Good evening, good evening, ladies.
Okay. So, y'all, my body cannot decide if it's hot or cold.
Welcome to 58, that's all I'm going to say, I can't, okay.
I thought tonight would be fun, look at, I'm sporting my dolly part,
it's like an old dolly part and shirt, because, you know,
dolly knows how to be fabulous in any style, because, I mean, if you look at dolly,
who, by the way, is always wearing a wig, I'm dying to know what she looks like minus the wig
and makeup, but she knows how to always look fabulous, although she'd be the first to admit
that she uses everything in her arsenal to make herself, she's like, I think she says something
like, I pay a lot of money to look this cheap or something like that, I don't know,
she's super funny, okay.
So, I wanted to open this time, and I will say this, so, and I'll probably say this more
than once, because, you know, we don't have a lot of folks on just yet, and some folks may come on,
I don't have a moderator helping me tonight, and so, I want to make sure you get the questions
to me and not so much in the chat, I also know that it's really easy to want to embellish
our counter, why is it frozen, can you still hear me, y'all can hear me, okay,
I don't know why it just froze for a second.
I'm going to give some basic guidelines when it comes to what we put in our body and how we move
our body, some very basics.
My husband was a nurse and does nutrition, I've worked with professional nutritionists,
and so, I want to give some basic information that's applicable to the vast majority of people.
If you have celiac or something else going on, and your story is different, like, I know this
doesn't apply to every single person, what my preference is tonight is that you don't counter
what I'm saying with your diet plan, because I think it'll be very confusing for people
who are trying to follow along, and I will say, I've got four pages of notes,
I'm going to put the document as a PDF somehow, somewhere, I'm going to have it,
I'm going to have Cheryl add it in the resources, I'm not sure where she normally puts things
like this, but we'll figure it out.
So, within the next week, it'll be up.
So, you might want to take some notes, but just know that I'll have the Word document.
And so, I try to come up with kind of like what's been my journey of getting myself healthy and caring
for myself healthy, and I really wanted to start with 1 Corinthians 6, 19, and 20,
and this is just the NIV.
Do you not know that your bodies are the temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you,
whom you have received from God?
You are not your own, you were bought at a price.
Therefore, honor God with your bodies.
Now, some of you may have thought about that verse and thought, okay,
that means no sex outside of marriage, and I'm sure it also means that,
and I'm not going to do a full exegesis of it.
But something has been hitting me recently in that when Jesus died for us, I don't know about you,
but sometimes I feel like Jesus died for my soul and my spirit because I'm going to get this rock
and resurrected body that's not going to have cellulite.
So, sometimes I think I don't need to worry about this body because this body is going to go away,
and I'm going to get this resurrected body that does not have to be on a diet anymore.
But the truth is that Jesus died for all of me.
And so, it includes my current mind, my current body, and my current spirit.
So, it's important that I care for my mind, my body, and my spirit because we want to make sure that
for the kingdom, while we're stuck in these bodies, that we can do as much as God has for us.
And if we don't take care of our bodies, mind, body, and spirit, then we can just do less for the kingdom.
And so, it really made me think, like, I didn't want Jesus dying on the cross,
be wasted by me not taking good care of my body.
And the other thing, and I'm sure some of you guys can speak to this too, but, you know,
I have a nephew with spina bifida.
My brother-in-law was paralyzed.
He was a Marine and he was paralyzed.
And so, I've been around the wheelchair community for a very long time.
I've seen CP, missing limbs, all the things, gunshot wounds, accidents.
And there are so many people that would love to be able to walk on a treadmill, and get on a bike,
and go hike a trail.
And so, sometimes I feel like, am I being such a lazy steward of my body when I don't move it,
when so many people wish they could move their body?
So...
Those are kind of the things that were the inspiration for us tonight as we talk about
it.
And so we're going to break it down, 80% of how our body looks has to do with what we
put inside our body.
I've heard plenty of fitness instructors say you can't out-train a bad diet.
I think the only time I was able to eat whatever the heck I wanted, I was in my mid-30s training
for a marathon.
In fact, I was a psycho doing like more than one marathon in a year, and I'm so not a runner.
So I would be out there five million hours running a marathon.
I think I was the only season of my life where I could eat what I wanted and I did not gain
weight.
I'm 4'11", I'm hippie, I am like hourglass figure.
My weight is mostly in my bottom half.
So heart-wise, it's great.
It's not around my heart and it's not around my waist, I don't have visceral fat issues.
But it's also much harder to lose.
The first time I knew I had a disordered eating was, some of you are old enough to remember
this, one of the first movies that ever came out, I think it was the early 80s, late 70s,
it was called The Best Little Girl in the World.
And it was the first time there was a movie about anorexia.
And I remember my father looking at me saying, well, I guess we're never going to have that
problem with you.
And you know what though, he wasn't the only culprit.
My mom also had to be on a diet her whole life.
And so my family started watching what I ate at a very young age, by the time I was 12,
I was monitoring how much food went down my throat.
And I was so paranoid about, and I still do this sometimes, you guys, if I'm at a dinner
party and I haven't eaten breakfast or lunch or whatever and I'm starving and I start chowing,
if I've realized I'm ahead of everybody else in the food, I will put my fork back down.
And if people don't catch up to me, no matter how hungry I still am, I can stop eating.
And so I wanted to say that to you because I wanted you to think, because you guys might
have seen me in person and you might think, oh, she's so cute, she has no idea what she's
talking about.
Like she has no idea what it's like to have disordered eating.
And this whole tonight isn't just about eating disorders.
It's not.
For so many women, we have disordered eating habits and it is why we're having a hard time
in our 40s and 50s and 60s to lose weight because we really destroyed our metabolism
and we destroyed our relationship with food at a really young age.
And so we started dieting and doing all of the things at a really, really young age.
When I was in my 20s, I didn't even know I was going to share this, but the Lord is having
me share this for somebody.
I had a really complicated relationship, as most of you know, with my father while he
was alive.
And in my 20s, my mom had a restraining order on my dad and his behavior was very erratic
at the time.
And I couldn't control what was going on in the family.
And what I learned how to do was shove all my feelings down.
And I started making myself sick to my stomach and I started throwing up.
And I was able to do it not by putting my finger down my throat, but just because I
would stress my, I would shove all my feelings down, throw them all up.
And the bonus was y'all, I started losing a lot of weight.
It was fabulous.
I mean, I don't say that, you know I'm saying that tongue in cheek.
And I started spitting up blood.
That's how much I was throwing up.
Like I couldn't even keep food down.
And I finally went, I went to doctors and of course, of course I didn't tell them I
was throwing up.
So I had an, you know, all of, I had an endoscopy done and all the, an internal medicine doctor.
And finally somebody, one of my doctors rightly said, you know, Renee, you know, this is not
a medical problem and we need to send you to a therapist and to deal with your bulimia.
And so I've starved myself, I've thrown up and I've also been the person that worked
out three times a day.
So I've been through all of the versions over the years.
I've done Atkins, Weight Watchers, you name it, Renee's done it.
And I stopped taking any form of diet pills because my cousin who's only 42 years old,
she was born with a slight birth defect in her heart that was never diagnosed.
But she dropped dead of a heart attack at 42 years old.
And the one thing that they were able to uncover was she was taking all of those diet pills
and there was still a batch in the house.
Remember the Fen-Phen?
That was, I don't even think it's legal anymore.
And so
Right then and there, I thought, I'm just not gonna take supplements to ever try to
lose weight again.
Like, this is crazy.
So, I say that because for some people, for some of you listening to this, eating healthy
and exercising, moving is just super easy.
For so many of us, it just comes with so much fear and baggage.
You guys, I'm even afraid to do a fast at a church because I'm afraid that I would manipulate
the fast going, whoo-hoo, I'm gonna go on a fast.
If Daniel fasts at my church, I'm gonna drop 20 pounds.
And so, I have to be super careful about it.
So, the guidelines I'm gonna give for healthy eating has to do with you not hating yourself,
not hating your body, and not hating food.
Like, food is fuel, and food is also fun, and it's also fabulous.
It's like all of those things, and I'm Italian, and so we culturally do a lot of stuff around
food.
So, we're gonna talk a little bit about...so, 80% of the work is what we put inside our
body.
The most important thing, even before we put food in our body, you wanna know what the
most important thing is that we need, right?
60% of our body is water.
So we need to hydrate our body.
So here's the basics.
We should know this.
At minimum, you should drink half your body weight in ounces.
That's the minimum.
So, you know, I should be drinking at least 75, 70, you know, ounces of water a day.
I probably drink twice that, but you should be drinking at least half your body weight
in ounces.
So that's the basics, half your body weight.
Now, especially as we age, we also have to make sure that once we start upping that water,
that we have to add electrolytes with it.
There's some really good brands out there.
There's a doctor that I follow.
Actually, let me grab it.
So I use this, there's like one of the doctors, I forget his name, Nick, somebody or another
has got this really big Greek name.
I follow him on Instagram, but this is the brand he uses because it's made with the Himalayan,
it's the Celtic salt in it too.
And so this is keto, paleo-friendly, vegan-friendly, essential electrolytes.
No John, I don't even know what that means.
There's all kinds of flavors in it.
And I say this because when I have my Invenzolines out of my mouth, just because I feel like
I'm spitting when I talk, I still haven't mastered that.
So when I put the Invenzolines in, it makes me so thirsty.
And so it makes me, and by the way, you guys, if I'm, Rachel, thank you for doing that.
I don't mind if you guys give your own brand that you like.
As long as you're not conflicting with me, I don't mind if you guys add your own brands
of stuff that you use.
The reason why I like something that's going to go in my water, I hate drinking plain water.
I like to flavor it.
So I'll also show you my creatine that I use.
So you want to make sure you're getting good electrolytes.
So I was probably drinking 180 ounces of water because of the Invenzoline, but I wasn't doing
enough electrolytes.
So I was just peeing that water out.
So I was actually still leaving myself dehydrated.
And so that's why we need to put electrolytes in our water.
And remember, the other reason why water is good is many times you're not hungry, you're
dehydrated.
So always think, I think I'm hungry, start with a glass of water.
That's like, it's never a bad thing to start with a glass of water if you think you're
hungry.
All right, now we're going to talk total calories that you need.
I'm going to add a link in the page here of how many calories you should be taking in
because I don't know if you've heard, there's this awful myth going around that women should
be eating 1,200 calories, it's crap.
Even as small as I am, I should not be down at 1,200 calories.
Okay, so this is the TDEE calculator.
You put in your height, your weight, your age, how active you guys, and be honest.
Like don't say that you're moderately active if you're not.
And it's going to give you your range of calories of what maintenance looks like and kind of
what a cut face.
Ignore the cut face because I feel like they go a little bit too drastic.
But there's the maintenance.
So when I put in my current weight, it actually says if I'm pretty active working out three
to five days a week, I can eat up to 1,800 calories.
But you guys, I'm lucky if my goal is three days a week at the gym with strength training
and then I walk every day.
So the other option was one to two days.
Well, I know I'm more than one to two days, but I know I'm less than three to five.
So in general, from sedentary to moderately exercising, my range for maintenance is 1,500
to 1,700 calories.
I can also tell you I know my body.
body, right? I've been weighing and measuring crap for too many years. I know for me, mine
is actually, I'm sorry, 1,500 to 2,000 is what they're saying is my range for maintenance
depending on how active I am, 1,500 to 2,000. I can tell you to stay at my current weight,
1,500 to 1,700 max. That's my maximum. So when you see women on Instagram going, oh
my gosh, I can eat 2,000 calories a day. Well, either she's taller than me or a hell
of a lot more active than me because I cannot eat 2,000 calories a day without gaining weight
back, not at my activity level. So at least the TDE calculator gives you a range to figure
out what maintenance looks like. So that would be like your first step, okay? And so I want
you to start to track... I love it. Okay, so just know that everybody's maintenance
is different. Everybody's body's chemistry is different. Your metabolism is different.
Your hormones are different. So all that calculator does is give you an idea, and then I'm gonna
encourage you to track everything that you eat and weigh yourself for a week or two,
and then you're gonna learn what is your maintenance, right? So you need to learn what
your maintenance is. Okay, so the next thing that we talk about is what do we eat? And
so you hear a lot about macros. So I'm a big fan of macros. I'm gonna start with the two
most important numbers. The first one is protein. You're hearing, what with the balloons? What's
with the balloons? We all know that women now need to eat protein. Woo-hoo. Okay, at
minimum, ladies, and I'm a shorty. So at minimum, you should be eating 100 grams of protein
a day. Minimum. Ideally, you should be eating 0.7 or 1 times the body weight, your ideal
body weight. So say you're 150 pounds, you could be eating between 130 and 150 grams
of protein a day. And if you are nowhere near that, you work your way up towards that. So
that's what you would do. So that's the other basic is at least 100 grams of protein a day.
Ideally, 0.7 to 1 times your ideal body weight. That's how much protein. The other most important
number is, guess what, ladies? Fiber. If you are not moving, you are not losing. Y'all
know that answer. If you are not moving, you're not losing. You should be pooping at least
one time a day, at least. And so if you are not getting 25 grams of fiber a day, you will
have problems. And I will tell you this too, if you are not getting enough fiber, it will
show up on your colonoscopy. They will let you know that you need a colonoscopy. I mean,
in your colonoscopy, they might say to you, yeah, you need to put a little bit more fiber
in your diet. And so those are the two most important numbers. So like when I put my calories,
so for me, if I'm in maintenance, so say I put in 1,500 calories into MyFitnessPal, the
first number I fill in is my protein number. And then the next number I fill in is my fiber
number. And then you can play with the carbohydrates and the fats however you want. I will say
I'm still trying to recover from the carbs are bad syndrome. Carbohydrates are bad. You
should be doing Atkins or Carnivore or Keto, some version of carbs are bad. But I will
tell you, as somebody who is dealing with some health issues right now, like I'm having
some blood work analyzed because I feel faint a lot. My doctor is telling me, my husband
is telling me I'm not eating enough carbohydrates. I'm still realizing I'm coming in shallow
and that is decades of hearing that carbohydrates are bad. And here's the thing, you guys, 90%
of the carbohydrates I eat are vegetables and fruits. So you want your carbohydrates
to be good vegetables, good fruit. It is very little on the sweet potatoes, rice, potatoes,
quinoa. You want powerful starchy carbs, but you don't want them to be your primary plate.
So at least 100 grams of protein a day. For me, I'm eating about 100 grams of carbs a
day and I'm somewhere between 50 and 65. I don't know why it's freezing on the screen,
you guys. I hope you can keep hearing me though, of fat. And then of course you want
to stick to healthy fat, olive oil, avocado oil, coconut oil.
Walnut oil, sesame oil, although I can't have sesame oil anymore because my husband is allergic
to sesame. I'm very sad about that. And they say walnut is a close enough. It is not the
same as sesame oil. I'm very sad about that. Okay. I want to, okay. So any questions before
I go on, because that's like, I have like four pages of notes tonight. So any questions
so far about what I said about how to find out what your maintenance calories is, protein,
carbohydrates, fats, fiber, any questions about what I've said so far? How much fiber?
About 25, at least 25 grams, 25 grams. And I will say this, and if you're not pooping,
then you need more fiber. And let me show you, I will say this, let me show you two
things that I use to help that. So for me, I have almost a half an avocado in my food
almost every single day. Avocados are a great healthy fat, a great healthy carb, and a great
form of fiber. Broccoli, Brussels sprouts are also good forms of fiber. Orange ruffey,
the fish has good forms of fiber. Obviously there's fiber in flaxseed, but if you cannot
afford the extra calories of flaxseed, my nutritionist recommended this stuff. It's
called P-S-Y-L-L-I-U-M, I got it on Amazon, husk powder. It's soluble fiber. So it has
seven grams of fiber and only 30 calories. iPhone, use the TDEE calculator. The link
is on the chat. Let's see if I can put it back on there. Here is the link. So you want
to put in your own age, weight, and how active you are. That will tell you what your maintenance
calories are. So let the math do the work for you. So this is a good form of fiber.
If anybody else has any other suggestions on fiber, feel free to put them in the chat.
Oh, good. Well, Marilyn, tell us what option you use. Well, here's the thing. Okay. Calories
are important, you guys. So you can't lose weight unless you're in a calorie deficit.
Like I'm a math girl, the math don't lie. You have to burn more calories than you take
in. It's really that simple. And so whether you're doing intermittent fasting, vegan,
gluten-free, dairy-free, whatever version that you are on, you have to be in a caloric
deficit to lose weight. It's impossible to lose weight otherwise. You have to be burning
more than you're eating. It's just that simple. So what you're trying to do is find the sweet
spot of, I want to keep eating to fuel my body so I don't starve it and put it into
starvation mode, and I want to move. So sometimes people will say, like, I don't want to eat
less than 1,400 calories. I don't want to take my calories down any lower. Then a fitness
coach will tell you, then fine, then move more. Like you move more. You have to burn
more calories. So you make the choice. You're like, I can't possibly eat any less than move
more, like then move more. But I also think it's important for you to learn what foods
are kind to your body and what foods aren't kind to your body. Like, could you, Marilyn?
Yeah, be careful about how much we're putting on the page. So but yeah, I don't want to
lose attention in the chat too much. Be helpful to each other, but I don't want to lose too
much attention. Okay. So and Marilyn's right, and I'm going to get to the gut in a second.
So right now we're just focusing on some basics with food. And so here's the thing, you guys.
You can't, you don't know how much food you're eating until you track and weigh how much
food you're eating. I'm not telling you that you need to do it forever, but I'm going to
encourage you for at least one week, get it, you can get the free version of MyFitnessPal.
It's not nearly as helpful as the paid version because you can scan stuff in with the paid
version. Although I hate all the changes that MyFitnessPal just made. It's just pissing
us all off. But you need to track. And whenever we say track, we call it, you have to track
all the BLTs. Do you know what a BLT stands for? Your bites, licks, and your tastes. And
so like when you're making something and you're like, oh, it tastes so good. Oh, that tastes
so good. Like you could have just tasted 150 calories. No big, but when you're in a calorie
deficit, 150 calories is gold. So you don't want to lick a subconsciously 150 calories.
So, um, I
I will say this Gwen, my only problem, I feel like, here's how I feel about protein powder.
I'm going to tell you, actually, I'm going to tell you that 90% of your food should come
from single source whole foods.
Eat what God created.
That's where most of your food should come from.
I only use protein powder and protein shakes as a quick supplement.
You do not want to drink or eat in a protein bar all your protein.
You want to get your protein from meats, poultry, fish, eggs, cottage cheese.
You want to get your protein from actually real food.
Only use protein powder to supplement because, unfortunately, there's a lot of protein powders
out there that really hurt people's gut.
Somebody else talked about gut issues.
If you have gut issues, if things inflame you, it doesn't matter how low your calories
go.
If you're inflamed, you're inflamed.
Just be really careful.
Again, I kind of go to, if you're in a calorie deficit, people like to chew food.
People like to chew and people like to swallow.
If you're drinking your calories and you're not eating enough, then sometimes people will
start to eat more and then they're out of their calorie deficit.
Use a protein powder as a supplement, but try not to have it be your main thing.
Are you guys hearing me even when it freezes?
Okay.
I don't know why it's doing it.
Okay.
Collect the data.
I'm saying to be accurate, and then here's the thing.
For you to track your calories, 90% of what you eat in a given week should be prepared
by you.
Prepared by you.
If you are guesstimating out at a restaurant or a girlfriend's house, you could be off
200, 300 calories without even knowing it.
I mean, you guys, one tablespoon of olive oil, and nobody loves olive oil.
My husband will tell you, nobody loves olive oil more than I do.
A tablespoon of olive oil is 120 calories.
If it has three tablespoons in it, that's 360 calories that you didn't even know was
in a recipe.
Same thing can happen with butter or mayonnaise or else.
You want to make sure.
If you're really like, I need to be in a calorie deficit, 90% of what you prepare should eat
should be prepared by yourself.
Again, try to eat single source, whole foods.
It will help you feel full longer.
When I pre-cook all my foods, what I can consume in three, 450, 500 calorie meals, it's huge,
you guys.
It's bulky.
It's volume.
It's bulky.
You could eat this much chicken breast, this much chicken thigh, this much ribeye.
I mean, it gets a lot smaller when you're in a calorie deficit.
When people are like, oh my gosh, I don't want to track everything.
It's so hard to do.
What makes it easy to do is if you start eating the same thing for breakfast and lunch.
Then you just cut and paste, cut and paste.
I usually try to meal prep on the weekends, and I'm going to eat the same thing for breakfast
and lunch most days, pre-fixed stuff.
I do have protein shakes because I know some of my early mornings, I'm not hungry enough
to eat anything, so I am going to put 30 grams of protein down in a drink.
I also use a collagen protein thing that I put in my coffee because I don't want to drink
coffee on an empty stomach.
I'm not saying I don't powder in as well, you guys.
I just try not to make it my primary source of it.
Let me just keep reading.
Keep it super simple.
I always say kiss.
Keep it super simple.
Try to have 80% to 90% of your food be single source, so you're talking poultry, fish, meat,
veggies, fruit, rice, sweet potatoes, avocado, avocado oil, walnut oil, coconut oil.
Decide what you want to keep in.
You guys, I can't stand chicken breast.
I like chicken thighs.
If you put chicken thighs literally from the freezer in your air fryer, it comes out super
crispy, super moist, super amazing.
I'm counting my calories.
I'm counting my macros, and so I know I'm going to have a chicken thigh.
What I usually try to do is go dinner backwards.
If I know I want two pieces of dark chocolate in my dessert at night, if I want dark chocolate
every single night, I'm going to put it in my calorie counter right away.
If I know I'm going to have a ribeye or thighs, I'm going to put it in my calorie counter
right away, and I work my way backwards.
That's what you guys want to do.
This is about a lifestyle.
You're trying to teach your body to love food again, to embrace food again.
We all like different foods.
Some of you guys are talking about Greek yogurt.
I can't stand it.
Greek yogurt. My husband loves Greek yogurt. I love cottage cheese. He hates cottage cheese.
So you got to find the protein, that power pack that is great for you. I love monk fruit.
Some people love stevia. My problem with sliced almonds, it's like somebody put almonds, I
love almonds too, but like almonds are so fattening. All nuts are more fat than they
are protein. And so you have to be super like, I don't know about you, but I can't just eat
one almond. Like I would want 50 almonds. And so, um, you, you want to, but if that's
a flavor you love, then you're going to make sure that it works in your thing. So decide
the things that you love that you want to keep in. Like I actually happen to love dark
chocolate, but dark chocolate's actually very good for you too. And so I get like the 80%
pure dark cocoa. It's super bitter. My husband thinks it's disgusting, but I've gotten so
used to it. I couldn't even put milk chocolate in my mouth if I wanted to. Um, and again,
as I said to you, whether you're reducing your carbs, intermittent fasting, which is
not for everybody, vegan, whatever you're doing, all of weight loss is about a calorie
deficit. It's always about a calorie deficit. Um, the other thing I wanted to answer is
when is organic necessary? Um, I would love for all of us to eat all organic all of the
time, but sometimes that's nearly impossible. The easiest rule of thumb is if it has a thick
skin that you're not eating, that's the thing that you can skip on organic. So if you're
not eating the banana peel and you're not eating the avocado peel, maybe you don't need
the organic for those. So obviously like fruits are very porous. They're going to collect
a lot of the pollutants. So you want to make sure if you're eating the skin, um, that's
where you're going to kind of want to go to it. All right. And now talking about supplements,
I'm only going to mention the supplements that just about every doctor and nutritionist
talks to me about. And they're even going to ask me, like, I just had my medical appointment.
People are going to ask you if you're taking magnesium, we need magnesium. Um, they're
going to ask you if you're taking zinc, magnesium, zinc, and the other hot one is creatine. I'm
going to show you what I use. There are so many versions of creatine. You can put it
in your coffee. It could be unflavored. Again, I don't like plain water, so I'm going to
use any excuse I can. So I use, it's mind body green. You want about five grams of creatine
a day. And this also has taurine in it. And so creatine, um, helps sustain your muscle.
So for women, when you see older women get all shriveled up and they lose their muscle
mass, we need to help our muscle mass. And creatine is also great for your brain. I swear
to God, you guys, I forgot to pack this during my graduation and then trip to Washington.
And I was like shit for brains. Like, I mean, you guys, in like one week, like my memory
was just going. So creatine is, so the company is called mind body green and mine's the raspberry
flavor. But other people, if you have another creatine brand that you guys like, I don't
know, there was somebody, I think it was Sean Johnson. I'm pretty sure it was Sean. I follow
Sean Johnson, you know, she's the gymnast. And I'm like, I'm just going to take her the
heck she's taking. Although she got me hooked on some salt thing and it was way too salty.
So I was like, sister, I can't do that. Um, so magnesium, zinc, creatine, vitamin D is
obviously a low vitamin D is a precursor for osteoporosis. Um, and my mom has really bad
osteoporosis. So I was keeping an eye on it, um, for me. And I had to take between five
and 10,000 I use a day, uh, vitamin D for like the longest time for the first time in
like 20 years, my vitamin D levels are actually back up to normal. Um, but it's super important
for you to do that. If you're taking high volumes of vitamin D, you want to make sure
it's got vitamin K in it as well, because that's helps your body absorb it. Um, and
then vitamin B12 or any kind of the vitamin Bs. You want to be paying attention to that
again, definitely. And I'm going to talk to you later at the end about going to your doctor
and getting your blood work. Like everybody should know what their baseline is. Um, naked
creatine. I've heard of that brand too. Um, okay. So that's all I want to say on supplements.
Again, I don't want to give you like a full nutritionist plan, but the basic is TDEE calculator,
find your maintenance calories, be honest about how active you are or not. Then track
your own food for a couple of weeks, find out what's truly maintenance for you. And
then as you want to lose weight, so here's the rule of thumb for losing weight. No, we
don't all don't jump to 1200 calories. Um, what you're going to do. So if my maintenance
is 1700 calories that first week, I'm going to drop 10% and I'm going to stay there a
couple of weeks until I stopped losing weight. And then if I stop losing weight, I'm going
to drop another 10%.
percent. So they're slowly. Now, you might get a point to where I'm like, well, you know,
I don't want to take in less than 1300 calories. Like for me, what I learned is less than 1300
calories. I'm just starving too much. So somewhere around 1300 calories. If I stop losing weight,
I increase my steps or I increase my cardio or I increase my strength training days.
So that's for me. So those are kind of the basics. You want to remember that 80 to 90 percent of what
you eat is prepared by you. 80 to 90 percent of what you eat is single source whole food.
If an item has to say that it's protein on it, it's probably not meant to be protein,
like protein, pasta, protein, bread. Those are not your best sources of protein. And the other
rule of thumb is if an item is like 13, like say if it's like 15 grams of protein, it says it's 15
grams of protein at a zero. If it's more than 150 calories, it is not a good source of protein.
So that's how, you know, like protein pasta is not a good source. Even protein bars. Take a look
at some of the fancy protein bars. It might say that it's got 18 grams of protein, but 250 calories.
That is not a good source of protein. So you want that's how you know really quickly if what you're
eating is a good source of protein. When does the doctor start asking you about supplements?
Oh my gosh, literally every single doctor I have asks me. My eye doctor asks me what supplements
I'm taking. My OB-GYN asks me what supplements I'm taking. And my primary care physician asks
me what supplements I'm taking. Literally, it's like one of the first questions I get from the
nurse who's ever like starting the practice with me. And I think they realize it's because so many
people are taking stuff. They kind of want to know if they're doing labs. If my vitamin D is
coming out at a certain number, but I'm already taking 5,000 IUs a day, that's going to raise
their flag if I'm still low in vitamin D. And so I would say if your doctor doesn't ask, then
you want to make sure that you're talking to a doctor that is asking you those questions. And
that's, let's see, where do I have that in my notes? I do have that when it, I think that's in
my, oh yeah, I have that towards, I have that towards the end for me to talk about. But let
me make sure I didn't have it missing here. No, okay. All right, we're going to go into movement.
We're going to go into movement. Movement's good. We need to move our bodies. Motion is lotion,
right? So if you ever, if you feel like you're all, like your body's all tight in the morning,
motion is lotion. You got to get moving. So about two weeks ago, I was, I probably upped my
deadlift or squat weight too much. And I leaned over an hour later to put my leash on my dog.
And I could tell I did something in that, either that paramorphous muscle or my sciatic nerve.
Sweet baby Jesus. I was like almost paralyzed for three days. It was like,
I mean, I was a geriatric hundred year old and I did ice and heat and a massage thing, all the
things. And I forced myself every hour to get up and move and stretch, move and stretch, move and
stretch. So motion is lotion. And so you want to make sure that you are moving. Strength training
basics. So you want to do strength training at least two days a week, at least two days a week,
ideally three, maybe four. And don't be afraid. Like I know you guys might hear the phrase
progressive overload and you see women at CrossFit and you see like them pumping like some
serious weight. You guys, every time I pump too much weight, I injure myself. I just, and so I'm
learning that progressive overload doesn't mean, it doesn't need to mean going beyond a weight that
I feel comfortable with. Sometimes progressive overload means going slower with the weight.
So if I'm holding, say I don't like, for some reason when I'm chest pressing on the board,
like when I'm laying down and I'm chest pressing, if I've got more than 40 pounds in each hand,
I'm freaking out. Like, oh my gosh, what if that just falls on me? So I started to go down the
crazy train. So if I don't want to increase up 40 pounds, then I'm going to go up two, down two.
I'm going to slow it down. So slowing down in your weights will make it feel heavier. Doing a fast
up and then like three beats down will also do it. And of course, increasing your reps or
increasing the number of sets that you do. So even if you're only starting with five pounds,
once it gets too comfortable, you've got to increase it by like 10, 20%. Then you go up
to seven pounds. Then you go up to 10 pounds. Then you go up to 15 pounds.
Now, like me, there are certain exercises,
like I had a torn bicep, so it's mind over matter,
but if I get over 15 pounds holding weights
for bicep curls, I start to freak out.
And so I've learned up two, three, down two, three.
I have found other ways to make that a progressive overload.
So don't be afraid of it.
Here are the basics now,
because I used to do fitness.
I'm also a trained fitness instructor,
but I'm gonna dumb the words down for you
because when you start talking about traps and deltoids,
we all get all bent out of shape.
You wanna work your biceps, your triceps,
your chest, your back, your core,
your quads, your glutes, your hamstrings, your calves.
Those are like the basics.
If you don't have a fitness instructor
planning your workouts,
there's a lot of people to follow on YouTube for it.
So if you're doing chest one day,
you might do back the next day.
If you're doing tricep one day,
you might do biceps the next,
I just did that backwards, but you know what I mean.
Some people do push days and pull days,
but you can find people to follow.
So you don't usually work the same muscle two days in a row.
You wanna kind of give it a rest
because remember when you're actually doing weightlifting,
there's a little bit of those micro tears that are happening
so you wanna give your body a chance
to kind of repair in that.
And so that's really all I wanna say about strength training
is don't be afraid,
don't feel like you have to join CrossFit,
but ladies holding two pound weights is not a thing.
Like that's not a thing.
I hold two pounds weights when I teach a barre class,
but that's not weight training.
So don't be afraid of weight training,
but don't feel like you have to join CrossFit
to make it happen.
Use cardio effectively.
So most of us are over the age of 30 on this call.
And so sometimes for us, cardio will raise our cortisol.
Now, if you are a runner and you like the running
and you get a runner's high,
girl, you go run till your heart's content.
If you go to a HIIT class and you get that HIIT high,
I used to teach HIIT classes,
you go till your heart's content.
But if you abhor cardio,
I actually teach cardio classes,
but I can't stand cardio, really, I really can't.
I use cardio strategically.
So I'm always doing my steps,
I'm always doing my strength training.
And when I stop losing weight,
but I don't wanna cut my calories anymore,
I will add in cardio days.
And I'll do like 20 minutes on the rower,
20 minutes on the elliptical.
I'm gonna get past that 30 minute mark
because you're only burning glycogen
in that first 25, 30 minutes.
You're not really even burning fat yet.
I tend to like to do my strength training first,
then I like to do the cardio.
Some people like to do the cardio
and then the strength training.
Me, I'm usually too wiped out after strength training.
I mean, after cardio to do my strength training,
for me, safely,
but you go in the direction that you want to go in.
Please explain those muscle groups again.
Bicep, tricep, chest, back, core, quads, glute,
hamstring, calves.
Those are like the basics, yes.
There are deltoids, traps, there's all sorts of things.
But if you just think basically like that,
front, back, front, back, front, back, front, back,
then you're kind of going and that's how you kind of like,
you wanna make sure,
cause like a lot of runners have really strong quads,
but they have really tight hamstrings
because they don't do enough work
to build their hamstrings.
And so sometimes if you're heavy in a sport,
you might build up the bicep, but not the tricep.
You might build up the chest, but not the back.
So you wanna make sure that you're building
opposing sides of the body.
Yes, Judy, I'm so glad you asked that.
Strength training is actually a really great way.
Here's why strength training in theory
is better than cardio for burning fat.
In theory, muscle burns more calories.
So when you are building muscle,
when I have more muscle mass on my body,
not only am I burning calories while I'm working out,
but I'm burning more calories
throughout the rest of the day.
When you do cardio,
you're only burning calories in that moment.
So I have seen skinny fat people do a ton of cardio.
Have you seen skinny fat people?
Like they're skinny and they're doing all the cardio,
but they have no muscle mass.
And so their body is not burning calories
as efficiently as somebody who's strength training.
So that's why muscle burns more calories.
So that's you get your bigger bang for your buck
with strength training,
but you wanna use cardio strategically.
But again.
And if you love cardio, I'm not gonna tell you to not do it.
I'm just telling you I hate cardio.
So I don't like doing it.
So I will use it strategically.
And so let's see.
Other forms of exercise.
I also teach bar, fitness.
I teach bar, Pilates, yoga, HIIT, bootcamp.
I even teach dance classes.
Y'all, I even taught an aquasize class.
Like the gym that I was teaching at,
they're like, hey, do you know how to teach aquasize?
I'm like, no, but I'll just do bar in the water
and maybe I'll make it work.
And I totally did.
You might like to bike, swim.
You might want to box.
You might want to row, bowl, golf, pickleball,
tennis, kayak, paddleboard.
Add whatever other physical activity
that you like to your repertoire.
If you hate tennis, don't go pick up tennis.
Don't make yourself go play tennis.
I mean, so pick up the extra activities that bring you joy.
And for those of you that are trying to meet other men,
what a great way for you to meet other men
doing the thing that you enjoy.
Now, I don't know about you,
but I don't usually see men in a bar
or yoga or Pilates studio.
So he might be gay if he shows up there.
And so that might not help you out much,
but he is gonna be at a lot of the other stuff.
And so I think about that.
Cause I'm like, I taught at a bar studio with all women.
I'm like, why am I not meeting a guy at the gym?
Cause I'm at a studio with all women.
What was I thinking?
But do that stuff cause it makes you feel good.
You guys, I became a bar instructor at like 50 years old.
And I, as a student of bar,
I cried on the mat for nine months after a breakup.
Like that's where I got my heart healing was on the mat.
Like I just cried my little guts out.
And I loved teaching class and I still love teaching.
I'm actually subbing next week
and I'm subbing some yoga classes too.
So I like teaching all the things.
I realized I'm not,
I don't love one-on-one fitness training teaching.
Like I actually like my coach telling me
which exercises at the gym to do with weights.
Like I can take you through any of those other classes
I just told you about,
but I like more expert help on telling me
which weights to pick up and how to progress in that.
When you go to the doctors, I'm trying to find it.
Because I know ladies, I had this in here.
Okay, it's at the very end.
All right, it's at the very end.
Okay, so steps.
Oh, let's talk about, oh, stretching and steps.
Stretching and steps.
The biggest reason why I hurt my sciatic nerve, you guys,
is because I've gotten lazy
and I've stopped stretching after I work out.
Now, when I teach a fitness class,
there's always stretching at the end.
So I'm a rockstar.
But at the gym lately, when I do my weights,
I've just been piecing the heck out of there.
And so we need to make sure that we are stretching,
especially after we work out,
when your muscles are all warmed up, do some stretching.
Because those muscles might be inflamed,
they might be tight.
We wanna make sure we stretch them out at the end.
So don't skip the stretching.
And then steps.
So if you've been on any Instagram,
you've heard 10,000 steps a day.
Just like we said about the TDEE,
everyone's got a different maintenance calorie.
If you're only walking 3,000 steps a day,
do you think you should be doing 10,000 steps tomorrow?
Anybody, anybody?
That's a no.
No, that's a no.
So whatever your steps is, pay attention to it.
Whether it's your Apple Watch, believe it or not,
even on your iPhone, it tracks your steps.
If you're only at 5,000 steps,
I want you to increase it by 10%.
So you're gonna go up to 5,500.
Then you're gonna increase it by another 10%.
So we are reducing our calories by 10%,
and we're increasing our movement by 10%.
So you will eventually, hopefully,
get up to 10,000 steps a day.
But if you're only at three,
you're not gonna do 10 tomorrow.
Because you're really gonna hurt your shins and your calves
if you do that.
So we wanna get your body in place to do that.
Gwen, I don't know how you are getting 5,000 steps
in in 30 minutes.
That is not happening for this four foot 11 girl.
And I'm hauling ass, I promise you.
Like if I get 3,500 steps in 30 minutes,
that's a good clip for me.
So again, every body is different.
If you have longer legs, you are gonna,
although my sister says I get more steps in
because I'm like this,
and she's like, dee, dee, dee, next to her.
So everyone's got a different walking pace.
There's no shame in that game.
When you're on the treadmill,
you wanna be up on an incline a little bit.
That helps you actually burn more fat.
So you want at least a one, 1.5 to 2.5 incline.
If you hate incline, at least get it up to one,
one and a half.
You could be walking at 2.5 to 3.5.
Again, there are people a lot taller than me here.
So if I'm walking at a 3.0 on the treadmill,
y'all, I'm walking.
If it starts to get to 3.5, I'm actually in a slight jog.
So I don't wanna tell you what it should be on
at the treadmill because your leg length makes a difference.
And so again, no shame in it, you guys,
because like I was watching this gazelle next to me
on the treadmill.
He was like probably doing a five minute mile run.
And he was like, do, do, do.
And here's me, I looked like the Energizer bunny.
And I'm lucky if I was doing like a five,
a five, well, a 10 minute mile.
I was doing like a 10 minute mile run.
And I looked like this and he was like, do, do.
I'm pretty sure I calculated that in a marathon,
my feet hit the ground like 50,000 more times
than an actual runner with real legs.
And so again, steps are also to do
with your body composition too.
So that's why it's not good to say
everybody should be at 10,000 steps.
Well, maybe you've been walking 10,000 steps for 10 years
and you might need to be at 15,000 steps
because your body's already used to 10,000 steps.
There's some poor sap that's only been doing two.
And so she's gonna be excited to get to seven this week.
And so we wanna make sure that we encourage everybody
at all the steps.
All right, how do you do this?
So how many of you want to do better on their body?
Raise your hand if you wanna do better.
All right, okay.
Do you wanna know that here's,
what do we all know that we need to do?
Yes, I love it.
Okay, what do we all know that we need to do
to achieve our goals?
We need to write them down
and we need somebody to hold us accountable, okay?
So guess, so here's what you're gonna do with your weight.
You are going to take pictures of yourself.
It's embarrassing.
Get a little stand, have somebody take them of you.
And you're gonna do three poses.
I'm gonna embarrass myself greatly
and show you my three poses that I do.
So there is my front,
there is my side,
and there is my back.
And so that picture is gonna tell me a whole lot more
than the scale will sometimes.
Because sometimes as I'm building muscle,
people are like, what muscle weighs more than fat?
You guys, that's actually wrong.
Muscle, a pound is a pound.
A pound is a pound.
But a pound of muscle is this big
and a pound of fat is this big.
I mean, it's not exactly, but you get the idea.
So my weight could be saying static on the scale,
but I'm getting smaller in inches
because I'm building muscle and burning fat.
So I'm smaller,
but I am leaner.
I mean, but I've got more muscle.
So we always wanna be taking,
I take, well, usually when I'm being serious,
I take weekly photos.
I put the little timer on my tripod.
I run out in the hallway in my bra and underwear
and pray no one in the hallway
is gonna come out at that time.
But I figure, you know what?
It's more clothing than a bathing suit.
So if my neighbor does,
I'm just gonna have to be okay with it.
But I've been doing it for like two years
and so far I've not been snagged.
So I take my pictures weekly.
I weigh myself daily.
And here's why.
I don't do it because I'm a psycho.
Because weighing yourself daily
shows you how sporadic your weight is.
It could go up and down one to two pounds
because you ate salmon,
because you had pasta the night before.
Like I know for me, if I eat beans, any kind of beans,
my gut does not like beans.
It just gets inflamed with beans.
And so it could look like I gained three pounds overnight.
Now, did I just eat 3,500 times three?
Was that 10,000?
Did I just eat an extra 10,000 calories in one day?
No, I did not eat 10,000 calories in one day.
So that three pound difference on the scale
is probably inflammation.
It's probably something.
So I have learned by taking a daily weight,
you can see what impacts your body,
what foods you eat might increase it.
And then you wanna take like the average of that.
That's your weight for the week.
That's your average.
So over the course of four weeks, eight weeks,
you can say like my average was 140.
Then my average was 138.
Then my average was 136 and you start to see it.
But if you only weigh yourself one day a week,
you could be weighing yourself the one day
that your body's inflamed.
And then you're gonna throw yourself in a hissy
cause you're like, oh my gosh, I lost no weight this week.
The whole thing just sucks.
It's a failure.
Okay, so I do a daily weigh-in to get the average.
Also take your measurements.
Yes, you took pictures,
but get out your little fabric tape measure
and measure the body parts that matter to you.
You guys like, I kind of like my boobs.
So I don't really care what size they are.
Like, you know, I mean, I want my bras to fit.
So that's how I know that they need to go down
a little bit right now is I'm kind of busting out
of my bra.
So I know I need to lose a little bit of weight in my boobs,
but I really don't care.
I track my waist.
I track my hips and I track my thighs
because that's what I'm really paying attention to.
So the parts of your body.
Now, if you have really, and my arms, I like my arms.
My arms are in great shape.
So, I mean, can they get more cut?
Sure they could.
But if your arms are like super low
and you really want to see your weight loss in your arms,
then I would take a tape measure,
but just make sure you're measuring in the same spot.
So take pictures weekly,
weigh yourself daily to get an average,
take your measurements.
I wouldn't measure yourself more than weekly
in the same way that you wouldn't take pictures
more than weekly.
Also pay attention to not take your measurements
the morning after a heavy lift day.
You will be more swollen that day.
So you want to do it after a day of rest.
And the best way to do this is
if there is another woman on here that you like
and know and trust, hold each other accountable.
Send your photos to each other,
send your weight to each other,
send your measurements to each other,
send your pictures to each other.
Have some accountability.
Find somebody that you can share your results to.
There's nothing more honest
than when you have to submit to your coach
your measurements and your pictures.
The camera don't lie, man.
And so that is something that you can do.
And the other phrase that my friend said to me recently,
and she's lost a ton of weight,
and she said, one of the biggest lessons I learned
is I don't wait to be motivated.
Like, I don't know about you guys,
but I'm not always motivated to wash my face.
I'm not always motivated to brush my teeth.
I'm not always motivated to make the bed,
but I do those things
because you're supposed to do those things.
So don't wait to be motivated to go to the gym.
Just go to the gym.
Don't wait to be motivated to eat healthy.
Just eat healthy.
And so a lot of this is about putting our best foot forward.
And you guys, like when I met Brian,
I was in the best frame of mind about my body
than I had been in like 30 years.
And I wasn't my lowest weight,
but I was in shape and I wasn't afraid of food.
Now I will admit in the last year since we've been married,
like that's why I've gotten a lot of blood work done.
My metabolism is off.
I'm freezing at night.
I'm getting more injured.
I'm feeling lightheaded and my weight is creeping back on
and I'm not losing weight easily.
So I'm trying to figure out what's going on.
And so ladies, if you're like Renee,
I'm doing all the things.
I'm weighing my food, I'm moving, I'm eating healthy,
then I would say do the same thing that I'm doing.
Go to the doctors and get your blood work done.
You wanna make sure you're not just looking
for what's the normal range.
You wanna find out what's the optimal range.
Use that phrase with your doctor.
And if your doctor won't talk optimal,
then find a different doctor.
You want a primary care physician, a functional medicine,
a gut doctor, a hormone doctor,
whoever you're seeing to entrust your medical care to.
You just wanna say like, I'm not feeling good.
And that's what I basically said to her for an hour.
How my body looks isn't matching the effort
that I'm putting into this.
I'm working too hard.
Something else is going on in my body.
So we're checking my electrolytes.
We're checking my kidneys, my liver.
We're checking all the things, my hormones.
Because even if you're on an HRT, which I am,
your body changes.
And so the amount of HRT I was on before
might need adjustment.
Other things in my life might need adjustment
because I'm drinking a whole lot more water.
I might need more electrolytes.
I might need less vitamin D,
but maybe I need more vitamin B in my diet.
And so this is really important.
If your body isn't doing what you think it should be doing,
get the data on it and make sure,
and always talk to a doctor
who's gonna use the numbers as a guide.
Like here's what my, the woman that does my HRT,
she's like, cause after I had something done,
I was like, oh my gosh, I felt terrible.
Like I felt like my ovaries were exploding.
And she's like, well, the labs are saying this,
the labs are saying your estrogen is fine
and your testosterone is fine,
but you know your body.
And if your body is not telling you that you're fine,
then the numbers are just one data point.
And then we're gonna keep talking
and we're gonna keep looking.
So those are the kinds of doctors
that you wanna be talking to.
You wanna make sure you're getting a physical.
You wanna make sure you're getting your blood work done.
Make sure you guys are getting your pap smears done
and your mammograms.
I know people say you don't need a pap smear
more than once every three years.
Oh, I'm just like, there's nothing like,
it's just, if your insurance covers it,
I'm a big fan of getting an annual pap
and annual mammograms.
making sure you're testing that out.
Other little things that are so good for us as we age,
wash your face every single night.
Do not go to bed with your makeup on.
Wash your face, wash your face, wash your face.
I don't care if you're using drugstore facial cream
or if you're using high-end stuff.
Be faithful to it, put it on your skin,
let it breathe, do its thing.
Don't be in full makeup all the time.
You know, Jackie talks a lot about the fake eyelashes.
You know how you wanna save your eyelashes?
Wash off your makeup at night.
Don't go to bed with all that eyelash crap on your eyes.
That's like the biggest kill of your eyelashes.
And I will say from people that I've seen do it,
if you're gonna start the eyelash thing,
you may never be able to stop it
because I feel like everybody I know
that uses fake eyelashes
has like little to no eyelashes left.
And so you wanna make sure that what you can do,
you can do consistently and you can afford to do it.
I have not been able to get Botox since I got married
because we have some other things
that we are financially prioritizing.
And so I'm trying to do all the face cream to pretend
like you can't see my lines and wrinkles right now.
Brush and floss every single night, ladies.
I know this sounds crazy,
but you know people don't brush their teeth.
Like now that I've got Invincible lines,
I swear I'm brushing my teeth like three times a day.
It's ridiculous.
But you wanna make sure you're brushing and you're flossing.
Whatever lotions you have.
Oh, and the other thing I wanted to show you.
So this is the whole, oh, it's eight o'clock.
So we're gonna get into more sexy time talk now.
So getting yourself prepped, let's see.
Make sure your hair gets a refresh.
Y'all, some of you need to go to the hair salon
and go like, hey, do something different.
Let your girlfriends here help you out.
I've already told you guys to check your underwear drawer.
You've already heard me say that.
You wanna get rid of all the granny panties now,
I promise you.
And so then if you wanna get prepped and ready,
my husband's in the room, so he can't hear me say this.
And I know Jackie has talked about it.
So there are some of us who've never had sex
or who haven't had sex in a very long time.
And when we get a pap smear, we're like,
oh my gosh, that really hurt.
And then your doctor talks about
your vaginal wall atrophying.
Like that's the worst phrase you can hear, great.
I can't even handle that little instrument going in there.
How am I gonna be able to handle a penis going in there?
And so this is like the magic cream.
It is called, and you can get this from your OB-GYN,
it's called Estradiol.
It's Estradiol cream, and it's literally 0.01%, 0.01%.
It comes with this little syringe
and you put in like one centimeter of it
and you shove it up you.
And the first couple of weeks,
you have to use it every single night.
And then after that, you only need it like two times a week.
You guys, this like saved me.
I thought there is no way I'm gonna be able to have sex
without like getting all torn up at first.
And I only use it like once or twice a week now
for maintenance.
As you can see, it's got this much left in it,
but I swear it lasts forever.
But this will help.
So there's all sorts of fancy lube stuff out there.
I'm gonna also put in this, let me spell it for you.
E-S-T-R-A-E-S-T-R-A-D-I-O-L, Estradiol.
But you do need a prescription for this.
I'm pretty darn sure.
I could be wrong, but,
and insurance covers this if you have insurance.
So thank you, Rachel, for spelling that correctly for me.
It's Estradiol, and it's 0.01%.
And so Estradiol is not estrogen, by the way,
for some of you that might be thinking it,
I don't know what it does.
It just lubes you up down there.
I find it works better if you put it on at night
so it has time to sit in there.
Because if you put it on in the morning,
I feel like it just leaks out.
I know that sounds gross, but I usually just put it in
and hang out on the bed
and try not to move for a little bit.
But that's your friend.
I'm also gonna add in a link.
So when you're also ready for some other little toys,
I'm not gonna say her name,
but she is somebody in the program.
Now, I did not need to add,
so this is the stuff you do to prep.
And obviously, for sex at our age,
you might need extra lube and stuff to go with it
while you're having sex.
And I will say this, you guys,
you have to find a lube that works for you.
I tried an all-natural brand.
I just did not like it at all.
This stuff comes highly recommended.
It's from the Hey Taboo site.
And so they have got lots of lotions and creams
you can kind of check out.
And they have what's called a prim pillow.
Again, she's not on this call, so I'm not gonna say her name,
but she's like, the Prim Pillow
puts you in the perfect position.
Oh, look it, we got fireworks.
You can't make that up.
I have not yet ordered the Prim Pillow,
but she talked about it so highly
that I was like, I might have to order the Prim Pillow.
It's 200 bucks though.
So I'm just letting you know, fireworks guaranteed.
I'm just saying.
But all that to say, you guys, and pray about it too.
And I've said that before, pray about it,
because I swore there were things
that weren't gonna work for me.
And God's been so gracious.
Now, do I have the body and the vagina of a 25-year-old?
I do not.
And so I'm just learning that there are some things
that are just different, and that's okay.
The other thing I'm learning,
and this is really important too
in this sex time of our talk,
there were some things I swore
I would never feel safe to do sexually,
just because some of the things
that had actually happened to me.
And I thought there's no way I wanna do that
with another man ever again.
What I've learned in a covenant marriage,
you might be surprised at what you feel safe doing again
or trying again.
So I would say that's why Jackie talks all the time
about marrying your best friend.
Your best friend will take care of you in the kitchen,
in the living room, with the finances,
and he will take care of you in the bedroom.
He's not gonna not take care of you there too.
And so whatever you need to feel safe,
to feel comfortable, to enjoy it,
he's gonna do that for you.
He's not gonna be like the 25-year-old dude
who's gonna have an orgasm four minutes
after he starts his thing,
and you're just like, wait, what?
I'm over here, I'm not done here.
What did you just do?
He's not gonna do that.
Your best friend is going to take care of you.
And that's why you need to be able to have a best friend
that you can have a conversation with
because you might not like things that he thinks you like.
And so you might have to say,
okay, some other chick may have liked that,
but that's really creeping me out.
Or yeah, that kind of tickles more than it feels good,
or that kind of hurts more than it feels good.
And so you're gonna have to be able to be honest
and tell him.
Okay, here's what I want you to do.
I don't want you to give up.
And so if I had to wrap up,
anything about the health and the fitness
is it's about a lifestyle change.
It really is about a lifestyle change.
In the same way,
the heart work teaches you
to take care of your heart differently.
Dating through Jackie's program
teaches you to date differently.
And believe it or not,
everything that Jackie taught me to date differently
is teaching me and Brian to marriage differently.
So all of the skills you learn as a single person,
you actually take into your marriage bed
and you actually take into your marriage home with you.
And so I would say the same applies to healthy eating.
The better you treat your body,
the better your brain is gonna feel.
The better your spirit is gonna feel.
The better your personality is gonna be
and the hotter you're gonna look to men
and the more sex appeal that you're gonna have.
I don't know about you,
but when I feel blah in my body,
it shows up in every other area of my life.
If I go to the salon
and I have a really kicking hair color
and she like does it,
like y'all, I feel like a million bucks
and I'm still the same girl.
And so that's why Jackie wanted me to focus tonight
on some basics when it comes to putting healthy food
in your body and movement,
especially because there's so much
competing messaging out there.
Some 25-year-old influencer telling you how to lose weight
and we're trying to teach you
that we want you to love food again.
We want you to have a healthy relationship with food again.
We don't want you to starve yourself.
We don't want you to shame yourself on a scale.
We want you to give you other measurements
besides the scale to determine how well you're doing,
but we want you to get out there moving
because hopefully,
and because remember we talked about this
and I know the survey that Jackie's talking about
I think I saw it,
where she said, men, what attracts you most to a women?
And they were like her smile, her energy, her positivity.
They weren't saying boobs and butts, like they weren't.
And I know we think men are visual and they are.
I guess what we're telling you is what we think of as visual
and what they think as visual is a little bit different
and how you're treating your body and your mind
from the inside out
actually changes the way they see you physically.
Like my husband now loves me.
So even on my ugliest day,
he's like, oh my gosh, you're so beautiful.
And I'm like, just shut up.
Now you're lying.
Like, I know you really love me.
Cause right now, like there's just.
no way I look beautiful but if you put enough beautiful coins in the bank with your husband
early while you're dating and he sees all that positivity on your ugly days he's not going to
even see it because he's still seeing you through the beautiful colored glasses and so that's just
what we wanted to encourage you to. I will say you know and part of why Jackie wanted me to share
this is because I'm short you guys and it is really hard for me to get weight off and it is
really hard for me to keep weight off and it is really easy for people to notice it. I've learned
how to wear clothes well so a lot of times people are like oh my gosh I can't tell you you've got a
weight issue well because mom taught me to accentuate the stuff that looks good and to
camouflage the stuff that doesn't look good so I've also learned so take a trusted friend to
the store with you and have her tell you which clothes flatter your current body and which
clothes don't flatter your current body and make sure it's not the sales lady who just wants to
sell you stuff you want to make sure you have a trusted person that's like yeah that looks great
on you you know what that's not flattering on you like there was a skirt somebody had on yesterday
at the office I went to as a chaplain she's got a really tiny body and she was wearing one of
those Carrie Bradshaw kind of skirts it was kind of fluffy and poofy and it looks great on her if
I put it on me I look like two tons of fun like I mean it just wouldn't work on my short little body
with my big old booty and so I would never put that skirt on as much as I want to and so make
sure you have a good friend who's going to go to the store with you and tell you what not to wear
remember that show what not to wear you everybody needs a person who's going to tell you what not
to wear and you know if you don't have a good girlfriend you find yourself a gay man and he will
take you to the store and he will tell you what looks good on you um my mom walked in right when
you were talking about an orgasm my sweet baby Jesus oh my goodness actually the most embarrassing
thing I ever said at a women's church conference I didn't know there was a male priest or whatever
they called in the Lutheran church nearby and I was like God is not surprised by the orgasm
that was the phrase he walked in on and he was like who is this chick talking to my group here
um but you that's the thing you guys God wants us to have happy healthy holy sex and the better
you feel in your skin and the better you will enjoy it okay questions it's only 8 12 so we're
good we got like 20 more minutes I am open to all questions related to any of this
and I'm going to take a sip of my matcha because I talked way too much just now
okay Allison go first you brave soul
this is a pretty innocuous question but I've wondered do the bands are bands equal to weights
you know the strength I know what you're talking about so my sister and in theory they do at the
beginning my sister hates going to the gym so when she lost all of her weight she basically
told her trainer you need to give me exercises I can do at home with bands and small weights
I can do at home with bands and small weights so that is where she started and you can go up to
bigger and tighter bands and it will go up to certain pound um but there are just some things
that bands don't do but if that is the only way you're going to move and build muscle then I would
rather you do that than not at all so bands are a great way to start especially if you're working
out from home or if you're on the road especially if you're on the road like sometimes I'll pack
bands if I'm on the road like and if you put those bands on and like you do side steps or you get on
all fours to do angle 90 and doggy kicks man you can burn your muscles in your butt like big time
with a band um so I would say yes start with bands um not everybody loves weights I I just
want you moving and I you the thing that we have to do especially for osteoporosis is we need to do
weight-bearing exercises we need to do weight-bearing so my mom did aquasize she taught aquasize for
years which did nothing for weight-bearing strength training so you want to make sure
you're doing some form of weight-bearing exercise Rosanna. Hi I'm driving but I caught the end
end of this I um oh can I say something I just met with a friend a guy that I met like through
this program we ended up deciding to just be friends and so we just met up and I just wanted
to encourage people like friendships can come out of this with good men who I actually told him like
you set the bar of how I should expect to be treated even though we're not together um thank
you for that because sometimes I'm like saying I'm like oh my god
He never, like, I know what to expect in some sense,
if that makes sense.
And so I just want to encourage that with women.
Anyway, aside from that, I'm also ovulating.
And I just, I was really struggling this week, Renee.
Like, hard core.
I'm 43 years old.
I haven't had sex in over two years.
And I'm like, Lord, you need to bring this man.
So like, I am, I was really, really, really struggling.
So I would love ideas of, I don't know.
Like, I know, I remember Jackie talking
about certain things, like, regarding masturbation,
that she's not seeing masturbation,
but then she was talking about stuff.
It was in some part of phase three.
And she just put both sides to it,
which I thought was really, really good.
And so, like, I just want to know, like,
ideas even from other women of, like, I'm like,
I went to the gym, I think, the next day.
Like, I just needed to get stuff.
Well, and it's hard because,
and here's what's hard about that, too.
Going to the gym is great,
but it also boosts your testosterone,
which actually boosts your sex drive.
So it actually makes you want to have sex more.
You know, and I, whenever Jackie and I
talk about masturbation,
it's always like all the hate mail that we get.
So I'm going to try to watch what I will say about this.
I think that sometimes a physical release
is just a physical release.
And I think sometimes it's an addiction.
And like, I know for me, I can do movement
and I can even do yoga movements,
and I'm not calling on the God of Hindu and Buddha.
But I know for some people,
that's a gateway to them going down a mystical road.
And so I don't know what everybody's sexual past is.
And so if they masturbated once,
that might set them up on a slippery slope
back into some kind of addiction.
So I feel like that answer
is not a one size fits all answer.
I personally think if you do it like once or twice
or whatever, I don't think you're going to hell.
But here's what I can tell you masturbation does.
And this is what you kind of have to be careful of,
especially if you have a little toy.
And I've thought about that with my poor husband.
There's no way he can compete
with this electric thing that I use
that can go a lot faster than he can.
And, you know, and I'm kind of working it.
So unfortunately, sometimes when you masturbate
and or you're using some kind of instrument,
A, it's self-gratification.
So the focus isn't on the other person.
And B, you don't want to get yourself
too hooked in a stimulant that's not going to match
what an actual human can do.
Because you don't want your spouse doing the same for you.
Like you don't want him thinking,
well, you don't look like the girl in the porn video
that I used to watch.
And you're not getting in the positions
that I've seen her get into.
So that's the runaway slope that we find ourselves in
when we start looking at pornography,
talking about masturbation is it's very self-gratifying.
So it takes us off the other person's,
you know, doing it for them.
And it creates a layer that,
a bar that's really hard to fill.
So Rosanna, how I dealt with it.
So besides masturbation,
how do you deal with the times that you're horny?
Honestly, working out, walking, I would go get massages.
Like I just needed somebody to touch me.
And so I needed physical touch.
So I used to get a monthly membership to Massage Envy.
And I just made sure somebody else was massaging me.
And it's like,
we're not talking like happy ending massage people.
So like, it's not like that kind of massage.
But like I needed physical touch.
And sometimes I just had to,
I mean, sometimes it was eat some brownie.
Sometimes it was go for a hike.
Sometimes it was pray.
I mean, sometimes it was like literally like, okay, God,
you know that that's what I want right now.
And I'm just gonna have to sit in the tension of it.
And you guys like not getting our needs met
doesn't go away when you get married.
There are sometimes your needs won't get met
in the marriage.
Sometimes Brian's on a business trip
when I wanna have sex.
Sometimes he's sick when I wanna have sex.
Sometimes he's just not in the mood or vice versa.
Do you know what I'm saying?
So I don't always get all my needs met married.
And so remember I said to you guys earlier
that everything that you're learning how to do single
actually starts to translate married.
It really is true.
I thought Brian and I were gonna like,
Brian had a lot, you know, he lost a lot of weight
before me.
So I just thought we were gonna be these workout buddies
getting our 10,000 steps in together every day.
And it was gonna be so special.
And we were gonna weigh our food together
and it was gonna be so fun.
No, it's not like that at all.
Our workout styles are very different.
The time of day we wanna work out is very different.
and our motivation is very different.
So I'm realizing, oh, I still have to be the chief motivator
of my fitness and of me eating healthy.
So I think that's the other thing too,
is that we don't suddenly get married
and we're suddenly the weight we wanna be
and we're suddenly cooking healthy together
and we're suddenly not tempted by sugar.
Like if it's your temptation now,
it will be your temptation married.
If anything, it's easier to fall off the wagon
when you're married.
I appreciate you asking, girl,
because we don't talk about it a lot.
We always, like men always,
everyone always thinks that men
are the one with the sex drive, but that's not true.
Women have it too.
And I know for me, I always joke around in my husband,
I wanna have sex after I work out and after I take a shower,
both of those times, all of the time.
And so, it's a bummer if he's not home
during any of those times.
And so I just have to wait.
So I get it, I get it, girl.
Okay, is there anything, I'm trying to scan back through.
Yeah, okay, and just for the record, y'all,
I might have the, I know some of you are on this call
who have never had sex.
You know, it had been over 10 years for me.
And so I get it, and Brian and I waited.
And I will say, you guys, if you're wondering
if it's worth it, it really is worth it.
It really, really is.
I am glad that Brian and I only know covenant sex together.
I didn't think after being sexually active in the past
that it was gonna, I was like,
is it gonna really feel better?
Is it gonna really feel different?
Is it gonna really feel redeemed?
It really, really does.
I can say, I'm so glad I also got in shape
before I got married,
because that also makes me more comfortable naked.
Like, you don't realize how much they can see you
all the time.
Like, all the time.
Like, when you're in an awkward,
like, they just, you know what I'm saying?
So you really wanna take care of it.
Okay, Marsha, sweet girl, let's get off this topic.
And let me answer your second question.
Okay, yeah, okay.
Here's my, here is my question.
Okay, first of all, oh, first of all,
now I understand where the, first of all,
with what you were just talking about,
now I understand where Jackie has mentioned
a saying earlier on in this program
called getting ready for naked,
but that's not what I was,
that's what just came to mind
after what you just talked about.
But okay, on another note,
I was thinking a few days ago,
a few days ago, I was looking at just buying some,
buying just a shirt to celebrate our nation's birthday.
Well, the funny thing was was that
I saw a picture of me in shorts
and I was like, okay, man,
even though it does have a picture of me,
and even though it does have my weight,
even somewhat of my weight and somewhat of my height,
I was like, I could not, on a nice note,
I was like, man, the virtual reality is not me
because I look horrible in shorts.
I know it's stupid.
I noticed, has anyone else done virtual,
the virtual, I don't wear too many shorts
because I'm so, I'm extremely self-conscious
about the way that my size I look in these days.
But I supposedly look good in these shorts
that I wouldn't dare dream about wearing
because my size would not look as good
as when they virtually had these shorts on
to try on with this T-shirt.
Well, I mean, I will say this,
I don't wear shorts a lot at all
because I wear a lot of outfits
that cinch in at the waist and kind of flare out.
So pants and shorts aren't very forgiving
when my weight's going up and down,
but dresses are more forgiving.
So I tend to wear clothes that make me feel good
and that I feel like I look good in.
And so, and I'm short, again, I'm back to the I'm short.
And so sometimes shorts just cut me off
and they cut off my length
and so they don't make me look tall
and they just make me look stocky.
And so I think it's okay for you to wear exactly
whatever you wanna wear that makes you feel good.
And here's the thing, you guys,
this isn't about you being thin,
cause I don't know what has happened in Hollywood
with the GLP-1 drugs
and everybody looking like skeletons again.
Like, I feel like that was big in the seventies
and then we got away from that in the eighties
and like physically fit was good.
And I feel like we're kind of moving away from that again
and back to skinny.
And so please don't hear me and Jackie saying,
everybody needs to be skinny,
but we do want you to be healthy.
We do want you to steward your body well.
And so we're just encouraging you to do everything
that you can to be healthy mind, body, and spirit.
I'm just convinced, my husband is too, like half the, half of the diseases that we have
I believe is the crap that is getting thrown in food.
And so the more, if you, if when you read a label, if you can't read what the word is,
you probably shouldn't put it in your body.
Like I did not realize this, but like kettle fire is like literally the only chicken stock
that doesn't have all this other crap in it.
Like even organic, if you pull up any box of chicken stock, even what you think is the
organic low sodium, it's got like some kind of yeast in it.
It's got all this other stuff in it.
Like literally kettle and fire is the only thing that says chicken, chicken, like that's
it.
So really pay attention to the labels and all of the stuff that's going in food because
I feel like the gut issues that we're having, the mental issues that we're having, the hormone
imbalances that we're having is all connected to either what we're topically putting on
our body or in what we're putting in our body.
Loose skin, Rachel, make sure you master collagen.
Collagen, you want to be putting it in your food and collagen will help tighten up the
skin.
I know my husband has to deal with that because he lost a lot of weight and he has some loose
skin.
And so some people need to get the surgery, some people don't want to get the surgery
though.
But collagen, adding a lot of extra collagen and talking to your doctor about what kind
of collagen is right for you, whether it's the liquid collagen or the powder is really
good about helping it.
But some of it is some of it.
And I swear by collagen.
So let's see, weight training really helps the loose skin.
Yes, it does.
Weight training really does and it really does help because you're going to be building
muscle.
And so it's going to put that skin to better use.
Lifting low weights, tighten skin.
I will say this, I know there are plenty of people, especially like my CrossFit friends,
they will say that there's no such thing as toning your muscles.
You're either building your muscles or you're losing muscle.
So CrossFitters will say that, but I'll tell you what, you guys, I was teaching bar...
Let's see if I can find this photo.
I was teaching only bar for a season, like I was instructor and I was probably working
out way too much.
I'm not going to lie.
Like I got an injury from it so we won't go there, but look at how ripped I am.
I was only doing bar.
I was holding one-pound weights and I look good there.
And so you can tighten those muscles with smaller weights.
But bar is...
See, the difference with like bar and Pilates is it does something different.
So like when you're doing strength training, this is like kind of off topic, but when you're
doing strength training, you contract a muscle, you release the muscle, you contract, you
release.
And so that's how you kind of get that muscle.
When you're doing bar and Pilates, you're actually staying in the muscle.
You're staying in the contraction and you're wearing it down till you feel it shaking.
So it builds the muscle differently.
And so that's how you kind of get that tightness.
So it looks a little bit different and it doesn't have the same bulk that you get when
you lift heavy, but it will get you tone.
And so again, I kind of just feel like if you don't want to lift heavy weights and don't
lift heavy weights, but lift weights, hold weights in your body.
We need to build muscle.
We don't want to be those little ladies that is shriveled up reaching forward, like, right?
Like that is, and that is why so many women get hurt in their eighties.
Like my mother fell.
We don't have muscle mass protecting our bones, our joints, and our ligaments.
So the more muscle you have on your body, the more you're protecting everything else
around it.
And that's why you want to do it.
Best ab exercises.
Planks.
I'm a big fan of planks.
Forearm planks.
The reason why I like a good forearm plank is because I'm double jointed.
So when I do a regular plank, look at how my elbows pop out.
I have to like turn them and turn on a corner to get a full plank correct.
And so a lot of times, and a lot of times when people do a full arm plank, their butt
sags or it's popping up, but a forearm plank, it's a lot easier to do a good form.
And the reason why I like a good forearm plank is you can zip that belly in and you can cinch
your waist, squeeze your glutes and press up out of your elbows.
And if you can do like a good 30 second or a full minute plank, you're working your core,
you're working your back, you're working your glutes.
And so I love a lot of ab exercises,
but you really can't spot lose weight in your abs,
but a good plank helps your back and your core.
What's good for the butt to lift?
Okay, I will say bar is like one of the best butt lifters
because you're doing things.
I should do a whole workout class with you guys.
I used to do that years ago.
We did a summer series and I worked out with y'all.
But like anything, see, I can't do it.
I'm not, I'm too far, I'm not far enough away.
Anything that squeezes, I call it like angle 90,
anything where you're kind of squeezing your glute,
we're gonna do a workout class.
I'm gonna convince Jackie for us
to do a workout class together.
And I'm going to teach you things that will help your core,
especially if you have a bad back,
especially if you're double-jointed, you have injuries,
because you want a pelvic floor.
You guys, we need to work our pelvic floor.
Why is it you turned 58
and you're suddenly peeing in your pants all your time?
You guys, I didn't think this was a thing
that was gonna happen, but it has happened.
And so we wanna really work on our pelvic floor,
especially if you've had a lot of kids,
you really wanna work on that.
And so I might see if we can put that on a schedule
where I just teach you some body parts and some good posture
because I'm also a big fan is if you are gonna lift weights,
you wanna lift weights correctly.
Why is it frozen?
I don't know why it's freezing.
Okay, so yes, you wanna make sure,
and here's in the evening, it doesn't matter, you guys,
we're gonna film it and we're gonna record it.
So even if I do a workout class
in the middle of the day or at night,
you'll be able to watch it.
And I will make sure,
because I actually used to teach my barre classes
online during COVID.
So I will place my computer pretty far away
so that you can see my whole body.
And again, if you're doing like a bicep curl,
if you're doing a lat raise,
you wanna do stuff with good form.
It doesn't pay to do an exercise with crappy form.
A squat can be done safe.
Like I didn't realize this,
but I am super pronated in my ankles
and I tore out my ligaments so much
from cheerleading and gymnastics
that when I was holding, I was doing a sumo squat
and I wasn't paying attention to that.
And y'all, like I strained the inside muscle of my ankle
because I wasn't paying attention
that my pronation was dropping my ankles
during a sumo squat and I hurt myself.
So that's why it's really important
that you know your body, you know your injuries,
and you're paying attention to that when you work out,
especially as you add weights,
because we wanna make sure you guys don't get injured.
Okay, any other fun questions?
What a random class tonight.
I'm so sorry if it felt like it was all over the map.
I promise you, I'm gonna load all my notes
as a PDF on the resources page, probably,
but Cheryl's gonna do it
because she knows how to do that stuff.
So just, it's Thursday now.
I think she's got something going on tonight.
So maybe if not tomorrow, she'll do it by Monday.
And so you guys will have all of the notes
because I know I vomited a lot of information.
Thank you to all of you that ad-libbed in the chats.
You guys had other supplements
and other ideas that were helpful.
And I appreciate that.
And I'm really proud of all of you.
And I'm so glad you guys,
I mean, 10 of you could have showed up
and the rest of you could have said peace out
on diet and exercise and health tonight.
So I'm just grateful that y'all showed up
and were willing to have this conversation with me.
And keep the questions coming.
If you had questions or if you're watching this in replay
and you have questions, just put them.
I'm not on the app, really.
I am on the Facebook page.
So feel free to put them there
and I'll be happy to answer those questions
that you have there.
All right, good job, everybody.
Let me pray you out.
Father God, we just thank you
for each and every single person.
We're gonna end the way we started this,
that you died for us.
You died for all of us, our mind, our body, and our spirit.
That all of us was worth being rescued and redeemed.
That even though we are gonna get a resurrected body,
it's still gonna look like Renee and Marsha
and Lynn and Patty.
And Amelia and Dinah.
We're still gonna look like ourselves
in some beautiful, amazing way.
And so we thank you that you want us to care
for this body, inside and out, holistically, all of it.
And so we thank you.
And Father God, if there is any stronghold
that a woman is facing when it comes to food or fitness,
Father God, that you begin to speak to her,
that you begin to heal that place in her heart
that tells her she can't change the way that she looks,
that it's just the way it is.
That you remind her that with you, nothing is impossible.
And so we just thank you for each and every single woman,
knowing that you are preparing these beautiful women
for their beautiful bedroom night.
In Jesus' name, amen.
All right, ladies, have a good night.
Thank you, Renee.
Thank you.
Good night.