Be Well Cartel: the wellness girl gang podcast

In this weeks preamble, we talk about modern dating, boundaries, and why Holly and Gillian like the idea of being with someone bilingual. Gillian shares some recent dating experiences and the difficulty of dating in a pandemic.

From there, we head into a Q+A discussion that ranges from nutrition to mindset to training, covering three widely asked questions within our communities and client bases! On the podcast this week:

What do we think about protein bars/snacks?

We talk about the pros and cons of protein bars, why you might actually want to eat a candy bar instead (SHOCKING) and how to know when your protein bar addiction is going too far. We also share our tips for choosing a ‘good’ protein bar, and some ingredients and red flags to stay away from.

How do you know when you might be taking it *too* far with your healthy habits?

We talk about the spectrum of healthy behaviours, and how to tell if maybe you’ve gone too far along, and what to do if you’re feeling like you might need to take a step back. This is a topic that the three of us can speak to from personal experience, both as a client and a coach, and have struggled with in our own lives.

Should you work out when you’re sick?

This conversation has changed a bit since COVID has hit us, AND it ties into the previous question- if you’re feeling compelled to work out, even though you’re sick.. what is your REAL goal here? We also give you some practical tips for exercising when you don’t feel 100%, and how to gauge whether a workout is a terrible idea or not.

If you’re loving these episodes, go ahead and share them with your community, either on social media or via email or text- if each of you lovely listeners shares with ONE person, that helps move this little podcast into many more hands!

Mentioned in this episode:

Podcast: How I built this with Guy Raz

Game: We are not really strangers

Protein, fats, and carbs - we can't live without them, and yet there's a lot of confusion and fear around some of these macronutrients.

Today we dive into:

What does protein do and how much protein do you need? What different kinds of protein are there? What about plant based or vegan protein?

What are simple carbs vs complex carbs? What kinds of fiber are there and how much do we need? Why are carbs so important for women?

And finally, fats - what varieties of fat should we be looking for, and are there any we should be avoiding? 

We also discuss the misunderstanding about "fat burning", and what it actually means. 

We kick off this week of the podcast talking about making new friends as an adult. Gillian went out on a limb and posted in a Facebook group to find new friends.. and the results were surprising. Olivia mentions how hard it can be to make friends when everyone has kids, and Holly supports us through it all!

From there, we kick off a conversation with Alex Maclin, nutrition coach based out of Austin TX.

Alex has a background in competing and coaching Olympic Weightlifting, and appeared on the podcast Barbell Shrugged. He is works with a varied group of individuals ranging from stay at home moms to athletes, and we love his straightforward, no BS approach to nutrition and health.

Alex shares with us his trajectory from Engineering to Olympic weightlifting, and how the universe finally convinced him to go out on his own as a nutrition coach.

We chat about the difference between coaching someone who’s lived experience you can’t fully understand, the difference between female and male communication styles, and why the question ‘WHY’ is so darn important.

In this conversation, we go into why it might not be your hormones that re the problem, why your coach is not your therapist, and how changing your mindset might be the simplest (yet most difficult) part of your whole transformation.

From there, we discuss why your emotions are valid, but they aren’t good data, and how you can pay attention to your emotions without letting them dictate how you really feel about your progress.

This conversation is a great one to listen to if you are curious about what it’s like to work with a coach, or if you’re interesting in learning how to better communicate with a coach, trainer or any other health professional.

Books mentioned:

Susan David, Emotional Agility

CrossFit is one of the most divisive fitness modalities out there - people love it, they hate it, they think it's super functional, they think it causes injuries... so who's right?!

Today, Olivia, Holly, & Gillian dive into the controversial topic of CrossFit.

They talk about their CrossFit origins stories, the CrossFit Open competition, and their absolute favorite things about CrossFit.

Today's podcast was brought to you by the Grit & Grace program - listen to the end to hear about this fantastic workout program from our very own Olivia Park - registration JUST opened and you can find it here:

https://winning-founder-6829.ck.page/f9a2a2d610

If you’ve ever gone to a family or social event and been utterly confused over the conflicting comments over what your body looks like, what you should eat, or how you should look, or simply just wanted everyone else to SHUT UP about your body… this episode is for you.

As usual, we start out this episode just catching up with each other- Olivia had a birthday and got a really cool present, we chat about what songs would be our walk out songs if we were MMA fighters, and we introduce our very first guest EVER… Steph Ng!

Who is Steph? (From the Body Banter website)

Steph is a masters student in the clinical psychology program at Teachers College, Columbia University. She founded Body Banter in 2016 after realizing the powerful role that discussion and advocacy played in her own eating disorder recovery journey. Through providing opportunities for community-building, advocacy and open discussion, she hopes that Body Banter can amplify the voices of young people and empower them to be the driving forces behind creating a more accepting and accommodating world.

Around 9:40, we hop into our conversation with Steph. She shares with us her experience battling an eating disorder in her teens, and some of the cultural situations that contributed to how she felt at that time.

Steph explains a bit about her choice of thesis- exploring the cultural experience of Chinese young adult women. Through her work, she uncovered some interesting connections between culture and body image and how young women interact with their bodies.

This conversation dives into disordered eating patterns, dieting, and how to understand the intersection between one’s own beliefs about food and body and how they connect with culture and upbringing.

We talk about the opposing pressures of culture- on one side, you may have been raised to eat everything on your plate, but on the other, you are expected to be a disciplined dieter, controlling your body through the amount that you eat.

This is an exploratory, informative and thought provoking discussion that will help you consider your own body image in the context of culture and family. As with all of our episodes, send us a DM or email and let us know- what did this episode bring up for you? What would you like to hear on future episodes?

Don’t forget to follow the Be Well Cartel podcast on Instagram (@bewellcartel), and if you’re loving these episodes, leave us a 5 star rating and review and SHARE your favourite episode with your community!

Do you have healthy boundaries? Are you comfortable setting boundaries? What happens when you DON'T have boundaries?

As usual, we start out this episode with some fun chat about our ability to count plates on a barbell and inability to count literally anything else, why we love lifting when we have NO idea what weight is on the barbell, and how so much of lifting is really our own expectations. We talk about a recent presentation Holly did on body image and disordered eating, and go into a bit about how your perception of yourself can change how you interact with the world, and how conditioned we are by our beliefs.

At about 10:20 we get into our main topic for today: boundaries. How do you know when you’re lacking them? How do you you set healthy boundaries? How do you identify what boundaries are important for you?

We define the difference between boundaries and rules, and why it is important that boundaries build your self trust- not take away from it. Holly talks about the ‘self trust bank account’ and why it is important that your boundaries feed that account, whereas strict control and rules can often drain it.

We go into the Be Well Cartel Boundary Framework, and give tools, recommendations and a breakdown of how to define your values and priorities, set realistic goals, and define the boundaries that are necessary for you to set in order to live in accordance with those values.

You’ll hear specific advice for how to practice setting boundaries and how to uphold them in your daily life, and what to do when someone doesn’t respect a boundary you’ve set.

Books/People mentioned in this podcast:

-Brené Brown (the anatomy of trust)- google it!

-Crucial Conversations

-Nonviolent Communication

-Byron Katie

We LOVE your feedback, and appreciate so much when you share our podcast with the people you love! Send us a DM on Instagram and let us know how you liked this episode, and if you have any questions you would like us to answer in a future episode of the Be Well Cartel!

Don’t forget to follow the Be Well Cartel podcast on Instagram (@bewellcartel), and if you’re loving these episodes, leave us a 5 star rating and review and SHARE your favourite episode with your community!

See you next week!

In the episode, we dig into the why behind hypothalamic amenorrhea, reasons why you need your period, how to talk to your doctor about treatment, what books might help you understand your period (or lack thereof) a bit better, and how to start healing your hormones naturally. When your period goes missing, it can be both stressful and confusing- but we will break it down for you to better understand what it is and how to recover from it! 

Holly, Olivia and Gillian are all in various stages of recovery from HA, and want to provide information, community and help towards a solution for your hypothalamic amenorrhea!

We kick off this episode with a bit of fun conversation- talking a bit about the gym- what we miss, what we love, and the benefits of training at home vs. Going back to the gym. We discuss what each of us are currently doing for workouts now, and how our mindset has changed around exercise and the gym in general over the last 18 months.

Around 8:00 we start our conversation about hypothalamic amenorrhea- first explaining what amenorrhea is- there are a few different categories that amenorrhea falls under, but our main focus for this episode is Hypothalamic Amenorrhea.

9:50 Definition of what hypothalamic amenorrhea is, and what your hypothalamus does!

12:45 Olivia talks about low energy availability and how that might affect your hypothalamus

19:00 all the reasons you might be missing your period (that may or may not be HA)

21:15 why your ‘pill’ period is not the same as your natural period, and how to talk to your doctor about this

25:07 what is PCOS?

28:20 Why is it important to have a period, even if you don’t want to get pregnant?

36:08 Why sleep is important to a healthy period

37:40 Holly, Gillian and Olivia’s stories

57:05 If you have symptoms of HA, here’s what to do next

BOOKS MENTIONED IN THIS PODCAST:

Jolene Brighten: Beyond the Pill

Lara Briden: The Period Repair Manual

Lara Gottfried: The Hormone Cure

Lisa Sanfilippo Waddell, Nicola J. Rinaldi, and Stephanie G. Buckler: No Period, Now What

Make sure to follow us wherever you listen to your podcasts, take a minute to leave a review on Apple Podcasts, and tune into our Clubhouse chat every Thursday morning at 10:00 am GMT.

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In this episode, we are discussing a topic that a couple of years ago didn’t even EXIST.

How do you manage health, fitness and nutrition through quarantine?

As the world continues to go in and out of different restrictions and lockdowns, and we continue to understand what it is like to live in a world that has changed forever, our mental and physical health practices have changed A LOT.

We start out this episode with a quick chat about Gillian’s first therapy session, Pancake Day in the UK and why Holly has been eating pancakes for the last 4 days. We share a couple instagram accounts that we just can’t get enough of, and Olivia shares her experience teaching a Female Performance course over the weekend.

We talk a bit about the differences between male and female training, and touch on feminism within sports… but then… we get into this week’s topic!

Around 20:00, we start talking about this week’s main topic: mental health, nutrition and exercise through the pandemic.

This is not a conversation about how to stick to your strict diet, or which fitness challenge you should sign up for while your gym is closed- we talk about the reality of the stress involved in the openings and closings of different parts of the world, the self compassion that many of us are struggling with right now, and practical advice for how to better understand your body and work with it to maximise your health when life has changed so much over the past year.

You’ll walk away from this episode with actionable advice to help you better understand yourself, your nutrition and your body even as COVID continues to affect your ‘normal’ life.

As always, we LOVE your feedback, and appreciate so much when you share our podcast with the people you love! Send us a DM on Instagram and let us know how you liked this episode, and if you have any questions you would like us to answer in a future episode of the Be Well Cartel!

Also- make sure to follow us wherever you listen to your podcasts and tune into our Clubhouse chat every Thursday morning at 930 am GMT.

For the first 15 minutes, we have a chat about life-we get into talking about therapy, why Gillian is going to start seeing a therapist, and how to choose a therapist, and how social media will probably come up in her sessions! Olivia shares a big decision she has made in her life, to go back to school for a masters in female performance, and Holly is one big step closer to getting her spousal visa for the United States!

After this check in with the three of us, we hop into a question and answer session with a few questions that we have received from our communities.

@ 15:00 The first question is from Olivia, and it is a simple yet NOT easy one… How do you know what weights to use? She goes into the key steps to determining what the correct weight is and how to determine your RPE or ‘reps in reserve’ for an exercise.

@32:00 Then we segue into a question from Holly’s community- How (if at all) should you modify your nutrition for injuries? Should you be eating less when you’re injured? We discuss the reasons why you should continue to be eating fairly ‘normally’ while you’re injured, the benefits of certain key nutrients and supplements, and why

@46:00 And finally, you’ll hear a question from Gillian’s clients- Do you really need to be eating in the morning if you aren’t hungry? With the advent of such popular diets like intermittent fasting, the debate comes up again… is breakfast the most important meal of the day? Is coffee for breakfast really all you need? We talk about reasons why eating in the morning MIGHT be beneficial to you, even if you aren’t hungry, and reasons why you might not feel hungry even when your body needs nutrients.

@ 1:04 Summary of the 3 questions and recap!

See you again next week for another episode of The Be Well Cartel, wellness girl gang podcast!

Make sure to share with your friends, tag us on social media, and join us every Thursday on Clubhouse.

If you’re interested in the therapy resources we discussed in this episode, you can check them out at Talkspace and Better Help.

For the book mentioned at the beginning of the episode, check out Nir Eyal’s book Hooked.

Thanks to Earned Athletics for supporting this episode! Remember you can still enter to win the $130 voucher- just leave us a rating and review on Apple Podcasts, screenshot your review and post it to your stories- make sure to tag @bewellcartel and follow us and @earnedathleticapparel to win!

***Don't forget to enter in the $130 Earned Athletics giveaway*** details in the episode!

In this episode, we are tackling three fitness and nutrition myths that we wish would just disappear. Because it is important to us to share information and help YOU make the best decisions about what works for YOUR body, we talk about the truth behind these myths and how to apply it to your own health.

We kick off with a bit of chat about our week- Olivia’s fourth period, Gillian’s sex drive, Holly and Gillian’s fast talking problems, and our new Clubhouse room! Then we head into breaking down some fitness and nutrition myths for you.

Myth #1: Do carbs make you fat?

Short answer… No. Long answer- we go deep into this topic, and cover all the reasons why this myth has been around for so long!

What happened with carbs? Why are we so scared of them? Why do you lose weight so fast when you take carbs out?

We cover the very basic science of macronutrients, and explain a bit more about calories and energy intake, what carbs actually are and what they’re good form, and why insulin isn’t necessarily a bad thing. A very important topic we touch on- is losing weight the same thing as losing fat?

Myth #2: Is cardio necessary for fat loss?

While cardio is billed as the best way to burn calories, you might get stuck on a hamster wheel of doing more and more cardio without seeing the results you’re looking for. We talk about why cardio has gained popularity for fat loss, and the other things you can be doing to more effectively burn fat that have nothing to do with running on the treadmill for hours. Don’t get us wrong- we aren’t anti-cardio! We discuss how to incorporate cardio into a routine in an effective, healthy way, and the importance of starting where you are.

Myth #3 Is toning really a thing? Can you really build lean muscle or bulky muscle?

We start out talking about what it means to change your body, and why it’s important to FIRST start with body acceptance. The toning myth seems to never go away- from selling the ‘dancers body’ to the masses, to selling ’toning’ programs in magazines, its still going hard. But in reality, toning is the same as building muscle! We talk about the best way to build muscle, why it seems like you might be building ‘bulky’ muscle, and how to strength train for a healthy body.

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Want to submit a question, comment or just say hi? Send us an email at [email protected] and make sure to follow us on Instagram @bewellcartel

This episode is brought to you by Earned Athletics: https://earnedathleticapparel.com/