Latest / For the Love of Hormones- Miscarriage, Hormone Balance, Progesterone, TTC, Cycle Tracking, Conception, Holistic Health / 208 | "Eat Less, Move More" Is Hurting Your Fertility: A Faith-Based Approach to Nourishment
Transcript
- Coryn and Crysanne: When you put God into it, He shows you your true purpose in life. And then you work for your health for that purpose. So instead of I need to be a size two and I need to be 120 pounds, it's I need to be the most present mom, wife, daughter. And I wanna be there for them. I wanna be able to pick up my kids with no problem. I don't wanna have back issues. I wanna be able to go to the grocery store and pick up a huge Costco haul and take it into my house and not have a problem. You start training for that. And that's what makes all the difference. Bekah Yawn: Hey sister, welcome to For the Love of Hormones. Have you been trying to get pregnant and are struggling to trust God's timing? Has a miscarriage made you question if you can carry a healthy pregnancy? Hey, I'm Becca. I'm a wife, stay-at-home mom, and daughter of God. I have four children here on earth and three babies in heaven. After our third miscarriage, I left the doctor's office feeling hopeless and really helpless. Until God revealed what I was missing, understanding my cycle and his design and how to support it Since my healing journey, God has blessed us with two more healthy daughters. In this podcast, you will find answers to your hormone, cycle, and holistic health questions so that you can get pregnant naturally with God and the driver's seat. So for the love of put that pregnancy test stick down because it's time for a come to Jesus in hormones meeting. Bekah: Okay, guys, we have two special guests today. We have a mother-daughter duo, Corinne Brown and Christianne Clay. they are a coaching team in the Voices Behind Her Healthy Body podcast. They have over 20 years of combined experience working with women both in person and online, and they specialize in strength training, protein-focused nutrition, and helping women rebuild their health after years of diet culture and extremes, all while keeping God at the center. So Corinne and Chrissanne, thank you so much for joining us and so happy to have you all here. Coryn and Crysanne: Thank you for having us. Yes, thank you so much. I'm excited. Bekah: Yes. so let's just kind of kick off with hearing from both of you. Tell us a little bit about who you are and why you're doing the work that you're doing. Coryn and Crysanne: Well, my name's Chrissanne. I have 55 years old. I've been in the fitness industry, my gosh, 20 plus years. and I have seen it and done it all. So there's nothing that you can surprise me with. And my influence, I used to train people from my home, so my influence was very big on my daughter, and she saw this growing up and and joined me. Yeah, I think I was around fourteen years old whenever I started going to the gym with my mom and it actually became a really like safe space for me. I really enjoyed it and we had a really healthy relationship with it until we didn't. We kind of fed off of each other and went down a really bad rabbit hole of just following any diet, culture, wellness, whatever you name it. We've tried it, we've done it and it caused A lot of health issues, a lot of bad relationships with food and ourselves throughout that journey. And whenever we started working together at a gym that is by our house, we were putting this women through it as well. And we were noticing like these women are going through the same cycle that we are, and we're trying to help them and we're making it worse. So we learned so much from our early years as trainers. And when we started our podcast for healthy body and our business. We are now teaching women that it doesn't have to be this difficult. it doesn't have to be something that we have to constantly be thinking about. Think people think when they think fitness trainers or health and fitness, they think they have to make it their entire life. And it is just such a small part of our life now. And really invited God into this process as well to make it full circle and to make it something that is enjoyable. For every single woman out there, that this can be easy and this can be doable and it's not something that we have to hate and look at as just like, you know, foods foods are bland or working out sucks, like, sorry, stinks. And go ahead. And honestly, I think Quinn and I, we We worked with enough women and hear everything of what they're struggling with. And we too struggled with the same exact things. And I'm glad that we did struggle with them because we can totally relate with them. I know in my own personal struggle, I am typical, fell into the diet culture of eat less, move more. And it's really caused a lot of hormonal issues for me. It's caused a lot of. gut issues for me especially. And it's just like we now, because we were always chasing the skinny. That's all we ever did. Like we would say we wanted healthy fit body, but really all we really wanted was to be skinny. Well we really wanted to do was lose weight. And it's very toxic way of looking at health and fitness. So as much as you would think that You know, we we would say health and fitness, it really was to lose weight. And that's where it all went wrong. And that's what we discovered. Cause as soon as we got out of that mindset, and that was that was inviting God into our journey. God gave us purpose for our lives. God having a faith showed us that we're just so much more than what we look like. And once we embraced that, then we started to see the all the other things that we were wanting. That was coming naturally and it was easy. And we just couldn't wait to A, get back all the clients that we had and messed up, and B just tell women this is doable. Bekah: Yeah. That's amazing. That's a really powerful story that you guys have together. can you talk through I guess what were just share more about like the hard things that you guys fell into? and and just speak more to like the the diet and the workout cultures maybe that you guys found yourselves in that were not working for you. Coryn and Crysanne: Well, there's a lot of diets, and we would be here for another three hours if I told you every diet that I've tried. She calls me a squirrel. And it would be like something would work for five days. All of a sudden I wasn't seeing any progress. And I'm like, on to the next thing. but the danger what happened was it was all the restriction, Becca. It was I came from a background of anorexia. When I was in high school, I didn't I grew up in the eighties and nineties, and it was so much low fat extra like running was huge, low fat was huge, and none of it worked, and it was very hard. To eat low fat bland foods and to do cardio constantly was very hard to do, and it really didn't work for me. but I got my tonsils out and I couldn't eat for a few weeks and I lost weight and I was like, light bulb, this is easy. It's just easy to not eat. And this is where my I didn't think I had an eating disorder, but I did. because when you get down to, you know, 80 some pounds and you're five foot seven in high school, that's pretty scary. That's you know, it's a scary place. I had people would gasp when they saw me. And I enjoyed it. That was really that's the sick part. That's that's the disease. So I came from a very unhealthy background with food. And I am now 55 years old. And I literally it took me decades of doing the same abusive things to myself over and over to finally realize, and it took a faith in God too, to finally realize this is not health and fitness. This is not what this should look like. and I now unfortunately was able to get pregnant, which I was so grateful for because that was just my whole goal in my life was to have kids and I wanted a lot of them. Unfortunately, because of my abuse of the diet culture, of thinking I need to always eat less and move more, because that's the answer to everything, right? Because of that, I suffered a lot of gut issues. And with that, I was able to to have Corinne. I was twenty-four years old when I had Corinne and it was it wasn't a smooth pregnancy, but it was it was doable. But right after that, my gut really, really got bad, like very bad. And I wasn't able to get pregnant again for another six years, even though we wanted to have more kids in between. I had to I just had a such a bad gut that my health was in danger, so I couldn't do it. and I also have very low iron, which was real dangerous too. But that was just the constant under-eating. That's you know, that was I was never eating enough. That's what I was gonna bring up. Any of these diets, whatever name they are, intermittent fasting, keto, low carb, whatever it is. All it comes down to is they are extremely low calorie and they are detrimental to our hormones, and especially women, and it causes a lot of. problems that we don't think of because we just think calories in, calories out. And on the workout standpoint, they're telling us to just do as much cardio as possible because that's the way that we're gonna lose fat the quickest. So we're focusing on very low restriction with our calories through whatever diet you're doing and then doing as much cardio as you can. And what that does to women's hormones is detrimental. And it can be very hard to get pregnant whenever we are following the diet culture advice like this. Bekah: Yeah. Yeah, from my standpoint too as a hormone coach, I can say I've had a few women who come to me and that's what they're doing. They're restricted eating and they are working out like crazy or they are just literally not stopping to or they're they're continuing to move all day long, in really strenuous ways. And What this presents as with fertility is it burns their hormones out. So typically their estrogen's low, their testosterone's low, their progesterone's low, they're probably not ovulating or they're really struggling to ovulate because if we're not nourishing our body, you know, it all comes down to a cellular level. Our cells are made of fat. And so if we are literally starving our body, those hormones cannot land on those cells. And so they can't. be produced and they can't function and go where they need to go to function and and do the jobs that they need to do. So yeah, so that's a little bit of like a physiological hormonal speakey there. and I can totally resonate with that. So talk to me about what was the wake up call that you had this like intersection or intervention with God, it sounds like, that really got you guys to be like, this this isn't right. And maybe this is or how did he show you that? How did he speak to you? I'd love to hear more about that. Coryn and Crysanne: So stress was stress was an understatement for my life from the beginning with the eating disorders and you know, eat little, be little. I had gone through, unfortunately, I was married for 28 years and my husband decided to leave me. And I already at that time Becca was working with a doctor on my stress and my my health issues to get better when that when that happened, when he left me. So the stress factor was something that was out of my control. And I didn't have anywhere to go and I knew my health was going down. That my thyroid crashed, my hair was falling out. I cannot eat anything other than meat at this point because I can't digest anything. That's how bad it it affected my gut. and I had nowhere to go. I could have, I wanted to numb myself completely because it was just so devastating. I wanted to numb myself completely, but I did, I just knew I had so much stress that was just going to cause more stress. You know, alcohol is going to cause more stress. Sleeping pills were not going to give me the sleep that I needed. I didn't want to go that route. Fortunately, I I I was, I was kind of a lukewarm Christian at that point. Like I always had God in my heart to a point, but I never let him lead my life. It took that for him to wake me up. And, you know, we all have that one moment. And it I just, you know, I was in prayer with this whole situation. And he gave me, he answered me. He he gave me peace. And I wanted more of that. So I at that point just threw myself into knowing him and what he had to say to me. And through that, I got so much peace. I got Bekah: Mm. Coryn and Crysanne: so much clarity. I got so much healing. And I was going through a divorce. I moved four times. I built two homes. My father passed away. And my mom is not well enough to live on her own. So I took her in. With all of that and a big career change, with all of that, I remained in peace, but it was only through my faith. And that was that was my big wake-up moment as far as my faith goes. And then my health started to turn around because of it. Right. And watching her go through this, you know, anyone, I mean everyone out there goes through a very hard time. And it's weird how you think, how do you connect this to health and fitness? But You don't have to be going through all of that in order to start inviting God into your journey. You could just be really struggling with I am so obsessed with my body. And that's what we were struggling with. We were making skinny our idol. And it sometimes does take a huge wake-up call of your health to completely deteriorate for you to wake up like it was for her. but for another person, it could just be I am so exhausted of starting over and starting over, and something needs to change with this. And when we started inviting God into this journey, it gave us so much peace. And it really was the turnaround point of my gosh, everyone needs to learn how to do this because if you're just doing this on your own, you're gonna follow the world's way. The world is going to tell you. To focus on your body, to focus on your success through what you look like. Your looks are everything. When you put God into it, He shows you your true purpose in life. And then you work for your health for that purpose. So instead of I need to be a size two and I need to be 120 pounds, it's I need to be the most present mom, wife, daughter. And I wanna be there for them. I wanna be able to pick up my kids with no problem. I don't wanna have back issues. I wanna be able to go to the grocery store and pick up a huge Costco haul and take it into my house and not have a problem. You start training for that. And that's what makes all the difference. Bekah: Yeah. Amen. Like I'm like, yeah, yeah, that's good. that is so incredible. And I love how that the the Lord He took you guys through this. and Chris Ann I'm so sorry for what you went through. that's so difficult and we see how God has used that for his glory with what you guys are doing now and how you're serving women. so it's incredible. Can you talk us through? I guess first let's talk about nutrition. So, what were some of the things that the Lord showed you guys that you know, you've we've talked about kind of the lies and undernourishing and restricting. What were some of the good things that he showed you to direct y'all and the woman that you serve in a positive way, in a way that the Lord's designed for us to nourish ourselves? Coryn and Crysanne: Gotta eat in and eat real whole food and especially protein. We'll always throw that in. I feel that I have to nourish myself. I don't have a choice with the stress that I had gone through. If I undereat one day, I don't sleep. I the connection between nutrition and stress was a reality for me, and the connection between stress and and our in our health was so real. So with stress, I know, you know, it it's hard to talk about stress because we all are going to experience stress. We all go through it and we can't get rid of it. It's here. But it's just nourishing ourselves in a way to handle that stress, not cause more stress with how we're nourishing ourselves. Highly processed food is going to stress our bodies out. There's no nutritional, there's very, very little nutritional value in highly processed foods. It makes us feel good, it tastes good, and our mouths are satisfied, but our bodies are saying, Whoa, what's this? I don't know what this is. And it's stressing the body because it doesn't know how to process it and it's not getting the nutrition, so it keeps wanting for more. So it's just how we overeat. And that goes to like the processed health foods, all of the protein bars, the keto bread, the keto wraps, like all of these things are highly processed as well. And they have, you know, they claim that they have 15 grams of fiber and it's all fake fibers. Our body doesn't know what to do with it. So it's when it comes to nutrition, we have to nourish our body because when we're not, we are stressing our body out, like she had said, it helps with our entire hormonal profile. And when She was saying, especially protein, this is a thing that's going to satiate our body. And this is why it's important. Protein and fiber are going to be the two most important things. because they dictate everything on how we're feeling throughout the day. If we are waking up barely having any energy, going to coffee for the first thing, not having any water, not having any breakfast, and then maybe, you know, in the afternoon you end up having something that's like a bagel and cream cheese. That is just constant caffeine stressing the body out, constant blood sugar crashes from the bagel and not getting actual nourishing food that our body needs. And it is so much easier said than done because I know so many people live that way right now and they're wondering, why do I feel this way? Because I used to I used to not whenever I did this ten years ago, but now I can barely get through the day. so protein and fiber starting that first thing, breakfast, lunch and dinner are going to be So important and such a game changer for just how you're feeling. And there's so it's Bekah: Yeah, absolutely. Coryn and Crysanne: it's so intimidating, Whole Foods, right? We have to prepare it and we're so busy. And this is where, with our coaching, this is where we can give so many simple solutions to that and simple little tweaks to help people not feel so overwhelmed because Whole Foods requires preparation. It's not like you can just go in and, you know, open up a packet of something and eat it right away. We do need to have some forethought. But it's not as hard as people think. Because I I know when you have to prepare meals, that's just another stress. And I've been there. I've had two littles at home and a full time job and like just so and and a husband that was traveling all the time. I know what it's like. And it it's so easy just to Do the packaged food. But this is just it's it's a whole food is way, it's way easier than what people think. Bekah: Yeah. Yeah, for sure. we've we've discovered that, you know. we do some kind of meal prep you know, maybe a couple times a month and we have the fresh food for a week and then we bring out the frozen, you know, from what we prepared. Coryn and Crysanne: Mm-hmm. Bekah: So it just takes a couple times a month. But it depends. Like everybody, we all have seasons and it doesn't have to be the same thing every time. but I just love what you guys are saying and I echo it to the moon and back of Whole Foods. And I love the just the mentality of like it's going to take some time to prepare this. And how worthwhile is it for us to feel good and for our bodies to do what the Lord designed them to do? And if we're not nourishing well, then they're not gonna do what God designed them to do. So now let's bring in the exercise piece to this, and I'd love to hear y'all's input on. we discussed you discussed earlier about how the over cardio and and really heavy and intense exercise, you know, coupled with the restrictive eating, not a great combination. So what have you guys found that works what is it that works really well in Y'all's coaching? Coryn and Crysanne: So when it comes to just exercise in general, movement, I'll start there, is going to be so much more important than focusing on cardio. Just moving your body throughout the day. I think a lot of women just think, I only have time to do this workout class, so I'm gonna give it my all and go all out for like 45 minutes, and then I'm not gonna do anything the rest of the day. And that's not gonna be as beneficial for you than just moving throughout the day by Cleaning your house, taking a a walk around the block, whenever you are sitting for a while at your desk, getting up and doing 10 squats, like that does so much for your body that we don't realize. And us as a s as a society are very stagnant. We're getting around two thousand steps average, which we sh Which is obviously very low, our body thrives on getting around 8,000 to 10,000 steps. This is what's gonna give us more energy. It's going to make us feel better. We're gonna actually want to do more because when you're sitting at your desk all day and you're not moving at all, you're exhausted. You're mentally exhausted. And the last thing you're gonna wanna do is actually go to a workout and go move your body. So when you start moving your body first thing in the morning just by simply walking your dog around the block. That actually helps your body get moving and wanting to do more and more and releasing more dopamine of like, I can do this, I can do the laundry now, I can cook some food, I can dance in the kitchen with my kids. Like it's just little things like that that you don't realize make such a big difference. And weightlifting. We are, I will preach that to the moon and back, weightlifting, because I love the fact of since I came from such a strict, like Always stricting myself. I I'm now focusing on building myself. And when you focus on building muscle, this does everything. It does so much for your hormones, it does so much for your blood sugar, it does so much for your stress. So when you are giving the signal, weightlifting gives the signal to your muscles to grow. Cardio gives the signal to your to your body of. Efficiency. So we want our we want to give the signal to our body to grow muscle. And the more muscle we have on our body, the more we can have a little bit of donut if we want it. Like it's it's a place where when you have muscle in your body, it's a place for the the carbs to go when you eat them. So it actually will help you in your metabolism. when you have more muscle on your body. So we go from a restrictive mind thinking with exercise of just trying to get small and skinny to we want to build and we want to build muscle. And this is this all comes full circle with just a healthier outlook on what health and fitness looks like. Because now because I want to build muscle, now I want to eat the healthy foods that help me build muscle. And then with weight training, we're not doing weight training. And then like this is how we used to be, and it didn't work. but we we it never worked for building muscle. We would just do these like, you know, we would do some squats say and then in between those squats, we would do some lunge hops or jump squats, you know, just kind of we're gonna get our cardio in and we're also gonna lift weights. But it was like it was it was destroying the weightlifting. It was destroying our efforts of everything. So now it's and it's so it's such good news in a sense too because you don't have to do a lot. And this is what like I literally do two compound exercises a day, which is just like your squats, your overhead presses. It's just like using multiple body parts for one lift. And I literally do that like 15 to 20 minutes a day. And the it's it's less stress on the body. It's easy to do. Our clients love it. They absolutely love it because who doesn't have 15 minutes? And if you didn't that day, it's so much e it's so easy to think, okay, well I could just add that on to the next day. So it takes a lot of the stress of having to go to the gym or, you know, and be in there for hours at a time and taking time away from your family. So weightlifting isn't something that we have to carve out a whole day for it. Like it's something that is just you do a couple movements and it's very, it's a less stress on the body. Bekah: Yeah. That's awesome. It's such a huge encouragement. And I totally vouch for what you guys are doing and how you're encouraging the weightlifting and the healthy movement in general. It's extremely doable. Everybody can do that. And there is a lot of research too about weightlifting, supporting your hormones and your testosterone, which talks with your estrogen and that's gonna support your ovulation and then your luteal phase and all of that. So everybody listening, tune in. Keep listening to Corinne and Christian. those are wonderful tidbits that you guys have shared. So thank you. so for I would love to hear both of y'all's, I guess, final words of encouragement for the woman who is just like having a plain old hard time. Like, you know, she's been, you guys have been in her shoes. We talked a little bit before, Corinne. You didn't get to share on here about the weight that you guys had for a couple of years of infertility. but it can be hard in seasons when you're trying to figure out what to do, you're trying to find the answers of, you know, why we're not getting pregnant or why we're going through a miscarriage. And it can feel overwhelming to think of like, and how do I think about like diet and exercise on top of that? So you guys have shared so many incredible things here, but what would be your final encouragement to that woman? Coryn and Crysanne: Say that this doesn't have to be something that is so daunting and everything that we had talked about, a lot of you guys are already doing it. It's just making those little tweaks to actually send the signals to your body to start working with your body again instead of working against it. We are always in a punishment mode when you invite God into this journey, when you surrender everything to Him, and when you start making decisions that are just going to make you Healthier, have more energy, your body knows how to talk to you. It's and if your body's not talking to you in the right way by feeling crappy, not having energy, that's where we know that there's there might be something wrong. And that and it's a beautiful thing because we can then fix that. but it's just listen to God, ask Him, lead me in what I want to make this morning for breakfast, how I want to move my body today. And instead of doing it out of punishment because we think that we need to look a certain way. yeah, sometimes I know in that moment going through what you're saying as far as like you just feel stuck. I know I used to think that my body was broken and I was some type of exception that, you know, it's just not gonna work for me. Like I can't lose the weight, or I can't get pregnant, or you know, it's it's it's not that your body is broken. It's just we need to learn how to we need to learn how to communicate with it. And we need to the insides want to communicate with each other as far as blood sugar, as far as stress, as far as all these things. And there's little tweaks we can make that our body will start getting it and start thinking, I'm safe. And I think that's the biggest thing that we want to tell our bodies that I'm safe and I'm not broken. And the little things we do in the day can speak so much, and that rewires the inside. And then all of a sudden things start to work. Like, yeah, it's it's just pretty much rewiring the inside, but and it's not as hard as you think. It's actually pretty easy, and it's actually good news because it's peaceful. It's not chaotic, it's not punishment. it's not starving yourself and it's not eating. Chicken breasts, broccoli and rice, bland. It's it's actually good news. and we don't we don't want anyone to think that they're not fixable because they are. Bekah: Right. Amen. beautiful encouragements, you guys. I'm so thankful for y'all just coming on and sharing. Can you share with our listeners where they can find you and how they can learn more from you? Coryn and Crysanne: Yeah. we our podcast is called Her Healthy Body. I believe it is on all platforms you can listen to Apple's Apple Podcasts, Spotify. and we do have a Facebook community as well. If you just search under groups in Facebook and just type in Her Healthy Body, we're there too. Bekah: Awesome. Thank you guys so much. What a treat to get to hear from y'all and just learn from you and be encouraged by you. So let me pray over you guys and the work that y'all are doing and over our listeners. Lord Jesus, we just come before you and God, we thank you so much for how you've used the the dark and hard spots in Corinne and Chris Anne's lives to just show yourself even brighter to them and to all the people that they are serving. Thank you, God, for the peace that they are bringing to just this very big part of our lives of what we're eating and how we're moving our bodies. Thank you for the wisdom and knowledge that you've given them. And I just pray a blessing over them and their ministry and their business, Lord, that they would continue to do your good work there. And Lord, I just lift up my sisters in Christ who are listening and I pray that you would encourage them, Father, just from the peace and the enlightenment of this episode. And that you would direct their steps and that they would be able to move in a way that is good for them and eat in a way that that is good for them and their hormones and their ovulation and that they would just gain so much encouragement from today's episode. please bless them and heal them and restore them and grant them new life in you. We pray all these things in your holy name. Amen.