Losing 30 Pounds, Reducing Inflammation, Getting off medications, Increasing Energy, Improving Sleep and Digestion With A Nutritionist

Coach Justin: “I have another client that I’m bringing onto the show today that I’m super excited for her to be able to share her story. We’ve worked together now for over a year and we’re still working together now currently and I just think that, you know, especially for the podcast, you know, being the identity project and sharing stories that inspire and now kind of shifting the podcast into you know, bringing a lot more clients on and sharing their stories. So hopefully that that resonates with y’all, but before I go on to much of a tangent here, I want to introduce a friend of mine, a client, somebody that I tell her all the time that she reminds me of my mom. So Karen, what is going on? How are you?”

Karen: “I’m doing great, Justin, thank you for having me on.”

Coach Justin: “Absolutely, absolutely I know Karen, I know you’re a little nervous now we we chatted, we had a nutrition coaching call today we always have our calls on Fridays and you know, I just want to say thank you and I appreciate you taking the time to do this because I know that you are a little nervous there, that’s okay, we’re, we’re all I was nervous, I still get nervous all the time. And most, most of the clients that come on here are nervous because it’s their first podcast that they’ve ever been on, but you’re like a superstar now, you get to tell your friends and family that you’re on a podcast So Karen for the listeners, obviously you listen to the podcast quite a bit. and I would love for you to just kind of really just share, you know, kind of a little bit more about you. I think first here, I would love to kind of dive into, you know, kind of what your relationship with, like, nutrition and food and working out and, you know, living a healthy lifestyle, like you know, maybe give people a little bit of context as to, you don’t, I guess well if you don’t mind mentioning your age, I know some, some people are like, I don’t want to say how old I am, but just so that gives people some context and then maybe describe kind of you know, what your life was like, you know, growing up and especially in relationship to nutrition and exercise and all of that type of stuff.”

Karen: “Okay. yeah I’m 54, just turned 54 This month. Growing up, my mom and dad both worked and we had a lot of quick mhm budget friendly meals. and so it wasn’t always, they were well rounded meals but they were very car based. you know, lots of pasta and stuff like that. I was never a small child girl I did dance and work out like that, but I never went into the gym or did anything structured. I always worried about my weight was concerned about my weight, the way I looked okay, and it’s been a struggle as long as I can remember, my mom is overweight. and all of her sisters are overweight, so it’s kinda got genetics on top of everything else.”

Coach Justin: “Got it, that makes sense And so talk to us a little bit about kind of, that influence on you, you know, from your mom and your sisters. I mean, how much, you know, in terms of age like, were you an older or younger and then, you know how how did your mom and her, you know, kind of nutrition you know, kind of her relationship with nutrition in her body, like how did that affect you?”

Karen: “Well, I’m the oldest of three, my sister takes more after my father in her body structure, she’s tall and thin, thinner and I took more after my mom got my dad’s height, but my mom’s size and my mom’s relationship with food, she came from a very large Family with seven Children and my grandma didn’t work and my grandpa was in the coal, iron ore mines and so they really had to eat on a budget and so there’s was a lot of pastas and breads and cannolis and pasties and stuff that was very filling and could stretch to be for a large family. My mom has always been an emotional eater and she likes sweets and she likes chips and dip and all of those kind of things. My mom really didn’t, still doesn’t really think about nutrition much, so nutrition was kind of a foreign thing. My dad, on the other hand he, he did yoga way back then before anybody was really doing it, he used to eat wheat germ on stuff, so I had a little bit of influence from my dad. but my mom really, even to this day, still does not look at nutrition at all as something that’s needed or, you know, a positive thing.”

Coach Justin: “Got it, that makes sense. So as you’re kind of going through life here and you know, obviously you’re, you’re having this influence and you know, I always joke, especially now after having my own kid, it’s like, you know, they’re gonna, they’re gonna watch what you do, you know, they’re not gonna listen to what you say necessarily and so you know, as you’re growing up through elementary, middle school, high school you know what’s like talk to us a little bit like dive into that a little bit deeper in terms of the relationship with with food in your body and some of the things that you were doing on a regular basis Yeah, kind of share a little bit more insight there.”

Karen: “Well I have always been and still am very hard on myself and I have not and still don’t really have a really good outlook on my body image. I always compared myself to girls in high school and middle school Elementary school, I didn’t really think about it too much, although I did get teased them because I was larger than a lot of the girls got teased a little in middle school because I was bigger than most of the girls and my I don’t know, my mom really couldn’t relate to that So I kept a lot of that in inside and just tried to deal with it the best way I knew how I did start trying to watch what I was eating and cut back on cookies and sugar and those kind of things tried white watchers with my mom and that didn’t didn’t go well for either one of us because you do it for a little while you go off and you gain all your weight back plus some and so you’re you’re going into that that cycle. and it was also difficult for me because my sister was tall and thin and very outgoing and so I always had that that weight on me and because my mom was an emotional eater and I saw that I became that way and you know, you do it to fill that void and so I really had to overcome that and then high school I started to overcome that or tried to because you know, that’s when you’re starting to people are dating and you’re noticing boys and all those kind of things and I was dancing, so that helped helped keep some of the weight off.”

Coach Justin: “Got it, that makes sense. So as you, you know, as you get out of these early years, right? I mean we all know that obviously these early years play a huge role and and really influenced us quite a bit but as you kind of shifted into adulthood, talked to us a little bit about how, you know, obviously there’s all these different diets out there, there was, you know, this low fat era that we lived through and you know, now it’s like low carb, but talk to us a little bit about you know, kind of the process, you know, the journey of basically, you know, once you finished high school until you know, up until maybe about a year and a half two years ago before we started, you know, working together there.”

Karen: “Well, I got married very young, I was got married right out of high school pretty much. and so I went on a diet then to be able to wear my grandmother’s wedding dress and so I did, you know, diet pills, I did low fat or did the what is it metabolife? I did that. and when you’re newly married, you’re on a budget, so we didn’t eat the best, but I tried to make sure that we had vegetables and a good round meal. but I still fell back into that cycle of eating for for comfort and to deal with emotions and a lot of that stemmed back to my childhood because I was sexually abused as a child. And so that messes with your self image as well. And so I went, I did do some counseling to help peel some of those layers of that onion back and deal with that and process that And so I did try different diets along the way, tried to make things healthier, and I think when it I gained weight when I had both of my Children, I gained like £50 with both of them, even though I ate differently with them, with My 2nd 1, I really tried hard to eat good, eat enough vegetables, eat enough drink enough milk, have enough fruit, all of those things, but my body just was like, oh, here we go. I remember this it was fun and your body just goes back to where it was after I had Children, my Children were my life, I did everything for them and I tried to make sure that they had a healthy food and things to eat and everything was for them. I chased them around, I took them to football and basketball and all of this band, everything that they, that they did. and then not last year, but the year before, in february I got to where I couldn’t eat everything hurt me., I was, I got scared because I didn’t know what was going on. We went to the doctors and went through a bunch of testing and they finally took out my gallbladder and found out that not only my gallbladder but my appendix was inflamed and twisted and had to come out and I was very weak. My skin was not good. My hair was starting to fall out because I wasn’t eating well because everything hurt. And so I had That in February of 20 17 and my youngest son who’s named Justin, saw your stuff on instagram and said, hey mom, I really think this guy can help you you know, why don’t you reach out to him, Here’s his stuff, Look at it, see what you think. And I looked at it. My son and I sat and talked about it for a while and, that night I sent you a text message and it was late because I wasn’t sleeping well and I figured it would be the next morning. Much to my surprise, you email, you texted me right back and said, I would love the opportunity to work with you. And, that’s where we started., I was a mess. I wasn’t eating very many calories. I was eating like maybe 700 if that And I wasn’t sleeping well. I was only sleeping maybe four or 5 hours and my bowel movements were non existent And so we just started slowly. You started one thing at a time and, okay, now I have daily bowel movements sometimes twice a day I’m eating better, I feel better. I started in May working out at the gym. I go five days a week I’m not as fit or cut or push it as much as some of the people that are due at the gym. But, it, I’m doing it for me and I’m going at my pace and so at least I’m showing up there and some days I’m, I’m really hard at it in other days. It’s not as good of a work out as I’d like, but I’m still there and pushing through it.”

Coach Justin: “Yeah man, I’m just sitting here, you know, reflecting back because I’m listening to you and and just thinking about, you know, the journey and yeah, you know, I think you touched on a few different things here and I’m excited to kind of dive into them a little bit deeper because I mean your journey, like there are so many people that are listening to this right now that are, you know, they’re just resonating with this so much and like, there’s so many people out there that were in a similar situation are currently in a certain, you know, a similar situation and, you know I think that your story more than most stories that I that I bring on our it’s it’s it just gives people that hope, you know, that, You know, here you are, you come to me, at you know, 52 years old. right? And we start on the journey, right? I mean there’s so many people that around that age that are like, oh I’m so old, you know, it doesn’t matter what I do. You know this is just it is what it is, there’s something I can do about it, you know, I’m just old and you know you had the initiative at, at that age right to come and reach out for help, which is like that’s the hardest step of it all. I mean, it’s so like, most people that come into like our our free private facebook group They’re in there for like 3-6 months before they finally reach out, You know, and it’s like I always call it like they have to marinate for a little bit, right So and it makes sense. But you know, I just want to commend you on on, you know, taking that step and and reaching out, you know, in the first step because I mean, talk to me around your thoughts when you when you reached out, I mean, you know, knowing like what everything that we’ve gone through up into this point and we’re not done. You know, like this is a journey right? This is this is a process. And but but talk to me a little bit, I mean, did you ever in a million years think that the journey that we’ve gone through thus far is like what you were going to be going through?”

Karen: “No, I really didn’t know what to expect I just knew that I needed someone to help dig me out and help walk beside me and and help lift me up and point me in the right direction because there’s so much stuff out there about nutrition and what you should do and shouldn’t do and you need to do this and don’t do that and this magic pill do this and all you gotta do is drink this and or take this pill and it’ll melt this body fat away and it’s so overwhelming. but I just knew that I needed somebody that could get me back on ground level, do baby steps, walk me through this jungle that they call nutrition and help me get to be the healthiest me I can be. And at that point in time I was so I had a lack of energy, I didn’t want to do anything Everything was a struggle because I wasn’t feeding my body what it needed. And so I was like okay we’re gonna start from ground zero, I’m gonna try this out and you know, you you were so good about just talking me through it, doing one step at a time, being there when I needed you, showing me, you know, you can still go out and eat and do these things, but it’s about making a healthier choice. Go ahead and have that, but add a side salad to it or add some vegetables to it. It I’m still a long way from where I need to go but it made me have a different relationship with food and I often now think about okay is that going to really serve my ultimate goal? Is eating that, gonna serve my ultimate goal. And if I can’t step away from it and I’m like I really want to taste that I can I am a person that can take a bite or two of it and I can leave it alone, it satisfies it. And then I go on and I try not to beat myself up over having that glass of wine or that a couple of bites or half of a flan or whatever it is., I’d get back on and go back to it. I still have bad days, but I am, I had to buy new clothes because I am losing weight I’m losing inches and now even some of my new clothes that I bought are getting a little baggy on me, but I try not to get on the scale because that will send me back, into a very negative place. So I try to just look and feel how my, how I feel inside and how my clothes look on me and try not to get on that scale well. And you know, I think the beautiful part of
the journey thus far is, you know.”

Coach Justin: “Let’s not forget guys, she’s being a little bit humble here. She, she’s lost Close to about 20 pounds, right?”

Karen: “Since the very beginning, about 30.”

Coach Justin: “Excuse me., So yeah, I mean that’s pretty big deal. I mean, let’s not, let’s not undervalue that, but more importantly than than the weight is. There’s so many accomplishments you know, beyond the weight loss. Like honestly, like the weight loss for me is like, it’s like the, I mean it’s, it’s a priority, right? Because, you know, there’s there’s health markers that are involved there. But you know, at the end of the day, it’s like the winds that you’ve had outside of the weight loss in my opinion are so much more valuable long term than, you know the, the weight that’s been lost thus far. Because I mean, again, this is creating the foundation for forever. You know, it’s like so many people when they start, they have this weight loss goal and they’re so set on accomplishing the, I want to lose 30 pounds or whatever and once they get there, they’re still not happy and that’s the problem. But they still haven’t changed their lifestyle. They just did something crazy strict and dramatic for a short period of time to, you know, achieve a fast results. And what ultimately is, you know, you’re, you’re building right is you’re you’re building out the education and the tools that you need to be successful on your own right. You know I always, I always relate this stuff to a game, a sports game, right? Like, let’s think about football right there. You know, 1st, 1st quarter, second quarter, third quarter, fourth quarter, right? Like, you know if you’re, if you’re winning at halftime, that doesn’t mean a damn thing. Like I want to see the score when the game’s over, right? And so that’s how I think about life, like when it’s, when I’m done, when my life is over. What’s the score, right? Like, and that’s how you overcome these these small, you know failures if you want to call on that, right? Because they’re inevitable it’s gonna happen. You’re gonna have struggle. But you know, anything worth having is is going to be tough So talk to us a little bit Karen because I think that you know, one of the biggest things that people are going to resonate with here is you know, when you first came to me, you had, again you mentioned you had just gotten your gallbladder independence removed you. But also you had, you know, basically like two bad knees You know, arthritis, you had had a hip replacement So very very limited in terms of exercise. So what can you share with everybody? You know how we kind of went about like the activity and especially like how it’s evolved. You know from the beginning to now Mm hmm. Yeah.”

Karen: “Yes. I have two very bad arthritic knees they’ve been operated on three times. I have bone on bone in my both my knees. So my thing part of my thing was to preserve that as long as I can before I need a knee replacement. So that’s why the work outside of this. Just really came on board. This year I started, we started slowly I was walking my dog, I was doing never coming back at home. And now I go to the gym five days a week. and most of that, you know, is we’re coming back, but I am working some of the machines and the weights that, like I tell everybody when they asked me what I’m doing I don’t call you a nutrition coach, you are my life coach. And that’s because nutrition is only a small part of this. It is more, I think the mindset and all of those things r really the harder part of all of this and changing my mindset is, I’ve done some, but it is going to be, I still have a long way, long way to go with that. and it, and it was, it’s hard to have these bad knees. And when I came from being 20 years of dancing and then when I, I just couldn’t do it anymore because it was too rough on my knees so I don’t know that I’ve answered your question in total.”

Coach Justin: “No, no, you you did, you did. You know, I think the, the important takeaway here is that, you know it doesn’t matter what you have going on, you know whether you have an injury or whether you’re, you’re limited or whatever. You know, there there’s where there’s a will, there’s a way and, you know, activity is activity expenditure is expenditure. And I think that, you know, one of the most undervalued pieces of activity that you can do is walking and walking you know, 8,010,012,000 steps per day consistently And so, you know, when you, like, obviously, like we’re starting, we’ve evolved, we’ve even gotten into doing some resistance training and, you know, things like that, but you know, I think with you, like when you first started, you were averaging, like when we first looked into the activity piece in terms of step count you were averaging like how many steps per day and then now, how many steps per day are you averaging.”

Karen: “I was probably doing somewhere between two and 4000 steps per day and now every day I’m hitting between Most days, between 10 and 12,000 steps.”

Coach Justin: “So like that like, she, I don’t know if y’all heard that, but she like literally like multiplied her activity like by five times five times six. Right? Like, I mean that’s huge and that’s one of the most undervalued factors that is out there. You know, walking, getting your steps in, right? There’s, there’s something called NEAT, which we’ve learned about, you know, non extra non exercise activity thermogenesis and, you know, this is a great contributor to expenditure. People were made to move and not sit down all day long every day of their life. And so when we make it a point to get up more and be more active and get more steps in. I mean, ultimately that can be such a game changer for people. you know, even regardless of getting actual like, you know, workouts in, because most people are like, you know, they look at walking and they’re like oh, that’s not gonna do anything for me, all right there. Like, what’s the point? But there is a point like, it can really move the needle for you. So I love that. I think that’s, I mean, 2-3,000 steps to now hitting 10-12. I mean that’s phenomenal. So I think that’s so huge. Another thing I really wanted to bring up because this is another an accomplishment that you’ve made, which it’s just mind blowing to me. Can you talk a little bit about the medications that you were on before we started or when we first started there, and then the medications that you are on today?”

Karen: “Yes, I was probably on, Oh, probably 6-7 different medications for a variety of things for inflammation and what not And now I’m down to, I think four and that doesn’t include my supplements we’ve added along the way supplements to help. And I’m even trying to see which one of those that I can, I can one of those that I can get out of rotation. I’m trying really hard to make sure that I get enough in the food, but some of those supplements I’m not going to make it without them. one of the things that you also did, as you got me to a doctor who would listen and who does detailed blood work so that we could get my thyroid looked at looked at all the levels of my thyroid and All the tests for the thyroid instead of just the two. And that has helped tremendously looking at my different markers of of the where things are headed in things that preventative things I can do which has helped So now you know I take about four supplements at night and about four or five in the morning to help with my thyroid and A. And vitamin D. And all of those those things.”

Coach Justin: “So that that has helped a lot Yeah I think we you know it’s it’s always a very interesting conversation and relationship, you know with with clients and their doctors and you know, I’m just so grateful that we were you know able to find somebody that was local that you know it was just an understanding and on the same page and you know we can kind of work together as a team, you know, rather than isolating these these different fields. So I think we really lucked out there. So so Karen tell me a little bit about you know, one thing we talked about and kind of assessed in the very beginning and we really worked through and made a lot of improvements and you touched on them a little bit but you know in terms of biofeedback so you know the sleep. let’s just kind of go 1, 1 at a time here. So, so you were sleeping how many hours on average per night before and then what are you doing now?”

Karen: “I was probably sleeping 4-5 hours a night and now, most nights it’s like six and a half to seven Sometimes on the weekends, like this last weekend there Was on Saturday, I got like 10 hours.”

Coach Justin: “That’s amazing That’s amazing. So, I mean those and, and those improvements right? I mean those, those increases day after day after day after day. I mean that adds up right month after week after week, month after month, year after year. And, and so that, that has definitely played a huge role. you know, another thing we talked about and this is pretty obvious when you’re only getting that much sleep and not really eating, you know, the midday crashes, right? Like the energy level is just being so low. So describe, you know, your energy levels now kind of on average in comparison to before?”

Karen: “It’s night and day difference., before it was a struggle to get through the day. I felt like I was in a fog and everything seemed to just take so much more effort and now,, more bright alert day goes by faster, there’s, you know, times that I go okay. I’ve got to get up and walk around because I’ve got energy that I need to expand. So there’s a huge difference between, you know a year ago and now, as far as that is concerned.”

Coach Justin: “I love it, I love it. Also before you, you know, you talked a lot about being bloated and this was, you know, on a regular basis and you also, you know, the bowel movements were on existent, you know, I think maybe one every three days or so. So, you know, now like current day, you know, I’m sure you may be experienced bloating every once in a while, but talk to us a little bit about, you know, are we are we experienced that less of the bowel movements?”

Karen: “Much more regular now Yes. I don’t really get a whole lot of bloating anymore Once in a while I will depending on if I’ve gone out of my norm, because one thing that I did do is either tried to limit my process dairy intake because it doesn’t work for my body, not because it’s a bad food or it’s not something you should have just because it doesn’t work good for me. So I have a little bit of it now and then, but before that used to be a lot of my calorie intake was cheese and yogurt and those kind of things, and since I’ve backed off of that, I don’t have as much bloating and gas and those kind of things. yeah, when I first came to you I had maybe one involvement movement every 3-5 days and now I have one every day, sometimes it’s twice today and I remember the first time I did have a bowel movement twice a day when we started working together I texted you and I said, I know this is really gross but I’m so excited and you were giving me the thumbs up and telling me how amazing it was because my body had never done that. So that was a major breakthrough as far as I was concerned.”

Coach Justin: “Yeah, no, that was amazing I literally, I I was so happy. I almost texted you back like the poop emoji. but yeah, no, I mean that’s huge, right? Like I mean you, I mean being backed up for 3-5 days in a row, I mean, I can’t even imagine like that’s how uncomfortable, right? Like, no wonder you’re bloated all the time. So you know, another thing we talked about in the beginning and you know, this doesn’t necessarily change, but you know, you the stress right? Very high stress from the job and and you know just other pieces of life stressors and things like that, so talk to us a little bit about what we’ve kind of done too. you know, just kind of equip ourselves with like the education and the tools to help us manage and address the stress in our life.”

Karen: “Yes stress is a big factor both home and and at the office and some of that I know I put on myself because I put a lot of pressure on myself to do a good job but that was also one of the markers that was high in my first blood work and it was still high and subsequent blood works that we were working on with the with the doctor and so I started doing meditation and I do that every night. So I started like I said doing meditation at night and doing some in the morning as I’m preparing for my day. there are times that I will stop in the middle of the workday and just kinda taking a few deep breaths my levels are still high. So we did get an add a supplement for that and I just got new blood work so I should be going next I think it’s next week and see how that supplement is doing if it’s brought that down any and then I’ll have to assess if I keep taking that supplement or do do something else so.”

Coach Justin: “Right so yeah and we’re you know the great thing about all of this is because we are you know working together with a doctor, you know, we were able to have the data that we need and be able to, you know I mean this really is kind of a trial and error. You know, there are a lot of there’s a lot of unanswered questions on on the doctors end as well. And so you know when you have, you know these issues going on, that’s why it’s just so incredibly important to make sure that you are working with you know, a team of people to support you through this because there’s a lot going on. So I love that. So we talked about the working out piece, obviously that’s such a such a huge improvement there. Talk to us a little bit about the hunger. You know you had mentioned you were literally just like never really hungry, you know, we were averaging like 5, 6, 700 calories. You know, like just literally like basically not eating. So talk to us a little bit like in terms of what it looks like now, I mean what’s what’s maybe a typical day of nutrition for you for you now Yes.”

Karen: “In the in the beginning I just did not was not hungry didn’t want to eat, didn’t like the look of food, didn’t even want to think about food there I still have days kind of like that every now and then where it’s just like nothing really appeals to me. Yeah but I have noticed that in the past when I would get hungry it would be like oh I want to have nachos in, I want to have chips and now it’s like I want to have some of my hummus or I want to have, I’m craving a salad or a piece of fruit and I’ve went I probably averaged between 1000 eight 100 – 2000 calories a day. Maybe sometimes a little bit more.”

Coach Justin: “So wait, so let me get this, let me get this straight. So you’ve essentially tripled or quadrupled your calorie Intake all while losing 30 lb. Yes, interesting. Okay continue on…”

Karen: “My typical day in the morning I tried to have a couple of eggs with some spinach and some sausage or piece of bacon, maybe some avocado or I have some gluten free oatmeal with fruit or if I’m running really late and crunched for time, I’ll have a high protein bar lunch. It’s usually a salad with salmon or salmon and mixed vegetables, chicken or a huge salad with some tuna on it. Dinner is and when I do stack it’s usually fruit, some kind of berries, fruit, nuts, try to get the healthy fats in there. I sometimes have almond butter on some gluten free rice cakes dinner is usually I eat a lot more fish Now. I didn’t used to eat fish as much. I usually have fish three to four days a week, sometimes more. my main protein is, outside of fish is really lean ground beef bison,, turkey and chicken. I do a lot of broccoli, cauliflower asparagus., and, every once in a while I’ll do a bake a sweet potato and have some sweet potato, mm hmm. Have popcorn furred dessert or dessert. Sometimes if I’m still hungry after dinner, I will get my protein powder and do a small shake and have that as kind of a dessert.”

Coach Justin: “I love it. What is your favorite? I hate the word like cheat meal, but what’s like your favorite? Like, I don’t know, enjoyment mill if you will.”

Karen: “Oh man, I don’t, I cheat some, but I really am very cautious about it because of the fact that I’ve had my gallbladder out., I don’t do things that are too greasy, but having a good, like a pancake or french toast or, something like that., is a really good cheap meal. Some of us will have a pizza. Pizza. Pizza. but I’m always in the back of my head Justin is there and I was like, okay, I need to have a salad or I need to have brussels sprouts or something with it. So you’re always there.”

Coach Justin: “Well, I, it’s, it’s so funny. A lot of a lot of clients tell me that. But as you know, obviously like finding, finding that balance is, is definitely key. You know, I think for you, it is a little bit different, you know, knowing that hey, like sometimes it’s not even a matter of like, you know, do I wanna you know, eat this or that I just don’t want to feel like crap after eating, you know, fried food or spicy food. So that’s, that’s definitely understandable. It’s the same thing with people that have, you know a food allergy or sensitivity or whatever. So I love it. What about favorite alcoholic beverage?”

Karen: “Mm hmm Well, I really kind of have to, I love, frozen margaritas because they remind me of my grandma Maggie. and I like a good red wine.”

Coach Justin: “I love it. Those are my two favorite. Well, the wine I don’t really do wine all that much. I feel like I I should because Alex’s parents and Alex are like, they love wine. Like there’s such wine drinkers. But yeah, I’m a, I’m a die hard. I feel like I, I basically was raised in Mexico or something because I love chips and queso and mexican food and Oh yeah yeah. Right. Yeah. Oh yeah. Tacos. I like, I love like in Carnie Asada, like steaks. but yeah, Tacos, Enchiladas all that jazz. I I love it. I was telling Alex a few nights ago I was like, man, I, we’ve got to go to Mexico soon. Like I need my, my Mexico fix here Yeah, you need to get into red wine. It’s good for you know, write a glass a day, keeps the doctor away Exactly. Hey, 1, 1, 1 last thing I do want to highlight here, you know, I have in my notes and this is just it’s so awesome. Looking back on all this and and seeing all the progress, but you, you know, in your diet history you, one note I had here was not much cooking, you know, your, your relationship with cooking and grocery shopping and all that. Just, you know, we weren’t really doing it, we weren’t really cooking at all. Can you talk a little bit about kind of your relationship with cooking now and kind of what the dynamic looks like this these days?”

Karen: “Well, I did cook for so many years when I had the boys at home, I was adamant about that, making sure that we had that they had a good meal. And then when the boys grew up and moved out, I was like, I don’t want to cook anymore I’m tired of cooking. I’m done. and now, we still, you know, go out maybe a couple of days a week for dinner, but, cooking almost had to kind of relearn how to cook because everything that I cooked before was to feed volumes of people and to do get as much food that I could get for the boys that was not going to break the bank. And now cooking has become a little more simple and everything is like whole food. So you know, I will throw some fish in the oven and cut up some vegetables and put a little olive oil on them and throw them in the oven and go and do some other things and come back in 20 minutes and dinner’s done I don’t, it just seems to be easier because I’m not worried about having rice or potatoes or having a a big bunch of leftovers. I cook what I’m going to eat and that’s it.”

Coach Justin: “Yeah, I love that. Yeah, and and I mean, you know what’s crazy, I wish I could, you know, everybody’s listening here. I wish they could, they could see the visual but you know, the before and after pictures of, you know, in the beginning, we always have clients kind of, we go through like an assessment process and so it’s really cool to look back, you know, a year ago and see what that first week of food pictures look like and then now like what your meals look like and what your snacks look like. You know, it’s just like it’s it’s evolved so much and so, you know, I am just so incredibly proud of you. You know, you you’re, I mean this is this is the definition of the clients that I am looking for, the clients that I want to work with, you know, this is like life changing transformations here, you know, it’s not just like, hey, I wanna learn a little bit more about nutrition is like, no, I want to change your life, like I wanna, you know, I want to help try to improve every aspect of your life because that’s my oxygen, you know, helping other people and like being able to go through everything that that you’ve gone through thus far and seeing really the changes that you made in such a short period of time in the grand scheme of things. I mean, you know, coming coming at 54 and and having as much progress as you’ve had in one year, you know, a year and a half, like that’s amazing. So I’m just so incredibly proud of you, Karen, and you know, I’m so I’m just so grateful for you to to come onto the show and and share your story and be vulnerable and transparent and you know like we always talked about being able to pay it forward you know, if if even one person hears this and you know, this is that catapult for them to be able to take action and go all in on on their self and realize that they, they got one shot, you know, this is like nothing is wrong with them. Like nothing is holding them back except for them. And you know, they just encourage encouraging them and hopefully that this you know, this podcast does exactly that. Which encourages them to, to reach out and and take that first step because it truly can be life changing. So Karen just want to thank you so much again for, for the time today and and for sharing your story. Anything else you want to leave with the listeners?”

Karen: “Well, first of all, thank you Justin yes, you have changed my life my entire life and you just never know who’s watching you. And I’ve, I know that even though I’m still on this journey and I’ve got a ways, ways to go. There are people in my life that I know because I reached out to you and I’m taking charge of myself. I’ve already got them looking at their own life and changing the way that they’re eating or they’re exercising so that that’s kudos to you because you’re reaching people that you’re not ever gonna meet.”

Coach Justin: “Well, I’m just so grateful to have, you know, my army of soldiers out there that are, that are leading the way, you know, y’all are like, I always say, I can sit here and Tell anybody what to do, right? The information is out there everywhere. Like, Hello, Google and YouTube it’s 2019, right? But the magic is in the application the magic is in you know being ready, being fed up and being ready to take control of your life and that’s that’s exactly what you did. So I’m just so proud of you and I, you know, I commend you and gosh, I I probably could keep asking you all these questions I am gonna ask, ask you one more, one more here because I can’t remember. I can’t believe I left this one out real quick here as the last question for me leave talk about real quick. The you know, we’ve gotten you into listening to podcasts and audio books and reading and like really just like diving into personal development a lot more and and you know obviously the mindset shifts that have happened there and helping you through overcoming stress and struggle and all that. Can you just touch on anything you want to share about or for those people out there that you know maybe they are having trouble with like that head space game, that mindset game. Like how you know, what were you, what would be your recommendations as to how to help you know, dealing with that and and and just improving your relationship with it.”

Karen: “Well, this is an area that as you know that I’m I still struggle with but it’s it’s very hard to change those tapes in your head. It’s hard to erase them and inject them because they’ve been there for so long But what I do is when I, I sense myself getting into that old tape is I I talked to myself and tell myself look, you don’t, don’t go there, this is you don’t need to go there and I will go and listen to a podcast or I will put get one of my meditations out or there are times that I will sit and if it’s stuff I can’t really get out of my head, I will write it down like journal or I will go and I’ll listen to some music that takes me back to a fun place a good time to kind of get that, that changed that wavelength in my head and pull me out of that. But you have to you have to be aware of it, catch it and redirect it.”

Coach Justin: “I love that right there. That tag line, I’m gonna steal that, that’s amazing. You got a trademark that Karen, I I’m super proud of you and I’m, you know, this is, you know, as we’ve talked, it’s just the beginning of your journey. Like you have, we’re all on a journey Like we all are going through it, you know, and it’s the beautiful thing is, is you’re just getting more educated and and you’re learning and equipping yourself with more tools so that you can just become stronger and stronger and stronger along the way and you know you’re doing exactly that, so super proud of you, everybody that was listening. If y’all made it all the way to this point, then, you know, just take a second and let this, this whole story just kind of resonate with you and, and you know, just realize that again, there’s nothing holding you back except yourself. Like you have the ability to take action and change your life If you’re not happy with the story, change the damn story. So Karen, thank you so much, have an amazing weekend and so grateful for for you coming on the show”

Karen: “Alright, thanks Justin.