In this motivating episode, Roni Travis shares her journey towards holistic well-being, emphasizing the pitfalls of waiting for external goals for happiness. She discusses the importance of self-love, sustainable health approaches, and confidently navigating external judgments.
Get started on your wellness journey with Roni!!
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Transcript
Hi and welcome to the You World Order Showcase podcast. Today we are talking with Roni Travis. Roni is dedicated to aligning mind, body and soul. It's so great to have you with us, Roni and I'm excited to chat about this. So how'd you get started?
So basically I start. I was always a very active kid and I played sports and then like most good girls, I went to university and I was doing just a Bachelor of Arts, realized that wasn't what I wanted to do. And one of my friends was in the fitness and health.
That's right, Richard.
Promotion program at a different school.
And you know, I kind of went over and was learning about it, and I just kind of I had always been interested in fitness and.
It's one of.
Those things I just kind of started and the more I did it, the better I felt, and not just because my body changed, but because, like my whole world changed. I always been one of those people who I struggled with anxiety and mental health and it really just helped me feel better from the inside out.
And once they got into the real world and, you know, started working with clients, which.
It's funny. When I went to school I thought I would be more in the corporate side of things doing Wellness promotion with all these big companies. And then I just started working one-on-one with clients and I fell in love with it, right. I fell in love with watching women, like get stronger and physically and mentally and just learning.
And watching them fall in love with their bodies, it is just. It's so rewarding and it's something that, you know, I never planned on, but looking back on my life, it definitely makes sense.
We were talking a little bit before.
About the process of putting.
Putting how you feel now before waiting instead of like waiting until you reach some nebula school that never appears, I don't.
Care how many goals.
You set. You never reach them.
Yeah. So, yeah, So what we were talking about before is basically the part of we always tell ourselves I'll be happy when, right. I'll be confident when I reach this goal weight, I'll be happy. When I, you know, can fit into this pair of jeans. But the problem with when is when never comes because and I know because this was me when I first started.
My finish journey I was like, OK, I'll be confident and I'll like, you know, loosen up on my diet. When I hit this way.
And you know, the magical day came and I stepped off the scale and I looked in the mirror and nothing changed the way I felt about myself didn't change. The job promotion didn't come out of nowhere. The boy didn't confess his love for me. You know, there's no fireworks, nothing happened. And that was really when I realized that, you know, it's.
How we look doesn't really matter. It's how we see ourselves and if how you see yourself doesn't change, it truly doesn't matter. You know how much weight you lose or what you do, because you'll never feel satisfied. You'll always just tell yourself, OK, just five more pounds, right? Just five more pounds, and then I'll be happy and.
It's it really is the other way around, right? Once you allow yourself to feel good enough and happy and confident, now the rest of it, it just it comes so much easier.
It's more sustainable.
You know the whole waiting until when and when never arrives. You're.
You become disillusioned at some point and you fall back into the old patterns because you haven't changed the way you think about the other things that are involved in it. In it, weight is always a symptom, not the problem itself. It's the way your body expresses.
How many toxins you have or what your body is doing at any hormonal stage that you're going through? And I mean, your weight will fluctuate even during the day and weight on a scale.
It's just a number. It doesn't mean anything because.
You can look totally the same. I have a story about this girl and I'm going to share.
It with you.
She weighed 100 and.
45 lbs.
And she was fluffy, fat, cute girl.
Really decided that. OK, I'm going to buckle down. I'm going to lose 20 lbs. And I'm going to be like the supermodel and. And so she rode her.
Bike to and from work several miles every day for like 6 weeks and she starved herself because you know, that's what we all do. And she was just, like, so dedicated to not.
To losing this weight and at the end of six weeks, she tries on this pair of pants that she was determined she was going to wear because, you know, we.
Did that too and.
It was she was in more shape.
After denying herself and really, you know, just like, challenging herself. And then she went and hired a coach and the coach. The first thing he said is.
Girl, you.
Got to eat and the second thing he said is.
We're going to, we're going to look at how you're eating, but we're also going to.
Give you some mindset tools to help you.
And so she went on.
After I think it took her like 6.
Months to a year.
She wants some bodybuilding competitions. I mean huge transformation and I've seen pictures of before and after and her total body composition changed dramatically.
But the weight difference was zero. She still weighed 145 lbs.
Yeah, and, well, that's what tends to happen when we gain more muscle, right? When we get that, like in order to look toned, we need to have muscle to look, you know, to have muscle tone. And it's I love that story because I say it all the time with my clients. You can't hate your way to a body you love. And it doesn't matter how hard you work if you're doing.
It out of hate.
It's never going to work the way.
You want it to so I love that.
Yeah, I it's the story that will stay with.
Me forever. Because I just.
It was just that number thing.
Like really, it's just a number and you're much better off using a tape measure or just, you know, pictures in the mirror.
Yeah, going off of how you feel, right, how it feels when you look in the mirror, how your clothes fit. And yeah, I totally, I get I would way rather my clients take progress pictures than weigh themselves.
Yeah, yeah, I it's much healthier.
Yeah, and.
And not getting so caught up in. You know, I can only eat.
You know this, this group of fizz or.
I'm never going to do that thing again.
You know the all or nothing thing.
Doesn't work either.
No, and that is definitely something that I stand firmly against in my business is the, you know, the restrictive diets and the all or nothing. And I was actually just talking about this with someone. And one of the biggest problems with doing that is when we say, OK, I'm not going to eat bread, I'm not going to eat sugar. I'm not going to have chocolate, carbs, whatever the.
Thing that you say is.
As soon as you start saying no, no, no. All you're thinking about is all those foods.
You said you can't have.
So not only are you miserable because you're not eating the things you want, it's like all you can think about. So naturally, when you get in front of it, it doesn't matter if you don't keep it in your house. As soon as you go somewhere that they have it, you are not going to be able to help yourself. And that's when the whole binge guilt.
And restrict cycle comes in right and it's just at the end of the day it comes back to what you're saying.
We are aware it's not sustainable, right? It's not sustainable to say I'm never going to eat bread again. I'm never going to eat this again.
As you know, how long are you really never going to eat bread for? So I yeah, it's definitely one of those things that my best, my best diet advice is never start a diet that you can't keep up with for the rest of your life. And if that sounds dramatic, it kind of **** like, you know, don't start something that you don't have the intention of finishing.
Yeah, because you're just going to screw your body up even more.
Exactly, exactly. It's just.
It's harder, like I've done that, right? I've done the all or nothing thing and it just it made one. It really messed up my health and my body like I was. My hair was thin. I had no energy, like I was very unhealthy. But I also didn't realize the harm it was doing to my relationship with food. Like, I think one thing we don't realize is that.
In the diet and weight loss industry disorder, needing habits have become so normalized. But just because it's normalized doesn't mean it's normal. And it certainly doesn't mean that it's healthy. So I think the more awareness we can bring to that, the better.
I agree with that and I think.
Making people aware of what the differences between food and non food items that were given and told our food items, but they really aren't things like Doritos and soda pop are not food. They were not designed really to be consumed. They give you no when they say no nutritional value, that means it's not building your body up. It's poisoning your body.
And when you poison your body in any form, alcohol is another way that you can poison your body. Your body has to work really hard at detoxifying from that, and we already have so many toxins in our environment. Why? Why introduce more, you know.
Exactly. We, you know, we.
Are what we eat and there's no. There's no denying that, right?
Yeah. And sometimes when you get addicted to those chemicals and it's really.
It's designed to.
Form an addiction to it and it's they. They do a lot of research around it. Why they call it the Food and Drug Administration.
Started out as the Department of Chemistry.
Wow, I didn't know that.
Yeah, it gets let you know. You know, if it has to be manufactured in a laboratory, it's probably not what we were created to eat. And the closer you can eat.
To the ground.
The better off you're going to be.
Totally. And it's interesting too when you say that like we can get addicted to all these foods because like from a marketing standpoint, the more we eat, the more we buy, the more we buy, the more we eat. It turns into this vicious cycle. But one really cool thing that I have learned and that I like, focus on my clients is it also works the other way. So the more we eat, like you're saying food from the ground, the more we eat fruits.
Just like.
And vegetables and all of those foods that provide our body nutrients.
The more we actually begin to crave vegetables and fruits because our body wants all of the vitamins and minerals that we get from those things. And it's funny, I had one client who she started in January and when she came in, she's like Roni. I hate vegetables like, I hate all this. Like, I'm not going to do it. And I was like.
OK, like just humor me here, right? Like just, you know, add in a couple a day. And now she, like, she has a salad every single day. She eats so many veggies and she's like, you're not gonna get this. But like, I actually like them. And like, she's like, my body craves them. And it's it really is amazing how the more you start to give your body good food, the more it genuinely wants it.
Yeah. And getting into gardening even there's little hacks that you can do with gardening, like microgreens. You go on Amazon and you can buy a little micro green kit or just go to your local feed store and get sunflower seeds. And you.
Soak them and you sprinkle them on a paper towel and you put a little bit of dirt over the top of them. Not even not even very.
Much I do this all the time because I love these things. Sunflower sprouts are amazing. They taste like sunflower seeds, but they are greens and they're just the shoot that comes up when they get their two little leaves, chop them off and throw them in your salad or in soup or and whatever that's gardening.
And when you garden.
It causes the food to do something that makes it chemically perfect for you.
The person who is doing the gardening, so it's even more reason to do stuff like that.
Yeah, honestly, I want to go get some sunflower seeds. Now. That sounds amazing.
It's cheap, I mean.
You can buy the real you know, the ritzy microgreens seeds on Amazon, and they're not that expensive, relatively speaking, and you can get all kinds of different ones, radish.
Or peas. Peas are another thing. You can get peas in bulk and you can do little pea shoots.
There's sweet. It's like I, yeah.
I love that I'm have to.
Try that all alfalfa sprouts are. It's an alfalfa plant.
They grow it and that's how they make hay.
Very true, very true.
And you spend a lot of money on.
Them in the grocery store.
You do? Yeah. So you might as well grow your own.
Right, right. It's so easy.
Sorry, I kidnapped the conversation. This is things that excite me.
That's OK, I'm.
I'm learning new things. I'm excited about that now.
So how do?
You do your coaching program, is it?
One-on-one, do you do?
Group hedging.
Mainly I do group coaching now, so I like. So when I started I was doing in person training and then through the pandemic when gyms closed, my clients were messaging me and they're like Oh my gosh, Roni, like I'm going and saying I need some help. So I kind of just started figuring out how I could do things online and then that.
Led to online coaching and.
When I started, I did one-on-one and then I moved to group coaching and I realized like I still have some one-on-one clients, but I find most people do better in a group because when you're starting everybody's up, everybody kind of needs the same information anyways. But the thing that I love is watching my clients support each other.
And the thing that's really nice about group coaching is.
They're at the same level and I'm not right. So as much as I remember how it feels to start your fitness journey and you know how it feels when the scale isn't moving and you know to feel frustrated.
I'm not there anymore and when you know you're going through it with people who are doing the same thing as you, it just makes it that much better. Like it's one thing that I noticed in, like, so I have a I have a coach.
And you know, it's for business and there's just something so special about going through something with a group of people who are also going through that, like, you know, on the days where it feels really hard. And it's like, why is it working for everybody else? And it feels like it's taking so long for me. And then you talk to five other people in your program, and they all feel the same way.
Oh, I'm not alone. So yeah, we do. We do it online and it's been a really cool way to, you know, connect with clients all over and.
Be able to it. You know, it's kind of the best of both worlds where I can live the life that I want to. My family lives on the other side of the country. So for me it's nice to be able to travel and not leave my clients. When I was working in person and I would go away for a week or two, most of my clients wouldn't work out for a week or two. And you know their progress would stall.
Whereas now it doesn't matter where I am. I can help my clients and work with them that way.
So yeah, like I said, I do have some one-on-one, but I find the group coaching is where it's where most people end up and it just gets people the fastest results and the most support.
I love groups. I it's a you.
Form a community, a lot of.
Times you make friends that last.
Forever. I mean, I've.
People in groups that I've, they've been friends for 1015 years now and we still we chat most days just because they're still interested in the same things I'm interested in and.
Another part of groups is that they're.
People will ask questions.
That and will get answers to problems that you didn't even realize were a problem, but when they bring them up.
It's like ohh.
Ohh that's what the issue is. It's it just it allows for so much more collaboration around.
The problem.
That you're trying to solve, which is.
With, your group is ultimately weight loss, but it's really.
Getting more in alignment with who you are and who your should be, mind, body and spirit, and then your body just.
Becomes what it was supposed to be and not.
Hanging on to all the excess weight that.
Exactly. It's what I say with my clients all the time and our goal is when we align, you know your mind, mind, body and spirit, what you're doing essentially is you're falling in love with yourself, right, with like the real you and.
It's like if you think of a person who you love or you think of a family member, you would do anything for that person, right? Like I think of, you know, my parents, where I'm always on them to be like, are you exercising are.
You eating healthy are.
You drinking enough water? And because I love them, I want them to live a long, healthy, happy life. And when you fall in love with yourself, you just naturally want that.
For yourself, right? You it's easier to make the time for yourself. It's easier to do the uncomfortable things when you truly, you know, love the soul. You love the person who you are.
Yeah, and it's OK.
We've lived for a long time hearing, you know it's not OK to think of yourself pride.
You know, don't.
Be proud of yourself. Well, I'm here to tell you. Yeah. Do be proud of yourself. There's always something that you've done that's really good. Recognize that in yourself. Celebrate it. Tell other people.
Got it. If you don't like you.
Why do you expect anybody else to?
So true gel, right? Isn't. Isn't that like? It's not really the secret of life, as we're all seeking, you know, we all want to be accepted and loved and feel enough based on other peoples standards. But if you don't love and accept and see yourself as worthy, then even if other people give it to you, you won't believe it.
Yeah, yeah.
Right.
So I yeah, I love that. It's so true, right. If. Yeah, if you don't, if other people you know if you don't like yourself, how can you expect anyone else to? It's very, very true.
And it it's.
It's easy to say that sometimes it's really hard to practice.
Oh yeah, it's definitely easier said than done. But you know, it's definitely one of those things that the more you do it, the easier it gets. And again, when you have a support system doing it with you, it just makes it that much easier, right when you're trying to do it on your own, that's when I find it gets harder. But when you're being supported by people who are helping you.
Lifting you up along the way too, and when you are side by side with a woman who is lifting herself up, then you kind of get that feeling of oh, it's OK for me to do it too.
We're like training wheels.
Totally, yeah.
You know you live in this this little container where it's safe and you can practice these exercises. You can practice being proud of yourself. You can practice loving yourself. You could practice accepting how you are now and knowing that it's for.
Later, it's going to be different and it's exciting because you get to see the experience, the journey, whereas I think Eckhart, Toll said.
You do all this work on yourself.
And the.
Test really comes when you go to the family gathering because.
So true.
Because they're not doing all that work.
I don't understand what you're doing.
That's a. That's actually so funny. I have. I like Eckhart tolle. I haven't heard that one yet, but it's it is, right? Like it's easy to do this in a safe environment. But yeah, go to your family and you'll be tested real quick.
And you know, weight loss is another one of.
Those things you.
You start to make decisions about the kinds of things that you're going to eat and not eat, and then you go to the family.
Holidays are coming. They'll be gone by the time this airs, but you know it's there's always some event that you're.
Going to go.
To with your whole family. And there's always going to be that stuff that's really not food that's presented to you as food. And if until you get to that point where you're like.
I'm going to make a conscious decision that I'm going to eat some of this if I truly want to, but.
I don't.
Feel like I have to be obligated to do these things and negotiate with yourself before you go, knowing what's going to be presented because you know it's usually the same things.
And prepare for it, it's.
If you don't.
Don't show up and just expect things to suddenly be different because you're different.
Exactly. And that's the biggest thing, right is it's preparing yourself for life outside of the bubble. And that was like, I find it's one of the biggest challenges for people on their weight loss journey is they're like, OK, well, when I'm home and I'm making all my meals my own self and like, you know, there's nothing going on, it's super easy. But as soon as you know, as soon as there's a birthday party or a holiday, everything goes out the window.
The worst part is it's not even just the fact of, like you said, trying to prepare yourself for, OK, what? What am I going to eat? What am I like, you know, what are my non negotiables going to be? What am I going?
To do what am I?
Not going to do, but it's dealing with the comments from family, right? Like I know. Like for me, I've been in the fitness industry.
For 10 years. So like when I started, you know, there was a lot of.
And I again, I didn't know how to deal with people in the outside world, but it was very challenging to deal with what I was eating and trying to like, you know, feeling like we have to explain ourselves for wanting to eat healthier foods and being, you know, the person who you know. And then once I, you know, lost the weight and I was fit, it was like, oh, well, you know, Roni can afford it. Give her, give her the extra pastry, give her the extra this and it's like.
Well, I actually just don't want it.
You know, and people just don't. They don't understand and that.
Is definitely something that we work on in my program. Is like allowing yourself to become the person and holding that and being able to stay in your power regardless of who's around, because it's definitely not always easy, especially with family.
Yeah. And it's OK. During the transition sometimes you.
Give yourself grace. It happens.
Yeah. And I think one thing too that I really work on with my clients is you know changing the.
Way we talk about.
Food because yes, we all know that there are foods that are better for us and foods that aren't as good for us. But it's the thing of, you know, if you do, you go into and you're like, OK, like, my grandma made her apple pie and it's just like, you know, it's your favorite thing and you know, you're going to want a piece like.
Go into that and allow yourself to have it without the guilt, without the shame, without being like, OK, Now I have to go run an extra mile tomorrow because that is, you know, something that the weight loss industry is really big on is that shame piece. And that's something that me and my clients who really work on kind of.
Getting out of that because it's, you know, when we work on it with ourselves, we allow ourselves to break the cycle for the next generation, right where we won't raise daughters who feel like they have to diet. They're just eating healthy, right. They just eat healthy because it's good for them. They exercise because it's good for them. And, you know, they're not doing it with all the negative connotation that.
Heard something somewhere and I can't remember.
What the source was.
But it had something.
To do with you're talking about the apple pie.
And not having guilt.
People that.
Felt guilt about eating like a piece of cake they actually gained.
Even though they ate less than the person who.
Ate the cake and didn't have any guilt feelings around.
It at all.
Our bodies work in interesting ways. The old paradigm of eat less and move more and that.
That doesn't work like at all.
A lot of it has to.
Do with what you're thinking about as you're eating and how you're approaching it, but that.
That comment that I must have read it somewhere that it kind of stuck with me. It's like that. That's really interesting that if you have guilt associated with what you're eating, you're more likely to gain weight from actually eating it.
Yeah. Oh, yeah. So I have two things that two studies that came to mind. One is you know, it's the study of when they were doing water and they had different water glasses and they were growing plants in it. And if you speak nicely and like you say thank you, I love you.
If positively affirm the plant that's in water, then the plant will flourish. But if you bring it down, you're like I hate you. You're.
Stupid and you?
Bring. You know you're negative to it, that plant.
Literally died so.
Like, of course, the way you're talking to food, which is going to be broken down in your body and like you know, our body is 70% water. If you're talking crappy to your body like your cells are going to die, and then you know, they're naturally going to store fat and your body is just going to be not efficient, right. So.
That made a lot of sense to me and the other thing I wanted to bring up was a study of there was this. They had this group of people and one was drinking. They were both drinking the same smoothie. They were both drinking the same smoothie. One group, they told them it they were like, you know, high fat milkshakes. And the other they said they were health smoothies.
And the group with the health smoothies? They felt hungrier after and lost weight. And then the group with the, you know, high calorie milkshakes, they felt more full after and gained weight.
Just same smoothie, same thing. But because.
Of your thoughts like it's crazy.
Yeah, it is crazy. Your thoughts are so powerful.
And people underestimate.
How much goes on in your head when it comes to losing weight?
I know, yeah. People like. Oh, yeah. Just like, eat, eat less and move more. It's like.
That doesn't even.
Hit the tip of the iceberg, yeah.
It might work.
For guys, I've seen it work for guys. I mean guys go to the bathroom and lose 10 lbs. I don't know how it happens.
I'm not a big fan.
Of that.
No, I would say it's a mixture of hormones but also.
Something that just kind of came to mind is, you know, we have been telling, like, the world the story of it's easier for men to lose.
Weight for.
Years, right. So it's something that we all believe. So we see confirmation bias of it being easier for men to lose weight than women, because that's what we've all been told, right? So I haven't studied that. It just came to.
Me, as we were talking.
But I believe there's some truth to that. But men generally tend to have more muscle mass than women do, too. And your metabolism happens in your muscles.
Yes, of course. Well, yeah. There's the testosterone. And like, the fact that women's hormones tend to hold more fat just because our bodies need it right for all of the processes and things that we have. So yeah, men definitely, like, just biologically, it is easier for them to lose weight. But it's. Yeah. It's not something like.
I think The thing is sometimes with women we get in our heads that, oh, I can't lose weight because of, you know, menopause or hormones or this or that. And those a lot of the times are just blocks that we use as you know, excuses and crutches to be like, oh, no, it's just because of this, but.
It's more of an excuse than anything else. Yeah, I'm going through menopause, so I'm just going to gain the 10 lbs and.
Be happy with it.
Or 20 or 30 or whatever it is.
Exactly, yeah.
And when you start going down the gaining weight.
Path. It's really hard to like.
Stop and even maintain, let alone turn it around unless you get help because you don't know what you don't know, and that's where people like you, Roni, come in because.
You could help people and.
You do have something that you help them.
With if they just will.
Go to the link in the show notes below. Your total getting started guide.
For health and.
Wellness journey for your health and Wellness journey.
Do you want to tell us?
About that a little bit.
Yeah. So basically I just it's a very simple Quick guide and my thing is I like to show people how easy it can be to get started on your health and Wellness journey to start losing weight.
Because there is so much information out there, right, there is so much information out there and people over complicate it. And when we over complicate it, we don't take action. So my goal with the guide is to make it as simple as possible so that it feels doable, right? So when you're opening it up, it shouldn't feel complicated because I want you to be able to have that feeling of like, oh, I could totally do this.
And it has a very quick, simple workout and a little nutrition and Wellness checklist just to help you.
Do just that of getting started. And like I said, to show you how simple it can be because when we allow it to be simple it is. It is simple and the simpler it is, the more likely we are to do it. And like I said in the beginning, you want it to be sustainable for life, right? So when you're looking at the habits and it's like, oh, I.
Could totally do this.
It's also a type of habit that you could do for the rest of your life because.
It is meant to be that easy.
Yeah, yeah.
And everybody needs that.
So what's the one thing you want to?
Leave the audience with today.
The one thing that I would like to leave the audience with today is that.
You are worth it.
And when I say that it's you are worth taking the time for yourself, you are worth loving yourself. You are worthy of your love now because like I said at the beginning, it's kind of coming full circle. You know, we spend our whole lives waiting to be happy, right? Waiting to feel good enough waiting to feel beautiful. But if we can allow ourselves to see that we are worthy of our own love now.
And we can treat ourselves with that love. Then every other area of our life falls into place.
Leave it with that. Perfect.
Thank you so much for joining me today.
You are so welcome, Jill. I'm so happy to be here.