De-programming diet culture to improve your relationship with food, your body, exercise and your mind

When Tony and I first met, he was a body-building enthusiast with a secret binge eating disorder, plagued by lifelong body image issues. I was a yo-yo dieter obsessed with becoming fit so I could feel worthy. For several years, our food and body obsession wreaked havoc on our lives. Together, we went on a healing journey and improved our relationship with food, our bodies, exercise and our minds.

After reaching the other side and developing healthy patterns for the first time in our adult lives, we realized just how pervasive destructive messages are in the fitness, diet, and health industry and are now on a mission to change it and help chronic dieters find freedom and health - both physical AND mental.

Together we created the Ideal Body Formula™, which states that your unique Ideal Body is the natural side effect of a healthy relationship with food, your body, exercise, and your mind. We have coached thousands of clients and program members since 2011 and have a devoted fan base that loves our healthy approach to fitness and food.

Our podcast covers emotional eating, weight concerns, intuitive eating, limiting beliefs, body acceptance, binge eating, body image, exercise empowerment, self-improvement, healthy eating, habit change, success mindset, mindful exercise, active lifestyle, motivation, and body shame.

Our listeners are mostly women (but some men!) who have struggled with food and body obsession, yo-yo dieting, chronic dieting, and are sick and tired of struggling with food, their bodies, and exercise.
 

Our podcast started unofficially in our favorite sushi restaurant, thus the name! We were having weekly philosophical discussions around our own healing, and then around the work we were doing to help our clients heal. The conversations were really deep and profound, and Tony said "We should have microphones here so everyone could benefit from this...and call it Fitness & Sushi." It was a joke at first that developed into a real idea.

Our goal started and has always been to help people break free from the prison of dieting, the toxicity of diet culture, but without giving up on themselves and their health. Our mission has always stated that if we could help one person find the freedom we have found, it would be worth it.

The podcast was first released in May 2019, but we started recording a year prior to that - there were so many things we didn't know how to do, and so many hangups we had to get past - but we've been going strong ever since!
 

For us, once the initial research and getting all the right equipment was done, finding the time to record was fairly easy. It's a sit-down, non-edited conversation between a husband and wife, which we do regularly anyways and enjoy - so it doesn't feel like work!

We release episodes 3x a week as of right now: 1 co-hosted, and 1 solo episode each. We started our first year with a producer and then decided Tony would take over producing, and it only takes him about half an hour or so each week.

Our day job is our company, Built Daily, so we just worked recording into our workday. We typically have an entire day setup for recording projects and work in batches.
 

We currently use our podcast as a way to promote our own products, so as of today we don't take sponsorships.

This podcast benefits our business by bringing our customers into an intimate relationship with us. They often tell us they feel as though they are seated in the room with us. Our podcast fans are our superfans! They want in on any offers we have because they know us and trust us so much.

And personally, it's a really fun way to spend time together as a married couple. Our podcast is 30-45 minutes of us sharing but also laughing and having fun together.
 

Tony uses Adobe Premier to edit the podcast.

We rarely do interviews, but when we do it's someone whose message will benefit our listeners, so we are extremely picky about who we let on. Our listeners trust us and we don't take that lightly. Sometimes, I will do coaching interviews where I will coach a member of our community through a sticking point. We do those interviews on Zoom.
 

We are looking to expand how we market the show, but right now our listeners are either from our email newsletter (which has been established and growing for 11 years) or finding us organically on Apple/Spotify.

Email has been the most successful marketing channel for us, but we're experimenting with Facebook ads.
 

Consistency is the key! We almost never miss a week unless we are taking a vacation or it's a major holiday. And be patient! It seems that the longer you're consistent, the more Apple will start to send people your way.
 

BuiltDaily.com is our website

Instagram is @fitnessandsushipodcast but we are most active on our personal accounts, @deannaschober and @tony.schober

Our Facebook is https://www.facebook.com/TonyandDeanna