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23. Stress and How it’s Messing Up Your Goals · Health Unscripted

• 0:04
  SPEAKER_00: What's up, guys?
• 0:05
  SPEAKER_00: Happy Thursday.
• 0:06
  SPEAKER_00: Welcome back to another episode of Health Unscripted with Dr.
• 0:09
  SPEAKER_00: D.
• 0:10
  SPEAKER_00: I am Dr.
• 0:10
  SPEAKER_00: Ashley Dwyer.
• 0:11
  SPEAKER_00: This week we are going to talk about stress.
• 0:14
  SPEAKER_00: And the reason we're going to talk about stress this week is because it's the holidays and it is on high.
• 0:19
  SPEAKER_00: It is on like next level with the work issues, family stress, all the things.
• 0:26
  SPEAKER_00: And it's coming in hot.
• 0:28
  SPEAKER_00: So we're going to bring it up.
• 0:29
  SPEAKER_00: And then we're also going to talk about probably next week some goal setting and New Year's resolutions and all of that.
• 0:35
  SPEAKER_00: But I really want to go over stress because I think, I mean, I don't think, I know that we certainly underestimate it when it comes to our needs, how it affects our body, how we perceive it, what it actually is, what it does.
• 0:49
  SPEAKER_00: And when clients come to us to work with us with one-on-one coaching, that is one of the first things that we look at during consult calls and we're like, how stressed is this person's body?
• 0:58
  SPEAKER_00: Because we are a metabolic restoration team.
• 1:01
  SPEAKER_00: So we're looking at how to make your metabolism the best it can be, how to get the most out of your cut and your training.
• 1:08
  SPEAKER_00: And we have to manage stress in order to do that.
• 1:11
  SPEAKER_00: So in my fat loss episode, I talked about managing stressors and things like that as being one of the ways to lose body fat, but I didn't actually talk about what stressors are.
• 1:19
  SPEAKER_00: So we're going to go into that a little bit more this week.
• 1:22
  SPEAKER_00: So when we think of stress, we think of the perceived stressors that are in our life, right?
• 1:30
  SPEAKER_00: Like when we do consult calls, I generally ask every client, or when I used to do consult calls, um, on a level of one to 10, how stressed are you?
• 1:40
  SPEAKER_00: You know, what's your average stress level from one to 10 on a regular average day?
• 1:44
  SPEAKER_00: And, you know, anything above a five is a little more stressful.
• 1:48
  SPEAKER_00: Under a five is amazing.
• 1:49
  SPEAKER_00: Seven to 10 is usually very stressed, or maybe eight to 10.
• 1:53
  SPEAKER_00: And then I've had people who are like 12.
• 1:55
  SPEAKER_00: And that is perceived stress.
• 1:57
  SPEAKER_00: So you're when when I ask that question, you're thinking of like work, relationships, children, deadlines, you know, your schedule, all the things that are currently stressing you out in that moment.
• 2:11
  SPEAKER_00: Your mother-in-law, you know, I just like throw that in there.
• 2:13
  SPEAKER_00: Why not?
• 2:14
  SPEAKER_00: Holidays coming up, get like getting Christmas shopping done, whatever.
• 2:18
  SPEAKER_00: And so that's what we think about.
• 2:19
  SPEAKER_00: But what I want to make very clear is there are normal perceived stressors like that.
• 2:26
  SPEAKER_00: And then there's the stressors we don't think about.
• 2:28
  SPEAKER_00: So I'm gonna go into that in just a moment.
• 2:31
  SPEAKER_00: But why is this so important?
• 2:33
  SPEAKER_00: Like, why are we talking about stress so much?
• 2:36
  SPEAKER_00: And it is because of the physiological and hormonal implications that it has on our body and on our goals.
• 2:44
  SPEAKER_00: So when we are trying to lose weight, we have to make sure that ducts are in a row and that our body is absolutely ready and safe to lose body fat.
• 2:55
  SPEAKER_00: Because if our body does not feel safe, it does not shed body fat.
• 2:58
  SPEAKER_00: It stores body fat for safety, literally what it does.
• 3:02
  SPEAKER_00: So if you are in a hyper stress state, it's not gonna shed anything.
• 3:06
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 3:07
  SPEAKER_00: So not only do we have to be mentally stress-free and handle mental stressors, we have to handle physical stressors and physiological stressors.
• 3:15
  SPEAKER_00: And the physiological ones are the ones that we miss.
• 3:17
  SPEAKER_00: So everyone's heard of cortisol, right?
• 3:19
  SPEAKER_00: Cortisol, um, we're not gonna deep dive into cortisol this episode.
• 3:23
  SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna give a little bit of a rundown.
• 3:25
  SPEAKER_00: But if you're not familiar with cortisol, it is a steroid that is released from the adrenal glands.
• 3:30
  SPEAKER_00: So, steroid hormone released by the adrenal glands, it is absolutely necessary.
• 3:34
  SPEAKER_00: I am not sitting here demonizing cortisol at all as like the worst thing in the world.
• 3:38
  SPEAKER_00: We need to get rid of cortisol because we don't.
• 3:40
  SPEAKER_00: It absolutely helps us in our day-to-day.
• 3:43
  SPEAKER_00: We need it, we need that adrenaline response sometimes.
• 3:47
  SPEAKER_00: What I am demonizing is chronically elevated cortisol.
• 3:51
  SPEAKER_00: So cortisol's function is to be released from the adrenal glands and it tells our body, like, oh, we're in danger, right?
• 3:57
  SPEAKER_00: Like we're being chased by a saber-toothed tiger back in the day.
• 4:01
  SPEAKER_00: So, what it does is it halts digestion, it halts processes, right?
• 4:06
  SPEAKER_00: It releases glucose so that our muscles can take up glucose so that we can actually run and have the fuel to run and do the things we need to do because we're actually in danger, right?
• 4:20
  SPEAKER_00: But if we're not actually in danger, because we have those same responses now, if we're stuck in traffic, or we have those same responses if we're super frustrated about meeting a work deadline.
• 4:33
  SPEAKER_00: And we're not actually physically doing anything when we're stuck in traffic or when we're stuck at a computer, right?
• 4:38
  SPEAKER_00: So we don't need that glucose.
• 4:40
  SPEAKER_00: We don't need that issue.
• 4:42
  SPEAKER_00: And so what that ends up doing is over time, if we keep having these stressful responses that keep releasing blood glucose, that keep making our body stay in fight or flight, we end up getting decreased insulin sensitivity.
• 4:56
  SPEAKER_00: We end up storing body fat and not be not having great digestion, not having great elimination.
• 5:02
  SPEAKER_00: Um, too high of cortisol will also halt thyroid production some.
• 5:06
  SPEAKER_00: So our metabolism will go down in that aspect.
• 5:08
  SPEAKER_00: It will also halt uh sex hormone production.
• 5:12
  SPEAKER_00: So that's where you'll start to see like menstrual irregularities when we're super stressed out and really high cortisol.
• 5:19
  SPEAKER_00: And the reason I'm I'm, you know, I don't want to get too sciencey on this because I would love to do like diagrams.
• 5:23
  SPEAKER_00: And even though I do a video component, I don't have a diagram set up right now.
• 5:27
  SPEAKER_00: I need to get a big whiteboard.
• 5:29
  SPEAKER_00: But it's all about feedback loops and negative feedback loops.
• 5:33
  SPEAKER_00: So when you think about it, like in the term of a thyroid, and I will do an episode on thyroid, your hypothalamus releases a hormone to your pituitary, which then releases to your thyroid to then release thyroid hormone.
• 5:47
  SPEAKER_00: When there's enough in the body, the body will send a signal back up to the hypothalamus to shut off that hormone so that no more is produced.
• 5:55
  SPEAKER_00: It's called a negative feedback loop.
• 5:58
  SPEAKER_00: Well, this gets halted when we have elevated cortisol, right?
• 6:02
  SPEAKER_00: Like the other processes in the body get halted.
• 6:05
  SPEAKER_00: That feedback loop does not work properly and instead shuts down sometimes the things that we need.
• 6:12
  SPEAKER_00: So we don't want to stay in a chronically elevated state.
• 6:16
  SPEAKER_00: And unfortunately, with the way the world is going right now and how much we work, how much we don't rest, how much we don't sleep, how much pressure we're under financially and just all over the place, like the American grind, right?
• 6:29
  SPEAKER_00: The hustle culture is making everyone chronically elevated.
• 6:33
  SPEAKER_00: Chronic elevation and stress.
• 6:35
  SPEAKER_00: It is, I feel it.
• 6:37
  SPEAKER_00: I know everyone's got to feel it.
• 6:38
  SPEAKER_00: So it is on us to also make sure we're decompressing and managing those stressors mentally, physically, and physiologically.
• 6:47
  SPEAKER_00: So part of the issue is the stressors we don't think about.
• 6:52
  SPEAKER_00: And that's what this podcast episode is gonna bring awareness to.
• 6:54
  SPEAKER_00: So, like I said, the normal stressors we think about are work stress, financial stress, relationship stress, family illness.
• 7:01
  SPEAKER_00: Um, illness is very stressful on the body when you're sick.
• 7:04
  SPEAKER_00: Loss of a loved one, grieving, it's it's crazy stressful.
• 7:07
  SPEAKER_00: Breakups, divorces, deadlines, moving is stressful.
• 7:11
  SPEAKER_00: Getting married and planning a wedding is stressful.
• 7:14
  SPEAKER_00: Injury is a stress on the body because it needs to repair itself.
• 7:18
  SPEAKER_00: Travel is actually very stressful on the body.
• 7:20
  SPEAKER_00: Taking yourself out of routine can be stressful on the body, depending on the person.
• 7:24
  SPEAKER_00: So these are what I consider like the normal stressors that we get from day to day.
• 7:30
  SPEAKER_00: But here's what we don't think about that's really stressful on the body.
• 7:34
  SPEAKER_00: Undereating, number one, being in a chronic deficit, a diet for long, long periods of time is extremely stressful on the body because you are throwing your body into famine.
• 7:47
  SPEAKER_00: You're you're throwing it into a famine state.
• 7:50
  SPEAKER_00: It is like unsure when it's going to get its next meal.
• 7:52
  SPEAKER_00: So it starts holding on to everything.
• 7:54
  SPEAKER_00: It's very stressed out in a famine state.
• 7:57
  SPEAKER_00: It wants enough nutrients, it wants to fuel itself appropriately.
• 8:00
  SPEAKER_00: When it doesn't, it has to start reserving what it gets and energy conservation across the body.
• 8:06
  SPEAKER_00: Um, we burn less calories, et cetera.
• 8:08
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, our metabolism drops, it is in full energy conservation mode.
• 8:12
  SPEAKER_00: So under eating is very stressful on the body.
• 8:14
  SPEAKER_00: Overtraining or training in general is stressful on the body, but we don't think about over-training.
• 8:19
  SPEAKER_00: And when we hear, you know, I'm doing five to six HIT workouts a week at Orange Theory, or I'm working out six days a week, or no rest days, I don't have any rest days, that is super stressful on the body.
• 8:29
  SPEAKER_00: We're not giving the body enough time to recover and readapt and kind of restore itself so that we can be better for the next session.
• 8:36
  SPEAKER_00: It's very taxing.
• 8:38
  SPEAKER_00: Poor sleep is very stressful on the body.
• 8:41
  SPEAKER_00: It's really normal now to sleep like five or six hours and get up and go about your life.
• 8:46
  SPEAKER_00: And unfortunately, I say that a lot, and unfortunately, uh, that's not it at all.
• 8:51
  SPEAKER_00: Seven, eight hours is absolutely necessary.
• 8:54
  SPEAKER_00: Minimum, minimum, just because hustle culture tells you you need to wake up at 5 a.m., you don't.
• 8:59
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 9:00
  SPEAKER_00: If 5 a.m.
• 9:00
  SPEAKER_00: is the only time that you can wake up to go work out because of, you know, your day, dropping kids off at school, work, et cetera, I totally get it.
• 9:08
  SPEAKER_00: But then we need to make sure we're going to bed at proper at proper times.
• 9:12
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 9:12
  SPEAKER_00: And if you're a new mom and poor sleep is something that's happening, it's just par for the course at that point.
• 9:17
  SPEAKER_00: Like obviously you're going to ebb and flow into these seasons, but just be mindful that this is stressful on the body.
• 9:23
  SPEAKER_00: So if we're dealing with poor sleep and we don't have much control over it, we need to control the other aspects, right?
• 9:30
  SPEAKER_00: So another thing that we don't think about is an inflammatory diet.
• 9:33
  SPEAKER_00: So highly processed, refined carbs and sugars, um, uh, lots of fried food, lots of just inflammatory ingredients that we know are not good for us, excessive alcohol consumption, not good for us.
• 9:46
  SPEAKER_00: Alcohol is a poison, right?
• 9:48
  SPEAKER_00: So if we're eating a poor diet, we're not getting any veggies, micronutrients, fruit, nothing like that in, lots of alcohol, our body's not going to be in a happy place.
• 9:56
  SPEAKER_00: It's very stressful of the body to process things like that all the time.
• 10:00
  SPEAKER_00: Smoking is very stressful.
• 10:02
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, I think that should be a given.
• 10:03
  SPEAKER_00: It's 2022.
• 10:04
  SPEAKER_00: I think we need to get rid of all vapes and cigarettes.
• 10:06
  SPEAKER_00: Like it's at this point.
• 10:07
  SPEAKER_00: We all know it's extremely bad for us.
• 10:08
  SPEAKER_00: What are we doing?
• 10:09
  SPEAKER_00: What are we doing?
• 10:10
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, I'm being judgmental.
• 10:12
  SPEAKER_00: I'm sorry.
• 10:13
  SPEAKER_00: Not sorry.
• 10:14
  SPEAKER_00: As a pharmacist, like smoking is horrible.
• 10:18
  SPEAKER_00: And then something else we don't think about are poorly managed disease states.
• 10:21
  SPEAKER_00: So let's say poorly managed high blood pressure or poorly managed diabetes, thyroid, et cetera.
• 10:27
  SPEAKER_00: Our body is constantly trying to get us back into homeostasis and regulation.
• 10:31
  SPEAKER_00: And when it can't do that, it's overtaxed.
• 10:34
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 10:35
  SPEAKER_00: So now that I just listed all those things we don't think about, I want you, if you're sitting here listening, being like, okay, so in under the norm that she mentioned, with like work, financial holiday, whatever, I feel pretty stressed.
• 10:47
  SPEAKER_00: And then I'm also doing three out of the eight things that she just named.
• 10:52
  SPEAKER_00: Like, holy crap, I'm probably putting my body through a cascade of cortisol release, and this is why I'm staying so so hyper-elevated.
• 11:02
  SPEAKER_00: And another thing that I didn't even mention that I want to mention is sometimes, sometimes, and I get it too, because I even say this in in like for people who know me, I do thrive in chaos.
• 11:14
  SPEAKER_00: I do well in chaos.
• 11:16
  SPEAKER_00: And when things are crazy, I think it might be the fine, the pharmacy environment, it might have been my childhood, it might have been something, who knows?
• 11:23
  SPEAKER_00: But like when everything's happening at once and I have to be under a time crunch and I'm pressured, I work very well.
• 11:30
  SPEAKER_00: That is a stress addiction.
• 11:32
  SPEAKER_00: That is not good to be under that.
• 11:35
  SPEAKER_00: So it's taken me a lot of work to kind of back up and rest and stop with the dopamine hits, right?
• 11:43
  SPEAKER_00: Like scrolling social media or looking for that next fix.
• 11:45
  SPEAKER_00: If you can't sit and read a page of a book without getting distracted or checking your phone, we might be addicted to like a stress response and a shorter attention span and ADD and all that stuff.
• 11:56
  SPEAKER_00: It's not even attention deficit anymore.
• 11:58
  SPEAKER_00: It's just we're so used to this chaotic environment and living in this way.
• 12:02
  SPEAKER_00: And I've actually had a lot of clients who I've had these conversations with, whose life is like go, go, go, go constantly.
• 12:08
  SPEAKER_00: They're doing a bunch of HIT workouts, they're under-eating.
• 12:10
  SPEAKER_00: They're like, no, I don't feel stressed at all.
• 12:11
  SPEAKER_00: I feel amazing.
• 12:12
  SPEAKER_00: And it's usually, and we work with women, so men, I'm sorry if you're listening to this, but it's usually hyper-functioning, very successful women who are like, nah, I'm totally good.
• 12:21
  SPEAKER_00: Like, I love this stuff.
• 12:23
  SPEAKER_00: I don't feel stressed at all.
• 12:25
  SPEAKER_00: You are.
• 12:26
  SPEAKER_00: You are though.
• 12:27
  SPEAKER_00: And it's that type A that is the stressor.
• 12:30
  SPEAKER_00: It is.
• 12:31
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 12:32
  SPEAKER_00: I am guilty of this 1000%.
• 12:36
  SPEAKER_00: 1000% I am guilty of this.
• 12:38
  SPEAKER_00: And, you know, I owe a lot of my success to that type of personality, but it does not help my adrenals.
• 12:45
  SPEAKER_00: It does not help my thyroid.
• 12:47
  SPEAKER_00: It does not help if I have specific health goals that I'm trying to work on.
• 12:51
  SPEAKER_00: So this is how stress severely impacts us and why we need to manage it so carefully.
• 12:59
  SPEAKER_00: So maybe, like I said, there's things on the list that you cannot change, right?
• 13:03
  SPEAKER_00: So we're going to focus on what we can.
• 13:05
  SPEAKER_00: And sometimes, you know, that'll that'll with clients that comes with bartering.
• 13:09
  SPEAKER_00: So I'm like, okay, you're doing CrossFit four days a week, but you're undereating, but you're, you know, not sleeping well, or we have some other stressors going on.
• 13:17
  SPEAKER_00: I was like, I will barter with you that if we can raise your calories and get you to this amount and you can be consistent and we can start working on your sleep, you can keep the CrossFit for four days.
• 13:28
  SPEAKER_00: If we cannot do that, we are dropping back your training because CrossFit is high-intensity interval training too.
• 13:35
  SPEAKER_00: It's very taxing on the body.
• 13:36
  SPEAKER_00: So we have to balance things in order to do the stressful things that we love sometimes.
• 13:43
  SPEAKER_00: If we want to go into a diet, if it's time for a cutting phase and we want to go into a diet, we have to manage our mental stressors.
• 13:50
  SPEAKER_00: We have to make sure we're feeling good.
• 13:52
  SPEAKER_00: We have to make sure our training is just right.
• 13:54
  SPEAKER_00: We don't want to be going through a divorce or moving or, you know, any of those things when we're trying to put our body into a cutting phase.
• 14:00
  SPEAKER_00: It's not going to go over well.
• 14:02
  SPEAKER_00: For example, I have a client who is an accountant and we tried cutting during tax season.
• 14:09
  SPEAKER_00: No, it was not working well for this client.
• 14:12
  SPEAKER_00: We actually ended up coming right out of it in reversing and taking a little bit of a break until tax season was over.
• 14:18
  SPEAKER_00: And then we could go into a cut and be successful.
• 14:21
  SPEAKER_00: But she was very stressed with deadlines and work and all the things at work.
• 14:25
  SPEAKER_00: And it was just making the cut not a fun experience.
• 14:29
  SPEAKER_00: And her body was very much stressed to the point where we weren't losing, we were gaining in a cut, which is not supposed to happen.
• 14:36
  SPEAKER_00: So this is where we have to make sure the diet before the diet and is our body ready for a cut before we go into it.
• 14:42
  SPEAKER_00: I think I have done a podcast on that actually.
• 14:46
  SPEAKER_00: So, all in all, stress is not bad.
• 14:49
  SPEAKER_00: We need stress, we need adrenaline, we need cortisol, but we need to also be cognizant and aware of the things that stress our body out that we don't take into account, like training, under-eating, the types of food we're eating, etc.
• 15:03
  SPEAKER_00: So now that we have that full picture, we can then begin to see how stressed we are and then work on those areas to make them better.
• 15:12
  SPEAKER_00: So whether that's yoga, journaling, meditation, breath work, painting, walks in nature, um, going outside in the sunshine, grounding, like walking barefoot in the grass.
• 15:23
  SPEAKER_00: If you're in a cold area, I don't think I recommend that for snow.
• 15:26
  SPEAKER_00: But doing a hobby you enjoy so that you can decompress, getting out on the water, going in the mountains, hiking, coloring, painting, dancing to music, anything that kind of gets you to calm down a little bit and get in a zone that doesn't have your brain overthinking and being crazy.
• 15:45
  SPEAKER_00: And no, that doesn't mean sitting and watching Netflix while scrolling your phone.
• 15:49
  SPEAKER_00: That is not a decompression mental state at all.
• 15:53
  SPEAKER_00: Not at all.
• 15:54
  SPEAKER_00: Pets, oh my God, I just thought of Finley.
• 15:56
  SPEAKER_00: I was like, pets are really good for reducing stress and petting an animal, really helpful.
• 15:59
  SPEAKER_00: Get a puppy.
• 16:01
  SPEAKER_00: I'm just kidding.
• 16:02
  SPEAKER_00: But doing something like that to manage perceived stress.
• 16:06
  SPEAKER_00: And then the other stuff that we don't think about, making sure we're taking rest days at the gym, making sure we're taking breaks from dieting.
• 16:13
  SPEAKER_00: We don't want to be dieting all the time.
• 16:15
  SPEAKER_00: We need to give our body a break, sleeping minimum, seven to eight hours, eating more micronutrients like fruits, vegetables, fiber, toning down the alcohol consumption if it is a little excessive.
• 16:27
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I mean, there's different regulations for everyone.
• 16:29
  SPEAKER_00: And what excessive is, I do know that more than one drink for women a day is not recommended.
• 16:35
  SPEAKER_00: Even that is not really healthy nowadays.
• 16:37
  SPEAKER_00: So just be mindful of what you're choosing and how much you're choosing.
• 16:41
  SPEAKER_00: No smoking, no smoking.
• 16:43
  SPEAKER_00: And then, you know, making sure we're managing our disease states appropriately and you know, we're on the right medication or our dietary lifestyle changes are great so that we're managing those maybe without medication and we're not neglecting those.
• 16:56
  SPEAKER_00: So what I see clients struggle with the most, or just anyone struggle with the most, is taking the time for themselves to decompress, especially if we have kids, family members, the holidays coming up, even if it is three to five minutes alone in the morning, taking some deep breaths, doing the breath work, doing a three-minute meditation, anything like that can be really, really helpful for setting up the day.
• 17:21
  SPEAKER_00: Also, changing our mindset is really important.
• 17:24
  SPEAKER_00: So we're not going to talk about mindset on this episode, but something that does help with stress and tone down mental stress sometimes when we're like really, really unhappy with you know what's going on or how things are working out is doing a gratitude journal in the morning or at night.
• 17:40
  SPEAKER_00: That can sometimes relieve stress because focusing on gratitude and positive things will help ease cortisol production and just the fight or flight we feel when we're not in the state that we want to feel.
• 17:50
  SPEAKER_00: So definitely managing that.
• 17:52
  SPEAKER_00: Cold showers.
• 17:53
  SPEAKER_00: I'm just throwing out ideas here, guys.
• 17:55
  SPEAKER_00: You know how this podcast rolls.
• 17:56
  SPEAKER_00: Cold showers are also an amazing way to build up stress resiliency because if anyone's done a cold shower, you know they're not fun.
• 18:05
  SPEAKER_00: You know that sucks.
• 18:07
  SPEAKER_00: It's very difficult.
• 18:09
  SPEAKER_00: But it really does help with your immune function and building up stress resiliency.
• 18:14
  SPEAKER_00: Because if you can stand there when something is wildly uncomfortable and become somewhat numb to it or comfortable just for the fact that you're doing it and then increase over time, right?
• 18:23
  SPEAKER_00: So start at like 14 seconds and build up to 30 seconds and then a minute, et cetera.
• 18:27
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, you can then manage other stressors better because you know how to mentally or emotionally tune out and just mentally tune in to being like, I'm okay, we're gonna make it.
• 18:39
  SPEAKER_00: This is really uncomfortable, but I'm sitting here and I'm doing well.
• 18:42
  SPEAKER_00: That's what we need to focus on, not super heightened emotions anymore or letting that stress get to us.
• 18:50
  SPEAKER_00: So um, I hope this you know episode was informative with the stressors and kind of just brought some awareness to how stress really does affect us and why it affects us and why we care about it so much in coaching plans.
• 19:04
  SPEAKER_00: If you are working with someone who is not asking about your stress levels, not taking into account what things are stressing you out in your life, or how to manage those, or giving you tips for those, or if they're just telling you to like meditate and that's it, like we're not taking diet breaks, we're not focusing on training, we're not anything like that.
• 19:25
  SPEAKER_00: I'd be a little scared because that's not the whole picture.
• 19:29
  SPEAKER_00: We need the whole picture.
• 19:30
  SPEAKER_00: And stress is so underrated these days because it not only affects our weight loss goals and our muscle building goals.
• 19:39
  SPEAKER_00: For example, for myself, I couldn't put on weight because I was so stressed and my body was just ripping through everything I gave it to keep me in constant fight or flight for months.
• 19:50
  SPEAKER_00: For months, y'all.
• 19:52
  SPEAKER_00: I was up to 350, 400 grams of carbs, and my body was just using it for energy because I was so heightened and like high strung for so long.
• 20:02
  SPEAKER_00: It was not great.
• 20:03
  SPEAKER_00: It was not good.
• 20:04
  SPEAKER_00: So we don't want to get to this point.
• 20:06
  SPEAKER_00: We want to stop it before we get to this point.
• 20:08
  SPEAKER_00: We want to be aware of it and we want to do the things we need to do to get better in that area so that we can be the healthiest and best version of ourselves.
• 20:19
  SPEAKER_00: So I think this was a little short digestible episode.
• 20:22
  SPEAKER_00: I hope you guys enjoyed it.
• 20:23
  SPEAKER_00: Let me know your thoughts as always.
• 20:25
  SPEAKER_00: Tag me, screenshot, all the things.
• 20:27
  SPEAKER_00: And um, I'm interested to know if you guys want me to talk about any specific topics.
• 20:31
  SPEAKER_00: If you do, just shoot me a DM on Instagram, be like, hey, Ashley, you have a question about this?
• 20:36
  SPEAKER_00: Can you please talk about this one week?
• 20:38
  SPEAKER_00: I am always open for that.
• 20:40
  SPEAKER_00: So thank you guys, have an amazing week, and I'll see you next time.