Alexis: 0:05

Hey, I'm Alexis Booth and welcome to the Breakout Booth. I was a senior manager at Google. I'm a wife and a mother, and I learned the hard way If you're not fired up, you're on hold. I believe success is closer than you think. There's a set of skills and habits you can grow to unlock unbelievable outcomes. In this podcast, we'll explore them through real talk and bold conversation, because I want to help you break out.

Alexis: 0:40

Hey there, folks, and welcome to the Breakout Booth! I'm Alexis Booth and I'm so excited to share today's episode with you. It'll be a bit different than the rest of the episodes I've done up until now, where, instead of diving in deep to a particular skill or habit, we will explore a more holistic aspect of your life. Namely, we will be talking about physical health health.

Alexis: 1:04

When I think about the journey of personal growth, focusing on skills or habits in isolation is incredibly important in helping you unlock your aspirations and take practical steps toward achieving your goals, but focusing only on growth in the absence of also finding balance is a path that I know in my own experience ultimately was not sustainable. It eventually caught up to me and I wound up having to first spend a ton of time recovering and only then could I start to rebuild myself with a healthier approach across a really wide range of elements.

Alexis: 1:44

Now, the topic of physical health is much broader in nature than any particular skill or habit. I personally think of it as a combination of six main elements, and we'll go into detail on this during my conversation with today's guest, Nina Black, in just a little bit. And while today we will start to dig into physical health, in future episodes I plan to explore other wide-ranging aspects of your overall well-being, some of which may strike a chord with you and others you might not even have at the forefront of your thoughts. The next three areas I plan to dig into are mental health, financial health and spiritual health, and there's plenty more that I am thinking about for even further down the road

Alexis: 2:31

.

Alexis: 2:31

But coming back to today's episode, we wound up ultimately having to break this one up into two separate episodes. Because Nina and I had so much to say on the topic of physical health. Part of it is because there are so many different elements that contribute to your overall state of physical well-being, but also the way that you look and the way you feel are so core to who you are and what you think and believe about yourself. We had so many stories to share and there are some experiences we are both honestly still making sense of. While the specifics of our stories may not match your own personal experience, I do anticipate that at least some of the things we've struggled with over the years will be similar to things that you, too, have struggled with. Now I do think it's worth sharing up front that I kind of hoped and imagined, going into my discussion with Nina, that we were going to have this amazingly inspiring and encouraging conversation, inviting you to lean into all of these dimensions of health in this really, really positive way. You know, the goal would be to help you see what you can do and give you a clear path you can take to get there. And while there is a lot of encouragement bottled up in this conversation and we certainly provided a framework to help you think about physical health and tips and recommendations for things that you can do to improve yours the reality of what happened during our conversation is we also wound up having a bit of a therapy session, and a large portion of it was simply exploring and putting out there some really deeply held thoughts, beliefs and honestly disordered thinking that both Nina and I have struggled with since we were kids. Ideas like it's good or cool to pull an all-nighter studying for an exam instead of getting a good night's rest, even though research shows

Alexis: 4:35

that memory and problem solving are worst when you aren't well rested. Or that excelling in a sport means pushing through pain, even though that's often the path to physical injury. And we continually touched upon perhaps the trickiest area of all, which is feeling good about the body you are living in. Because even if you woke up this morning feeling refreshed and ready to take

Alexis: 5:01

on the day, if you can't button up your favorite pair of jeans anymore, or you're constantly coming to terms with the fact that you don't have the same tall and slender build as Kate Moss or Gisele Bündchen, or if you're trying some new fad diet and you find yourself having the same thoughts that I did nearly 20 years ago, which was that I was so damn hungry I could eat Jenny Craig. The reality is that if any of these things are true, it doesn't actually mean there's anything wrong with you, or even that you have bad physical health and also you're in good company if you've had any of these types of thoughts. And rather than continue to describe the conversation I had with Nina any further. Let's dive in so you can hear it for yourself.

Alexis: 5:49

Thank you again for joining us today. I hope you will enjoy this conversation exploring the topic of physical health. One last call out I do want to make, in case you notice it. I had a recording goof during my interview with Nina and you may hear a bit of extra background noise in the episode. We worked some magic to try and keep it to a minimum but in case you notice, sorry. The conversation was too good to do a do-over and you know little reminder we are all always learning.

Alexis: 6:24

I am so delighted to welcome someone into the booth who has been the bearer of the most supportive kind of kicking my butt the past two years. Nina Black, welcome to The Breakout Booth. I am so glad to have you here.

Nina: 6:39

I'm so glad to be here, Alexis. Thank you so much for having me. It's a big honor.

Alexis: 6:44

Well, I hope you are enjoying the vibe here today. It's great to have you here in the booth. If you were getting someone settled into their very first class right now, what would you say to help kick it off and get them more comfortable?

Nina: 6:57

That's an awesome question. The first thing that I always do is try to meet anybody where they're at and vibe off of their energy, meaning that if they're coming in high energy-- which I typically do run on high energy-- I'm going to match them right where they're at. And a lot of times brand new people that are coming into the studio are really intimidated. We have no idea how long it took them to get into that space, so just them walking through the door is a huge accomplishment and I want to praise them and make them feel as comfortable and supported as possible from their very first step into the space.

Alexis: 7:32

I love that and I definitely needed that when I started back up. I'm sure we'll wind up talking about this a little bit later on, but that's awesome, yeah for sure. Well, for the benefit of our listeners here, I want to share a little bit more about you. Nina is a personal trainer at the group fitness studio that I have been going to very consistently for a little over two years now. I do refer to it quite often as a gym, but it's more than a gym. I actually take classes, they're very structured and it's actually a really big part of what has been working for me, because I need someone to be egging me on.

Alexis: 8:09

But what's kind of cool about Nina-- I actually went through all of my workout logs (I also track all of my workouts when I go there) and I figured out that Nina is not only the single coach at the studio that I've worked out with the most since I started going. She has consistently gotten me to put in extra effort in all of the classes that I've taken with her. One of my favorite things about the studio is that we do heart rate monitor tracking, it's actually built into there's a screen that you can see in there. There's screens on the devices that you're working out on. So you can see when you're getting your blood pumping and when you're in the target workout heart zones and, Nina, when I worked out with you, I got more time in those top two zones when I had the pleasure of working out with you in over 200 workouts.

Nina: 8:58

Incredible.

Alexis: 8:59

I think it was 45 or 50 workouts I've done with you over the last two years, which is just amazing.

Nina: 9:04

It's such an honor to hear you say that, Alexis, because that really is my focus whenever I walk into those doors. For me, when I get to coach, it's actually my time off and where I get to turn off my brain and really focus on the people in that space and what they specifically need. So when you're giving me that feedback, it just fills my cup that that is what's happening and I am able to read body language, because that really is what it is. I don't get to greet every single person in an intimate way every single day. A lot of times, people are rushing in or they're rushing in even a few minutes into class and all I can do is smile or wave at them and to know that I'm still speaking to them in that way or speaking to you specifically.

Alexis: 9:45

Well, thank you. It's awesome, and I'm so glad that you're here today to share all of your wisdom and really your thoughts around physical health with our listeners. It's something that I really don't talk about with most people unless some bad issue has come out. It's very rare that people are talking about their physical health on the regular, or if they've had some big win particularly it's probably they lost a lot of weight recently or something, and you know they're sort of had one of those big celebratory moments. I guess, in your world is that the same thing, or do you wind up talking about health a lot more?

Nina: 10:25

What's really interesting is that the second people find out I'm a fitness professional, especially if it's in a non-work setting, if it's in a social setting, I do feel a pivot in what they want to talk to me about or oftentimes, unfortunately, they feel shame. So if I'm at a party and we're all eating pizza and drinking beer, they will immediately see that I'm a fitness professional and say like, but I don't normally eat like this or I don't normally drink like this. It hurts me because that doesn't even cross my mind. You know I'm not trying to judge you, I know that we're in a social setting and even if you did have pizza and beer every night, go ahead and have pizza and beer every night if you feel good about it and it makes you feel empowered. It is not my business, it's not my priority.

Nina: 11:08

In terms of weight loss, that's another really touchy subject and it's not something I ever comment on with weight loss. Specifically because I had recently gone through a dramatic weight loss, about two years ago myself, and it was not for good reasons. I was in a dark place, I was going through a divorce and weight was just falling off of me, unintentionally. And a lot of people were coming up to me and talking to me about my weight loss and congratulating me for it, where there was nothing to be happy about, like it was, it was due to mental stress. When I'm stressed, I do lose weight. It's just what happens. It wasn't due to me taking care of myself or being healthy. It was quite the opposite. And it was a big "aha moment for me where I realized, because someone has lost weight, that is an opportunity to dig deeper in the right time. But it doesn't mean it's a good thing. So I'm very mindful about ever telling anyone a change is plus or minus weight unless I know they are intentionally trying to change.

Nina: 12:07

So recently at work at Oranget heory Fitness, we had this transformation challenge that was eight weeks long and I knew who was intentionally trying to lose weight and still I'm not gonna talk publicly to them in front of others about the way their body looks. I think it's inappropriate. I think it's their business. But when they wanna have a one-on-one conversation with me or they wanna show their results from those eight weeks, we do an in-depth in-body scan which is giving you a full body readout of your basal metabolic rate. That's how much calories your body consumes at rest, how much muscle you have and it's a breakdown of limbs, so your legs, your core and your arms and your total body fat percentage. Showing me that is a win and really impressive and fun to see, but only private, I really view anything physical that I can see exterior as that's a private one- on- one, nobody around conversation.

Alexis: 13:00

I love that you're bringing that to the forefront here. People in my own circle, people who I have very close relationships [with], have had similar experiences where they wound up losing weight or gaining weight. It does wind up being, and it's a, it's a touchy. I also think that if the very first time you're commenting on someone's appearance is overweight and a change in weight, that's also just weird, because it's this outlier thing. That's the only thing you're talking about, which is just weird.

Nina: 13:27

Yeah, and invasive, and I also. Whenever someone says, "Oh my God, you look great." In one of your podcasts you were talking about how we always go to the negative right and so that's the same thing is that immediately it's like, oh, I look great, now.

Alexis: 13:40

What about the rest of the time? Yeah.

Nina: 13:42

I didn't look great before or yeah or well, what I'm looking like right now is definitely temporary. This is unhealthy. I know it's unhealthy, so when I gain it back I don't look great? I deal with this every day. People like to tell me what I look like, even still now, and I have. I'm glad that I put some weight back on from that time, because it was gross. Everything was saggy. It was not what I was going for at all, and now I have people still comment back on that time or comment on how things are now and how before things didn't look good or like "ell I was really worried about you before.

Nina: 14:15

It's all this stuff where I'm like you can keep that to yourself, that's not my problem. I don't want to know what you were thinking about before, or even now.

Alexis: 14:23

Well, thank you for opening up with this. There's quite a bit more I'm sure we're going to dig into here and there's a lot more into the conversation, but before we go there, I want to make sure that we give our listeners a little bit of a background on you. So I first met Nina in February of 2023. So this was a little bit over two years ago and in fact, February 17th that year, that was my first workout with you. I know this from my workout logs.

Nina: 14:48

That's amazing.

Alexis: 14:54

And I'm pretty sure it was either that one or the next workout that we were doing some thousand meters on the rower challenge

Nina: 14:57

2000 meter row. It's coming back Friday.

Alexis: 14:59

Oh my god. Well, I had never been on a rowing machine ever. I played sports and did other stuff when I was younger and whatnot, but rowing was never my thing and I was struggling big time on it. And I just remember you weren't in my face but you got close to the rower and you're like you can do it, so, while I'm just fighting so hard to do this thing and I was totally losing confidence that I was going to finish it, I just remember that little pep talk kept me going and I did finish it.

Nina: 15:33

Big victory.

Alexis: 15:34

The good news is I don't know how bad my time was compared to anyone else, but that wasn't what it was about anyway, and I think you were just trying to keep me from falling off the equipment and bawling my eyes out.

Alexis: 15:47

I have bawled my eyes out at different workouts, it wasn't that one. You know, sometimes it's also what you need to get you through all of that is the workout. It's getting through it and it's also getting your energy and your blood pumping, which gets all the other good stuff going. But despite the fact that I really have worked out with you more than any of the other trainers at the studio. I've taken okay, 46 classes, I did figure that out.

Alexis: 16:17

I haven't actually taken a class with you since September of last year, when I made big changes in my life, so it was actually even a shorter period because I stopped coming to your 6:15 am workouts.

Alexis: 16:28

I decided sleep was actually more important to me than showing up at that time.

Nina: 16:32

Which it is

Alexis: 16:35

So sorry, not sorry, but it opened up the space for us to have a different kind of relationship and when I ran into you in the gym actually working out alongside you, we had a conversation of bringing you on this show and I I ran into you in the gym actually working out alongside you.

Alexis: 16:46

We had a conversation of bringing you on this show and I'm so glad that we had that chance meeting because I'd been thinking about bringing you on the show very realistically for months at that point because I just loved the energy you bring. I always felt good about being in the studio when you were running the classes and, yeah, I think it's awesome. But what was really cool about that discussion was you started opening up about different aspects of you and your own experience, that I found fascinating and I think this is just going to be a really interesting discussion today. Do you want to share with our listeners a little bit more of your background, your experiences? Whatever you'd like to share, to sort of set the stage.

Nina: 17:30

Yeah, I would love to. I just want to start by saying I come from a really supportive family and I think that so much of all of my upbringing had to do with my parents really embracing my brother and I to go on our own adventures and not follow the path that everybody was on, if that's what we chose, and both him and I ended up having really radical careers that are unique in their own right. I've always been a physical person and a creative person, but I never really could get it right. I loved dance but I couldn't get the steps, and I love to sing. My father's a jazz musician. My whole life I didn't know there was music other than jazz until I was 12 years old when I got a boombox in my bedroom. I played piano and I tried to sing and dance and I was never very good at any of it. I loved it, but I couldn't be the top and I've always strived to be the best that I can be.

Nina: 18:25

So when I was eight years old, there was a local circus camp in Highland Park that's where I grew up, which is on the North Shore of Chicago, and it was called Camp Big Top, and I went, which was a circus arts camp and I fell in love with all of the aerial arts. It was the perfect combination of performance and physicality and it was unique enough that I could feel like the top dog right away. Because I'm competitive and I did care about that at that time. As much as I like to say I don't care about it, turns out I do. Every time I'm like I'm not competitive. Then there's a 2000 meter row and I can't walk for three days because I was trying to be the top dog. So I have to get over it and be like, yeah, I guess I am competitive. So, long story short, the camp director of that camp had come from Ringling Brothers had been on tour.

Nina: 19:17

She was a legit circus performer. Came from a sixth generation family of teeter board, which is this act where you it's a teeter-totter and you stand on one side and then people jump on the other and it makes you flip up into the air. So she was a true acrobat, different than an aerialist. So an aerialist means that you're doing anything off the ground and typically you're holding on to things like a bar or ropes or fabric, which is what I ended up excelling in. So she opened her own school in Evanston it's still there, Actors Gymnasium. It's a fantastic program. It's incredibly inclusive. I strongly advise anyone to check it out if they're living in the area. They have done an amazing job with that facility and I went there from eight years old to 16. And when I was 16, my mother had built an art studio in the backyard of our home. It was a 17 foot split level space and we installed rigging so I could be practicing.

Alexis: 20:14

That's amazing.

Nina: 20:16

Which again it goes back to how wild that was. So then every day I was able to go practice and try to create demo tapes and I decided that I wanted to join the circus at like 17. It turns out joining the circus as a North Shore girl is pretty much impossible. I made all these demo tapes and was submitting it to any producer like you know Googling producers, circus producers that stuff was so niche at that time. This was early, early 2000s, like 2001, 2002 that I was doing that. It didn't happen, I wasn't able to get on a show. So I graduated high school early. I found a circus art school in Minneapolis and I volunteered my services to go be at that school. They had really high ceilings 30 foot ceilings, which is what I strive for was high ceilings and I learned a lot more about my acts and how to put acts together and how to make costumes and I was starting to get gigs here and there and it took me about two years of tiny little connections throughout those two years to eventually get on a garbage show.

Nina: 21:26

Not all shows are created equal. This is something that in the circus world it's called a mud show and that means that you are never in the town for more than a day. It's all one night stands. You're playing in fairgrounds and they're called mud shows because typically it's rained the day before and the fairgrounds are full of mud and you are performing in. They'll put sawdust down and then a piece of vinyl for a ring and you perform there. The shows were really shady that I started on. It was definitely criminals were running the shows. The people who were working and putting the tents up and down were people that you'd get from the mission in that town. And I was living in a bunkhouse with probably convicts on either side of me. My room was six feet long by four feet wide. My mom gave me a pickle jar and she was like "this is for the middle of the night when you got to pee and that's how I got into it.

Alexis: 22:20

I loved it. There was nothing.

Nina: 22:22

I thought it was the best thing, like I had made it, you know, and I was buying swimsuits and gluing sequins on them to create my own costumes for it, and I couldn't have been happier, this was my dream job. I was, I've made it. I was in the circus and performing for people on stringer bleachers, which are pieces of plywood. They're called stringers because they are literally strung together with pieces of rope and I just thought this was it, this was exactly what I wanted and it was at the time. And I love that. I got to start on mud shows because eventually I did work my way up to Shrine Circus, which would be the competitor of Ringling, it was a three ring show with lions and tigers and bears and all of the different acts. I got to travel to every state in the country except for Alaska and Hawaii-- I wish I could go there-- a lot of Canada, I did Canadian tours for like four years and a teeny bit of Mexico.

Nina: 23:18

And the reason why I tell all this background story is because the way you looked really mattered on the road and I was young and happy and bubbly and I loved to eat food and I had to be very aware of that. The first time I realized that anybody cared about what size you were was at an all intensive circus camp when I was 12 years old, and I remember the moment I was like, "oh, I'm fat." And I wasn't fat, but it had been put in my head right At that moment as a young girl. Like circus girls are all skinny. Circus girls all wear thong underwear. And if you want to be on the road, this is what you need to look like. So, starting at 12, exercise became part of my life. To be "skinny." You know, in the 90s I grew up with like: there was no such thing as too skinny and in the early two thousands it was that similar,

Alexis: 24:12

Oh, like Kate Moss was you know, who also is naturally quite petite, but I'm sure also there's more to that too. But that was what was being promoted in the media at that time, for sure.

Nina: 24:24

Yeah, I was always told I was the big girl on the road. Always. And I am really muscular, my body just adapts to muscle very quickly and it was something that I struggled with the whole time I was on the road, we were wearing two pieces all the time, or tiny little rhinestone outfits, and the way I looked was nonstop in my head at all times and that I had to look a certain way. Nobody else in the road ever dealt with that, like they had different genetics than me. Everyone was skinny, like just naturally rails and thin people. So when I was on the road I was a member of five different gyms that I would go to. I would find a gym wherever I was. I would map quests, this is a way throwback.

Alexis: 25:04

Back in the day.

Nina: 25:04

That's how I'd find out where I was going and print it out.

Alexis: 25:08

Oh, I was about to say printing yes.

Nina: 25:10

And I'd follow a map quest, from the lot which was a fairgrounds to wherever Gold Gym or LA Fitness or 24 Hour Fitness or Anytime Fitness, or the YMCA. I was a member of all those places because I had to exercise.

Alexis: 25:24

Y-M-C-A.

Nina: 25:25

That's one of my all-time favorite songs, YMCA.

Alexis: 25:28

They have great childcare, by the way. I love YMCA for that.

Nina: 25:32

YMCA is great. I was also a member of the YWCA. I was so desperate to exercise every day because this had been put in my head, that I had to look a certain way, that if I was in-- was in we would be in really tiny towns. And so I would call the hospital and ask if they had a rehab center, and typically they'd have a treadmill or an elliptical that I would pay $5 to go to the rehab center. Like you name it, I was there and it was something I was also ashamed of on the road because nobody else exercised.

Nina: 26:04

Like we did three shows a day. I mean minimum two shows a day. On Saturdays and Sundays you do three shows. Sometimes you do Friday, Saturday, Sunday, Monday if it was a long weekend four shows, as I got to bigger shows. Three shows in four days, so 12 pack we would call it, and I would be the person going to bed as early as possible, even though we'd have late nights, to wake up and go run five miles before I do three shows because it was in my head that I had to do that to keep my job or to feel confident in those costumes that I was in. fast

Nina: 26:36

So fast forward forward, I left the show when I was on top. I got married when I was on the show, super young. I had a great time and I think we both realized that we were both too young to be married and I left when I was 27. And I had to restart my life. I hadn't gone to college. I had learned a lot on the road. I was able to help run the shows over the summer and learn how to connect and communicate with all different kinds of people Lots of people English was not their first language on the show and also how to communicate with different people in different parts of the world, like just how you sell when you're on the road. So you get paid to perform, but you also have something called a cherry pie, and that's where you're really making income. So what I did was I had many giant snakes, and I would dress up in a sparkly outfit and I would sell snake photos for $10 a pop. Okay, this is amazing and I made money doing that and it was awesome.

Alexis: 27:30

Wow, do you still have photos of this stuff?

Nina: 27:33

You know what's so sad is that I have very few photos, because it was so routine at the time.

Alexis: 27:39

Right.

Nina: 27:40

You know there were 19 showgirls at one point on the show I was on that they'd go like "picture." And I'd be like "why? We're going to put this on 10 more times in the next three days. Like why another picture?" And that is my one of my biggest regrets. I have very few regrets and I wish I had just gotten in the picture. I'd always be like, no, I'm not doing it. I wasn't on Facebook at the time. They were all on Facebook and I yes, I have some images, but I don't have nearly as much. I have some images of my ultimate most favorite costumes, but I wish I had a whole album of that stuff, because this industry does not exist anymore. What I'm talking about. All American Circus where you're riding elephants does not exist. It is gone. so

Nina: 28:21

So fast forward. I stepped away from it and I was back to square one. Like I'm 27. I've just had this career that I was on the road from 20 to 27. And even getting back to civilization, to being a townie. Like I looked down on people that lived in a town because they didn't know what roughing it out was. Like they didn't understand the luxury of a flushing toilet or of running water or a washer dryer unit. Like I didn't have those things for all this time. So to have that I would be you don't get it, you don't know what hard is. That was my attitude. So

Nina: 28:54

I'm back home with my mom and her husband and they completely took me in and supported me for two years, from 27 to 29, while I got back on my feet. And right away my whole life had been physical and I couldn't not be physical. So immediately I just went to the place I knew, which was the gym, and started working out and I came across some old people that I'd gone to high school with really quick and got into bodybuilding and I was also into yoga because I didn't want to lose my flexibility. Like that was a big thing that I was proud of was I would do like hyperextended splits 30 feet up in the air, and I wanted to keep all that mobility in my life. So I jumped to core power yoga, which is a heated corporate yoga space, and within two months of moving home I was in teacher training. I just knew I wanted to be physical. That's what I wanted to do. And within two years from starting teacher training to two years later I had really done a deep dive into group fitness and I got my personal training certification. But then I also was offered a job at Oranget heory Fitness. I also taught spin. I also worked with special needs kids and taught yoga to them. I was teaching 27 classes a week, driving everywhere, going all over the place. And Oranget heory I loved.

Nina: 30:15

Like that was my favorite and at the time it was a brand new product and I just wasn't ready to put all of my energy into one place. Like I wanted to be as diverse as possible and see kind of where the cards landed before I really picked where I wanted to wind up. So once I was able to finally move out of my mom's house, I was able to really focus on what I cared about the most and all these different kinds of fitness training programs. Oranget heory was the one that was for me because it incorporated running and strength training and super high energy, which I was. Unlike yoga, which I still love and I still practice truly every day. I don't have my splits the way I used to.

Nina: 30:56

I was eventually able to fully dive headfirst into Oranget heory because that was the product I actually believed in and spoke to the most. And I also believed in myself and was able to pitch myself to the franchise owners at the time and saying you need someone who's going to be really leading the pack. They were opening more and more studios, but they didn't have any fitness side leadership, side leadership. And I said, without a pedigree, I was just like I'm the one that you want to be leading this, so you should hire me and I'm going to quit all these other places and I'm going to work for you exclusively and I'm going to build up your staff and I'm going to make him the best in the industry. And they believed me and they hired me to do that

Alexis: 31:33

And they still believe you.

Nina: 31:45

They do. It's amazing. It's just amazing, the way it all worked out

Alexis: 31:46

That's because you're amazing, Nina, I mean, that's the reality is you actually have wound up delivering on all the set things that you said like "oh, I can do this, like I'm going to prove to myself that I can do this, and you have which is awesome.

Nina: 31:54

It worked out amazing. I now I have the luxury of I oversee 17 locations. I manage 75 coaches and try to help them be the best that they can be.

Alexis: 32:04

That's incredible.

Nina: 32:05

Find their authentic self, to kind of to have more members like you, Alexis, be able to share those same stories of like: I didn't want to do it and I did it because I had someone believing in me before I could even believe in myself.

Alexis: 32:17

Yeah, well, I think that is awesome. Thank you for taking us on that long and winding journey.

Nina: 32:23

I know it was long.

Alexis: 32:25

It was long, I know, but it's, I mean this, this was you started to share some of this. This is my first time actually hearing all of the details of it, but I think it's fascinating. At the end of the day, part of the reason that it also feels like it fits so well with this topic is that physicality that clearly has been such a core part of who you are. You know, there's things that I'm compelled to do, lik e I create. No one told me to make this podcast. I felt compelled to share stories because I like to talk and I like to sing and do things and just sort of like express myself.

Alexis: 33:03

It seems clear that you have I don't like the word compulsion, because that sounds actually very negative but you have a keen need and your instinct is to do things that are quite physical in nature. And so you know, I think just being able to sort of you know, know you and see you. It's clear that that's really a core part of who you are and I think it's really cool that you've been able to navigate a pathway to find, you know, a job and livelihood and a career that that works with that and you know it's been a long journey, clearly to get to it, but I think it's really cool.

Nina: 33:42

Yeah, for sure. And and for sure. I couldn't even like so, even to do this podcast, when we set the timeframe and I was like, oh, two and a half hours of sitting, how am I going to do that? I have a walking treadmill so I do tons of meetings because my network is really large. We're like 65 miles from one end to the other of all the different studios that I manage. So a lot of times I have to do it on Zoom and I have to be walking. I walk at one mile an hour, one and a half miles an hour, but like that is. It has nothing to do with closing circles on a device. It has to do with like I need it, like I can't function without it. Being still is the hardest thing for me.

Alexis: 34:23

Well, I think it's also great that you know that about yourself, because I think hearing is perhaps an opening part of even just talking about physical health. I think some of it is being in tune with yourself. So great opening, love this. Why don't we go on to actually asking some questions and exploring this a little bit further? Yes, so the best place for us to start is actually talking at the most basic level, and this may even sound like a silly question, but what is physical health?

Nina: 34:54

I talked to you about this earlier and when I said it your reaction was like so awesome. I said physical health starts with your heart. And you went oh, and I didn't mean like your heart, like I love you. I mean that I actually believe physical health starts.

Alexis: 35:09

I was thinking you meant from the emotional side.

Nina: 35:13

No, and you're not wrong, but like that's not what I mean. I mean, to me, physical health starts internally and what happens externally is a result of physical health starts internally and what happens externally is a result of your hard work maybe and maybe not. ut it's to me, physical health is your ability to live your longest and most vibrant life, and that is what physical health is and this is-- I'm, a spoiler alert when we talk about what are my power moves is that I really believe one size fits one and that that is fluid and that is all your whole life. So, Nina when I was 20, running five miles every single day is not the same as me now, and I need to recognize that and embrace what I need now versus what I needed then. And it's not the same person, and I believe that that's all the way down to a daily level, what happened, what you did today, what you did two years ago in your 2000 meter row, is nothing to what you're going to do tomorrow.

Alexis: 36:12

My 2000 meter row. That was really abysmal.

Nina: 36:15

It wasn't.

Alexis: 36:16

Well, I finished it.

Nina: 36:17

You finished it.

Alexis: 36:18

Yeah.

Nina: 36:18

It just wasn't like--a nd that's the other thing is that I have the blessing of seeing all different kinds of people move every single day and they inspire me way more than anybody realizes because they put the work in. It's harder for them than it is for me. It's not something they do every single day and they still did. B ut when I go to what is physical health, it's you living your best life. It's you being able to sit down and tie your shoes your whole life or get on and off the floor if you fall.

Nina: 36:49

It's about functional movement patterns. So you can do whatever you love, and you might not love what I love. I actually love to exercise. I love exercise. It's my favorite part of the day. I do it multiple times a day because I love it so much. But if you love hanging out with your kids or going hiking or going apple picking or even sitting at a desk, you need to have the ability to sit at that desk and not be sore the next day or not be hunched over when you're 75 because you've been sitting at a desk all day. So that's what it is.

Alexis: 37:14

I love that and I really love the one size fits one. I've never heard anyone say that and I love it. I think it's great.

Alexis: 37:23

I like to answer questions like this less from a practical like here's an actual definition. I like to use feelings and I'll tell you. When I sat down and thought about, okay, what is physical health, as soon as I started actually really trying to grapple with it, the answer that I got was the big rock of physical health is unattainable. It's too broad, it's too much, and I say this despite the fact that I'm arguably actually quite healthy. I'm knocking on wood in case you can't hear that. Doctors tell me this. I'm still trying to find a good PCPA, because now we take six months to go see a doctor. So I've seen a lot of different ones recently and the last one I saw I was like wow, you're in great health, and I was like huh.

Alexis: 38:11

So when I say this thing it's unattainable, it's because it's too big. Yeah, I hear that. And the worst part about it is as soon as you start you mentioned negativity bias as soon as you start getting into the negative mindset about it it is too big. I'm already falling into that negativity spiral and it starts getting harder and harder to do anything, including continuing to make progress in the places that I'm actually arguably doing pretty well. So I think the way that I like to think about physical health more is to break it down into smaller pieces, because there's actually a number of things that I'm in a good place with. There's also aspects of it that are more challenging or complicated. For me, the one size fits one right, and there's actually even parts of my physical health that I have generally come to accept that I may never actually feel great about them, and so I just don't focus on them anymore.

Nina: 39:09

That's incredible. Can you say that again? I mean, that's a big deal.

Alexis: 39:14

Well, it's also interesting, though, because as soon as I do start thinking about them, my weight would be one of them, and we talked about this.

Alexis: 39:21

From as young an age as I can remember. My BMI has always put me in the overweight range, and this is including when I was playing sports very competitively when I was younger and I had like a six or an eight pack. I was very, very fit and I was being told I was overweight. Or even if they're like, "eh, don't focus on it, there's still the word overweight on a piece of paper that a doctor has handed me, and so now I just—.

Nina: 39:47

Or there's still the color red.

Alexis: 39:49

Right and I just feel so yucky about that, and so for me—well, and you were saying, like you know, B MI is BS.

Nina: 39:59

I actually hit the books on this one. I did say that and I was going to tell you. I looked it up because when we were talking I was like you know that's not true. You know that that like has nothing to do with anything.

Alexis: 40:08

And I know it's not true and yet I still get these messages. So, even though I know it's not true, doctors are still placing this information in front of me, which feels yucky.

Nina: 40:19

It's mind-boggling. Just for the record, BMI was developed in the 1830s. Wrap your mind around that the 1830s. We're still using that metric. A Bulgarian mathematician made it up and he took the average man, I'm quoting the average man's weight is what it was height and weight ratio.

Alexis: 40:37

I'd like to meet the average man someday, by the way, I think that would be fascinating to know what they are.

Nina: 40:42

But this is in 1883. They're small people. The whole thing is crazy and I still when I--s o they do it still at the doctors, now. They give you that printout and it's just factor of height and weight and it says what you are, and I do know what my-- I think that a BMI is a good tool if it is done right. Your body fat percentage is a good metric to know if you care about that sort of thing. When actually done correctly that would mean a DEXA scan or like a water submersion, where you're actually finding out to the decimal what it truly is. But when it's something like that, it's just completely inaccurate. It is inaccurate and it's disappointing when I go to a doctor and I'll point out and be like that's wrong, just so you know if you want to put the right one in, I can tell you. I can show you on my app what it is and like "Uh no." And then I'm like why do you still have this thing?

Alexis: 41:39

Because it's the easy button.

Alexis: 41:41

That's why, right, it's the quick and easy way that they can use. And, to be honest, if I actually an interesting moment I'm having here, because totally unrelated to physical health, but when I think about, like, good uses of artificial intelligence, it's like you use it to programmatically identify potential outliers. But then you need a human in the loop to actually say, "Okay, this is a potential outlier, is this actually an outlier? And then you look at other factors and so I think, in that kind of a sense, the idea of BMI makes sense. And also then when I have doctors saying, oh my gosh, you're so incredibly healthy, I also, you know, I know to disregard the like alert, alert, alert, and yet it still also feels crappy because I still walk home and I'm like, but they're not telling me something.

Nina: 42:36

A hundred percent. You couldn't be more accurate, and it makes everybody feel that way. It's a bummer.

Alexis: 42:42

So, but when I come back to thinking about all of the dimensions of physical health, the main ones that I would be thinking about physical fitness, sleep, nutrition, managing healthy stress levels which, by the way, does start getting into the realm of mental health, but there are physical manifestations of it that I think are important enough to put it in the physical health category. And then there's ones that, when I was younger, didn't come into play, but now that I'm older are increasingly things to monitor and become bigger and bigger problems, which are your physical body functions like do I need a knee replacement or a hip replacement or other parts of your body? And then the last one being free of disease.

Alexis: 43:30

So, especially as you get older, you are more prone to things like cancer or Crohn's and diabetes, and there are many people in my circle who have experienced these things. They're in remission or they're managing a lifelong illness. You know it's manageable, but they have to do things differently than they used to, and I know for myself. So I just listed out six things. I know that currently I feel great about three of them. My physical fitness, even though I actually haven't worked out in the last week, which, but that's like a week. I'm physically fit.

Nina: 44:07

It's okay.

Alexis: 44:07

And when I show back up at the gym, I'm going to not have any problems. You know, or you know, I'll have some extra stress to work out of my system, but it's like I'm not starting from square one. My body functions very well, knock on wood, and I'm currently free of disease. Knock on wood again, because I don't really want this episode to change my life. That would be really crappy. Two of them are always in flux: sleep, which I would say changed a lot, especially when I became a mother, because now I cannot sleep through the night. When there are little sounds, I wake up. Even though my youngest kid is now five years old, I still wake up.

Alexis: 44:46

There's like a I don't know what the hell happens in the female brain when you have kids, but like it happens, you're, you are now responsible for keeping, you know, an infant safe. And then the other one is stress, because life happens and there are moments of higher stress. And then there's other moments where you know, but those are things to manage ongoing. And there's one thing that I'm never going to feel great about, which is nutrition, which is all tied to weight, which is the-- and this goes into I do my best and I don't, but I don't fixate on it, I just place my attention on the things that I know that I can do better on.

Nina: 45:24

That's a great mindset.

Alexis: 45:25

Yeah and so when I think about this, it's really I can claim the wins where I have them and I can focus on progress rather than perfection.

Alexis: 45:36

And I can also put this other thing you know what, like we can try some different things here but I'm just like I'm not, it's not my priority. It's not helpful for me to be hyper-focused.

Nina: 45:47

Agreed. I mean, you are many steps ahead of many people. Being aware of those factors is step one. Being aware of where you excel amazing step two. And to me, though, the most powerful thing is knowing that the areas that there could be improvement on and that you don't obsess over them is the biggest win, because that's where I see the most pitfalls is that-- diet is a huge one. People struggle with diet and they obsess over it, and it becomes something that's constantly in the back of their head and that is never going to help you. That's only going to create more stress, which could be increasing your cortisol, which is going to potentially give you cravings. I mean, it's just this terrible cycle. So it's very cool to hear how really in tune you are with your overall health.

Alexis: 46:34

Well, thank you. When I was prepping for this episode, I was like crap, I can't just say this is unattainable. It felt better to also actually even just put those things out there and be like "oh, five out of six?"

Nina: 46:47

Pretty good.

Alexis: 46:48

Cool. Like that's actually, that's at least a solid B right.

Nina: 46:55

I think that's a B plus, at least. I don't know. I was never. You know, I didn't go to college, I wasn't into grades for sure that wasn't my thought.

Alexis: 47:05

Anyway, all right, well.

Nina: 47:11

But another thing, though, where you say it's not attainable, is that I would say another way to phrase that is that it's always ongoing.

Nina: 47:15

You're never done and the second that you think you're done, that's when things are going to go backwards. So if you're focusing on mastering your sleep, you're never gonna be like I figured it out, I did it. It's a daily grind, everyday you have to really focus on that.

Alexis: 47:28

And then the next night you can't sleep through the night and then you're like mmmm.

Nina: 47:32

Right. It's just not how it works. Same thing with exercise, same thing with nutrition. It's a constant, which is what makes it so exhausting and too big to handle. It goes all back, you know, to what you were talking about.

Alexis: 47:44

So coming back to, I loved where you were starting to go in terms of the when you were 20 versus where you are now, it's different.

Alexis: 48:01

you share more about what your personal journey has been toward physical health, ups and downs or you know, sort of like the progression of things?

Nina: 48:12

Sure, yeah, I would say that the so from 12 years old to 27, my mindset was eat as little as possible. Being hungry is good. Exercise as much as you can. Skinny is what you want. I didn't actually use a scale because it would make me too upset and put me into a crazy downward spiral.

Alexis: 48:36

That's at least good self-awareness though.

Nina: 48:39

Yes, I guess. So I mean, yes, it is. I would use my clothes as my judge and you know, and sizes, and being obsessed with everything I'm saying is unhealthy, just so everyone knows. No one take notes on this part, take notes on what not to do on this part, and I would constantly look in the mirror and criticize. That was my go-to.

Nina: 49:03

So even if I was feeling cute in that moment, I would immediately say like, "But don't forget about that cellulite on your butt," or "but don't forget that you look fat in that one picture that you took that you had to delete." Like that was just where my head was at and it was this really unhealthy, terrible cycle. And that cycle had to continue to go down even deeper when, actually, when I left the tour and started living with my parents, for me, what happened was I got into bodybuilding because I thought it was going to get me skinny, which is not correct.

Alexis: 49:36

Yeah that would not be the way, my brain would sort of that's not the linkage I would see.

Nina: 49:41

No, I didn't, I had no idea what I was doing. You know, I met an old high school friend who was super generous in wanting to help me learn how to lift weights. This was like right as I was becoming a yoga instructor I was not yet a personal trainer and he was writing me out a diet and also telling me, like "you need to bulk up, you need to put on some muscle. So I was like, "oh, you mean, you want me to eat anything I want and I just have to get an X amount of protein?" So I did that and I did a great job, gaining weight, spectacular. And then I hated myself even more. And then we went on these crazy, hardcore 16 week diets where everything is weighed and measured. There's no fun allowed. You cannot deviate from the programming, and that put me into probably the darkest place ever. I know that lots of people still compete in bodybuilding or physique or bikini competitions and if that works for them, one size fits one. I completely support them to do it. I had only a negative experience with it when I take a step back. In the moment, when I was doing it I would have had this elitist perspective that I was tougher than anyone and I was able to do it and you couldn't.

Nina: 50:57

And that is--

Alexis: 50:57

I couldn't.

Nina: 50:58

No, I think that I was. I don't mean you specifically. That was just my chump attitude at the time.

Nina: 51:05

And so what would happen is you would deplete yourself to this, to this moment where you could get on stage and it was chemistry by the end of water depletion and the way you were angling your body to look a certain aesthetic and you'd paint your skin to be darker. So when the lights hit it looked just right. And then the second, you'd get off stage. You would drink water, which you hadn't done for 24 hours, and you would, your body would retain or you would cramp and you were at your weakest physical performance. And that was actually the best thing for me to realize, because I cared about physicality. I cared about how fast I could run or how heavy I could lift weights, and when I realized that what I was doing to my system was almost shutting it down completely to where I would cramp, just getting out of bed for a week after a show because I was so depleted, I was taking diuretics and and I was like really nasty stuff.

Alexis: 51:59

It reminds me of when I was in high school. I remember there were a lot of kids who were really into wrestling and I know that they had sounded very similar and they'd wear the sweatsuits for the day or two before just to get all of the water out of their system, sweat it off. That sounds awful.

Nina: 52:18

It's awful and the piece that I missed is like when you were on stage looking your best was also when you would be the most critical of what you look like. Because you are standing, you are positioning yourself in front of a group of judges that are writing down everything that's still wrong with you. And then when you get off stage, even if you win and I amazingly did win a few times I was still obsessed with like, well, my glutes weren't dialed in enough or my, you know. I didn't have the right cap on my shoulders or I wasn't lean enough here and I should have conditioned better here. You still walk away defeated, even when you win. You still are, you still have so much to go and it's all for this like extremely finite moment that you're on stage. I mean you eventually the pros time it down to like in these 10 minutes is when I'm going to hit my peak and that's when I'm going to be on stage and like I'm going to have this rice cake at this time with this much honey, so my vascularity pops.

Nina: 53:16

So I took a step back from that. I realized sounds very healthy. Yeah, I realized actually what was the harder thing to do was to be at a level of fitness where you could compete physically on a regular basis and feel your healthiest at all times, and how challenging that actually was. And this whole idea of dieting is almost easier because you can just I could just lock in like 16 weeks I'm dieting, and then after that I'm going to go crazy for three weeks and I'm going to go back to dieting, and then it's like what if you tried to maintain that for a year? What does that look like? That looks scary.

Nina: 53:50

So after I stopped competing almost 10 years ago and that was my new focus is how can you be your best self every day? What does that look like? And since then I have used myself as the guinea pig for what works for me in that body, in that moment. And that has changed every year, specifically this last year where I'm about to turn 40 and women always say, "Oh, wait till hit 40, things change. And I was always like not me, not me.

Alexis: 54:21

I'm special.

Nina: 54:28

Well, turns it out it's gonna happen to me too and I had to this year, completely reframe my thinking and saying, like, if you wanna change something, you have to know that it's gonna take a really long time and you have to trust the process and you have to know that things are going to ebb and flow and there's going to be--w hatever metric you're using, there's going to be days things are high. There's going to be days things are low. And you appreciate every day and you value what your body can do today. And some days it feels awesome and you can go hard. And the old Nina 10 years ago I could go hard every day. That was my goal: be broken by the end of the day. And my goal is so different now. It's like live to fight another day. Save some today so you can be better tomorrow. So tomorrow you wake up feeling good not broken.

Alexis: 55:14

I love all the things that you've discussed there and described when I think about my own journey, and I'll just really sort of have a starting point and an end. There's a lot more in the middle of it, but you know, I was kind of going back to when I was in high school, so when the things that I remember thinking about I would not have admitted it to you, but I wanted to be skinny and have good skin. Meanwhile, I was dressing myself very akin to what Billie Eilish looks like. I loved men's clothing. I wore trousers and I had all of the sweater, vests and stuff and I was trying, you know, but I was trying to like not focus on looking like the skinny girl, because I also had a very different body anyway.

Alexis: 55:54

In addition to that, I also went vegan, and it was for some good reasons. In addition to that, I also went vegan and it was for some good reasons, but I think it was also largely for a number of bad reasons, including it pissed my parents off. What teenager is not looking to piss their parents off? But all I ate was beige food, pasta, bread, I did eat hummus.

Nina: 56:14

Okay, some chickpeas in there.

Alexis: 56:17

But I didn't learn how to like raw vegetables until I was well into my 30s. I also--i t was a good night if I slept four hours, because I was a master of procrastination and somehow this was never a discussion with my parents or my teachers or anyone else by the time I was in college, and later it became a badge of honor. Oh, I didn't even sleep at all last night. I was cramming, like what.

Nina: 56:42

I think that's true. I think that unfortunately is still kind of the case.

Alexis: 56:44

Totally is.

Alexis: 56:45

Yeah, you know, and I'd say my stress was up and down the same way it is now and I think probably with a crappy diet and poor sleep habits, it was probably more prone to be on the stress side than the not stress side. Yeah, you know, what I would say is, over the course of many, many years, you know, I sort of described having a more positive relationship. But for me, physical fitness, like my body's math, is, I need two intense workouts a week. I'd like to do more. I'd like to do more yoga. It's hard for me to fit it into my life. So as long as I can get those two workouts a week, I'm good. Sleep, I track it and you get better at the things that you monitor. So I have a Fitbit, I recently got an Aura. Aura makes me feel better about my sleep than Fitbit.

Alexis: 57:33

Oh that's so interesting. I don't think in two and a half or three years of using a Fitbit, I don't think I've ever, ever once gotten more than maybe an 85 in my sleep ever, and most of the time it's high 70s or 80. Meanwhile Aura is giving me in the 90s. Like earlier this week I had a 95. So like I like my Aura better, I just don't remember to charge it and my Fitbit still works. So I still use it.

Alexis: 58:02

You know, stress it's ultimately, for me, the number one thing I use to manage my stress is working out. There's a book Burnout by the Nagoski sisters that talks about not managing your stress as being really the primary thing and not actually processing emotions as being the number one driver of burnout, especially for women. And there's this very visceral way they describe it as like you have stress juice and you're basking in stress juice and I think about working out as literally wringing out the stress juice in my body, which sounds absolutely revolting.

Nina: 58:37

No, it sounds awesome. I've stolen that from you. Wait, when we talked and you said that that you visualize it as ringing out, I have used that as a cue now ever since that. Like when we're doing any-- I just tied in, if you're doing a bicycle sit-up, I will say it's like you're twisting out the stress of your day. So thank you.

Alexis: 58:55

Ooh I love it. That's awesome. And for me, nutrition it's not great. I do find that I eat better. When I do work out, I'm more compelled to eat better. I used to eat a lot more like greasy spoon hamburgers and gross stuff and as soon as I started working out I don't crave it as much, which is kind of interesting.

Nina: 59:14

It's really interesting.

Alexis: 59:15

But I've gone through plenty of fad diets. It's also hard to manage nutrition when you're married and when you have kids to be feeding. But I know for me, I was vegan when I was a teenager.

Alexis: 59:27

I did Jenny Craig when I was-- and I wrote a terrible song about it.

Nina: 59:32

That's a good throwback.

Alexis: 59:33

I ate Jenny Craig.

Nina: 59:36

Keep going. There's more.

Alexis: 59:38

In a frantic panic of midnight munchies. I ate Jenny Craig. She was taunting me with skinny dreams, but I just wanted a chicken leg.

Nina: 59:49

This is spectacular.

Alexis: 59:50

I don't remember the next part, but it ended with "I ate Jenny Craig."

Nina: 59:55

I love it. Put that in the show notes.

Alexis: 59:58

By the way, this was also in-- it would have been around 2004, 2005. It was when I was trying to pursue a music career and I had to focus on the way that I looked. I was not healthy about it. I did lose 10 or 15 pounds and I have like these gaunt photos where my cheeks are all like caved in, and I got a lot of positive feedback that this was how-- it was not sustainable at all and I was like "I can't, freaking do this, no way."

Nina: 1:00:26

Yeah, and your brain doesn't work.

Alexis: 1:00:28

Yeah, well, and I was being less creative. It was harder.

Alexis: 1:00:33

Anyway, I think I for the most part stopped with that stuff. I would generally say that I just had disordered thoughts around eating. But then when I was in my 30s, I did Perfect Health Diet, which is a kind Paleolite one. I got into Paleo. I did the whole 30 twice. Funny story there was, I think I dropped like 10 or 15 pounds, the first time I did the whole 30. And then, right afterward, I got fitted for a dress for my good friend Sarah, her wedding, I was a bridesmaid in it. In August when it came around, I was busting out of said dress. It was so awful. I actually changed dresses for the reception because I was so freaking uncomfortable it was awful.

Nina: 1:01:18

That's such a sad story. Yeah, I hate everything about that.

Alexis: 1:01:23

I'm sure like other people have had similar things. Anyway the most recent thing that I've been doing, which I actually think is probably the most manageable one, is my husband and I have been using Factor on and off, it's a meal service.

Nina: 1:01:37

I was going to suggest Factor when we were talking about hacks.

Alexis: 1:01:40

Because it's easy, it's it's not cheap, but it's easy and the biggest thing with that one is I learned how to eat smaller meals.

Nina: 1:01:50

Yeah.

Alexis: 1:01:51

It was hard the first couple of days when I started initially and I actually wound up I probably did wind and I don't weigh myself very frequently but, over the course of a couple months I dropped like five pounds and it wasn't any effort and I think I actually was probably eating more vegetables.

Alexis: 1:02:07

If you wanted to, that's awesome, right, and if you can set aside the money for it. For me, the biggest things that I realized for myself is that my number one and number two things are working out and focusing on sleep, and the rest of it is do the best I can. But you know, as long as I get the first two, I can manage, and you know, livelihood--

Nina: 1:02:29

I think that goes back to the one size fits one and that, like, progress is fluid. There might be a point in time where that changes, where the sleep is a little bit more managed. And now you're going where the sleep is a little bit more managed and now you're gonna start to focus a little more on another piece and eventually it's gonna be coming more full circle eventually one day. And that's also my experience is that I love exercise. I know I've said it and anyone who knows me is like she's exercising again. I don't have children or animals, so I have a lot of free time. I'm either working or working out is pretty much my whole life, and still sleep is more important to me than exercise. I am going to prioritize that, because if I can't sleep, I can't exercise anywhere.

Alexis: 1:03:14

I'm just.

Nina: 1:03:15

I'm just digging my hole even deeper and I use a Whoop as my fitness device, so I'm tracking, I use it for everything.

Alexis: 1:03:23

Whoop? What is this?

Nina: 1:03:24

The Whoop. W-h-o-o-p. Check it out. It's a wearable on your wrist.

Alexis: 1:03:29

All right.

Nina: 1:03:30

It also. But you don't have to wear it on your wrist. They have like bra and underwear and all sorts of things that you can wear it and that you can wear it and it tracks-- deep, dive, tracks everything your exercise, your sleep. Specifically, I answer questions every day about the day before. You get to pick what the questions are. So I tell it how, what my stress level was, how much water I consumed, if I drank alcohol. I do keep track of my calories. I do keep track of my weight. All because I think the metrics matter and I think it makes me better at my job. The more I know about myself, I'm able to relate more to whatever someone individually is going through.

Nina: 1:04:04

he it's kind of part of my whole process of helping people become their best selves. And again, if I'm going to wake up at four in the morning, which I do on a regular basis, and I'm going to exercise by 430, and I can feel already that weight of fatigue right when my eyes open. If I don't have to be at work and I was just doing that for the pleasure of exercising: nope. And that's growth for me, because I used to just be like you must. You know, the mental self-talk was so negative that I would do it anyway, because I couldn't get over myself for weeks if I had missed a workout. And I'm very grateful that I've evolved that now I realize sleep is more important. Or if I'm upset about it, I say wait until tomorrow. You're going to feel so much better tomorrow. And every time I wait until tomorrow and I'm like, "Oh my gosh, is this the same body? I feel so much better."

Alexis: 1:04:57

Oh, I slept. I love that. Okay, I love talking about all of our journeys, and there's so many things that are just fascinating here. Let's go into a little bit of a different spin here. Can we focus a little bit in terms of any positive memories or experiences that you've had with physical health, really honing in on the positive?

Nina: 1:05:22

This was a tough one for me. I remember you asking me this question earlier and I was like nothing. Everything sucks, was my initial reaction.

Alexis: 1:05:33

Life sucks.

Nina: 1:05:34

Yeah, and the thing that I'm really most proud of for me right now, as the person that I am, is that I'm actually very slowly learning how to truly listen to my body and actually take action. So I've always heard it, I've always been aware of when it's tired or when it's energized or whatever it's experiencing. I know it incredibly well, but I just normally ignore it, right. So it says it's tired and I'm like suck it up. You will not be defeated today.

Alexis: 1:06:07

Your body is your friend, Nina.

Nina: 1:06:10

I know, and I still I absolutely am still working through this but for me, being able to recognize when I need to take a step back and and Oranget heory is-- I love those workouts so much and I also get caught up in the metrics. So, Alexis, you were talking about, you know that you have this trackable wearable and everything's color coded and you get points in class and until very recently, I would do anything to make sure that I elevated my heart rate. Splat points-- that means when your heart rate is above 84%, which for most people, they never experienced that. If you only go to the gym and you are not really, really self-motivated, you are probably cruising between 65 and 78% of your max heart rate which you're working out, do not get me wrong. And there's lots of studies that show how beneficial that kind of zone two training is. It's great.

Nina: 1:07:02

And at Oranget heory we challenge people to step it up another notch, to get to that uncomfortable place where you maybe can really feel your heart beat or you could only say two words at a time before catching your breath because you are working at such an elevated level. And there's lots of marvelous science on why that's so important for your health. And doing it every single day, 365 days a year, is not a great choice. We do not do our programming. We do not tell people to come in every single day. We very much encourage rest days, active recovery days, green days. You know, when you say, Alexis, two hard workouts a week, we would say the most is is two to five. Five is the most that we would ever tell someone to do, and that's someone who's really has some ambitious goals about changing the way their exterior body looks.

Alexis: 1:07:50

Yeah, I remember hearing the The advice was try for three if you can in, four Four is good, but listen to your body. That was kind of what I was hearing. I can't, . I can't do it in my current where things are at, so I do what I 100.

Nina: 1:08:06

100 percent. But point is is that, so I take, there are times I take more than one class a day and every single time I would be trying to get 20 minutes in those high heart rate zones and I didn't care if I was walking out with a torn achilles at the end of the workout. At least I got my splat points was my mindset. And now, over the past eight weeks, specifically this year, I have a girlfriend who I work out with on Wednesdays and Fridays at Evanston and she is an awesome power walker and I have decided, like am going to power walk with you First. of all. I can't keep up with her. She power walks crazy fast and high inclines. My calves are on fire. My heart rate is really conditioned. It doesn't elevate necessarily the same rate as if I'm running because I'm a fast runner.

Nina: 1:08:47

People wouldn't know this looking at me, but running is my favorite. Most people think I wanted to like weight lift all the time, but I don't. I put on muscle easily. I love running fast. That's what I want to do.

Nina: 1:08:59

And so this evolution of being this is a win that you're moving in this space and your heart rate is low and you're with a community of people that are all moving their bodies together. And you now I'm trying to represent what dialing back looks like and that that's okay too. I do know that I'm people know me. In these spaces that I'm in. I recognize that people are looking to me and looking to what I'm doing and if I'm following programming which I do, and I also am learning how to that you don't have to go balls to the wall every day, and my hope is that over the course of this year-- this is a year long project that I'll be able to show the improvement in, my mental wellbeing and my body composition, because I have taken rest and how incredibly important that is. I know on paper it's important and mentally it's really challenging for me to dial back, so that is like that's a huge win for me.

Alexis: 1:09:56

That's awesome.

Nina: 1:09:57

Because I've never known how to do it.

Alexis: 1:09:59

Well congratulations for making the progress in that area and actually giving yourself room to like, honor your body and take care of yourself. I think that's really important. And it's also interesting too, because you know, coming back to-- you clearly are very geared to be very physical, just you as a person. So it's also almost challenging yourself of like, even if you have-- it's actually almost where your physicality might be more of a compulsion, or you've built up enough habits or feel like you need to do these things and you're like "No, actually there's some other things that I want to focus on too." I think that's a really nice way that you've been able to balance all of that out.

Nina: 1:10:45

It's still not balanced. I'm still working on it, just to be clear, because anyone listening to this will be like she's still cuckoo.

Alexis: 1:10:51

You're making moves. You're making progress. That's what it's all about.

Nina: 1:10:56

It's opened up a lot of opportunity for conversation with people. I will even use today as an example. Today I ran hard. First 23 minutes, I ran my heart out and then I said to myself you are going to walk this last round and you're going to have people look at you and ask you if you're injured and you're going to take that opportunity to say "no, like I put in the work," right. I got my splat points and now I'm going to show that you can dial back and still get a great workout. That hour is still valuable, even though now, like the second half, I'm going to back off. And that exact thing happened where someone said "are you okay?" I said I'm totally okay. Like, I'm more than okay. I'm actually listening to my body and realizing that I don't need to be broken to have a great workout.

Alexis: 1:11:37

I think that's a really great way to think about it. When I think about myself, when I go back to my childhood. It's funny, I hadn't really thought about this until I started imagining this episode and I was like, "oh, I have to talk about my award-- where I was arguably my peak in physical health was in eighth grade-- when I received the Sportswoman of the Year Award in my eighth grade class." By the way, my eighth grade class had 50 kids in it, so I was the best of 25 girls. Yeah.

Nina: 1:12:09

Still win, still win.

Alexis: 1:12:11

What the hell does that even mean anyway?

Nina: 1:12:14

I don't know. I was going to ask questions like, how did that even work?

Alexis: 1:12:18

Whatever, and, by the way, probably the main thing that I played then was basketball, which I actually dropped by the time I went into high school because I was like "whoa, this is way too competitive." and I probably could have done it, but it would have been hard-- kind of what you were talking about earlier. I could have put in hard work and I could have continued to stay with the team, I think. But there were enough other places that I didn't have to work as hard to still be doing like really well comparatively. The sport that actually I probably was focused on the most was fast pitch softball, but I also picked up volleyball. I dropped all of them by the time I was a junior in high school, but I loved being on teams. I loved playing social sports. I also loved that I got to learn how to use gym equipment. I think this is one of the things that made it much easier as an adult to get back into the gym. I have good form when I do stuff because I learned it.

Alexis: 1:13:13

I will claim that one because I learned how to do it when I was young and I know where I should be pushing and I know what's actually the appropriate amount of weight to be pulling. It laid a really great foundation for me to build upon later. I also I had a number of different periods of getting really into running. I remember a couple of summers when I came home from college. I got really in shape over the course of the summer. It was always I went back and people were like "whoa, what happened to you?" So you know clearly by the end of the school year I was not doing these things and I didn't quite look the same. But it's also kind of what you were talking about earlier. You only get noticed and attention for the times where you look real good.

Nina: 1:13:59

I know.

Alexis: 1:14:01

When I was in my 20s I got really into running races, but I wasn't doing them fast, but I got into doing 10Ks and half marathons. Problem was when I also tried to do marathons, I tried three of them and I kept on getting injured. I never actually ran a marathon and the last one that I did I wound up-- a year after the injury that I thought I just pulled a hamstring or I don't know what I thought I pulled-- but it turned out I had a stress fracture in my calf. I can't run anymore and I started going to physical therapy a couple times to try and get back into it.

Alexis: 1:14:37

But I do power walking at OTF and, by the way, I think one of the things that you should do because there are very few power walkers in there. It's very running centric. I just I observe this because I'm on the other side. When I started going there I actually felt kind of weird about it, like "oh, everyone's going to notice me." But I think, because it's not as common, I think you should be doing some sort of thing where you're tying together power walkers and giving like a cross gym or cross everyone in OTF like some kind of a challenge. I think there there could be something really cool of dialing into that and sort of celebrating power walking, because I agree, actually I think that it almost was off-putting for me that I wasn't a runner. I'd had enough time of doing power walking and like I'd gotten some one-on-one personal training sessions at some point and I was like I can't run, I can't do anything, and they're like "Yes, you can, you can do elevated walking."

Alexis: 1:15:36

I was like "what?" in case anyone listening has problems and they can't run, or they hate running. Using high incline for walking is awesome and I love-- I actually I've had friends who've also sort of compared how they perform when they do elevated walking versus running and they actually burn more calories for themselves. I mean, I don't know that this is like statistically relevant. It's more, you know--

Nina: 1:16:04

It depends on the individual body. First of all, thank you for that feedback. I do have connections where I can be actually like accessing the template design team to let them know about that. That hurts to hear that you would have felt at all like turned off at the beginning, because I care so much that everyone feels included and a part of it. There is so many benefits to power walking. That is a skill that we want to have all the time, right? We always want to be able to walk.

Nina: 1:16:31

Being able to run is like that doesn't matter as much as always wanting to be able to walk and the importance of that elevation. And you're really building the backside of your body. We call it your posterior chain, but, your butt, the backside of your legs, your hamstrings and your calves, those are really important muscles.

Alexis: 1:16:46

Pariformis, by the way, is the muscle that I have the biggest issues with.

Nina: 1:16:51

Yes.

Alexis: 1:16:52

Pariformis, it's very difficult to stretch and I didn't know it existed until I was in my early twenties, and someone was like, "Oh, you have a really like-- that's what's really tight for you." And I was like, "What?"

Nina: 1:17:03

Do you get sciatic pain? Like that sharp shooting pain down--

Alexis: 1:17:06

When I went through pregnancy I had sciatica both times. I also have flat feet and I have a tendency-- so like I have a lot of things, that also all contributed to my running injuries. So it's kind of my gate. But I'll go back into some other positive memories.

Alexis: 1:17:24

One of the other things that I got really into in my later 20s was I got into trekking. I guess in the UK they talk about trekking, it's like hiking. But I went on--

Nina: 1:17:36

But it's weighted, right?

Alexis: 1:17:37

Yeah, the concept is you at least have a backpack on. But I went on some very special trips. I've been to the Himalayas three times.

Nina: 1:17:46

Amazing.

Alexis: 1:17:46

I've hiked to Everest Base Camp, which the crazy thing about that is that at some point-- I mean you need to have a certain level of physical fitness-- but at some point it's about how your body handles low oxygen areas. I was in a group and there was a couple, like 70 year olds and like an 83 year old and they were like way ahead of me and I was like *intense breathing.*

Alexis: 1:18:14

That's going to sound real great.

Nina: 1:18:17

I wish everyone could see your face right now. That was good. That was a really good impersonation impression.

Alexis: 1:18:25

Well, actually the amazing thing was we finished the walk and then we went on this--i t was pretty quickly downhill and I was running to get downhill because suddenly I was like "oxygen. This is amazing."

Alexis: 1:18:40

Then some of the other things when I think about physical health: pregnancy probably gets its own--i t's actually one of the topics, and being a mom and the whole pursuit of that-- but being able to create in my body a child--

Nina: 1:18:56

So cool.

Alexis: 1:18:57

Is just-- and it was wild. We'll talk about some of the downsides of it, but it really was just this fascinating thing and feeling the flutters when the kid starts to make movements and the kicks. It just was really wild.

Alexis: 1:19:12

But I think the last part of when I really think about positive memories of health really the last one was getting back into going into workouts and going when I started up at OTF. That was really huge. The other thing that I think was really important about that one and I still remember Sean Evan was my coach that he did my first one and he was like "well, why are you here?" And it was I need more energy. I was totally depleted. It had nothing to do with weight. It had nothing to do with any sort of measurable official thing. It was that I had no energy and I wanted it, and the reason that I work out now is entirely for managing my energy and my mental health.

Alexis: 1:19:58

I have done the transformation challenges and weighed myself one or two other times a year. I weigh myself on occasion, but I am not doing it to look good. When I was younger, I was totally doing it to look good. I have a very, very different experience of it now and I think it's a lot healthier for me.

Nina: 1:20:17

For sure.

Alexis: 1:20:18

So I think that's really where I feel good about my physical health now is it's not tied to how I look, it's how I feel. That's what matters.

Nina: 1:20:28

And that's what everybody needs to hear. It really is about how you feel, because when you feel great, everything looks great too, right? That's why I say what happens externally is going to be a result of what's happening internally. And if you feel great, your posture is better, you look better, all of those things. You were talking about before when you exercise, that you weren't craving the greasy stuff, you were actually craving more nutrient-dense foods. It really all does tie in.

Nina: 1:20:58

I did remember one other victory that I would like to share, and it might be a little bit off, but it goes back to body image, and if you don't like it, we don't have to use it, and I want to share it.

Alexis: 1:21:10

Share it.

Nina: 1:21:11

Okay. So one thing that I did that really went against the grain. When I was 22 years old, before I got on the road with this big show that I ended up being on for the last four years, I got breast implants because that was the expectation. I got huge knockers because the price was the same, so why not just get the biggest ones possible? That was my mindset with it, and they were an impulse buy. I went to visit the doctor, like on a Monday, and I had surgery, I think, on a Thursday, that quick, right? A nd I was performing, I was doing aerial arts 28 days after surgery, which is like I wasn't supposed to.

Alexis: 1:21:49

Oh my gosh, that's like majorly invasive too.

Nina: 1:21:53

Well, there's different types and mine was the least invasive right there's under the muscle and there's over the muscle, and I was over the muscle. So I was like, I mean, I didn't care if I was cleared, I was exercising the next day because I was so obsessed with it. But here's the point of the story.

Nina: 1:22:09

In 2020, I admitted to myself that I hated those things and that they made me hate myself even more than I realized when I admitted it. And you know, we were spending all this time I was leading workout classes on Zoom, so I was really looking at myself on a regular basis and I got an explant, so I got my breast implants removed. And I want to say that, like to me, it's really important that women hear that that just because you made a bad decision doesn't mean you're stuck with it.

Nina: 1:22:38

And at that period of time when I did it, you couldn't have convinced me not to. I thought it's what I had to do for the industry I was in. I was going to be in these big 30,000 people arenas. There was going to be more of me to see I'm riding the largest elephant in the world, so my big knockers were just going to match this big elephant, all the things. And they were not right for me. They ended up rupturing. They were like soup when they were removed. I still have pieces of implant like that the doctor wasn't able to remove little tiny ones, but they stick out through my skin now. And aesthetics of what we're told is beautiful at the time is so fleeting and temporary. And if there is something that you have done physically to augment yourself, it is not permanent and you can undo it and you should undo it and you shouldn't let anybody else's opinion sway you one way or another. Because I think I kept them much longer, because I felt the pressure that I was supposed to keep these and this is what made me a woman. And now I'm flat and I have never been happier than when I got, like from the day that those came out of my body, I have felt so much more confident with a flat chest, knowing, like that, this is me and this is what I was meant to be and this is how I was made.

Alexis: 1:23:50

he, you for sharing that. There's so much to say on the feeling, the need to get them in the first place, that I'm not actually going to go there. I'm glad that you made the choice for yourself of what you feel is the right thing for you. I think at the end of the day, people can choose whatever they want. I will admit I have-- I never in my life ever considered seriously the idea of getting plastic surgery until a friend of mine started talking about getting a tummy tuck. And I've had two kids and I'd actually say this was also probably a year, year and a half ago. My body's actually changed and like I think more consistency going to the gym has made my body better. But I also I have like this flopsy thing where I had a kid, actually had two children growing in there. I also had a miscarriage that I have told very few people in the world about and that's one of the things I do want to explore in a different episode somewhere. But I seriously was like, "oh yeah," I joined some Reddit group that was talking about like people you know they had like before and after pictures.

Alexis: 1:24:56

That surgery is massively, invasive.

Nina: 1:25:01

Major.

Alexis: 1:25:02

Enormously, I mean it's like six months before you're like normal again, you have to have bags to deal with drainage. I mean they're cutting through muscle and everything. By the way, I also never had to have a C-section. I was able to have "natural birth," which is its own, you know whatever thing. But that's also a massively invasive-- I mean they're going through layers of muscle and organs and things like it's incredibly invasive. People don't realize what you're signing up for or actually getting, because it's the healthiest option for many people too. I don't even know that I ever talked to Jeff about this. I don't think he would care either way. I think he would be like "I mean, if you really want to do it, and that's the thing you want to do, like sure I'll be supportive," and then I was like, okay, wait, "how can I be a mother of like of a rambunctious little boy?" I don't think it's actually a possibility truly in my life without causing all sorts of other weird things to happen.

Nina: 1:26:04

Yeah, you could do a whole podcast on plastic surgery.

Alexis: 1:26:07

By the way, if that's something that you want to do, like all the power to you,

Nina: 1:26:11

I agree. Goes back to one size fits one.

Alexis: 1:26:14

People get to make their own choices about all the things, but they should get the choice. Wow, I'm going off.

Nina: 1:26:22

Hit the books. Hit the books is what I would say. Right. Before you go under the knife, really do your due diligence and what that actually means for you. I am not anti-plastic surgery. I'm actually really pro-plastic surgery if it's going to make you feel better, and just double check, make sure that it makes you feel better. And what made you feel good 10 years ago--i f it's not making you feel good now and you have the means to make a change, make that change.

Alexis: 1:26:46

Yeah. Well, so this is largely covered. When I was thinking about challenges with physical health, my biggest one for me was really the pregnancy itself was really hard. With both of my kids I gained at least 60 pounds at some point. I stopped knowing. I was like please just don't tell me. So I gained a lot of weight with both of them. I was able to drop most of the weight pretty quickly with my first. With my second it didn't come off, and I did the same exact things that I had with my first. I went back. I was lucky enough to have a leave, I went to the same types of gym classes and working out and the weight didn't drop and it was mortifying.

Alexis: 1:27:27

It was also when I first finally went to Oranget heory I was just in a yucky place and I was like mmmm.

Nina: 1:27:35

That stuff is so tough, you know, and I haven't had the experience of being pregnant, so it's not something I can speak on, personally. I do find it really interesting to just see how unique everyone's individual body is, because I have seen all different ranges of what happens to people during pregnancy and after pregnancy, particularly and it doesn't-- Whenever I think like, "oh, it's because of your age," I'm like "No, that's not true, that doesn't line up with that person. Or oh, it's because of you know-- I make up the story I'm telling myself, ideas about why things end up the way they are. And it's a mystery and it's you and your individual genetics and because I haven't even experienced it myself, it's not something I can speak on. It's only something I can say I admire every woman who is a mother, every person who is a mother and who has carried a child is so incredible to me and brave, and something one day maybe I'll be able to do it or be bold enough to do. T here's a lot of fear to me about something like that.

Alexis: 1:28:32

It has unlocked all sorts of parts of my journey that I never expected, and it has been a fantastic and amazing experience, and there have been many moments of challenges and difficulties that I never could have foreseen and I'm glad that I did it. It's also it's a lot.

Nina: 1:28:51

It's cool you're going to talk about it. That would help people like me. I always want to hear about it.

Alexis: 1:28:56

Well, so let's come back to challenges. Thank you for sharing your own experience around implants. But any other challenges that are worth highlighting here with your physical health?

Nina: 1:29:07

I am the guinea pig at all times. You know you were talking about how you were vegan. I think I've done every diet there is, and mainly from an experimental standpoint. Like, okay, let me see how I feel if I--. I don't remember why I decided to go vegan. I think it was cool. I was working in Vermont at the time. Everybody was vegan. Like I just wanted to be one of the kids.

Alexis: 1:29:32

I wouldn't think of Vermont as like the place for veganism. But here we are, so I guess it is.

Nina: 1:29:34

Really. Well, I was in like Northern Vermont, at a circus arts school facility: Craftberry Commons. It's like not even a town.

Alexis: 1:29:42

It's also, I don't actually really know Vermont.

Alexis: 1:29:44

We should probably put that out there if I've been there a couple times and there's a lot more to the state than I probably have any awareness of. So there you go.

Nina: 1:29:54

They're real earthy people, so. Or at least the people I was around. I like to explore and experiment with these things so I can really speak on them, or at least on how they impacted me, and the thing that I find really interesting about it is what affected me 10 years ago. So, like 10 years ago I absolutely needed to have carbohydrates like a lot of carbohydrates to stay fueled, and now I actually need a lot of fat to stay fueled. And so doing all these experimental things I just I find really fascinating and it goes back to the body you were once in is going to be different, and so, like what worked for you then does not mean it's going to work for you now.

Alexis: 1:30:35

\\S\o you so much for checking out today's episode, but before I sign off for the day, I want to invite you to get in touch. You can text me any reactions that you have to the episode or the show. You will find a link to do that in my show notes. I would love to hear from you, and if you enjoyed what you heard today, please subscribe to the show or leave a comment. It is a small thing that you can do, but it makes a world of difference for me and for this show.

Alexis: 1:31:03

You can also sign up for my newsletter at breakoutboothcom, where I will send you friendly updates, and you can also get early access to episodes before they hit the airwaves. As always, I will share links to notable references in our show notes. I will also include a link for you to get in touch with our guest, Nina Black. If you'd like, and in case you are chomping at the bit to do that right now, you can find her on Instagram, her handle is @NinaBlackFitness. With that, I wish you a very fond farewell and I look forward to talking to you more next week.