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Rachel Denning (00:10.67)
Hey everybody, welcome to another episode of the Extraordinary Family Life podcast. We are your host, Greg and Rachel Denning. Today, we are going to talk about a super important and sometimes extremely sensitive topic. So we're going to do our best to not be offensive, but especially to not be misunderstood. So as you listen to this, will you please listen to it with an open mind?

and not because I find you know my experience and working with a lot of people that some of us have certain topics that we maybe get triggered by or we get emotional by and it's really interesting it'll make us focus in on certain elements and almost make us deaf or blind to other statements so let's say I'm I get triggered around money then I actually get selective hearing about what someone's saying they bring up money or they bring up sex or.

religion and I also and I get I get television I only hear see certain things they're saying and I'm deaf and they say something else I'm not I don't mean this and I don't hear that I'm I just disregard it because what they're really saying is well because we tend to take everything we see or hear and put it through the filter we have about that topic because of our certain triggers or whatever and this is a psychological phenomenon so yeah we want to talk about this.

We want to talk about it openly and honestly because obviously that's the way we like to talk about things and we don't want to, we definitely don't want you to think that we are trying to justify any position or statement or viewpoint we have because we're not. This is honestly our own journey and view of this topic based off of, I would say,

least a decade or more of discussing thinking about it analyzing it for me is since I was 16 right I went in hardcore into this and and I think that's a great point obviously every person has subjective views.

Rachel Denning (02:16.397)
But we're sincerely trying to be objective about it. And ultimately, we're just sharing what has worked for us. Every time we talk about anything, we're just saying, hey, this is what's worked for us. Take it or leave it. Explore it. Learn about it. But this is what has worked for us. Please consider what we're talking about here and what we're doing. And with this particular topic, we've

tried a lot to just really see it from every angle and remove, and here's the key, this is what's important here, we've tried to remove any sensitivity around it, to just purely look at it objectively, and we'll dive more into this, because this is what's so important here. Well, because that's honestly the approach we try to take to everything. Yes. In everything that we...

do, think, believe, we have tried to take the point, we've tried to take the perspective of, okay, let's remove the sensitivity to my topic, to this topic. Yes, it's painful when you bring this up. Yes, it's painful when you mention this. But if I can remove that, or at least not remove it, but maybe ignore it for a little bit, or in spite of the pain and sensitivity, still have the conversation, then,

That's actually where we find true growth. That's actually where we find the results that we want. That's where we find the life that we're searching for, whether that's mental, physical, emotional, spiritual, social. All of it lies on the other side of that discomfort. And it's like these cliche freezes we've heard. Everything you want lies on the other side of your comfort zone. I think this is just as true for that. 100%. Like on that specifically, I don't know that we could emphasize that enough. Right. And hopefully.

articulate it well enough to understand like all the results you want are on the other side of the discomfort of facing something in a very factual manner honest and it's got to be Frank it's got to be honest and you have to remove any and it's tough it's extremely hard to remove sensitivities but until we can do this with every sensitive subject in life man.

Rachel Denning (04:43.149)
How do we see this enough until you can do this with everything that triggers you from? politics to religion to sex to money to fat to Whatever like whatever is like you just feel yourself bristle and so don't you dare bring that up? Don't you do when you find yourself saying that you have to stop and say wait a minute all the results I truly want are on the other side of this discomfort exactly

And we've even seen it with parenting. Like we see parents who are sincerely struggling with their children, but if you bring up the fact that they may be causing the problems with their kids, what? Wow. You're saying I'm the problem? How dare you? You know, and this especially happens between husbands and wives, but if you can't have that conversation that, hun, and we've had these conversations, and we have these conversations with each other, where I will say to Greg, or he will say to me, what you're doing,

or what you're saying in this case is causing this problem. You are creating this. And that hurts because I don't want to be the one who's causing my own problems, right? I don't want to be the one who's causing the issues with my kids. But until we can actually have that conversation, which too many people don't, they never bring that up, they never talk about it because they're like, oh, my wife, she won't take that very well. Well, we've removed that in our marriage.

And we are working to remove that with each of our children as they grow and mature. Because when you have those real honest conversations, that's when you have real honest change. And that element right there is a principle of just absolute ownership. Absolute ownership where you own the fact that you have a responsibility for the results in your life. Obviously,

Obviously, ladies and gentlemen, there are some things that are outside of our control. But in my experience and my observation, that list is actually extremely small. In almost every instance, there are things we can control and we have so much more influence than most of us realize, and especially more than we want to acknowledge and accept. And so if I will humbly allow Rachel to say, Greg,

Rachel Denning (07:04.589)
you're doing this or not doing this and it's having a negative effect on me or on the kids. Sometimes I have to passionately say it. Yeah. And I'm like, because I think we naturally want to defend our position. We want to justify it. We want to rationalize. We want to say, no, no, no, no, hold on. Wait a minute. No, don't throw me under the bus. And then it becomes a source of of condensation. Sometimes. Yeah. You're like, no, I'm.

putting my foot down here, I'm gonna be firm and I'm gonna insist that this be addressed. And that is so hard and so uncomfortable. So obviously the ideal, the best way is that you do that with yourself in a healthy way. Like you just, you acknowledge and take ownership on your own. Like, look, the way I'm approaching, I mean, we can take any topic here, but the way I...

approach Rachel in whatever the way I talk to her the way I Listen to her we did a whole episode on listening the way I listen or the way I think I'm listening Right the way I approach her for sex You

All of that is, okay, and even like that one with sex, it's not just in a man's mind you're like, well no, I walk over and say, hey baby, let's make love. And she's like, yeah, but you didn't help with the dishes. What? The stinking, ah, you know, and I'm like, the way I do everything, it has an influence. So I have to take ownership of that. And in an ideal situation, I'm doing it on my own.

The second level there is the people around you give you feedback and you cannot react negatively to that or they won't give you feedback anymore. And then you have an even worse problem.

Rachel Denning (08:57.581)
because then it's not being approached, it's not being addressed. Well, yes, and then I think with this specific topic today, which we haven't even mentioned, I mean, but they'll read the title and they'll have some idea of what it is. I think it's even more challenging because, and we're going to get into this in America specifically, and I think in the Western world in general, this topic has become such that,

there's almost this idea of, well, it doesn't need to be addressed. It doesn't need to be changed. There's nothing wrong. There's nothing to be analyzed or assessed because everything as it is is acceptable and good. Which, in our honest analysis of this idea for the past 10, 20 years,

We're saying, it's not 100 % true. And we're gonna talk about that. Because I think first we'll give the, we'll give the backstory here a little bit and explain ultimately that we received an email and we agree with a lot of the things in this email. It's not that we disagree with this. But we also think that the established approach that's common in,

Well, from this mom, and we've seen it in many places, it's common in society, is not exactly the full answer to this problem. Right? Right. You're kind of looking at me like... Well, I'm just thinking through the enormity of this subject. We've seen in the last few years now a real push with certain marketing agencies or whatever to actually promote... Enormalize. Enormalize obesity.

and blatantly come out and call it healthy. They're showing people who are overweight and obese and literally saying, I've seen magazines, I've seen posts saying this is healthy. And what they're trying to do is they're trying to connect two different things and we'll talk about this today.

Rachel Denning (11:07.437)
One is like this idea of body acceptance and body love and anti body shaming, right? We don't want to shame. So they're trying to blend these two things and they're taking just the straight factual, biological, physiological science of, you know, black and white. This is healthy. And they're trying to mix that and say, no, wherever you're at is okay. And, and even healthy.

which is just a blatant scientific lie. Right. Because when you are overweight or obese, there's nothing healthy about that. Again, this is just pure black and white. Well, in fact, it is actually the precursor to disease. I mean, that's essentially what it is. Massive amounts of disease. Having excess weight is essentially...

laying the foundation for disease. If you don't have disease already, you're on the path to disease. I mean, that's just basic science right there. But society is trying to make, because obesity is such a huge problem, and there are so many people who are overweight, and they feel bad about it, which we're gonna talk about later, the physiological and psychological reasons for that, we're trying to say, no, it's okay.

Which I understand on that one side that yeah, you need to love yourself. You need to accept yourself. Now we have managed and figured out how to do that without accepting where you are. Like we have complete love for ourselves in a healthy way, but we're still not satisfied. And a lot of people, they're not able to do that. They're not able to hold those two things.

at the same time in their mind. I think because they're trying to mix them, they're trying to connect them where if I could maybe articulate what I did early on, I learned to separate those things. So love for myself and my actual honest results are different things. I don't connect those things. I can love myself but not love the results I have. Exactly. If I am out of shape,

Rachel Denning (13:25.421)
Let's say this has happened to me so many times where I like I go for a hike or I go for a run or something happens and I need to carry something or push ups or whatever any kind of physical exertion was required and then I was like wow I am way out of shape like I didn't I didn't I wasn't able to do that I I've let myself go or whatever or

If there's ever been a time where, again, you notice you've gotten, you've gained weight, like I disconnect that from...

Loving myself being comfortable with myself being comfortable my own skin. I think it has nothing to do with body shaming or a lack of self -worth in any way shape right it doesn't change your worth not at all if they're disconnected and I think for some funky reason we keep trying to mingle two different things so the actual like straight science of it is you can go and you can have your

BMI your body mass index measured and you can go in and they can do it with calipers They can do it in water now like there's all kinds of cool ways to do this and it can be it can be pretty accurate to like absolute precision and So if you go in and you have your BMI tested, let's let's let's pretend you go into these tanks that it's like it is spot -on precision and it tells you exactly

the percentage of body fat you have. And there's a healthy range. I'm not saying it's an exact number, because people are going to be like, well, people's bodies are different. Well, of course they are. But there's not an exact number, but there is a healthy range. And black and white, if you are above that range, that is unhealthy, period. That is on the pathway to future disease, essentially. That's what that means. Your biochemistry is off, and you are, yes, your body's. Your body's.

Rachel Denning (15:28.813)
Pharmacy is working harder than it has to because of the additional Exactly. Wait, it's affecting your heart. It's affecting your lungs. It's affecting your cells There's a you're on the path to and so I think what's important about this though because okay part of the email that we received was talking about you know, I don't want my daughters to have this expectation that they have to look like These girls on Instagram or whatever, which I agree with that. That's not

desirable or necessary per se, but what is desirable is for each person to be in their own healthy BMI range, which is obviously going to be, like I'm not gonna have the same BMI range as you because you're taller than me and larger and you have bigger bones and all these other things. Like your body is different than my body. So we're gonna have a different.

healthy range here. Well, and there's a different range for women and men. Exactly. Right. And actually, there can sometimes be a different range for races. Yeah. In different races, like Polynesians. Exactly. And whatever. Right. So that's interesting to me as well. So the point is, you're trying to be your healthiest self. Not someone else's healthiest self. You're not trying to look like someone else. You're trying to look like how you would look.

when you're healthy. When you are in a healthy BMI range. And it's important because this gets bought up a lot of like, well, you know, I was born with different genetics or people say, you know, I'm bigger boned or I'm thicker or thicker build. Yeah, the different build. Right. Which is true. Absolutely true. In fact, let me share my story. I am a very thin person. Rachel is tiny. She has teeny little bones in her hands. She's very petite build.

Right? I have a very thick build. I'm just under six feet and I weigh 200 pounds. So when I was in the military just for a little bit and they have a BMI scale.

Rachel Denning (17:33.293)
And because I'm under six foot and I'm 200 pounds, I always got called in, right? They're like, oh, this guy's trouble. So I always had to go. They assumed you were overweight. They're like, there's no way you can weigh 200 pounds and be under six foot. Like something's off. And so they would call me every time because you have to go through the the test, right? You have you're doing your physical training and your test and you have to do tests all the time. And every time I would.

destroy their tests. Like I just blew it away. Like the minimum was this and the good was this and I was excelling at everything just just blew it out of the water right push ups and sit ups push ups sit ups running time all that stuff I was it was in fantastic shape but

I would get on the scale and they're like, oh no, you gotta go see the doctor. And you got, like, they would call me every single time. And then they come in and I pull my shirt off and they're like, okay, dismissed. You have no problem. But it was because the numbers were off. It didn't show up. And so they would measure, right? They're constantly measuring, like, you should be, you should weigh about this much and this much. And then they do the indices. So I'm a very thick build and I'm muscular.

And so I weigh more than the average guy that's my height. So I have a different build. So am I going to look like my buddy who weighs, he's about the same height as me, but like with a backpack on, the guy weighs 150 pounds, right? So I'm 50 pounds heavier than he is. So am I going to look like him? No. Is he going to look like me? No.

But I think this is extremely important. Each of us should strive to look well. And again, some people will be bothered by the look. Right. That we're worried about the look. It's not about the look. Each of us should be in our healthiest state. And I would say as an ideal in your fittest state, you should be healthy and fit.

Rachel Denning (19:41.677)
Now, I'll just throw this in here for those of you who are interested in the subject. It is possible to be fit and unhealthy, but it is not possible to be healthy and unfit. There's a little distinction there, right? Because you can be fit, so you can go to the gym, do our stuff, but you can be eating horribly and you can be unhealthy. But you can't be healthy and unfit because a healthy body has fitness.

And we can get it, like I've been studying this stuff voracially since I was 16. But the point is, so we don't... We're not trying to look like someone else. We're not saying you need to be skinny like these girls on Instagram, or you need to have this certain build. But what we are trying to say is that your body, well, and this is the part I want to get into next.

about why the shaming thing might occur and I think is behind the reason it's happening. Your body knows where your body needs to be. Like intuitively, instinctively, physiologically, subconsciously, your body knows where it needs to be. Now, the reason body shaming is a problem is because, like you were talking about before, it's like we have this cognitive dissonance in society.

We have all these people that are not where their bodies need to be, and then we're also trying to say, that's okay, where really the reason why we might feel like, oh, it's not okay, is because our body feels like there is something off. Going back to this idea that if you're unhealthy, you're setting the foundation for disease, future disease, our bodies are trying to say something is off.

something needs to change. Now this is to be separated completely from the idea of people that have eating disorders or other types of issues where they're trying to be...

Rachel Denning (21:49.773)
super skinny, they're trying to look like other people, they're trying to, you know, even if they're healthy, they think they're not healthy, that's a different issue. And that's not what we're talking about. That's something that needs to be addressed in a different way. And that needs help and counseling and coaching and all that work. Fundamentally though, it's connected in that it's tied to a misaligned target. Yes. It's, yeah, they've attached...

a vision or an understanding, a perception to an erroneous target. Right. So they're trying to be something they're not or something they can't be. Which is totally different from trying to be your healthiest self. Which is ultimately what we believe in, which we promote and which we share, even though it seems to come across, well, I guess now we'll go to the background. So, Greg teaches a class every week for teenagers called Habits of a Successful Life. And...

I don't know how it came up, maybe one of the books you were reading or something. Well, no, it was just an overall assessment. And I think this is good. I think it's good, and I talk about this all the time. It's been something that's been extremely valuable for me my whole life. On my birthday, on New Year's, at the end of every quarter, at the end of every month.

you just stop and say, well, let's just take an evaluation. Yeah, an assessment. Where am I at? A reckoning. And this isn't just physically, but this is like, where am I mentally? Where am I emotionally? How many books have I read? Financially. Right. How are my relationships? Yeah, where's my bank account? It's everything. It's so valuable to do this. I just had a birthday like three or four days ago. I turned 44. And it was. I just mentally took this assessment of like, where is life? And.

Life is great. Like honestly right now our life is so good. But we have gotten to the habit of constantly doing that, of just taking these regular assessments. Because if you don't improve it, no if you don't measure it you can't improve it. Right? That's just...

Rachel Denning (23:47.885)
It's just factual again separation if you're not measuring then you can't improve it and you can't really know how you are measuring or assessing Yeah, I like the word assess. So anyway, so during this class you just did an overall assessment with the student, right? And I'm walking through its its multi -day because I created I created this quiz for the men I work with of a full it's a full -life assessment and you start with physical because everything in your life is Affected first and foremost by your physical condition

Which is another reason, I think this is important to point out, why we place so much importance on this. Because some people might think, oh you're just vain, you just care too much about how you look, you just care about your body appearance. And it's not that, like we, honestly, that's not that important to us. What is important to us, like we like to look nice, we like to dress up, like take care of ourselves, but the ultimate thing we care about is the fact that our body...

is the vehicle for experiencing life. And we cannot experience life to the fullest, which is a part of our mission and purpose and goal.

without healthy bodies. We just can't do it. Like the amount of energy we have to put out all the time to live the life we have, people don't even know how much energy it requires to live this life. It requires us to be healthy. We have to be healthy and fit in order to live an extraordinary life. So that's one of the reasons why we do have this viewpoint we have and why we've spent so much time thinking about it and talking about it is because your body is the vehicle for life. So that's the foundation.

Your body is out of shape, your life is out of shape. When you deep dive into this, you realize that the condition of your body directly affects your spirituality. And I know that's going to be a big jump for some of you. Like, no, no, I don't have to. It does. It affects your psychology. It absolutely affects your psychology. Your mental and emotional state. Oh, your emotional especially. Gigantic, gigantic correlation between the condition of your body.

Rachel Denning (25:50.957)
and your emotional state. But it affects your marriage. You're like, well, how does it affect my marriage? Well, it's how you feel and your energy and your vitality, your libido. It affects your, well, and here's a reality. This is a truth. It affects your self -respect and your self -image. And we don't like to talk about this, but having worked with...

many couples it does affect your spouse's view and attraction to you. And spouses don't want to talk about that. They don't want to admit that they actually are less attracted to you because of the condition of your body. And yet we hear it all the time when people reveal their secrets to us.

very specific instances where a spouse will say, no, I'm not that shallow. I love you just as you are. Your body doesn't change, doesn't matter. And then I help a client totally transform their body and the spouse is like, whoa, this is amazing. This is awesome. And everything gets better and changes. And they're like, okay, well, okay, it did have an impact. Where I think it didn't. I do want to say - And that's one of those hard conversations we don't want to have. We don't want to admit that.

about ourselves or about our spouse or that you know it that it has a it plays a part and yet it does it does you respect yourself more that that actually is a cycle that goes both way when you respect yourself more then you take your better care of your body and when you take care of your better body your body better you actually respect yourself right but that is absolutely true with others too whether we agree with it or not whether we like it or not your body is your billboard.

And it is also in many instances, your business card. Your body is your billboard and your business card. And people assess you physiologically. Like this is fundamental evolutionary science. Like this isn't like social conditioning, although that plays a part as too. This is biological. You are assessing and being assessed by others in your interactions by the condition of your body. Yes.

Rachel Denning (28:00.333)
So, back to the habits class, you had them do this assessment, part of the assessment, because it's part of what you do for the men, included just reaching down, grabbing your belly, and assessing how much fat you have on your body.

To give this context, we were doing an overall assessment, right? How long can you hold your breath? How long can you do an air squat? How many push -ups can you do? How many sit -ups can you do? Like, it's a, can you get up off, this is a fun one, can you get up off the ground without using your hands? Right? It's just simple things, like how's the condition of my body? I have an app that helps with range of motion stuff, and that's one of the initial assessments they do, is like,

How can you do this activity? Exactly. Can you touch your toes? That's another one we did. So we're doing all of those. And you can do a lot of those things and still have excess weight. So it's not like you can't do it if you have the weight. But the point is, part of the assessment included, kind of this self -BMI, how much fat do I have? Exactly. So again, it's a moment of reckoning. And all of us can do it right now. I do it consistently myself. You just say, OK, today's a moment of reckoning. You can take whatever, at the end of every month, you could just,

I mean, you could go to the gym or you could buy your own assessment equipment. You can have a scale, but scales can be off, right? The scale doesn't work for me because I'm like, wait, I'm under six foot and 200 pounds. Like, oh, I'm overweight. So you could get the calipers, you can go get a test, or you can just do a quick visual hand test. I can reach back and I can grab any.

fat around what we call our love handles. I can reach down on my legs and I can grab. So where they do the caliper test is on the inside of your leg, on your thigh, just above the knee. That's where there's fat. They do it on the back of your arm, where your tricep just below your shoulders. Mine are a little flabby. Yeah. And so you can reach back and grab right there. And then on the front of your belly, right above where your belt would be, they grab right there.

Rachel Denning (30:08.845)
So this is actually a physical test, how they test body fat on those three points. And again, that's a simple one. That's very, very simple. But you can do that with your fingers right now. You can reach behind your back and you can grab your triceps. You can grab the skin on your inner leg above your knee and you can grab your belly. There's no shaming in that. There's no, you know, I don't like myself. I don't look like anyone else. I can just right now take inventory on my,

And this, what this does is this tells me how well I've been eating and exercising over the last few months. Well, and again for me, it comes back to how much risk do I have of future disease based off of my current condition now. So for us, this has simply become a way of assessing where you are currently and if you're on the path you want to be on. Now the email we received from a parent said, well, this is body shaming.

And I can understand why they would have that viewpoint, especially based on the current culture of our society. But again, back to this idea of this is something we've been thinking about, talking about, researching for a long time. I also disagree with that because I think it's dependent on the context in which we take it. I kind of want to just throw this in there because I think it's relevant. I remember years ago when we started traveling,

This was back in 2007, you know. One of the things that shocked me, because I grew up in America, and America is very fat adverse, meaning that they don't like to talk about it. They don't like to bring it up. They don't like to use the word fat. Right. And we went to these other countries, and they just say it how it is. They're like, oh yeah, she's really fat. They tell you right to your face, yeah, you're really fat. And I remember being so shocked, because I was like, what?

They just said she was fat right to her face. Like, I can't believe this, you know? But they just had this more... That's how they would indicate each other. Yeah. They're like, oh, go talk to that one. Which one? Oh, the fat one. She's the fat one. Hey, you fatty. And she's like, oh, yeah, that's me right here. Right. And it was so fascinating because...

Rachel Denning (32:28.493)
They just had this openness about it of like, yeah, this is where I am. This is who I am. This is a distinguishing characteristic of me. And so I kind of, you know, while it was shocking at first, I also thought, well, I almost think that's healthier. Just call it how it is and not to beat around the bush and not to feel like you're shaming someone either, but you're just saying you are. You are overweight. You are fat.

And then that's back to this idea that's a place where you can then have a conversation. If that's where you want to be and you're comfortable with that, great. But if you feel shamed, shame comes from internally. Shame is an internal feeling. Nobody can make you feel shamed. It's not possible. Just like nobody can make you feel anything. Emotions come from within. You experience emotions based on how you interpret what was said or done.

So if you feel shame, then that's a chance for you to look internally, and this is not a justification. This is literally how we live our life every single day of our life. It's our life, to emphasize that. It's a chance for you to look internally and say, why do I feel bothered by that? Why do I feel shamed by that? Why do I feel uncomfortable by that?

because back to this thing I said before, if you feel shame because of the condition of your body, one, you have a psychological condition that's unhealthy and you need help, right? So anorexia, bulimia, something like that.

Or two, your body is trying to tell you something's off and you need to change it. And that's a good thing. That's a good thing. That's like being in pain. If your arm is hurting, don't ignore it because maybe it's broken. Maybe something happened to it. You need to get it fixed. It's a type of pain. It's an emotional pain that's telling you something is off. You need to fix it. Yeah. I think there's an important distinction here that's worth mentioning. In my observations, the body...

Rachel Denning (34:34.765)
will use a sense or feeling of guilt. It'll make you feel bad, like, hey, something's off. Like, this needs to be addressed. So your own body will make you feel bad.

your psychology will do the same thing. Your brain will say, hey, this isn't okay. Right. And again, like Rachel keeps pointing out, like you're on the path to an early death and disease and your body will tell you and your brain, your psychology will tell you like, this isn't, this isn't okay. And we need to be able to understand that it's just black and white science like, oh, my body and my brain are telling me, right, this is not okay. And we allow guilt, but I'm going to go further than that.

I the spirit I wholeheartedly believe like the spiritual side of us also uses guilt. Guilt is a good thing if you do something dumb if you do something inherently wrong if you are incongruent if you lie or steal or cheat or you just do something you know is you feel guilty.

Guilt is a good thing. It keeps us on track. But we never want to feel guilty ever for anything. I think, especially in society today, we don't. What we want to do is, or what we have started to do, is to put the blame on others. We say, oh, I'm feeling bad about my body. That's because of all the people on Instagram that are skinny. That's because of all the messaging we're getting. And I'm...

I believe that that is playing a role and it's not necessarily healthy. But everything that happens to me happens internally. So I am the one that can interpret what that means to me and how I'm going to act about it. I don't have to respond in a certain way. I don't have to be shamed because of what is on Instagram or what is said by other people. I can choose what I'm going to do about it.

Rachel Denning (36:30.477)
If you have extra fat and you're okay with that because it's worth the bread you eat, that's kind of how I am. I've got some flabby arms and I've got a little flab on my legs, but for me, I'm okay with that amount because I like the bread that I eat twice a week or whatever. I'm not willing to cut it out. So that's a level of it too. Like you can accept that or you can say, ah, you know what? That is contributing to my early death and disease.

maybe I need to just cut it out and then I have to do the hard work of actually cutting it out. And in addition, it's currently affecting my energy levels, my vitality. It may be affecting how you feel about yourself. It's definitely going to be affecting your ability to do things you maybe want to do. It has an effect now and in the future. Every single thing has an exchange rate. So you have to say either I'm willing to accept that,

the exchange and I'm gonna be okay where I'm at, which is I think what the message is trying to be of the body shaming, but it shouldn't be at the expense of no, I'm perfectly healthy, because that's not true. That's just an absolute lie. That's not true. And so as long as we can say, you know what, I'm not perfectly happy, I'm not perfectly healthy, but I'm happy enough with the current state of my body that I'm not going to do something to change it, or I'm out of health.

I'm going to do something to change it. Like that's really the options here. The other option which I don't think serves anyone is to say as a society we need to stop body shaming because that just doesn't work. Individual responsibility is the only way we really make change personally or as a society and until we accept the individual responsibility and acknowledge that part of the reason we feel guilt or shame is because it's our own body telling us things are off.

That's the healthiest route. And your psychology will do that as well. Again, everything in life has the meaning we give it. So if you see something, let's say you see a picture of someone who is fit and healthy.

Rachel Denning (38:40.493)
what happens very quickly, almost instantaneously, you give it some kind of meaning. You make some kind of judgment of what it means. And for me, when I see just absolutely fit, healthy people out in society or online, wherever, I'm like, fantastic. They've paid a price. They've worked hard. Because I've been in this industry for so long, I know how they got there. Which is this is, I'm going to interrupt for a second because this is interesting. It's almost like this reverse body shaming is occurring.

It's almost like because we've tried to not make other people feel bad for being out of shape or being fat, we're now trying to make people that are healthy feel bad.

for showing that they're healthy. Like you're fit, you're thin. Like there's something wrong with you. You're the villain because you're trying to make me feel bad that I'm not in that condition. Because it's not reasonable. You're posting pictures of your six pack online, jerk. You're just body shaming. Right, which the reality is, yes, we can't all look like this one image of what's available. But any one of us could get in.

to sincere health and fitness if we're willing to pay the price. And too often that's actually the problem. I'm not in that condition because I'm not willing to pay that price. But I am in the condition I am because I have paid the price.

to get here, right? I'm not thin just because I'm lucky. I am thin because I am very, very, very strict about what I eat. And how much you eat. And how much I eat. And it's not like I'm starving myself. And when you eat. And when I eat, exactly, right. I'm very, I have strict guidelines for when I eat, for how much I eat, and for what I eat. That is what has caused me to maintain my thinness.

Rachel Denning (40:34.413)
even after giving birth six times. And that there's a formula like that that works for 98 to 99 percent of people that yes there are a few but it's very very few who are the exception but for 98 to 99 percent of people all you have to do is follow the formula and

you'll get better results. And I think maybe that's the other part of why we have the viewpoint that we do. Like we're sharing everything that we've thought through for so long. And part of the reason we have this viewpoint is because we understand there is a formula. Like it's really pretty simple. If you do that assessment, right, which is not meant to be a body shaming, it's meant to be a legitimate assessment, and you realize you have more fat than you would like,

Okay, that's fine. There is a formula for reducing that amount of fat. And it's very simple. It's, like you said, not eating certain times. We're not gonna go into all the details, because that's a whole nother podcast, but you have a window of time that you eat, and you only eat certain things, and you eat till you're full and you stop. That's the basics. And it can be challenging to adopt if you're not used to that.

But once you adopt it, then it's easy. It's not hard to just stick to this formula that produces overall. And we're just talking about the healthy eating side of it. That doesn't even include the exercise. But if you did just that, that would make a change. 90 % of your body condition is gonna be what you eat. They say it's in the kitchen. 90 % of your health is in the kitchen. Absolutely it is. Now, I also know, like, no joke,

Part of the challenge today that we have is that.

Rachel Denning (42:26.893)
Food is a mess. Like in this country, a lot of times people think they're eating, and I've seen this time and time and time again, they say, well, I'm eating healthy. And really, they're not. They're eating horribly, despite the fact that they're eating healthy. They think they're eating healthy and they're trying to eat healthy. The reality is you're eating crap. And besides, we were just talking about this with our kids the other day, the huge increase in the usage of seed oils, which too many people call vegetable oils, but they're not from vegetables, they are from seeds.

They're extremely toxic and causing huge amounts of obesity without you doing anything except eating them. And seed oils are now in everything. Practically anything that's processed, anything that has an ingredient label on it, more than likely has seed oils in it and it's making people fat.

Yep, there's a correlation there. So that's one thing, if you just cut out all seed oils, that right there is going to have a huge impact on your BMI. Massive. So I want to circle back just for a second. If you look at something, you get to decide what it means. But I also want to point out, though, your physiology and psychology might use something you see or experience as a motivator, as a lesson. So you might see something.

You might, in this context, you might see someone that's unhealthy or a waiter. You might hear about somebody dying of heart disease or whatever, or some problem, or getting diabetes or whatever. And also, you just feel this major sensation physiologically and psychologically like, oh, I gotta change. Right? But you also might, you might see somebody who's fit and it might cause feelings of guilt. And because...

Deep down you want to be. Now process through that, work through that. Like Rachel was just saying, do you want that? Do you want to be? I hope you do. And I think your body and your psychology is going to be saying, of course you do. Of course you want. Your body wants to be in its healthiest condition. So take it and use it as inspiration and motivation. When I see those guys on there, or when they're like, that's fantastic. They've paid a price. Like I.

Rachel Denning (44:35.309)
I want that, it's driving, I wanna be healthy too. My body wants to be healthy and fit. I wanna be healthy, I want all of the massive, massive benefits. Like almost endless amount of benefits that come in from being very healthy and fit. I want that. Now this, we need to say this because it might be obvious but it might not be obvious. We're in no way saying.

We're going for perfection. No one in our family has a perfect body and we don't expect anyone in our family to have a perfect body, but we do expect ourselves to maintain a healthy body. So that's the point, that's the goal, like to maintain health. Now I wanted to say something because I remember, again, I've always been a thin person. I attribute most of that from basically from the time we got married, especially by the time we had

four kids, which we had four under the age of four. So, you know. And we've been deliberate about health. My thinness has come from my diet. I know that. And it's worth pointing out that both your parents were very obese. So, like...

And mine were in healthy too. Well, my dad, he died from cancer, which was directly caused by his diet, which, yeah, he was obese as well, but yeah, he died because of that. So you and I both grew up in environments very, very unhealthy for food. And it was the 80s where everything was flipped, where margarine was good for you and butter was bad. Like everything was so messed up in the 80s. We ate Crisco by the bucket. Exactly, right. And I'm surprised I made it out of my childhood.

So, but that being said, the point is I've never been overweight, but I've had additional fat. You know, I've had seven children, I've given birth six times. So, you know, there have been times when I've had extra weight. What I'm trying to say is that I began to notice that I felt better about my body when I was in my...

Rachel Denning (46:47.053)
body shape. I don't know how to explain that, but like it's as though my body, personally, has a shape that's ideal, and when I am in that shape, I feel better about my body. And when my body is not in that shape, I feel... In its unique shape, almost like it knows. Right. It's almost like this, you know, we could say it's this aura or something, you know? It's there, it knows. When I'm not in that shape, I feel worse. Now,

What we want to do in society is say, oh well, that's society's fault because they're making me feel bad that I'm not in my ideal shape. Or what we think is, because I don't look like that girl on Instagram, right? When really, I don't think that's what it is. I think it's our body saying, I'm not in the shape I'm supposed to be. And when I am in that shape, I feel great. I feel great about myself because I'm in the shape I'm supposed to be. Yes.

I think every one of us has that. I agree. And I think if we feel bad about our body's current shape, it's not anyone else's fault. It's not Instagram's fault. It's not the news' fault. It's not whatever, the movie's fault. It's our own body and mind and spirit trying to communicate with us to say, something's off, you need to fix it. Now, that being said, as a mom,

having kids does stuff to your body, right? That just wrecks it. That is an understatement. And so we will never or may never, some of us, have our pre -pregnancy bodies. I get that. Yet some do. Some have earned it. Okay, well this is where I'm going. And there are many examples. This is where I'm going next. Yet some do. And some of us like to use the fact that we've had kids as an excuse.

for not being in the shape that we want to be in. Now I'm gonna use some personal examples here because that's what I know. My body, so when I met Greg, you know, it was funny because one of the first questions he ever asked me was if I worked out because that was so important to him and I had hardly ever worked out in my life, I don't think. I still hardly have done that. But that was huge for him, that was a big deal. And...

Rachel Denning (49:09.837)
Basically, I did not work out before having children. I didn't work out if I did it was rare while having children And so by the time I had all of my children my body was wrecked in fact I want to point out you were skinny. I was getting beautiful because you ate well Yes, but you were not in shape exactly you were not fit so because she didn't exercise her muscular fitness was extremely weak

So you were healthy but unfit. Exactly. And that's an important part of the story. And because, and again, this is something I've had to think about, analyze, go through the discomfort of, right, facing that discomfort like we've talked about. I've come to realize that the reason why I had so many issues, first of all with my, I gave birth to all of my children naturally at home.

But I had some complications in some of the pregnancies because my body was so out of shape, especially the last pregnancies. And then after that, I had severe, I forget the official term of it, it's the abdominal something. It's basically. Is it diasties? Something like that, yeah. So basically my abdominal wall was just shot. Just destroyed. It had such a huge gap in it. I could fit like four fingers in between my abs.

So my body was... Meaning her intestines could like come out. Right, they could come out and they would get like pinched in between my abdominal muscles. It was really bad. She couldn't sit up. I was in very bad shape. She couldn't run. It just wrecked the whole wall. So that's what I'm trying to get to. So I realized that I had caused that because I had been out of fitness, right? Well, so then after I had my children and I wanted to now start getting...

I was still healthy from eating, but I wanted to get fit. And I wasn't able to do that because of now the condition of my abdominal wall. I don't care how many crunches you do, you cannot put your abs back together when you have this huge gap in between them. And so I tried to get back into shape.

Rachel Denning (51:26.893)
But I couldn't, literally, this was my belief. I could not do it. Because one of the things that really convinced me was I went out to go running, because I'm like, okay, I'm gonna run and I'm gonna get healthy. And I was motivated to get fit. And I had to come back early and I laid in the bed in excruciating pain because my intestines had come out, got pinched in the abdominal wall.

And it was horrible. Now, my point here is what I could have done was said, that's it. I can't get in shape. Oh well, I guess I'll just be out of shape for the rest of my life. Even then though you had complications and pain regularly. Yes. Because your organs were so messed. Even when you stopped working out you still would have episodes. You're on the bed just...

convulsions so that was part of the problem but but from my viewpoint at that time was i would never be able to get into shape because i could not work out working out caused problems for me too well cause problems i can't work out i could have just accepted that and said well okay i guess that's it that's my life i'd just have to deal with it on on the getting overweight or whatever i'll always be out of shape

But I refuse to accept that because of the reason we've talked about here of having longevity, having...

Energy having vitality having life I mean adventures like I couldn't hardly do anything with my kids I couldn't run around and play a game or didn't go hiking with go hiking I could hardly do anything because my body was in such bad shape now part of the ownership of that was like I mentioned I had caused that to on me. I had brought that on myself because I had not

Rachel Denning (53:19.149)
worked out, exercised, been fit while having my children. Now I'm contrasting this to, I know personally, my sister, she has had seven children, gave birth to all of them, including twins, the last ones are twins.

but she has always been fit, healthy, she runs, she does marathons, she works out all the time, and even though she's had seven children, she is thin, she has no stretch marks, flat abs, she doesn't have a six -pack, I know, but I mean, she's flat, but it's because of...

of how she took care of her body while she was having children. Now you could say, oh, that's just your family, that's just your genetics. No, I don't think that that's the case. I think that it's the difference between being healthy and fit and taking care of your body or not.

Now, obviously if you didn't do it like I didn't do it during that time, well then you're stuck with what you've got right now. But there's still things you can do about it. Now for me personally, I needed to and I chose to have an abdominal surgery that literally sewed my abs back together so that I could live a normal life. And that also gave me the option of now I can exercise, I can work out, I can hike, I can do all these things that I couldn't do before.

So while, you know, and I get it, if I had lived 100 years ago, that wouldn't have been an option to me. I would have had to settle for a girl or something, right? But there are things you can do as a point. And you don't have to think, oh, I need to have perfect abs and a perfect belly and no stretch marks. That's not what we're talking about. What we're talking about is you have to take the actions necessary for you to be in the health that you need to be in.

Rachel Denning (55:10.317)
That was something I had to do. I had to get the surgery so that I would have the option of being able to exercise and work out and still maintain health and fitness. So part of the argument is like, well, we just need to accept that our bodies are gonna not be perfect and we're not gonna...

be the same after having kids and I agree that's true. We're not expecting perfection, we're not expecting your body to be the same after having kids, it just won't be. But it can be it's new healthy self and besides the fact that I don't think...

just because we can't be that after we have kids doesn't mean it shouldn't be something we work towards before we have kids. Because part of the message from this email was, you know, I want my daughters to not expect to have the perfect body their whole life or I'm paraphrasing or whatever, because they're gonna have kids and it's gonna wreck their body. Well, okay, I get that, but I don't think that's an excuse. If your girls, if our, my girls, if our children can be healthy, our women especially, our daughters, if they can be healthy,

and fit and try to, if they want, get a six pack or whatever it is, like exercise and workout, and try to have a thin body because they, especially if they want it, that's only gonna help them when they're having kids. It's only gonna help them be better prepared for carrying a baby.

You know, birthing, the whole thing. Pregnancy and birth will be way better. Right, it will be easier and better because of their desire to exercise and be fit and be healthy.

Rachel Denning (56:52.045)
before the pregnancy and that goes for diet as well, of course because you know the the pregnancy is a huge drain on the nutrition and of your body So if you're healthy before that just makes your pregnancy that much easier Absolutely and recovery that much faster exactly Yeah, in fact, I've had multiple surgeries from injuries and the physicians always said like your recovery has been phenomenal because you're in such great shape Like the condition of your body it just everything giving birth exactly. Yeah, right Yeah, the recovery is amazing and and I think

I think you're right. I think that's a great point. You might say, you know what? You're not likely to have a six pack after you have a baby. But if you want one before, don't use, we can't have one after, so might as well not get one before. Like, no, go for it. Go get it. If you want it, go get it. And that's the thing. It's like, you don't have to have a six pack abs, but if you want them, go get them. I want them. My sons want them, and so we have them. So we go get them. You don't have to, but.

Like pick an ideal health and fitness for yourself and commit to stay in it. Like you were saying, the body changes. Well, and get in tune with that body shape of what your ideal shape is. Okay. And mine will, you know, it also changes with age, right? Right. So the condition of your body in your 20s changes to your 30s, your 40s, 50s. But don't use that as an excuse. So I'm 45. I don't, I could use that as an excuse and many people do. Like, well, I'm not 20 anymore.

And so they use today's excuse to have some pathetic dad bod. Like, no, in my mind that's unacceptable. Like, no way. But what about 10 years from now? What about 20 years from now? So when I'm 65, I just say, ah, you know, I'm not 45 anymore.

and accept it, no way. I'm still gonna be working out hard and eating well for my entire life because I want all the benefits of health and fitness. And it's not about looking like some 20 year old model. Not at all. That's not the point. But I'm going to look my unique best for my body shape.

Rachel Denning (58:55.213)
my age I'm going to look my best because the looks the looks actually correlate to your feeling and your condition Right looks are an assessment. So it's not vanity. It's an assessment So when I take a shower I go to the pool or whatever. It's an assessment of the condition of my body my health and fitness so

Ultimately, I hope again. I'm gonna circle back to where we began. I hope you've heard this message From the pure intent. It's coming from We in no way shape or form want to push shame

on body image at all. But we also have the natural approach that we don't avoid topics that might cause shame because if there's this feeling of shame, there's a reason for the feeling. It's not there because, at least in our case, because someone's trying to make you feel shame. Right.

Often we've noticed in our own lives that you feel shame for some reason. And so if that feeling is there, it needs to be analyzed and addressed, not ignored and blamed on an external source. Right. And assess whether that's something, some kind of comparison you picked up. Like, you know, um,

Like comparison is the thief of joy. That's a famous quote from someone famous. Or Shakespeare. I don't even know who it came from. But like if it's coming from comparison, then see why. If the comparison makes you feel uncomfortable because truly you want to be better.

Rachel Denning (01:00:40.909)
Like there is a time when comparison can be extremely helpful. I know I use comparison in a positive way. I'll look at certain things that other people are doing and think, wow, that's fantastic. I want that. And if there's feelings of guilt associated with that, I ask, why would I feel guilty? And then honestly, it comes back like, you know what?

Because I haven't been doing the work. And I want to. I want to have this thing, whatever it is, like money or health and fitness or relationships or whatever it is you want. If there's a feeling of guilt there, stop and say, well...

Is the guilt being brought up because of my own incongruence? Is it being brought up because I'm not living according to my own values? Is it because I keep giving in to the donuts? I don't eat donuts, but that's an example. Is it because I keep eating donuts when I know I shouldn't? Is guilt coming from that? That's a good thing. If you don't want to eat donuts, but you keep eating them, then guilt is a good thing.

Why not respond to it? Exactly. Why not take it in? And I think that's ultimately our message because that's the approach we've taken. That's the approach that works for us and works with any of the clients you have. That if there's something in your life like that, instead of blaming the external cause, we look internally and we analyze and become aware of the cause for those feelings. We become aware of what's...

bringing this about because that's where we actually can make the changes that then put us in congruence so then we feel good. We're not worried about what someone else is doing or saying. We feel good. And I know for me, I'm speaking from experience, same for you and people you've coached, it's true too. When you get in congruence with yourself, you're no longer triggered by these external.

Rachel Denning (01:02:44.653)
Exactly. Things. The external stimuli. So someone can say or do something and it doesn't bother you anymore because you are comfortable in your own skin. Right? And you're living in alignment with your own values. You know what's important to you. Right. And that doesn't mean perfection. That doesn't mean having this perfect body like someone else has. It means according to your own definition, according to your own shape. It could mean that too. It could mean...

And I guess you really have to get clear about like what is in your power? What's within your control? What's within your circle of influence? Let's say you're, how tall are you babe? Five, six. So Rachel is five, six and has brown hair, right? If she wanted to be a six, one blonde beach volleyball player, like.

It's crazy, right? Completely out of control. But let's say she's like, you know what? Gosh, I'd like to have some definition in my legs and my arms. Could you do that? Absolutely. That's within my power. Yeah, that's within your power. And if you see posts online of these moms flexing their legs and arms. Oh, those body shamers. Gosh. Terrible. Like, it's not that. Like, if you see somebody online that is just just.

muscular fit and six packs and muscles, that's healthy. Well, it's extremely healthy. There's nothing unhealthy about that. Right. It's interesting, at least I've noticed for myself that sometimes when I feel some sort of

maybe it's anger or irritation by someone or something that they're doing. A lot of times it's because that's something I do actually want. I want that, but I'm not willing to pay the price to get it. And so the way I cope with that subconsciously is by wanting to say, oh, well that person is whatever, you know.

Rachel Denning (01:04:45.485)
I want to make them the bad guy. I want to say that it's their fault or something like that. That's not reasonable or it's not possible for me or here's all the reasons why I can't do it. Instead of just coming to terms, again back to this idea of being comfortable in your own skin, that either saying, you know what?

That's awesome. I would love to do that. And then one, either doing the work to do it, or two, being okay with why I'm not gonna do the work to do it. And either one of those make you feel good. They make you feel better than just saying, that person's body shaming, or they're doing this, or pointing the fingers of blame. Instead I'm turning them in and I'm taking responsibility for the choices I am making. Because it is a choice. If I choose to not get in shape, or choose to not lose weight, that's a choice.

And that's fine as long as you choose it instead of playing the victim of why you can't do it. And you fully accept the consequences for your choices. Right, and you accept the consequences. Exactly. That is a way healthier place to be in, from my experience, than to want to change the outside world and how they operate instead of just changing myself. Yeah.

That's such an important, it just brings it back to you and your ownership. Because that's really the only thing we ever have control over. Exactly. The only thing we are ever going to have control over, and this is what we try to teach our children every single day. You can't be in control. You can't change what other people do, say, or think. But you can change how you think and respond to what other people say or do.

So whether that's some sort of something that's body shaming in your mind or it's something that's racist or let's fill in the blanks of all the things that go on in the world that we don't have control over, we get to decide how we interpret that action. We are the ones that get to decide. Even our daughter, okay, our daughter's black. Our oldest daughter, she's African American and we've taught her. If someone treats her in a racist way,

Rachel Denning (01:06:52.205)
That's them. It has nothing to do with her. That is on them. That's because they're the kind of person that they are. And it has nothing to do with who she is. So it's all about how you choose to interpret the world around you and how you choose to respond to it instead of being the victim to what everyone else is, how everyone else is living their life. So, yeah. Gosh, I don't want to just belabor this point, but it's so important.

There's this woman I know of, she has five kids I think, and she's in fantastic shape, and she regularly posts pictures of herself. Besides my sister. In the gym, yeah, and your sister could do the same thing. Seven kids. She could post these pictures. And I don't see them, people who have paid a price, especially if they're teaching fitness.

Like they're not body shaming, they're not posting pictures of themselves being perfect so that other people feel bad. They're saying, hey, I know. Look what I have done. Exactly. I have been able to do this and if I can do it, you can do it too. And I actually have a formula. Here's some things you can eat, here's some things you can do. For those of you who would like to look like this, it's totally possible, totally healthy. If you would like to look like this, here's the formula.

There's nothing wrong with that. Right. And if we are off condition, and again, if you're not interested in that, okay, then it's completely neutral stimuli. Like, okay, she posts that because she's offering to those who want it. Which is interesting because that's, again, back to this idea of what's internal, the internal thoughts and feelings. Often it's not neutral because of our own...

thoughts and feelings.

Rachel Denning (01:08:39.981)
So it becomes a trigger because of something within ourselves that has not been resolved. It hasn't been addressed. And so we begin to see it as a trigger, as some sort of attack, as some sort of movement, right, towards something. When in reality, those thoughts and feelings are coming from within, so there's something you haven't addressed, something you haven't looked at. Beautiful, so it all comes back to us. It all comes back to ownership and responsibility. Which is our message from the start on everything.

Everything, exactly. And my take on it is that's actually a really good thing. It's extremely empowering to say, oh, this is on me. Right. That's way more powerful. It's not outside of me. It's not society. It's not those other people. This is in my circle of influence. I can do something about that. Now, obviously, I can't. I would love to be 6 '4 and about 2 '40. That's your ideal. But I'm going to have to wait.

Unless you wear wedge shoes. For the resurrection maybe. Yeah, I can wear five inch wedge shoes and put on a lot of weight or steroids or something, whatever. I cannot do that, but can I be just ripped and fit? Absolutely I can. And that's empowering because I can do that. And so take ownership, take control. Yes, love yourself.

No matter how you are right now. Love yourself. But love yourself because of what you just said. Because of the power you have. You have power. It's already there. You don't have to be fit to have any more power than you do now. And I'm talking about potential and inner power.

Obviously when you get more fit you have more physical power and if you exercise your brain you have more mental power but all of that's already lying within you. It's all inherent.

Rachel Denning (01:10:39.181)
And so, and learn, practice separating it. So say I love myself, I absolutely love my body and the miracle that it is. And then if you're overweight, here's what I would do. And there's been times when I was overweight. Well, it's relative. Stop, I love myself, I love my body, I'm so grateful for it. And this gut right here is.

And again, gut, I just use gut, I just look down, the gut's the first and obvious example, right? It's just right there in front of you. You can take your legs or your arms, whatever it is, just say, this is unacceptable. I'm overweight, I have extra fat on my body. This is not the result I want. I love my body, this fat's unacceptable. I'm gonna work until it's gone. And in some ways, it's almost like you're, while that fat is a part of your body, you're separating it. It is. Because...

As part of the comment in here was, you know, loving my body the way God made it. Well, God didn't make it with the baby fat and that's cute. That's adorable. Babies should be fat. Exactly. Toddlers should be fat. Women should gain weight when they're pregnant. Exactly. That's all part of how God made it. But that fat really is not a part of you. It's extra. In fact, if you look at the biochemistry, the metaphysics, like all of this extra, like,

It's almost a, I don't know if tumor is the right word, but it's this growth that's not a part of you. It's extra, it's almost like a cancer in a way, right? Because cancer is a mutation of cells. Yes, it's a slow death. Right, and so it's this add -on that's not a part of the real you, which is why, going back to the idea of why you feel bad, your body is saying, wait.

This isn't me. This is wrong. Something's off here. Let's change it. This isn't the way I was created. This isn't the way I was intended to be. It's the seed oils and the sugar and the soda and the junk. And it's all the garbage that's causing this. Again, it's a beautiful separation. That's separate from the way God created you. That's separate from me and who I really am. God created a body to be a certain way.

Rachel Denning (01:12:51.693)
Extra fat is not the way he created them to be. So again, I don't know. I think this is empowering. I think it's exciting. It's an opportunity to get clear about who you want to be and how you want to live, to absolutely love yourself and your miraculous body. But commit right now. And this is the commitment I made and the commitment I encourage everyone to make, to commit, to get into, and stay in.

the best health of your life for the rest of your life and that's doable. Because ultimately all that comes down to is your daily and weekly habits. I mean that's really why it's also so simple. I think if I think if we were saying something that was impossible to achieve that you had to go to great lengths to do it.

That would be different. But we've learned from experience with ourselves and from teaching it to thousands of people, it really is just a simple formula that comes down to your daily and weekly habits. If you get the habits of just these certain things, and many of you are doing that and you're saying, I'm still not getting the results, well there's...

tweaks that need to be made. Maybe you have to look at something like how many seed oils you're actually eating when you don't think you are, right? You have to start looking at those types of things because yes, society is a little more complex than it used to be when we were hunter -gatherers, right? And we have a whole podcast on what to eat because we've thought about this, researched it, studied it for a long time. Two podcasts actually on what to eat. Go there, that's a place to look because you might be...

unknowingly taking things into your body that are actually causing either inflammation, which could look like extra fat, but it's not, it's inflammation, or be causing extra weight like seed oils when you don't even know you're eating whatever that you think is healthy, because it says it's healthy, it says it's keto, it says it's whatever, vegan, and it's actually making you fat because it has seed oils in it. Like this happens more often than not than you know.

Rachel Denning (01:14:54.061)
So you just have to develop those daily and weekly habits, make tweaks to figure out what's off.

That's about it. And then you just follow that formula for the rest of your life. And it becomes easier and easier and easier. It becomes so automatic. It's not even something you have to really think about. And we've been able to help so many clients do this. And it might even be like, well, I feel guilty because I'm super busy parent. I don't have the time. The joke I was like to say is like, last I checked, it doesn't take more time to eat less food and eat healthier. And sometimes it feels

It feels like it takes more time to figure out what is healthy food. There is that learning curve, so to say. But in the long run, it's worth it. And I think if nothing else, I feel that we have been married 22 years, we have seven children, and we have maintained health and fitness for that entire time.

because of simple basic habits. One of them is travel. With traveling to 50 countries, right? And eating every time we go to a restaurant in Turkey, they give us french fries, which we try to not eat most of the time. But...

like we've still been able to do it and one of the basic things is just it starts in the kitchen. Well, I, you know what? I would even add this now. It starts in the grocery store. That's actually where it starts. That's where I started to change my life forever was when I started to look at every single thing and read the ingredients on everything I bought at the grocery store, try to buy as many things that don't have ingredients, right? It's just like, here's an apple, no ingredients. It's just that. And that right there has.

Rachel Denning (01:16:41.165)
maintained health for 22 plus years. Fantastic. I love it. So it's exciting. It's awesome. It's totally doable. If we can do it, anybody can do it. And if there's something that we didn't address here and you're like, what about this? Or what about that? Email us. Let us know. Because we're honestly trying to take an honest approach to this. It's not meant to be some twisted version of reality. It's...

from the best that we can see it, this is reality. This is how it really is. And it's a reality that empowers us instead of makes us victims to society or trends or whatever is going on in the world. And overall, holistically, like your whole life, it helps you feel better and look better and live better. And man, gosh, life is so much better when...

when you feel good, physically, mentally, emotionally, spiritually, socially, when you're winning. And there are simple formulas for winning, which is why we do the extraordinary family formula. I think we mentioned this before, Rachel's working on this 28 day habit tracker.

The 28 day challenge. The 28 day challenge. It just works. It's these simple strategies and systems that make life so good. Right. It really comes down to simple, simple things. And you're like, man, this feels fantastic. Keep doing this. Right. And I think it is the same. It's the same with your health and fitness. And if it fills off, you just have to dial in those systems and strategies and habits. And then.

you feel congruent and you don't have to feel ashamed anymore. You have to feel guilty or whatever it is that your body is trying to do.

Rachel Denning (01:18:41.261)
tell you. So I want to give just a little bit of hope. It's almost like sometimes I feel like and maybe I'm maybe I'm way out in outer space on this. Sometimes I feel like I can sense some of your thoughts and questions while you're listening here. I just I maybe it's just working from so many people like yeah but what about this what about this. So I just want to share something like if you want to get in better health and maybe you're a little overweight.

with some very simple tweaks little adjustments that that take almost no additional effort I mean so simple you could easily lose Maybe two to three pounds a week So how long does that take to to drop weight, you know ten weeks?

That's two and a half months. So just look at your calendar two and a half months from now like we're in the summer and you're 20 pounds lighter 20 pounds a lot like try to try to envision holding 20 pounds in your hands and Then it's gone. Just let it go and And you haven't had to make drastic changes make a few simple adjustments and two and a half months from now You look and feel like a different person?

It's awesome. And let's say maybe you don't need to lose weight, but you just want some better fitness. You want more definition in your arms and legs. Wait, they're gonna say, what are those tweaks? What are they? Well, we covered those extensively in other podcast. I'll mention them. But let me hit this one real quick in the fitness thing. Maybe you just want to be a little more fit, a little stronger. Okay, we'll start today and just start running or start doing some pushups. Just do pushups every day and go to your limit and then do some more. And if you'll do them every day, if you're going a little run every day, you're going...

You know, fitness, you know, grab some weights, do that a little bit every day. And again, you can go at your intensity level. If you want to get just, just absolutely ripped, then man, go for it. Get a trainer, hit the gym, go hard, just, just turn it on or just start doing these things and watch what happens in two to three months. You'll be like, wow, like.

Rachel Denning (01:20:47.021)
I can see the definition in my pectoral muscles or in my arms. Wow, I can actually see my biceps. Oh, look, I can see my quads. It's amazing. And two to three months are going to pass whether you do anything or not. So you can be the same. You can be heavier. You can be fitter. Like, whatever. They're going to pass. So make the tweaks and keep trending upward toward the ideal you want to be and have in your team.

Okay, for losing the weights, losing weight, I would say eliminate soda, eliminate refined sugar, eliminate seed oils, vegetable oils, canola oils, all that junk. If all that seems overwhelming, start with one.

What's not overwhelming? Just get rid of all that junk. I'm just going to put it out there. Just throw it in the garbage and never buy it again. For those who are like, what? What am I going to eat if I eliminate those things? Just start with one. And recreate your diet. So again, soda is a good one. I've had all my clients, first thing we do is stop soda. And man, it's amazing the change, the transformation that happens. That includes Red Bull. Yeah, oh yeah, the caffeine drinks. And I would say coffee, alcohol.

All those things and here's why, because it's disrupting your gut and your bloodstream and that disruption, it actually increases fat retention. And so you want to get rid of those things. And so again, just start there and go easy on the carbohydrates, like less rice, less flour, less bread, less oats, less grains.

And I'm not saying no, I'm just saying a lot less. And it's easy enough to do that. Let's say you just love sandwiches. Well, just do an open sandwich where you just have one piece of bread on the bottom and then more like meats, healthy meats and cheeses on their... Make your own mayonnaise, not from... Just start looking at ingredients. Be like, oh man, if it's nasty stuff, just cut it out and find... And there's so many good, healthy and delicious and nutritious meals online. Just start looking at stuff and say, hey, we're gonna...

Rachel Denning (01:22:56.717)
We're gonna find good things and start experimenting, trying with that. And then take your portion size down. So just decrease it by a third. So let's say if you just take a plate of food that you've been eating, just eat two thirds of that instead of what you're normally eating. And you might feel a little bit hungry for the first few days, but...

But whatever that means that it just goes your body shrinks and it adjusts and then you no longer feel hungry eating less. You actually feel full. I mean, that's the thing. One of the people, some people think, oh, you're so skinny because you eat so little. And I'm like, yeah, but I'm not hungry. Like I eat as much as I want, but I stop as soon as I'm full. That's the key. I stop when I feel full. I don't keep eating. And when you do that, your stomach shrinks to a normal size.

and you feel satiated, you feel like you're eating a lot, you're eating plenty. Despite the fact that I look like I'm eating a lot less than most people, I'm not starving myself. I'm fully - Right, you're satiated and nourished. Fully full. Most of us have stomachs that are oversized. We've stuffed food in there and so the stomach adjusts, the body's amazing. And so it has expanded, it's bigger, so now it takes more to fill it. And so it might be like, hey, I'm not quite full, I need a little bit more.

and you just say, no, no, no, stomach, you're just a little too big there, buddy. And it'll, it'll actually adjust itself back down. I go, um, I love having my clients do this. And again, not, not everyone can do this. You got to be careful about it, but I love having my clients that are able to start with a two or three day fast. You just drink lots and lots and lots of water, um, and no food for a couple of days. And what it does is it cleans out your stomach, cleans out your bowels, cleans out. It's really good for you.

and then your stomach tightens down. When it's over, don't binge. Don't binge to start it and you're like, I'm done and eat a whole cow. Or a whole box of donuts. Or, I could say worse, just have healthy food and come back and we'll have you just eat a little bit and you'll find like, oh man, I'm satiated with just a little bit. Well, when you say a little bit, you mean eat plenty but eat less than you used to. Less than you used to, you're right. And notice when you actually feel full. That's another problem I think and especially,

Rachel Denning (01:25:11.725)
Maybe it's a Western culture thing, I don't know, but like, we like to just eat and eat and eat. It's not until we're full, well, they do it in Italy too, I know that, but, you know, we just keep eating, even if we are full. And if you learn to just eat when you're hungry and stop when you're full, that right there is a magic formula. Another thing I'm gonna add is, first thing in the morning, as soon as we wake up,

we go to the bathroom first and then drink a glass of water. Both of us have done that for 20 years practically. With or without lemon juice, sometimes with lemon juice. That right there is huge. And then the next thing I do... It actually raises your metabolism. Yes, that too. The other thing I do is I don't eat in the morning, partly because I'm not hungry. Well, okay, I actually sometimes will be hungry, but what satiates my hunger is I make a cup of herbal tea.

And I put a tablespoon of butter in it, especially if I'm really hungry. I put more butter in if I'm not so hungry. Grass head. I put less butter in. And some honey, because honey is good and natural. And then I actually put milk in it too, or cream. That right there, that's usually my breakfast. Now you might be like, how could I live on that? Well, your body can get used to anything. So I literally don't need any real food. In fact, I don't think I've even eaten today. Right now it's 1 p .m. in Turkey.

I've been up since 7 a .m. and I haven't eaten a thing except for my cup of tea with, didn't even have butter today because we're out of butter. I had cream and milk, honey and water and that's all I've had today. Now I'm hungry, I'm going to go eat some food. And I had a hard workout and a run in and still haven't had anything either. Now usually we don't go this late to not eat. I'll usually eat around 11 but that's my first meal of the day.

And then... And I'm not starving. This is what I emphasize. It's not like I feel like I'm starving myself. I'm not. If I'm hungry, I will eat. But I don't eat until I am hungry. And I start the day with the tea, which holds me over until 11 or 12. And then we cut it off in the evening. Try to eat your dinner or your meal a few hours before bed and have it be a smaller one. There's no reason to fill your tank with fuel.

Rachel Denning (01:27:31.629)
to go to bed. Right. Because then it just turns into fat. Which in a lot of many, many countries, lunch is the biggest meal of the day. And that's actually a lot healthier. Spain, for one. Italy. All of Latin America. All of Latin America. Lunch is the biggest meal of the day. They have a tiny dinner. Right. So it's actually healthier. We kind of do that. We have much earlier dinners and they're larger and then...

You know, we don't really have a big meal before we go to bed. Often it's just a snack or something. And you should not eat at least three hours before you go to bed. There you go. There's that right there. Those simple things. I mean, that's the basics right there. And then if you want to know what to eat and what not to eat, according to our research and study for the past two decades, then listen to our two podcast episodes on this topic that were just literally called What to Eat.

Okay, love you guys, thanks for listening. You're awesome. Love yourself, love your body, give the best health to your life. Reach out.