Healing the World One Mom at a Time

Hi and welcome to the You World Order Showcase podcast. Today we have with us. Rachelle Renee. Rochelle is a health coach and healer and a podcast host of Faith, Fitness and Joy, Faith Fitness, Joy trying to throw an Ant in there that didn't belong. So people are looking to find you.

Yeah.

Just look up faith, fitness, joy or check the show. Welcome to the show, Rachelle. It's nice to have you.

Thank you. It's great to.

Sure.

So tell us your story. How did you get started in this adventure that you're on?

Yeah. Well, I've been in health and putting up in some shape or form for a very long time. It started at a young age for me when so about 30 plus years. But I would say in the last 10 years is when I really.

Kind of started to.

On my current I guess journey you could say and creating what I've come to create through my business and my podcast which you mentioned is Faith, Fitness, joy.

So it started about 10 years ago. I found myself, you know, unexpectedly in a divorce and raising three kids on my own. And I was working full time in a very demanding job at that time. And I found myself struggling with depression and anxiety, insomnia. I was struggling to lose the baby weight.

For my younger.

Just I was just in a really bad place.

And I I wasn't the person or the mom that I wanted to be for my kids. And so I knew I had to do something to to fix that. So I kind of started off thinking like weight loss was like the silver bullet. And if I could lose the weight again, then I it would all be better. And along the way, I learned the importance of things like mindset and ultimately led.

Be two by healing.

Journey. You know, a lot of things I just hadn't realized were actually kind of at the root of a lot of my self sabotaging cycles and things like that that were keeping me from getting the progress I wanted to get. So I've taken all that over the past.

You know, 10 years or so that I've been doing this and all the things I've learned, I've done a lot of investment in myself to, you know, for my own well-being and.

Also.

To help with what I now help other people with, so I took all of that. I've created like kind of this integrated programs that help with health Wellness. So it's kind of an integrated approach to the mind, body and soul, if you will, for health.

So important the the the mind and the spiritual connection to the body in terms of trying to lose weight. So many people struggle with.

Being heavier than they want to be, or maybe they have body dysmorphia where they think that they should look like they did when they were in their teens or their 20s, which you have kids. Your body's never going back. Sorry to break it to you. One of those things.

OK.

But there's such important aspects to the whole weight loss journey.

Yeah, very much. And like I said, I think what I learned along the way I I actually it was when I was younger because like I said, it all kind of started when I was younger and I've actually struggled with body dysmorphia most of my life.

And I remember I had this number on the scale I thought I should be, and I had this size. I thought I should be.

And I did all the things I that you know to get there. And I finally got there. And the thing was when I looked in the mirror, I didn't it. Nothing had changed. I was still just in that same place. And that's what taught me that none of it's going to matter the number on the scale, the size, any of it, unless you fix kind of what's at the root of.

Why you're feeling that way, and why you're, you know, looking in the mirror, not like what you see. And so I had to learn to love myself along the way as I was working towards my goals. And, you know, when I started again about a decade ago.

After I had my kids and it just became very different and my focus shifted from, you know, having this ideal kind of impossible standard in my brain of what I thought I should look like to my well-being. Basically it was, you know, I just wanted to get my energy back. I wanted to feel better, and I wanted to just be better version of myself. And so.

When I started to focus on that and sort of chase that.

Everything else shifted and everything else sort of started to fall in place and you know the the weight started to come off and I started to feel better and then it didn't matter what the number on the scale was. And I realized that you.

And.

You know the number on the scale can be not what you might equate to a certain size or look, but you can actually still achieve that physique regardless of having a higher weight, so to speak, just from, you know, things like having strength training and what you're eating and that kind of stuff. So that was a big shift for me and realizing that.

And that's one of the core things I've built into everything. I'm I'm doing now for other women and moms that I'm trying to help with my programs to help them with realizing that.

And.

Building that sense in themselves.

And you have to, you have to love yourself along the way at every step. Otherwise it's not going to matter if you lose 100 lbs or.

20 lbs.

If the if the mental part is still sort of not addressed.

It's not going to matter.

And looking at that number on the scale, the the call to drink more water these days, water weighs 8 lbs a gallon.

And when you're saying, drink a gallon of water.

Where do you think that weights going?

Yeah, that's a good point.

So if you're super hydrated, you may weigh more than if you're really dehydrated on a given day, and it can fluctuate your weight. You know, if you're one of those.

Yeah.

People, that's really.

Glued to that number and you're weighing yourself multiple times a day.

And you're you're resting your whole well-being how you feel about yourself on a number on the scale that is like the saddest.

Thing to me, I.

And I know people do it.

Yeah.

It was a time in my life.

I did it just like it doesn't.

And it's one, it's just.

One piece, I mean, it's not even.

You need to look at the whole. You need to look at pictures and you also need to look at other measures like your you know, body measurements and how your clothes are fitting. Because I mean, there's been. I've lost. I lost an initial 55 lbs and then my weight is kind of stayed the same, but I've still dropped sizes. I still, you know, changed in terms of what I was.

Wearing and how my body looked because of the the things I was doing.

And a lot of it really comes down to how you're nourishing yourself more than anything, because there's there's a lot of programs out there that will.

You know, they emphasize things like a deficit and so then it's kind of like no matter what, as long as you're not not eating more calories than you're burning, which is true to an extent, but it does matter what you eat and it's going to affect how you look. So. And it's also going to that number on the scale may not change, but you could still be in great health and great.

OK.

So I really you know it's it's hard to see people kind of obsessing about the scale and it's something I try to encourage people to not not rely on so much and not not get on it every week. Even, you know, maybe every two weeks, check your progress when you're trying to lose weight, but beyond that.

Or never. You can just throw it out, you know, get a tape measure. It'll tell you more accurately. I have a story about a woman that I used to work with. She.

She was kind of fluffy fat. She weighed 145 lbs and she went and she hired a trainer and she went on to win some bodybuilding prizes and competitions.

And she weighed the same amount.

You look at the 2 pictures.

Of her and.

Her physique is totally different.

But the same number on the scale just.

Exactly.

Goes to emphasize what you were talking about. So in the video that I watched on your website, I saw a boxing.

Bag. Oh, do you do beat boxing? Do you do regular boxing? Why? Why do you have this big pink boxing bag?

I you know, it's it's so funny because when I.

Started uh gosh before I went into weightlifting probably 25 years ago now. You might remember Billy Blanks. I think that was his name and he had that type.

Of workout. It was big.

Ohh yeah, yeah yeah OK.

Yeah. And so I I got started with that and I just love those workouts. And ever since, I've just always had some sort of kickboxing workout in my routine, and then I don't know, years ago I got a heavy bag as a Christmas gift, and I've just kept it. And so now I like to workout with it. It's.

Fun to me. It's fun. It's one of the ways I like to work out and that's one of the things I like to encourage people with is find things you enjoy, you know, like you'll never catch me on a stationary bike because I absolutely hate that. But if that's like, your favorite way to move, then that's what you should, you know, incorporate into your routine. So that's what that is.

Out.

I love it. I love it. I.

Do jerkies these days.

Which is kind of like burpees, but they're Jills version because at 64 I am not doing a lot of jumping around these days.

Ohh gotcha.

Burpees are no joke.

But they're no joke. But this friend of mine, she just like I'm doing, I'm doing 100 burpees a day.

Oh my God.

She's a lot younger than I am been in.

A lot better shape and I thought I.

Could do 8.

Pies, just a combination of a burpee and a little bit of yoga done at a much slower pace. But it does have the 8 push-ups in it.

Ohh there you go.

And I'm happy with it makes me happy to do that. Doesn't take me forever.

That's what's important.

And they just.

Get a little winded. So I mean, that's all you really need. If you combine that with something else where like we walk an hour a day anyway, so.

Yeah, that's it. I mean, to me, cardio for cardio walking is.

Yeah.

Cardio.

Yeah, it it. It's just like it's fun and you're exercising your dog. Who won't drive you crazy later. So there's.

That and yeah.

Yeah, all the things. Hope it doesn't rain on you.

Yeah.

So when you work with people and you primarily work with moms.

Yes.

Yeah, let's start there.

Because you are one.

Yeah. And that's kind of how it started with me and like everything that's led up to me creating my podcast, it started as a blog before that and then now with my coaching business.

But it was all like I said, I was always kind of chasing this ideal for so long in my life because I had bodies.

Yeah.

And then when I got to the root of that, I you know that led me to realizing like there's, you know, there's so many of these programs out there that are very emphatic on the weight loss piece. You know, the exercise and the nutrition, which is fine. But I find that it's not going to. It's not enough to get you long term. And it's really a lifestyle that you're trying to establish.

The ongoing way of living and taking care of yourself and having all gone through these shifts. I've gone through over the years I've I've come to see it as more of an investment in your your future of your health and your well-being. You know it's going to.

Keep you mobile longer and stronger, longer and independent longer as you age and all these things so.

And on top of all the other benefits that are outside of the aesthetics, right, there's so many other benefits to it. So I kind of saw that as a gap, I guess in what's out there where, you know, you'll see a lot of things where you can sign up and you can get an exercise program and a diet plan or some something like that. But you're not necessarily getting the help with.

How to shift your mindset and transform your mindset, and also that inner work to.

That at the root causes that created your thought paradigm in the 1st place. Your dominant thought paradigm. So I've done a lot of training around this. I've invested a lot in my own knowledge and and understanding about that. So as I've done that, I've incorporated that into what I'm doing so that it's not just.

The programs they offer are not just about weight loss, it's actually really trying to help you achieve kind of this total transformation of your mind and your body and your soul and really get kind of reconnected to who you are reconnected to. However you conceive of God or the spiritual side of yourself.

Health and your physical health because the physical is just one part of it. So I really wanted to to kind of create something broader that encompasses all of those things and helps women and moms with all those things because I mean that they were all things I was struggling with. I mean, I used to have panic attacks. I wasn't sleeping.

I was, you know, I was battling depression and I've come through all of that and overcome all of that with the.

So.

Having to.

You know, continue with medications or anything like that long term. So and I know that can be valuable.

Component, if that's what you're needing, but for me I just didn't. It wasn't helping me and it wasn't what I wanted to do long term. And I and being a single mom, it was.

Like.

It's on. It's on me to figure this out. I have to have to find a way, and having discovered that it's like I want to help other people do this now.

No.

Yeah, it's really important. The the whole drug aspect is.

They're they're great stopgap.

Solutions but.

Just to help you with the immediacy of the problem, but long term it's going to cause you more problems than it solves if you're trying to like.

Generally evolves around some trauma that you're experiencing in life and divorce is huge. I mean to to go through that. It's it's. I think it's worse. I've been divorced and I think it's worse than losing a husband because they're still there.

Yeah.

But.

They're not part of your life anymore. Whether you left or they left.

The relationship it.

It's.

It destroys a lot in your life. It changes so much in your life.

Yeah, totally. And the ongoing impacts of it too, with your kids and. Yeah, yeah, that's that's for sure. And you're right. I mean, it's because there's something underlying that's, you know, deeper than just that. I mean, that's really kind of the the symptom or the.

Whatever is presenting out on the external trying to signal you that there's something else going on that's not being addressed, and as I it's interesting too, because I have a background in behavioral health. I actually worked in that at the state level.

For over 20 years, so I'm familiar with a lot of those. You know, the aspects of things like substance use disorders and mental health conditions as well. And but you often find that there's it's really hard to to what do you call it? Does it detach underlying trauma, especially in women? I think it was something.

Some crazy statistic I remember hearing at a conference years ago was something like 80% of women in substance use treatment and, at least in this one location that the study was in also have some sort of underlying trauma. And so then it's it's, you know, how do you get at that? Because that's really what is.

Kind of going to keep, it's going to keep repeating in some way until you get to the root of that.

And just taking a drug doesn't help you get to the root of it, I.

Think it was more my.

Yeah. It's kind of like a Band-Aid, in my opinion anyway.

Because it it's the underlying cause is still there. It's helping with the symptoms of the underlying cause, but it's not addressing what's really leading to what you're experiencing.

MM.

And this is kind of where men and women are very different. And when we talk about weight loss with men, it's like the the whole well, I just didn't eat lunch and I lost 5 lbs.

Or or don't eat less and move more, and that's another one of my favorites. It's like, you know, it might work for you, honey, but it's not working for me. I can starve myself for three days and I will gain weight. So it's like you. You have to find. You have to address.

The mental issues that you're dealing with.

So that your hormones will straighten out, because that's really what drives whether you're going to gain weight or lose weight, or you're going to stay one weight or another and you your body will find a point where it's happy, it has a happy spot. And if you feed it nutritional food, not like the.

Junk that's passed off. You know there's companies out there that.

Well.

Prepackaged food which are only lightly food. Yes, they're edible marginally, but they're not really contributing to the overall health of your body.

They're just matching some magic number is in terms of calories, which everybody's body is different and everybody's body at different points in their life will require different kinds of calories and different amounts of calories.

Exactly. And like you said, I mean, I think the biggest thing is what's happening in the mindset, because there's a whole physiological, there's like a series of physiological things that happen based on.

How you're thinking?

And that's I, I mean, I've come to realize over the years.

Having come out of.

All the things I was spelling with the past.

How it was that I was working myself literally into panic attacks just from how I was thinking, because I would sit there and I would get into this negative. What if game or catastrophizing as I think they call it and you're you're going through these little scenarios in your mind and you just your brain doesn't know the difference. And so it's signaling your body to go into those.

All of that stress hormone, all of the panic types of hormones, the things that are going to keep you alive.

If you're being.

Attacked physically in some way. So your to your brain. It's the same thing and we don't really realize that. And then what? Over time, when it's chronic like that and it's an ongoing thing you get into where I discovered later I was actually in what's called Lexa by me or where like you don't even realize. You think you're fine.

Which are not because you're so used to being operating at this crazy high level of stress.

And so I I spent a good year and a half, two years, just kind of like undoing that and working to undo that with it by integrating a number of other things that are helping with stress management and the inner healing work that I've spent the last couple of years doing with myself to really like, start to reverse that.

And that is a huge factor. And I think what has been a challenge for my own weight loss and other people is because that physiological thing is still happening in the background. It's like a program running.

The whole day. And so you're kind of up against that and not even knowing it because you're not aware of it, to even address it so.

Really important.

When you do, you find that when you do become aware of it, you can feel it. When it starts to happen.

In your body.

Yeah, totally.

Definitely. And then now that I I have gotten the awareness of it, I can catch it faster and shift myself out of it. And that's the key. It's like, once you know, it's you like someone I was talking to the other day said something like you can't. You don't lose awareness. So it's like as you increase your awareness of this and start to understand how it happens and what's at the core.

Of it you can catch it and it it loses that power over you and you can start to like, disentangle yourself from it over time.

And it's a physical disentanglement. It it really does your thoughts create?

Chemical reactions.

And those chemical reactions, Dr. different hormones, which are just chemicals in your body doing specific jobs and.

What you're thinking about affects your whole body.

We're we're not really taught to look at our whole being as as a unit. Like, oh, there's your brain and your brain thinks these things and yeah, you got these emotions and those are like totally whacked in the old days. They used to just lobotomize.

Women, when they were too emotional.

It's a sad thing, but true. And then you know, your body is doing all these things monthly because we have like 28 day cycles versus you know a guy cycle. I think it's 12 hours.

Which is why, you know, jobs were set up for men on a men's cycle, whereas women, you know, they struggle parts of the month that are really not good times for them to be out there in the world working they should.

Be.

Able to rest and.

It's just.

It's all weird.

Yeah, but it's a it's 100% true and I think.

A lot of.

People you know don't necessarily realize it, and there hasn't been a whole lot to help explain that until I don't know, maybe fairly recent years there's some.

Some great books and and information research has come out in the in in recent years that helps us understand that how connected it all is.

Yeah, your mind, I mean, I always say it's like when it comes to weight loss or or overall health, it's like 80% nutrition and 20% exercise and it's 100% mindset like governing everything and we just don't.

Absolutely.

We're kind of taught to not even really think about it.

Yeah, we're taught to not think about our thoughts.

Yeah.

So we just react to them. Every thought that comes into your head is like.

Oh my God, this could be the end.

Yeah.

We can create our own.

Realities you can tell yourself a better life source of pure says.

You know just.

Choose what you're thinking about. Look at. Look at the thought that's happening and it's like, does that really serve me or not?

And you can make that choice.

Many people don't really understand that.

It is a choice.

Right. Yeah, we don't. We feel like we're, yeah, it's it's not like it's happening to us kind of thing and so.

It is and and that I mean it's.

It's.

Awesome news when you think about it, because once you know that, then it's like, OK, you can start to look at how you can shift it because your your state of being is within your control. It's just you got to get the control back by starting to learn how your mind is working either for you or against you and just get it on your side.

Right.

Which sounds easy, but it's.

A lot of work.

Is is not.

It's ongoing, so how do you work with people? Do you work in groups? one-on-one over the Internet in person? How does that look?

I do. I do both. I not not both in person and on the online. I'm mostly online. Well, 100% online in terms of programs and and things so.

So I have a I do combinations so I have different group coaching programs available. If people want to, you know, go that route. And then I also have private one-on-one coaching programs as well. So and I've done I do different, I have the more holistic packages.

That are geared at like the health and fitness, you know, weight loss, exercise mindset and inner healing. And then I also have programs that are just more of my energy healing.

Work, so they're more geared towards helping with mindset shifting and just helping you, you know, grow in your spiritual connection and tapping into that side of yourself and helping with clearing energetic blocks and activating, you know, more positive energy in your body.

And it feels so nice.

I like it that that's one of my favorite things to do.

Better to work.

Mine too. The first time I ever did keidong I was.

I was blown away by the fact that I could feel the energy.

It it never had occurred to me before I did it that.

There's there's energy and it's you can feel it and you can manipulate it and you can use it to heal yourself.

Was kind of one of those mind blowing moments for me. Yeah, so.

In fact, I have a story about my dad. He he's 88 now, but he had a problem with his neck like he couldn't turn it. I had to turn his whole body in order to turn his neck, and he'd been to chiropractors and massages and all the things. And he does Tai Chi and one of the Tai Chi classes that he's part of had.

A A master.

Or.

Come to offer to heal a group of people. He lives in a retirement community, so if they get a certain number of people that want this guy to come, he'll come. So my dad's thinking, this old Chinese guy is going to heal him and he shows up for the event and it's a a young Hispanic man who studied for years.

With the Masters and he, he moves his hands over my dad in some specific ways. Never actually touches my dad and his.

That was freed up. He could move it all over.

The place now. Oh, that's amazing.

So it's one of those things. So you don't think energy work works.

Talk to me. Lots of stories about it.

Yeah, it is. It's.

I think it's slowly starting to get more recognition, but I know it's one of those things that it's just not.

Not talked about or people kind of think like, oh, that couldn't work kind of thing. So but it it does. It's amazing. There's so many. There's a number of different modalities out there, but it's all, you know, kind of a similar. It's just moving that energy and helping you get these because we store it. It's I I don't know if you're familiar with Doctor.

So to spend that in some of his books and his work, and I think he just, I love how he explains things in a way that make it so understandable. And he talks about how it all ends up kind of in your body somewhere.

Be you know it's it's going to end up stored in there somewhere and so it's just a matter.

Of like getting that.

Block out of your body. That's usually what's fruit of these different physical ailments we have. It's like your body's way of trying to tell you somethings like.

Needs to be released.

Were addressed.

I love his work mainly because he's really scientific about it. He measures stuff and he has data, so it's not like he's just saying Antidotal ally, this these, these are the results people get.

Like we took this number of people and we measured all of these markers and then we ran them through the process and then we measured all the markers again. And this is the change.

So when I'm telling you XY and Z, it's because.

Change. It's like you don't have to. Just believe him. He he shows you just.

His own story is pretty phenomenal, I.

It's like, yeah, it's amazing.

So amazing and he's helped so many people, it's.

Yeah, just like incredible. So I know that you offer a training program for people to get to know you and how you work with them. You want to talk a little bit about that.

Sure. Yeah. So one of the things ioffer for that very reason is a free 30 day training program. So it's kind of a design to help kind of kick start your weight loss efforts. But it's also a great way to kind of get a sense of working with me or even just you know getting started and helping you. In my experience, you need to get at least a good 30 days.

To really start to see some change.

And also to kind of establish or break habits, that's kind of the magic window of time. So that's what it's designed for. And so in that program you get access to a trainer app and then there's choice between home workouts or gym workouts, depending on your preference.

Their weight loss efforts. So that's what I like to offer folks.

Yeah, just something I have.

Kind of as an ongoing.

Offer, so if you find me on social media, I have the link to that in my BIOS.

On all of my socials.

And we'll put the links in the show notes below. So what's the one thing that you'd like the audience to take away from this conversation? You know, we've talked about a lot.

The biggest thing is like the theme of the conversation is the mindset like you have the power.

To achieve the changes you want in your life and your well-being, all in your mind, and so if you know nothing else, remember that and start to look at your current mindset and see where you can.

Start.

To make some shifts.

You'll be amazed what happens when.

You start paying attention to it.

Yeah, it's the paying attention part.

That.

Yeah.

Where the magic happens. Thanks. Thanks for joining me today, Rochelle.

Yeah.