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Transcript

The New Health Equation: Mental Fitness Meets Physical Wellness · Tone It Down

• 0:00
  If you would have said to me during that time,
• 0:01
  what are you doing for the sympathetic nervous system?
• 0:05
  What are you doing to get them out of fight or flight?
• 0:07
  We never worked on the mental side of fitness, ever.
• 0:13
  Hi ladies, it's Karina. Welcome back to your new favorite podcast, Tonic Down.
• 0:34
  That's kind of a good little, and come up with a little ache.
• 0:37
  What is it called? Ring line? No, I have no quib.
• 0:41
  Okay, before we dive into this week's podcast, I have to mention May 3rd in Los Angeles, Manhattan
• 0:50
  Beach, El Segundo area at the point we are getting together.
• 0:55
  If you follow Tonic up on Instagram or you're on the newsletter, you're already signed
• 0:59
  up. You know if you're going to be in the area or you want to come out to the area,
• 1:03
  it's going to be really fun getting a lot of messages of when are you going to have
• 1:07
  live events?
• 1:08
  And so this is the first Tonic up live event, and it's absolutely free.
• 1:13
  It's the first live event in a long time.
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  So details are in the show notes where you can RSVP. We have lots of fun stuff, not
• 1:22
  only workouts with your trainers, China and stuff, and then some cameos coming out and
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  meditations.
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  Then we're doing a live Tonic down podcast.
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  And the guest is you, the audience, asking questions to myself and the trainers.
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  And then we're going to hang out and we're going to have a lot of giveaways and we're
• 1:42
  going to have a good time.
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  And party like it's 2017, but I'm so excited about that.
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  And it also happens to be the day before we all start the summer Tonic up challenge in
• 1:55
  the app.
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  Okay.
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  So let's dive into this week's podcast.
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  I was so honored to be asked to put this panel together for a wellness conference in Orange
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  County, California, it was just a few weeks ago.
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  And there was this wellness conference and they have all of the nutrition side and the
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  nutrition products.
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  They have all of the latest biohacking and all the latest fitness machines, but they came
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  through and said, create it.
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  Our team was talking and we're mittler, we're like, what are we missing in wellness?
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  And everyone was like mental health because as we all know, a full 360 approach to overall
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  wellness, mind, body, spirit, what you eat, what you put in your body.
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  And I was like, I would absolutely love to do this.
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  And they asked that I curate my own panel.
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  And of course, I said, it's going to be all women is that okay?
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  And they're like, whatever you want.
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  And I said, okay, let's have fun with this.
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  So I got my girls on there.
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  So welcome.
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  Also, this is a two part tone it down podcast from the live on stage event.
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  So this is one and stay tuned.
• 3:07
  Make sure you're subscribed to tone it down.
• 3:09
  So you don't miss the second part as well.
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  There's a lot of great information discussing mental fitness today's discussion.
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  I have powerhouse woman, Dr. DePica Chopra, aka the optimism doctor.
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  I've also interviewed her for the big silence podcast.
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  I'll put that link in the show notes as well if you want to hear more from her.
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  And I invited Kim Lyons from her most of the beach.
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  She's a master trainer and former biggest loser coach.
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  She speaks about burnout prevention and everything about what she learned being a trainer on
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  biggest loser and how the fitness world and how we train mentally and physically has
• 3:46
  really changed since then.
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  And then we have your tone it up trainer and burnout prevention expert wellness entrepreneur
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  Ari Belgrade.
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  And she is your trainer for the upcoming summer series for the tone it up app as well.
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  And we also have another tone it down podcast one on one discussion coming out and a little
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  bit there.
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  Again, don't forget to subscribe.
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  So together we unpack a new equation that's changing everything.
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  I like to call it mental fitness plus physical wellness.
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  We discuss rewiring the brain for optimism.
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  Why calorie counting is an outdated science and the lessons we can learn from climbing
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  a mountain with half the amount of recommended training time.
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  I say what if the missing piece in your health journey isn't your workout, but your mind?
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  Really think about that question.
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  What is the missing piece in your health journey?
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  What if it's not your workout, but it's your mind?
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  It's all about mindset, right?
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  So this episode is a reminder that your mind is the most powerful muscle you have and
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  the best part.
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  Guess what?
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  You can train it starting tonight.
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  So enjoy part one and stay tuned for part two for the tone it down podcast on tone it
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  down Tuesdays.
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  And as always, please subscribe and share this episode with someone who needs to hear it.
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  I really enjoyed leading this conversation.
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  So I know you will love it too.
• 5:15
  Thank you, everyone.
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  I love the room.
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  I see all the women stayed.
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  So this conversation today was really important.
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  And when Roth asked me to have the conversation around the connection around mental health
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  and fitness.
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  And so it's the new equation, mental fitness meets physical wellness.
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  And I asked these wonderful ladies to join me on stage for their expertise.
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  So I will do their intro now.
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  First off, we have Dr. Dopeka Chopra, who has been on the big sentence podcast and a friend.
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  She is known as the optimism doctor, which we will get into.
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  It's very exciting.
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  And she's not your average shrink.
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  She's a professional psychologist, a visual imagery expert podcast host and author and
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  sought after speaker.
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  You hold a doctorate in clinical health psychology.
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  You have a postdoctoral fellowship at UCLA in Cedar Sinon Medical Center.
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  You have a new book out, which is the power of real optimism and real, hey, just came out
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  last week, right?
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  Still on book lunch.
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  Still on book lunch onto her headed to Miami today.
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  You're on the go.
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  You are reoccurring guests on NBC's Today Show and your innovation and science
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  face worked on optimism, hope and resilience, which is all superpowers have been featured
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  in outlets like Forbes, Harper's Bizarre and Folk Goop, righty fast company and Newsweek
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  and more.
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  And then we have Kim Lyons.
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  You just are talking about how you like ran into me and roller blades on the beach like
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  25 years ago.
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  It really has been that long.
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  So Kim Lyons, she's a global recognized health and wellness expert 25 years of experience
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  as a master certified personal trainer and nutrition practitioner, formerly on NBC's
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  the biggest loser, which we're going to dive into that whole conversation and the mental
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  side of it.
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  You're very down to or tough loving.
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  You've been on Dr. Oz today show the doctor's layer King live and Dr. Phil.
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  And then we have Ariel, hello, you're the founder and CEO of Jim Hoki Media, a portfolio
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  of fitness and wellness brands dedicated to helping women lead stronger, healthier and
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  more sustainable lives, also a toned up trainer and the toned up app.
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  You began your career in banking and transitioned into human resources at JP Morgan and Metta
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  and you've worked with high performance corporate environments.
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  And you know all about the ambition, the burnout, how they often collide.
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  And so we're so happy to have you here.
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  You're also on the board of women's health magazine.
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  So we have a lot of strong female voices here joining us on stage to have this conversation.
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  Let's get going.
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  So my first conversation for you ladies is what is mental wellness to you?
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  First of all, I feel very proficient in mental wellness and mental fitness, but I'm sitting
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  on this panel and realize that I have like zero physical fitness.
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  So good thing I have a big jacket on because you don't want my arms do not look like that
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  on me to tell you.
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  So for me, I like to think of mental wellness and mental fitness as really cognitive flexibility.
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  And all of it is the same like physical fitness where we gain our mental fitness by really
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  small activities over time instead of like a large intervention.
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  And the whole part of mental fitness that I think that I'm passionate about and I think
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  it's really powerful is really about training the part of our brain that is for response.
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  And so what we want to do is get to a place where part of our brain that is in reaction,
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  we are more intentional about how we engage and reengage and react rather than being in
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  automatic response.
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  And so mental fitness is super powerful and optimism, which is what I study is a psychological
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  and behavioral skill and is part of the mental fitness realm.
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  And so people often think that things like optimism and resiliency and joy and happiness
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  and these things are personality traits, but in fact, they are learnable and trainable.
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  And we should all be training in them, frankly, because it is what we need right now.
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  That was so good.
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  So well put, you know, we're such an exciting time right now of the pivot in fitness where
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  when I started many, many years ago, everything was about the numbers, it was about counting
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  calories, it was counting reps, it was how much weights on the machine.
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  Now we're at this pivotal point where we're going mental fitness is the foundation.
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  This is where it has to begin.
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  You can count numbers, you can count calories, but if your body and your nervous system
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  can't regulate any of that, it's meaningless.
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  Change happens at the center of mental wellness.
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  So for me, it's a foundational piece that has to be there.
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  And I feel like it's just now coming to the surface in a brand new light where people
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  are listening.
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  People are realizing that we cannot move forward with the numbers of calories and weights
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  and reps without that piece.
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  So I'm really excited to really take some time today to break down this topic on so many
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  different levels and really impress upon you how critically important that is and leave
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  you with some action steps as to how you can make that foundation so that you can continue
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  to live a long, healthy life.
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  You both said it very well, so I'm just going to try to piggyback off of that.
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  So when I think about mountain wellness and someone who is heavy in the burnout prevention
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  space, I think of how we train our minds and even our bodies for emotional regulation
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  as how we think, how we react to under stress, how we treat our internal body daily and
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  integrating it into our daily lives and the practices.
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  So I'm sure we'll get into this, but one word that comes up for me is the word pause
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  and what it looks like to serve our mind in that way and take pauses, not just when
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  something is wrong, but regularly.
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  So I'm excited to get into that because I feel like there's this broad spectrum of what
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  wellness can look like.
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  Yeah, and I want to piggyback on all of that and I'm so excited that Roth wanted to bring
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  in the conversation around mental fitness, physical wellness and bring that together because
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  we all know all the conversations we're having here and all of the brands that are here
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  today are we know what to eat.
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  We know how to move our body.
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  We have the fitness, but they really want to bring in like what is the 360 approach to
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  overall wellness and that's bringing in brain health, which is so important and in my own
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  work and why even obviously being in the fitness industry for 20 plus years, but I grew
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  up with a family with mental health issues, a mother with mental illness.
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  And it's like, where do I get my mental strength to say, no, that is not me.
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  How do I train my brain?
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  And so that's why it's such an important conversation for me of mental resilience and all
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  of that.
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  So I just wanted to add that again, from what you guys are saying, which I think is so
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  interesting and exciting because it's starting to get talked about a lot at this idea of
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  the nervous system and all of the research shows from a neuroscience perspective that
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  the brain does not prioritize growth.
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  This was like huge when I read this, the brain does not prioritize growth.
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  It prioritizes safety.
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  And so until we feel safe and regulated, which is now going to become a really big buzzword,
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  nervous system regulation, but it is so important to truly understand what that means.
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  And so the first and foremost step in mental fitness or talking about mental wellbeing
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  is being able to have your own tools to feel safe because then the brain can start firing
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  up the prefrontal cortex for problem solving and planning and all the things that we want
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  to do to be productive and to be setting ourselves up for success.
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  But it starts with regulation.
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  Can you go into that a little bit more?
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  So back to training the brain, like we train our muscles, how do we train the brain?
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  Well, good thing there are many different ways to do that.
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  And my passion is really about taking the science in behavioral science and neuroscience
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  and really breaking it down into practical everyday steps.
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  So practical that it sounds like simple and easy and we can do them today, two hours
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  from today, giving you all something to do actually like tonight before you go to bed.
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  And you think they're so simple that then they're actually kind of hard to do.
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  But over time, they create new neural pathways and they become even easier.
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  So I think one of the most important things is, I'll give you two, one of the most important
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  things, which is more of a perspective, we call it explanatory style in the behavioral
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  and psych world.
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  And it's just an understanding that whatever it is that you are in right now, whatever
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  the struggle or the joyful part, it is temporary.
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  And I think just having an understanding on that, that is really important and one of
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  the pillars of resiliency and optimism.
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  And then the second part, which is a more practical sort of skill or tool that all of us
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  can do.
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  And it's going to sound really simple, but I'm challenging you guys to do it today.
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  I know we are all very productive and familiar with the to-do list here.
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  Everybody probably has a to-do list.
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  How they make it is different to each and every person.
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  I don't have to remind people to remind themselves to do things.
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  By the way, I need a way better idea of a to-do list.
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  If you have a really good effective way, let me know.
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  But the brain focuses on the things that are not done yet, that are unfinished, not done,
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  need fixing.
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  But what the brain doesn't naturally focus on, that we have to intentionally focus on,
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  what have you already handled?
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  So before you go to bed, I would rather people make a to-do list.
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  Something that they can write down, five things that they've actually accomplished.
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  They have handled.
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  And the reason I'm saying that is not just to give you a pat on the back and say, good
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  job, although there is a lot of science in that self-mastery.
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  And you shouldn't do it for this reason, but science shows that this makes you more productive.
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  It makes you more successful.
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  We are trying to create a new neural pathway that we are able to focus on our small wins
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  and our big wins, too.
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  But when we can recognize that, we are, again, that prefrontal cortex, it's my favorite
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  part of the brain.
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  It's the planning and solution focused part of the brain.
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  It stops and it says, A, I'm regulated, B, I've handled a lot of stuff, I have self-mastery,
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  I can do this, I'm resilient, I've gotten through my challenges and I will keep going
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  and I will get through my challenges in an even more effective way.
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  And we all, none of us are immune to struggle.
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  I think that's a part that all of us have to accept.
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  In personal lives, in business, none of us are immune to struggle.
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  We all have setbacks, but do we see the setbacks as temporary or permanent?
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  And do we understand that we have the ability to overcome them?
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  Even if we don't know how or when, but we know we can't based on our personal historical
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  resiliency.
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  And that's why I love your work in optimism because I try to do that, because you train
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  your brain because so often when we have 80,000 to 100,000 thoughts per day, a lot of them
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  are repetitive and negative.
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  So how do you train yourself to have positive thoughts?
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  I was having a conversation with a friend last week and I was like, do you ever have a
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  positive thought in a day?
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  They said no.
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  By the way, they do, but they just don't recognize it because what, what are we tuning
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  into?
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  And that makes sense.
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  You're not alone because again, the brain prioritizes the things that need fixing and
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  that are unfinished.
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  Right.
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  So just like we train our muscles, we need to train the brain because we're in this beautiful
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  life for this long, like the positivity is all around.
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  I was like, do you ever wake up and walk outside and see the blue sky and hear the birds
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  and they're like, no, I'm like, we got to train the brain for.
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  And it's so connected to our physical.
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  So they've just come out with a ton of studies that are super important and it shows people
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  that score higher on optimism have much lower levels of inflammation.
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  And so, you know, people that are scoring a little more higher on the pessimistic levels,
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  their cortisol levels are really high and every marker of inflammation is high.
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  Right.
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  And when we're talking here at this conference about longevity and taking care of ourselves
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  and those, the cortisol and the stress, like that will beat you up and take you down.
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  So that's where that mental fitness really means a lot.
• 18:13
  Well, and it's interesting too because I think what we're finding now is you cannot separate
• 18:17
  the brain from the body.
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  And for so many years, we have, and I go back to, I was one of the original trainers on
• 18:25
  the biggest loser very, very early in 2006 and 2007.
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  And at that time, I was in my 20s, I had never trained an obese person in my life because
• 18:34
  most obese people don't go to trainers.
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  They go to doctors.
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  So we were all on the same boat on that show.
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  And regardless of the judgments out there, yes, it was crazy, it was reality, TV was entertainment.
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  But what I left from there was taking away that fitness is not about numbers.
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  What we had was the most perfect lab to test calories, to test reps, to test steps.
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  And you know what?
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  It didn't add up.
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  And there was a moment where I was looking at all the numbers on paper.
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  And I was like, something is missing.
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  This doesn't make sense.
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  And trust me, this, like I said, was a closed, perfect lab.
• 19:13
  You don't get that environment anywhere in the world.
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  I knew exactly what they were eating.
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  I knew exactly how many steps they were taking.
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  I was with them for 14 hours a day.
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  I knew how long they were sleeping, but something was missing.
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  And when I digested it, and 20 years later, and I look back on everything I know now
• 19:31
  about longevity and science and where we are today, the missing link was the mental aspect.
• 19:40
  If you would have said to me during that time, what are you doing for the sympathetic
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  nervous system?
• 19:45
  What are you doing to get them out of fighter flight?
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  What do you mean?
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  This is fighter flight.
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  You're fighting and you're fighting hard and you were going because it's a game show.
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  And this is it.
• 19:55
  You got to win.
• 19:56
  My people got to win on the scale, but they weren't winning when it came to recovery.
• 20:01
  They weren't winning when it came to that positive mindset of going, I can do this.
• 20:07
  There was so many interesting factors, but it changed my life as a trainer, because
• 20:11
  I left going, you know what, I'm not dialing in six packs, I'm not building shoulders.
• 20:17
  I am saving lives.
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  I watched their numbers on paper come down.
• 20:24
  Of course, inflammation markers probably went up pretty high, guilty as charged.
• 20:28
  But their cholesterol, their triglycerides, their diabetes, the pre-dive, so many things
• 20:34
  were changed on paper.
• 20:36
  But at the end of the day, that recovery and that pulling out of the pairs or the sympathetic
• 20:42
  nervous system and into that safety, as you talked about, the body has to be safe to
• 20:47
  make changes that safety was never created.
• 20:50
  It was covered up with the blanket of, you know, you're going to succeed if we do what
• 20:55
  we tell you.
• 20:57
  So we took away that fear of failure from them by showing them right there on TV episode
• 21:01
  after episode how well it worked.
• 21:05
  But at the end of the day, we never worked on the mental side of fitness ever.
• 21:12
  And that missing link would have, I believe, changed the projectory of the show.
• 21:17
  And I wish so bad we could go back and do it again today with the science that we know
• 21:21
  and that's emerging and that having that layer of the mental fitness.
• 21:24
  How would you change that today?
• 21:25
  Because you talked a lot about fear of failure, fear of success.
• 21:29
  And then the mental aspects of obesity, especially working on the biggest loser, like what
• 21:34
  would you do different today?
• 21:36
  What would you say to those contestants?
• 21:38
  So much, you guys, so much.
• 21:40
  You have no idea.
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  Like I said, it was 20 years ago and going in as a 20-year-old where I came from working
• 21:45
  with athletes and I came from working on helping people become faster, stronger, fitter
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  to a place where I'm just trying to get somebody up on their feet and not beat up their
• 21:56
  joints.
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  But I think the biggest change I would do these days is I would completely eliminate
• 22:01
  the numbers.
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  Your body has no idea what a calorie is.
• 22:04
  That was invented over 100 years ago for a steam engine.
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  It has no business in our fitness world.
• 22:09
  And I hope to God mark my words, please let that be gone out of our system in the next
• 22:13
  100 years because your body doesn't know a number when it comes to food.
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  What it knows is a message.
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  Food sends messages to our system.
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  If you eat junk food, it's going to send messages of inflammation, blood sugar, irregularity,
• 22:28
  gut disruption.
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  And if you send something in like a protein, your body goes, oh, okay, now I have essential
• 22:34
  building blocks for what I need.
• 22:36
  The amino acids I need for brain development.
• 22:39
  If you eat some healthy fibers, now you're feeding your microbiome.
• 22:43
  Your gut has some safety there and you're able to release serotonin and dopamine and
• 22:48
  things that are so critical for your gut health.
• 22:51
  You have all these messages that are sent through food.
• 22:54
  None of them are number related, not a single one of them.
• 22:57
  They are signals.
• 22:59
  They send signals of safety to your body.
• 23:02
  We have the micronutrients that we need for the body to function.
• 23:06
  So I would take away the numbers and also in the gym.
• 23:09
  Your muscles don't know how many pounds you have on that weight.
• 23:12
  It could care less.
• 23:14
  So while I love progressive overload, guess what?
• 23:17
  Your body doesn't know that.
• 23:18
  It knows, oh, hey, I just got challenged.
• 23:21
  And if you put me in a safe place and you let me recover, I will grow.
• 23:25
  If you don't, I won't respond.
• 23:27
  And I'm going to throw it right back at you.
• 23:29
  I'm going to get weaker.
• 23:30
  I'm going to get worse.
• 23:31
  I'm going to get sick.
• 23:32
  I'm going to break down your immune system so that I can pull resources from somewhere
• 23:34
  else so that I can recover.
• 23:37
  So the biggest change I would make is I would take away the numbers and I would provide
• 23:41
  the right messages to the body.
• 23:43
  Amen.
• 23:45
  All right, Ari, you started your fitness journey and 2015 coming from the corporate world,
• 23:52
  which we're going to dive into that a little bit later.
• 23:56
  You just climbed Mount Kilimanjaro and you're like, right?
• 24:02
  And you had no clue what you were doing.
• 24:05
  Go through that mental process and how you can take that mental process into your day
• 24:10
  to day.
• 24:11
  Yeah, so I would start with what made me want to climb the highest mountain in African
• 24:16
  the first place.
• 24:17
  And I was in a place where I wanted to be a beginner again.
• 24:21
  And that's where my mental shift happened because I knew that there was going to be a
• 24:25
  lot that I needed to prepare for.
• 24:27
  Now for context, I had never camped more than a day.
• 24:30
  I had not hiked more than a day.
• 24:32
  And this was a seven day trek that I need to make happen.
• 24:36
  So what that looked like was getting a mountaineering coach, but then the mental side was actually
• 24:42
  something I wasn't entirely ready for.
• 24:45
  And and pasta syndrome came at an all time high.
• 24:48
  And when I think about what's required on the mental side of things, I needed to make
• 24:51
  sure that I was the most grounded and the most prepared to be able to climb that mountain.
• 24:57
  When it came to mental, so there is a saying that we heard a lot on the mountain in Swahili
• 25:02
  is called pole pole and this means slowly, slowly.
• 25:06
  And this had to make me shift to how I think about things.
• 25:09
  I think I think fast, but I also being an athlete, I move fast as well.
• 25:13
  And I was challenged to think about what that looked like climbing the mountain.
• 25:16
  So most people when they do attempt to climb Mount Kilimanjaro, they may not make it
• 25:22
  one physical to altitude.
• 25:26
  And what we learned was you have to go very slow.
• 25:30
  And that played a big part in how I thought about my mental on that journey because I had
• 25:35
  to slow things down.
• 25:36
  I had to, I don't know, for me it was like a gratitude walk at the same time, but it
• 25:40
  was really making sure that my mind and my body were connected as one because it came
• 25:45
  a point in time where it was far more than just my body that was required.
• 25:50
  So day five, some a day is known for being the very tough, the hardest day.
• 25:54
  And physically I was like, yeah, I got this first five days, I was rocking.
• 25:58
  And there's a point called stellar point, which is an hour before you receive, you get
• 26:02
  to the very top.
• 26:04
  That was where mental resilience and just courage and audacity and all of that came full
• 26:10
  fledged because I was indeed ready to give up.
• 26:13
  My body had already, my quads were shaking, were spasming.
• 26:16
  So I knew I couldn't just rely on my body to make it through.
• 26:19
  And that's where that mental training came at play.
• 26:23
  I also had received some words of encouragement.
• 26:26
  So we think about optimism and how we talk about that.
• 26:28
  For me, it was not thinking like I can't do this.
• 26:30
  It was, okay, what comes of actually getting to the top and that point, I knew it was way
• 26:36
  bigger than me.
• 26:37
  It was me being a black woman climbing Mel Kilimanjaro.
• 26:41
  It was me telling my nieces and nephews that like, Auntie climb this.
• 26:45
  And it wasn't just my mental, I think training.
• 26:50
  It was also for those around me who I wanted to believe that they can do it too.
• 26:53
  Well, that makes me think.
• 26:55
  So when we go on the gym and we lift the weights, we climb, we climb Mel Kilimanjaro.
• 27:01
  But we take, but we take what we do in the gym or what we do on that mountain top and
• 27:08
  that resilience and that empowering our own mind.
• 27:12
  And we take that to the rest of the day, the rest of the world.
• 27:15
  When I came out of my own decade of darkness and I did a triathlon and I crossed that finish
• 27:21
  line.
• 27:22
  It wasn't about crossing that finish line.
• 27:24
  It was like, if I can do this, if I can climb that, if I can lift this, what else can
• 27:29
  I do?
• 27:30
  Yeah.
• 27:31
  So we take it into the world.
• 27:32
  Yeah.
• 27:33
  And I love you mentioned that because when most people asked me what came from, it was
• 27:36
  my biggest takeaway.
• 27:37
  Come from Kilimanjaro.
• 27:39
  I just felt like my audacity flame was resparked.
• 27:43
  Like spark is like, if I can do that, then legit, I can do anything.
• 27:46
  I literally trained for three months when the average is six, right, for this.
• 27:50
  So for me, y'all seeing the version of 2026 Ari, she's pretty audacious.