When You Hate Your Body but Don’t Want to Work Out: Reversing ‘Mom Bod’ FAST with Tiffany Wickes

No one prepares you for the way motherhood changes your body, and then it’s all too easy to put your health last because you’re so busy and tired. That was me for a LONG time—until I met health & fitness coach Tiffany Wickes.

In this episode, you’ll not only learn more about my health journey and see why I’m obsessed with Tiffany’s simple, no-BS approach; you’ll also be inspired to start putting your own health first and get tons of cheap, feasible ways to do that.

 BY THE TIME YOU FINISH LISTENING, YOU'LL DISCOVER:

•  The difference between reasons and excuses—and how you can acknowledge your very real circumstances without letting them become a permanent permission slip to stay stuck
• Why nutrition has to come first, before workouts (especially for exhausted moms) and how fueling your body well naturally creates the desire and energy to move more
• How diet culture has done moms SUCH a disservice and is only wrecking your hormones and health
• The BEST way to support moms’ health & fitness (especially in perimenopause)
• Why becoming “stress resilient” is key for happiness and longevity
• Plus simple mindset shifts and all kinds of easy, practical health & fitness ideas that DON’T require a gym

AS MENTIONED:

Connect with my amazing coach, Tiffany

• Website
• Instagram
• Strong Like A Mother podcast

Check out the health & fitness program that helped me lose 25# in 5 months!!!

Join my new 6-week program, Moms Made New, to learn the six most fundamental life coaching skills EVERY mom needs to flourish. 

HOMEWORK:

Your homework is to reach out to Tiffany if you're ready to reclaim your body and health so you can finally feel good and strong again—or maybe for the first time ever! It is never too late, and I especially love how her program helps women like me going through hormonal fluctuations in perimenopause. If this episode resonates with you, email me or DM me on Instagram @solutionsforsimplicity to share your thoughts!

COMING UP NEXT:

Join me back next episode to learn how

 Whether you've listened to this podcast for a while OR it's your first episode, you can hopefully tell how passionate I am about helping you get to the root of your stress & heal your hidden wounds so both you & your family can flourish.

Right now I'm offering three POWERFUL new masterclasses to help you break free of perfectionism, people pleasing, & self neglect. Sign up here!

CONNECT WITH AMBER: Website | Instagram | YouTube | LinkedIn

Ready to finally get to the root of your problems and change your life FOR GOOD? Book your free 60-minute consult to learn more about working 1:1 with Dr. Amber.

Transcript

0:49

If you ever look in the mirror and hate what you see, or feel discouraged because your poor body has borne the brunt of everything that goes along with motherhood, if you know you're not getting any younger and should really do something to get strong and healthy, but the thought of making changes feels so daunting that you've just given up, this episode is for you. Welcome to More Time for Mom. where overwhelmed moms get science-backed strategies to overcome the hidden sources of stress stealing your time and joy. I'm your host, Dr. Amber Curtis. Ready to make more time for you? Let's dive in. I could not be more excited to share this interview with my personal health and fitness coach with you. You'll learn more about my journey in the episode, but for context, I reached an all-time high on the scale and an almost all-time low in my mental health at the end of last year. I felt so depressed with how I looked and especially with the toll having four kids and the grief of losing 11 loved ones in just a couple of years had taken on my body. None of my clothes fit. I cried. CRIED when I saw myself in our annual family photos because I hadn't realized it was that bad. I was horribly inflamed, carrying all kinds of chub in my face and neck. Not to mention my belly and lower body. But worse, I was utterly exhausted. So even though I knew I should exercise and I knew all the quote-unquote right things to do, I had no motivation to do them. I was ashamed in front of my husband, but I used work and home responsibilities as an excuse, convincing myself I didn't have time to work out because everyone else needed me to do so much. If you're a mom, I know you can relate. My situation is so common, but so not good. Then in February of 2025, I came across Tiffany Wicks, a nutrition and fitness coach, author, and mom of seven who helps women get strong, lose fat, and find balance through faith-based whole food living. As the host of the Strong Like a Mother podcast, Tiffany cuts through the noise of diet culture with practical, science-backed strategies for real women who juggle family, faith, and fitness. Her mission is to show that strength isn't just built in the gym. It's built in everyday choices, grounded in grace, and fueled by purpose. Tiffany's no BS approach was the firm kick in the pants I needed to finally do something. I was resistant at first, but I couldn't believe that in the first week, I lost over six pounds. Over just five months, I went on to lose a total of 25 pounds and four dress sizes simply through healthy eating and a sustainable fitness routine working out 30 minutes a day. It blew my mind, so I will forever be shouting from the rooftops how great this is and how every woman should check it out. I asked Tiffany to come on and share her best tips with you, and I am intentionally airing this right after Thanksgiving because I imagine you might be having some post-turkey dinner remorse and her wisdom will totally help you feel better. Take a listen. Tiffany, welcome to the show and thank you so much for your time here. I mentioned in the introduction that I specifically brought you on because several months ago, almost a year ago now, I had been following you and I was really just amazed at how here you are with seven kids and a business and all these other things in your life and yet you are in phenomenal shape. You're doing it all, you're really just like such an incredible example of what is possible and I was so confronted in the best possible way with how all of the things I had been using as excuses myself were things that you had in your life and more and yet were succeeding. So I can't wait to pick your brain and help my listeners really have that same experience of realizing that what they want and the body they love and feeling good in their body and all those things, it's so possible for them. Let's start out with your story and what led you to do what you do and we'll go from there. Yeah. Thanks so much, Amber, for having me. Really thrilled to be here. So, um, I mean, my story starts out all the way from being a kid and just diet full of processed food. I was a latchkey kid, so I was cooking our own meals via boxes of hamburger helper, hamburger helper. If any, you have any eighties kids in the house, they all know what that is. So it was just like ground beef and boxed chemicals. We were cooking food for ourselves around eight or nine years old. My mom had an intense gambling addiction and my dad would retaliate with spending more money on car parts because I think in a past life he wanted to be a professional race car driver. So we had this driveway full of broken down cars, all within halfway to three quarter working condition. And then they would combat each other's poor spending habits with just more spending. So, that didn't leave a lot in terms of nutritional density for us kids. I grew up just eating absolute garbage. I was the kid who had to be fed at school both breakfast and lunch because weren't sure if I was going to get that. And when the groceries were gone, they were gone. My parents were not going to the store of midweek to stock back up. I didn't grow up with a healthy nutritional mindset. everybody in my family, like extended family, although we don't know them very well, my parents have reported that they have all died early of heart disease. So obesity was rampant. My mom was obese. My dad was obese. My twin sister was obese, which led me to sort of be a champion for her because I said, you know what, you know, she's not going to fight for herself. I had happened to just be a little bit more wily, a bit more outspoken. So I got into a lot of fights as a kid trying to advocate for her. And that is what started me on the like, gosh, there's got to be a better way. Like I'm getting into fights weekly for people calling my sister fat and be like, Oh yeah, you want some? And I was like, there's got to be a better way. Do we have to be like this? And when we were kids, just genetically, I was a little bit leaner than her. Although we're twins, we're fraternal, so we don't sing may share the same genetic representation of one another, but I was just more active. And I didn't seek pleasure in this unhealthy food because I felt horrible in it. That's all I had. But I recall going to people's houses when I was little and Christopher was his name. His mother always made him a fresh sandwich every day. She cut it into shapes and she put fruit on the plate with little finger vegetables. And I would hang out at Christopher's house waiting for lunch because I was like, well, my parents aren't home to fix me lunch. All we had was like whatever we could scrounge for. So I would wait around and Christopher's mother would come out with his lunch and I'd be sitting there looking doughy eyed and needy. And she would like, would you like lunch too? And I was like, Oh, absolutely. Thanks for the invite. But I sort of invited myself to that. Most days I would have lunch at Christopher's house and I watched how she prepared his meals with such love and such diligence and such intention. And these early experiences are really what shaped my journey into fitness and health and advocacy and no excuses because my parents are like, well, we're poor, we're broke, like we don't have that. And I'm like, as a little kid, I'm like, OK, yeah, I guess we are poor. I guess we are broke. I guess we don't have that. I guess, you know, a healthy lifestyle that's for those people and those people were not us. As I grew and became more aware and I got my own job and I could buy my own food and prepare my own food. I was living on my own three weeks after I turned 18. There was no doubt in my parents' voices when we were younger that we were supposed to be out when we were 18. They were done taking care of us. They were done spending time, money and energy on kids. So we had to be out. So there I was, brand new 18 year old, just graduated high school three weeks earlier, working two different jobs. I had enrolled in college locally because I said, you know what, I'm going to change my life somehow, some way I'm going to change this. So I went to the grocery store and thought, okay, like what do healthy people do? And at the time the internet was there, but it was not as robust as it is now. So I drove, I walked around the grocery store looking into other people's carts And then looking at their body composition at the time and being like, what does she have in there? Okay. She's got eggs. I should probably get eggs. And then I'd see the obese women walk around and they've got loads of chips and sodas. And I was like, okay. I grew up with that. Everyone in my family is obese. They've all got some sort of heart disease, type two diabetes. Well, don't want that. So that's how my early education came about was just observing and then desiring something so different than what I was brought up with that I barely had the means, but I scraped it together and made it work. The story about you having lunch at Christopher's house just brings tears to my eyes. I was unprepared for that in just, you know, how much our family upbringing shapes our perception of the world. And we don't even realize how what we know in those young years isn't the only way. how amazing that you saw these other opportunities, but then you took it upon yourself to go and find answers simply from observation. I think a lot of us, even in every area of our life, but in health in particular, it is so easy to think that we are the cards we've been dealt with and that the way that we looked or felt when we were little or how we've changed since becoming mothers, all of these things that they are They're just a given and it can be so depressing and emotion can override our ability to even want to find solutions. Gosh, so you are just the walking story of not letting that hold you back. I'm just in awe. Can you guide us into the present where here you have seven kids, right? Do I have that number right? Yep. Seven kids. I love that so much. And everything I see on Instagram and when we've worked together with you as my health and fitness coach, I'm just I am so inspired because you are doing so much, but you are making time for not only your health, but then modeling for your kids and providing this totally different family environment than you had growing up. Can you give us a glimpse into your present life and what brought you to that point with all the wonderful kids? Yeah, so my formal training, I guess, started when I eventually, that's a whole other story, but I did eventually get to finish college through a lot of struggle and a lot of sacrifice. I did finish college and I got my nursing degree and there were a few nutrition classes there and that started piquing my interest was just about how we approach health in this country. And at the time I was working, when I was a newly married woman, I was working in the medical oncology unit and I'd go down to the ER. And with medical and oncology, medical services people who are sick of generally some communicable disease and then oncology is cancer. So as I was hanging bags of chemotherapy and I'm watching these people and their families were so hopeful that they were going to get better, a lot of them were in very poor shape when they arrived. A nurse gets a full family history, a nutritional history, fitness history. And when I heard these histories, I was like, wow, there wasn't a whole lot of prevention happening. And that's where I was like, okay, I don't think my story is going to end with just always working on therapy, therapy, therapy. I thought, well, what if we could prevent this? Like what could prevent this? And then that started me down the journey of prevention was worth more than the quote cure. But truth be known, we never cured anybody. Everybody who came into my cancer ward did end up dying. So there I was, hanging their poison and then holding their hands while they're taking their last breath. And it was so sad because their family, they were so helpful that this was going to be the thing. And the whole time I'm doing this, I'm watching trays of absolute garbage come up and be served to these people. And I'm like, I don't think this is the way, like these are full of chemicals, full of saturated fats. full of food that A, they're barely going to eat because they're so sick, but even if they were going to eat it, there's no nutritional density here whatsoever. So that led me away from working in acute care setting and then starting to having my own family. I went through my own nutritional journey with them and it was like, okay, kids eat goldfish, I guess my kids can eat goldfish. And then I'm like, well, these kids over here, again, just observation. These kids over here always sick, my goodness, their ear infections and tonsils and all the time. And then I'm like, well, I've got people I know over here, their kids have carrot sticks and chicken chunks. And I'm like, do kids eat that? I guess they do. Maybe they do. I didn't have a great modeling. I had no modeling in terms of what a mother should provide for her kids other than Christopher's mother. I was like, Christopher's mother had fresh fruit and vegetables, so I ought to try that. So it was just, okay, we started off on sort of a variety of foods and some, you know, it was equal parts processed, fresh. And then I realized that my blood sugar condition was really getting the better of me. I had grown up with really like a hyperbolic blood sugar situation. So when I was younger, my blood sugar would bottom out all the time. I was chronically hypoglycemic. And the doctor's advice to me was, you need to eat more carbohydrates more often. And you can imagine what that ended up happening is, I'm kind of backing up a little bit, but I think it's relevant. So I was just eating constantly and I was moving as much as a young adult could, but I was taking full time classes. I was working full time at a restaurant and I was exhausted, overextended, but I was eating constantly because my blood sugar would bottom out. Well, as one might imagine, I blew up. I got gained about 25, 30 extra pounds, and I was like, oh my gosh, how do I combat this? So then I started this really unhealthy flex between I better work out like crazy when I'm not working full-time and going to school full-time, and I better reduce the amount I'm eating. Well, and then I'm like, oh my gosh, I'm ravenously hungry because I'm just doing cardio, cardio, cardio. I'm on the treadmill constantly. I met a girl who was like, hey, I have these diet pills. These can help. And I was like, diet pills? Okay. So I took him. All right. She was just selling them for $20 a pill. And I was desperate at the time because I worked at a restaurant where your body composition and your figure kind of mattered. It's Hooters if you're curious. So I'm like, okay, sure. I'll take it. Turns out, her mother was a narcoleptic. And with narcolepsy, they often give them low levels of speed in order to keep them awake and functioning. So she was taking her mom's pills and then reselling them as diet pills. And did it work? It absolutely did. I was going a million miles a minute. I dropped about 30 pounds in a matter of two months. And then at the restaurant, a man said to me, he gave me a $10 tip for like a burger and a soda. And I was like, that's a lot. That's like a 40% tip. What's going on here? And he said, with this extra, go buy yourself a cheeseburger. I was like, oh. So then this like body composition fight came about in my head. I'm like, one minute I'm too fat, one minute I'm too skinny, my blood sugar's down in the dumps, and then it's up here. And I had no idea how to regulate this. So fast forward to having my own kids, I was like, what if they had a blood sugar issue? Moving way for like 10 years forward, I was able to research a lot about how to sustain blood sugar and how much fiber matters and how much protein matters and how much whole foods matter because your body understands how to utilize that nutrition and then put it into a working body, into your muscles, into your vessels, into your brain and start using that for fuel. So having children, it was like, let's try the paleo thing. Let's try the primal thing. And it was always some diet, some orthodoxy of nutrition that was, we reject this whole thing, but we can add in this, like less of this, more of that, don't consume this at all. And then it got to be to a point where I was like, I feel like if God had created this earth, and he did, and he said, these are all for you, and he did with plants and animals, shouldn't there be a balance of the two like larger categories? Shouldn't there be a way that we live harmoniously in a diet that is and when I say diet, I don't mean dieting like I was doing because I developed an awful relationship with food and exercise at the time. And then isn't there a way that we can just be like, accountable to our own bodies, but live in the way that God designed it. And that's what eventually moved us into whole foods in balance and balance, meaning like a macro split of 40, 30, 30, so that you're getting a good amount of protein for your satiety, for your muscles, for your energy. You're getting a good amount of fruits and vegetables with healthy fats. Children especially need a lot of healthy fats because that's what their brain primarily is made of. So don't be afraid of fats, but they shouldn't be coming in oils, poor oils or fats via fried food. I mean, lots of avocados and nuts and nut butters are fantastic. Whole raw milk is awesome. Dairy that doesn't have a bunch of additives to it. We shouldn't be afraid of these things unless your kid has a diagnosed issue, and that's a topic for another time, that there's a lot of things that we do to our kids in the name of health that are actually creating dysfunction in their gut and making these variety of whole foods inaccessible to them. So that's how that journey started was, again, lots of kind of trauma, if you will, like micro traumas from my young adulthood moving into it saying, okay, that can't be it, clearly. So what is it? And I've always asked the question, not so much, I can't do this. I've always said, but how can I? How is there a way? If I'm pressed on time and I've got a bunch of kids running around, I'm like a gym workout isn't going to happen. What can I do then? Let's come up with some creative ways to get fit. I just posted a reel on Instagram this morning about the sled. If you're familiar, it's a metal object. It's a sled that you push. I got that thing offline for $20 used. and you could put plates of weights on it, but if you don't have that, I stuck my kid on it. He's 30 pounds. I was like, Hey, that's resistance training. So you don't have to have a whole set of dumbbells. You don't have to have a squat rack. You don't even have to have a gym membership. You really can start your fitness journey with just your human body and the kids you have in your house and perhaps maybe a few cans that you have in your pantry. Those are resistance. Anything that is slightly more than what your body already has, that's resistance training. So I think people are making it way too difficult. They're making it way too complicated. And the excuses they come up with as to why they can't do something end up being lame, dusty, and outdated. Because what I see as a coach perspective is you just don't want it badly enough. And that's okay. But let's be honest about that and let's own it. All the listeners can hopefully see why I'm obsessed with you. This was the very hard approach that I needed to pull me out of a decades-long kind of depression as I look back on it. early upbringing was similar to yours in it being very financially unstable and other hard traumatic things going on in the home. I feel like I knew a fair amount about what was healthy or not and I, in my teenage and college years in particular, threw myself into fitness. I got certified as a fitness instructor and I was in amazing shape and I I really, I laugh looking back because all of that went hand in hand with perfectionism, high achieving, what I now know is high functioning anxiety and that need to control my life. So, you know, when I was able to control my life and have the body I loved, I thought everything was so great. I was the person that had it all together until I had kids. And then I didn't recognize my body anymore. I had, I may not compare myself to you because you've got seven kids, but I had three kids in four years. And then I went on to have my four kids in seven years and was working full time, was so incredibly stressed, had no family nearby. We had our own financial struggles. And I look back, and none of those should have been excuses, right? There were, inevitably, easy ways that I could have overcome any of those things. But mentally and emotionally, I let them pull me down into that victim mentality, which made me search for coping mechanisms all the more, which, again, was not good for my health. And then I gained some weight when I was pregnant, but I usually lost it when I was nursing. And then it was only after I had my fourth son in my late 30s that I now realized perimenopause was kicking in and I didn't lose the weight the same. And then I was super stressed about other things and grieving loss of my mom and so many other things. So combination of coping with food and not liking how hard it felt to exercise and then being exhausted and using work as an excuse how I don't have time all these things I ended up gaining about 30 plus pounds over the course of a year or so and I still had all these excuses but I felt so bad about myself and I felt so bad in my body And then I think a lot of people are very well-intentioned on social media, but some of the first messages that I found, good old confirmation bias, was just to blame perimenopause as if these hormonal changes we go through, starting even in our early to mid 30s, depending on when it's going to hit for you. But I just found those messages saying that, oh, the reason that you are struggling is because of perimenopause. And now we have something to blame. But it, like, perpetuated that victimhood of thinking I couldn't really do anything about it. I was helpless to these invisible forces. And then I got so afraid that I was just destined to be overweight and unhappy and all the other things. And then I found you. And I've ended up losing over 25 pounds this year. It feels so good. It's so sustainable. And it's been so much easier than I ever imagined through the multi-pronged approach that you and the Faster Way to Fat Loss have helped me learn. I couldn't even believe how quickly I started seeing results and how much better I felt and then how much I wanted to do this for myself and loved what I was modeling for my kids and all these things. I really had to get to that dark place first, I think, where I just, I felt so bad. And all of that is a long-winded way of saying that despite what physical issues someone might be having, Their mental and emotional state, I think, is really driving their resistance to some of the solutions that are out there. And if they look for it, they can find confirming voices that enable them to keep blaming something else and not taking up their own power to do something about it. You are this beautiful contrasting voice. What would you say to the woman who is either a new mom and not recognizing her body or maybe is having pelvic floor issues and can't exercise the way that she used to because that was me years ago. My physical therapist actually told me I will never run or jump again and I cried and cried because those had been my go-to things. Fast forward, I'm absolutely running and jumping and doing all these things again. So I just, I let that further victimize me when I was told that. But what would you say to either the new mom who is struggling or the perimenopausal mom who also doesn't recognize what's happening with her body and yet is feeling so disheartened? Yeah. So first off more is not always more. Okay. I have a ton of women who are like, I am working out six days a week, an hour and a half. They're just doing so much. And I'm like, listen, more is not always more for you. In fact, in a brand new mother's body and a perimenopausal body, they're very similar in that your hormones are just on a rollercoaster ride of their own. So less is going to be more for you. And I instruct people, first off, if somebody is telling you what's not possible for you, it's time to start asking more questions. Oh, is that true? What makes them the authority on your body and the possibility for you? Like you get to be the architect of your decisions and your own destiny. Okay. Only you, only you can decide I'm going to get up and move instead of sit here and scroll. Only you can decide to put down the box of macaroni and cheese. and grab the whole shell and real cheddar cheese and milk and butter and whole grain flour to make it yourself. By the way, it takes like 15 minutes to make your own homemade macaroni and cheese and your body utilizes those nutrients differently. There are tons of studies that prove it. A turkey sandwich bought in a conventional store from highly manufactured means versus a turkey sandwich with the macros all being the same. The chemical composition is different. Your body will use the homemade sandwich with real ingredients differently and more effectively and the calories are going to be lower. Your body just knows how to use real food. So, to the brand new mom that has a fresh little baby at home, she's breastfeeding, she's feeling puffy, for you, I'm going to say, you need to give this time, okay? Your body is going to, and my body, I'm still breastfeeding my littlest kid, okay? He's two. I am still breastfeeding him. My body is still holding on to about 10 extra pounds of energy. Some people call it calories. Some people call it fat. Fat is made up of calories. All calories are is a unit of measure, so a unit of measurement of energy. But that's what a calorie is, unit of measurement of energy. So let's stop vilifying it and putting nasty titles and devil horns on the word calories. Calories are not bad. You need calories in order to live. In fact, most of us need 1,400 or 1,500 calories every day just to function, just to breathe and have your brain process. You're not even moving at this point. So to say I'm going to live my life on 1,200 calories, girl, no. You are not going to do that without a deficit somewhere else because your body's main intention is to live. So if you want to live, it's going to start pulling things from other organs and bones and muscles. It's going to start degrading the very things you need in order to function at a high level. If you want to chase your kids and you don't want to pull an Achilles, you're going to need calories in order to fuel that type of action. Brand new mom, you're Purpose right now is to maintain your breast milk supply. If you're breastfeeding your baby and to maintain your current status of operating to take care of this little one. Like when people say you're in survival mode, yeah, kind of, but you can thrive in motherhood when you feed yourself whole foods and don't focus on the fat loss per se right now. Muscle preservation, absolutely. Energy for sure. Getting a good night's sleep. Calories matter. You've got to be able to sleep in order to function. All of that is huge. To the perimenopausal woman, look, here's my big beef online is that most of these women are like, perimenopause is the problem. You can't do anything about it. unless you join my program, and then I can solve your problem. And it's like, okay, I'm a nutrition and fitness coach. I have a program to sell too. But have you seen my Instagram? I have tons of content out here on how you can get fit absolutely free. You don't have to hire me. You know why? Because I think it's an absolute lie. When people are like, well, I'm 40 pounds overweight, gotta be the perimenopause, can't do anything about that. I'm like, no, you're not 40 pounds overweight because of perimenopause, maybe an extra 10 to 15. But that 40 pounds is because you've been lazy and you've been making poor food choices. Let's first own that because you can't change anything you're not willing to own. So look at your nutrition every day and say, does this help my purpose or does it hurt it? Can you have a treat? For sure. One of my favorite things right now is these chocolate brownie mush cups. They have added protein in them. And if I've got to go on the run, they're oatmeal. Oh my gosh. They added protein to it. It's chocolatey. It's mushy. It is so delicious. It feels decadent and it feels like it should be wrong, but it is so right on a macro level. I'm like, Oh, this fits. fantastically. I'll take that along if I'm busy. And the whole busy conversation, that's a whole other thing. You guys, it takes no effort whatsoever to, and you don't even have to take it out of the package. Do you know what I mean? My friends have made fun of me for showing up with a cooler bag full of carrots fully intact in their bag. I just grab a bag of carrots, grab a bunch of bell peppers, throw it in there. Like as easy as it is for your kid to walk around and pull chips out of a bag, they can hold a bell pepper and chew on it. There's tons of meat sticks on the market that give them added fats and added proteins. There are so many convenient, healthy options that are available to you. Saying, I don't have time to prep meals is complete garbage. You're not getting creative enough and you're not asking yourself enough questions that lead you to a solution. You're just stopping right there. I don't know how to do this. Okay. Google exists, follow people that are showing you actual solutions and not just pathways to their program. Because there are tons of us out there that are trying to actually help you succeed, whether you hire us or not. Now, if you want a more targeted approach, if you want a coach that you've got on retainer, basically with your cell phone, like dude, dude, dude, dude, I need some help in this situation. Like, yeah, you're going to have to hire somebody to do that. Many people are not just going to hand out their cell phone number for free. Would you likely know? However. There are tons of tips and tricks that I share online and other creators share online that will help you move past this, I just can't do it. So the minute you say I can't, you've already taken yourself out of the equation. Like you may as well pack your bags, go home, sit on your couch with your ruffles, and then continue to wallow in your personal sorrow. When you start asking better questions, you start getting better answers. Yes. And I really want women to hear that first of all, we can just start in one area. Very simple swaps and changes can go a long way. I was personally blown away. Like I knew the research was there. I remembered this from all my years of nutrition classes and fitness instructor certification. I knew that health and body composition was almost entirely diet and what you're eating. At least the majority of it, what is it, around 80% or so of how you look and feel is more based on what you're putting into your body. I just this year saw tremendous results simply from making these very easy changes in what I was eating. and I then felt so much better, right? Really had more energy and was sleeping better and was much less cranky and all these other things, which made me then feel better in my body and built my desire to want to move it more. One of the other big things that you've really helped me see. is the importance of strength training for women always, right? I am from that generation where we were afraid that if we lifted weights, we were going to be like Arnold Schwarzenegger or that the way to lose weight was as you did to run endlessly on the treadmill. And yet now research is so clear about the importance of resistance training for women's longevity. Could you speak a little bit to that? You've already given us some great tips of how women have simple resources at home to do that. But then like, again, how do we build up the motivation and remove any mindset blocks women have to getting physically strong? I always like to coach nutrition first because as you pointed out, if you aren't well fueled and if you're not feeling well, you're not going to move your body. So if I were to come at you with a, Hey, I need you to do this amount on this circuit and I need you to lift this amount of weight. You're like, but I have no energy. How in the world am I? So I always, always, always coach nutrition first. And the best way to look at nutrition, like outside of just macro distribution is to think about, did it come from the ground? Did you pick it from a tree or did it have a mother? So if it fits into one of those three categories, you're probably good to go to consume it. Okay, so first off, stop with the processed foods. I'm not saying I never eat a cheese ruffle. Gosh darn, I love them things. But you guys, yes, I absolutely will count it out. I will count nine chips. And if my kids get near it, I'm going to Let's slap their hands because I absolutely love it. Just because I'm a nutrition and fitness coach does not mean that I don't love those things also. However, how often do I have it? Rarely because my goals are bigger than my own personal hedonistic desires to indulge in the foods that chemically make me feel all amorous about it. So nutrition first, always get rid of as much processed food as you possibly can and start eating real whole foods that God made, put on this earth and asked us to be part of. Did it have a mother? Did it come from the ground or did you pick it from the tree? So that's step one. Step two, I would say is start looking at, yes, protein is a conversation out there. It's huge. People are putting protein in pretzels. They're putting protein in absolutely everything. And in places where I'm like, okay, I think we're missing the point here because now we're getting into huge processed foodsville that has protein. So now people are like, well, it's got the protein. I guess I should eat that. Nope, scrambled eggs and chicken sausage and turkey and stuff that's still going to be a better option than the packaged version of this protein rich something. Now, I also share tons of actual whole packaged foods that you can take on the go, like hard boiled eggs are fantastic. You don't have time to make them. They sell them already hard boiled. You didn't make some chicken. Great. They sell already grilled chicken in the store. You can grab it, open it up like a damn savage and just eat it right out of the bag. Like lean chicken breast, the options are absolutely there and they're available to you. You just have to ask better questions about how you can make that happen. Moving forward, we've got first off, get rid of processed foods, nutrition first, eat enough to fuel your body. Now, enough, that's going to be relative based on your activity level. So now we start moving into the non-exercise activity thermogenesis. So NEAT. What that means is all the movement you do outside of the gym. So let's just put the whole gym. How do I get stronger outside of our conversation? Look, if your body is leaner and it's stronger because you move it more, like your muscles need some sort of stimulus in order to grow, right? Just existing is not enough. It will maintain where they're at if you have the nutrition to back it up. But if your nutrition isn't enough, your body will stop pulling from those muscles and you will become weaker and then more sedentary and less likely to move. So now we're right back to nutrition where we have to fuel our muscles in order to function to get stronger or at least to maintain. So once we've got our nutrition figured out and we've got enough calories on board in order to move and function and think and run and jump and play and work and do all the other things you do in a day, Now you need to talk about how do I get stronger? Well, that is progressive overload, which means progressive overload, it's a very simple explanation, is you need to add more stimulus. And women in perimenopause, unfortunately, you need even more stimulus than what you did in your 20s. In the 20s, you could just run on the treadmill a couple times a week and have five burritos and be like, well, look at me, I'm so lean and so strong. You were more anabolic when you were younger. You're not now. So you're really going to have to dial in that nutrition and you're going to have to make that stimulus even greater, which means you're going to have to pick up heavier weights or heavier kids or throw a weight vest on your back. I've got tips and tricks for days on how to get stronger without a gym membership. My favorite is to put a gym right there in your garage or even some small space. You don't need much. You can do a lot in just a two-by-two section of your house, really, with just a couple sets of dumbbells and a couple meaningful movements. You can do a ton. I keep bringing up the kids, but y'all have them. They're running around like a bunch of little heathens. Use them. Say, girl, get on my back. We're about to do some squats. You can throw them on your shoulders and then do lunges. Hold on to their little legs, all right? We're not trying to get a head injury here. But you can walk like an animal with them. You can create games. I've done that for years. Now I've got a range of kids from two all the way up to 18. My oldest turns 18 in a couple of months. He's watched dad and I fitness in various forms of pregnancy, postpartum, perimenopause, young kids, older kids, deployments, trips. Like he's watched us fitness through all of that. And it's looked different. in every stage. Now I'm training for an ultra marathon next year as well as a triathlon. Now he's seeing how my training is shifting to more strength endurance versus just strength for composition. That's not my goal right now is composition. I'm training for endurance. So now my fitness is shifting and looking a little bit different. So Fitness is going to look a different way depending on what your overall goal is. But I'm going to tell you a statistic that should please the heck out of you is you really to maintain and even slightly grow muscle, you really only need to to full body lifting days per week. That's it. And then neat, the non exercise activity thermogen. That's how much you move outside of the day. If you are a person who I worked out 45 minutes, therefore I'm active. No, you're not. If you sat the rest of the day, you are considered sedentary. So you need to find those times in the day where you're sitting and say, do I need to be sitting right now or could I be moving? Could I go outside with the kids right now? Walking mats are super inexpensive. If you're working, you could be walking. I'm not walking right now because I want to be like focused on our conversation, but oftentimes I have a desk that goes up and down and I can put a walking mat underneath it and I can type an email. You don't have to walk quickly. We don't have to be breathy. We don't have to be sweating. just movement is enough to stimulate more calories and more stimulus on your muscles to say, Oh, we're using these things. We need calories to go here. So strength is going to look different based on what your goals are. If you're heading to a bodybuilding competition, your whole regime is going to look different. If you're heading to an ultra, that's going to look different. But just for people who are like, Man, I want to look in the mirror and feel just a little bit sexier. I want to not have to turn off the lights every time my husband wants to make love. In fact, maybe I'd like to not reject him all the time when he wants to touch my body because I am feeling some kind of a way about it. And listen, ladies, if he's touching you, he wants to be touching you. We talk very openly about body composition and stuff, but his main focus for his wife at this point was not is your body composition some other person's vision of perfection, but he knows that I'm strong. He knows that I'm capable. He knows that I have lots of energy. He knows that I want his naked body as much as he wants mine. And that is meaningful, right? When your sex drive gets turned off, that is a major red flag and people, I don't have time. Okay. Again, you're asking the wrong question, which means you're coming up with poor conclusions. You're constantly go well my my hormones oh yeah yeah your hormones are messed up if you're not wanting to actually be with your husband at least a few times during the month when you're fertile like that should be a major red flag If your sex drive is in the dump and different podcasts, I'm sure, but there's lots of ways to still make that happen. I've got seven kids and, you know, we like, we like our time. I love it. All of these things, they are so interrelated, but it's so key. I want everyone to hear what you said, right? That you have different goals at different times, and this is never. about what you look like. Yes, you feel better when you like the way you look, but I want women to go through this soul searching, as I have done, of like, how do I feel in my body? And do I want to keep feeling this way forever? I'm not a big fan. Actually, I'm quite opposed to the fear-based messaging, but the statistics don't lie. If we are not in good health, then our later years are not going to be good quality of life. We're not going to have longevity. We may be alive, but we're not going to be able to really be present and healthy and enjoy our time with our kids, with our grandkids, doing adventures once the kids are finally out of the house, and yet, It's a daily challenge. I know you are still not sleeping through the night. You've got plenty of stressors that you could use as excuses. And the fact that you don't was so inspiring for me. It really was one of many things that helped bust my poor mindset. And then I just want to encourage women to just start, right? Just do a little bit, because then the results start snowballing and you don't even realize what is possible. And then you get inspired to do something else. I've got a hundred plus pound darbell. barbell set here in my closet, my weight bench over on this side of the room. And as you were saying about your husband, my husband has been so, so excited at how I've felt better more than anything. And he's especially pointed out the mental health benefits he notices in me and how I show up for our family since I've been doing all of this. But of course, the physical results have been so great. And lifting heavy has actually made me leaner, which was so counterintuitive. But then all of it is just, it's so good. And I just want women to know that we get it. It is so hard. And we're never there. We're never fully done. Because once you start making improvements to your health. Like you do have to keep it up. I backslid a little bit towards the end of the summer and then I sprained my ankle and I was out of the loop for a little while. But getting back on the proverbial horse and just starting back again is where it's at. You are such a wealth of information and I want to encourage everyone to go follow you on Instagram. I'll talk more in just a second about where they can find you. But do you have Any final maybe counterintuitive tips or recommendations or just one final message we haven't yet covered that you want the busy, stressed, overwhelmed mom to know when it comes to her health? First off, your composition, your body composition, which means, you know, your fat to muscle and stuff ratio, the composition will follow health. So you have to seek health first because you can look at a person and say, man, they look unwell, right? So if you seek health first, your body composition will follow. I can create a body composition in a person that looks like an absolute work of art, but But to what end? What detriment could we cause to get there? So first, let's focus on health first. Composition will always follow. Next, when you address stress, because I hear that a lot too, yeah, stress is a factor. Well, how do I get rid of stress? No, no, no, no, no. You're asking the wrong question again. The right question is how do I become more stress adaptive? How do we become more resilient to the stresses that are already here? Because look, those three kids, those four kids, they're stressful. What are you going to get rid of them? No, you're not going to get rid of them. Like you missed that boat, right? The baby box happened when they were like four days old. You decided to keep them good for you. You're a fantastic mother. So moving on, you just have to figure out how to become more effective with the stress that's already there. And here are a few tips to do that. First off is you need to stop eating your emotions and you need to feel them, process them, and then release them. They can stay. They can be there. You can feel whatever it is that you're going to feel. Personally, I'm time limit mine. I'm like an unwanted guest that pops over into your door, right? They knock and you're like, Oh God, Helen is here. Like, what do I do with? Okay. Hey, um, hi, how's it going? They're like, Hey, can I come in and chat? Be like, sure. You know what? I've got 10 minutes. 10 minutes is what I have. So start setting some boundaries for yourself. So if you've got to feel some kind of way and you want to wallow in your own pity, fine, do it. Time limit it though. Say, all right, I've got 10 minutes to feel like absolute boo over what I've got going on and then I'm going to release that and then start finding solutions. You don't get to sit in that forever because if you do, you will be in it forever. And the poorer your mindset is, the harder you tell yourself this has to be, the harder it will become. So become more stress effective and more stress adaptive rather than focusing on eliminating it. Now, can you eliminate some? Absolutely. You can learn to say no more often than you say yes. You can learn that, guess what, if they're having a cookie fair at the school, nobody's judging your degree of motherhood based off whether they're homemade cookies or whether you picked them up from the store. Let's stop basing our personal approval off of other people's opinions because nobody else lives in your house. They're not paying your bills. They're not mothering your children. They're not facing the same obstacles daily that you are. So if they want to judge, let them judge, but it should have no impact. Their opinion of you should be absolutely none of your business. You come up with a family plan all on your own and then start executing it. So those are my last two big takeaways I think is it all happens in between your ears. Start with what goes on inside your head and the stories that you're telling yourself and then start reprogramming that. You have to focus on nutrition to fuel your body and then resistance training doesn't have to be as difficult as you're making it. You don't even need a gym membership. You can start off with just your own body weight. And the kids are the furniture you have in your house. No excuses. It just is incredible what the human body is capable of. But for sure, yes, we've got to quiet our minds and push through and then discover who we are on the other side of that. I love that this is an ongoing journey and we're never fully arrived. There's always new ways that we can grow and surprise ourselves. I was brainstorming basically nine different versions of myself, like looking back at different areas of my life and the issues or the limiting beliefs that I had in those periods and then how it's led up to everything I know and so passionate about sharing now. I'm 42, so like, God willing, many, many, many more years to grow and continue to evolve. I just don't ever want women to feel as hopeless and stuck as I know I have felt several times. Your just beautiful, encouraging truth, as confronting as it can feel to hear sometimes, I know that's what I needed to really shake me in the best possible way and then help me see for myself what I was capable of when I didn't even know or believe it myself. I want to thank you so much. You are so incredible. I'll put links in the show description, but anything in particular you want women to do to reach out to you. Yeah. Last thing though, is you can have reasons why things are difficult for you, but you don't get to make them excuses. Okay. Take that with the rest of your day. You can list the reasons for days, but they don't get to become excuses. You choose to make them excuses. So moving forward, yes, you can find me on Instagram. I am Tiffany L Wicks on Instagram. I'm just Tiffany Wicks on Facebook. I have a website. You can go there. There's tons of freebies and downloads. And I've got a whole webinar series that's coming up where if you get on live with me on zoom, you get to ask. whatever question you want and get personal coaching. I'll stay on as long as the last person's on. The first person on gets the first question and I'll stay on as long as you're on. So if this ends up being a two hour long webinar where you ask me everything you want, like you get me for free for that webinar. So I have a whole series coming up once a month, varying topics. The replays will be available on download. Those are all on my website at tiffanywix.com. Other than that, like hit me up on Instagram and the DMs. I check those on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. I limit my social media use so that I am not conditioned and programmed by other people and that I can keep my head on straight. I can narrow the lane and then focus on who I'm here to serve and do my job best. Such wisdom for us all. Tiffany, thank you so much. And everybody listening, run to go take advantage of all these opportunities to get to know Tiffany better. I am forever grateful to how my life has changed this year through working with you. Thank you. You're a total rock star. Like you did the thing, man. You put those excuses to the side and you said, all right, let's ask some better questions and come up with better answers. And what do you know? You got better results. Feels so good. Oh, I hope you got so much value out of Tiffany's interview. Your homework is to check out her links in the description and reach out to her if you're ready to reclaim your body and health so you can finally feel good and strong again. Or maybe for the first time ever. It is never too late and I am especially excited about how her program helps women like me going through hormonal fluctuations in perimenopause. I also want to underscore what Tiffany said about it all starting with your mindset. We can't be physically strong until we are mentally and emotionally well. And that is what I love helping my clients with. I've got a brand new program called Moms Made New starting in January to help overwhelmed moms learn the six most fundamental life coaching skills you need for both you and your family to flourish, things no one has ever taught you about how your brain and body work. More info in the show notes, but I sincerely hope to see you in there. Stay tuned for next episode where I am going to be sharing so much more about the journey I have been on that has led me to the realization that what is going on for me in the present day is actually the result of protective adaptations my nervous system took on from a young age. And I will underscore why it is so important for you to do this same deep inner work in order to ensure that you are modeling something completely different for your kids moving forward. Until then, remember nothing you do changes how wonderful and worthy you are. Have a great day. I know more than anyone how precious your time is, so the fact that you spent it listening to this podcast means the world. Make sure to subscribe, and if you got value out of this show, I would be so honored if you'd leave a review and share this episode with another busy mama who needs to hear it. We've got this.