 If you want to pump your body and expand your mind, there's only one place to go. Mind pump, mind pump with your hosts, Sal DeStefano, Adam Schaefer, and Justin Andrews. We're looking for and trying to bring more fitness badasses to our audience. And Julie Bauer is definitely a fitness badass. And I'm talking about from, of course she was a CrossFit competitor a while ago. She's very fit, she knows her stuff. But just fitness information, she's got a blog that reaches millions of people. She started a podcast about a year ago that is consistently ranked now in the top 20 or 30 all the time on iTunes. And she's just an awesome human being. She interviewed me on her podcast a little while ago. And I had such a great conversation with her and such great chemistry that we invited her here down to Mind Pump Media headquarters. And so me and Adam have a great conversation with her. I mean, this conversation went all over the place and it got really deep. Yeah, she's got a really good message. It was really exciting. It was exciting for me to talk to her because just from what you had told me, interviewing you're like, man, you're going to like this girl, she's really cool. And when we sat down, I had no idea. I assumed that she had this big team of people that are running her business. But she is literally running the show all by herself. And to me, that's extremely impressive because she maintains an incredibly healthy fit, strong physique, and she crushes it on business. And then she's recently been married a year and a half now. And she just seems to be killing it on all levels with some pretty damn good balance. And where she knows she's out of balance, she's aware of. So, and I know that we talk about that in this episode. So I think what- And she talks about like for your female listener, she talks about what happened to her with her fitness life. She went in to CrossFit, trained her ass off, performed very well. Her body started rebelling on her. She was overdoing it, under eating. Her body stopped responding. She realized that something's not right. And so here in this episode, what she did to kind of reverse things and correct them so her body started getting healthy again and started responding to exercise again. I know we've talked about that topic on our podcast quite a few times, but you get to hear a personal experience from someone like Julie who's a great communicator. You also hear that, we talk about all the time on the show that your greatest strength is your greatest weakness. And she definitely shares where this has been something that's been definitely close to her, where what made her very successful is also what in turn could have ended up hurting her, but she was very aware of that. Exactly. So you can find her blog, which I highly suggest it's got recipes on there. Great information. Paleo-M-G, so it's- No, no, no, it's Paleo-M-G, right? Well, Paleo-M-G is I guess how you pronounce it, but P-A-L-E-O-M-G.com. There's also Paleo-M-G Uncensored, that's her podcast. She likes to cuss on it, it's pretty funny. And then her cookbook is Julie Bauer's Paleo Cookbook. So without any further ado, here we are talking to Julie Bauer. So funny to hear you guys in person. Do we sound? Do we look the way we sound? Well, I knew what you guys looked like. Okay. Less or more handsome. Way more handsome. No, I do think you guys are more handsome in person. I'm serious. I think you guys are more handsome in person. I didn't think you were ugly in the first place. You're more handsome in person. I was just gonna say, it depends how, you know what I mean? Depends what you- You were not attracted to the picture, and now you're normal. So you're more handsome. Now you're okay. I asked that because I'm always going for that, right? Because I feel like in this day and age, I don't know how many people I've been surprised by a medium, and I'm like, God, you're way smaller, or you're less fit than you looked. Because they do all this fake shit. They put up their best photos, they're all professionally done, or they got all the Photoshop going on, and then you meet them in real life, and you're like, oh, wow, this is like, not what I saw on Instagram. So I always like to hear that, at least I'm putting out who I am, right? I'm not trying to, like, you see me, you're like, oh, okay, he's more impressive, or he's better looking in person. You know what I get? So I get people will tell me when they meet me, I thought you were bigger. Oh, no. Yeah, because I'll take, like, when I first started Instagram before- Well, that's what happens when you're jacked, because you're shredded, so people assume when someone's shredded, they think big, right? You know that. How many times have you been lean and been told you look big? Well, that's part of it, but part of it is also when we first, because I got on Instagram later, Adam was like hammering me, like, dude, you gotta get on, this is before we started Mind Pump, you gotta get on Instagram, you gotta get on Instagram. So I finally get on there, and I'm like, well, I don't know what to do. Mainly for all the booty pics, the first time I was like, dude, you gotta get on there, there's booty pics all over the place. It's just like straight porn. Yes, it is. All the time. You know what's weird to me? Why are you looking at booty pics on Instagram, when you can just go to, anyway. That's a good discussion, they'll go ahead, keep going. So I'm looking, I'm scrolling through Instagram, and right away, I think I messaged him, I'm like, dude, this is narcissism hell, like I don't even wanna do this, it's stupid. He's like, you gotta do this if you're in fitness, like this is the medium, so I'm like, all right. So I'm scrolling through, I'm like, oh, okay, so you just post pictures of yourself flexing, and I'm like, but there's an area where I can post good information. So what I'm gonna do is, I'm gonna post a flexing picture with the right lighting and pump, and then underneath it, I've got some good information. So he used to make fun of me, he'd call them- Helpes. Helpes, cause I- They weren't selfies, they're helpies. Helpes, so I would post, he's like pumped up, like I'd get a good pump, and then the lighting would be right. And so then when people meet me, they're like, you don't look like that in person, like, let me get a pump, let me stand in the right light, and then that'll look like me. I did think you were taller, just because you posted a picture recently with your girlfriend in your bicep, is like the size of your girlfriend. Yeah, she's small. Yeah, so she must be really small. So, how tall are you? Six foot. Okay, so I'm like- In heels. Yes, in heels. So I'm five, seven, and I felt like I was, not like very much shorter than you, but I have heels on. But you got your heels on. Yeah, so I just imagined you taller because your girlfriend was- Small. Yeah, just smaller. Well, five, seven's pretty tall for a woman. Five, seven, five, eight, you're starting to get up there in the taller range. Because with the average woman's five, five, or five, four, what is it? I have no idea. Yeah, no, you're above average for sure. You're also very fit. Oh, thank you. Yeah, yeah, very fit. Now, you have a long history in fitness. You've been doing this for quite a while, right? I, not as long as you guys, but I've been in the, I've been working out continuously and in the fitness world probably for seven years. So you started working out in seven years, or you started working in it, or both? So I started working out in high school. I was on the swim team for a long time and then when I stopped doing swim team, I was like, okay, I need to start working out. My body's changing, you know, it's going through puberty. And so just like, I started watching Big Mouth because of you guys. Oh my God, how funny is that? Oh, is that right? Funny, I talked about it on my podcast. I was like, if you're easily offended- Oh, we're instantly friends that you like that. Oh my God, it's so, like, it was seriously puberty right there. It's so accurate. Oh my God, it's so accurate. And it's funny seeing the guy side because I only had the female. I don't have any brothers. So watching the guy side, so funny. Let me tell you, it's very accurate. It's super- Yes, it's very accurate. I'm watching it and I'm literally remembering. Stories. Right, that's what I loved about it. So the stories that they tell in there, there's, I think almost everyone I have a story that's either exactly the same or like that. That's how accurate it is. Like thinking of how much, you know, as a girl, you love your mom and you're just so, you're the best mom. And then once you get your period, you're like, get out. I was like, total freak, that was. Does that really happen? I got a daughter. Yeah, it's coming. You're a dad, so you're on the better side of things. So now I'm wondering now because I'm divorced, right? So she, my kids are with me half the time. What if, will she be like that with me? No, it's gonna be, it'll be towards your ex-wife and what will happen is like- I'll be the cool guy? Yes, I wanna live with dad. I'm gonna live with dad, right? This is gonna happen all through like 13 to like 16, she's gonna wanna come live with you, yeah? I mean, I'm almost 30 and my mom and I still butt heads every single time. And my dad, I'm like, you're the best human in the whole wide world, I love you so much. So you're on the better side. But I was always interested in fitness and I was always interested in the idea of being able to change what genetics had given me. So I just, you know, when people say, this is your genetics, that's all you get. You gotta move on from it. I'm like, no, I'm seeing all these people change their bodies and morph them and I wanna be able to do that. And so I started getting into fitness but it was very two hours on the stair stepper. Like- You did the cardio. Yeah, did all cardio. But then I noticed when I started lifting it gave me a lot of confidence and I was really, I loved being able to walk into the weight room where it was all males and be confident in my lifts and comfortable with dumbbells and barbells and I love that confidence that gave me. But I was pretty incredibly awful and secure person and hated everything about myself. And so I would always turn back to the stair stepper just like two hours on the stair stepper all the time. And it wasn't until college, I had a boyfriend at the time who did CrossFit in our just college gym and I started dabbling in CrossFit and I was so weak. I couldn't do a pushup on my toes. I couldn't do a pull-up, like even slightly lift my body. And so I started doing pushups on my knees and pull-ups on the assisted pull-up machine and it just started to change my body and it made me so confident. I've been like, I can walk in and I can do an overhead squat and everybody's like, what the hell are you doing? It just made me so confident and I really kind of fell in love with- Talk about that moment where I swear I remember so many of my clients when that happens where they go from the woman who's really afraid to go into the weight room because of all these dumbbells and these meathead guys around and just super intimidating to the reverse of that feeling once you finally like put it all together. Like I got this, it's changed my body. I know what the fuck I'm doing in here. Like how much did that change your confidence level and you as a person who's into health and fitness? It was drastic. I mean, I was just completely insecure. I mean, I remember looking in the mirror when I was a teenager or into my college years and I literally couldn't even point out one thing I liked about myself. Like, didn't like my eye color, didn't like anything. It was so sad and I never was really given the tools to find confidence. I was just thinking about listening to your podcast and hearing all these different stories. I'm like, why am I the way I am and what really created my story? I think about, I had like a friend in middle school who taught me to be bulimic and I had a friend in high school who was teaching me how to be anorexic. And so those were those like tools that I was given. I wasn't around confident empowered women. And so the only empowered people I had in my life were I started working out at a like a bodybuilding gym in Colorado. And so all the only confident people I had in my life were men, but I was still very intimidated by them. And so when I found CrossFit, it kind of put men and women on the same playing field. CrossFit did that very well. And I was beating guys in workouts and that was so empowering to me. That gave me so much confidence that you'd see these like meet head like just annoying guys at the gym. And then I'd be able to kind of put them in a place they would almost talk down to me and then I'd be able to put them in their place by beating them in a workout or having better form them than them in a lift. Now did they start respecting you? Like when you started showing them that you could perform? Yeah, and that was so cool. I worked at a, I still work out at this gym, but it was a CrossFit gym that started with rugby players and these dudes would walk in and I'd be telling them what to do and they would not respect me whatsoever. And then I do a workout with them and that completely changed. And I had all these guy friends now that didn't talk about bodies like women did and it really was able, I was able to change my confidence in my own self because of those people I was around. You said something earlier about, having bad examples from like some like friends that you had that were close to you that were bulimic and anorexic. I was just listening to Gary V interview Tim Ferriss and he said something on there, very similar to what I've said on the podcast a bunch of times regarding financial stuff, but they actually were talking about working out a nutrition and behavior the same way, which is we're kind of a reflection of the five people that we spend the most time with. Everything from financially, emotionally, spiritually, every which way. And so looking back now, do you see like the five friends or so that you used to hang out with and think, oh my God, I wish I could go back and tell myself, like you gotta get away from her, she's unhealthy for you. And then is that something you think about now as a grown woman in your 30s? Yes, and I've talked about this on my podcast of cutting out those people in your lives that don't make you a better person. And especially with social media, I unfollow people all the time and it's not their own fault, it's my own insecurities. And I say, okay, I can't have this person in my life anymore. And looking back, there's so many different friendships, even though those friendships taught me a lot and those relationships taught me a lot, so many friendships could have changed the way I presented myself and thought about myself. And you say that those five people, thinking about the five people that are strongest in my life, my husband is obviously one of those top people. And he is a person who, he doesn't talk about body constantly. He's like, oh, I need to lose a little bit away or I wanna get a little bit bigger for our wedding. But it's not his main concern all the time. He doesn't just stand in the mirror and critique himself. He's like, okay, I gotta start cutting back on some carbs or something like that. And then he moves on and his sister, my sister-in-law, same thing. She's like, oh, I've gained a little weight, move on and lose it and just move on with her day instead of thinking about their bodies constantly. They think about their work and their friendships and their relationships. There's so many other things on their mind and that those people in my life now have built me to not obsess about all those little things that are just the minor. What advice do you give like a young girl that makes that decision? Like you just, you made a great point about, I'll just unfollow somebody because of whatever reason. Like what are those reasons? What's the criteria to be in my circle now? Like when you think about that, like what are you evaluating to make that decision? Like, you know what, I love this person. Maybe they've been in my life for seven years and a friend or whatever like that. But I need to move on if I'm going to grow. Like what do you evaluate to make that decision? I think if something makes you feel negative about yourself, for me, if I love following different fitness people, but if I'm looking at this one girl and I can think of this one girl who posts amazing workout videos, but she has this fantastic body and it makes me question my own body. And why am I questioning my own body? That's her body has nothing to do with my body. And you know, she has different interests and I just compared for years and I stopped comparing. And so if a person or someone I follow or have in my life makes me question the like root down beliefs that I have and the happiness that I want in my own life, then I'm going to cut them out of my life. And this is very self-aware of you because it has a very strong influence over how we feel about ourselves. I think people lie to themselves when they say, well, it's not, doesn't have an influence, it does. This is why marketing is a billions of dollar industry is that when you're bombarded with images or whatever, it does change how you start to think and then that starts to change how you behave. And you're just more aware of that in the sense that you're just unfollowing these pages. Cause I know what goes through people's mind. They'll think, well, I should unfollow this page and they'll think, well, I should just think about it differently. So what's the big deal? But what you're doing is actually quite intelligent. You're just changing the images that you're exposed to, which gives you the space to examine those things, which gives you the space to change how you think and then change how you behave. Now I have a question for you. At this point when you're doing CrossFit and you're finding that you can perform and that you're stronger and that you feel better in that sense, do you switch your identification from the way I look to now I need to perform? And was that a good thing initially and did it ever turn into a bad thing? Yes, absolutely. That was the best part is when I started CrossFit, I went to a CrossFit competition and I saw these women and not only were they all cheering for each other and empowering each other, which I had never been around. I'd only ever been around caddy women or just my close friends who, you know, weren't just not empowering each other in the same way. And everything was based off how you performed. It wasn't about how you looked. It wasn't about how you looked in a certain pair of shorts or how cute your outfit was. And that was at the start of CrossFit. Not so much now, but it was just about how you performed and there was small women and big women and women who were ripped and then women who weren't. It was just every single kind of women there, but it was based on how you performed that day. And what I loved is you'd think, oh, this woman is she's so ripped, so she's gonna do the best in a workout and that wasn't the case at all. And so I'm like, okay, I wanna compete. I wanna do this. I wanna feel like that and I wanna perform well. And so that mindset of obsessing about how I looked completely changed into how much I could lift and how fast I could go through a workout. And so I was really able to put my obsessions into something new. And that's when I started getting into diet. I didn't know much about diet and started looking into the zone diet and started doing that and seeing my body change and started getting into the paleo diet. And so my obsessions with body weight changed in a healthy way at first into just lifting and getting better form and performing faster. And then it got a little bit hazy as I started obsessing more about food and working out more. I just got addicted. I mean, at the end of the day, I was addicted to obsessing over my body and then I was addicted to working out and I would work out and these cross, you guys know CrossFit is very high intensive and I was doing at one point like three to four workouts a day because I was working at multiple gyms. And you're not trying to be a competitor. That's why it's important to know it, right? Because it's different if you're trying to be an actual competitor and athlete or you just trying to get in shape and you're training that much. No, at that point, I was competing. Oh, you were competing? Oh, shit, you're doing pretty well. Okay. Yes, so I was competing. She was very competitive, yeah. Oh, okay, well, that's different then because if you're competing that much, I mean, you're an athlete, you're, it's a sport now. Totally, totally. And so I am working out, I'm working at multiple gyms and then someone would be like, hey, do you wanna work out? I'm like, shit, I already worked out twice today but whatever, I'll do it again. And so I really got addicted to working out. I just, as you know, like all the endorphins, it feels so good and it was also like, I can work out more than you can. And it became super competitive. I'm like, I'm not the fastest, I'm not the strongest, I'm not the biggest. So what is gonna be my step ahead of everybody else? And that was hopefully working out multiple times a day. Was there a pivotal point where you recognized that? Where all of a sudden you're like, oh fuck, I'm a little out of control here. Was there a moment where you kind of, that switch went off for you? Yeah, I started to see, not only was my body changing in an unhealthy way, I was gaining weight, I wasn't sleeping well, I wasn't performing as well in the gym anymore and I was starting to get closer to injuries. I never had any super intensive injuries in CrossFit, but I was getting closer where something just tweaked a little bit and I never had that in the past, yeah. Were you noticing hormonal issues at this time as well as sleep issues? Absolutely, hormonal issues. And I was like, okay, I'm in adrenal fatigue at this point, I hate what I see in the mirror at this point, I had gained 30, 35 pounds from the day I started CrossFit to my competing days and I didn't recognize myself in the mirror and you know. And we need it, we should stop there for a second because this is very important, you fight your body, you can get only so far. Once these, if you continue to ignore these signals. And some further than others, right? That's where it's different. It's hard and these signals start to get louder and louder and louder and when you're in a situation like you were where you're just pushing your body harder and harder and identifying with the fact that you can push and outwork other people, the adrenal fatigue or the HTPA axis dysfunction or whatever you wanna call it, gets worse and worse and worse to where you're seeking that cortisol release, you're seeking, you're pushing, you're probably increasing your caffeine intake. Food intake starts to change to try to feed this monster that's happening right now. And then you start to gain weight and it's like, what's going, why is my body gaining weight? I'm working out more and more and more. Were you confused? Was this just the moment where you like that? Yeah, because when you start lifting and you start powerlifting and then you start pushing your body to a crazy level, you see changes. So when I started CrossFit, I lost 30 pounds and then my body started to creep back up but I wanted that because I wanted to be stronger. So I wanted to gain muscle, I wanted to gain weight. And then you get to this, I got to this point where I just didn't like myself anymore and I didn't wanna be there and I, so I would work out more because I'm like, okay, calories in, calories out, work out more, eat less and I'll start to see more results and that just was not the case at all. And then it would lead to binging behaviors because I cook for a living on my blog and so I'm making food that I don't eat daily. Like I'm making a dessert that I don't make and so then it would lead to this binging behavior on dessert because I was limiting calories so much all the time and then I'm like, where do I turn? I have to eat something and then I would shove everything in my face. Now, is anybody in your circle because you're obviously in a tight knit community because that's how CrossFit is. One of the things I like most about CrossFit is when you work out at these facilities, at these places, the good ones, you have a nice tight knit community. Is anybody identifying this for you or helping you? Or is everybody feeding into it? Or are they feeding into it? Feeding into it, big time. So I never had a coach. I only had a close friend who I'm still close friends with as the owner of our gym and I was working out with him and he is still to this day works out multiple times a day and he's 40 and I'm like, your body is gonna break down, dude. You gotta slow your roll but that's just what he loves to do. That is his way of doing things. What about like how it probably threw off like your relationships I would think too because I know what it was like when I was competing and fuck, you were training more than I was even to get on stage so and I know how selfish that I was when I was doing that. Did you ever put that together too? Like were you starting to see less of family and maybe not as much time for your husband and did you notice anything with your other, your relationships because of this obsession about the working out? Well, this, it was at a good time in my life that I did this because it was just out of college. I was working full time at CrossFit gyms and so I was making jack shit for money. I was under the poverty line so it's not like I could go out and do many things and so, and I'm a pretty, I like to be at home. I'm a homebody. I get a bit of social anxiety and so I like being by myself and so I wasn't going out very often. So it was a good time but I definitely hurt relationships in the aspect of I was just so critical and hard on myself all the time. That's where it hurt more relationships and it was just a good time in my life to go through this because I was just meeting my husband at that time and he was super supportive of me working out constantly because he was both, yeah, that was just my thing and but yeah, it didn't interrupt too many relationships because I just couldn't do much of anything because I was so poor and so. Well, it's good, you caught it before, it could have, yeah, for sure. Was there a moment when you, when you like a pivotal moment where you're like, okay, like I need to change something, my body's not responding, like I need to completely change or was it more of a gradual? It was pretty cold turkey. So I remember looking in the mirror and I'm like, everything I've been doing is not working. It's not working. So why am I continually doing it? Why am I doing this? And I wasn't feeling the drive for competing. I had competed twice in regionals and I just, I didn't feel the drive anymore and I didn't wanna do the weekend competitions that I'd love so much. And so I'm like, I'm gonna work out once a day, I'm going to work out five days a week and so I'm gonna get two rest days in and I'm going to cut down on my weights. And so, you know, at our gym, we have heavy weights in intense workouts and I would go sometimes above the RX workouts. I'm like, I'm not doing that anymore. I'm going down that I feel comfortable in the workout and that my form is never breaking down and that's kinda how I gauged it. And I had a lot of pushback. I was just gonna ask you because by this point, you're one of the top girls in that place, right? You're like probably the girl and now you're like working out less, you're doing less weight. How hard was that? It was really hard, especially cause I was a coach at the gym at the time. And so I think the head coach and the owner, he wanted me to be a certain way because he's like, you can always push harder cause we have- Want everybody to aspire to be like you, right? And we have at least one girl who can do RX workouts in the gym. Did they say you were lazy or something? Did they use those kind of remarks to you? Like, hey, you just need to work harder. No, it was more so. They're like, CrossFit is not making you bigger. Like going heavier in workouts is not making you bigger. I'm like, but it is. I've been doing three workouts a day, doing 95 pound snatch and thrusters and 200 pound deadlifts. I'm going to get bigger because my muscles are getting bigger and I didn't want to look like that anymore. And I wanted to just feel comfortable in my jeans and confident when I looked in the mirror naked. And these males at the gym were just giving me shit about it constantly. And it was really hard and they're like, no, put more weight on the bar. And I was like, no, I'm not going to fucking do it. Leave me alone. When it comes to how the body responds to over exercise and under eating, which is very individual. So I want to be very clear what is overdoing it for one person is the right amount for someone else and maybe underdoing it for someone else. But generally speaking, when you're talking about how the body can respond negatively to it, women do tend to have their bodies are more sensitive to it. And this is very true when you look at things like HPA axis dysfunction. And this is, I think one of the reasons why men have an issue when they see a woman saying, hey, listen, my hair is starting to fall out. I'm not getting my period. Like my skin doesn't look right. I think I'm gaining weight. I'm not feeling the guys are like, what are you talking about? I'm doing it, we're all doing it. We're all pushing ourselves. The female body tends to respond to these, just like a response to getting super, super lean differently than a man's will. And that's not great for anybody to push ourselves too hard all the time. But the signs and symptoms, a woman will get them much sooner. And it's important that you listen to them. It's very, very important that you listen to them. Because you can get very fit. You can perform amazing. But once your body starts to think, oh, this environment is not ideal to procreate or not ideal to whatever. It's so hard, though, because the message that's out there, because you're like the 1%, right? That actually go above and beyond. That actually push that way. So the message is, you know, you got to and push more and do more because a majority of the people do need more. Majority of people are sitting on their ass. And so the message that we've been preaching for the last 20 years is motivational shit and no days off and beast mode. And we've been pushing everybody, because I remember that as a trainer. I remember thinking, like, man, these people just don't fucking move. And that you're constantly trying to motivate in that direction, but nobody ever talks about, well, what's too much? And the reason why I'm mentioning that the differences between men and women in this is because we have a lot of trainers that listen. And I was a trainer for a long time. And I remember, you have to be able to pay attention to the signals that different people's bodies will send them, but also differences between men and women. They've done some recent studies on fasting, for example, which if you're healthy, can be very healthy things, got some great benefits. But they find that when women in particular push fasting too often, even if their calories are where they should be, they start to have issues with menses. And then they'll start to notice symptoms like hair loss and stuff like that. And they tend to be a little bit more sensitive to certain things like fasting, like calorie restriction, like getting super, super, super lean or super high-intensity exercise, mainly because we, and it's important to know these things to pay attention to them because we're not all the same. And so those signals we need to pay attention to, and especially if you're training, like I said, men and women, because if you, again, if you have someone saying these things to you, like, listen to them, like listen, like you're saying, hey, my body's not responding, they're not listening to you. No, and that was really hard. And as you're talking about this, I'm like, oh yeah, I did have hair loss. I lost my period. I had incredibly awful cystic acne. And that had only started when I started doing CrossFit and that many workouts today. And I like forget about all these things. It feels like a lifetime ago, but it was really hard. It's all hormonal signs for those listening, right? And I was only around males, and I was around males who weren't aware of any of this stuff. And so they're like, yeah, more is better, more is better. And I think me going through, like no, I'm not pushing that anymore because I don't like where I'm at. And I don't know what the next year is going to look like, but I'm cutting back. And what, how did your body respond when you started to do that? Was it a long process? What did you notice at first? It was probably, it took me probably three years to lose the 30 pounds. And what I also said, and I talked about this on my podcast a lot too, it was like my fuck it moment. I'm like, fuck this. I have worked so hard and I'm not seeing the results. So I'm gonna listen to my body. I'm gonna give it rest days. I'm gonna eat more of what I want because I was so restrictive. I was being like so carb restrictive. And I started adding in more carbs, like when I was craving them and I started losing weight. And I, I just had restricted my diet so much. I was so restrictive with calories that I was actually feeding it the calories that it wanted. And I was giving it rest days so my muscles could actually recover and I could see them start to change. But it was probably three years that it took for me to lose those 30 pounds for my skin to start to change my hair, to start to change. It's been, it's probably been like five years now of things starting to really change and morph. And I can start seeing my body become more toned and more. To respond. Yeah, exactly respond to the work that I'm putting into it. Yeah, it's crazy. And how long, okay, so before you made this switch where you're like, okay, I'm gonna, you know, cut back on my workouts. I'm gonna eat a little bit differently. How long before that were you doing the hard intense workouts just for perspective? Because you're saying it took about three years for you to really fully come out of it. How long did it take you to get into it? If you really add it all up and you look at all the things that you did, how long? It was probably two years. And the reason why I say that is because, you know, I'll work with online clients and we'll talk on the podcast and people will tell me, I'm doing everything you're saying. I've, you know, I had all the symptoms of adrenal fatigue or HTPA axis dysfunction or whatever you wanna call it. I've cut down on my workouts. I'm just focusing on resistance training. I'm nourishing my body differently with food. I'm trying to focus on my sleep. It's been six months and my body's just not changing overnight. And I wanted you to say that because people need to realize that it takes a long time of you ignoring your body to get to that point where it really shuts down. It takes a while to get out of it. Yeah. And I get people asking questions. They're like, how long did it take you to really start to see results in the gym? I'm like, well, I've been through all kinds of different things, but it's been seven years to get me to where I am now. And I can't wait to see where I am in another seven years as I continue to take care of my body in a good way, not just destroying it every single day. And also not stressing about it. And you talk about cortisol regularly. That was a huge part of why my body changed in a negative way was because I stressed out constantly. I woke up, I hated myself. I went to bed, I hated myself. I just was in this constant state of stress. And when I finally stopped like not looking at it in the mirror and obsessing about something, like actually saying something positive to myself and thinking like, oh, that's cool. Like I can kind of see my quad. I can like see it poking through a little bit and just being like, oh cool, that's a great change moving on with my day. Not having that stress hormone insane in my body was a huge, huge thing. And I can't wait to see in another seven years how those changes will continually add up. Isn't it crazy though how the self-hate can drive us to be successful though? And you identify with it, right? I always talk about how your greatest strength is your greatest weakness. And I'd love for you to unpack because obviously you're a very successful woman. You've had a lot of success, not just in CrossFit, but also in business. Yeah, we'll get into that. And I wanna talk about how where did those characteristics come from? Like unpacking it all the way to your childhood? Like where did it stem from? And then how did it actually drive you to probably be very successful for a long time? And then now this turning point of realizing like, oh shit, like a lot of what made me successful in what I am today also is partially holding me back. That's funny. Just to think about in general. Cause I think a lot of what I do stems from people saying I can't do something. And I grew up incredibly insecure. And one of the big things is people are gonna hate you no matter what you do. Give me an example, like when you were a kid, think of a story that like impacted you like, oh man, someone told me I couldn't do this and instantly I'm gonna do that. Do you remember shit like that when you were a kid? I just remember girls were just so fucking mean. And like I was talking to a friend the other day about this, like I had a girl who threw, it was like glee, did you guys ever watch glee? Probably not, you don't seem like big glee fans. We're aware of it though. Like the dorks in school, like they'd had like slushies thrown in their face and that was literally like my childhood, like a frosty thrown in my face and this girl was like, you're a whore. And I was like, fuck, I'm 13 years old. You have a virgin. People were just so mean. And I remember, like I just remember, like I was wearing, you know, the furry Ugg boots at one point with a skirt and this girl was like, I'm walking by and she's like, I can't believe what she's fucking wearing. And we're talking shit. And then like three weeks later, they're starting to wear that same sort of outfit. Just like dumb, petty shit that you're almost like, okay, I'm gonna do whatever the fuck I want. Maybe somebody's not gonna like it. Maybe somebody is, but I rather be happy with who I am. And I think that really traveled over into what I do in business. I have people who hate me every day, all day, on some sort of social media, on an email, on a message, on my blog. Someone will always hate it, but at least I'm putting out what I believe in into the world. And I think that's what's really molded me into my own business person is, I'm gonna do what I think is right. And I am gonna push health more than anything. I really believe in the Paleo diet, but I believe in just not eating processed shit. And I'm not a big supplements person. And I wanna spread that, that you can find health by not just taking all these supplements and all this bullshit that everybody is selling to you. And you can be the person you wanna be. So I don't know if that answers. No, do you think there's been like a person or a single best piece of advice that someone gave to you that impacted you that like that resonated with me and that's definitely has attributed to the success that you've had now? I can't think, I honestly can't think of any one person. CrossFit gave me those tools of, if you work hard, you will see results. And that transferred over into my business world too. If when people doubt you and your business, but you believe in it, if you're willing to put in the work and adapt with changes in the world and say something's not working, figure out why it's not working and adapt and change, then you're gonna have a great business at the end of the day if you truly fucking believe in it. So many parallels in working out and business. Oh, so much. Oh my gosh, yeah. Like CrossFit gave me so many tools. It is, I love it so much. I hate it in so many other ways, but it gave me so many amazing tools and really molded me as a business woman as just a day-to-day woman, as like a woman in a relationship with my husband. It molded me in so many different ways. Did you start, now how did you start your fitness business? I know you were a CrossFit coach. Now your blog is by far, that's the thing that reaches the most people. I think that's the thing you've done the longest, right? Yeah. When did you start that? What motivated that? So I started, when I started competing in CrossFit, I didn't know how to eat at all. So I needed to figure out my own diet. And I got into Paleo. I started reading Raw Wolf and figuring out different ways to eat and what I shouldn't be eating. And I didn't know how to cook at all. So I went online and this was back in 2010 and there were not many Paleo websites. And if there were, they're like nasty fucking food. I'm like, I'm not, I don't have sources to elk. And I'm not just gonna eat elk every day. Elk and bone broth, that's it. And bone broth wasn't even like a huge thing. It was just like in the photos. I mean, my photos back in the day were horrendous, but it was so new. And so I just started finding, okay, how can I make this Paleo? Like a banana bread. How can I make a banana bread Paleo? And so I started dabbling in recipes and I'd bring these recipes to the gym I was working out at. And the owner, he was like, well, how about you start the nutrition section to our CrossFit website? So I started the nutrition section. God, he's gotta love you, man. Yeah. Yeah, he's gotta love you. How about you just run this? How about you just do this? Yeah, I'm like, okay, yeah, I'll do this for free. And so I was like right out of college. She's over there like, yeah. Yeah. And so started the nutrition section, loved it, had so much fun with it. And then when I left that gym, I wanted to keep doing it. And my friends like, you should start a blog. I'm like, I don't know what a blog is. I've kind of heard the word, but I really don't know what it is. And so he helped me set up this like free template online. And I started paleomg.com and started sharing weekly recipes, like one recipe a week. And then I, and these were like the most horrific photos ever. Cause I was working in a CrossFit gym all day every day. So I'd leave probably at 4.30 in the morning. I wouldn't get back till 10 at night. So it was like a crock pot recipe in a Tupperware taken at 4.30 in the morning under terrible light. I can't believe anybody came to my website. It was so gross. And then- There was a need for it though at that time. Yeah, yeah, totally. And so people started coming to my website word of mouth. Facebook was very different back in the day when it was so much more fun than it is now. People would share a recipe and their 400 friends would see it. And then another friend would try it and share it with all their friends. So I started getting this traffic and more and more people started coming to my website. And- Did it grow fast or was it slow and gradual? I think it was kind of slow and gradual at the beginning. And then I did this post, I was competing in CrossFit and I did this post about I, cause I was gaining weight at the time. And I was really, it was like my diary. Cause I wasn't comfortable with the weight I was gaining cause I had gained about 30 pounds and I was much more muscular and I couldn't fit in any jeans and I kept tearing jeans in my ass. And I was like so insecure. And so I kind of just talked through that how that I wasn't gonna let this weight make me feel a certain way. I, it was like just this diary post about how my body had changed. It was me just getting my words out there because I didn't know who else to talk to. And so I put my diary on the internet and I had all these women who were like, I'm going through the same thing. And it was all these women started connecting with me. I'm like, holy shit, more people are going through this especially in the CrossFit community when they're trying to compete or their body has changed or they've gained weight or lost weight. And it- Was it therapeutic for you to write? Yes, it so is. Like I'm like going through this family thing right now and I wish I could talk about it on the internet but you just gotta keep some shit to yourself because it's so therapeutic. I it's like not needing a therapist because I can talk everything out, so therapeutic. And that's when I think I started to see a spike that people connected with me more as a person other than just recipes. And I'm like- It was the realism. Yeah, big time realism. And I'm like, oh, people like when I talk because before I hadn't talked really in my post it was just like, here's a recipe. This is what it's inspired from, bye. And then people connected with me actually talking about my life. I'm like, maybe I should do this more. And so I started writing a little tidbit in every post about something that had gone on in my life. I mean, I started talking about everything from Brazilian wax to acne and insecurities to relationship woes as I was like on and off dating my now husband and in the dating world. And the more I talked the more people started following my blog. It's amazing when you start to humanize yourself like that. I stress that the people that are trying to get in this space whether it be podcasting, social media, blogging is like you got to humanize yourself. Cause right now all they see is a computer screen or a phone screen. And it's like, oh, she's giving me all this great advice. But then they're like, oh, but she's so different than me. But once you start sharing these stories it's like, oh shit, she is human. And she does have insecurities and she does fuck up and she does have hard times. I think it's so important that people do that. You made a comment earlier about leaving one of the Crossfits. And it was the one where it sound like you were training three times, running the plays, doing the food blog. Did you ever feel like you were taken advantage of? Taken advantage of? No, because so that Crossfit gym he was like, I was working out with this guy who owned this gym and he was big in the Crossfit community. He was big into competing and he kind of gave me my start into competing. And he also said, he's like, why don't you get your Crossfit certification and you can start training here. And I'm like, dude, it's $1,000. I don't have $1,000. I'm lucky if I have like $10 in my account right now. And he's like, I will pay for your certification and then you can just pay me back by working through classes here and then I'll start paying you as a trainer. And so he really gave me my start into Crossfit. And yeah, so I never felt that way whatsoever. He was such an amazing guy. He just ended up moving and that's why I left that gym because he left. And so it was always, he was helping me out and yeah, like paving the way for me. Now that you've built this little empire that you've got going with your blogging and podcasting and Instagram, talk about like some of the things you love about it and then some of the things you fucking probably hate about it. I love that I get to do exactly what I want. I make my own schedule. I work by myself. I decide what posts are going up. I get to decide who I work with. I, and with what I do, I thought I was gonna make $30,000 a year and that was just gonna be my life because I grew up, we didn't have a ton of money. I grew up thinking I would be always not making that much money and unhappy. That's what I thought. I'm like, that's what you do. And I kind of still feel guilty with my parents sometimes to this day because they're unhappy with what they do. And I'm like, I'm living my best fucking life. This is so cool. And I hope I get to do this forever. So it's so cool to get to do exactly what you want to do and how much money you make depends on how hard you work. It's not somebody caps you off at your salary every year. It's like, hey, you wanna do an extra post. You wanna work until midnight. You wanna get up early and start working the next morning. Then your paycheck is whatever it's gonna be. It's so crazy to be able to make more money based on how hard you work when so many people don't have that luxury. So many people are capped at their salary and sorry, you gotta work overtime and we might not pay you overtime. That's just so unfair. But the thing that I don't like is I'm glued to my phone and my computer all day, every day. And you have to deal with mean people, but whatever, you have to deal with mean people. You're doing something right if you got some haters. Yeah, yeah. This is the way it works. Sometimes it really breaks me down when I'll just get multiple people talking about me. Like I had this one guy and I'll probably never forget it that he came on my website and he's like, wow, your legs are so gross. And that just like up insecurity of mine that it just digs deep into my soul, especially, and who knows, it might have not been a guy. You can say you're whoever you want to on the internet. But it just broke me down that I'm like, fuck, like why am I even putting myself out of there on the internet? Like it hurts when people say mean things. So that's the hard part. And just making sure you balance your day-to-day life with my husband and my relationships with my friendships and still get my work done. Like right before I was about to record this podcast with you guys, I'm working on my computer trying to get a post done and getting everything in on time. And so you're just kind of glued to social media in general and thinking about the next post and working on the next thing and making sure all that information and people are connecting with you. So you're just over connected. Can I ask you a little bit about your relationship with your mom and dig into that a little bit? Yeah, because that's definitely been why I am the way. And she's a great mom. I've been fishing around and trying to get there. But I know that has to play a role in a lot of who you are today, whether it be for the good or the bad, right? Whether it would be I'm doing everything opposite of what she said or told me to do when I was younger or I took a lot of things from her and that's where I'm at now. What are some of the things that like, and we funny you came today because we were literally just talking about our parenting or the way our parents parented us. Yeah, I've heard you guys talk about that. I'm a podcast. So what are some of the things that you took from them that, hey, this is what I'm gonna apply to my life. I think I learned that from them. And then some of the things that you said, like I'm gonna do things a lot different. My mom was an amazing mom. Like she made me start working. When I was 13 years old, she's always had me make sure I get out there, earn my own money, work hard. And she was such an amazing mom. She set me up for success. They paid for my college. Like they made sure I had a better life than they had growing up. And so they've been amazing with that. Like I love my parents, they're great. But then I have that relationship with my mom is she does the same thing many people on the internet do is she puts out her own insecurities onto me at times. And since I work out on a regular basis and health is a huge part of my life. And I know more than she does and I could give her a lot of information. It's hard. She won't really take that in. But I still remember she's talked about my weight a lot to other people. And at a competition, at a regional competition she was talking to my best friend about how big my legs are. And for your mother to talk about that. Oh, that's your soft spot too. Come on, mom. Yeah, fuck, fuck, the legs. Why do we keep going back to the legs? Which is ironic, cause she's got great legs and maybe you're sitting here on video right now you have amazing legs. Oh my God. So the, and then at my wedding, we just got married a year and a half ago. And so it was probably two years ago. This was when my body started to change a lot. I was losing weight and I'd gone from pretty big legs cause I was competing to my legs being much thinner of just them just going to the weight they wanted to be. And at our wedding shower she's talking to my best friend about how it's always like my best friend about how skinny I've gotten. And she's like, do you think she's lost too much weight? It's like, fuck, like stop talking about my weight. And it's just totally projecting her own shit. Big time projection. And whenever we get together she always talks about how she's fat and she's not fat at all. And she just talks about, she just doesn't work out. She doesn't eat healthy. And she just talks about how she's fat and needs to lose weight. And that's what I see every single time we hang out she talks about weight. And I try to, especially when I'm around women now cause I'm so much more aware of it. I don't talk about weight. I don't talk about my own weight. And that's all I used to do. And I don't talk about someone else's weight. I just don't talk about weight. It's just not unless they bring it up and we start talking through like, okay, maybe they want to lose weight. Let's talk about how your diet should change or what maybe worked for me. But I really try to be aware of how I talk about my own body because I listen to other, I even listen to other podcasts when women are talking badly about their bodies or insecurities. I'm like, God, that's so unattractive, you know? And I'm sure you see that as guys where that's just not cute. It's almost, it's almost, cause there's certain things that men and women will talk about that's almost like not just accepted but like it's, this is what we do, right? Like men will talk to each other about, you know, like we're supposed to talk about sports and sports, you know, and, you know, cars and, you know, other stuff. And it's almost like women feel like they have to talk bad about themselves when they're around other women. Cause it makes, almost like it's a way to make other women feel better or comfortable. Is that true? Oh yeah, totally. Have you guys seen Mean Girls? No, no. God, come on, bros. But they, it's like these girls are all in a room looking at themselves in the mirror talking badly about themselves. It's like they're bonding over it. Yeah, they all talk shit. And then they look at the one girl who hasn't said anything and she's like, oh yeah, I hate my lace. Like she just like makes up something cause she like wasn't brought up in that in this movie. And that's what they do. They, women just totally bond over it. And so I try to, if a woman starts doing that cause I have friends who've just had babies and so they start talking about it or like, and they're maybe fishing for compliments or whatever. And I just try to talk about something else and like just try to sway the conversation in the other direction cause we all go through it. That's like that quote, what is it? Be careful of your thoughts because become your actions, be careful of your actions because they become your habits. Be careful of your habits because they become your character. Right, so it's true. It's like the things you feel like you're supposed to talk about and then the things you're not supposed to talk about. Like I've trained a lot of female clients who've had children and I'll train them before, during and after pregnancy. And we'll get really close cause I've been training these people for years. And we'll have these conversations where you can tell they have such a difficult time talking about how hard it is sometimes being a mom or how hard this or, you know, like I had one client after she had her baby, she didn't bond right away. But she felt like she couldn't talk about it because she felt judged by other women. Like because you're supposed to be, like it's supposed to be this great thing. And I love my kids so much. I'm the greatest mom ever. And I'm so afraid to talk about how, I don't know, I don't know if I like this and I don't know if this is for me. And it's kind of crappy that we're not, we don't let ourselves, you know, do that with each other. Do you think, is it self-inflicted or is it because do you think just the way women are with each other? Cause I know guys have our own thing which we can talk about also. But do you think it's self-inflicted or is it just the way women judge each other? I think it's just the way women judge each other. And I think about that. I don't know if we're gonna have kids if we ever will but I always think about that. I don't share like any images of my husband. I talk about it a little bit but I don't share that side of my life on social media because I can't imagine, if somebody said anything bad about my husband, the way they talk about me sometimes, I would, oh my God. I'm like getting sweaty thinking about it right now. I would just freak out. And so thinking about if I had children sharing any sort of my children on social media, not only would I not want to put that print of them, like when people share pictures of their kids like going to the bathroom on the toilet, not only does that open your life up to predators because the internet's fucking scary but then it's like your child didn't even get to decide what they put on the internet. And so when someone's searching them, when they're applying for jobs, then there's a picture of them taking a shit as a kid. That's so weird to me. But I also think about all of the women who will give you, not only are they trying to help you but they're giving you so much advice that they're like, oh, you're doing this wrong, you should be doing this. And then you have a woman, you're like, oh, I'm trying to figure out breastfeeding and then you have four million people telling you how to breastfeed and that you're doing it wrong. And it's like, man, the internet gives you so much help but it just almost restricts you too. It's a lot, man. That's such a great topic. We talk about this all the time that I'm nervous for the generation coming up because I mean, and look at the way we market and advertise now with the feeds, like once you like something or Google something, now everything connected to that or just like that gets fed to you. And so the confirmation bias is crazy and it's only gonna get worse. So it will force the generation coming up now that when you start to consume information, if you just consume and you don't search outside of what you're being served already. Oh, man, you're creating so many bubbles and so much radicalization of ideas and everybody thinks like I do and there are no different ideas and they meet someone who has different ideas and it's like shocking that somebody thinks differently. It's a really scary, scary situation. It's so, it must be so scary as a parent, raising your children in this day and age. Oh, it's absolutely. Shit, that's why I'm scared to death to have them. But you know, to be fair, to be fair, it's always been scary. It's always been scary raising kids. As soon as you have a child, you fully realize your vulnerability. It's fucking different now though, dude. It's like your Superman. This is what it feels like before and after you have kids. After you have kids, you realized you were Superman before and now you have kryptonite. Before I had kids, I had no kryptonite. I thought I did, like I thought I had weaknesses. Now that I have children, but at the same time, it's forced me to grow in ways that I could have never grown before. For me, I'm speaking just personally because I think you don't have to have kids to grow or whatever, but for me personally, it's hindsight's 20-20, but I can see now that it's forced me to grow in ways that only the vulnerability of having children can do that could have done for me. And so I feel like I'm a better person, but for sure, I had no fear. I thought I was afraid before, but I tell you what, man, people used to laugh. People that know me used to laugh. I used to drive so fast. I was a fucking maniac on the road. I had no regard for anybody's safety. The day I had my son, who's my oldest, literally that day, I started driving like an 85-year-old man and I still do. Totally. I still drive super, it changed overnight and I didn't even realize it until someone pointed out like- A new perspective. Someone pointed out like, dude, why do you drive hella slow now? I was like, oh yeah, I guess I do. It's because I have my kids and so it does force those changes. I wanted to ask you about your podcast because you started with your blog, that grew. It was pretty big before you started your podcast already. By that point, you had a pretty big following, right? Yeah, yeah. Now, why the blog? I mean, excuse me, why the podcast? Why start the podcast? Well, I say this whenever someone asks why. So I started with food and then I started talking about fitness because I was getting more questions about fitness. Readers were asking about fitness and then I started posting about, like I was on BookTour when I came out with one of my books and I was posting outfits and they were getting like three, four times the likes than my food posts. So I'm like, okay, this is feedback. People are obviously liking the fashion side and so I started doing fashion and so anything that I've done has grown off of Readers' feedback and when I was on BookTour, a woman asked when I was gonna start a podcast and I was like, well, why would I start a podcast? What would I talk about? And she was like, I don't care. I just like listening to you. And so that's why I started the podcast and just started talking about whatever from body insecurities to acne to how to create a better relationship with food and then I was talking by myself for probably like 40, 45 episodes and it just gets hard to talk by yourself and I yawn all the time because I'm not getting enough oxygen in and so I'm like yawning my entire fucking podcast and people are like giving me bad reviews. I'm like, I'm sorry, I can't help it. And so I started bringing some people off. To carry by yourself is no joke. I know. No joke. For an hour? I talk about all the time. I would never do this if it was by myself. For real? It's so boring. And I do everything by myself all the time. Like, and I try not to just like talk about my business as much with my husband because it's just like talking business. But I'm like, who do I talk to? I talk by myself all day long. I do everything by myself. And so the podcast is hard by myself and it's been really fun having people on. I had you on, Sal. And then I've had some CrossFit people, some food bloggers. I had- Any favorites? Well, this one's just super new in my head. I recently had Lisa Billu, who was the co-founder of Quest Nutrition. Oh, Tom's wife. Yes. So Tom's a good friend of ours. Oh, cool. I just had her on maybe three days ago and not only, you know, she has her like British accent and so it's just like fun to listen to her. But she calls you sweetheart and she's just, and she's incredibly engaging. And when you ask her a question, she asks you a question back. And so it's fun, it's like talking to a friend instead of here's the question, here's the answer. Very conversational. Yeah, she was really fun to have on. Yeah, we love the Billu's. We were over there not that long ago with our place and stuff. Yeah, but fascinating individuals. Very hard working, fascinating individuals. She was really fun. I like having her on. Talk about how you balance your relationship with your husband. You're sharing yourself with millions of people, essentially. And- Yeah, because I struggle with this myself. And I think this is one of the hardest things for us to do, right? Is that you're constantly giving to all these people and giving them all your attention. But then you have the most important man of your life that lives with you. How do you balance that and separate the two? I think what's so, he is just an awesome person. He's just so calm, collected, has his shit together all the time. Like that's, and I'm the opposite. I'm just like throw up on the floor. Like I'm stressed out all the time. Like I constantly look at my watch of what my heart rate is because I'm sweating and I'm like thinking about what is next. And he's so in the minute, or like just in the real time, don't stress about what you can't manage. Like the other day when I'm like stuck at the airport, before I met him, I would have been stressed out the whole day. Like I'm gonna miss dinner with these guys. I'm so fucking pissed off. And then I was like, oh, nothing you can do. And that's all because of him. And so I think he lets me be me. He lets me work till midnight. He is your balance then. Yeah, he lets me do as much work as I want. And because of that, he works harder too in his own life. And I think that's what's so cool is I've watched him work. He works Monday through Saturday. He always has, he's working, leaving at 7 a.m., not getting back till 7 p.m. Is he in a similar field or totally different? Totally different, totally different. He's a GM of a business. And so he's managing everybody and dealing with everybody's screw ups and his job is really hard and it's really challenging and he is overworked and overstressed constantly. And because of that, because of him working all the time, I work harder. I work on Saturdays now. I usually work on Sundays too. And he's just let me do that and he's supported me and he's like, you know what? I know you're working today. I'm gonna go golf. And when I'm like, hey, I'm not gonna work today. I wanna hang out. Don't go golf. We can find that balance too. But he's really let me be me and that's what's so amazing about him. That's the best thing about good relationships. When you feel like you're yourself more with them than you are at any of the time. That's an incredible feeling. But we got in like a fight recently and I was like, you work all the time and then on Sundays, maybe you're going golf or you're going golfing or you have something planned. Like when are we gonna hang out? And he's like, well, maybe if you're not on your computer until midnight every night, we'd be able to. And I'm like, ooh, touche. So I've been trying to, it's harder around the holidays because I'm a little bit busier, but I've been trying to work until he gets home. Work until I start cooking dinner for us and then I don't open my computer. I have my couple posts that I have to do at night on Instagram, but I'm cuddling with him instead of on the other side of the couch on my computer and we're getting time to touch each other instead of just being on our phones next to each other because it's so easy to do that. And just having that one-on-one time, even if we're not talking, it's just better than me being across the country. Isn't it fascinating for us that are in our 30s that we didn't even have that? That has become such a major part to the point where we have to like disconnect from it. I find that so fascinating. Like, how did we get by 20 years ago in relationships compared to now because this has consumed us so much that we have to do these things where it's like, hey, I'm gonna put this away. Like I have the same thing I say, I'm gonna work till Katrina gets home when she gets home. It's like, I gotta put it away otherwise. Because it's hard because it's your work and you make money from it and the harder you work the more you get paid. And you like it. No, that's not right. So it's really hard to not justify it. It's like, well, you're over here doing this so I may as well do this. Like that's what I'm always saying to her or saying to myself is, well, you were doing that so I'm gonna do this and the next thing you do on the rabble hole and I'm working for the next four hours. And then it's every day, every day. It's definitely that balance of saying, okay, I'm gonna turn things off and then I'll tell him sometimes I'm like, I'm really sorry, I have to get this post done and we find that balance. He's like, no problem. And sometimes he'll get some work done but it's been more of that balance of cutting it off by 6 p.m., hanging out with him and we've talked, I've heard you guys talk about this. Maybe, I forgot who's talked about it. Like the love languages on here. And like physical touch is important to him and so making sure phone and computer are away so we can have that physical touch and those moments together even if we're just watching like stranger things or something like that. You totally married a Katrina. Yeah, everything you're describing, like how he is. I'm like, oh, this is so like how she is for me for sure. Yeah, yeah, like you have to find what's important to them and make sure those things matter. What is your love language? What do you, what is yours? I've already forgotten. It's funny because I gave him this book. Affirmation or it would be or touch or gifts or there's five, right? So gifts, affirmation, touch. You're like doing things for a person. What's that one? I think that falls in the gift one, I think. No. No, cause it's like- Action. Oh, oh, shit. Yeah, you're on the right. Yes, like taking out the trash or doing this. Right, yes, yes, yes. That's one that's really important. Acts of kindness. Acts of kindness, yes. That's one, like I don't care about gifts and he's an amazing gift giver. Like he got me a dog. He surprised a dog at our doorstep and my dog is my child. Love him so much, but I'm big into acts of kindness and just I cook, you clean, you take out the trash without me asking. Like those little things that I'm like, okay, you do care and you're giving just as much as I'm giving in this relationship. I'm gonna do all of this for you and you'll meet me halfway and do things for me as well. So it's funny just finding those love languages. Anything in a relationship that you have found that you've had to kind of train yourself to do to be a better woman or a better partner that you have to like actively think about? Not obsessing over the little things. Like when you live with someone and they just, like he leaves all the drawers open in our dresser and I'm like, our dresser is going to fall over at some point and not stressing out about those things or like the dishes aren't done, not getting pissed off in a relationship. It's just so pointless because we're gonna live with each other for the rest of our lives. That's the plan here. So why dwell over the little things? And then not stressing and that he's really taught me that. I stress out about everything and I'll jump to conclusions and he makes me think more. Like calm down, settle down. Is this fight really worth having and you saying things that you don't mean and are really mean. And I've done that in past relationships and because he's so calm and collected, I've really worked on that. Yeah, definitely don't sweat the small stuff. I'll observe older couples that are happy. So like couples that are in their 60s and 70s and 80s. They don't give a fuck. Even when they're like that, they're just like, ah, whatever. And that's what I appreciate that about those couples is I'll see them. I used to train this woman who was in her 70s and her husband would come in sometimes and visit and they would say things to each other that if they were a younger couple, they would start a fight, you know what I mean? Because you'd be so sensitive, so insecure. But to them, they're like, ah. They roll their eyes. Yeah, who cares, we're together, we're not going anywhere. And it made me realize like if you feel, if each person feels confident that the other person is a good person and that they're not going anywhere and that they actually love them, all of a sudden all those little things don't become. Totally. Don't become issues, you know what I mean? It's like, oh, okay, I know you made that comment but I know you're a good person and so it doesn't bother me. So I always look at old couples as like mentors, examples of how I wanna be with my relationship where we're not gonna trip over the little things. There's bigger things that we need to worry about than the small stuff. Yeah, and if you're getting upset, it has to stem from some sort of insecurity in your own relationship or in your own self. And that's, I think the biggest thing, I feel so secure with him, I don't feel insecure and he's such a good person. So like who cares about a fucking drawer? Yeah, exactly. Shut the drawer, I'll shut the drawer and then I'll make fun of him on the side at one point and he'll do the same for me. Now, you're an absolute machine and what I mean by that is I see your Instagram, I see your social media, your blogs. You're on it constantly and I don't mean constantly as in like all day but I mean, you're consistent. You're very consistent with your posts, very consistent with your quality. You're saying you're doing it all on your own so you're obviously just an absolute machine. You also talk about stress though. What do you do, do you, or do you have any practices for that, for yourself to manage that? Do you meditate? Do you take time off? Do you, is it your workouts? My workouts are definitely my stress. Whenever I'm upset about something, especially my CrossFit gym because I have so many close friends there, I mean, most of these people, I invited to my wedding that I met too at the CrossFit gym. They are some of the coolest people I've ever known and so that's my takeaway time. I'm not on my phone, I'm not on my computer, I'm not caring about someone attacking me online. It is my time to de-stress, to do something healthy for myself and to just blank out for an hour and laugh with friends. I know I'm always gonna laugh when I go into my CrossFit class so if I'm depressed, something's upsetting me. I had to fight with my parents or something. I can go in there and it's calm and it's happy and it's a good place. I've never tried meditation, I've tried yoga before but I've just never been into it. I've never tried meditation. You don't like yoga, I would have guessed that for sure. Yeah, I just, oh man, I really try. I've tried many times in different kinds of yoga and I'm like, I am so bored, I'm just so bored and coming from a place in CrossFit where we usually do a lift and then we do a MetCon and so the lift is the time to talk with your friends and so then you sit in an hour in silence, I'm like, I sit in silence all day in my house. I don't wanna sit in any more silence. Well, sitting in silence, the true meaning of sitting in silence is sitting and doing nothing or just breathing. Sitting in silence and working is not quite in silence and I learned that, I had to learn that lesson the hard way and I was like you where you want me to take yoga, like you want me to meditate, I'm gonna sit here and be quiet, it feels like a complete waste of time, my mind is racing, I can't stand this but what I started to learn is that it's a practice like anything and the fact that I hate it so much probably means that I need it and it is really, I tell you what, I just went through, I was married for 15 years and come from a very traditional Italian family, nobody gets divorced from my family, like that's the worst thing you could possibly do. So it's a very, very, very difficult thing for me to go through and I know I have friends who've gone through divorce and I see the damage that does especially when you have children and just the wreckage that follows and I think as tough as it was, I handled it pretty well at the time launching Mind Pump with these guys and thankfully I had these guys that helped me out but one of the things that helped me was that, was understanding and learning that peace, that meditation peace, understanding and learning to sit quietly and let myself feel, for me personally, I'm not saying this is you or anybody else but for me personally, I learned that the reason why I hated to sit still is I didn't wanna feel certain things so it was distracting for me to be busy and to do a, so when I learned to sit and feel, I actually got through it a lot easier and now it's a skill that I have that I can use whenever any stressful or trying situation has come up and now I'm finding myself far more even productive than I was before in less time because of that skill that I learned so definitely something I would recommend trying. I've recommended meditation to my husband because he was dealing with some gut issues from all the stress in his life and I'm like you should definitely try meditation but I won't do it myself, like that's stupid so I need to try it at some point but I haven't added it to my to-do list yet. Anything right now that you're currently working on within yourself or trying to grow through? Oh man, that's a hard one, I should be. I'm gonna have to think about that. What about goals, what are your goals right now either business, fitness, personal? I feel like goals are so generic. I feel like we've all got something that's like our Achilles heel or like a bad habit that I've returned to or something that I'm personally trying to work on to be better about. I mean, I guess the time thing with separating from work that's one for all of us, like can you think of things right now that you're currently working through? Kill people with kindness when they're mean because I'm sure you guys have dealt with this on social media or like a bad review or something where you just wanna jump down those people's throat and you wanna prove to them like, you know, yeah, you look like, no, like you are wrong and I wanna tell you why. We've had those. But it's not gonna change their mind at all so I try to more often, I'm trying, it's not always happening depending on the time of the month and what kind of mood I'm in that day but I try to say thank you so much for your feedback, I really appreciate it and I hope you have a wonderful day when instead of explaining everything and just putting everything out there when this person probably doesn't give a fuck and they probably won't look at this ever again and I just say, okay, thank you for your feedback and I try to actually take that feedback and maybe not the ones that your legs are so gross but something, you know, whatever it is and maybe take that feedback and understand it a little bit more and not jump down to their throat, thank them for their feedback and move on from it and grow from it because it's so hard when people give you negative feedback. You know what I've tried to, I try to look at- You just want attention. It took me a long time when we first started, I remember the first bad one I had and that had actually affected me and it affected me for a little while and then I started to look at it differently and I started to go like, I'm gonna start looking at the negative comments as gifts and what I mean by that is, because if someone just says, hey, you're stupid Adam, that doesn't even faze me. But if they hit something like my legs or like my calves or like a soft spot for me and it makes me irritate, I go, you know what, that was a gift for me that I have room to grow in that area. I still am not that comfortable with that because I'm allowing some strangers who I don't know who the fuck they are say something and it makes me want to respond. So I go, that's a gift. It's a gift that I have these idiots- An opportunity. Yeah, it's an opportunity for me to work somewhere on myself because it actually affects me. Because if it didn't affect me, I've already grown through that, right? So which I use the calf example legs, that wouldn't bother me. But if there was something that did bother me or did poke at my ego a little bit, I go, oh wow, there's an area that I could work on. And then I start unpacking that and saying, okay, where does it, first of all, where does it stem from? Why do I have it? And then how do I work through it? And when I started to look at them like that, it was like, oh, cool. So then now when I search through and I see comments that I'm going through and there's, you know, of course, you get a hundred positive comments and then I got five bad ones, right? And it's like, oh, that one stung. And I wanted to say something to that one. Then I stop, I don't respond. I go, wow, why did that make me feel that way? Like, oh wow, why do you bother by someone calling you that? I'm like, okay, I got issues there, you know, and start to look at it like that. That's the advice I normally give this younger generation that's dealing with this social media and hate and bullying and all those things like that. I say, well, you know, look at that as an opportunity for growth for you that there's somebody who's poking at something and the fact that it gives you a state change or changes your emotions or your feelings means that you do have something rooted there and there's something that I can improve on. And it's not necessarily I need to go make my legs better to make this person happier. It's more so I need to become more comfortable with who I am and love myself more. And so I think that switch helped me and that's kind of the advice. It makes a huge difference. And that same exact thing happened to me when we first started the podcast and then the second part was realizing like they just want attention. People would go on my Instagram. This used to crack me up. Sometimes it happens still, but they'd go on my Instagram and they'd go, the comment would be unfollow. Like they want me to know that they unfollowed me all of a sudden. That's the weirdest thing when people do that. That's stupid. Like I have unfollowed hundreds of people and never once have I told them. I'm gonna send you an email to let you know that I unfollowed. I get emails where people are like, I just wanna let you know I'm unfollowing you. I'm like, go away. They actually sent an email. Oh, that's whole. Take the time to send an email. That is so great. And that's the thing, it's like realizing because for me personally, there's the self growth that comes from it. Like why am I being so affected by this? So I need to become comfortable with that and be able to handle that. And the second thing is I do find a little empathy because I used to get pissed off at people. Then I started realizing they just want attention and why do they want this attention? They obviously feel, there's something they feel so terrible about that they want the attention of saying something negative to someone else. They're projecting their insecurities. It's no different than what you're talking about with your mom. If someone is making a comment about your legs, it's really a reflection of themself. It's really like I've got issues with my legs or a part of my body. So I'm gonna point out something on her. There's no self-confident person is gonna put a comment like that. No. There is nobody on earth who's really self-confident. That's truly self-confident. I'm gonna take five minutes to post a comment to tell this person that I don't like their calves or something like that. I don't even have time to post a nice comment, let alone post a negative one. It takes more energy to be negative. Isn't that funny? People still do that. It's so weird. And I've had, when we talk about their different ones, I've had this woman who had grandkids and she was calling me a slut. I was like... What? What? What the hell? Isn't that so sad that these children have that to look up to? So sad. But then I had, I did this post and it had real fur, like this coat hood. Oh, good luck. And I know, and I had no idea because I'm so used to companies using faux fur. I don't even think about it. And man, people are just coming after me about... The name of your blog is Paleo. I know. You eat animals. I know, it was man. It was like coyote fur. How can someone get mad that you wore a fur when you probably cook with... And I get it. Like I'm using the whole animal. I know, I made this coat myself. And I totally get where they're coming from. So that was more great feedback of like, you should be doing more research on the companies and the things that you're buying. And I'm like, okay, that is completely fair. And I really appreciate that feedback. And they're like calling me like a sell out. I'm like, no, I'm so sorry. I get where you're coming from. But it's not just like, you're a slut. I'm like, what the fuck from a grandma? And so there's all kinds of difference. She's jealous. Damn, it was so, that was a weird one. How often do you get people asking you like, they wanna do what you've done? Like, how do I start a blog? And how do I start a podcast like you? And I want that lifestyle where I can kind of start work whenever I want to. Do you get asked that a lot? A lot, all the time. I have a podcast about it. So I usually point them in that direction. Oh, I don't know that. Yeah, I do that. What's the name of it? How I became a full-time blogger. Oh, cool. Yeah, so I just like, that was the episode. Not a podcast. Oh, an episode podcast. Okay. So I have an episode about becoming a full-time blogger and how I did it. And so show that roadmap. And I've met up with a couple people just in coffee when I'm just like feeling just in the mood to meet up with someone. I don't do it very often because I have social anxiety already. But I'll meet up with people once in a while and just kind of talk it through, talk it all through. What do you think the mistakes are that you see that you see these people that want to do that? Like, I see it all the time. And I feel like some people just, they're not even asking the right questions. There's so many other steps that they need to do first before you decide I'm going to go full-time blogging. Like, what do you, what do you see? What do you see? Like, what are the misconceptions of doing what you do? I, and it all goes back to fitness. I feel like things always go back to fitness, but it's people don't want to put in the work. And if you're not willing to put in the work and the time and not really see the results and reap the benefits for a while, then you're, you might not get there. Some people, maybe like, you just start a blog and it becomes instantly huge and you start making thousands of dollars. One in a million, right? Yes, but I mean, I did this blog. I went in not knowing you could make money off of it. But even when people were telling me it was stupid, I continued to do it. And my friends were like, why would you even do this? I'm like, I don't know, I just like doing it. And that's what continually helped it really grow was putting in the work day after day and setting standards for myself. Cause if I am working for myself, I can post whenever the hell I want to, but I say, okay, I'm going to wake up every day at 6 a.m. and I'm going to finish my blog and get it up by 7 a.m. And so people know that when they log on, the post is there and a newsletter goes out every Friday. So they'll have a newsletter with all my posts. It's all about consistency and it just like fitness. It's all about consistency. If you will put in the work, you will see the benefits later on. So that's more than anything. People think that owning your own business or even blogging is just easy and it's not. And it is the best thing ever by far, but I have to work morning till night every day. And there's a lot of backend stuff that people don't think about and a money that goes into it. So I just tell them more than anything, be true to yourself, be your own personality because that's what people will follow you for and work every single day at it. How do you monetize mostly right now? Is it your books or I noticed you have an apparel line? It's all kinds of different things. Books are very small. Whenever people are like, oh, like my grandparents, I don't think my grandparents don't understand what I do whatsoever. But they're like, oh, she's a cookbook author and that's like such a small amount of my time and my income. It's just this little baby piece. So I monetize mostly from advertising on my website. So then ads you'll see that say you were just looking at a supplement line, that supplement line comes up. Yeah, right, and the advertising on there. I do a lot of affiliate programs. So I work with a meal planning online tool. I work with like to know it for fashion. I do, I mean, there's all kinds of different affiliate that I work with and sponsored posts. So tomorrow I have one with eBay. On Friday I have one with Nike. So I have lots of different companies that I work with like Nordstrom. Explain how that works. How does that work? What do you mean? They pay you for your blog or your article? They pay for a sponsored post. So an actual post just on your blog that will be there forever, a certain amount of time. And then it has affiliate links in it. So I make the sponsored post rate and then any sort of kickbacks. If you purchase something from my eBay post, I'll get a kickback from that commission. Now did you negotiate that directly with Nike and how did that happen? So it's all kind of different. Like to know it that I do my fashion posts through a lot of the sponsored posts come through them. So I tell them, this is my price for a sponsored post. Here's my analytics. So you can see how much traffic I get to my blog. And then I don't know if they sell me to different companies or maybe Nike comes to them and says, we wanna reach a certain amount of people who are the best people in your network to work through and they start that relationship. And then I've had companies contact me directly ask for analytics on my site and then we negotiate price just directly. How long did it take before that started to happen? How much work did you put in before that? Cause that sounds great. And that's what everybody's searching for is to get to that point. Yeah, how long before you went full time? It was probably, I think a year in, I started Google ads on my website. So I was making like 300 to $500 a month just off these Google ads. And then Paleo company started contacting me probably a year in and I didn't have any sort of numbers of sponsored posts. So a lot of things I just did for free. Like they were gonna send me free products. So I was gonna post about them on my site. And then after a time I'm like, oh, I know I shouldn't be doing this for free and talking to more people. I wanna make this a gig. So it was probably two years of writing my blog, not really making much money off of it. And if I did make any money, it would go into the grocery shopping to create those posts. So it was probably two years before I was really able to monetize in a bigger arena. But it was just probably in the last two years, especially fashion, I just started getting into fashion about two, two and a half years ago that market opened up even more for me. You know, the rules of business always apply, right? Like you gotta bust your ass for about one to five years and then you start to reap the benefits of what you've sowed. But those first two years you busted your ass and you were consistent. Yeah, and it still is, you know, like as soon as I finish this podcast with you, I have to go finish a post and then tomorrow morning I'm shooting outfit photos at eight in the morning and then I have an interview and it's just making sure you get those things done because if you mess up on a post that's with Nordstrom, that's not a good relationship to burn, you know? So it's still busting your ass every day. But yeah, you just working hard for no money. Do you have a lot of young girls that look up to you as a role model? I don't know. Do you think you're a role model? I hope so. I wanna be a role model that I didn't have in the way be a badass female who's not obsessing about body but who's able to work hard both in the gym, in the kitchen, in their relationships and be a confident person. That's what I wanna be. I wish I would have had those role models of women who were confident. I didn't have that. And so hopefully I am a good role model and an opinionated role model. I get a lot of people who email me about cussing and using. I love that. It's so weird. It's like who? It's real. It's just like, who doesn't cuss? Isn't there a saying that you shouldn't trust anybody that doesn't swear? That's so weird. It's a sign of intelligence. They've actually done studies on this now. Of course it was excessive. Like when we first started the podcast, we were nervous so every other word was the F word. But it's a sign of, it's a sexual sign of intelligence that they've done studies on this and show that people, it's true. So we tell ourselves. Yeah, yeah. This is what you gotta tell yourself. I did a study on it. And I get people who will email me sometimes of like, there are kids out there. I'm like, okay, but I hope I'm a good role model in ways that I wish I would have had when I was growing up and especially with the internet. We didn't have the internet when we were younger and now there's so much out there of women just half naked and in thongs. And I want to show women that you can take care of your body and you can be confident. You don't have to just be naked all the time. Like there's other facets of life that are really important. And it's harder on the internet to find that sometimes when maybe you follow a lot of fitness people so your explore feed is all naked people all the time. So I want to show women that they can be confident in so many other ways. And they don't just have just to be that. No hate on that. Show your ass. You go, girl. You go, baby. Whatever, you do you. But yeah, I hope so. You're awesome. You think you're a badass. Thank you guys for having me. Thanks for coming on the show. Yes, this has been awesome. Yeah, we loved it. We gotta do a little one. We just hang out for like five more hours. Yeah, we will. Ordering some food, staying in comfy couches. Excellent. Check it out. Go to YouTube, subscribe to Mind Pump TV. We post lots of videos on fitness, nutrition and sometimes funny stuff. So go check it out. Thank you for listening to Mind Pump. If your goal is to build and shape your body, dramatically improve your health and energy and maximize your overall performance, check out our discounted RGB Superbundle at mindpumpmedia.com. The RGB Superbundle includes Maps Anabolic, Maps Performance and Maps Aesthetic. Nine months of phased expert exercise programming designed by Sal Adam and Justin to systematically transform the way your body looks, feels and performs. With detailed workout blueprints and over 200 videos, the RGB Superbundle is like having Sal Adam and Justin as your own personal trainers, but at a fraction of the price. The RGB Superbundle has a full 30-day money-back guarantee and you can get it now plus other valuable free resources at mindpumpmedia.com. 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