Tanja Shaw: 0:00

When we have a thought, we think oh like now it's an urge. Now it's a craving I must have the banana bread, but it's just a thought and it's such a simple way just to neutralize it. So if you don't feel always armed with a way to like rebuttal the thought or to replace the thought then simply just neutralizing it can be helpful.

Philip Pape: 0:18

Welcome to the wit's end weights podcast. I'm your host, Philip pape, and this twice a week podcast is dedicated to helping you achieve physical self mastery by getting stronger, optimizing your nutrition and upgrading your body composition will uncover science backed strategies for movement, metabolism, muscle and mindset with a skeptical eye on the fitness industry so you can look and feel your absolute best. Let's dive right in Whitson weights community Welcome to another episode of The Whitson weights Podcast. Today, I'm excited to welcome Tanya Shaw, a seasoned functional health coach Kinesiologist and weight loss expert dedicated to helping women overcome their struggles with food and achieve a healthy weight without the obsession, Tanya and I met through podcasting. And she's coming on here to talk about mindset today. I'm very excited. She's the owner of ascend Fitness and Lifestyle in Chilliwack, British Columbia and the voice behind the popular fit and vibrant you podcast and that's fit the plus sign vibrant. You go follow it. I had the pleasure of being on that recently. So again, follow her show so you can check all of her great content out and I invite her on today we're going to take a different angle on mindset. The idea that mindset is not everything right? Despite the Pivi claims on motivational social media posts to get in the right mindset. Despite rarely telling you how to do this, many coaches and experts tend to over emphasize the importance of mindset alone. Yet, Tanya advocates for a balanced approach that integrates mental and physical health that we love when everything comes together. So today, we're going to explore the limitations of the mind over matter, mentality. And how combining mindset with an understanding of body science is key to not just achieving but really loving, and living with your health results for a long time to come. You'll even learn how thoughts and emotions affect our bodies, functions, especially hormones, some simple techniques to help you actually shift your mindset to better support your goals. Tanya brings tons of knowledge from her hands on experience with functional lab testing, personalized wellness protocols, and mindset coaching. She helps her clients thrive by addressing not just what they do, but how they think and what they believe about themselves and the world. Learn today why mindset isn't everything, and how combining it with an understanding of body science is key to not just achieving but loving the results. So Tanya, welcome to the show.

Tanja Shaw: 2:41

Thank you, thank you so much for having me.

Philip Pape: 2:44

So let's just get into the top level question. Here's what is mind over matter, really mean, you know, in the full context of the fitness and health that we're talking about.

Tanja Shaw: 2:54

I love what you said about introduction there, Phillip about this idea of those binary thinking as black or white thinking. And social media is great for that. Like we love these topics of like so much out there, you know what progress not perfection, and if you believe that you can achieve it and all these kinds of things that we sometimes like this black or white approach is very binary way of thinking, and mindset really important. Like it really, really is. I think you have this experience, have experience with all your listeners have experienced about going to the gym and doing a workout. And then you kind of get to the point where you're done the workout. And the question is, are you done because your body is actually done? Or is it your mind is done? A you don't want to push yourself I need more. So mindset is really important in so many different areas. But it's not as simple as just being able to fix everything. When I first started in my health and fitness journey as a coach, I was back in 2007, my personal training business. And I was very much on like push hard push her push Harvey like intense workouts, macro tracking, we did low carb, we did all the things. And my clients would get really great results. But they were not able to stick with it. And they had this kind of on again off again relationship with food and it was up and they're, you know, in all the progress and it wasn't until 2015 When I realized that there's something big missing in my coaching programs, and a lot of coaching programs in the fitness industry, which is the mindset piece like how do we think differently? And then I kind of dove really hard into that and thinking like your mindset is everything and you see that on on Facebook as well mindsets, everything. But then you get to this point where Okay, I have this great mindset but my bias is functioning. And I think the biggest issue with mind over matter or like this idea that mindsets. Everything we can kind of will ourselves into things is that sometimes we end up and I see this so much more now that I'm working with women in midlife and beyond through that of hustle journey, that we can also have the tendency to not listen to some really important signals that our bodies are telling us that it's time to rest. Or we have this idea that it's just like oh, I can push push push to the point of burnout. At and to an extreme, if you're always like pushing yourself, we can actually bypass a lot of our emotional needs and when our body actually what we physically need, because we think we should be doing more, we think we should, we're not enough, we think we always need to have the hustle, the grind. And that eventually is going to lead to some of the burnout. And so mindset is absolutely important. But we also have to balance that with actually like supporting the body because they really also go both hand in hand. Another example is, you know, most of us have a pretty strong mindset first thing in the morning, when maybe not like first first thing in the morning, but after a cup of coffee, and a bit of journaling, or meditation or cuddling with your guests or whatever. Because we're rested, right. And then at the evening, this is what most people struggle with food and, and poor decisions. No, seven o'clock eight o'clock at night, because we're depleted. And so we also have to in order to also have a great mindset and and work on like the willpower or whatever we want to call that. You also need to really work on supporting your body and giving your body what your body needs. So that you can have that bandwidth, you can make those better decisions. Yeah, there's

Philip Pape: 6:03

so much in there, it's like a spectrum is what I'm hearing that there could be this incongruency between your mind and body at any one time. And if we go too much in one direction, we tend to sacrifice the other you talked about being in the gym, maybe your mind is the weaker component in some cases, and you're giving up too quickly and your body is able to handle it, but your mind is not telling you to keep going. Conversely, maybe you're doing too much. And you have this tendency, like you said you don't listen to your body. You know, we talked on the show a lot about intuition versus data. And it doesn't have to be I don't think it has to be mutually exclusive. Like I think you can take data, you can take how you feel. And then you can push yourself, but then realize you're pushing yourself too far based on how you feel in the data. So I kind of love all of that. Also, you really spoke to me the morning energy thing, I was just thinking this morning, like you get to that peak point. And you're just excited like, Man, if I could feel this way all day, every day, I would just get more done than he could ever imagine. And then, you know, we're recording later in the day, which still have enough energy, but it starts to get where your voice gets worn down, your mind gets worn down your body. I workout in the morning. So like, of course, I'm amped up then. And by the end of the day, I'm just potentially dragging. Okay, so I just wanted to comment all that because I'm sure it's very relatable to folks. So then where does that take us next? Probably to how do we identify maybe that gap, or I collect data about ourselves so that we can listen to our body? Maybe we'll go there.

Tanja Shaw: 7:29

Yeah, and I love your point there about this idea. Like it's not one or the other. It's it's really a spectrum. And we have to have both, because how often do we have this idea, we're like, you don't want to, you don't feel like going for a walk, right? Like how often you probably get that from yourself and also others that you work with, like I don't feel like doing something. But then you go and you feel so much better. And so that point like listening to your body is not necessarily helpful. That time because your bodies and your mind and your mind say like no, I don't want to go. But really, it's gonna be a better thing for you. You know, when we think about mindset, and changing your mindset, and overcoming limiting beliefs, and figuring this out for yourself, I think one thing that we really do want to have as humans is we want we like things to be really clear. We like things to be upset. Yep, we like things to be clear, we'd like things to be very fast. And we like things to be like, we'll have that certainty and that speed. And when it comes to changing your mindset or figuring this out, that's what we want. We're like, okay, so give me the five step process, what's the three, three things I need to do to get that, and what we're really building here, and this is a skill that we're gonna keep practicing for the long term is gonna serve us as learning how to have some wisdom. And that means not like reflecting on yourself building awareness, happy the inside reflection, like, you know, what's been going well, what's not been going well. So you can start to discern, like, what's working and what's not, and what's going to be the best steps for you. I think that's a really important thing. And this is one thing that you know, when it comes to the weight getting stronger, we lose the weight, everything we just want, like, Yeah, we love that clarity. We love the do this, and we get this. But that's not the way the body works. When it comes to the the mindset pieces and starting to learn, I think one of the best places to start, just like you do when you are trying to lose weight. And the first things we do for nutrition, is we document it. Like you start to build some awareness I think, for for change your mindset for becoming aware of these patterns, as a wonderful first thing to do is to sort of habits a little bit about build awareness, like what are you thinking? And usually our thoughts drive feelings and actions. And so sometimes we don't know what we're thinking, but then we can start to say like, well, what are the feelings and the actions that I might want to change the behaviors that I want change? And then start to question whether the thoughts that are behind those and what are the thoughts that are driving them? And that's a great place to start with actually starting to quietly it was hard to change things that we don't that we're not aware have, I mean you can do it by accident. But just like in your programs like this is why you measure like your you track food when you're because if you just have no idea what you're doing, it's really hard to make a choice about a better choice. And I think doing a same sort of audit with your way they're thinking can be really important. And really helpful as you start this journey as well. A simple thing to do is like one of the first tools that I use with my clients is we do a food s&p back like journaling. And so you write down because a lot of my clients come to me for weight loss, and we write down like the food that we're eating, but also like the thoughts about it, are you eating because you're hungry or eating because you are bored? Or you're telling yourself that this one little thing doesn't count are all starting in a Monday but starting to become aware of those thoughts. And as frustrating as it is, because a lot of our thoughts are like they tend to be quite repetitive, we tend to have the same patterns, the same kind of thought patterns that tend to derail us more and more often. It's actually not a bad thing, because although it's frustrating, because they seem too repetitive, it's also kind of good, because we only have usually like a handful of different kinds of thoughts that tend to be on replay and review feeding triggers that we need to work through.

Philip Pape: 11:48

Yeah, so I love a couple things you said are a bunch of what you said there. So just kind of recap, my understanding is people are often looking for kind of methods or steps or a framework or an anatomy principles they're looking for exactly like 12345, like you said, and really, it's a skill, which requires a lot of internal reflection. And developing wisdom over time, basically pointed to the two very key things. One is awareness through some method of getting that awareness which some methods are incomplete that I've seen, you know, where you kind of alluded to it, you might track your food, you might track your lifting, you might even track your biofeedback. But if you don't then tie that to the thoughts that then drive the actions, you might change the actions, but it's not for the right reason or in the right way. And kind of gets you back in driving in circles. Reminds me of something I recently heard on the hidden brain. Dr. Judd, Brewer was on there, do you know that show I listen

Tanja Shaw: 12:41

to the brain to you not always.

Philip Pape: 12:43

I want him to happiness. So Dr. Brewer was on and I invited him on the show he's gonna come on the show. So he works at Brown in Rhode Island, Brown University. And he's an expert in cravings. And he was basically saying the same thing. He said, Look, one very simple way to break your addiction to anything is mindfulness and awareness of it, and what the thoughts are behind it. So what you're saying is very powerful for people listening, like what Tonya is suggesting we can get into specifics is anything that you're struggling with, maybe it's just you really love those baked goods. Next time you have a baked good, maybe just start writing about your thoughts through the process of the baked goods, you might find that that first bite is amazing. And it was totally worth it and embrace it. And then by the fourth muffin, maybe it's not the same experience. So possibly, maybe maybe not. Right. So okay, so then two things come from this as a questions. One is, I guess, any specifics on on how to do that, and that you would recommend, and maybe already said that with the journaling? And then I want to get into how do all these things then affect our body? You know, the effects of feelings and actions? How do they actually affect our bodies functions like hormones and things like that?

Tanja Shaw: 13:49

Your comment there about the about fitness and everything like that, too. I think that was a great example. And you talked about mindfulness. And we were talking about mindfulness. And one thing I have noticed over and over again, with so many of my clients like 99% They say they love the muffin, or the cookie or whatever, but when they're actually eating it, they're not present. Like how often does that happen? But like we think about a with a lot of like most of my clients have, like, a really struggle with food and it's more of the mental emotional side of things. And so like yeah, like what to do, but we think about food, we love food, we prepare food we, for them, we're eating it, we're not present. And so it's such a like, when you think about that logically or like what like that makes no sense and yet we do it all the time. While we're eating it we're thinking that we shouldn't eat it while we're standing at the kitchen counter praying it's not happening or eating the crumbs. We're not fully present and one of the greatest tools just not even mindset pieces but if you start to really like actually eat the thing like when you're when those that proverbs like when you when you're walking walk when you're eating eat or Hooters unless something along those lines. When you're there, you'll notice one that sometimes quite often, you don't actually like the food like when you're honest with yourself you're like this is kind of crap. Like a Hershey's actually was listened to another podcast. I listened to one called the happiness lab as well. Kind of on the same lines as the Hidden brain. And she was talking about Hershey's Kisses. I think that's a great example. You send us we we only want the chocolate what the sweet if you actually mindfully eat a Hershey's Kiss you like this. It tastes like plastic. It's not good. And that could be a great thing because one of the things I think, again we have talked about like this binary thinking we have all these thoughts votes, you know that food should just be fuel and, you know, don't treat yourself with food your dog like almost like stupid like this one sided like nonsense. It's not helpful at all. But I think food can be like it should be ideally very pleasurable. And it's a wonderful pleasure, like I love food. And so one of the tools you could do is when specifically for eating is when you actually like slow down. And I'm not the first one who's told you that we slow down, you mindfully eat your food, generally a lot less, or at least you're more satiated, and your digestion so much better. You know, I work with I do lots of health testing and anti Alaba clients have digestive issues and stuff, and one of the first things we can do is just slow down and chew your food. I know your mom told you that you're, you know, someone told you that when a sick kid and it's so simple that we kind of like discard it and think like, oh, that's like, no need to like take these supplements and probiotics and all these little fancy pants things. But slowing down and chewing your food is amazing for your stomach acid and or your enzymes to digest your food. And you get so much more enjoyment out of it. Plus, we're supposed to eat when we eat or food, we're supposed to be in that relaxed state to actually promote digestion. So that's one thing there. But that was kind of a roundabout way. Obviously, they got caught there to actually change your mindset and your thoughts. Like we said, the first step is really starting to become aware of what they are, and starting to just think about what you're thinking. And I don't know if any other mammals or creatures can do that. But we can. And it's a pretty cool feature of humans. Sometimes it has its downsides. But, you know, yeah, I don't think my cats think about what they're thinking, like they're thinking about anything, but start to become aware of those thoughts that you have. And after that, like sometimes we think that the thoughts are so fast that we don't even recognize that they're thinking anything. I think we've all had that experience really well, somewhere in the pantry. At least I have anyway. And you've eaten something here. Like, I didn't think about that. And there was probably a thought, but sometimes it's so fast or so repetitive, that we're not sure it's there. You can ask yourself the question like what might have I been thinking, and that's really helpful just to sort of allow yourself to be wrong, because sometimes, we have this sort of perfectionist type tendencies, where we think we have to figure out like all the things and is not so allow yourself to be wrong, what might I be thinking, and then you can start to like when the best things to start with is just to neutralize the thought. If it's not a thought that you want to keep, you can say something like, and that's just a thought. Because when you say that, and that's just a thought it takes the power away from the thought itself. Like, for example, I have banana bread on the counter right now. I feel like oh, one piece of data, right, it's right there. I only have a little bit. And that's just a thought. Because when I just say like I have been adware on the counter, I'm kind of hungry, I should have some, I might have some advice ain't as good or bad, or better, off limits or anything. But let's say that's not my plan. And I had that, you know, I had that thought. And when we had that thought, we think oh, like now it's an urge. Now it's a craving I must have the banana bread, but it's just a thought. And it's such a simple way just to neutralize it. So if you don't feel always armed with a way to like rebuttal the thought or to replace the thought, then simply just neutralizing it can be helpful. Um, have you read the book soundtracks by Jon Acuff, but I know Jon Acuff I love his book soundtracks is probably one of the most recommended books, I have heard my clients, he recommends three questions. And I've started using this with my coaching as well. I used to have a slightly different method, but this was like super clear, it's like, is the thought helpful? Is it true? Is it kind? And if the answer is no to any of those questions, then it's a thought you want to replace. For example, let's say you're looking at yourself, I'd record a podcast this morning on body image and looking at ourselves naked in the mirror, let's say step of the shower, you look yourself in the mirror, and you say, Oh, dear God, I'm fat. Let's just say that. If you say that to yourself, you may feel defeated, you may feel like less than you may feel not enough, you might feel that stress response that we sometimes get is like we're not comfortable. And that thought might be true. Maybe you are overweight, like me. And that's just a neutral word. Like maybe you're having more fat you want to have, but is it kind? Is it helpful right now? And if the answer is like so kind, I mean, you can decide that's like, I guess a relative question that can be completely neutral. When my son was little, he would like, call people he would always like pick up my belly. And, you know, call me chubby, even though like, I don't have like him on Jacob. But for him, it wasn't a bad thing. It was just like looking at like, a little belly fat. And there were you like it was a negative wasn't positive, it just was. So you can decide whether it's kind or not. But if it's not kind of not helpful, then that's a thought that you can start to replace, say anything was said in things like, I'm so out of shape. It might be true, maybe you are in a shape. But is that thought helpful right now. And maybe it's somewhat helpful if it's going to spur an action, but then we probably don't want to keep repeating that thought over and over again. I'm so sad because the repeating pot and so things like let's say for an urge or craving if you say to yourself like this one thing doesn't count or I'll start again tomorrow, that sort of quiz kind of common phrases that we say quite often. And it's not true, it's not helpful or, or in kind is kind of neutral. And then you can start to replace those thoughts. And the best thing is just as you start to think of the thoughts that could be more true, kinder, helpful. So the example of looking yourself in the mirror, not liking what you see you're thinking you're fat you To say, like, if I have a body, like that's a more neutral thought, or I'm in the process of taking care of myself, or I'm committed like, or this body has like gone through a lot, and I'm committed to taking care of her, those are all things you can say. Same thing with caribou and those apples now, but like, I'm still at a shape, you can say, like, and like, and I'm in the process of taking care of myself, and I'm committed to focusing what I can do today. Those are all things that we can do to help. Same thing, like, even like when you're really like, you know, super tired. Sometimes you say things like, I'm so tired right now, which might be true. And maybe it's helpful so that you can go take a nap or to go rest. Sometimes when you we just like reinforce the fact that we're tired, we feel more tired. And sometimes you don't need to, and we can't take a break, or we should or maybe your dog that tyres is telling yourself that we're tired. And that's where that is a bit nuanced, because you Is it your mind telling you thought or is your body telling you that and that's where we need that reflection. And so to have some honesty with ourselves as well,

Philip Pape: 21:40

so much there, so, so much that I'm just listening to you. Because this is enjoyable. It's like you're giving me a podcast here on all these wonderful tools. I'm trying to work my way through some of the things I got out of this. First of all, my wife makes the best banana bread. So I'll tell you, I eat a banana every day before my workout and the ones that start to spoil it goes into a banana bread pile. And I fully embrace even her banana bread. But anyway, I love the thoughts because some of the mindful techniques I've learned in the past regarding like breath, work and whatnot. And mindfulness involve looking at your emotions and thoughts go by right as objective things that are either floating by in a river or they're flying by in the air. And it kind of reminded me of that where either, like you said, you either reframe it, or make it neutral or convert that thought into a positive action, which is they're all great options. Because you can't help the thought comes in your brain. It's there. It's happened. It's an HSA, okay, what do I do about it going forward? It is funny, because I was just, I had moments of self consciousness all the time, like I recorded a video on my gym, for my community to show them how to work out and do certain things. And I'm constantly evaluating my own body in that video, right? We do that all the time about ourselves, but then we can say, okay, and this is what's going to happen or, and you know, I'm being helpful to the people watching this and it doesn't matter, you know, you can definitely replace your thoughts. You also mentioned the Food is fuel kind of dilemma where sometimes we like it's a pity statement as well, like a cliche, well, Food is fuel. And I've heard both sides of that argument, successfully framed, where, you know, the one side is, well, because food is fuel, we can we can use that to drive, like better choices in our food. On the other hand, you said if it's only fuel kind of takes away, the enjoyment and the human experience part of the food, that I'm trying to gain weight, and I get to the end of the day, if I'm quote unquote, a little behind on my energy intake, it's like, do I think of that as fuel and just stuff my face with gummy bears? Or do I? Do I like you kind of reframe my experience with food, so that it's enjoyable, and it's serving me. But again, I'm traveling as well here, but I love all of these tools that people can use to neutralize their thoughts. So thank you for that. With regard to those thoughts, how do they then impact our body beyond that? Because I think that's the next piece of it like physiologically, hormonally how they impact us.

Tanja Shaw: 23:55

And I'm going to say that in like 30 seconds, but two things, I want you to recap at ESA two, one, I love your word, the use of the word. And I think that's really powerful. And sort of takes away that either or, because you're like even critiquing your body like yeah, like, it's okay, if you're like, you don't love every single inch of your body, or maybe you like, and that's like, that's a perspective. And yes, you can work on that all kinds of too. But it's okay. And that's not stopping you. It's like, and you're going to do it to serve your community. And I also want to just double back on what you just said that we can't control our thoughts. And you're right, like, we can't, like our first thoughts. I've had terrible thoughts sometimes like that. I'm like, Oh my gosh, okay, like, I need to go see somebody, I shouldn't be thinking those. But that's the human experience, we're going to all things that will We will never tell other people because it's just like horrible things. And so it doesn't mean you're a bad person, it doesn't mean that they have to act on these things. Like, can you imagine, I mean, I've been at the top of NFE, as you've ever been had this phrase be on top of a high bridge or say, jump, right? Yeah, you're not gonna jump, and then you got kind of freaked out because you're like, but I could and then it's just a thought. That's all it is. And they're just words, they're just sentences. So I think that's super helpful. And also that you can do all the mindset work and you can work on this and uncover like, you know, the subconscious patterns and limiting beliefs that drive a lot this and everything. And there is no place that we're going to get to where all of our thoughts are like helpful and kind. And you know, because when I see all the time is that we like a perfection like let's say with eating, but then we have perfection with our thoughts and we think we're doing it wrong because these negative thoughts or these diety thoughts come back again like it's okay. You seem to have the tools to be able to work through them. Okay, so how do they affect your hormones? So I really got into looking at hormones digestion, detoxification, energy production, nervous system, immune function on my clients about two, three years ago. And the reason why I got into that is because I was doing a lot of the foundational basics, I still think the foundations are like, where's that for most of us, we're just not doing them consistently, like moving your body, like sleeping water, balanced meals, like bringing joy, less stress, and bliss. But for so many clients, they were doing that they're having an awesome, like breakthroughs in their mindset. But they still are stuck with results, like they just were like, still, that just have issues, they are like, maybe not losing weight. So weight loss resistance, and like, and they legit were like, doing the things right, the work is essential. And so I want you to undercover, like what's going on, like, what's really going on underneath the surface. So that's what I got into just learning how to actually test these things and look at labs and stuff. And labs are wonderful, they're fun, they're a great tool. They're not like, gonna solve everything there, they definitely have their limitations as well. But it's actually really been really kind of neat for a lot of my clients to also see the repercussions of their mindset, their habits or lifestyle on paper. And sometimes that's been like an extra, I say, like, almost like an extra motivating factor. Because sometimes we see these things like oh, like, intuitively like, or theoretically, we know this, that until we went through directly. We know for example, you know, if I don't take breaks throughout the day, or I don't manage my mind, I'm gonna be like, stressed out. And then you look at the cortisol levels on paper, you're like, Oh, well, that's what's happening or digestion, that sort of thing to

Unknown: 27:16

me, my name is Lisa. And I'd like to Big shout out to my nutrition coach Philippi. With his coaching, I have lost 17 pounds, he helped me identify the reason that I wanted to lose weight, and it's very simple longevity, I want to be healthy, active and independent. Until the day I die, he introduced me to this wonderful Apple macro factor, I got that part of my nutrition figured out along with that is the movement part of nutrition, there's a plan to it, and really helped me with that. The other thing he helped me with was knowing that I need to get a lot of steps in. So the more steps you have, the higher your expenditure is, and the easier it is to lose weight, when it's presented to you like he presents it, it makes even more sense. And the other thing that he had was a hunker guide. And that really helped me so thank you. But

Tanja Shaw: 28:00

I think the biggest thing that we need to focus on, I never really gave it I think the credit deserved. And I even don't like talking about it, because I think it's so like no one likes listening to it. But stress is stress and stress management. And I hate the word stress management to like, it's just feels like managing your stress, like your portfolio. And you're like you're

Philip Pape: 28:21

too technical. Yeah, it does. But

Tanja Shaw: 28:23

it's such an important thing. And the thing is, is that from a physical perspective, when we, a lot of us, a lot of people have really like ongoing negative conversations with themselves. They're hard on themselves, they focus on the negative. You know, I've been just like, I don't know if it's true or not, but like you have conversations with people, like, oh, how are you busy. And you know, we talk and then we like talk about how it's raining all the time. And it's just like, there's just like, just like this, like negative. And a lot of us like we're in our heads all the time with this negative, like the negative energy and negative soundtrack that we keep repeating ourselves. And from a experience perspective, it doesn't feel like it just doesn't feel good to have that. But then it also impacts how our body functions. Because it creates this low grade stress on our body, or we just don't feel safe. And that can impact our cortisol levels. So what I usually see at the beginning is cortisol levels go up. And then eventually the cortisol levels go down. Cortisol and the stress response tends to be like the first domino that affects everything else. You know, we talked about how like, all diseases begin in the gut. And I really think that stress causes the gut issues that causes everything else like I think it's that's how those causes gut dysfunction, blood sugar dysregulation. I mean, on a simple date, we talked about blood sugar and regulating blood sugar with food a lot. But cortisol effects like that regulate blood sugar to cortisol is gonna spike blood sugar levels. And if you have cortisol spikes, because you are, like, always on edge or not giving yourself that self care or whatever her are talking really to yourself, always thinking you're not enough, then you're going to have these hormonal imbalances and stress is the body's priority. Because from a survival perspective, the buyer doesn't prioritize weight loss for one thing ever. That's like the last thing. There's no benefit for a survival perspective for us to lose weight up until like last 3040 50 years like it. So that's why like, the body doesn't produce reproduction. And so when stress levels are up or you're not producing, like, you're having imbalances there, that's where we see lots of like, a lot of women really struggle with menopause and sex hormones at a time or the perimenopause transition, which is a whole Yeah, that can be fun. Because the Bidens and prioritize fertility, the body prioritizes stuff Ask management and protection for yourself. And so when we have these negative self talk, just like just being mean to ourselves kind of stuff, and it's shocking, when I had two challenges or certain coaching programs, women sort of start to like write down and become awareness, aware of the thoughts that they're saying to themselves. It's awful. Like, it's the kind of stuff you're like, Oh, I was like, Oh, we don't do that anymore. Like, there's enough education, about about self talk. And with the stuff that they write down, it's terrible. And in some of the stuff I I think about too, like when I write down, like, oh, my gosh, like, I gotta, I gotta check that, like, it's just not helpful. It's not kind it's not, I mean, it's not true either. And that creates a stress response in the body. And then I think it's so important to that we really do focus on both like, the mindset and also the by science, because what happens is, sometimes we have like, a stressor, like the mood thoughts, whatever. And that creates, let's say, gut dysfunction, blood sugar regulation, can't sleep, what happens when you like, have like, you're in pain all the time, you have inflammation, you can't sleep, you tend to also make poor choices. And so you're still at school that's like that cycle of, it's just like this never ending cycle of like, I'm stressed, I make more choices, because I'm poor choices and stress. And stress also, is not an emotion, we often say like, I feel stressed. It's a physical response that often happens to emotions. So if you feel very fearful, or if you feel like, you know, panicky or you have ruminating negative thoughts, there's a stress response there. The stress response is also to do sometimes, like things like blood sugar regulation, gotten infections, it can be due to like food intolerances. If you're not sleeping well enough, if you're eating too much too little exercise is a wonderful is a stressor. And I see this as a most of my clients actually, that I work with, probably could like, I don't think they over exercise. But there is a tendency for some people to overdo the exercise too, because we want to like burn the fat and lose the weight. And it's just so counterproductive when we overdo it. Yeah,

Philip Pape: 32:33

everything you're saying makes total sense. And I think the lens of stress being potentially the root cause of everything is, can be a very helpful one, right? Because then we can kind of tie, tie that to what we're doing and very specific things. For example, you know, the other night, I ate out later than usual and had a few drinks. And I rarely drink these days. And so what happened, my HRV went out of whack, my resting heart rate was up, temperature was up for the night, I want an aura ring. So you get all this cool data to kind of validate what you know, is be the case when you wake up in the morning and feel five degrees warmer than you normally do. Maybe that's a women feel that out for hot flashes, I don't know. But you feel that and you're like, Okay, that's a form of stress. And now that's going to have a cascading effect for the rest of the day, especially if you didn't get any more sleep than you normally did. And so I like how you mentioned, pretty much everything we do that's kind of beyond the body's normal capacity, in some sense. Food intolerances like that's a I'll say uncontrollable thing other than the putting the food in your mouth, of course, but that's causing a stress, overtraining, I just mentioned alcohol, you know, and all this is tied, like you've said, the hormones, you got cortisol, you got the HPA axis, you've got all this other complicated stuff, we don't have to necessarily dive into that makes everything else harder than fat loss, right? And everything else so and sleep, poor sleep cause poor stress, poor stress? Mostly, exactly. So it's good to just understand that and people are like, oh, there we go, again, talking about stress. But it's like you could do all the other things, and they're just going to be so much harder. Just take care of yourself. But I know it's not that easy now, but it can be Yeah, because you got Tony here to share her wisdom. So what are some things we can do? Unless there's more to explore on the physiology itself? Well, what are some things that we can do to, I guess, change our mindset that then affects our stress, so that we can improve our stress? Because that's what we're trying to link with all of this? Totally.

Tanja Shaw: 34:21

Yeah. And to that stress your point, she like thoughts and things are simple. But I also want to recognize and appreciate that a lot of people's lives, it's a lot easier than just like, it's not easy, like, a lot of people have, like, have real excuses, that are not like, Oh, I'm watching Netflix all day. I don't have time, like people have real things happening to him. They have stressors in the life of people have dealing with difficult relationships, or dealing with deaths or dealing with aging parents or dealing with 1000s who are having issues with health. Like, there's so much and I think one of the most important things is that we just take that all or nothing thinking out a way of like, because sometimes we get this like we feel so defeated, you know, because like life can be really hard sometimes. And you're like, well, what's the point? Or what's the point? That's one thing if I and that's where I want to like not so much about one of my like statements by isms, I say all the time is to make the goals of your life match to make your goals match the reality of your life. And if you're like not sleeping well because of whatever reasons, and sometimes there's like it's a real thing for some people have like kids, some people have, just like so many different things can go on, but do what you can. And by practicing talking about the mindset here practicing that mindset that I'm gonna show up and do the best I can with what I have with where I'm at with what's going on. That mindset is going to serve you no matter what's happening in your life down the road because It's like, I like riding my bike, my road bike and my mountain bike. But when I bike uphill, it's a lot of work like you're pushing hard, and you're not going very fast, because you're riding up a hill. And sometimes we're riding up a hill, like just your external circumstances hard. But you're putting in the work, you're doing the effort and as like, best as you can. And then when you know that hill like becomes flat again, which it will eventually, and you'll have that strength, you'll have that mindset shift that you've made, that I'm going to do the best I can with what I have. And I think that's going to really serve you. So I want encourage those that with it are who are dealing with hard things, because there are seasons in life that are just are truly, truly hard. And it's so wonderful that you can practice that. To your question there about that how to like what to do. So that's like, yeah, we'll get really all in I think mindset. Yeah, I think it really starts like going back to just also our, our thoughts about ourself, like, you can also and because every time like if you have that negative self talk like that stressor, when a while back, I was about a year and a half ago, I did this little journal entry. And it was just a random journal entry, a practice that I wrote down on one side of the paper, calm and happy attractors or builders. And I put down on the other page, common happy detractors. And I wrote down all the things that kind of so calm is like my kind of antidote to stress. If I'm joyful, and calm, I'm usually less stress. And because it can be different from person to person, so identify what the stresses are in your life. And for me, it's things like, you know, rushing. And I have a tendency to be really hard on myself to always be pushing and like wanting to do more, and I have a wonderful brain that has tons of ideas, which is fantastic. But after doing this now for was it 2024, I think I've been an entrepreneur since 2007. So while like, there's some burnout, like there can be some burnout, if you're like, if you keep having this, like I need to push it need to grow, I need to grow. And it's like for so for me personally, that's a bit of a stressor. So I think the stressors that in your life are going to be individual, and to say, take some time write down, like, what are the things that are adding one of the things that I bring joy with things are like, helping me like stay grounded, maybe things like your walks, I have three cats, which I would love, like, you know, spend time with my cats and go for a walk recording in a neighborhood, all those kinds of things are the add to my life, they keep me more calm and grounded. And then what are the things that are causing the stresses, some things we can't control, or if we did change them, there'll be a really big consequence that we may not be ready for. For example, if you have an aging parent, that's like you're really age a caregiver, you can choose not to, like that's a choice, that that's, there's a consequence of that. And so, although it's a choice, we have to really respect like that might not be the best choice and you have might have some values. But even with that, maybe it's setting boundaries and things like that, too. But I think the best thing for that is to be individualized for yourself, like what are the things and how can I give myself you know more things that are kind of recharging me and giving me that recovery and less, not even less things all the time is that it's just I love the word balance. I don't think balance is really realistic or a goal that really getting to you but it's about just trying not to be get totally off balance where you have all these stressors and not enough. And a lot of the stressors that we have on our ourselves. It's this perfectionism it's the thinking that we should do everything having 37 things to do on our to do list knowing getting done 10 And then feeling more failure than like thinking that even thinking like, you know, we're behind that we're not not like all those are stressors, and sorry to pay attention to them and see what else we can do and reframe that because it can really serve us and as I speak to this podcast, I'm speaking directly to myself to

Philip Pape: 39:27

know how you hear you.

Tanja Shaw: 39:29

Yeah, and I'm like, I know,

Philip Pape: 39:32

ya know, there's so much good there. You said that people have real things in their life. I mean that in the way I've also phrased in passes, like life is life, life is going to exist. It's like Christmas is gonna come on December 25. Whether you budget for life is gonna happen. It's an In fact, that's the norm. There's the idea of this smooth sailing, you know, everything's routine all the time, you could eat like a bodybuilder. 100% of the time, because life is perfect is rare for anybody. So you mentioned the all or nothing thinking and matching the goals to reality of your life. My mind started going to stoicism when you got into doing with the best with what you have, and taking care of what you can control. But what I really loved was your analogy of a hill. Sometimes you're riding up the hill and it builds resilience. And then that got me thinking about optimism bias. So I wanted to ask you about this thought of. So a lot of people told me in the past, Oh, you're so positive, or you know, almost like rose colored glasses like Pollyanna about certain things. And when I was younger, I saw that as a negative Now I fully embrace it because not only has it served me but also I think the evidence shows that when people have an optimism bias whether it's natural or they learn Learn it, rather than falling on, like disappointment like people think you will, if you're too optimistic about things, it tends to drive you to do something different in the face of whatever's happening. I mean, what are your thoughts about optimism bias? Because you said, dealing with hard things, doing the best with what I have, when somebody is facing a really terrible situation that they can't control? Like you said, maybe it's a death, maybe they've become a single parent, maybe it's like you said, a caregiver, just something pretty tough. That life set your way? How do you in that moment, and maybe it's not an MO and maybe you need to process and then a later moment, move forward with this optimism or doing the best with what you have? What What are your thoughts on that?

Tanja Shaw: 41:21

Yeah, I think that's why we're support can be really helpful for one like, I think that's one thing that's massive, whether it was a counselor or coach or something, but to have someone to walk through tough times with, I think the only downside, not the only because, again, like, it's really easy to look at things like very binary, and everything is very nuanced. And very, listen, we need to have the wisdom, I think what's perceived as the negative to be optimistic, is that you might bypass some of the things that need to be worked through, because we kind of skipped through them, I have done this, and I am now getting a lot more therapy to work through some things. Because I would always like I would resolve problems, I would redirect, I would go to the gym, I would work out I like change my seat, I would do all these things. But I think that for me, there are some things that are going on that I because I sort of kind of skipped over them without ever reflecting on some of the like, the things that the limiting beliefs and like the triggers and things that and so this is my experience. They come up more now. And they're more bigger and louder. And they're like, because I skipped over them. But you can still have be focusing like, I don't think optimism and focusing on like, I don't think it means that you're bypassing the reality of life. I don't think you're gonna be like, oh, like my spouse left me, well, let's like, what an opportunity to be, like, you know, like, no, like, you can grieve and you can also, you know, work through things. So I think that, in general, like, if we had to choose between, like looking for the negative and everything, and looking for the positive and everything and seeing what we can do, and focusing what we see, I think I think that is the better choice. With the understanding, that doesn't mean that we're going to be happy all the time. Or that if we're having like, that we're bypassing our emotions, and we're not feeling like the things that are also meant to be felt that sometimes we can kind of that are like that dealing with bad emotions, we don't want to feel them, I don't like feeling them. I hate feeling them. And I've like bypass them and repress them for long enough that they're surfacing a lot more now. And so I think there's a, again, it's kind of almost like, I don't know, if I've been like circling the question or actually getting to it or not, but it's this idea that it's not one or the other. And it's not like you're I don't think what you're saying is that you are positive all the time. And you like, only look at the bright side, and you never like recognize the reality of like, that things are also hard or people feel you can grieve and be sad, all those kind of things to

Philip Pape: 43:47

agree. Yeah, no, yeah, for sure. There's a nuance there, that I was relating to what you had said about the hard things are going to happen, you're gonna acknowledge them, you may reflect on them, process them, and you want to move forward in some way that is dealing with it. And taking advantage of that resilience, you get through that process in moving forward, because you know, your life might be harder than someone else's. That is just reality. Now that we know that let's go forward, but not again with rose colored glasses. And you did mention one of the thing about you called it balance and then kind of stepped back and said, Well, you know, because the word balance is so can become cliche. And I guess I'll use the word bias, like in a good way we can bias things toward things that serve us in our life. So it's kind of like you're putting your thumb on the scale, and saying, Look, let me just add in the things kind of like additive nutrition, but additive self care

Tanja Shaw: 44:35

exactly, I think is really, really a great way of looking at it. And that gets us away from that kind of all or nothing thinking or is one or the other and everything like that, too. Yeah.

Philip Pape: 44:44

Yeah. No. So now, like in your experience, right? So we talked about mindset. We alluded to early on that mind over matter. It's kind of this cliche thing, but where is mindset alone? not sufficient? And I'm looking for a more nuanced answer than just, well, you got to train and eat well, and all that we know all that. Like, let's just assume we know that piece. But where's mindset alone? not sufficient?

Tanja Shaw: 45:08

Yeah, I think I think this is necessary go back to original part. Is that how it can override SLS into our bodies as well? I think that's where we started the conversation. That's such a great way to bring it back. I see it so much through these pressures that we have on ourselves to like to achieve to strive to, you know, to push are never enough. We can't rest. We feel guilty a lot. And we can mindset our way sometimes to doing more but then sometimes the answer is changing our circumstance. As well changing what we're doing. And the other thing is like, I look at like mindset environment as kind of two things. And let's talk about like fact food and fitness and stuff. Like, if I had a bowl of m&ms on my desk right now I can mindset my way through it and be like, No, I'm not gonna get the m&ms. I really love m&ms. And I'm that great. But if you have a bowl like peanut m&ms Right here, or the, you know, the next bowl, like the peanut butter and the peanut ones, and the chocolate ones, I'd probably eat them. So simple thing to do with your environment is to just change. Now, take the assets off the table. Now think about it. But sometimes we try to like let's say, like, you have a list of 37 things to do. And you can mindset your way through it and be like, well, you know, I can chunk it down, I can just like focus on doing the things like doing the best I can. Or you can make your list down to three and deciding to do three things instead. So sometimes, we think by focusing too much on the mindset and not acknowledging the environment and the circumstance, we can maybe have to work too hard to try to reframe what we need to do. Let's say you're in a bad relationship. You can mindset your way through it and be like, you can do all the work. But maybe sometimes the relationships change like you. And that's I think, sometimes when we look at things like, and this is why I love and I hate social media is that we love these like dichotomous way of thinking where it's like, yeah, mindsets, everything or like, blah, blah. And then we get all the likes and shares. It's like so Hossam. But if it's simple, it's not always sometimes true. Not always true, though.

Philip Pape: 47:13

Yeah, two things come to mind. I love that you, on one hand said we could use our intelligent brain and mindset to prevent using too much mindset. So to speak, like, we can get smart about it and intelligent and be efficient, or whatever the phrase you want to use of creative, you know, come around the problem and say, Well, I have these 20 things I think I have to do. But let's narrow it down to three, we can delegate delete this that. Before we even get to that. The other thing that comes to mind is, you know, the habits and behaviors we create through these practices over time, kind of eliminate the need for that mindset in your way through things as well, right? Because you've gotten to the point where now your body is almost taken over with the muscle memory or the mindset that's just ingrained in the back of your brain and a different part of your brain now. That's just what comes to mind for me. Yeah. Okay. So I know, we have like, we have like 10 minutes left, there's a whole bunch of things I would want to touch on. This was an interesting one that I thought of with you here. Is you have that background in functional lab testing. I wonder, is there any? Are there any biomarkers or lab results that predict or influence or associated with mindset changes? And I don't know if you know what I mean by that, you know, to tailor to people from their lab work?

Tanja Shaw: 48:28

Yeah, and there's nothing I know, there's nothing that specifically there because the body is we offer I look, for example, cortisol levels and the cortisol patterns with a lot that's influenced by so many different things mindset being. And so I think, and whether it's that or like, I literally love functional, I love functional testing, I think it's can be really targeted, it can be wonderful to get like three protocols for each person. You tell us based on like me. So that's how you feel for somebody. It's like, are you sleeping well? How's your digestion? You're talking about your apps that you use, like your ring and stuff like that, too. Like those will tell you a couple things as well. I'm not familiar with them. I actually have no tracking. I track my food right now and the tracking phase. But I have like no wearable trackers. I have like a retirement Apple Watch about a year ago. I'm like done. So I just I have my Timex watch that's about it right now. Because to me, honestly, not to say that they're bad or good. But that was one of those calm and happy detractors is I was starting to like try to go to do certain exercises cuz I knew it would like burn more calories or walk a certain distance as like, I still want to do that. Like I don't. And I also didn't want my any text messages or phone calls on my phone virus either. So I love it. Yeah,

Philip Pape: 49:41

I mean, that sounds like a form of self care for you've made that choice of these things tend to add stress. You're also big with the outdoors, right outdoor activities, hiking or paddleboarding? I think I love it all.

Tanja Shaw: 49:52

That's a problem. I love it all.

Philip Pape: 49:54

Well, just tell me about like, like, I just want to know. So the audience learns a little bit about you maybe tie those experiences into how you integrate your mental physical health. Give people a vision of like being outside doing one of those activities.

Tanja Shaw: 50:07

I still love it. And like I alluded to, I don't do everything well, like I think a lot of the times we have the knowledge. And for me, I think because I've kind of coached myself for so long. It's been kind of got through things, but now I'm getting a little more. Yeah, working with a therapist to work through some things that I have not the patterns that I'm not able to solve my own. And I think that's excited about this process. Like it's been good so far. But I find it everyone has their own thing. But for me being in nature and is ah, sometimes I don't know if I'm running away from like, the To Do lists, or writing towards nature, but I spent a lot of time like we do lots of backpacking. And it's like an all inclusive vacation because you've already like, packed all your stuff. He's carrying you back. And I will go into, like, last year, I didn't think I did five like multi day hikes. And there was never cell phone service. I use shut off like, and what I love about it is that you hike for long enough that you're tired, like, we hike for quite a few hours, you're carrying this backpack, which is usually way too heavy to carry too much stuff. You get to camp, and then I just like I sit there and I stare at the ocean or wherever I am, or the mountains or whatever, or hours. And the time goes by I don't. It's not like I'm trying to meditate. I just sit there. I mean, it's like body calm. It's the most talked about, like stress levels, it's like the most wonderful feeling like everything is just so it's so good. And then the cool thing to what happens is like we did this one hike, my son and I last year, we did a three day hike. And in Washington, it was actually in the Olympic National Forest, which is just beautiful. And the hike wasn't that hard. So it had like, probably like six or seven hours, just like sit and stare at the ocean every day. And that's all he read. And I just did that. But then after that I had like, it just gave me such clarity so much. I feel like I felt like all these ideas were coming to me by like day three of just, like just downloads, it was just such a great experience. So more of that in my life, like more adventures more in prioritizing that because we often so like, had this idea what success looks like, you know, it's like often like it's the growth, it's like, the income and all that awesome too. But it's a good question like, who are we measuring? Like, what's the what's your misery? Sick? And, and same thing with like, with body to, you know, sense who you're supposed to? Like, why do you want that? Like, truly, why do you want that? And it's just sometimes good to question those kind of things. Because I think sometimes we can push ourselves and sometimes lose sight of the things that we actually want and which is often how we want to feel.

Philip Pape: 52:45

Sure, yeah, well, the hustle, getting so zoned in on a single mode. You made me want to go camping again. It's been a couple of years. Okay, you're right. It's so like when you're disconnected even for a day. It's incredible how you become get into that more primal state of just over and around nature, you're going to sleep with the sun. It's just as nice experience. Yeah, it's amazing. Yeah. So all right. I mean, we covered a lot of stuff here today. And hopefully people got some wonderful ideas and some unique perspectives here on mindset on reframing and so many other things. Is there anything that you wished I had asked? And if so, what is your answer?

Tanja Shaw: 53:23

I can't really think about, I was actually thinking with this question, because I don't think so. But I think the biggest one I wanted to circle back to the biggest kind of point is that there, I noticed. So try that it's a journey, but it really is, and there is no place for you arrive. And I think that's the biggest mistake that we get to do is we have like these ups and downs, but we have the downs, we feel like we're doing it wrong. And it's so not true. We don't arrive at something that we're gonna keep living into working on it daily, moment by moment. And I think that's a beautiful thing. I

Philip Pape: 53:55

agree. There is no place for you to arrive. I love it. Love it. We're gonna leave it at that. And I want people to know where they can reach you, Tanya, where can they learn more about you and learn about your work?

Tanja Shaw: 54:05

Yeah, thank you. So the best is probably the podcast, the fit and vibrant podcast. So as I said at the beginning, it's fit and then plus vibrant. And then why spelt? So you spelled y o u. And then my website is Tanya shot.com tnjshw.com. And then there's a links everything else do.

Philip Pape: 54:25

Alright, so the fit and environment you podcast and Tanya show.com. We'll put those in the show notes. It was really a pleasure. I thought it was a super like natural conversation. We covered a lot of very interesting things I always learn and it was a pleasure seeing you again, Tanya. Yeah,

Tanja Shaw: 54:38

thanks so much for having me.

Philip Pape: 54:40

Thank you for tuning in to another episode of wit's end weights. If you found value in today's episode, and know someone else who's looking to level up their wits or weights. Please take a moment to share this episode with them. And make sure to hit the Follow button in your podcast platform right now to catch the next episode. Until then, stay strong.