Tough Cookie Talks

Tough Cookie Talks

By Jenna JozefowskiHealth & Fitness
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Tough Cookie Talks episodes

  • Crying In the Bathroom
    In real life, I have had at least 5 sobbing meltdowns since last Friday. And I decided to share it with you not because I want a pity party, but because I have a really hard time being inauthentic.
    This week I cried because: My husband criticized my parking. Then because my toddler wouldn't poop. Also because he wouldn't nap. And again because the restaurant put dressing on my take-out salad and I didn't realize it til the next day when I wanted to eat it and it was soggy, but the reason I didn't eat it until a day later was because the night I ordered it I wound up eating brownies for dinner instead. 
    So yeah. . .I decided to record a podcast episode about it. Because in talking it through with a few close friends, I realized that I need to take my own advice and have some nuggets of wisdom to share with you too!
    On this episode we talk about:
    How trying to be a woman who "has it all" is fucking exhausting.
    The two things I'm ALWAYS telling my clients and why I need to take my own advice.
    Why I'm not going hard launching Kettlebell Social this week.
    How the story I tell myself is that because people know me as fun, positive, energetic Jenna, that nobody wants to hang out with me when I'm crying in the bathroom. 
    How that story is false.
    How this all applies to you, your fitness, and your life.
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    21 min
  • Can We Stop Saying "Tone" "Sculpt" "Shape" & "Lift"? Busting Through Barre BS with Maya Bryant

    Today I'm so excited to be talking with Maya Bryant! I originally connected with her on Instagram because as a fellow dancer, I LOVED the way she called out the bullshit in the barre industry. One of my biggest pet peeves as a personal trainer with a dance background is seeing barre instructors online selling lies in the form of "the 4 best exercises for a thigh gap", because that's not how any of this works. Maya has the best way of calling it out without coming off as mean and in this episode, she brings light to the fact that many barre instructors don't look the way they do because of barre--they look that way because that's their natural body type!

    After dancing for 20 years, studying Exercise Science in undergrad, being beaten up by diet culture, and eventually falling into compulsive exercise and disordered eating, Maya sought to create something empowering in fitness. During her Master of Public Health Program, she created a workout program, Raise The Barre! Women are under immense pressure to maintain a certain body type that changes every decade and go on extreme diets and exercise plans to try and change their bodies. Those diets, they fail 95% of the time and weight regain happens within 1-5 years. Her research project showed that we can help women feel better in their bodies, without intentionally striving to change them because body image is internal work. In addition to Maya's professional work in Public Health policy, she is also the Founder and CEO of Barre Empowered. A fitness platform for Barre in an empowering way, without the toxic diet culture. At Barre Empowered, Maya helps women feel fierce and fit in their bodies, fall in love with fitness, and develop a life-giving wellness routine that inspires them for a lifetime. 

    On this episode we talk about:

    • Her path from being a dancer stuck in disordered eating and exercise to
    • How Maya got into barre, what she loves about it, and what really grinds her gears about the marketing?
    • The biggest myths about barre that are being perpetuated and what she wants you to know is LIES.
    • Red flags to look out for when choosing a barre class or following a barre instructor on social media.
    • How Maya brings what she learned from getting her Masters in Public Health to her approach to fitness.
    • What she wishes more fitpros (and the general population) understood about fitness from a public health perspective. 
    • The amazing benefits you miss out on when you're overly focused on aesthetics.
    • How she helps clients set goals to build themselves up, rather than tear themselves down.
    • So much other good stuff!

      • Work with Maya

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      43 min
    • How Following Arbitrary Fitness Rules Is Keeping You Stuck

      Last Friday I woke up SO dead tired and was trying to rally and get myself to go lift. But then I was like, why?! Knowing that the whole reason that I work out is to feel better and move about my life with more ease. Forcing myself to lift when I was every possible kind of tired would have pushed me farther away from that feeling on Friday. So I skipped it.

      So many of us work out for mental health or physical health or to live just live our damn lives but then turn around and do things that are literally the opposite of that. And today we're gonna talk about it.

      On this episode we talk about:

      • Why always doing sets of 10 is keeping you stuck.
      • Why you need to stop going to the gym for an hour.
      • What factors you need to consider before you automatically choose the most reps and sets in the range in your program.
      • How all of the above waste a fuck ton of time and brain space.
      • What you're missing by constantly chasing sweat, burn, and breathlessness.
      • Why you need to stop listening to every piece of advice you hear from fitness professionals, your doctor, that non-diet dietitian or therapist you follow on IG, and that lady you overheard talking after yoga.
      • Why I didn't get offended when someone gave me a form check on one of my IG reels last week.
      • Why I might give opposite cues for the same exercise depending on what client I'm talkling to.
      • Why I'm flexible about not using kettlebells all the time, even though they're my favorite.
      • All the details about my newly refreshed online group strength training program & community, Kettlebell Social!

        • Get on the interest list-Kettlebell Social

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        31 min
      • Self-Trust, Joy, Ease, and Unapologetic Queer Shit with Shohreh Davoodi

        Today's episode is such a fun and mind blowing conversation with my friend Shohreh Davoodi. Seriously. The original plan was to talk about self-trust in fitness but we went in so many interesting directions (as two people with ADHD would). I had so many lightbulb moments when talking to her. Shohreh and I originally connected several years ago as two of the only HAES personal trainers in Facebook group full of non-diet dietitians and therapists. Over the years it's been awesome to watch her work (and life) shift and grow and I'm excited to let her share some of her wisdom and magic with you today.

        Shohreh Davoodi is an unapologetically queer writer and creator. Driven by a passion for equal rights and representation for LGBTQIA+ folks and people of color, her work supports and celebrates the queer and BIPOC communities of which she's a proud member. Shohreh is currently working on her first novel, and she is the author of the Substack newsletter, The Queer Agenda. She happily resides in Denver, Colorado, with her fiancée, but Texas will always be home and she's forever a Texan at heart.

        On this episode we talk about:

        • Shohreh's personal and professional journey and how she came to be doing the work (and living the life) that she is today.
        • Why changing directions can be so hard and scary and how to get yourself out of the cycle of trying to force yourself into ways of being that don't feel right or authentic for you.
        • Self-trust and of the things in life/society/systems that prevent us from trusting our own internal wisdom.
        • How we can reclaim and practice self-trust with our fitness and wellness.
        • Finding more joy and ease and what that can look and feel like in fitness and in life.
        • Allllll the queer shit! Comphet: why it never dawned on a lot of us that we could be anything but straight.

          • Check out Shohreh's website⁠

          ⁠Read Shohreh's substack⁠

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          Work with me

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          1 hr 8 min
        • 11+ Reasons To Incorporate Kettlebells Into Your Workouts

          I decided to record an episode that is essentially a love letter to kettlebells. But first I wanna share a bit of my backstory around them. Kettlebells were my intro to strength training. My friend Ashleigh taught me how to use them (see Season 1 Episode 44 "Toning Is For Printers" An Unfiltered Convo With Ashleigh Brodhead (the Friend Who Taught Me To Lift Heavy Shit)" They were my gateway to a new way to see exercise. For the first time ever, the point wasn't to burn calories, or to get toned. The point was to master new skills, to play, and to fuck around and find out how strong I actually was. 

          When prepping for this episode I referred back to an IG reel I recorded to the "it's corn" song. Remember that? LOL. I basically choreographed a whole damn musical for it and today it's being repurposed into a podcast. Some of the reasons are joking, but most of them are real. There's a reason I love to nerd out over kettlebells, use them a lot in my programming, and teach them to any client who is down to learn. 

          And in this episode, we talk about 11+ reasons why I think you might love them too!

          Watch the kettlebell/corn reel

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          27 min
        • When You're a Badass but You're Tired: The Conversation We Almost Cancelled with Holly Myers

          This week I'm talking Holly Myers--again! If you're on Instagram, you might know her as the barbell pistol squatting queen, and half of the strength coaching duo @liftwithhollyandarryn. Our first episode together, "Balancing Strength, Softness, and Silliness" was one of my most downloaded ever, and today she's back. Over the past few years I've gotten to know her as a client and as a friend and today we're talking about training & life in a more friendly kinda way!

          Holly is an ambitious, creative, multifaceted lady. Aside from heavy kettlebell ballistics, she enjoys writing, photographing on film, and being a genuinely curious person. She is notably obsessed with pastries and used to make ice cream for a living (for real). The practice of becoming stronger has empowered her to keep questioning her own limits, and in turn the narrow societal limitations imposed upon us all. Building strength helps her show up more authentically herself every day. Each time someone she is coaching breaks through a perceived limitation, she is deeply moved.

          On this episode we talk about:

          • What we've both been up to lately & how we almost didn't record this at all.
          • The lie that is social media and what it's actually like to be a human with an online business and a following.
          • What lifting looks like for her when she's just not feeling it.
          • The shift we've noticed in our clients in the past few years.
          • ADHD and each of our unique experiences with it.
          • Why we all need to stop trying to fit ourselves into a box that doesn't make sense for us.
          • Lots of other fun stuff!

            • Work With Holly

            Holly & Arryn's Store

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            1 hr 18 min
          • Shiny Happy People with Christina Montalvo (Crossover/Collab Bonus Episode!)

            This is another bonus crossover/collab episode with my friend, business mentor, and fellow likeminded coach, Christina Montalvo! If you missed the memo, Christina and I are each releasing them on our own podcasts on the same day and will continue to do it for as long as we feel like it and whenever we feel like it. We've got all sorts of things to talk about that aren't related to our work, but hopefully feel relatable to you and your life anyway.

            Content warning/listen with care--this episode gets into some pretty heavy topics such as sexual assault and religious trauma. On this episode we're talking about the documentary Shiny Happy People, and once again we go a little off the rails with some rants about organized religion, politics, and the patriarchy. We don't claim to be experts and we definitely didn't do a whole lot of research on the topics discussed here. We're just two friends shooting the shit about a show we both watched recently.

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            49 min
          • The Ted Lasso Episode with Christina Montalvo (Crossover/Collab Bonus Episode!)
            Today we have another bonus crossover/collab epsiode with my friend, business mentor, and fellow likeminded coach, Christina Montalvo! I'm gonna keep these show notes short & sweet because we're all about making these bonus episodes easy and fun. We're each releasing them on our own podcasts on the same day and will continue to do it for as long as we feel like it and whenever we feel like it. We've got all sorts of things to talk about that aren't related to our work, but hopefully feel relatable to you and your life anyway.
            Today we are talking about all things related to Ted Lasso! A much anticipated, heartfelt and hilarious conversation.
            Work with me!⁠
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            ⁠Work with Christina⁠
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            55 min
          • Working Out While Injured: Red Flag? Or Self-Care?

            Is it bad to work out when you're injured? I've been seeing this floating around as a red flag for a "bad" or "disordered" relationship with exercise and we need to talk about it. Long story short: don't think it is, depending on the context. Long story long: listen to the episode. There are ways to do it well and not so much...

            On this episode I talk about:

            • Why nuance and context matter, and why we need to stop internalizing advice from an IG post that wasn't meant for us.
            • The problem with all-or-nothing thinking in the fitness industry.
            • Physical therapy & how it can help you recover from an injury.
            • Why your personal trainer is NOT the same as a physical therapist.
            • The benefits of rest & how to rest the injured part of you without resting all of you.
            • Why "go hard" and "go home" are two different flavors of the same shit sandwich.
            • Ways to find the in-between and work with your body instead of fighting it.
            • The fact that it's ok to NOT perpetually be chasing improvement.
            • So many other great things!

              • P.S.-This episode is not meant to be a substitute for medical advice or treatment.

              ⁠⁠⁠Work with me!⁠⁠⁠⁠

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              28 min
            • Are You "Getting Old"? Or Is Diet Culture To Blame? (Part 2) Breaking Cycles & Busting Stereotypes with My Client Debi

              A few months ago I recorded a podcast episode with one of my clients about my half baked theory that training from a diet culture mindset is making us feel "old". (That was Season 1, Episode 39) . We talked about this from the perspective of our own lived experiences as millennial and Gen X women. The idea was that of COURSE you're gonna feel like you're "too old" to do certain things if you've been beating yourself into the ground for years. I had to imagine that years of over-training and not eating to support that can wreck your body in a worse way than age can. Right?

              Well, kind of. Today I'm bringing another one of my clients into the conversation, because as a boomer, my client Debi has a perspective to share that is both similar (AKA another flavor of the same shit sandwich) and uniquely different. I've been working with Debi for about a year at this point, and I have to say that this conversation was so refreshing. It gave me hope for the future and reminded me to give a little grace to the adults who raised me while watching them do Weight Watchers and drink Slimfast.


              On this episode we talk about:

              • What made her want to get started with strength training, specifically from an anti-diet approach.
              • What her experience was like growing up at a time when expectations and beauty standards for women were so different (but also so the same!)
              • What it's like to break toxic cycles and create a new narrative for your family.
              • Her experience with strength training from an anti-diet perspective, and how that looks different from what she might have done in the past.
              • How ageism made her believe harmful & false things about what movement and fitness could look like for her as she got older.
              • What she wishes more personal trainers and strength coaches knew about helping people make strength training sustainable as they age.
              • What she hopes movement/training/exercise will look like for her into her 80's and 90's.
              • So many other great things!

                • ⁠⁠Work with me!⁠⁠⁠

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                1 hr 2 min

              About Tough Cookie Talks

              From the publisher's feed

              Tough Cookie Talks is a podcast we'll explore the intersection of fitness & anti-diet culture and all the gray areas in between. We'll let go of "shoulds" and judgment and dig into tough…