00:00:00
Speaker 1: Why is it so hard to get real answers about your health? If you've been told that everything looks fine, but you know that something is off, we're not imagining it. That's why I created Vitality three sixty to help you better understand what's going on inside your body so that you can take the targeted action needed. With a functional health approach plus testing, we go beyond the guesswork to uncover the root causes of your symptoms. I've teamed up with Doctyesmina, an incredible integrative GP, and together we will help you decode your body's signals and answer questions like why am I always exhausted? What's really causing my stubborn weight? Am I inflamed? Insulin resistant? Or maybe missing key nutrients? Because when you understand your body better, you can transform your health. Visit v three sixty dot health or check.
00:00:49
Speaker 2: Out the show notes for more.
00:00:52
Speaker 1: In the work that I do, many of the ladies that come to me are over sixty years old. You know they're really focused on their health, but they're often also carrying some significant health challenges as well. For many, changing their exercise and then nutrition habits can feel really hard. It can feel really daunting and there's no super clear path for them to follow. So many often say to me, I just think it's too late. I'm just going to stick with my weekly walks. You know I am too And then they insert issue here, I am too old, I'm too injured, I'm too nervous, I'm not interested, I'm too confused to try new things like strength training, for example. And it was about this time, after getting quite a few of these repeated patterns of ladies coming to me, that I stumbled upon an Instagram page the most inspiring woman who started her health journey not when she was sixty, but when she was seventy, and she completely turned her life for She is so inspiring that since then, in pretty much all of the workshops that I run and all of the ladies that I meet and work with, I always say to them, you have to follow the Instagram page.
00:02:13
Speaker 2: Train with Joan.
00:02:14
Speaker 1: You have got to get in Joan's community, because if she can do it, you can too. This is Healthy Heir with Amelia Phillips, and today's episode is going to challenge what you thought you knew about aging, strength and what the human body is capable of.
00:02:45
Speaker 2: Particularly later in life.
00:02:47
Speaker 1: My guests today are Joan McDonald and her daughter Michelle McDonald, the duo who created Train with Joan, a fitness platform and inspiring Instagram page with over two point three million followers.
00:03:02
Speaker 2: Yes, so inspiring.
00:03:03
Speaker 1: All focused around helping women of all ages, but particularly older women, fall in love with strength training and really reimagine new versions of themselves. Joan has such an incredible story. She began her health and fitness transformation at the age of seventy after years of struggling with her weight, low energy, declining mobility, and multiple medication.
00:03:26
Speaker 2: Fast forward to.
00:03:27
Speaker 1: Today and she has inspired millions of people around the world by proving that it's never too late to build strength, to reclaim your health, and to completely redefine what aging looks like.
00:03:39
Speaker 2: And I just love this.
00:03:41
Speaker 1: So then we have the equally inspiring Michelle, Joon's daughter, a women's fitness coach, a bodybuilder and transformation specialist who has played a pivotal role in helping guide Jones's incredible health journey. Michelle has spent years helping women strength, improved body composition, and challenge the limiting beliefs around aging. So together they have become one of the most inspiring mother daughter voices in healthy aging and strength training worldwide. So today we're talking about how we can take the leap into not just strength training, but also to really reframe this new season of life, to stop seeing aging as a decline but rather see it as a possibility. So, whether you're at a similar age to Joan, or maybe you have a loved one who is, today's episode is for you. Joan, Michelle, welcome to Healthy Her.
00:04:40
Speaker 3: Thank you so much for invading us familiar.
00:04:42
Speaker 4: Thanks for having us.
00:04:44
Speaker 2: I am so excited.
00:04:46
Speaker 1: You can probably hear it in my voice as I chatted through my intro, because you have so many fans here in Australia.
00:04:55
Speaker 2: Where are you both beaming in from today?
00:04:58
Speaker 3: I'm San Miguel Violande in my sick.
00:05:00
Speaker 1: Well done, Joe, and you're there to Michelle, Yeah yeah, we lived together.
00:05:05
Speaker 2: Oh I love it.
00:05:07
Speaker 4: I love it, lived to eat together, trade together.
00:05:10
Speaker 1: I wish I could live with my mom as well. I actually spent a week with her last week and it was just so special. But look, Joan, take us back to the moment everything changed. What was happening in your life and your health around that age seventy, that really made you decide something has to change.
00:05:28
Speaker 5: Well, I was what I always say is I was sick and tired of being sick and tired. Yeah, my health was not the best. I was on the medications. I didn't want to be on them. I had gone to the doctor, and because my blood pressure was so wonky, she wanted to upgrade them, like multiply the pills that.
00:05:48
Speaker 3: I was taking.
00:05:49
Speaker 5: Anyway, I said, no, I don't want more. I want to get off. So what can we do? And anyway, Michelle was coming, her and her husband were coming to be with us before they moved down to Mexico, and she saw the state I was in, huffing and puffing up the stairs, and she just laid it on me.
00:06:11
Speaker 3: It was very pivotal.
00:06:12
Speaker 1: Yeah, what do you mean, laid it on Michelle? What is laying it on me? Is this the like the come to Jesus talk?
00:06:19
Speaker 4: Yeah? It was. It was the come to Jesus talk. It was I call it my Friday Friday.
00:06:24
Speaker 6: Night lights coaching talk with my mother.
00:06:28
Speaker 4: I gave her, I gave her the truth I liked.
00:06:31
Speaker 6: I like to say it's kind of like like Tony Robbins, I pulled on science brevity, humor, everything, almost faith, Christianity, our relationship, everything I possibly could.
00:06:43
Speaker 4: Because I was leaving and.
00:06:45
Speaker 6: It really hit me that her health had really deteriorated, and it was make or break, right, So I mean, I mean the health business. And Mom was two hundred pounds. Waste was thirty nine inches. She's seventy You know that a waste circumference for a female. She's five foot three. Once we get above thirty four inches, now we escalate into that higher risk category for increased morbidity. Right, And I was leaving and be frank, my dad's passed away. But they did not have this thriving relationship. They were surviving together, but not thriving. But he loved candies and chocolates and chips and all that stuff.
00:07:26
Speaker 4: Just the outcome looked really poor.
00:07:28
Speaker 6: I had a transformation group starting, and I said, Mom, I'll put you to this transformation group.
00:07:32
Speaker 4: You know it works.
00:07:34
Speaker 6: You know I'm great at what I do. It'll work for you, but you've got to show up. And I said literally, and we laughed about it. Now because she was sick recently and I had to take care of her in the hospital. But at the time, I said Listen, I'm not going to come to that nursing home and change your diapers because you've let yourself deteriorate. Because the version of you, the woman right in front of me right now, she is still capable of changing the course of her future.
00:08:05
Speaker 4: Wow, but you got to do it now.
00:08:07
Speaker 6: And so it was really like, of course, you know, I would have helped her, but I can tell her that, I'm like, you got to do this now because I knew that the mom that I loved was not going to be my mom. If I was going to a nursing home to take care of her, she would be so depressed, she would be so frustrated and angry, and there'd be no going back by that time, right, it's too far gone.
00:08:27
Speaker 4: So that's with the speech. It was a tough ball.
00:08:30
Speaker 6: And then I and then afterwards when she showed up to to get in shape, I said to my husband, because I already onboarded these gals, we were already started. And Mom didn't even have a cell phone, like, she didn't have a smartphone. So there's this enormous tech obstacle. And I said, what have I done? I said, how am I going to do it? How am I going to do it, Like, there are the hurdles that you can't even imagine, or maybe you can't. How do you get a seventy year old to learn how to use a smartphone?
00:08:56
Speaker 4: Remember her passwords? Remember how to find the app?
00:08:59
Speaker 6: Where I doing the coachry? How are we going to do that piece while I'm in Mexico?
00:09:05
Speaker 3: It was wild.
00:09:07
Speaker 1: Joan thinking back to that moment and that very serious conversation. What was your initial reaction and feeling when your daughter, who you loved so much and who clearly loves you so much, is having such a confronting conversation Because for some people, when there is that confrontation, for some people, the natural reaction is to actually push back and say stuff you.
00:09:34
Speaker 2: But what was your reaction and feeling?
00:09:37
Speaker 5: Actually, I told you I'll think about it, But it didn't take much to think about it, because I'm going if I don't do this now, then am I going to be able to do it? Because I'd sooner take her up on that challenge than end up. Like she said the next morning, I was in the car before she was. I just knew I had to I had to try. It was a challenge to me to be able to even try it because I had no tech skills whatsoever, and we did not have a lot of the stuff that we have now. It was on a PDF. I had to print it out and do it that way. It was a very difficult challenge, I'll tell you. And I was just three months away from my seventy first birthday when I did it.
00:10:20
Speaker 1: Wow, talk me through the first six to twelve months, Joan, your experience when I'm assuming you had to go into a gym and pick up weights, is that what you were doing initially? We took me through that first six months and what that experience was like for you.
00:10:38
Speaker 5: Well, Michelle JJ took me to my Jim. I had a gym membership, but I wasn't using it the way that I needed to be using it. And they saw me do it, trying to do the exercises and like I was doing it with everything, And I expect that anyone that follows me will do it with intent as well well, because you have to. You can't just fly through it. It's hard, very hard for everyone, and you can't be soft on yourself.
00:11:11
Speaker 3: You's got to be hard on yourself.
00:11:12
Speaker 5: And the first six months that was how long my course was for I did so much changing and I said to Michelle, I don't want to lose a lot of weight.
00:11:23
Speaker 3: I don't want to get skinny.
00:11:24
Speaker 5: I want something on my body to fight with if anything happens, you know, like you get sick or something. You know how older people they get sick and then they're already skinny and they're just fade awight to nothing.
00:11:37
Speaker 1: I love that you realize that that it's not about shrinking and getting skinnier, because that does lead to fraul.
00:11:44
Speaker 2: To you, even with.
00:11:45
Speaker 1: Your inexperienced and inexperience and lack of education, you recognize that you wanted to feel strong.
00:11:51
Speaker 2: That's fantastic.
00:11:53
Speaker 5: Well, I wanted to I wanted to see what Michelle was seeing with her clients, like they were just so beautiful. Well, yeah, the transformation following her protocol was amazing, and I wanted that for me.
00:12:09
Speaker 1: Tell me, was Michelle with you every day in the gym or once she'd kind of given you the beginnings and taught you the basics movement patterns. Were you then on your own or was she with you every single day?
00:12:24
Speaker 5: No, we were thousands of miles apart because she was moving to Mexico and I was still in Ontario, and like I said, it was was PDFs and trying to teach me something. Her invitation was come to Mexico for a couple of weeks at least so we can get you started. And that's what I did.
00:12:43
Speaker 3: I went. I went to Mexico.
00:12:45
Speaker 5: The heat was overwhelming for me because we were in tou Loom and summertime tou loom is suffocating. It is, but we got through it. We got through it.
00:12:58
Speaker 1: Michelle, thinking about my beautiful listeners who are either in Joan's situation and inexperienced and wanting to start, or maybe a loved one in your situation strongly encouraging. What's the best approach when someone doesn't know the basic lifting patterns and they don't have a Michelle as a daughter that can initially teach them. What would your advice be for getting started in strength training?
00:13:30
Speaker 4: Well, we do have an app Cultrain with Joan.
00:13:33
Speaker 6: I would say do the app if your beginner, because Joan demonstrates. I do some of the exercises too, but it's predominantly my mom. She demonstrates everything, and of course a culture. There are so many apps out there now they're very affordable. I think having what I call a performance criterion, so an actual example of how something should be done that you're looking at with reference.
00:13:56
Speaker 4: Most of us learn very visually, and then having a plan to follow.
00:14:01
Speaker 6: I do recommend, you know, I of course I'm going to say just get started. Of course I'm going to say start with walking. But it would be dishonest of me to say that's how Mom achieved her results, and it's not how Mom achieved her results. Joe followed the protocols that a twenty year old would have to follow to get in shape. She followed the protocols that a thirty year old man would have to follow to get in shape. When we say get in shape, we say loose body, fat, gay muscle, game muscle. Beyond just getting out of a chair or not using a walker, I'm talking about gaining enough muscle to have true agency. You know, Mom is helping us lift things out of the car, heavy grocery bags, I don't know, probably twenty pounds each, and she's walking up two flights of stairs.
00:14:43
Speaker 4: So that and not huffing and puffing.
00:14:45
Speaker 6: So that's what I mean by agency, like staying impactful, able to contribute meaningfully, and she wants to go travel. I don't have to worry that she's not going to be able to take care of herself. If she falls down, she's going to be able to push herself back up again and lift her suitcase up, all of the things that a forty or thirty year old like hopefully.
00:15:03
Speaker 4: They take for granted.
00:15:04
Speaker 6: So that's you know, like she had to do regular resistance training and get stronger, you know, in a measurable way, in a materially measurable way. So she started off with doing I think there's a video of her doing these again. She was two hundred pounds and she's in this big, baggy black good Life t shirt and she's struggling.
00:15:25
Speaker 4: She was really good at creating tension from the get go.
00:15:29
Speaker 6: But if you zoom in and you look at the machine, you can see that it's that one skinny little plate. That's all she was able to do. And then in five months she's lifting I think twenty pound dumbbells or whatever, right like, and doubles are much harder than a machine.
00:15:43
Speaker 1: This is what I love about your Instagram page is that you keep going back to old videos and images of yourself, Joan, And so you can see this.
00:15:55
Speaker 2: Change, you know, gorgeous.
00:15:57
Speaker 1: Yeah, you can see this woman in a seventies that just looks like anybody's regular you know, mom or grandma. And then this transformation where you've got guns of steel and your waist has just gone. And I think, like, it's one thing to see a thirty year old transform their health, but to see you do it and so visually. And you guys put the videos together in such an empowering way. Joan, how did that feel for you, Like from the beginning stages when everything felt hard, unfamiliar, What am I doing?
00:16:30
Speaker 2: Am I doing this correctly? Is that weight?
00:16:32
Speaker 1: It hurts all of that to then the glimmers of results starting to show through. Talk me through the shift from hard to when you go, oh, actually it's working.
00:16:44
Speaker 2: And how that experience felt for you?
00:16:46
Speaker 5: That actually worked within the first three months, because I could see the difference in my clothing, like the measurements.
00:16:52
Speaker 3: Michelle had us take measurements all the time. Every week. We had to put a new photo.
00:16:58
Speaker 5: In with our original photo, and you can see the differences in the body shape. But seeing my clothes get so baggy that I had to give them away and I'm eating more than I did. I'm going it doesn't make any sense, but it's working. So it's got to be a good thing. Like whatever Michelle did, she fell on something that or organized something that was really workable, doable for anyone. If it can do it for me, it can do it for anybody else. If you put the intent in, you keep.
00:17:32
Speaker 1: Coming back to that, which I think is you know, is such an important point. What about nutritionally, Joan, what were some of the biggest changes that you made to your diet.
00:17:43
Speaker 5: Well, I had to stop snacking, which was kind of hard for me. I actually had to have more protein than what I was eating vegetables and fruit. I had no real problem, but it was what it was was I was made to eat it just like it, but I've had to eat it. And sticking to that protein, the proper carbs, the proper fats, good fats, made a big difference.
00:18:10
Speaker 3: And of course with the exercises.
00:18:12
Speaker 5: And I was only doing like maybe ten to fifteen minutes of cardio as a warm up when I was doing my workouts.
00:18:20
Speaker 2: What the rest was strength training?
00:18:21
Speaker 5: The rest was strength training. Yeah, and it made a big difference. At the beginning, I was doing five days and I was doing one day.
00:18:29
Speaker 4: Was like a yoga.
00:18:32
Speaker 5: Yoga, Yeah, yoga movements. And when I started learning yoga, I'm going Anyone says anyone's doing yoga's a pansy is nuts. They don't understand how much you use your body. It's just amazing, like what they do, how they cantort their body.
00:18:50
Speaker 3: And that wow, like it's not easy.
00:18:53
Speaker 1: Did you notice an improvement in your flexibility and mobility when you started doing yoga?
00:18:59
Speaker 5: Yes, I'm not really as flexible as I would like to be, but I think it's just the way my body's built.
00:19:05
Speaker 6: Says the woman who'd practiced for two weeks because my other clients were doing a split challenge. And then she surprises us in two weeks by dropping to the floor in her bikini at seventy.
00:19:19
Speaker 4: Whatever eight at the time of day or so, in a full splits and I'm like, what the heck. I grabbed Mike. I'm like, we gotta get a camera.
00:19:26
Speaker 6: We've got to get like this is insane that her body's been able to be so responsive and get her pliability back.
00:19:34
Speaker 2: Isn't that amazing?
00:19:36
Speaker 4: It is amazing. Well, you're a teacher as well, and it was like, wow, this is.
00:19:39
Speaker 2: Oh Michelle, she was looking at that amazing.
00:19:43
Speaker 3: Can you get up now?
00:19:46
Speaker 6: One of the backing because I think the food's so important the coaching us.
00:19:49
Speaker 1: Add it right, Yes, I wanted to ask you about the food talk us through what you're thinking is behind Joan's food choices.
00:19:56
Speaker 6: Again, I come from a bodybuilding background, meaning that I don't have special, magic secret protocols. These are very normal protocols that almost anybody that's doing a physic competition follows. Right, you eat multiple meals, so you have multiple protein dosings if you want to be you know, technical, especially because you want to get that loosing threshold per meal. And then you know, I think a lot of times people forget that women I have smaller bodies, and so we want to make sure that each protein serving is going to help give them that anabolic response, because even if it's only helping like a small percentage, but you do something like that consistently every day, multiple times a day.
00:20:32
Speaker 1: Yeah, that muscle protein synthesis triggering.
00:20:35
Speaker 6: Exactly versus lipogenesis, which like we're really good at that, but we want to get really good at creating muscle issues So I think that the biggest change was for most people is thinking about it at least that worked with me or any of the like I said, like a proper physique coach is shifting from you know, breakfast, lunch, dinner, and snacks. And as we get older, what we really see the pattern I call it the executive lifestyle. Right, you skip breakfast or you have a coffee or something like that, and then you have like a big lunch at a big dinner and then maybe some late night snacking.
00:21:05
Speaker 4: Right, it's kind of like this if.
00:21:07
Speaker 6: That executives are doing all over the world. My dad he'd never eat breakfast, but he'd have this big late lunch with the guys and then a big dinner, and he just packed on a lot of visceral body fat. So for Mom and my clients, it's learning to think of food as number one. Can this help me towards Can these meals help me towards my goals versus just eating sort of pleasure or whatever.
00:21:31
Speaker 4: Can this actually give this meal help me towards my goals? Thinking of getting protein with every meal?
00:21:37
Speaker 6: Right, So Mom mentioned that, so it start not we're not obsessiment protein, but we're starting to think, gosh, like am I getting any protein in that meal? Or is it mostly fat or is it mostly carbs? Like where is the protein coming from? SOS starting to think more about like where's the protein coming from, making sure it's in the meal. Mom talked about vegetables. So we're big on the micro nutrients. We say, just eat the colors of the rain and hit your twenty five grams of fiber per meal. So I have my clients track their fiber per meal. Or the worst case, if you're just starting out, that's too much, think about some high fiber fruits.
00:22:12
Speaker 4: Those are going to be your.
00:22:13
Speaker 6: Grains, your legomes, your nuts and seeds, and some of your legumes and fruits, especially in your seeded fruits.
00:22:20
Speaker 4: Right, and I'm sure your clients know all about that.
00:22:22
Speaker 6: So eat the others comes with the rebol get your fiber in, and spread the protein out throat the day. And so we're really reducing these you know ups, these wild ups and down, these overfeeding and then you're going high bocaloric like no calories for large.
00:22:38
Speaker 4: Periods of time.
00:22:39
Speaker 6: Then you're angry and you go and eat everything or you have bowl of penis, and we're stepping away from that, and we're starting to get very routine and very balanced and very systematics. It's like James Clear atomic habits, right. We create a system that helps somebody's body optimize.
00:22:58
Speaker 4: We take away the friction.
00:23:12
Speaker 1: Why is it so hard to get real answers about your health? If you've been told that everything looks fine, but you know that something is off, we're not imagining it. That's why I created Vitality three point sixty to help you better understand what's going on inside your body so that you can take.
00:23:28
Speaker 2: The targeted action needed.
00:23:30
Speaker 1: With a functional health approach plus testing, we go beyond the guesswork to uncover the root causes of your symptoms. I've teamed up with Dottyasmina, an incredible integrative GP and together we will help you decode your body's signals and answer questions like why am I always exhausted? What's really causing my stubborn weight? Am I inflamed? Insulin resistant? Or maybe missing key nutrients?
00:23:55
Speaker 2: Because when you.
00:23:55
Speaker 1: Understand your body better, you can transform your health. Visit V three health or check out the show notes for more.
00:24:11
Speaker 2: Michelle.
00:24:12
Speaker 1: For someone listening to that wise advice, I can imagine that the pushback might be, but when I eat multiple meals, I'm going to over eat.
00:24:25
Speaker 2: How do you help your.
00:24:27
Speaker 1: Clients stick within their range? Are they tracking? Are they you know, weighing their food and tracking their macros? How do you work And I know you've got your bodybuilders, which are a particular cohort, but then you also work with lifestyle, with everyday people like us.
00:24:44
Speaker 2: How do you help us keep that.
00:24:46
Speaker 1: Caloric intake at an appropriate deficit when or not not a deficit? Potentially when we live in such an abundant lifestyle and world.
00:24:56
Speaker 6: I think Number one, I'd like to say, they're they're this initial friction as there is was learning anything new.
00:25:04
Speaker 4: But when you're.
00:25:04
Speaker 6: Why, it's stronger than that stubbornness or that friction.
00:25:09
Speaker 4: You'll find a way, right, You'll find a way. I coach. I love coaching on passion. I'm an educator, right.
00:25:16
Speaker 6: I like to say at TWW that's what we call the Wonder Woman where educators not dictators. So I don't like when people say trust the process or I mean we joke about it, right, But I'm like, no, I want you to understand the process because I need you to understand why we're doing stuff in the beginning.
00:25:33
Speaker 4: We just teach you.
00:25:34
Speaker 6: Right, if I get somebody that's never done it before, which was my mom, which was all of my clients. I mean, people didn't do macros back then the way they do now. For the first decade of my coaching, I had to literally sit down with a client so say Embelia said, oh my god, I love your results, Can you please coach me? And I would do an intake and sure enough, you've never really tracked before. Almost everyone thinks they're eating twenty five hundred calories. Nobody that I started with, it's eating twenty five hundred caties.
00:26:01
Speaker 2: They're eating more, they're eating less.
00:26:04
Speaker 4: Less on a day to day basis. I'll be honest.
00:26:07
Speaker 6: Most people are at a magical like in my avatar, which is the thirty five plus, it's like this magical fifteen hundred. If the person's two hundred pounds, if the person's one hundred pounds, they're all kind of around twelve hundred and fifteen hundred cats wild and they've accumulated.
00:26:24
Speaker 4: A lot of body fat.
00:26:25
Speaker 6: So we just sit down, we figure out their their macros. I create a meal plan for them. I might do a starter meal plan. In the old days, I'd say, okay, what are your favorite four proteins, your favorite four vegetables, your favorite But I would make this said, let's I'll.
00:26:40
Speaker 4: Create a simple meal plan to get you started.
00:26:43
Speaker 6: And then here's this app, and we use the app called my macros and you can and we don't track.
00:26:48
Speaker 4: We plan.
00:26:50
Speaker 6: So if there's a word that for me is like a trigger word, it's track because I talk about food in financial terms and it's like, here's your budget, and if you want to win at this game, you decide what you want to spend your money on, and you plan in advance.
00:27:06
Speaker 4: You even plan.
00:27:08
Speaker 6: I eat chocolate every day multiple times. I don't drink a lot of alcohol, but I might have a glass of champagne. I might do it, and I plan for it so there's no surprises. Just like you would budget and plan to go on a holiday or go have a nice dinner. Right, you budget, you don't spend the money and then track it afterwards to say that I stay in the targets. And a lot of people do that, and I'm like, that's very stressful and it doesn't actually help your body to be optimized.
00:27:37
Speaker 4: And I'll add one last thing, Amelia.
00:27:39
Speaker 6: I talk about the teeth a lot, right, So when we put braces on, you can radically change someone's bridge. You can change their teeth, how they fit together. I mean, you can put.
00:27:50
Speaker 4: On elastics and bring the jaw for it.
00:27:52
Speaker 6: There's so much that we can do, but it's very systematized. We don't like crank the bands one day and then then we reduce the tension the other day.
00:28:01
Speaker 4: We very progressively and very strategically.
00:28:05
Speaker 6: We you know, a good orthodonist they know what they're doing, like how to change the bridge, when to put the elastics on, in all of this, and a good coach knows how to do that too, and then the client follows through. They work with the collaborate with the coach, and they work together to get.
00:28:22
Speaker 4: An optimal result. You can do it.
00:28:25
Speaker 6: On your own, but remember data is your friend. So we want to stop guessing and like I think this is what I had, and actually create your own meal plan and follow that and get some consistent feedback. Is this enough of a deficit? Is this enough protein or food? Am I getting great workouts in?
00:28:45
Speaker 4: So?
00:28:45
Speaker 6: I hope that kind of helps with the food bit and how we do it.
00:28:49
Speaker 1: It's so interesting and especially having you know Joan as such a public and real life success story. Joan, how has building muscle and fitness and health. How has all of this changed your life beyond just the physical transformation, the clothes fitting better, maybe emotionally, mentally, socially, what's shifted for you?
00:29:14
Speaker 3: I would say just about everything, especially at the beginning.
00:29:17
Speaker 5: I was really happy that everything came out the way we were planning, you know, like working towards it. The most weight came off at the beginning, and every year after that my body seemed to change. And that's what we want for our clients. Now that is for a limited time. This is going to be part of your lifestyle for the rest of your life. Be happy with what you're doing, because if you're not happy with what you're doing, you're going to stop for sure. And I love the change, and I love the fact that I didn't have to I was in maintenance for I don't know how many years, Michelle five years, pretty much, and I wasn't losing a lot.
00:29:57
Speaker 3: Of weight, but my body was changed.
00:30:00
Speaker 5: And that is something that at the beginning, after the first year and going if I can get this different in one year, what am I going to look like if I keep at it. So it was more like, you know, you're curious about what is potentially an outcome or what is going to happen as we get along. Even through all the things that have happened to me, operations and accidents and all the rest of it, I come back strong again a lot faster than I would have ever done before. I probably would have succumbed to a lot of the things that happened to me if I hadn't been going through this transformation. It's just life changing to be stronger as you get older.
00:30:41
Speaker 1: If you think back to ten years ago and the come to Jesus talk that Michelle had with you, Yeah, had you done nothing and said thank you, I'll think about it, and then done nothing and Michelle moved away, and you just kept going, who would we be talking to today?
00:30:59
Speaker 3: Would be talking to me today? I know that you wouldn't have been Really that makes me.
00:31:05
Speaker 2: That makes me really emotional. That's incredible.
00:31:08
Speaker 3: Oh my god, not the way I was going.
00:31:10
Speaker 2: Wow, Michelle, how does that make you? I'm literally cry.
00:31:14
Speaker 6: That is so I don't think she would have made it through COVID with her OBC. I don't, and she has underlying lung issues. She had hypertension. Those are all tied to severe increase likelihood of dying from complications with COVID, right, so I don't think she would have.
00:31:36
Speaker 1: Made it now, oh Jo, I mean the number of daughters that would be listening to this, just wishing that they could sprinkle the Michelle magic on their moms and do that. What a difference a decade makes.
00:31:52
Speaker 6: It's so hard, right like it's And I've had so many gals come up to me and say, you.
00:31:58
Speaker 4: Know, how do you do it?
00:32:00
Speaker 3: My mom?
00:32:01
Speaker 4: I wish we had that relationship. I wish I could. Either they've lost their mom or they're going to lose their mom.
00:32:07
Speaker 6: It's often let them other daughters, and I have no easy answer. You know, I was at the pinnacle of my career as a coach, with almost a decade of experience in a competitive field as well as feeling there's coaching. You learn how to coach, right, which is not just the broccoli and chicken, but how to get through and have impact. And you know, and it's hard with family. We all know that. But if anyone's listening now, I think Mom said it out a couple of interviews.
00:32:37
Speaker 4: You know, if your daughter is or son is trying.
00:32:40
Speaker 6: To talk to you about taking care of your health, listen to them. It is not the time to be stubborn. You got to just listen and just try. And it's you start where you are, but you will build from there.
00:32:59
Speaker 4: And that's the key.
00:33:00
Speaker 1: Mom.
00:33:00
Speaker 4: Do you want to add anything to that, because I'd love that to hit the people listening. You can change, and we were not.
00:33:07
Speaker 6: Able to change my father and he passed away and he could have changed.
00:33:11
Speaker 3: He could have, but he didn't.
00:33:13
Speaker 4: So I had two people's hit family.
00:33:15
Speaker 1: Yeah, I've got the same dynamic with my mom and dad. You know, up until the age of about sixty, they were the same. They looked they kind of behaved and looked the same. And then when they divorced, and I could not get through to my dad and he's still with us, but he's eighty five, terrible quality of life, type two diabetic, won't do any of the basic things. And my mom's playing tennis twice a week, and you know, complete polar opposites.
00:33:39
Speaker 3: I get two different sides of the coin.
00:33:40
Speaker 5: I get some daughters who have and sons who have been at their parents to better their life. And they've accepted that challenge. And then I have others that will see.
00:33:53
Speaker 3: Doesn't matter what I do. They don't want.
00:33:56
Speaker 5: You know, my mom does not wander, my dad doesn't want. They just think through two old it's passed their time and they don't want to be bothered blah blah blah blah learning news stuff. Well, you have a choice, like Michelle's always been telling me, You've got two choices. You can either do something about it or ignore it and suffer the consequences. I chose to do something about it with her help, and my husband chose elseways, and he's now gone. So if you can do it, and I've seen they've shown me pictures of their parents when before they started and after, and it's just soul.
00:34:30
Speaker 3: It just makes me cry every time I see something like that. It's up to you. You're the only one.
00:34:36
Speaker 1: It's not life changing. I mean, what you've gone through is life saving. Yes, means so much to all the loved ones around you. Michelle, you founded and now run an online coaching business called The Wonder Women, and your mom has been one of your many amazing success stories. So it's no surprise that you both then created the app Train with Joan, and I imagine because so many people wanted the amazing results that Joan got with you. Now, i'd love to know your thoughts on online coaching in general for women and how women are marketed to the pros and the cons.
00:35:13
Speaker 3: Love for your thoughts, oh, Michell, I could fill you and to.
00:35:16
Speaker 4: Thank you for that. I appreciate that Amelia a lot.
00:35:19
Speaker 6: I'm very mission driven and when I created The Wonder Woman, it was because I had I've been coaching since twenty twelve. I started The Wonder Woman actually during COVID in twenty twenty because I had a huge line up. There was nobody on my coaching and certainly not to who I was coaching, which was you know, it was really a thirty five plus because I was in my forties at the time and now there's a ton and me. You can't turn a corner without another online female menopause, you know, coach, and as I said, offline coaching is a profession. I take it seriously. I think the spar was really high with my coaching brand. I'll admit I did try to scale the coaches and get you know, a more significant number of coaches, and I'm just the quality the standards is too important to me, and it becomes too hard to manage those standards as you start to scale. So I have pulled back on that and this decided to stay small. I've got five unbelievable coaches and I'm not in any rush to bring more onboard.
00:36:24
Speaker 4: And the reason for that is because of the standards.
00:36:26
Speaker 6: So I think anyone that is a great coach that wants to create a coaching team, it's hard to scale. So I would say, you know, looking for either an individual coach who has a wide range of clients, different body types, different ages, that have these very kind of cookie cutter outcomes, not cookie cutter coaching, but their outcomes are very like It's like.
00:36:51
Speaker 4: Oh, they have these the similar outcomes. They are building muscle, they're getting.
00:36:54
Speaker 6: Strong in all of these things, and that they've been working with this coach for a long time.
00:37:00
Speaker 4: Right, So I like to say it's easy.
00:37:02
Speaker 6: Anyone could lose body fat and gain a little bit of muscle in the first six months.
00:37:06
Speaker 4: But a sign of a great coach is somebody.
00:37:08
Speaker 6: Who's had the same clients for a long time and the client's continuing to make progress and they're evolving, so and then you should be able to actually talk to some clients, right, So I always tell my people like if somebody has I'm so proud to tag my clients, and they're proud for me to tag them.
00:37:26
Speaker 4: So you know, just be you know, be careful.
00:37:29
Speaker 6: If a coach only has images with a you know, no names, you can't contact the people.
00:37:34
Speaker 4: They've got a circle over the face.
00:37:36
Speaker 6: Social media and AI now it's forget about it, right, everything's fake. Every so much is fake and it is almost impossible to legislate against that. My mom's image is used to sell all kinds of drugs and it is like playing whack.
00:37:51
Speaker 3: Them all serious.
00:37:52
Speaker 4: Oh yeah, so it's just we're you just want to be careful of that.
00:37:55
Speaker 6: We've even got videos now of people that look like a real transfer. It's so compelling. But you'll see like this thing in the background that that's the tell right, Like wait a minute, this person just like gained and lost one hundred pounds, but there's like the same glass in the background.
00:38:12
Speaker 4: So you know, it's AI generated.
00:38:13
Speaker 6: It's very clever, and I know don't want to say that you can't believe everything on the Internet, But there's some simple things that you should You should be able to talk to people and like what is it like, do they get back to the person, do they educate you? Are they compassionate? Like it's a sustainable and talk to a variety of people. So I would just say that about online coaching. I think there are some great online coaches out there. I think it's easy to spot them. I think there's a lot of very average and even sub par coaches out there. It's easy in the virtual world to play that game, and.
00:38:47
Speaker 4: So it's very much buyer but where.
00:38:49
Speaker 6: And it's not just coaching, it's with doctors, it's with everything in.
00:38:52
Speaker 4: The world these days. Right, there's a billion of us, and it's easy.
00:38:55
Speaker 6: To kind of like slither and get by and excellent looks a certain way, So just look for that excellence.
00:39:02
Speaker 4: You'd say anything different there because you also work.
00:39:04
Speaker 1: With women, right, Yeah, No, I one hundred percent agree with you. But I think in your particular case, you have just so many incredible transformation stories, Joan of course being the most famous, but so many others as well, and I think that's always such a telltale sign. And also that you've worked with all different ages as well.
00:39:24
Speaker 6: Ages races, people that have one hundred pounds, people that need to gain weight. I work with some people that we need to gain weight. They're so frail, they're so tiny, so five 't four ninety five pounds? We need to actually you know, maybe they come from a yoga background or whatever.
00:39:38
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, absolutely, Well look, ladies.
00:39:41
Speaker 1: Finally, I would love a parting tip from each of you. So if you thinking of my beautiful listeners, if each of you could give women one piece of advice for someone who is nervous to really step into the gym, step into a new way of training, maybe strength training for example. What would that potting piece of advice be?
00:40:05
Speaker 3: Who do you want to speak first?
00:40:08
Speaker 2: Why don't you go?
00:40:09
Speaker 6: Joan?
00:40:10
Speaker 5: Okay, So the thing is, I know there's a lot of people as you get older, would be really timid of going to a gym, and especially of my generation because we didn't. We had gyms, but they were mainly for men or women that really ballsy.
00:40:24
Speaker 3: Excuse my language.
00:40:26
Speaker 5: But it's it's very intimidating. You think people are really watching you and judging you, but they're not.
00:40:34
Speaker 3: They're so intent.
00:40:35
Speaker 5: I would say ninety percent of the people at least are so intent on changing themselves or doing their what they're doing, then to be watching you. And if you ever get a compliment or someone talking to you at a gym, it's because you've.
00:40:49
Speaker 3: Made an impression. Really, you've made an impression.
00:40:52
Speaker 5: So if you really really want to change, you got to think, I have to change.
00:40:57
Speaker 3: I have to change my mind.
00:40:59
Speaker 5: I have to change what I'm doing because I want my life back. You've got to really want your life back, because this is a good time to do it. You don't have any kids around anymore, you don't have anything or anybody really demanding something from you. Go out and get it for yourself. It's about time you spend all your life dealing.
00:41:18
Speaker 3: With other people.
00:41:19
Speaker 2: Focus on your intent.
00:41:21
Speaker 3: Focus on you intention and consistency.
00:41:25
Speaker 2: Michelle Potting tip from you.
00:41:27
Speaker 6: I'd probably piggyback on that, And I think the mindset's the most important thing.
00:41:32
Speaker 4: And I think Mom kind of touched on that.
00:41:33
Speaker 6: You've got to allow yourself to truly love and believe in yourself, and that's huge.
00:41:40
Speaker 4: Nobody's going to save you. No one's getting out of this alive.
00:41:45
Speaker 6: And you absolutely have the power to make small, tiny changes and then do it every single day and just try to get a little bit better. And that has to come from a place ultimately of self love. You've got to think you're worth it if you do that work, If you actually meditate on this idea that no one's going to save you and you've got to do it, and you love yourself enough to do the work, you'll find a way to make those small changes, and you'll make better choices and you'll be successful.
00:42:14
Speaker 4: So it starts with a mindset.
00:42:15
Speaker 1: Michelle and Joan McDonald, thank you both so much for your time today.
00:42:20
Speaker 4: Thanks for having us on the show.
00:42:22
Speaker 3: Yes, thank you very much to Amelia.
00:42:23
Speaker 6: Great to talk with you, Amelia, and I hope your listeners get a lot from it.
00:42:46
Speaker 1: Why is it so hard to get real answers about your health? If you've been told that everything looks fine, but you know that something is off, well, you're not imagining it. That's why I created Vitality three sixty to help you better understand what's going on inside your body so that you can take the targeted action needed. With a functional health approach plus testing, we go beyond the guesswork to uncover the root causes of your symptoms. I've teamed up with Dottyasmina, an incredible integrative GP, and together we will help you decode your body's signals and answer questions like why am I always exhausted? What's really causing my stubborn weight? Am I inflamed, insulin resistant? Or maybe missing key nutrients? Because when you understand your body better, you can transform your health. Visit V three sixty dot Health or check out the show notes for more
Speaker 1: Why is it so hard to get real answers about your health? If you've been told that everything looks fine, but you know that something is off, we're not imagining it. That's why I created Vitality three sixty to help you better understand what's going on inside your body so that you can take the targeted action needed. With a functional health approach plus testing, we go beyond the guesswork to uncover the root causes of your symptoms. I've teamed up with Doctyesmina, an incredible integrative GP, and together we will help you decode your body's signals and answer questions like why am I always exhausted? What's really causing my stubborn weight? Am I inflamed? Insulin resistant? Or maybe missing key nutrients? Because when you understand your body better, you can transform your health. Visit v three sixty dot health or check.
00:00:49
Speaker 2: Out the show notes for more.
00:00:52
Speaker 1: In the work that I do, many of the ladies that come to me are over sixty years old. You know they're really focused on their health, but they're often also carrying some significant health challenges as well. For many, changing their exercise and then nutrition habits can feel really hard. It can feel really daunting and there's no super clear path for them to follow. So many often say to me, I just think it's too late. I'm just going to stick with my weekly walks. You know I am too And then they insert issue here, I am too old, I'm too injured, I'm too nervous, I'm not interested, I'm too confused to try new things like strength training, for example. And it was about this time, after getting quite a few of these repeated patterns of ladies coming to me, that I stumbled upon an Instagram page the most inspiring woman who started her health journey not when she was sixty, but when she was seventy, and she completely turned her life for She is so inspiring that since then, in pretty much all of the workshops that I run and all of the ladies that I meet and work with, I always say to them, you have to follow the Instagram page.
00:02:13
Speaker 2: Train with Joan.
00:02:14
Speaker 1: You have got to get in Joan's community, because if she can do it, you can too. This is Healthy Heir with Amelia Phillips, and today's episode is going to challenge what you thought you knew about aging, strength and what the human body is capable of.
00:02:45
Speaker 2: Particularly later in life.
00:02:47
Speaker 1: My guests today are Joan McDonald and her daughter Michelle McDonald, the duo who created Train with Joan, a fitness platform and inspiring Instagram page with over two point three million followers.
00:03:02
Speaker 2: Yes, so inspiring.
00:03:03
Speaker 1: All focused around helping women of all ages, but particularly older women, fall in love with strength training and really reimagine new versions of themselves. Joan has such an incredible story. She began her health and fitness transformation at the age of seventy after years of struggling with her weight, low energy, declining mobility, and multiple medication.
00:03:26
Speaker 2: Fast forward to.
00:03:27
Speaker 1: Today and she has inspired millions of people around the world by proving that it's never too late to build strength, to reclaim your health, and to completely redefine what aging looks like.
00:03:39
Speaker 2: And I just love this.
00:03:41
Speaker 1: So then we have the equally inspiring Michelle, Joon's daughter, a women's fitness coach, a bodybuilder and transformation specialist who has played a pivotal role in helping guide Jones's incredible health journey. Michelle has spent years helping women strength, improved body composition, and challenge the limiting beliefs around aging. So together they have become one of the most inspiring mother daughter voices in healthy aging and strength training worldwide. So today we're talking about how we can take the leap into not just strength training, but also to really reframe this new season of life, to stop seeing aging as a decline but rather see it as a possibility. So, whether you're at a similar age to Joan, or maybe you have a loved one who is, today's episode is for you. Joan, Michelle, welcome to Healthy Her.
00:04:40
Speaker 3: Thank you so much for invading us familiar.
00:04:42
Speaker 4: Thanks for having us.
00:04:44
Speaker 2: I am so excited.
00:04:46
Speaker 1: You can probably hear it in my voice as I chatted through my intro, because you have so many fans here in Australia.
00:04:55
Speaker 2: Where are you both beaming in from today?
00:04:58
Speaker 3: I'm San Miguel Violande in my sick.
00:05:00
Speaker 1: Well done, Joe, and you're there to Michelle, Yeah yeah, we lived together.
00:05:05
Speaker 2: Oh I love it.
00:05:07
Speaker 4: I love it, lived to eat together, trade together.
00:05:10
Speaker 1: I wish I could live with my mom as well. I actually spent a week with her last week and it was just so special. But look, Joan, take us back to the moment everything changed. What was happening in your life and your health around that age seventy, that really made you decide something has to change.
00:05:28
Speaker 5: Well, I was what I always say is I was sick and tired of being sick and tired. Yeah, my health was not the best. I was on the medications. I didn't want to be on them. I had gone to the doctor, and because my blood pressure was so wonky, she wanted to upgrade them, like multiply the pills that.
00:05:48
Speaker 3: I was taking.
00:05:49
Speaker 5: Anyway, I said, no, I don't want more. I want to get off. So what can we do? And anyway, Michelle was coming, her and her husband were coming to be with us before they moved down to Mexico, and she saw the state I was in, huffing and puffing up the stairs, and she just laid it on me.
00:06:11
Speaker 3: It was very pivotal.
00:06:12
Speaker 1: Yeah, what do you mean, laid it on Michelle? What is laying it on me? Is this the like the come to Jesus talk?
00:06:19
Speaker 4: Yeah? It was. It was the come to Jesus talk. It was I call it my Friday Friday.
00:06:24
Speaker 6: Night lights coaching talk with my mother.
00:06:28
Speaker 4: I gave her, I gave her the truth I liked.
00:06:31
Speaker 6: I like to say it's kind of like like Tony Robbins, I pulled on science brevity, humor, everything, almost faith, Christianity, our relationship, everything I possibly could.
00:06:43
Speaker 4: Because I was leaving and.
00:06:45
Speaker 6: It really hit me that her health had really deteriorated, and it was make or break, right, So I mean, I mean the health business. And Mom was two hundred pounds. Waste was thirty nine inches. She's seventy You know that a waste circumference for a female. She's five foot three. Once we get above thirty four inches, now we escalate into that higher risk category for increased morbidity. Right, And I was leaving and be frank, my dad's passed away. But they did not have this thriving relationship. They were surviving together, but not thriving. But he loved candies and chocolates and chips and all that stuff.
00:07:26
Speaker 4: Just the outcome looked really poor.
00:07:28
Speaker 6: I had a transformation group starting, and I said, Mom, I'll put you to this transformation group.
00:07:32
Speaker 4: You know it works.
00:07:34
Speaker 6: You know I'm great at what I do. It'll work for you, but you've got to show up. And I said literally, and we laughed about it. Now because she was sick recently and I had to take care of her in the hospital. But at the time, I said Listen, I'm not going to come to that nursing home and change your diapers because you've let yourself deteriorate. Because the version of you, the woman right in front of me right now, she is still capable of changing the course of her future.
00:08:05
Speaker 4: Wow, but you got to do it now.
00:08:07
Speaker 6: And so it was really like, of course, you know, I would have helped her, but I can tell her that, I'm like, you got to do this now because I knew that the mom that I loved was not going to be my mom. If I was going to a nursing home to take care of her, she would be so depressed, she would be so frustrated and angry, and there'd be no going back by that time, right, it's too far gone.
00:08:27
Speaker 4: So that's with the speech. It was a tough ball.
00:08:30
Speaker 6: And then I and then afterwards when she showed up to to get in shape, I said to my husband, because I already onboarded these gals, we were already started. And Mom didn't even have a cell phone, like, she didn't have a smartphone. So there's this enormous tech obstacle. And I said, what have I done? I said, how am I going to do it? How am I going to do it, Like, there are the hurdles that you can't even imagine, or maybe you can't. How do you get a seventy year old to learn how to use a smartphone?
00:08:56
Speaker 4: Remember her passwords? Remember how to find the app?
00:08:59
Speaker 6: Where I doing the coachry? How are we going to do that piece while I'm in Mexico?
00:09:05
Speaker 3: It was wild.
00:09:07
Speaker 1: Joan thinking back to that moment and that very serious conversation. What was your initial reaction and feeling when your daughter, who you loved so much and who clearly loves you so much, is having such a confronting conversation Because for some people, when there is that confrontation, for some people, the natural reaction is to actually push back and say stuff you.
00:09:34
Speaker 2: But what was your reaction and feeling?
00:09:37
Speaker 5: Actually, I told you I'll think about it, But it didn't take much to think about it, because I'm going if I don't do this now, then am I going to be able to do it? Because I'd sooner take her up on that challenge than end up. Like she said the next morning, I was in the car before she was. I just knew I had to I had to try. It was a challenge to me to be able to even try it because I had no tech skills whatsoever, and we did not have a lot of the stuff that we have now. It was on a PDF. I had to print it out and do it that way. It was a very difficult challenge, I'll tell you. And I was just three months away from my seventy first birthday when I did it.
00:10:20
Speaker 1: Wow, talk me through the first six to twelve months, Joan, your experience when I'm assuming you had to go into a gym and pick up weights, is that what you were doing initially? We took me through that first six months and what that experience was like for you.
00:10:38
Speaker 5: Well, Michelle JJ took me to my Jim. I had a gym membership, but I wasn't using it the way that I needed to be using it. And they saw me do it, trying to do the exercises and like I was doing it with everything, And I expect that anyone that follows me will do it with intent as well well, because you have to. You can't just fly through it. It's hard, very hard for everyone, and you can't be soft on yourself.
00:11:11
Speaker 3: You's got to be hard on yourself.
00:11:12
Speaker 5: And the first six months that was how long my course was for I did so much changing and I said to Michelle, I don't want to lose a lot of weight.
00:11:23
Speaker 3: I don't want to get skinny.
00:11:24
Speaker 5: I want something on my body to fight with if anything happens, you know, like you get sick or something. You know how older people they get sick and then they're already skinny and they're just fade awight to nothing.
00:11:37
Speaker 1: I love that you realize that that it's not about shrinking and getting skinnier, because that does lead to fraul.
00:11:44
Speaker 2: To you, even with.
00:11:45
Speaker 1: Your inexperienced and inexperience and lack of education, you recognize that you wanted to feel strong.
00:11:51
Speaker 2: That's fantastic.
00:11:53
Speaker 5: Well, I wanted to I wanted to see what Michelle was seeing with her clients, like they were just so beautiful. Well, yeah, the transformation following her protocol was amazing, and I wanted that for me.
00:12:09
Speaker 1: Tell me, was Michelle with you every day in the gym or once she'd kind of given you the beginnings and taught you the basics movement patterns. Were you then on your own or was she with you every single day?
00:12:24
Speaker 5: No, we were thousands of miles apart because she was moving to Mexico and I was still in Ontario, and like I said, it was was PDFs and trying to teach me something. Her invitation was come to Mexico for a couple of weeks at least so we can get you started. And that's what I did.
00:12:43
Speaker 3: I went. I went to Mexico.
00:12:45
Speaker 5: The heat was overwhelming for me because we were in tou Loom and summertime tou loom is suffocating. It is, but we got through it. We got through it.
00:12:58
Speaker 1: Michelle, thinking about my beautiful listeners who are either in Joan's situation and inexperienced and wanting to start, or maybe a loved one in your situation strongly encouraging. What's the best approach when someone doesn't know the basic lifting patterns and they don't have a Michelle as a daughter that can initially teach them. What would your advice be for getting started in strength training?
00:13:30
Speaker 4: Well, we do have an app Cultrain with Joan.
00:13:33
Speaker 6: I would say do the app if your beginner, because Joan demonstrates. I do some of the exercises too, but it's predominantly my mom. She demonstrates everything, and of course a culture. There are so many apps out there now they're very affordable. I think having what I call a performance criterion, so an actual example of how something should be done that you're looking at with reference.
00:13:56
Speaker 4: Most of us learn very visually, and then having a plan to follow.
00:14:01
Speaker 6: I do recommend, you know, I of course I'm going to say just get started. Of course I'm going to say start with walking. But it would be dishonest of me to say that's how Mom achieved her results, and it's not how Mom achieved her results. Joe followed the protocols that a twenty year old would have to follow to get in shape. She followed the protocols that a thirty year old man would have to follow to get in shape. When we say get in shape, we say loose body, fat, gay muscle, game muscle. Beyond just getting out of a chair or not using a walker, I'm talking about gaining enough muscle to have true agency. You know, Mom is helping us lift things out of the car, heavy grocery bags, I don't know, probably twenty pounds each, and she's walking up two flights of stairs.
00:14:43
Speaker 4: So that and not huffing and puffing.
00:14:45
Speaker 6: So that's what I mean by agency, like staying impactful, able to contribute meaningfully, and she wants to go travel. I don't have to worry that she's not going to be able to take care of herself. If she falls down, she's going to be able to push herself back up again and lift her suitcase up, all of the things that a forty or thirty year old like hopefully.
00:15:03
Speaker 4: They take for granted.
00:15:04
Speaker 6: So that's you know, like she had to do regular resistance training and get stronger, you know, in a measurable way, in a materially measurable way. So she started off with doing I think there's a video of her doing these again. She was two hundred pounds and she's in this big, baggy black good Life t shirt and she's struggling.
00:15:25
Speaker 4: She was really good at creating tension from the get go.
00:15:29
Speaker 6: But if you zoom in and you look at the machine, you can see that it's that one skinny little plate. That's all she was able to do. And then in five months she's lifting I think twenty pound dumbbells or whatever, right like, and doubles are much harder than a machine.
00:15:43
Speaker 1: This is what I love about your Instagram page is that you keep going back to old videos and images of yourself, Joan, And so you can see this.
00:15:55
Speaker 2: Change, you know, gorgeous.
00:15:57
Speaker 1: Yeah, you can see this woman in a seventies that just looks like anybody's regular you know, mom or grandma. And then this transformation where you've got guns of steel and your waist has just gone. And I think, like, it's one thing to see a thirty year old transform their health, but to see you do it and so visually. And you guys put the videos together in such an empowering way. Joan, how did that feel for you, Like from the beginning stages when everything felt hard, unfamiliar, What am I doing?
00:16:30
Speaker 2: Am I doing this correctly? Is that weight?
00:16:32
Speaker 1: It hurts all of that to then the glimmers of results starting to show through. Talk me through the shift from hard to when you go, oh, actually it's working.
00:16:44
Speaker 2: And how that experience felt for you?
00:16:46
Speaker 5: That actually worked within the first three months, because I could see the difference in my clothing, like the measurements.
00:16:52
Speaker 3: Michelle had us take measurements all the time. Every week. We had to put a new photo.
00:16:58
Speaker 5: In with our original photo, and you can see the differences in the body shape. But seeing my clothes get so baggy that I had to give them away and I'm eating more than I did. I'm going it doesn't make any sense, but it's working. So it's got to be a good thing. Like whatever Michelle did, she fell on something that or organized something that was really workable, doable for anyone. If it can do it for me, it can do it for anybody else. If you put the intent in, you keep.
00:17:32
Speaker 1: Coming back to that, which I think is you know, is such an important point. What about nutritionally, Joan, what were some of the biggest changes that you made to your diet.
00:17:43
Speaker 5: Well, I had to stop snacking, which was kind of hard for me. I actually had to have more protein than what I was eating vegetables and fruit. I had no real problem, but it was what it was was I was made to eat it just like it, but I've had to eat it. And sticking to that protein, the proper carbs, the proper fats, good fats, made a big difference.
00:18:10
Speaker 3: And of course with the exercises.
00:18:12
Speaker 5: And I was only doing like maybe ten to fifteen minutes of cardio as a warm up when I was doing my workouts.
00:18:20
Speaker 2: What the rest was strength training?
00:18:21
Speaker 5: The rest was strength training. Yeah, and it made a big difference. At the beginning, I was doing five days and I was doing one day.
00:18:29
Speaker 4: Was like a yoga.
00:18:32
Speaker 5: Yoga, Yeah, yoga movements. And when I started learning yoga, I'm going Anyone says anyone's doing yoga's a pansy is nuts. They don't understand how much you use your body. It's just amazing, like what they do, how they cantort their body.
00:18:50
Speaker 3: And that wow, like it's not easy.
00:18:53
Speaker 1: Did you notice an improvement in your flexibility and mobility when you started doing yoga?
00:18:59
Speaker 5: Yes, I'm not really as flexible as I would like to be, but I think it's just the way my body's built.
00:19:05
Speaker 6: Says the woman who'd practiced for two weeks because my other clients were doing a split challenge. And then she surprises us in two weeks by dropping to the floor in her bikini at seventy.
00:19:19
Speaker 4: Whatever eight at the time of day or so, in a full splits and I'm like, what the heck. I grabbed Mike. I'm like, we gotta get a camera.
00:19:26
Speaker 6: We've got to get like this is insane that her body's been able to be so responsive and get her pliability back.
00:19:34
Speaker 2: Isn't that amazing?
00:19:36
Speaker 4: It is amazing. Well, you're a teacher as well, and it was like, wow, this is.
00:19:39
Speaker 2: Oh Michelle, she was looking at that amazing.
00:19:43
Speaker 3: Can you get up now?
00:19:46
Speaker 6: One of the backing because I think the food's so important the coaching us.
00:19:49
Speaker 1: Add it right, Yes, I wanted to ask you about the food talk us through what you're thinking is behind Joan's food choices.
00:19:56
Speaker 6: Again, I come from a bodybuilding background, meaning that I don't have special, magic secret protocols. These are very normal protocols that almost anybody that's doing a physic competition follows. Right, you eat multiple meals, so you have multiple protein dosings if you want to be you know, technical, especially because you want to get that loosing threshold per meal. And then you know, I think a lot of times people forget that women I have smaller bodies, and so we want to make sure that each protein serving is going to help give them that anabolic response, because even if it's only helping like a small percentage, but you do something like that consistently every day, multiple times a day.
00:20:32
Speaker 1: Yeah, that muscle protein synthesis triggering.
00:20:35
Speaker 6: Exactly versus lipogenesis, which like we're really good at that, but we want to get really good at creating muscle issues So I think that the biggest change was for most people is thinking about it at least that worked with me or any of the like I said, like a proper physique coach is shifting from you know, breakfast, lunch, dinner, and snacks. And as we get older, what we really see the pattern I call it the executive lifestyle. Right, you skip breakfast or you have a coffee or something like that, and then you have like a big lunch at a big dinner and then maybe some late night snacking.
00:21:05
Speaker 4: Right, it's kind of like this if.
00:21:07
Speaker 6: That executives are doing all over the world. My dad he'd never eat breakfast, but he'd have this big late lunch with the guys and then a big dinner, and he just packed on a lot of visceral body fat. So for Mom and my clients, it's learning to think of food as number one. Can this help me towards Can these meals help me towards my goals versus just eating sort of pleasure or whatever.
00:21:31
Speaker 4: Can this actually give this meal help me towards my goals? Thinking of getting protein with every meal?
00:21:37
Speaker 6: Right, So Mom mentioned that, so it start not we're not obsessiment protein, but we're starting to think, gosh, like am I getting any protein in that meal? Or is it mostly fat or is it mostly carbs? Like where is the protein coming from? SOS starting to think more about like where's the protein coming from, making sure it's in the meal. Mom talked about vegetables. So we're big on the micro nutrients. We say, just eat the colors of the rain and hit your twenty five grams of fiber per meal. So I have my clients track their fiber per meal. Or the worst case, if you're just starting out, that's too much, think about some high fiber fruits.
00:22:12
Speaker 4: Those are going to be your.
00:22:13
Speaker 6: Grains, your legomes, your nuts and seeds, and some of your legumes and fruits, especially in your seeded fruits.
00:22:20
Speaker 4: Right, and I'm sure your clients know all about that.
00:22:22
Speaker 6: So eat the others comes with the rebol get your fiber in, and spread the protein out throat the day. And so we're really reducing these you know ups, these wild ups and down, these overfeeding and then you're going high bocaloric like no calories for large.
00:22:38
Speaker 4: Periods of time.
00:22:39
Speaker 6: Then you're angry and you go and eat everything or you have bowl of penis, and we're stepping away from that, and we're starting to get very routine and very balanced and very systematics. It's like James Clear atomic habits, right. We create a system that helps somebody's body optimize.
00:22:58
Speaker 4: We take away the friction.
00:23:12
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00:23:28
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00:24:11
Speaker 2: Michelle.
00:24:12
Speaker 1: For someone listening to that wise advice, I can imagine that the pushback might be, but when I eat multiple meals, I'm going to over eat.
00:24:25
Speaker 2: How do you help your.
00:24:27
Speaker 1: Clients stick within their range? Are they tracking? Are they you know, weighing their food and tracking their macros? How do you work And I know you've got your bodybuilders, which are a particular cohort, but then you also work with lifestyle, with everyday people like us.
00:24:44
Speaker 2: How do you help us keep that.
00:24:46
Speaker 1: Caloric intake at an appropriate deficit when or not not a deficit? Potentially when we live in such an abundant lifestyle and world.
00:24:56
Speaker 6: I think Number one, I'd like to say, they're they're this initial friction as there is was learning anything new.
00:25:04
Speaker 4: But when you're.
00:25:04
Speaker 6: Why, it's stronger than that stubbornness or that friction.
00:25:09
Speaker 4: You'll find a way, right, You'll find a way. I coach. I love coaching on passion. I'm an educator, right.
00:25:16
Speaker 6: I like to say at TWW that's what we call the Wonder Woman where educators not dictators. So I don't like when people say trust the process or I mean we joke about it, right, But I'm like, no, I want you to understand the process because I need you to understand why we're doing stuff in the beginning.
00:25:33
Speaker 4: We just teach you.
00:25:34
Speaker 6: Right, if I get somebody that's never done it before, which was my mom, which was all of my clients. I mean, people didn't do macros back then the way they do now. For the first decade of my coaching, I had to literally sit down with a client so say Embelia said, oh my god, I love your results, Can you please coach me? And I would do an intake and sure enough, you've never really tracked before. Almost everyone thinks they're eating twenty five hundred calories. Nobody that I started with, it's eating twenty five hundred caties.
00:26:01
Speaker 2: They're eating more, they're eating less.
00:26:04
Speaker 4: Less on a day to day basis. I'll be honest.
00:26:07
Speaker 6: Most people are at a magical like in my avatar, which is the thirty five plus, it's like this magical fifteen hundred. If the person's two hundred pounds, if the person's one hundred pounds, they're all kind of around twelve hundred and fifteen hundred cats wild and they've accumulated.
00:26:24
Speaker 4: A lot of body fat.
00:26:25
Speaker 6: So we just sit down, we figure out their their macros. I create a meal plan for them. I might do a starter meal plan. In the old days, I'd say, okay, what are your favorite four proteins, your favorite four vegetables, your favorite But I would make this said, let's I'll.
00:26:40
Speaker 4: Create a simple meal plan to get you started.
00:26:43
Speaker 6: And then here's this app, and we use the app called my macros and you can and we don't track.
00:26:48
Speaker 4: We plan.
00:26:50
Speaker 6: So if there's a word that for me is like a trigger word, it's track because I talk about food in financial terms and it's like, here's your budget, and if you want to win at this game, you decide what you want to spend your money on, and you plan in advance.
00:27:06
Speaker 4: You even plan.
00:27:08
Speaker 6: I eat chocolate every day multiple times. I don't drink a lot of alcohol, but I might have a glass of champagne. I might do it, and I plan for it so there's no surprises. Just like you would budget and plan to go on a holiday or go have a nice dinner. Right, you budget, you don't spend the money and then track it afterwards to say that I stay in the targets. And a lot of people do that, and I'm like, that's very stressful and it doesn't actually help your body to be optimized.
00:27:37
Speaker 4: And I'll add one last thing, Amelia.
00:27:39
Speaker 6: I talk about the teeth a lot, right, So when we put braces on, you can radically change someone's bridge. You can change their teeth, how they fit together. I mean, you can put.
00:27:50
Speaker 4: On elastics and bring the jaw for it.
00:27:52
Speaker 6: There's so much that we can do, but it's very systematized. We don't like crank the bands one day and then then we reduce the tension the other day.
00:28:01
Speaker 4: We very progressively and very strategically.
00:28:05
Speaker 6: We you know, a good orthodonist they know what they're doing, like how to change the bridge, when to put the elastics on, in all of this, and a good coach knows how to do that too, and then the client follows through. They work with the collaborate with the coach, and they work together to get.
00:28:22
Speaker 4: An optimal result. You can do it.
00:28:25
Speaker 6: On your own, but remember data is your friend. So we want to stop guessing and like I think this is what I had, and actually create your own meal plan and follow that and get some consistent feedback. Is this enough of a deficit? Is this enough protein or food? Am I getting great workouts in?
00:28:45
Speaker 4: So?
00:28:45
Speaker 6: I hope that kind of helps with the food bit and how we do it.
00:28:49
Speaker 1: It's so interesting and especially having you know Joan as such a public and real life success story. Joan, how has building muscle and fitness and health. How has all of this changed your life beyond just the physical transformation, the clothes fitting better, maybe emotionally, mentally, socially, what's shifted for you?
00:29:14
Speaker 3: I would say just about everything, especially at the beginning.
00:29:17
Speaker 5: I was really happy that everything came out the way we were planning, you know, like working towards it. The most weight came off at the beginning, and every year after that my body seemed to change. And that's what we want for our clients. Now that is for a limited time. This is going to be part of your lifestyle for the rest of your life. Be happy with what you're doing, because if you're not happy with what you're doing, you're going to stop for sure. And I love the change, and I love the fact that I didn't have to I was in maintenance for I don't know how many years, Michelle five years, pretty much, and I wasn't losing a lot.
00:29:57
Speaker 3: Of weight, but my body was changed.
00:30:00
Speaker 5: And that is something that at the beginning, after the first year and going if I can get this different in one year, what am I going to look like if I keep at it. So it was more like, you know, you're curious about what is potentially an outcome or what is going to happen as we get along. Even through all the things that have happened to me, operations and accidents and all the rest of it, I come back strong again a lot faster than I would have ever done before. I probably would have succumbed to a lot of the things that happened to me if I hadn't been going through this transformation. It's just life changing to be stronger as you get older.
00:30:41
Speaker 1: If you think back to ten years ago and the come to Jesus talk that Michelle had with you, Yeah, had you done nothing and said thank you, I'll think about it, and then done nothing and Michelle moved away, and you just kept going, who would we be talking to today?
00:30:59
Speaker 3: Would be talking to me today? I know that you wouldn't have been Really that makes me.
00:31:05
Speaker 2: That makes me really emotional. That's incredible.
00:31:08
Speaker 3: Oh my god, not the way I was going.
00:31:10
Speaker 2: Wow, Michelle, how does that make you? I'm literally cry.
00:31:14
Speaker 6: That is so I don't think she would have made it through COVID with her OBC. I don't, and she has underlying lung issues. She had hypertension. Those are all tied to severe increase likelihood of dying from complications with COVID, right, so I don't think she would have.
00:31:36
Speaker 1: Made it now, oh Jo, I mean the number of daughters that would be listening to this, just wishing that they could sprinkle the Michelle magic on their moms and do that. What a difference a decade makes.
00:31:52
Speaker 6: It's so hard, right like it's And I've had so many gals come up to me and say, you.
00:31:58
Speaker 4: Know, how do you do it?
00:32:00
Speaker 3: My mom?
00:32:01
Speaker 4: I wish we had that relationship. I wish I could. Either they've lost their mom or they're going to lose their mom.
00:32:07
Speaker 6: It's often let them other daughters, and I have no easy answer. You know, I was at the pinnacle of my career as a coach, with almost a decade of experience in a competitive field as well as feeling there's coaching. You learn how to coach, right, which is not just the broccoli and chicken, but how to get through and have impact. And you know, and it's hard with family. We all know that. But if anyone's listening now, I think Mom said it out a couple of interviews.
00:32:37
Speaker 4: You know, if your daughter is or son is trying.
00:32:40
Speaker 6: To talk to you about taking care of your health, listen to them. It is not the time to be stubborn. You got to just listen and just try. And it's you start where you are, but you will build from there.
00:32:59
Speaker 4: And that's the key.
00:33:00
Speaker 1: Mom.
00:33:00
Speaker 4: Do you want to add anything to that, because I'd love that to hit the people listening. You can change, and we were not.
00:33:07
Speaker 6: Able to change my father and he passed away and he could have changed.
00:33:11
Speaker 3: He could have, but he didn't.
00:33:13
Speaker 4: So I had two people's hit family.
00:33:15
Speaker 1: Yeah, I've got the same dynamic with my mom and dad. You know, up until the age of about sixty, they were the same. They looked they kind of behaved and looked the same. And then when they divorced, and I could not get through to my dad and he's still with us, but he's eighty five, terrible quality of life, type two diabetic, won't do any of the basic things. And my mom's playing tennis twice a week, and you know, complete polar opposites.
00:33:39
Speaker 3: I get two different sides of the coin.
00:33:40
Speaker 5: I get some daughters who have and sons who have been at their parents to better their life. And they've accepted that challenge. And then I have others that will see.
00:33:53
Speaker 3: Doesn't matter what I do. They don't want.
00:33:56
Speaker 5: You know, my mom does not wander, my dad doesn't want. They just think through two old it's passed their time and they don't want to be bothered blah blah blah blah learning news stuff. Well, you have a choice, like Michelle's always been telling me, You've got two choices. You can either do something about it or ignore it and suffer the consequences. I chose to do something about it with her help, and my husband chose elseways, and he's now gone. So if you can do it, and I've seen they've shown me pictures of their parents when before they started and after, and it's just soul.
00:34:30
Speaker 3: It just makes me cry every time I see something like that. It's up to you. You're the only one.
00:34:36
Speaker 1: It's not life changing. I mean, what you've gone through is life saving. Yes, means so much to all the loved ones around you. Michelle, you founded and now run an online coaching business called The Wonder Women, and your mom has been one of your many amazing success stories. So it's no surprise that you both then created the app Train with Joan, and I imagine because so many people wanted the amazing results that Joan got with you. Now, i'd love to know your thoughts on online coaching in general for women and how women are marketed to the pros and the cons.
00:35:13
Speaker 3: Love for your thoughts, oh, Michell, I could fill you and to.
00:35:16
Speaker 4: Thank you for that. I appreciate that Amelia a lot.
00:35:19
Speaker 6: I'm very mission driven and when I created The Wonder Woman, it was because I had I've been coaching since twenty twelve. I started The Wonder Woman actually during COVID in twenty twenty because I had a huge line up. There was nobody on my coaching and certainly not to who I was coaching, which was you know, it was really a thirty five plus because I was in my forties at the time and now there's a ton and me. You can't turn a corner without another online female menopause, you know, coach, and as I said, offline coaching is a profession. I take it seriously. I think the spar was really high with my coaching brand. I'll admit I did try to scale the coaches and get you know, a more significant number of coaches, and I'm just the quality the standards is too important to me, and it becomes too hard to manage those standards as you start to scale. So I have pulled back on that and this decided to stay small. I've got five unbelievable coaches and I'm not in any rush to bring more onboard.
00:36:24
Speaker 4: And the reason for that is because of the standards.
00:36:26
Speaker 6: So I think anyone that is a great coach that wants to create a coaching team, it's hard to scale. So I would say, you know, looking for either an individual coach who has a wide range of clients, different body types, different ages, that have these very kind of cookie cutter outcomes, not cookie cutter coaching, but their outcomes are very like It's like.
00:36:51
Speaker 4: Oh, they have these the similar outcomes. They are building muscle, they're getting.
00:36:54
Speaker 6: Strong in all of these things, and that they've been working with this coach for a long time.
00:37:00
Speaker 4: Right, So I like to say it's easy.
00:37:02
Speaker 6: Anyone could lose body fat and gain a little bit of muscle in the first six months.
00:37:06
Speaker 4: But a sign of a great coach is somebody.
00:37:08
Speaker 6: Who's had the same clients for a long time and the client's continuing to make progress and they're evolving, so and then you should be able to actually talk to some clients, right, So I always tell my people like if somebody has I'm so proud to tag my clients, and they're proud for me to tag them.
00:37:26
Speaker 4: So you know, just be you know, be careful.
00:37:29
Speaker 6: If a coach only has images with a you know, no names, you can't contact the people.
00:37:34
Speaker 4: They've got a circle over the face.
00:37:36
Speaker 6: Social media and AI now it's forget about it, right, everything's fake. Every so much is fake and it is almost impossible to legislate against that. My mom's image is used to sell all kinds of drugs and it is like playing whack.
00:37:51
Speaker 3: Them all serious.
00:37:52
Speaker 4: Oh yeah, so it's just we're you just want to be careful of that.
00:37:55
Speaker 6: We've even got videos now of people that look like a real transfer. It's so compelling. But you'll see like this thing in the background that that's the tell right, Like wait a minute, this person just like gained and lost one hundred pounds, but there's like the same glass in the background.
00:38:12
Speaker 4: So you know, it's AI generated.
00:38:13
Speaker 6: It's very clever, and I know don't want to say that you can't believe everything on the Internet, But there's some simple things that you should You should be able to talk to people and like what is it like, do they get back to the person, do they educate you? Are they compassionate? Like it's a sustainable and talk to a variety of people. So I would just say that about online coaching. I think there are some great online coaches out there. I think it's easy to spot them. I think there's a lot of very average and even sub par coaches out there. It's easy in the virtual world to play that game, and.
00:38:47
Speaker 4: So it's very much buyer but where.
00:38:49
Speaker 6: And it's not just coaching, it's with doctors, it's with everything in.
00:38:52
Speaker 4: The world these days. Right, there's a billion of us, and it's easy.
00:38:55
Speaker 6: To kind of like slither and get by and excellent looks a certain way, So just look for that excellence.
00:39:02
Speaker 4: You'd say anything different there because you also work.
00:39:04
Speaker 1: With women, right, Yeah, No, I one hundred percent agree with you. But I think in your particular case, you have just so many incredible transformation stories, Joan of course being the most famous, but so many others as well, and I think that's always such a telltale sign. And also that you've worked with all different ages as well.
00:39:24
Speaker 6: Ages races, people that have one hundred pounds, people that need to gain weight. I work with some people that we need to gain weight. They're so frail, they're so tiny, so five 't four ninety five pounds? We need to actually you know, maybe they come from a yoga background or whatever.
00:39:38
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, absolutely, Well look, ladies.
00:39:41
Speaker 1: Finally, I would love a parting tip from each of you. So if you thinking of my beautiful listeners, if each of you could give women one piece of advice for someone who is nervous to really step into the gym, step into a new way of training, maybe strength training for example. What would that potting piece of advice be?
00:40:05
Speaker 3: Who do you want to speak first?
00:40:08
Speaker 2: Why don't you go?
00:40:09
Speaker 6: Joan?
00:40:10
Speaker 5: Okay, So the thing is, I know there's a lot of people as you get older, would be really timid of going to a gym, and especially of my generation because we didn't. We had gyms, but they were mainly for men or women that really ballsy.
00:40:24
Speaker 3: Excuse my language.
00:40:26
Speaker 5: But it's it's very intimidating. You think people are really watching you and judging you, but they're not.
00:40:34
Speaker 3: They're so intent.
00:40:35
Speaker 5: I would say ninety percent of the people at least are so intent on changing themselves or doing their what they're doing, then to be watching you. And if you ever get a compliment or someone talking to you at a gym, it's because you've.
00:40:49
Speaker 3: Made an impression. Really, you've made an impression.
00:40:52
Speaker 5: So if you really really want to change, you got to think, I have to change.
00:40:57
Speaker 3: I have to change my mind.
00:40:59
Speaker 5: I have to change what I'm doing because I want my life back. You've got to really want your life back, because this is a good time to do it. You don't have any kids around anymore, you don't have anything or anybody really demanding something from you. Go out and get it for yourself. It's about time you spend all your life dealing.
00:41:18
Speaker 3: With other people.
00:41:19
Speaker 2: Focus on your intent.
00:41:21
Speaker 3: Focus on you intention and consistency.
00:41:25
Speaker 2: Michelle Potting tip from you.
00:41:27
Speaker 6: I'd probably piggyback on that, And I think the mindset's the most important thing.
00:41:32
Speaker 4: And I think Mom kind of touched on that.
00:41:33
Speaker 6: You've got to allow yourself to truly love and believe in yourself, and that's huge.
00:41:40
Speaker 4: Nobody's going to save you. No one's getting out of this alive.
00:41:45
Speaker 6: And you absolutely have the power to make small, tiny changes and then do it every single day and just try to get a little bit better. And that has to come from a place ultimately of self love. You've got to think you're worth it if you do that work, If you actually meditate on this idea that no one's going to save you and you've got to do it, and you love yourself enough to do the work, you'll find a way to make those small changes, and you'll make better choices and you'll be successful.
00:42:14
Speaker 4: So it starts with a mindset.
00:42:15
Speaker 1: Michelle and Joan McDonald, thank you both so much for your time today.
00:42:20
Speaker 4: Thanks for having us on the show.
00:42:22
Speaker 3: Yes, thank you very much to Amelia.
00:42:23
Speaker 6: Great to talk with you, Amelia, and I hope your listeners get a lot from it.
00:42:46
Speaker 1: Why is it so hard to get real answers about your health? If you've been told that everything looks fine, but you know that something is off, well, you're not imagining it. That's why I created Vitality three sixty to help you better understand what's going on inside your body so that you can take the targeted action needed. With a functional health approach plus testing, we go beyond the guesswork to uncover the root causes of your symptoms. I've teamed up with Dottyasmina, an incredible integrative GP, and together we will help you decode your body's signals and answer questions like why am I always exhausted? What's really causing my stubborn weight? Am I inflamed, insulin resistant? Or maybe missing key nutrients? Because when you understand your body better, you can transform your health. Visit V three sixty dot Health or check out the show notes for more
