Have you ever felt lost in your weight loss journey, overwhelmed by conflicting advice and struggling to find what truly works for you? Join me as I sit down with Tori, a remarkable woman who faced her own battles with weight gain and health challenges, particularly during the tumultuous year of 2021. Tori's story is one of resilience and transformation, illustrating the critical importance of personalized health strategies for women navigating midlife changes.
Have you ever felt lost in your weight loss journey, overwhelmed by conflicting advice and struggling to find what truly works for you? Join me as I sit down with Tori, a remarkable woman who faced her own battles with weight gain and health challenges, particularly during the tumultuous year of 2021. Tori's story is one of resilience and transformation, illustrating the critical importance of personalized health strategies for women navigating midlife changes.
As we delve into her journey, Tori candidly shares her experiences with various diets and professional guidance, revealing how she initially achieved some progress but ultimately encountered setbacks like insulin resistance and frustrating lab results. It was a pivotal moment in spring 2024 that changed everything for her: the realization that the traditional weight loss approach wasn’t enough. Instead, she embraced a tailored focus on building lean muscle and enhancing her metabolic health.
With my support and the Body Composition Project, Tori shifted her mindset, prioritizing strength training and quality nutrition over mere weight loss. This transformative approach not only improved her health markers but also empowered her to cultivate a positive relationship with her body. Tori’s newfound confidence is a testament to the power of believing in oneself and listening to your body amidst the noise of societal expectations.
In this episode, we explore essential topics like nutrition for women, effective workout tips, and the significance of stress management in achieving wellness. Whether you're a woman over 35 seeking fitness motivation, navigating menopause workouts, or simply looking to enhance your energy levels, this conversation is packed with valuable insights. Tori’s journey illustrates that true health goes beyond weight loss; it encompasses a holistic approach to well-being, including mental health and clean eating tips.
Join us for an inspiring discussion that emphasizes the importance of individualized strategies in women's health. Let Tori’s story motivate you to embrace your own health journey with renewed vigor and confidence. Remember, it’s not just about weight loss; it’s about becoming the healthiest version of yourself!
If you're interested in womens health, this is the podcast for you.
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Speaker #0 Tori, I am so excited to have this conversation with you. I know we've been chatting for a couple of moments here before we recorded, but I just feel like there's so much richness to your journey, your history, your story, and what you've been working on and what you've been able to accomplish with your health has been really incredible. I know there are so many women out there that are struggling with some of the things that you were struggling with or maybe still are struggling with. And so I'm just really excited to kind of walk through the timeline of maybe even day one, what was going on for you and your health, the day that you decided to really start making a change? What were you struggling with at the very, very beginning because I know there was a stretch of time that you took action to improve your health before we started working together. And I know that the listeners would love to hear really where you were at day one, what you were struggling with when you decided to do something about it. Would you share that with us? Speaker #1 Yeah, of course. And thank you for having me to talk about this. It was really helpful, I think, for me to kind of reflect on everything too, because you're right, there were quite a few I think thinking about when I really prioritized my health and some of the goals that I have now, I had been struggling with my body and my health since around 2021 or so. So several years back, I went through some stressors and saw some weight gain along with those. And then around that time, So I kind of started medication, started working with a dietician on some anti-inflammatory strategies. Definitely saw some improvement in some things like my energy, my pain, some of my symptoms. But kind of along the way, I just felt like I kept steadily gaining weight and gaining fat and was really concerned about that. So I had sought out support from some other dieticians and programs that were really focused on weight loss specifically, but still just wasn't getting the results that I wanted. I felt like I had a lot of what we call non-scale victories and I was really proud and happy with those, but I also just felt like I was accumulating more fat and weight at the same time. And so kind of fast forward to this past spring, I eventually uncovered some data to suggest that I might have some insulin resistance going on. Ended up getting some labs to confirm it through my primary care doctor. And while that was super disheartening, I think it also really just validated what I had been experiencing all along. My body was basically in fat storage mode and so it was helpful to me to kind of have confirmation of that and to know that there was something to explain this because I had just felt like I was doing program after program and sort of failing along the way because my results were sort of the opposite of what I was wanting. So that was really an inflection point, I think. It just gave me something actionable. And so that really kind of launched me into my current phase, I'd say, where I sought out help from a functional medicine provider, really started implementing lots doing lots of walking with a weighted vest, cleaning up my diet, all of the above. And so in some ways, starting this past summer, doing all of those things, I felt like that started to work. I finally saw some weight loss. I lost about 20 pounds. I lost body fat, especially around my midsection. So I had bought these sorts at the beginning of the summer. They no longer fit. And so I was thrilled with some of that. But then you know this, at the same time, I also was getting in-body scans through my medical provider and saw that I was losing muscle at the same time and also saw that some of my labs actually started to get worse. And so I just felt really confused. used. I felt like I was doing all of the things and really doing my best to stay on top of all of the things. I also was finally seeing some weight loss, which I had wanted for years and years. But then at the same time, some things were getting a bit worse. And so I feel like I just didn't really know what to do and which piece of advice to follow. And so that's really kind of what led me to joining your midlife muscle mass series and kind of finding you. Speaker #0 There are so many things I'm over here on mute just kind of like jumping out of my seat because there are so many things in this that I'm like, yes, oh my gosh, we have to talk about this. Yes, yes, yes. So what a beautiful breakdown of everything. And thank you for that. So what I want to underscore, and we're going to dissect this because
Tori's story is so wild to me. And we're going to talk about the story of Tori. really does illuminate everything that I talk about. What I'm going to underscore here, and Tori, I'm going to have us for the most part of this journey start that spring of 2024. Let's call it nine months ago, right? Okay. Ish. And so from then when you landed upon some protocols that were working for you, you lost 20 pounds, you were thrilled about that. And this is what I want to underscore. This is why weight loss in some ways isn't the target and certainly is not the end all be all. And so if Tori had just been looking at, let's say her weight as the marker of success, she would have been celebrating and so happy she took 20 pounds off. If we don't look underneath the skin, we can assume that all of her biology is better, right? That is old school thinking that weight loss is means you're healthier and it doesn't. And Tori, I mean the way that you just spelled that out is so incredible. The weight came down, but so did the muscle. We talk about this all the time. And even more worrisome, your labs went in the wrong direction. Your different markers for metabolic health, insulin health, et cetera, autoimmunity weren't necessarily going in the same direction. And this is why we've got to look under the hood Look at in body, body composition scans or DEXA scans. Get lab work to make sure that everything comes together. So thank you for spelling that out so incredibly because I think it's going to speak to so many women, especially women who have been struggling on these levels that you talked about, whether it's insulin issues, PCOS hormone issues, metabolic issues, thyroid issues, or even autoimmunity. So many women are struggling with these things, following protocols that either aren't working at all or bringing them some relief but not really fixing the whole picture. And as you and I were talking before I started recording, the scary thing here to you dear listener that's listening in, if you fall into this category where you're struggling with some of the things that Tori just spoke of... and you're working with a practitioner or a doctor or a functional nutritionist or someone with respectable credentials, if you are not making the progress that you should be making or want, or if you're struggling to get any progress at all, please know you are not broken. We're going to talk about this in a moment because it's so normal to think, "Well, I'm working with a medical doctor, and I'm actually getting worse. There's something wrong with me. I am broken and that's terrifying. I have been there when doctors didn't give me an answer, I was doing what they were telling me to do but I wasn't getting better. That really gets so scary and so again Tori thank you, thank you, thank you. We're going to dissect this a little bit more. You made some great progress from spring to fall of 2024. So let's call this the start of this part of the journey was about nine months ago. So about... a little less than six months ago. I guess we've been working together now about four to five months. Four to five months ago, you must have been struggling with something that really moved you to take new action. Talk to us a little bit about where you were four to five, maybe six months ago. Speaker #1 Yeah, so I think my biggest concern was that insulin resistance piece. And so I had really done a lot of research into it. I'd really, you know, I'm part of a membership of women that are really focused on metabolism and nutrition. And so I'd really like dove into the calls and the resources that there were around that topic. And so that was really kind of my compass for that time. I knew that I needed to put on muscle. And so, um, I had joined a gym locally here, had really gotten into a good routine with that. And kind of as you were saying before, right, I just was sort of following all of these different opinions and programs that were out there that were kind of marketed or, um, kind of angled towards the concerns that I had. And so, um, this gym protocol that I followed. They had a certain membership that had programming built already for you and so I really just kind of dove into that, followed the program that they had in terms of strength training and cardio. I was trying to increase my zone 2 activity because that is something my medical provider had brought up. So I wasn't actually measuring my heart rate or anything but I I knew that one way to do that was walking more, wearing a weighted vest. So I was out in the summer in Tennessee on the hills kind of walking for, you know, a couple miles at a time each day when I
could. And so at that point, I feel like I was just really hearing all the different pieces of advice that are out there related to insulin resistance. and all the advice that I had from my different medical providers and nutritionists and all of these folks and trying to honestly do all of it at the same time. And, you know, as we talked about before, I think that's why I got so confused and disheartened too because I felt like I was doing all of these things to a T and some of my markers were worse and such that, you know, we were actually talking about needing to treat other patients problems like hypothyroidism, my A1C had gotten worse. And so I was worried about that and actual prediabetes. And so that's kind of the state that I was in for that spring phase and really what was pushing me. Speaker #0 And then when we roll around to fall, when you and I met, And you joined me for the free three-day workshop that I do twice a year. There's another one coming up called Muscle for Life that will be in February of this year, 2026. But you and I met at that point. And that's when we had the opportunity to be introduced, get to work together. You joined the Body Composition Project. At that time, before you decided to seek a new coach or guide, me... What were you struggling with right then last fall? What was the biggest thing that really moved you to once again tackle some new habits? Speaker #1 I think my biggest focus there was muscle. And, you know, your series even had that in the title. So that's really why I hopped on there. And really what caught my attention, I had just had my like three-month follow-up with my medical provider where I had seen those labs getting worse. and where I had seen my muscle mass dropping on my body scan. And that really concerned me because I knew from what I had learned already, right, that muscle is metabolic money and that that piece is so important for insulin resistance and improving kind of all of these systemic processes. I also knew that muscle was going to be really important for all the other concerns that were coming up on the labs. And so that is really, I think, where there was a big shift in my priority. I think before that, of course, like you said before, I was really focused on weight loss. And since I had had some success in that area and still didn't really feel where I wanted to be with my health, that's where I really changed my focus. And that wasn't salient anymore, but it was about building muscle for body composition, but also for metabolism improvement. And also just for longevity and wanting my health and my markers to be in the best place they could be. Speaker #0 Let's talk about some of those health markers and labs, if you don't mind. I want to share the summary that you shared with me because when I saw this story, it blew my mind. Now, I want to say a disclaimer. Each person's health is very unique. Tori's health is very unique. I want to share her close notes with you, so to speak. But I also want to say as a health professional myself, we are all just trying to do our best. I am doing everything I can to help my clients to the best of my knowledge. And I believe every other health practitioner, medical doctor, functional nutritionist is doing the same. I say this because you're going to hear throughout Tori's interview, So you'll hear that Tori worked with some other health practitioners. I am not judging them. We are not critiquing them. We are not blaming or shaming anyone. Today what we're talking about is the complexity of biology. And the takeaway I want you to hear, dear listener, is that weight loss often is not the Goal in terms of moving you to be healthier. Now, there are a lot of people out there that do need to reduce their body fat in order to become healthier. But these are two different conversations and if you are struggling with some of the things that Tori is struggling with, yes, bringing your body fat down can often help. But it doesn't necessarily resolve a lot of those other markers that we look at. To really tell the whole picture of autoimmunity, endocrine function, metabolic health, all of these things and numbers that we're going to talk you through here in a moment. Tori
and I drew our conclusions, and to me it's quite obvious. And that's why I wanted to share a piece of the puzzle here. Some about strength training, some about nutrition, which you'll hear from Tori in just a moment, because we see a very clear trend. So I want to share some of these kind of before and after numbers, Tori, from where you were spring of last year to working with some professionals to the fall. Because to me it illuminates sometimes for some people adjusting your nutrition and workout programming according to current popular ideas isn't always productive. Let me say it differently. there are some approaches out there and protocols out there that a lot of most medical doctors, functional nutritionists are using. When a person comes in with elevated A1C, elevated fasting glucose, markers that show liver dysfunction, markers that show metabolic issues and thyroid issues, there's a very common to me worrisome practice of reducing carbohydrates and increasing zone 2 cardio and taken at face value if that's not very closely monitored what happens a lot of times is people are doing more of the zone 2 cardio ie walking with or without a weight vest getting 10,000 20,000 steps in a day while simultaneously reducing carbohydrates now Tori from spring to fall Your lab work in September, would you agree that was the kind of general approach? More zone two, reduce your carbohydrates, correct? Speaker #1 Yeah, absolutely. And I definitely talked about the activity level before, but you're right with the nutrition guidelines that I was following at the time. That was exactly it. We talked about lowering my carbohydrates and we cleaned up some of the choices that I was making, which I think was really helpful. So we also just had restricted the quantity of them. And so I was reducing kind of my total carbohydrates, not even just net carbs, but total significantly kind of at the same time with the thought being that that would help with more insulin sensitivity. Speaker #0 Yep, exactly. And that is the protocol most doctors and functional medicine or nutritionists are turning to these days. If people have signs of insulin resistance, the current common trend is to reduce carbohydrates. And what I have always said is this is not a carbohydrate problem, it's a balance problem. So at that time, Tori has been amazing in terms of documenting her lab work and getting body composition scans regularly. She shares her physical therapy updates with me. We've been able to really track her data, and what she saw before we started working together was that spring when she started her journey, her A1c was 5.6. After several months, five months almost to be exact of this protocol we just talked about, Her A1c went up to 5.8. Her fasting glucose went from 91 to 100. Let me get some other numbers here. I have a bunch of numbers here. Her triglycerides went from 78 to 99. They went up. That's not supposed to happen. Her CRP actually, let's see, CRP actually also went up 0.6 to 1.15. I'm going to continue just a little bit more here because I think it's really wild. Her TSH went from 4.0 to 4.5. It went up when what we want is for it to go down. I'm going to stop. That was five or six different markers of health all going in the wrong direction. Tori, would you agree? Speaker #1 Yeah, yeah. And I'll say, Holly, too, like when I got those results, I was obviously really disappointed and worried. I think one thing that was helpful for me to find out later was that those things actually can be more responsive than I think we imagined. When I first got those markers, my provider sort of reassured me that like sometimes those things take a really long time to change. And so I, you know, I think I could have just sort of taken that at face value and just held the course because of the weight loss like we talked about before. but something in me was sort of like, these are going in the wrong way. And I feel like there's ways that we could minimize that. Speaker #0 - Yeah and again, I really, really, it's so important to me to say, you know, in no way am I or is Tori blaming the people that she was working with or anything like that? Because again, we're all working with the information and education that we have. Now, in my experience when I met Tori and she shared some of her story with me, In my experience, what I have seen in practice with my most successful clients is that that's actually not true. When you give the human body what it needs and what it's designed for, I see people transform literally overnight at times. I see people's energy,
appetite, motivation, body composition, and labs transform very quickly. And so again, the message here and we're going to prove it to you here in a moment with her most updated lab work. My message to someone listening who's struggling with some of these issues, if your provider is saying, hmm, that's weird. Well, sometimes these things can just take a long time to take effect. I personally, in my 30 years of experience of coaching people disagree because I've seen the opposite over and over and over. especially when it comes to too much or the wrong kind of cardio, and when it comes to reducing carbohydrates, below what the body really needs, which is roughly about 40% of daily calories coming from carbohydrates. Now, one thing I just want to call out real quickly here, too, is that Tori touched upon it. The quality of carbohydrates does matter without a doubt, and that's what she when she said She had worked with a practitioner to improve and clean up some of the things that she was eating. The quality of your carbohydrates matters. It's not just the percentage. And I've done diet audits with Tori. She eats beautifully. She's eating slower, digesting complex carbohydrates that are high in fiber. We are talking about really eating those carbohydrates that are optimally healthy. We're not just talking about adding in refined carbohydrates or refined food. just to get up to a certain amount of carbohydrates per day. But the message here at this moment is, as Tori just said, if your intuition in your gut is telling you that the guidance you're getting from someone just isn't right, please, please, please listen into it. I believe if nothing else, women are so intuitive. We have guttural instincts and we know when something's off or when something's going in the right direction. And So we're going to talk a moment here And we're going to reveal the changes in Tori's blood work because it blew my mind. But Tori, before we do that, let's talk about some of the changes that you made from September, October when you and I started working together until now or until we looked at those updated labs in December. Speaker #1 Yeah. So I started body composition project in October. And of course, like I'd say, the big cornerstone of your program is bodybuilding. really through progressive overload. And so I had started strength training, you know, in that earlier phase, but I also don't think it was as strategic and as intentional, I would say, about balancing volume and kind of what my body could handle systemically without fatiguing it too much, while also really encouraging it to increase its capacity by overdoing it. by loading my weight more. So I think that that piece, even though I had been doing quote strength training before, it was very different in terms of the way it was set up and structured. And I think in this case, like the switch that I made in your program really felt like it was getting the stimulus to be the right stimulus for the goal that I had. The other piece that you kind of hit on with the cardio aspect is that I actually found I was doing less, I feel like in terms of movement than I had been during the summer. I was really reducing kind of movement that now I know is really stressing my body out. I think when I started the program, I started using a heart rate monitor like you recommend we use and I wore it on one of my typical walks that I had been taking and realized that my heart rate range was. way higher than I had imagined it was. It was far above a zone two. And so now I know, I think that a lot of what I was doing to increase my movement, what I thought was non-exercise movement was actually really putting a lot of strain on my body. And so I think another important piece with the program now has been still doing course, but getting it in the right increment and making sure that it's not taxing my body too much. And then the last piece I think is, you know, the carbs that we're talking about. I have really retained the food quality that I worked on. So like you just said, I've tried to stick with some of those higher, you know, more nutritionally positive and helpful foods. So instead of lots of refined carbs and trying to have more sweet potatoes and quinoa and legumes and things like that, Um, but at the same time, the balance of those has really shifted. So I actually was looking back at my old food logs and I previously was sort of hitting like a 28% carbs level. Um, my fat was higher, more like a 41%. And then my protein was around 31%. Um, my calories actually was really close to what I still am following now, but that that balance
was just completely different. And I, I think I was depriving my body of the fuel that it really needed to build muscle. And so increasing those carbs back while still keeping the quality equal, I think has been another part that's been really helpful and really pivotal to me actually being able to put on muscle during the program. Speaker #0 Yeah. Oh my gosh, Tori, that's so huge. Now I didn't prepare right now to talk about, um, exactly what your body composition has done since October. You'll know those numbers, we'll talk about it in a moment. But wow, just to underscore what she said to the listeners, your calories actually didn't change a whole lot. AndAnd therefore, we know because you were losing weight prior to working with me and because we know that your body fat has gone down since we started working, you've been in a calorie deficit. So all along you were in a calorie deficit, but what we did is we changed the ratio of those calories instead of being 28% carbohydrates. we brought you up above 40. I think we start, where did we start you? 40, 45 or did you go straight to 50%? Yeah, Speaker #1 we started at 40 and I've been sort of progressively increasing. I'm at like 43 to 44 right now. But yeah, at perim like 28. 28 to 40, Speaker #0 43, 44. And so some people would think, wow, that's a huge jump. It's not a huge jump, but it is. is enough to give your body, your muscles, your liver, your brain, the carbohydrates, the glucose and the glycogen that your organs need to really function optimally. And so again, when people listen to my podcast or hear other messages out there that talk about if you want to burn fat, you got to be in a calorie deficit, that is true. And that will lead to weight loss as it did, as it always does, and like it did here with Tori. But we can often get even better results if we really get that macronutrient distribution of the carbohydrates right. You'll often get even better results. And so once again, it underscores how fewer carbs are not the cause of the success here and not just a calorie restriction or calorie deficit causes the success. It really was fine tuning all of those nuances, getting the strength training right. And also getting precise enough to check your facts around your programming and your habit. The fact, Tori, that you shared, you thought you were doing zone two cardio for all of those months. You were actually probably up at zone three or zone four. And so getting a heart rate monitor and getting more precise and looking at what you're actually doing also can be the solution. You were actually doing many of the right things. You just hadn't fact-checked yet. And so checking your heart rate and making sure that you are in that zone too for fewer minutes, right, during a day or during a week was really huge. So your cardio also came down, am I right? Like maybe 40 minutes a day down to tell us what you did with cardio from summer to when you started working with me. Speaker #1 Yeah. Yeah. I think the frequency and the volume came down. So during the summer, I feel like I was really hard on myself about wanting to make sure I got in a long walk, usually about 30 to 40 minutes with my vest. That was usually something I wanted to do in addition to any exercise that I was doing that day. And so I was pretty disappointed in myself if I didn't manage to fit. all of that together. And then now that we're doing the program, you know, I still am doing cardio, but right now we're currently at four sessions a week and with specific heart rate interval ranges. And so it definitely is less frequent, less volume than it was, but also like the intensity of that too is really carefully managed now too. Speaker #0 Yeah. So that you're in that heart rate range, right? Because on On the one hand, it's too much volume. Too many minutes can be a problem for people. But also being at the wrong heart rate I have found is also a big problem. And so, you know, people hear the word cardio and they think all cardio is the same, and it's really not. It really does have to be prescribed just like medicines, just like strength training and just like nutrition. So let's go over some of these lab markers in your December lab panel as compared to in the fall because this I almost fell over. I mean, there's, I don't know, 15, probably 15 to 20 different markers that were... I'm not going to call out all of them because it's a lot, but every single one of them improved. A1c, fasting glucose, fasting insulin, LDL, triglycerides, HDL, CRP, THS. FreeT4, AST, ALT, all improved, which is wild. So in September, prior to starting working with me and the Body Composition
Project, Tori's Hemoglobin, I have such a hard time saying that word, hemoglobin A1c was 5.8 and in December about three months later it had come down to 5.5. That's an improvement. Fasting glucose went from 100 to 90. Major improvement. Fasting insulin went from 14 to 12.4. Apolipoprotein B went from 92 to 75. Triglycerides went from 99 to 74. HDL went from 54 to 48. CRP went from 1.5 to 0.66. And then here are the ones that really blew me away. Your TSH went down, which is what we want, from 4.5 to 3.8. Free T4 went up. which is what we want from 1.3 to 1.46, and your liver enzymes. Oh by the way for those of you guys like Tori and me who often have elevated liver enzymes on your blood panel this is AST and ALT these are the two markers that tell us that your liver is taxed and that liver cells are damaged that there's disorder in the liver her AST went from 30 to 17 very quickly And normally that's one of those organ functions where doctors will be like, well, it could take six months. This took three months and her ALT went from 47 to 21 again in three months. This was all two to three months when she looked at her labs. And so I'll stop there. But literally every single one went in the right direction relatively quickly. Right. Somewhere between two and three months later. of lab tests, which is just absolutely wild. So we've already alluded to the things that Tori changed to bring about that result. But Tori, I want to hear from you. When you hear this and you look at how far you've come, we can also take a look at body composition and how your muscle mass versus your body fat has changed. But to this date, when you look back on it, what story do you make? What is the takeaway story you know, for you in terms of these were the things that really made the biggest difference? Speaker #1 I think for me, you know, when I think about it big picture, I've been so lucky to have all of these different numbers and data to back everything up. I'm lucky I have access to that first of all, but that I see it so decisively, it's like given me a lot of confidence in those things. I used to sort of dread getting some of those numbers. back and then now it's all sort of lined up. I might have imagined I could have seen improvement on like one or two of them, but to see it be such a solid pattern across everything has been really helpful. And I think it helped me kind of press the changes that I've made. And so kind of the story that I see when I think back on this change is finding the right programming for Like we talked about at the beginning, I felt like I was doing all of the things. I felt like I was doing just my very best to reconcile all the pieces of advice that I had gotten from lots of different people and from, you know, just information that's out there online or other places. It just wasn't working. And so it was really easy to feel like I just was failing at it. I wasn't getting it right. It was a problem with me. I just couldn't figure this out when everyone else sort of had the right advice. But even from tuning into your webinars, it helped me understand this idea of like you have to find the right programming for you. And if it's not working, it's probably the programming to some degree and not you as a person or your effort or your motivation, even though those pieces are, of course, important. I also feel like, you know, the story here for me was just trusting what works for me too and not getting swayed by all of those pieces. And so I felt really conflicted when I first found your program just because I was still getting so many different opinions and trying to figure out which ones to follow. And now I feel so much more confident that I'm moving in the right direction. I have so much evidence to back it up. and I feel like I can just really press what works. even if that looks different than what works for somebody else, right? Like there's no one right strategy. And so it's a game of finding what your body responds to and like you said, can respond to pretty quickly sometimes when you get it right. And then being able to stick with that and to be committed to that instead of sort of hopping from thing to thing or kind of second guessing it, which is something that I definitely used to do a lot. Speaker #0 Yeah, that is so huge. And again, I really want to underscore what you just said. Sometimes it's just about finding the right programming. And so if someone listening is taking the advice and taking action, and it's not working, in my experience, it is often not that your body is broken, you're lazy, you're weak willed. It's usually the
programming and seek out something new, take new actions, educate yourself a bit more to move in the right direction. Now I believe that my protocols are the best. I do believe that. I have to believe that otherwise I wouldn't be teaching what I teach. I'm also not so egotistical to say my way is the only way. I just know my way works. And so for someone listening, I just encourage you to reevaluate in whether you choose to follow my protocols or you go out and you seek someone else out. That's amazing. Listen to your instinct and just know that if the advice you've been given that you're taking action on, if it's not working, try and try again. Most of the time, it's programming and protocols and making adjustments until your body starts to give you... the feedback that you're going in the right direction. And so on that note, Tori, tell us how what has improved for you in this journey? How are you different? How are you better? What are the benefits that you're noticing? You know, we can all say, oh wow, her lab's improved huge, but what does that actually mean for you? How do you feel better or different today as compared to where you were four months, five months, or even nine months ago? Speaker #1 Yeah, there's so many ways that I can slice that up. I actually, this weekend, kind of sat down and started a note in my journal about progress that I've seen throughout this program just to keep that front and center for me and wrote down five pages of notes about that. So I'll spare you and not go through all of those. But there are physical differences, right? Even though that weight loss piece hasn't been salient anymore. Like I've lost seven more pounds since we've been doing the program. More significantly than that though, like I've gained muscle so between September and December I had put on about 2.7 pounds of skeletal muscle mass. I had lost nine pounds of body fat mass at the same time and so that body composition is continuing to respond the way we want it to. I feel a lot more athletic and capable just in general when doing my workouts. I think before it felt like a thing I had to do, especially with all the pressure that I had around implementing all these things perfectly. And now I actually look forward to it and feel really capable when I'm doing the workout. I feel like things are just more second nature for me. So you know, it still takes a lot of effort and, you know, perseverance. But it's more simple in the fact that I have a clear plan. I know what to do. I know how to follow it. I'm just not spending a lot of time stressing or second guessing about my plan, which was something that happened a lot previously. And I think too, like I've been able to shift my mindset a lot where instead of focusing on a certain end point, and a certain physical outcome, which I had before. Now it's less about like reaching a certain specific goal. It's more about just continuing to show up and continuing to do the things that I want to do and be the way that I want to be day in and day out, implementing these things, but not necessarily just for a specific endpoint. It's more about a long-term sort of life style and kind of living my life the way that I want to. Speaker #0 How has your transformation on all these different aspects impacted your life? How are you different in terms of how you think, your mood, how you feel? under that kind of like mental, emotional, spiritual column, if you journaled some of that. What were some of the things or what are some of the things that you're noticing now that are better? Speaker #1 Yeah, I think, I honestly think the focus on building something in my case, building muscle has been so positive and it's helped reframe my focus in a lot of other ways. So I remember struggling a lot with my eating and kind of sticking to eating regularly enough, things like that. And focusing on building muscle, building my strength instead, kind of helped me reframe that to realize when I was neglecting myself in that way, I was actually working against building my strength, building my muscle. And that has stuck with me and helped me be consistent with that way more than it ever did when I was just telling myself I needed to do this habit, right? It's given me a reason. It also, I think, has helped me focus more on fueling myself and nourishing myself, taking care of myself instead of it coming from a critical vibration of like, I have to change my body. It's more about giving my body what it needs in terms of support. And that extends, I think, just every day, right? Movement and nutrition, of course, but also like listening to
my body, giving it the rest when it needs it, just being really aware of that and really working with it instead of feeling like I'm at odds with it like I did before. And then even just, you know, I think back to getting feedback. You know, we submit our progress photos to you and your team. And I remember even just having this big mindset shift around that, where hearing the feedback that you all give us that's so focused on positives and our building muscle and improvements from that regard helped me realize these things that I thought were flaws that I had before were just areas that I can actually improve by focusing on supporting my body. you know it wasn't that there was this thing wrong with my form or how i look but there were these certain areas where just you know giving it more movement and more um strength kind of stimulus was going to improve it and so i guess it's helped me overall think more about my power in some of this i think i felt really disempowered before by all of it and now i think i'm much more aware of my choice and my agency and just being able to take some of these steps and actually believing that I can see gains and results in them too. Like they're actually changeable. Speaker #0 That's so huge. Even just a little bit of shift in mindset is everything. And if I could summarize it, it's like you're now focusing on progress. You're focusing on moving forward. You're And instead of focusing on getting to a place. And I've always said to people, like, that's the way to win. Because if you wake up each day and you're just focused on what is the proof? Where are the signs that I'm going in the right direction? That is so encouraging and empowering. And I would agree with you. That mindset shift is just so huge. So thank you for that. One more question before we wrap up. I would love to hear... If there's a woman listening right now, which I'm sure there is, who's struggling with some of these topics or themes or issues and she feels disempowered or she feels frustrated by the advice she's been given or she feels like she's taking action but not getting anywhere. What would you share or what advice would you offer her so that she could feel positive about taking a step forward? Speaker #1 Yeah, I think... You know, I think it sounds really simple, but I think that it was so important for me just to believe that things could shift. And, you know, not just like, OK, I believe this can happen, but like really, truly believing with conviction that some of these things that feel so fixed or that feels so overwhelming can actually shift and that you have the capability to do that. I think it's tricky because. You know, when it comes to body composition or health things, sometimes it's hard for us to visualize things if we haven't been there before, we've never experienced it before and and we can get so caught up again in focusing on those specific outcomes which for me brings up a lot of pressure. And so you know for me it really came down to believing in my ability to just show up and to actually try and to actually go all in on certain strategies that were working for me. You know not going through the motions and still sort of questioning internally, am I going to succeed at this? Do I have the capability to do this? But actually trying my absolute best and allowing myself to get my hopes up and believe that it could happen, which is really vulnerable, but I think was so important for me to actually buy into these things and do them fully. So, you know, I think having that central of like press thing that you have the capacity to go all in, you have the capacity to grow and see outcomes from whatever you're putting in is so important because I think we can really easily forget how much choice and power we have about finding the right program, about changing these things, about implementing some of these little steps. It's really easy to focus on pieces that we think we can't control or kind of overestimate what that includes. And so to me, I think it's been really foundational in all of this to just remember that agency and that choice and that power and to exercise it however I can. Speaker #0 I love it. I love it. Tori, that is so just inspiring and motivating. And I love your use of word capacity. And something I always say is that The human body does have great capacity to become better, whatever that means for each person. Is it healthier, fitter, stronger, more energy, better looking, better feeling when you wake up in the morning, whatever it may be? The human body really does have that capacity and I love how you speak to the human spirit also having it as well. So thank you, thank you, thank you for sharing your story. I know that this is going to inspire so many women.