon it. Just a little bit of what I want to ask you why you think it is as prominent as it is and how can we as individuals not fall down that rabbit hole.
Speaker 2:Um, well, it's very profitable. It's a multi-billion dollar industry. So, um, I mean, I used to run a body transformation company. It's very lucrative to play on people's insecurities and say like, oh, you should lose weight. And I know that at the time we had the best intentions and we were, you know, trying to get people quote-unquote healthy. But really healthy in your mind is is quite important.
Speaker 2:And when we un, when we unravel some of those layers around, like why do we need to lose weight, and, um, sort of understanding some of the myths behind weight loss and there's even a lot of research coming up now, like we like I'll just kind of call this out that we live in a really fat phobic culture and a lot of the you know anything that we want to, like you can. We all know this idea that we can go on the internet and have a Belief and find anything to validate that belief right, and so, um, I think it's just important to like understand that, like, the culture that we live in preaches these messages Because, one, they make a lot of money and two, I think that People are striving to that. People do want to feel healthy and take care of themselves. But I just think we've gone about it in a way that really belittles people and makes people feel shame and guilt and judgment, and I just don't think that's a path that's really going to bring us towards the the better version of ourselves.
Speaker 1:You mentioned that public there and I want to ask your questions specifically. Read it with except for a bunch of different answers on them. Just curious, which is what's? Yeah, fat phobic is a thing, and I totally agree that's wrong, but what is the solution to help curve this huge obesity crisis we have right now, where the rates they're saying in the next five years, over 70 percent of people are going to be considered obese and the average cost our country spends on obesity per year that, according to 2018 study, was over a billion dollars and Our life expectancy, for the first time ever in the last three years, has gone down.
Speaker 1:So people are living Shorter lives because of how much weight we're getting and how unhealthy would be. So how do we fix this overwhelming issue without the the toxic weight loss culture? Because I feel like people live on extremes and this is the hardest thing with anything, even like just in politically, for example, you're one of the other known numbers like I'm in the middle somewhere. It's right to find those people. So I've been convinced, like, convince people, like hey, there's a healthy solution right here in the center. What's that answer?
Speaker 2:well, I'll just say that first. I um I think it's really easy to To be have black and white thinking and to have oversimplified solutions to very big problems, and I think that is what causes very left or very right and not so much of the middle right. So I think it would take um a number of episodes of your podcast, along with a number of a whole panel of professional input outside of trying.
Speaker 1:We're like 200 episodes trying to get this answer.
Speaker 2:But I I don't want to offer an oversimplified version, but I do want to offer this. I think that, first of all, this is just my belief, but I don't believe that it's anybody's business to tell somebody else what health journey they need to be on. I think those conclusions have to come from self and it's it's really just A form of judgmental and critical projection to tell people you should be this way, you should be caring about your health, you should be here. So I think that's the first, the first part, and then I can highlight, I guess, I guess, like what hasn't worked which is guilting and shaming and criticizing people, and we also are really discovering a lot of science around how diets do not work. I believe the recent stat I discovered was like 98 point something diets do not work, so criticizing and judging Silent diets don't work and they call.
Speaker 1:They cause between a 10 to 15 percent weight gain After you're going down and back up, so keep going, sorry.
Speaker 2:If I had to go about this in a different way, the way that I would go about it is through a mentality shift, which is what we're doing at we shape. It's like when I get people to connect with themselves more and figure out what they actually want out of life. They get to choose that path and it's not my job to tell them what that path looks like. It's my job to offer a safe space that's full of care and kindness and grace, not judgment and criticism and projections of societal standards. So I think that would probably be a better place to start. But again, I don't want to offer you an oversimplified solution to a very challenging question.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I love challenging questions. I get you to think right. It's definitely something we can Hopefully eventually figure it out. I'm going to offer my solution to it and I think you're going to agree with me. Education, I think, is that's not saying like this is the absolute answer, but I think this is a great start for it and we're starting to see more education.
Speaker 1:When I was in PE school once upon a time, one of the things we learned was there was a study done on PE class and Coming from somebody who had an every other day of PE class and that was it for 45 minutes and half of the spent changing in the Lockroom, so you really only got 20 minutes every the day. That was the exercise. It really didn't make much sense, but they showed that having PE class every single day increased kids grades upwards of 15% and then if you took PE and put it the class before they were, the kid was struggling. So let's say, katie, you're really bad at math. I was picking a random subject and You're really struggling and I took PE and I put a right before math class and kept it every day. You had a 40% increase in math on Little tiny shifts Right that we can create in our society to teach people to be active every day.
Speaker 1:And PE isn't about sitting there in the gym weightlifting. A lot of it's like playing games, right, playing tennis, you play basketball, you're walking the track, whatever it is. You're just creating movement and teaching kids that that at a young age, along with Nutrition, to the point where we're not waiting until kids in seventh, eighth, ninth grade and they have all these bad habits already, and then we're teaching them things They've been just proven the last 30 years and are still in textbooks and it's just like, okay, let's catch up like this, we're gonna focus. Let's focus here. Let's change cafeteria food. Let's teach kids how to eat healthy in cafeteria right, let's not have fried chicken sandwiches every Monday, pizza after Friday. Let's change something.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so that in the schools.
Speaker 2:It's so hard too because, like, everything we know about nutrition is constantly changing and so, again, I feel like the path of Of really focusing on intention and mentality, like when we're really in tune with ourselves. I don't necessarily need a 10,000 page nutrition textbook. I can actually just tune in and be like how did I feel after that? Did I feel sluggish? Should I feel tired? Did I feel energized? You know, like we've made nutrition so black and white. Like sometimes I go to have a meal and just enjoy the food because I'm in good company. Like that's one way we can eat food. Sometimes I'm eating food because I am Really tired and I need a lot of energy and so I'm gonna be mindful about what I'm picking, because I need to have sustainable energy For the day. Like sometimes I'm eating food because I had a bad day and the cookie does taste good. Like all of those things are really acceptable. But I feel like the way that we continue to go towards a path, it's just again like how do I know what's good for me? I I really can't emphasize that enough, because I do believe each human being is just Just filled with infinite wisdom of self, but we just don't know how to access that, because we're living in a world where we're Projected on what we should do and then we're living from there and just Dissecting that and peeling those layers, which I think takes a lifetime personally. But it gives us a little bit closer connection with how we feel, which is like, for instance, with our, with our work outside of things.
Speaker 2:It's like we're asking people. You know, people come in and they go. The first question they'll say is how many days a week should I be doing the workouts? And I go. Well, I don't know how to answer that for you because I'm not your body. Like you have to tune into your body and tell me what you think. Maybe you need a walk one day, maybe you need a w-shape workout, maybe you need a hike with the friend. Like I want to help you Practice that question of what do I need, because you know what you need. I don't necessarily know what you need, but let's, let's work on that part a little bit.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I'm just creating movement inside of someone's life every single day, no matter what it is. It's gonna be better than Not doing anything.
Speaker 2:Yes, there's plenty of ways that we can do that, but just reminding ourselves that guilting and shaming ourselves will probably not last long. So how do we find a different path so that we actually want to do it? I?
Speaker 1:Love it and Katie. I'm gonna ask the final two questions. I asked everyone to be prepared. The first question is if you were to some of us episode and one or two sentences, what would be your take home message?
Speaker 2:I'm Unsubscribe from other people's messages and start connecting with yourself and asking yourself what you need.
Speaker 1:Love it. And then the second question. I think people find you get a hold of you down in your app. Go ahead.
Speaker 2:I actually have a special link for your listeners. They can go to we shape, calm forward, slash health and fitness and they can get a two-week free trial at we shape if they want to check us out.
Speaker 1:I love it. Katie, thank you for coming on and thank you, guys for listening to this week's episode. Help the fitness redefine. Don't forget, hit that subscribe button and join us next week as your debut written into this ever-changing field. And remember fitness is medicine. Until next time you.