this is disabled girls who lift. We are reclaiming what's rightfully ours. One podcast at a time. It's mary Beth Chloe and Marcia bringing you the thoughts and unpopular topics to get you out of that? A Bliss comfort zone. Mm hmm. Welcome to another episode of disabled girls who lift today. We have one host, myself, Marcia from south florida and a very special guest Miss Dana from also South florida. And I know dana because we bumped into each other's circles every once in a while over and over again. And somehow along the line I started doing Strongman. She does strong men. I have auto immune issues, She has autoimmune issues. And somewhere along the line she was like, hey, you want to coach me? And I was like, ah alright and here we are. So she's joining us on this episode as we talk about how to navigate the fitness space as a newbie with a chronic illness with a disability or just generally a woman, a vagina haver or whatever, whatever.

What have you trying to get into lifting weights. So Dana, Thanks for coming. Thank you. Hi. So how do we even decide what we want to do? We want to move, we want to do something. What are we going to do. So there's tons of stuff out there. You could do olympic weightlifting, you could do power lifting strong and like any sport, any sport really. You want to touch some weights and get strong. There's a lot of different avenues for it. So what did you actually start with Dana? I started with Crossfit. Um before crossfit. I think there were so many times that I tried going into like an L. A. Fitness and doing the whole, I want to get toned. I want to lose weight. I want to do this and um, I didn't have specific goals. It was a lot of starting and stopping, starting and stopping. Um, so I think uh, maybe 23 years ago I decided to do crossfit um, just because I wanted to be more athletic.

It's something that I had not been in my entire life and so I wanted to try something new. And um, yeah, I started with Crossfit. I loved the group environment and I loved moving and pushing myself to do different things. Um, and I think that was kind of like the gateway drug into Strongman. The gateway drug across, it seems to be the gateway drug for a lot of things. But I think that also the story of your start is how a lot of us start right where like I want to be toned, I want to be fit, I want abs. But it's like first of all toned isn't even real, what is that? You know what, it's just, it toned is what people sell to us in magazines. And so it becomes something it becomes something that women primarily meant to strive to achieve and you don't know any better. And I get it, some people want to look a certain way and that's completely fine And for some people, it does work.

Honestly, it doesn't matter what you do, as long as you do something and you're consistent with it. And I think when I started, I honestly, I think when I started Strongman, um, is when I really started, um, letting go of the image of what I wanted to look like and more of the what I want to feel like and through that uh, progress, I started seeing my body change. And it's funny because when I was going to the gym, I had this idea in my head of what I wanted my body to look like. Um, and my body currently does not look like that. I'm muscular and you know, I'm, I'm a thicker girl, but I love it. Like I love myself so much because I can do certain things that I could not do before and I look stronger.

Like you can look at me and you can see that I'm stronger. So for me it's like that was more realistic than I want to look like, you know, a model. Yeah, No, we don't, we don't have to do with models. Always look different ways, different sizes, shapes. But you know what I mean? Like that whole like slender and slender, no thigh gap, you know, I'm only eating smoothies and salads and like it's like, there's a whole lifestyle assorted with that eat this, not that, that whole, you know, the cosmopolitan quizzes and all of that good stuff. There's like an actual program called Eat this and not, yeah, that really exists. It really exists For what and why are they selling this to us? Like what? Like people are making money off of us hating our bodies and obsessing over what it looks like. Instead of saying like, you know what, let me just find out what my body can do Exactly.

And I think that's where your gears do shift and that keeps you motivated longer because it's so much easier for me to achieve a £5 pr than a £5 fat loss. Like it's real. I can actually see that it's like the number of changes and that's something that like if it becomes almost tangible, you use that motivation to keep going versus, you know, £5. I want to lose £5. Yeah. You'll notice certain things, but it's never enough and you really can never measure it. And I don't know, I just think strength based goals are more realistic, um, than body image goals. Yeah. Because you're basing if you show up and you're like, okay, I have this health issue or have that or I'd like to have a little bit less fat on my frame and that's where it ended. It's cool, but that's not where it ends. We know that's not where it ends it so well I saw this girl on tv and she looks this slim and oh my gosh, I have a thigh gap or when I put, I want to wear skinny jeans and not have love handles, There's always that extra.

So if you keep chasing the look, even if you get anywhere close to the look, you're still going to be empty because the problem of hating yourself is still there. It's still a problem and then you become unhealthy like you're not, it's just such a, I don't want to say an empty goal because I don't want to take away that goal from people because people still have that goal and if that's what they want to do, they have every right to pursue it. But it's just a goal that really doesn't lead to anything better because no matter what you're going to look in the mirror and you're still going to find something wrong and that's where I started. Also way back when was group fitness classes, doing spinning cardio classes. I didn't do any weightlifting. I didn't touch the bar of the gym was too scary and I didn't go in that section whatsoever until I just walked by someone talking about putting on muscle and I was like, you know what, I could put on some muscle and look at you now and look at me now, that's all it takes and you know, nobody's saying that you have to be a hardcore power lifter that competes or a strong man that's like, you know, you don't have to go pro.

Strongman doesn't have to be your aim, but just try a little bit of have everything picked up a barbell, throw it around and find the variation that suits you and then you get a little stronger than you'll be hooked. Yeah, I think, yeah, that's, that's the process and that's why I think crossfit is so um it's like a foundation because you come in usually like, I never had exercise before really, and so I walked into crossfit and then all of a sudden I'm doing all these different things um like touching a barbell, I never had touched Barbara before and you kind of start like learning different things and I, I personally got really lucky because we had a strong man coach at the gym which was my first coach coach, john um and he would always kind of make fun of crossfit because Crossfit does have this mentality where you have to Do the most all the time and you don't think take into consideration recovery, recovery being the big one.

and he kind of guided me um into, you know, more power lifting moves, like, you know, hey, let's work on your dead lift. And I noticed that it was something that my body responded to a lot better. Um and because my body was responding to it better. Um I enjoyed it more and I wanted to do it longer and by my body responding better. What I mean by that is, um, it wasn't hurting me as much. So I was able to do certain things that I couldn't do a crossfit because the whole time I was just trying to keep up with everybody and I was hurting myself. Um, and so I, that's how I entered the strongman uh world and you know, I was really lucky to have coach john and um, I just, I mean, I learned so much and I ended up loving it and you know, I've had access to social media so I was able to follow other women that we're doing it and then I met up with you guys when we did the, the event at 14 01.

and it just like it started growing, it started growing, I was like, oh man, there's actually people out there that do this more importantly, women that are out there that do this and then it's just like constantly finding these new groups of people that do it. So it's like now there's people that maybe aren't, you know, um, may have some limitations and challenges and they're still doing it. So it's very like, it's just, it's constantly motivating to see that and to find these little niches. Yeah, it's awesome and I think the great thing is that now we have social media and now we can find other people and you know, we exist, we actually exist. Um, but I think you touched on a lot of things that are very important for someone that's new to any sort of lifting sport is number one, you're not going to know what to do. So you need some sort of program to follow and if you can't pay somebody okay fine, we're not paying anybody fine, but you can go online and you can find some fill in the blank starter program for free.

There's like the internet is vast, google is free. Yeah. You know, you could find so many things to start with. The more important part I think than anything is just finding a gym. Yeah, that that is actually something that I'm dealing with right now. Um because one equipment is very specialized for strongman. And even though um we've been doing a pretty good job at modifying everything. Uh sometimes you just, you can't modify certain left, so I'm kind of like in between a crossfit gym um and a strength based gym. So I kind of right now drop into both uh based on what you programmed for me. So um and it it works for now, it's not ideal. Um I like having a home gym, but I mean, you gotta do what you gotta do, you gotta do what you gotta do as long as you can find a place where at least you don't feel like it's toxic that you feel like safe, that you could go there and just do your thing, focus on your weights and not worry about anybody saying talking ship and I worry about, you know being harassed by anyone not worrying about the gym owner telling you to stop slamming the barbells.

My gosh, yeah, because all of those things are very real. Like I respect that. Have, there are certain rules and stuff. That's totally fine. I just, I I don't like it. I'm very open to feedback. Let me start there. Open, super open to feedback. But sometimes people come, especially men when they see women, they feel like they have to man Splain every single left. Oh you should do this, you should do that. Even when I post my videos on instagram um oh you shouldn't do that with the bar and it's like, you don't even know what I'm trying to do. I appreciate the feedback. Um but it's like, I know you're pulling this out of your butt. Yeah, I didn't, I didn't send for you. I'm not paying you sir. Exactly. And if my coach gave me the great go ahead, then I'm good. It is a pretty intimidating thing to go into that space and have that kind of ready for you in your mind. Like, oh this is what I'm gonna do when I'm going to go lift. Like you're not gonna want to go and I'm very lucky that I have a gym that's strength oriented and we have strong man implements and when you go there, nobody gives a ship, you know, nobody, there's no clicks and there's no drama.

And I'm very lucky for that. You, you might have to, you might have to drive a little bit, you might have to drive to actually have a home gym or at least find a community where you feel like you can grow. It's worth it. I mean I drive half an hour and to me it's nothing for what I'm getting absolutely fine. Sure I'll hop on the highway. But I talked to people around me and I tell them, oh yeah, you can try out my gym. It's about 30 minutes. And then what, what, why are you driving 30 minutes early? Fitness on every corner, sir. But that's When you start, when I started. I also kind of was like, I'm not driving more than 10 minutes for a gym and now that I'm as involved with training, I drive to you and that's like an hour drive. Yeah, it's not unheard of and I'm happy, I'm happy doing it. I'm like, yeah, because for me, it's like, man, I get to train with Marsha, I get to do this. I'm gonna try this. I'm gonna try that. Like I'm excited to do it. Exactly. It's worth it because the value of what you're gonna get in return is going to be way better than if you drove 10 minutes down the street daily fitness to have some hexagon plates with the rack that you have to walk a mile out of so that you can actually squat to your depth curls in the squat racks.

Yeah, it's, it's not a, it's not a good look, it's not a good look. So trust me people, if you're out there and you're like, I don't want to just, just take, take, take that hill because the Ws after will be worth more. Just do it. Just drive a little bit, you know, google it, social media or whatever you can find a place. And I also think besides finding the gym, obviously finding out. So let's say you find some program or let's say, yeah, okay, let's say your brand new, brand new straight out of the gate. You found a program you're going to do something you found online. How do you figure out, okay, am I doing too much or too little for me? See, I learned that through you where I was doing way too much before way too much. And um, I went through some periods of fatigue where I was just tired and I could not understand why. And um, when you and I started working together, I learned the concept of listening to my body and thinking about what I feel after my training before my training, during my training, like actually paying attention to my body's reaction.

And um, I don't think I would have ever learned that had I not met you and related to you and kind of paying attention to you and what you would do and not do and how are you betraying and stuff and being able to say like I kind of feel like that sometimes too. Maybe I should do less or maybe I should try that. And unfortunately that's not something that you're going to get on with an online program that's, you know, like cookie cutter program. Um, that's something that you're going to get through an individual that is like yourself and that, that's kind of like a hit or miss type of things. You know, a lot of people aren't lucky enough to be able to pay somebody or don't want to pay somebody or don't know anybody that can do it.

Like if, if I had another coach that had no autoimmune issues or no type of limitations, they probably like, what the hell are you doing? You know, like they wouldn't, yeah, like why are you not lifting it? So it's like if I had that, then I would feel like a failure. I would feel like maybe this isn't meant for me. But now that you and I are working together, it's like, oh no, I just needed to make these little tweaks and make these little changes and I can actually do this. Yeah. Yeah. That's a good point too. Is if you let's say you do have the funds and you do try to get a coach, you know, besides the fact that you want to make sure this isn't just some random dude on the street that just like downloaded somebody else's programs, slap their name on it. Besides, you know, making sure that they are qualified to say and do the things they could do. Like you, you guys have to be in a relationship like you're paying them, it's a relationship and if they don't get you and what you want to do, it's not going to go anywhere.

And if you can't be transparent in trying to figure out that nuance. So this is what I need. I need you to give it to me. It's not going to go anywhere. And you're going to be not only losing out on money, but losing out on yourself because like you said, you're going to feel like you're the failure like, okay, something's wrong with me. I think that something that might help people when they're looking potentially for a coach say, okay, you have the funds, you're looking for a coach. It'll be helpful if you look for a coach that, um, embraces or kind of is your goal. So when I asked you to coach me one, obviously because of the relationship we had and whatnot. But I was, I was more like I want to be like her one day, I want to be able to lift that type of weight. I want to be able to do what she's doing. And so that helped me make that decision because you got there some way somehow.

So, you know, the path, you're gonna share that path with me and we're gonna do it together. So maybe finding a coach that you kind of look up to, a person that you look up to and you're like, I want to be able to do what they do. Maybe that would be a good coach for you. Yeah, Somebody you can actually relate to, somebody you can actually talk to that obviously respects what you want because there are people out here that will be just straight up unprofessional and they will fat shame you or ignore you or they won't get back to your calls or they'll promise you look at your videos every day or something like that and they don't or whatever it is and like all of those shortcomings and pitfalls, like they're not it's not it's not okay if that's not somebody you aspire to be, if that's not the kind of thing that you would want to do then Yeah, I think a lot of coaches get stuck in that mentality where they have to roughhouse their athletes and be like, what are you doing, Blah, blah blah, stop being, you know this and that and for some people it works for some people, it works and that's totally fine for me.

Uh it doesn't work. I really just, it it doesn't work and I, huh? Not effective. It's not as effective, even though like It's not to say that you're nice because you keep it 100% with me and I appreciate that. And sometimes when I read certain comments, I feel a little pain in my chest, but I need that. Like I'm like, so it's like I need that, I need somebody that's direct and for me it just works when somebody is a little bit more of like, okay, but you need to do this or you didn't do that versus just pick up the bar, do it. You can do it, come on. Like I need somebody to explain it to me to just make it easy for me to understand. And that's what works for me. Yeah. And I think, I mean that's also why I do my own programming and you know, I'm lucky enough to have a gym where people are there and I can have eyes on me because that's not to say I'm going to do everything perfectly, but at least coach wise and you know, I haven't found anyone that can do that for me.

I haven't, I haven't found anyone that could, that I could say, hey, look, um, you program like 30 squats today. Like I can't do that many reps. Like I haven't found someone that's like, okay, why is that? How do you feel today? What do you think you could do? Are you sleeping well? Are you drinking water? How do you feel last week? Like, no, and that's what happened. Yeah, that's why I, I consider myself to be so lucky because you understand if you understand if I tell you, hey, I couldn't do this today, It's not because I was slacking or whatever, it's because you know that I've hit a wall that day. Um and for whatever reason, I couldn't do it, or like when I got sick for like a month and a half or whatnot, but I just, I couldn't do anything. I couldn't push myself. So it's like having somebody that can understand you and not get frustrated with you because I'm sure as a coach is probably frustrating to have an athlete be like, oh, well, yeah, I can't work out this week because I'm sick, especially if they don't understand why.

So they don't understand. And I'm sure that that's probably a pitfall. And then if you, if you need an actual adaptation, if you need to make adaptations if you physically need to change things and you want to have a coach or being a gym like that, that jim or that coach has to be open and available. You know, if if you're, if you're visually impaired and you need somebody to place a box here and there and move this and that and and nobody wants to help you, okay, next year. Next coach. Yeah. You know, if, if you're with somebody who's just, you know, asking you how much weight you want to lose. And that's not what you're working on right now, okay, next gym, Next coach, even though I feel like I walk into gyms and Strongman isn't like a big popular sport up here and I feel like everybody looks at me like, what the hell is she doing? She's doing and yeah, but umm like the one gym that I'm going to, the strength based gym that I go to, the guys, really smart, very technical and he does give me certain pointers when he sees me doing certain movements.

He's like, hey, maybe try this or hey, maybe try that or if he doesn't really understand the lift that I'm doing. Like, they actually put the effort into trying the lift and seeing how their body feels and be like, maybe you can try this or maybe you can try that and that's for me invaluable because you're not there. So it's like, it's hard for me to get instant feedback to help me with that lift. Exactly. So, you know, it's nice to be in a gym where you have, where the owner, the coach or whatever, um, is they're paying attention to all of the athletes equally whether you're doing their program or not, right. And that's, that's how, you know, you've found the right jim is that you walked in and it doesn't matter if people, if it's men, women, old, young, whatever, everybody in there just wants you to train and they just want you to succeed and if you could find, if you, if you are lucky enough to find at a commercial gym around the corner, cool.

But if you don't get in the car and keep looking, keep looking. Yeah, Yeah, I mean I'll hit up a commercial gym, I'll help you do what you have to do. But man, that's like my last, worst case scenario. No, that's not my life anymore. I personally cannot do it. And the, the other thing that bothers me a lot when it comes to fitness professionals is people that are doing things that they're not qualified to do, you know, you see like a, like a strength coach, maybe you don't really have to, like legally anybody could say that right? There is no, maybe they have a CS, CS, maybe they have a personal training license, Maybe they have like an exercise science bachelor's, there's nothing for that. But you know, fine, That's cool. You could look at their instagram, you can talk to their clients and you could figure it out with this person, knows what they're talking about, but then they go and turn around and say, oh, I do nutrition coaching. Um no, you don't. Yeah, people go to school for that.

Yeah, there's a lot of people that kind of just come out and they're um, they just automatically think they like, somebody came up to me and asked me, hey, would you be interested in teaching some strongman classes and I was like, heck no, like absolutely not. Do you know how much knowledge I would have to have to be able to like, I know what I'm doing. Um but and if somebody came up and it's like, hey, I want to work out with you, I'll help them and I'll just repeat what you tell me, you know? But like actually teaching people like, no, like you have to have studied for it in some way, shape or form, whether it's an online course, whatever study it. Actually practice it for years, not a few months, but years become proficient in it and then maybe you can teach a class, but some people are just too quick because they learned the basics, they're like, ok, I know how to squat.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Some people follow a couple accounts online and next thing, you know, I'm a corrective exercise specialist. Like, excuse me, like people go to school for this. No, you're not exactly. And it's okay to start somewhere, but like start with your friends and family, show their progress like you have to start somewhere but just don't take that title and then all of a sudden put yourself out there and now you have people paying you and you can seriously fuck somebody up. Like you don't want that kind of responsibility, not at all. And and people will pay them because there's it's, it's not always easy to vet this, you know, just because somebody, you know, like I left, I left a fairly respectable amount of weights, right? But that alone doesn't make me qualified to coach somebody. And if I have, okay, I have, you know, 5000 followers on Instagram, I'm sort of popular. Like that alone doesn't make me qualified.

So you do have to dig a little deeper and like see what people are actually doing and what are they saying? And how are they treating people around them or like how long have they been lifting? And honestly, that is a really good way. Just how long have they been lifting? Because in order for you to be able to do this for a long time, you have to be able to do it right. You know, like you're not gonna last very long if you're doing if you're not eating right, If you're not recovering right, If you're not doing the movement right, you're gonna hurt yourself. Get tired of it with motivation. So if you've been doing it for a long time, obviously there's something that you're doing right. So longevity might be one of those things you look at, like how long have they been doing this specific sport? Definitely a good point. And then if you can't afford the coach, we could go back to that. I mean, there are people that do things that are, you know, not a full on. Okay, let's say you get a cookie cutter program because that's what you could afford fine.

You know, there are people that do video critiques, You could just say like um I feel like my dead lift isn't great and you could pay somebody whatever the rate is depending on whoever it is and they could just give you pointers right there just to have, you know, like a trained eye on you. Yeah, like um my daughter who got into power lifting about a year ago, um college student, she can't afford programming, She can't afford a one on one or anything like that. So she ended up buying um the Mex squats powerlifting program. She's a very reputable person on on instagram. She's been doing this for a long time. Lots of great videos information. I trust her enough to let my daughter sign up for that and it gives her guidance and it gives her motivation and it kind of like just gives her what she needs right now to be able to continue to move and lift and she's right now in like the very beginning phase of it. So it's good for her needs right now.

Eventually if she wants to get more serious about it then yes, she's going to have to make some sacrifices and definitely save up some money and whatnot. But there are some good programs out there that you can participate in. You just have to put the time and effort into researching it, Googling it, understanding it. Um which is what I do all the time today with the tire flip, you know, I was sitting there between my rest period looking at videos to see what people are doing to flip a damn tire. Yeah. And so it's like you just have to be able to put or have enough curiosity to do that. Yeah. And when you take the goal of away from this, I want to look and this, this is what I want to do that will come naturally because once you, once you're actually investing in yourself, you know that the rest of that will come naturally because you want to succeed. You know, it's like if you have active, you spend every day looking at the right kind of face products and looking at these skincare routines and you try different things and you do this and that that comes naturally to you.

You're not going to look at anybody and be like, oh, that's too much work like no. Yeah, if you want it that bad, you put in the work you put in the work, you'll figure it out. The other thing I do want to mention too is that people think that you have to look like if you want to sign up and do a meat, just sign up and do the meat, You don't have to look like anything. You don't have to be a certain amount of strong, like if you have a body, you're an athlete welcome. It's really that simple. Yeah, I think that I suffered from that a little bit where I felt that I did not look a certain way. And so it's like people are gonna laugh at me or whatever. Um, because I'm a really curvy girl, I'm short and I'm curvy and so it's like, I don't have your typical athletic body, but again, finding that community and I think that's also why I love strongman so much is because there's so many different people, so many different sizes, different shapes and sizes and so you see that and I feel that that was the moment where I was like, oh my gosh, like these are my people because everybody looks so different that it just, it was amazing to me.

So I felt like, hey, I look different too. So we're all going to look different together. Yeah, this is fine. Yeah. So it just, yeah, it just, I don't know why we do that to ourselves, but we do that to ourselves and it's okay. You learn from it, you grow for it. You just have to find the right people, you have to find your, your community and it gets easier, you know, body acceptance and it takes time. It takes time and it's a process. I mean, you could love yourself 29 days out of the month and then on the last day you hate yourself. That's fine. It's cool. It's not a big deal, it's going to be a whole, a whole whole process and when you first get started and everything is new and exciting and you get those newbie gains and your strength climbs, you know, in a couple of months and then all of a sudden doesn't climb as much. Yeah. You still have to keep going. Yeah, I feel I still benefit from the newbie gains. I really do.

Um And I'm taking full advantage of them. But yeah, it's going to get to a point where gains are going to come in longer periods of time and it's going to just get it's never going to get easier. Um But I love the sport enough to where I'm in it. Yeah, this is it. I'm here to stay. Exactly. And I think that there's also the measure of like, you know, what are you doing it for? So besides the body, besides trying to figure out like this is what my body can do and I like it and you know, if I lose weight or if I don't lose weight, you know, except how my body is whatever. But then there's still that extra level to it of OK, but what are you doing it for? What is your goal out of this? Like, is this just another thing for you to obsess over? Like, did you just replace, you know, obsessing over one thing in an unhealthy way to. Now you're going to obsess over this thing in an unhealthy way because you also have to be careful with that.

There are people that come into this and, you know, let's say they have eating disorders are recovering from, or, you know, let's say there's mental health issues and they cling onto cutting body weight drastically, you know, to do different meats and whatnot. Like you didn't you didn't you didn't you just replace one problem with another problem. You're not really using this as a medium to get better. Or let's say someone that's cleaning onto this identity, and then as soon as they get injured and they can't lift their just like spiraling out of control, just lost, who am I? Maybe it's okay to replace an unhealthy habit or obsession with a healthier one. when I started uh lifting, or when I got really serious with lifting, it was when I was going through a lot of depression for a long time, I've dealt with depression. And so when I started lifting, it gave me an outlet, it gave me an outlet.

And uh to about two years ago I went through really, really deep depression and lifting was the only thing that would get me out of my bed and do something and come back and I don't know why, I don't know if I've replaced, you know, uh something unhealthy, but this I don't know what I did, but what do you know, is that lifting has carried me through some tough times, or even when my daughter moved away to college and I was by myself for the first time ever in my life I had lifting to kind of fall back on, I had the gym, I had that responsibility so um I needed something in my life to be responsible for like, you have to do this and lifting was that thing for me. So it just it's helped me and uh whether I replaced one obsession with another, I don't No, I don't think adam doesn't sound like it.

I don't think so. I don't think so. It sounds like you just found a productive way to spend some time with yourself, get a little stronger and then work through some sh it at the same time. So like, for me, when I first started competing, you know like at base level like, Yeah, I had fun. Sure, like, I had a little crew, but at base level it was still like going into it, not caring about, you know, I don't care about women's empowerment like. Oh look at all these ladies out here like, No, like I went into it like, how I used to play soccer in high school, like, I would knock bitches over, like, I was angry, I was like a big trips like and and when I when I yeah, it was it was it was nuts when I played soccer, like, these people out here, we're like trying to murder you, like, they would take out girls a CLS like, it was just like, pure rage. I don't know what it is like, it was no sports like, sure you you did this, you know, I'm gonna shake hands at the end and we're sportsmanlike, but like, when you were on the field, it was like, like you didn't view your other people as humans, like you weren't like, oh, I'm engaging in a sporting activity, like you went on there and you were like, oh, I'm here to wreck it.

I mean, I'm kind of feeling that, I mean, okay, just don't hurt anybody, but I took that same same energy into powerlifting though when I first started, so if I lost something, I was like legitimately upset, you know, if I went somewhere and somebody was stronger than me, like, I was actually upset and that, that's what I mean by like replacing a problem with another problem, like, that wasn't an outlet for me, like, that was a new source of stress. Oh, interesting. Do you feel that, that you overcame that though? Like how do you feel now when you lift? Yeah, now I don't give a ship. So that that has changed now I'm going and having actual fun now I'm like, cool, I'm really glad my body, let me do this today, this is a great time, you know, like if I watch somebody in a competition out lift me, I'm like dang, that bitches strong. What am I going to eat later?

Like it's that simple. Yeah, I mean, I think you you still have to be competitive to a certain extent. I'm very competitive. So if I see somebody my size, they're lifting more than me, I'm not gonna get mad, but I'm definitely gonna be a little salty about it. You feel some type of way, but like, it shouldn't ruin your day, right? No. Yeah, it definitely doesn't ruin my day. Um it just, it motivates me because now I'm like, well obviously I'm not doing it enough at the gym, like I'm gonna have to like, really give it my all and you know, it pushes you a little bit. So I think healthy competitiveness is good and it could definitely be a driving force for your training, but uh wanting to like murder somebody because they're stronger than you have. Not so much just like a dash, just a dash of competitive, you know, like a light dash of salt, too much salt.

The food is ruined things. Just a little dashes fine. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And yeah, I I feel like sometimes, you know, I I might get too salty sometimes, but then I get over it, then I get over it. I'm fine afterwards. That's ok. But you'll check yourself though. Oh yeah, and I'll like follow them on instagram and I'll be like, so like, like, let me give you an example? So last year I did to national competitions, right? I mean, why did one, what the second one I didn't get to do. Hello. Anyways, I did one national competition and I just showed up. Okay, look at the events and you know, I did what I'm doing. Maybe I looked up like hashtags to see how people did certain movements. But otherwise I just showed up when I was like obsessed angry me, I would look up the start list of the meat and I would look up every single person in my weight class and I would like scroll through their entire, their feet. This is what she looked. Okay. So she'll probably get at least this.

How's she doing? Her last meet with her last training? Okay. She's not a game day list. Alright. I'm not gonna have to worry about her. Okay, next go down the list. Okay, How she do, like, what, what was I doing? I think that a little bit of that is okay because you're strategizing and you're kind of looking to see where, you know, your strengths and weaknesses and their strengths and weaknesses so that's fine. Um, but it can lead to unhealthy. Yes, this is so much, it was a bit much, it was a bit much. So, you know, in the beginning, I really did just replace a problem with another problem. Like I had some things I needed to work out, I had some things I had to figure out within myself and how I viewed myself in the world and I didn't do that and I just jumped into power lifting like, oh this is fine, this is what I'm doing now. And I just took my baggage with me. But look at you now. I mean in so many ways power lifting helped you work through those. So even though you did replace the problem with the problem, that second problem helped you work out some of that anger, right, well that's because at some point you have, you may or may not have like that wake up call or dash of lightning or whatever it is, it snaps you out of it, but not everybody does.

So when, when would that wake up call for you? Like when did you make that change? Uh not until I started having autoimmune issues really where my body was like full stop, I'm not doing this anymore. And I was just like, hold on. What? Yeah, honestly, like 100% totally through that progression and was probably just a couple of years ago. Pretty brand new. And so when I started um lifting, I've been a bunch of different weights, but one of the reasons when I was over £200 that I dropped down was because I wasn't strong enough to be at the weight, I was at like I was seeing what everybody else was doing. And so then I started obsessing about that like, okay, how low of a weight class can I get down to? So I could be competitive and then, okay, if I get this and I can live this much that way, okay then I'm going to try to do like it was too much, it was way too much. Yeah. With your autoimmune, there's no way you could do that. There's just no way I think you can make yourself sick.

That's a terrible idea. Yeah. Well, um not that I'm glad that that happened to you. I'm just glad that you are a better place mentally. Yeah, we're on the other side. It's fine. Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's fine. But I think those are just, I mean that was a lot in general, but I think those are all things to think about. Find the movement that you like to do, find a good gym where you feel safe and you're not being harassed all day to find a good coach. If you could afford it, if you can't, there's still, you know, there's still levels of things that you might be able to afford, just keep digging and you know, find out, okay, how does my body respond, what adapt adapting do I need to do and if you can't figure it out and the people around, you can't figure it out. Like, you know, instagram, look up wheel wad, you know, look at the accounts like I'm adaptive look at our account online, People, people will answer you.

Yeah, there's really, there's very little excuse you can use to not being able to find um a program. So you're coaching obviously financially that sometimes is, is a hindrance for a lot of people. Um But if you go online you're gonna have to either invest money or time. So if you need that money then you gotta make the time and especially for like power lifting and whatnot. There's so many programs that are really easy, very simple. You can follow, like starting strength sometimes will put out like certain things, you can do certain movements, you can follow weights and whatnot. And a lot of coaches will give you free templates to, will give you a starter kit. Yeah, I'll give you 368 weeks and you just, you just follow that. I think that I, I did that sometimes. Um or even right now with um with my training and with the cops coming up and me working a little bit more of my endurance and my cardio.

I found like strongman wads online, this one guy was charging a monthly rate. I'm like, nah, it granted it was really cheap, but I'm still like, nah. Um so I just was like, I'm just gonna go screenshot these wads and see which ones I like the best, I feel will kind of, you know, help me the most. Um and just do those, so you just have to dip your toes in the water and you're not going to have all the information right away. It's gonna be a little frustrating in the beginning, but if you just stay with it, you're gonna start finding more people more information, more knowledge, things get really easy. You start learning a lot. Um, you know, just learn how to use your resources. So like on instagram, um, if I see a movement that's really cool or if I see a movement that will help with one of my weaknesses, I save everything and I have like little categories for everything, like, you know, capability, squats, um, building bench or whatever.

And I save it into all those things. So when it's my time to work on that thing, I go back and I look at these profiles and I look at what they're doing and obviously, and make sure that it's people that are reputable and people that know what they're doing and they've been doing it for a long time, not just, you know, the latest, you know, influencer. Um it's like, you just, you and you're going to have to weed through that. Like in the beginning, you're probably gonna follow a bunch of shitty people, but it's okay. You'll figure it out. Yeah, it's a stepping stone to better people and I mean there's some great people like um SCC ingram, I follow her stuff too on instagram and it's like she gives a lot of great free information or sometimes I'll just watch her posts of her dead lifting. Like it's not even information. I'm just watching her movements. I'm just looking to see how she moves and how she does certain things. And I kind of try to study that.

It's just for me like studying and see how if I should try it, if it works for me, if it doesn't work for me, it's just, it's putting in the time. Yeah. And it will come naturally, it will come naturally and it's not that you're going to wake up one day and have raging ridiculous muscles and no, you're not gonna get too bulky and you don't have to worry about the toning anymore. Like we're just gonna get strong, we're gonna be some boss as bitching lifting, some boss as shit. You're gonna have fun, you dip your toes in the water and you're going to find out the water is just right. You're gonna come all the way in, you're gonna be like, I'm gonna chill right here, this is fine and find out exactly. You just have to kind of like, you know, go with your own vibes and just just listen to your body. I think that's the biggest lesson I've learned. Just listen to yourself, trust yourself and do it. Exactly. That was perfect disabled girls out. Thanks for listening to disabled girls who left.

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