Tough Cookie Talks

⁠Another shorty episode coming at you today. I'm sharing a topic that comes up a lot for my clients and a concept that I came up with called the "fitness hierarchy of needs". Many of us obsess over small details that don't really matter when it comes to our fitness. On this episode we talk about what you wanna have in place first to build a strong fitness foundation, so that you can keep things moving even when life kicks you in the ass.

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Forget training for your bikini body. Ali Kreider is here today to talk about training for our old lady bodies and I couldn't be more excited to share this episode!

Ali Kreider is a certified personal trainer & group fitness coach, empowering women to develop a self-compassionate approach to movement. She helps clients build strength & resilience that allows them to handle life outside of the gym with more confidence & ease. 

On this episode we talk about:

• How Ali got interested in her training niche.

• Ways the fitness industry has failed previous generations.
• What we both hope to do differently to influence our clients for the better.
• Things to focus on & keep in mind when training clients and yourself to be a strong old lady.
• Our concerns with "heroin chic" body trends coming back around and how this harms our chances of staying strong and independent as we age.
• Myths she'd like to bust about strength training as we get older.
• So many other good things!

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Whelp, if ever wanted to read my diary, you're gonna love this episode. It was inspired by some journaling I did (in the style of Elizabeth Gilbert's "letters from love") while feeling some kind of way about my 41 year old self in a swimsuit on vacation. The body image fuckery is real. Please enjoy some words of wisdom from my highest wisest self to you, originally written for my eyes only.

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Julie Duffy Dillon is here today for an episode that feels very full circle to me. I originally heard her on several other anti-diet podcasts when I was very new to this work, and I am so excited to be able to share her on mine. Her new book, "Find Your Food Voice" just came out, and it's filling such an important void in the intuitive eating space. If you've ever felt like intuitive eating didn't work for you, or that you have a hard time connecting with what your body is asking for, this episode is for you!

Julie Duffy Dillon is a seasoned dietitian trained as a mental health counselor and podcast host of Find Your Food Voice®, a Top 100 Nutrition Podcast on Apple Podcasts. Featured on TLC's My Big Fat Fabulous Life, Julie helps people with a complicated relationship with food better access non diet tools like Intuitive Eating and strategize how to remove the shame and blame dumped on them from diet culture. She teaches dietitians, counselors, doctors, and other health professionals to do the same through clinical supervision, writing, media, and speaking engagements. Julie holds a MS degree in Community Counseling, is a Registered Dietitian Nutritionist, and a Certified Eating Disorder Specialist and Supervisor.

On this episode we talk about:

• Julie's origin story and what led her to doing the work she's doing today.
• The client work that led her to write her book Find Your Food Voice.
• The very important gaps her books is filling in the current anti-diet/intuitive eating space.
• Food noise. What it is, how it shows up, and how we can start to quiet it.
• Our opinions on GLP-1 drugs like Ozempic.
• Diet trauma and how it may have affected us without us even realizing it.
• How our diet trauma affects our ability to hear what our bodies are saying.
• Why some people feel like intuitive eating doesn't work for them.
• Food addiction. Is it real?
• So many other mind blowing things!

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Emily Decker is here to talk about something that I know has been on a LOT of our minds lately:

How do we stay informed and get involved in activism in a way that makes a difference without burning ourselves out?

Today we are talking about that and so much more!

Emily Decker is a somatic-based, trauma-informed, body-neutral personal trainer with a master’s degree in social work from the University of Southern California. She works with people in person in Los Angeles and virtually across the country to shift how they conceptualize exercise and find empowerment and fulfillment in movement.

On this episode we talk about:

• How Emily became the brilliant somatic trainer that she is and how she started integrating activism into her business.
• How to get involved with activism without while still protecting your peace and supporting your mental health.
• Examples of the little (and big!) ways we can take action as individuals and as communities depending on our capacity.
• What somatic resourcing for activism is and how it can help us prevent burnout.
• How we can set boundaries and be strategic about the information we consume.
• How our voices really DO matter and how all the little things count.
• How all of this relates to the way we approach fitness.
• So many other good and important things!

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Today's episode is just in time for a little spring cleaning and was inspired by a conversation I had with a new client last week.

She mentioned that she was concerned that some of her spring clothes from last year might not fit. I suggested that if she wasn't ready to part with them just yet, she might get just a few new items that fit her well and feel good on her right now.

The next week she came back and told me that she got a new dress and that she "felt like a human again".

WOW.

It got me thinking about how we dehumanize ourselves over 5 year old jeans and what a game changer cleaning out your closet can be.

On this episode we talk about how to clean out your closet and improve your body image in 10 simple steps.

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Chelsea Clarke is here today! Our conversation was inspired by something she posted in her Instagram stories a few weeks ago that hit a little too close to home for me. The very real struggle that happens when Western medicine isn't helping you but wholistic wellness feels like a scam. Chelsea is here to help us navigate the gray area in between.

Chelsea Clarke is a Registered Dietitian Nutritionist, Personal Trainer, and owner of Balance Chaos Nutrition + Fitness. She's based in San Diego, California, and works with clients virtually across many states in the U.S. Chelsea holds a Master’s degree in Food Policy and Applied Nutrition from Tufts University and completed her dietetics training at Simmons University. Her fitness career started over 14 years ago at Equinox luxury gyms, where she gained extensive experience as a personal trainer. She's been a registered dietitian for over six years, and loves combining her knowledge of nutrition and fitness to help clients thrive. Now, as a dietitian specializing in sports performance, she helps athletes of all ages navigate nutrition in a way that supports their health, prevents RED-S, and fosters recovery from eating disorders or disordered eating. When she's not working as a nutrition & fitness coach, you can find her strolling the beach with her dog, Waldo, training Olympic lifts in the gym, practicing aerial ropes, and expressing herself through her nail art!

On this episode we talk about:

• Chelsea's backstory and how she got into the work she's doing today.
• Her personal experience seeking medical care and what led her to seek out more wholistic wellness options.
• How Western medicine sometimes fails us AND how alternative medicine options can also be scammy.
• Red flags to watch out for when it comes to grifty things in wholistic wellness and how to not get scammed.
• How this stuff gets dismissed by people in our anti-diet community and why we need to approach this stuff with more nuance as providers.
• How we can prevent disordered eating when using some of these approaches.
• How to navigate the gray area between both worlds.
• So many other important things!

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If you haven't already heard of today's guest, it's about time you did! I've been singing Damali Fraiser's praises as one of the wisest and most thorough kettlebell coaches I've had the privilege of learning from. Today she's sharing all that goodness with us!

Meet Coach Damali, pronouns she/her. Damali is a compassionate Kettlebell Expert, author, speaker, fitness / nutrition coach and founder of Lift off Strength & Wellness. Damali is known for her unapologetic opposition to diet culture in the kettlebell community and as a passionate educator who will help you learn to train with kettlebells safely. Through her Inclusive Kettlebell Coach course and certification programs, you learn to teach kettlebells from an intersectional lens that's size-inclusive, trauma-informed, judgement-free and for every BODY (emphasis on the body because humanity has always had body diversity)You can connect with Damali on her website liftoffstrength.ca, on Instagram @‌Damali.Fraiser, TikTok and on YouTube @‌liftoffstrength or through her retreats for Black Women and women of colour (WOC) in Kettlebells @‌kettlebellsinblack.

On this episode we talk about:

• How Damali got into the work she's doing today.
• How the body changes that we all experience as a natural part of life can make us feel like we're wrong/broken/that fitness spaces are not for us.
• How unrealistic body standards have affected her and her clients.
• Calling out allll the bullshit about what kinds of bodies get featured/respected and why body diversity is a good thing.
• Why your body is NOT your business card.
• Ways that that facing challenging body changes like pregnancy, injury, illness, surgery, weight fluctuations might actually make a coach better.
• The very real body grief that can come with these changes and why we need to acknowledge it.
• Why we both love kettlebells so much.
• How you can use kettlebell training to build body trust.
• So many other good things!  

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Today I am thrilled to be talking to Dr. Jen Hosler--a genius of a physical therapist and strength coach whose work I am constantly referring my clients to. What she has to share about pain science is absolutely mind blowing.

Dr. Jen is a physical therapist and strength coach dedicated to bridging the gap between fitness and rehab. With degrees in exercise science and physical therapy, combined with her own experience of chronic pain and injuries, Jen’s mission is to help people move better, build resilience, and achieve their goals without pain or limitations. She works with everyday gym-goers to overcome nagging injuries and movement restrictions while mentoring fitness & movement professionals to confidently do the same for their clients.

On this episode we talk about:

• What Jen learned from her experience as a teenager with scoliosis, knee injuries, and chronic pain.
• What physical therapy school missed and how she filled those gaps to help her clients healing better.
• Bridging the gap between rehabbing injuries & getting back to high level activities.
• How lifestyle factors and mindset affect our experience of pain.
• Why we both hate the phrase "be careful".
• Things to consider before you resort to surgery or settle for a lifetime of braces and orthotics.
• How mobility work (different than stretching) can benefit just about everyone.
• Why you can't "Amazon Prime" your recovery from injury.
• Why your chronic pain isn't hopeless.
• So many other good things!

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My sister Kristi is back on the podcast today helping me unpack my existential crisis around yoga, and why I ultimately stopped teaching it.

On this episode we talk about:

• Our lovely experience doing yoga teacher training together.
• Why we both still love many things about yoga.
• What led each of us to stop teaching it.
• The problems with "basic bitch yoga", Yoga Alliance, yoga corporations, and yoga in the U.S. in general.
• Why the thing I cried over during teacher training would ultimately end my teaching career 10 years later.
• Why we both kinda wish we could go back to the days before we knew better.
• What each of our yoga practices look like today.
• How easy it is to get sucked into pseudoscience and conspiracy theories in certain yoga spaces.
• So many other juicy things!

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