Mark Bell's Power Project - EP. 366 - Help With ADHD PTSD Depression with Sherian Lee

Episode Date: April 13, 2020

Sherian Lee is a licensed marriage and family therapist who specializes in helping those struggling with ADHD, Anxiety, Depression, PTSD, Eating Disorders and much more, through a blend of psychotherapy and physical activity. Through her private practice, Best Self and her unique blend of the psychotherapy and physical activity has allowed her to help her patients effectively process emotions, stress, and trauma. Find Sherian on IG: https://www.instagram.com/bestself.today/?hl=en Subscribe to the Podcast on on Platforms! ➢ https://lnk.to/PowerProjectPodcast Support us by visiting our sponsors! ➢Perfect Keto: http://perfectketo.com/power25 Use Code "POWERPROJECT" for 25% off and free shipping on orders of $99! ➢Piedmontese Beef: https://www.piedmontese.com/ Use Code "POWERPROJECT" at checkout for 25% off your order plus FREE 2-Day Shipping on orders of $99 ➢Icon Meals: http://iconmeals.com/ Use Code "POWERPROJECT" for 10% off ➢Sling Shot: https://markbellslingshot.com/ Enter Discount code, "POWERPROJECT" at checkout and receive 15% off all Sling Shots Follow Mark Bell's Power Project Podcast ➢ Insta: https://www.instagram.com/markbellspowerproject ➢ https://www.facebook.com/markbellspowerproject ➢ Twitter: https://twitter.com/mbpowerproject ➢ LinkedIn:https://www.linkedin.com/in/powerproject/ ➢ YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/markbellspowerproject ➢TikTok: http://bit.ly/pptiktok FOLLOW Mark Bell ➢ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/marksmellybell ➢ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MarkBellSuperTraining ➢ Twitter: https://twitter.com/marksmellybell ➢ Snapchat: marksmellybell ➢Mark Bell's Daily Workouts, Nutrition and More: https://www.markbell.com/ Follow Nsima Inyang ➢ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/nsimainyang/ Podcast Produced by Andrew Zaragoza ➢ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/iamandrewz

Power Project crew, welcome to today's show. This episode was recorded on April 3rd with Sherian Lee. Sherian is a licensed marriage and family therapist, a certified wellness coach and personal trainer. Sherian specializes in ADD, ADHD parenting, work challenges, anxiety, depression, eating disorders, PTSD, the whole gamut. And what's awesome is she uses a lot of exercise to help, you know, some of her patients get over some of these challenges. And we got into a lot of that about how she does these nature walks. Mark, all the time, he's talking about how, you know, when he wants to talk to his kids or whoever it may be, the second you go on a walk, you almost can't shut them up. So, she uses something similar in helping people work through things.

And on top of all of that, she's actually extremely jacked. You guys, if you watch this on YouTube or Facebook, you'll be shocked at, you'll never believe her age, put it that way. She is in extremely great shape. She explains how her first date with her husband, she's like, I got to go to the gym. I got to go get my training on. So that's really, really cool. So we asked her a bunch of questions about how can someone in a relationship who has a significant other that's not really into fitness, but they're trying.

And that battle of almost the other person that's not into it kind of brings the other person down. So we asked her if she can give us some advice for people that might be in that same situation. So with this lockdown, you know, no, nobody's really talking too much about the mental side of things, you know, the detriment that all of this can actually put on somebody. So having a conversation like this is really, really important. So we really thank Sherian for taking the time out and as fast as possible. I just want to remind everybody again, please head over to markbell.com. Right now we're giving away a free 30 day trial to the entire website. markbell.com of course is Mark's personal website where he puts up his, uh, every, every single day he puts up a brand new workout. So right now with everyone's gym shut down, you might be a little bit lost or you just need a little bit of guidance.

Well, right now you can get that for free from Mark Bell at Mark Bell dot com. Just register and you'll gain access to the entire website for free for 30 days. Also, please take advantage of the 20 percent off discount we are giving on every slingshot and hip circle combo at Mark Bell slingshot dot com. That's any slingshot of your choice, any hip circle of your choice, and you'll receive 20% off at checkout. And also, again, we have the new kids hip circles. So that way you guys can get the kiddos involved in your daily workouts. But that's it for me. So if you guys enjoy this conversation, please reach out to Sherian. And again, check out some of her uh some of her bodybuilding stuff you'll be blown away at uh again that she's kind of defied or she's found the uh the fountain of

youth for sure but anyways yeah reach out to her her social media links will be down in the youtube description and itunes show notes and ladies and gentlemen please enjoy the show hey but like real talk have you guys had those cookies yet? Yeah, I have. Yeah. Oh, okay. So I think honestly, the cookies are dope because it's a high fat cookie. When you have cookies from other companies and they don't have much fat, they're kind of dry. They're not chewy.

But since these are high fat cookies, they're like ooey, gooey, chewy. So damn good. Yeah. Have you guys ever had like homemade keto cookies? No. No. Okay. So when we were doing keto a couple years ago, and even still to this day,

Stephanie will make a low-carb, high-fat cookie. And you know how like, okay, you can have like a store-bought cookie, but it's got nothing on a homemade cookie. This is like, man, dude, it is like the perfect combo of like opening up a wrapper, but still getting that homemade taste. And if you've experimented with, you know, a ketogenic diet and having these keto treats, then you'll know what I'm talking about. I don't know how they did it, but it tastes so freaking good. And the texture is amazing. Um, I was worried that I take take a bite out of the double chocolate chip cookie,

and it would just kind of like have a resemblance of like a double chocolate cookie, but that thing is like a brownie, and it is so freaking good. I don't know how they did it. And then, Mark, how do they come up with only, I think, two net carbs per cookie? Yeah, they did a great job. You know, I think they use, I didn't look at the cookie, but the way that they usually do it is they usually have fiber in there. So, you know, fiber doesn't really count as a calorie for some people. Some people don't count it. Some people do actually, but it usually is not utilized as energy. It's

not a like carbohydrate. It's not a source of fat. So to use fiber as energy, it just doesn't really happen. It's more something that's going to like run through your body rather than you know, being, being part of like your, your energy. But yeah, they did a great job. They made a great, they made a great product. One thing that I really like about it, and this is like might sound like a backhanded compliment, but the cookie is really good, but I'm thankful that it's not, it's not the same as

eating a regular cookie. Right. And, and because of that, you're more than likely not going to eat a whole, you know, shit ton of it. I love chocolate a lot. I like, I like dark chocolate a lot, but I also like milk chocolate. Like to me, milk chocolate, I can crush a milk chocolate Hershey bar, a big giant one, without any regrets and without even thinking about it because you just end up inhaling the whole thing so quickly. But like a dark chocolate, you get into the 70 percentile range, it's easier to be like, I'm just going to have a couple pieces of it because it it's not so flavorful that you're like, oh man, I'm going to eat more and more of it. So I think Perfect Keto, they do a good job of like, some of their bars, I will admit sometimes though, I want to have like three or four of them in a row, you know, because I don't know about you guys, but I've been putting them in the freezer lately. I've been putting some of their bars, the birthday cake one and a few other ones are putting it in the freezer and it's like the ultimate treat.

And then Ron Penna told us to take our collagen and the bars are full of collagen. I'm not sure about the cookies. I didn't look to see the ingredients on the cookies, but it's a great way to get in collagen and a great way to have a nice snack at the end of the day. Yeah. We'll have to check the full ingredients and then we'll have to report back. But if you guys want to take advantage of some delicious treats, really easy like hack for a ketogenic diet, you guys got to head over to perfectketo.com slash power25 at checkout. Enter promo code powerproject for 25% off your order of $99 or more. On top of that, you're going to get free shipping on your entire order. So please take advantage of that.

Mark, who do we have on today? Yeah, I'm excited. This is a person that went to high school with Joel Green. Oh, my goodness. Something weird must have happened at this school where people actually learned stuff and got super smart at this place because, you know, we, we all know how smart Joel is, but I believe her name is Shireen, but we'll get the pronunciation. That's why hopefully. Yeah. No, I was going to say,

that's why I don't want to even say anything because it's, I wasn't sure if it was Shireen or sharian but i guess we'll we'll make sure we'll find out but uh what a great opportunity to speak to somebody who's going to talk to us a lot about uh what you can do now to combat depression anxiety out of the profile uh that you got off they send you guys a couple pictures joel was sending me pictures she's a bodybuilder and she looks amazing she's probably like early 50s she's jacked she's in really really good shape she's doing like this double bicep pose in the picture that uh joel shared with me she looks awesome She really does a good job of taking care of herself.

But in addition to that, what fascinated me the most about her was she talks a lot about walking as being therapy. And then she also has a lot of experience with ADHD and things of that nature. So I was like, wow, this is a, this could be a really cool opportunity to get in some good conversation about how people can utilize some walking to help with what's going on right now. Yeah, that and there's a lot of parents that are home with their kids. it's going to be really cool to get her insight on what parents can do right now or like some of the um you know just some of the things to not do if you are in that situation which i think everyone's going to be able to learn from because we're all kind of not stuck but we're we're

surrounded by uh by everybody like more now right like we're like i've seen my daughter and my fiance way more in the past like couple days than days than I have, you know, in the past couple of weeks. So it's, I mean, it's been a lot of fun. Like, uh, it's pretty, you know how like kids do things different than adults. So Jasmine will sweep and we have a hallway and, you know, when I sweep it's, you know, small strokes and then you move down, you move down. She just does one big stroke, the whole hallway and then you move down you move down she just does one big stroke the whole hallway and then does it again and i'm just like that's not how you do it like

shoot okay but what's wrong with how she's actually accomplishing the job and then i'm like damn i've been doing it wrong the whole time in c-minus to put it in perspective having a child is kind of the equivalent of watching somebody play mario brothers and be really shitty at it they keep they keep dying over and over again you're like that's not how you play the game that's not how you do it what are you doing it's so it's like uh it's funny because you want to make like imagine watching someone playing a video game you want to make, like, imagine watching someone playing a video game. You want to make commentary every time they like are about to screw up or screw up, right?

It's like your own idea of being screwed up. And so you watch your kids do stuff. It doesn't matter if they're swinging a baseball bat, throwing a football, making their bed, brushing their teeth. Everything they do is different, as Andrew just pointed out, which is great. And so different sets off an alarm in your head of like, hey, that's not the right way. And then you realize like, wow, I could, like, not only can I sound mean and rude to my own kid, but I can sound like almost abusive. If I'm not careful with my choice of words, you know, they might be doing something maybe let's

say they're brushing their teeth uh really hard you know then you might need to give them more knowledge about you know hey you know we're trying to really take care of our gums and you're trying to you know brush some stuff away but we don't need to go in there with like a sandblaster and you know so that you know you're trying to just like point something out that might lead to a better result but it's very difficult to be like, Hey, you know, you just want to hit him in the back of the head and say, you're doing it wrong. Sounds kind of like a relationship too. Well, I don't know what kind of relationship you got going on. No, I don't want to, I'm not hitting them, but like, you know, just they do things differently

than you and that different can just kind of seem like it's wrong. But it's not. It's just different. Yeah. And then what it really does is it makes you prepare for what you're about to say. Because when I say like, no, like you're doing it wrong. What do you mean? Like, why am I doing it wrong?

And then you do the parent thing thing which is i don't know just listen to what i'm saying don't question me which always leads to nothing good but yeah dude they will they will question why you even like are you telling them something so you're always on your toes it's frustrating they just need to come to their own they need to come to their own conclusion right like if she sweeps and then she finds that she keeps tracking you know what she keeps you know she keeps bringing it back and forth right then she'll obviously look at it and be like i didn't really clean the floor all that much yeah or she has found a good way and it's efficient and it works well for her yeah exactly i think that's like that's a strength too. Because like some kids,

I do this a lot as a kid, like I'd see my mom do something and I just like, just do it in a totally different, stupid way. Usually it ended up being stupid, but sometimes you might come across something pretty cool, you know? And that's just the fact of being rebellious. I was a rebellious ass kid.

So, you know, it is what it is. Guys, I'm super sorry about super training, but you know, as we, as I, my wife and I were thinking about it a little bit more, we just don't want to get ratted out for anything. And so for the first time ever, ST's doors are shut down even to our staff and everybody else. So just didn't want, you know, we, we probably should have took action maybe a little bit earlier, but we shut down the offices and shut down everything. And it's just a matter of like,

we want to make sure that the business is still thriving because without the business, we can't have the facility. We can't have, we can't ever work out, you know, if we don't have that business crank. And so that's what we're doing. We're just making sure that we're taking care of that and making sure that we, that when we come out of this, that we come out of the other end stronger than ever. And there's no,

no screw ups and there's no like, ah, you know what we, we should have done a, B, C, you know? So yeah,

we're just trying to keep everything by the book basically. Yeah. I was about to come out of this at 275 pounds. Nice. See you next basically. Yeah. I was about to come out of this at 275 pounds. Nice. See you next month. Yeah. Yeah. I was,

uh, so we got, we got the text message late last night, but I was already asleep. So I woke up to that and I'm like, all right, I guess I'm training at home. No big deal.

That's cool. But yeah, so I was caught off guard a little bit, but no, I think it's the right move and i i don't see why we still won't thrive you know i think we're gonna be one of the few companies that actually do better you know yeah we're doing we're we got a lot of stuff coming out we've we've been working on uh jump ropes and uh different bands for um uh you know resistance

bands that you can use at home and then we also recognize that people are bored so we're making stuff for that as well looks like we got our guests here today we're excited we're excited to have you on the show today um can we kind of start out with you uh pronouncing your name for us because i don't want to butcher your name sharian it's like librarian okay sharian okay yeah sharian the librarian yeah how you guys doing good morning to you morning we are doing we're doing great and uh it's my understanding that you went to high school with our buddy, Joel Green. I did way back in, I graduated in 83.

I think he graduated in 82. So yeah, a long time ago. We're old folks. That's great. That's great. Yeah. He shared a lot of stuff with me, you know, about some of the work that you've done. And I was really fascinated by, you know, you're working with kids that have ADHD. You're helping people fight depression.

And you're doing so with exercise and with movement. And a lot of the stuff that I saw was about like walking. And then on top of that, you're a you're a body builder. So I just found your story to be great. And I think for today, you know, sharing this information out with people at this time when people are really, you know, they're cooped up in their house, and they're trying to find exercise. We've been preaching here on this podcast for a really long time about, hey, like, please get outside, hit up a walk, get some sunlight. So maybe you can shed some light on, uh, you know, some of the values of

just going outside and hitting up a walk. I love that. So, um, one of the things that I do is like, I have my clients meet at a nature trail. So we're walking, but we're walking in nature. so we're walking but we're walking in nature and um i mean there's so many reasons why i do that but i just want to say so much here but i think like if i were going to just throw out some quickies it would be that when you're walking in nature you're increasing your t cells, your fighter T cells by 40%, and it stays elevated for 15 hours after you walk. That's like huge, you know, because right now, if people are concerned about the coronavirus, they should be concerned about their immune system. And just the fact that walking in nature increases your phytor T cells for 40% for 15 hours. That's huge. And then also because we're walking in nature, we're looking at the phytocytes in the air from the plants and the trees.

And our body is like absorbing that. And that's like an antibacterial for our lungs. And if you look at COVID-19 it's like attacking our lungs so that's going to be help us to be able to fight that a little bit more so those two things are really important and then if you look at it from a neurological standpoint it's going to help increase serotonin like the thing that I see is I see that people are eating like junk food. They're eating more carbs.

People are baking like crazy. Sugar, sugar, sugar. And then wine too, right? So research shows that when we're stressed, it depletes more serotonin or 5-8-TP, tritophan. or 5-8-TP, tritophan. And with that, people are going to crave more sugar and more carbs. And the walking or exercise in general will help boost up serotonin.

It's like everything, norepinephrine, dopamine, the feel-good hormones, endocrinobinoobinoids i mean there's like so much that the walking does and can i add one more thing i love this because like if i think i'm fascinated by this because if you look at walking it's a bilateral movement and research shows that with that bilateral repetitive movement, you go into like a hypnotic trance state. And with that, you can process what's going on. I literally don't, I think people aren't processing what's going on right now, when they're not moving, when they're in their home, and when they're sedentary and you need to process it you can't just avoid this step because if you don't it's going to increase your stress level and your anxiety level and just be crazy i know you know for myself um i've had success with my kids um getting them to talk about stuff through activity. I remember with my son when he was

young, you know, if I wanted to get something out of him, you know, I could talk to him all day long and try to pry stuff out of him. And he wouldn't tell me, he wouldn't tell me what's wrong or what's bothering him. He wouldn't share anything about his feelings or anything. But if I played basketball with him, if I threw a football around with him, then all this stuff would come out. You know, he would say, I'm frustrated in class because, you know, the teacher, you know, made me do this. I was embarrassed in front of the class or whatever, whatever the situation was. And he'd start talking and the same thing would happen when we go on walks and stuff. So is that kind of what you're referring to?

Absolutely. People open up a lot more when they're walking. And what I love with my clients is that when they're walking, they're not looking at me. So if I was your typical therapist, I would be in the office and they would be looking at me, I'd be looking at them. But when we walk, we're looking straight ahead on the nature trail. And it gets people like, it gets people in the zone it's almost like a hypnotic zone and they just start like sharing and opening up and and when they're talking and walking with me it's just they're in a different place they're they're tapping into insight they're sharing more when i i work with um a lot of adults um i don't usually work

with small kids on the nature trail because like there's mountain lions and poison i just i don't want to be responsible for you know anything like that um um like you know i've had my own kids it's hard to keep them you, in line and on the trail. But, like, when I'm working with adolescents, high school kids, they, like, totally open up immediately. And a lot of times it's not just the movement. It's, like, that there's deer there. There's animals. There's, like, so many beautiful things that just pop out and appear.

And that just warms their heart. In addition to the walking, you know, just the surprise element is like, we don't know if we're going to see like a butterfly, a baby deer, a turkey or whatever it is. There's just so many things that just pop out at us and that just gets us to connect more. So, yeah, found it really helped have you found a huge difference in uh these nature walks and trying to get around you know trees and grass and dirt and stuff like that versus um just walking in kind of more of like a city area yeah and stanford did a study in i think it was 2015, where they walked, they had two research groups. One walked the dish, hilly trees. And then one walked on El Camino. And they did, what is it called? It's not an MRI, fMRI, where they research

where the blood went in the brain. And they found that in the... They found an area in the brain that's usually related to rumination. And they found that that area had less blood supply, meaning that people ruminated less

when they were walking in nature compared to city streets. So I think that's really cool because a lot of times I work with people that ruminate a lot where they just rethink something over and over. And I think that that's going on a lot with COVID-19 where people are really like, oh, my goodness, I'm going to get sick. I'm going to die. You know, all these worst case scenarios. And they keep going over and over in their mind about it. And the walking helps stop that.

I think the walking, in my opinion, that's like the biggest tool to help stop that rumination. Because that rumination ups your stress level. Like, it's like if you had a cooktop and you just turned on all five burners and you left it going all day long, that's what's going on with your body. You're releasing so much stress because your thoughts can't tell the difference between is this live or is this memory?

It produces a stress response in your body, even if it's not happening. And I'm curious about this too, since you know so much about like the effects of walking. I don't think we've ever talked to anybody who can like go in depth on this just about walking. But as gym rats, we like to, you know, think about frequency and reps and sets and stuff like that, right? So from that kind of perspective, do you think there's a you know a minimum amount of times you want to be potentially taking walks per day is it better to take certain walks directly in the morning time and again at night time like what does that kind of look like i love this so

um if you look at the research about walking in nature i have to bring the nature part into this. They say that it is, I think it's five hours a month, right? And that's just to maintain. That's not a lot, right? But they also say that if you're going through something, if you're processing something, the more you do, the better. So that looks like, think it was uh 1.5 hours a week and then you know obviously that's like for the person that doesn't exercise a lot you know and probably doesn't need to process a lot the way i look at this is like every single day you're experiencing stress right i mean let's face it we just don't experience stress like a couple times a month. It's usually daily. And especially right now, if you watch the news or anything like

that. So from my experience, I think that we need to do like inner health cleaning every day. And so it could be really light. I mean, I do take days off now. Because you know i'm a bodybuilder and like i'm really trying to incorporate rest and recovery which is a new thing for me and normally i didn't do that in the past and so i do try to practice a little bit of self-care and recovery but you know i'm usually out on the trail five six times a week and before before that, for many, many, many years, every single day for hours. I mean, personally, the more I'm out there, the better I feel. I mean, I admit I'm addicted. I am just addicted to being out there and moving. I feel so much better. And I miss my trails. If I can't go, I'm just, I'm mourning it. I'm mourning it so much.

So to me, it's becoming more than just exercising. Because I love the exercising and I'm addicted to that. And I have been for many, many years. But now I've combined the nature component to it and it's like my home. And we've had weird things this year where we had like a mountain lion sightings. And somebody took their car on the nature preserve and tried to run over people. So the nature preserve has been closed.

Yeah. I mean, isn't that crazy? I know. I know. I know. Yeah, you heard right. Yeah. So it's been on the news and everything. And it's been closed for like, four or five days a week at a time, why they do the investigation or where they find the mountain lion, this and that. So I've had closures on my favorite thing. And I just go through withdrawal because this you know it's bad not to have it's like your gym clothes is anybody like kind of going through gym withdrawal right now

or do you guys all have home gyms oh yeah no i think everyone's feeling the effects of uh even just you know i do have a gym setup but uh even with with the gym set up like that, it's, you know, you lose the energy. You know, I don't get to see these guys as much and you don't get to. But for me, it's always been even in a commercial gym. I see someone on an elliptical that still gives me fuel, you know, because they're going after their thing and there's music in there and there's somebody's doing curls and someone's doing shoulders and I'm doing lat pull downs or something. It just, it's a lot of, it's a lot of good positive energy, probably similar to going out on the trail when you get to see other people and you're, you're getting energy from the animals and the birds and the trees and everything that you're seeing. Absolutely. You know, like that community that builds up in the gym, if you've been going,

like I was going to this gym for like over 20 years and everybody knew everybody you know and it is like you know if you have any stress you you gotta talk to them in between that right you know it's just like our community same thing happened at the nature preserve where there's a community of people that i see up there if i'm not with clients and i'm on my own time, we all talk. It's like the rumors. The rumors about the gym. That's the rumors about the nature preserve. We've developed this other community. It's really nice to have that community and support. I miss that. I miss the gym so much.

You're absolutely right. I was videotap I miss the gym so much. You know, you're absolutely right. I was videotaping myself the other day from my couch doing some exercises. And I'm like, oh my gosh, like I do better when I'm videotaped. Like, I was gonna have more energy to do, well, you know, these pistol squats, or pull ups. I'm like, oh, yeah, I can do it more. And it was like, at the gym, I get that. Cause I, I guess I pretend like maybe somebody is watching to make sure that I'm keeping up with my workout. I can't take raises and that. And at home, even though I have a pretty good status, it's just not the same. Yeah. That, that sense of accountability is, is nice. Yeah. answer your question about the times a week and and stuff like

that for walking and movement yeah yeah you did okay good yeah and actually you answered the question before i could even ask it about like what can we do to help you know kind of get back into the uh you know that feeling of the community around us but i think yeah filming and sharing that sort of thing with a coach or even just your former gym partners might be a really good move, right? So that way we can still feel connected. Yeah, I was sharing my pistol squats for my coach because on my right leg, I'm good. My left leg, not so much. And I have hip pain.

It's like I'm an older lady, you know. And I shared it. And somebody responded, oh, like, I don't see the purpose of pistol squats. Like, why even bother? And then I was like defending it. I'm like, well, you know, I'm only as strong as my weakest link. And I'm like, oh, my gosh, I'm defending this evil exercise. Like, what's wrong with me?

Who defends their worst exercise, the one that they hate the most? And then I wanted to do it. And it was just like, that's bizarre. Because nobody at the gym would actually tell me, hey, I don't think that exercise is worth it. They would never have the guts to say that to me. But in social media, people do speak up a little bit more about their opinions. And I couldn't believe the effect that that had on me that motivated me. I'm like, I think they're good.

That's awesome. I'll do them more. Yes. Screw those people. What does social media know anyways? Yeah, exactly. Yeah. So going back to kind of like what insima was talking about like the meathead

and all of us uh when it comes to the walks like does adding resistance kind of amplify everything or does it not really matter so as far as like resistance like meaning like maybe a weight vest or like ankle weights or something like that i love that i i i actually actually, I remember when I first started bodybuilding, I was just like, well, you know, it makes sense to have like, like, like, arm weight, you know, like, because if I'm moving, like, like, maybe I can get some extra gains while I'm doing this. So I was doing that for a while. And I've always wanted to weight my clients um using vests and um and some of my clients like they would have a hard time with that meaning that like we walk steep hills like steep steep steep hills and we climb a lot like it's like one trail climbs a thousand eight hundred

feet um and and you know so that's significant so in in some aspects like we don't need that because there's hills there there's like really steep hills but i like the idea i like the idea personally of adding that and um if i'm allowed to do running up there usually i switch to sprint work but when i wasn't allowed to do running my coach would let me out there and run, and I would have to do interval work up there in the hills. So she had me do more interval stuff, or I would sprint and run. Yeah, I usually don't wait my client. I have thought about that, though, for a long time. And I think that it would be beneficial just because it would be a harder load.

I don't really count my walks so much or even my runs as a workout, to tell you the truth. I mean, for me, it's more for my mind. And I love that time. I mean, I just let my mind spin. A lot of times when listening to a podcast or an audio book, I just need it. I wouldn't really count it.

I've been guilty of doing it without permission. I sneak it. Some people sneak junk food. I sneak that. How have you used bodybuilding and some of the stuff that you learned from bodybuilding and maybe brought it into your profession and utilize maybe some of the disciplines to because you help people with relationships and you're helping people with all kinds of different family matters and things like that yeah well I think that people are better when they exercise. People behave better. I mean, if you want to be on your best behavior in a relationship and bring your best self forward to the relationship, you need to have the hygiene to exercise and to eat healthy and to sleep and to relax, meditate,

and all that stuff and have some healthy communication going on in your mind. So, yeah, I mean, it is critical. There's no way you can be nice to yourself, let alone your partner, when you're in your past and you're not taking care of yourself. So yeah, and all my clients have started exercising, have started going out for hikes, doing weights, doing resistance training. And I think that's really important. I mean, a lot of times they just look at me and they're like, oh, wow, you know, you look pretty good for your age. What do you do?

Like, you know, let me start doing that as well. Yeah. Have you had to consult any couples where one didn't want to bother with exercise, but the other one did type of thing? And kind of I've seen it before where the other person will almost put them down because they do want to improve. Have you had to help anybody like that? Usually that's not the main thing that people come to see me for. And a lot of the couples that I see, both of them exercise quite a lot. That's what attracts them.

But yeah, I have experienced that in the gym you know for many many years I've been I started teaching group exercise when I was 17 years old so like I like lived like I don't know 40 years in the gym you know like a long time and so I have experienced that a lot at the gym where one person starts to work out and then the other person starts to feel jealous and intimidated. And, you know, upset about that amount of time that it's taking away, you know, from the family and the relationship. So, yeah, I have experienced that, you know, mostly in the gym type of setting or people coming and talking to me like after class if I'm teaching a class or, you know mostly in the gym type of setting or people coming in talking to me like after class if I'm teaching a class or you know if I'm training somebody because I also do a little

bit of personal training sometimes people will comment about you know how their their partner is like jealous and doesn't support them I see see that with the gym and a lot around eating, eating behaviors, eating off target. I see that a lot. And for my therapy clients, I see that a lot because, you know, I have this component where I do want people to eat healthy foods to help fuel their neurochemistry

and to help them feel better and um yeah so yeah both for working out and um a lot for eating how do you encourage them to maybe come together on that a lot of times um like for my walking therapy clients they're trying to get their partner to walk with them they realize when they're out on the trails walking with me that it's like a really good way to connect and share so usually those guys are trying to have their partner go for a walk with them and a lot of times um the partner has like knee issues, mobility issues, and they're not able to. So it's like a little wedge that we kind of brainstorm ways to have them walk together because it would enhance their relationship to work out together.

So for therapy, it's like they want to start walking together. So for, for therapy, it's like, they want to start walking together. For people in the gym setting. Sometimes it's like inviting, inviting somebody into your workout space, like trying it. And if somebody is like a beginner, you're not going to overdo it with them. And you're going to help them feel successful. And you're going to kind of water it down so that they can feel like they have an opportunity i know with me and my husband um you know i i'm really picky about form and stuff when people lift weights and and um because i had been group exercising and personal training for so long it's like when we first started dating and i told him on our first day it was really ridiculous i'm like oh well at the first day ever when we were set up it was like a blind date and i told him on our first day it was really ridiculous i'm like oh well at the first day ever and we were set up it was like a blind date and i'm like oh i gotta go to the gym at

nine o'clock because they close at this time and he's like what like you're leaving this date to go to the gym like what's wrong with you i'm like i'm sorry i i have to get it in it's the only time i can get it in today i I just have to. And he's like, Whoa. And I'm like, well, you know, you can come along, you know, I'm fine with you coming along. And so he'd start coming to the gym with me just because like, that would be a for sure way to spend time with me. Right. And I started like correcting everything that he did. Like, and he's like you know like i'm not paying you you don't have to correct everything i did and and like i really got that you know that if

if i wanted a relationship with somebody like that didn't serve me to go in there and nitpick everything that he did on a movement standpoint and And now, you know, with COVID-19, we've been working out together at home. And I've been, you know, I have like, my child had like adult wingset where it holds 260 pounds. So I took it and put a yoga swing, a TRX band, and you pull that off of it. I do so much off this thing, it's outrageous.

And so we started working out together and I've been showing him, you know, how to do things, you know, because he's not, you know, he doesn't know how to work out at home as much as I do. And that's been really nice.

It's been really bonding us. If anything, I laugh like crazy. Back to your answer. You know, I think the laughing and the not being nitpicky about like form and what people do is super helpful. And encouraging them to work out and being super supportive, like you would see in a CrossFit gym. You know, just like whatever level you're at is okay. Let's encourage that. And I think some of the things that get in the way of that is people, you know, like me being really nitpicky about the form. You got to do it this way. You know, you can't make it easier.

Yeah, I think those things really get in the way. I'm curious if you can add on to that a little bit more. I'm curious if you can add on to that a little bit more. What would your suggestions be to a person that does work out a lot and their partner just doesn't want to or their partner just doesn't enjoy exercising in any way? How would you suggest that an individual helps that person or encourages that person to do that? It's really hard because people change when they're ready to change and um for example I hate to say this but my mother who's 90 90 almost going to be 91 she doesn't have her exercise a day in her life and and and like I don't know I feel like she might like outlive us all you know and she's like eating ice cream.

I mean, right now she's she's in mobile in a bed. She can't move anything is really sad. And so I've lived my whole life with this mother that would make fun of me at a really young age. I had to exercise. I was a competitive gymnast. I started like exercising at the gym as soon as I could at age 16 going for runs and stuff like that and she was like literally criticizing me and make fun of me for working out and I've always wanted her to exercise and um and I was always encouraging her to exercise and eat healthy. And she never wanted anything to do with it. Never.

And the more I pushed, like, you know, do a walk, do this, do that, the more she pushed back. And so finally, I think it was like her 87th or 88th birthday, you know, it's like, what do you get the mom that has everything? I said, I'm going to give you the gift of not pushing. I'm going to give you the gift of like accepting who you are and how you want to live your life. And I'm not going to push you to do your physical therapy. I'm not going to push you to stop eating the junk. I'm just going to accept you. And that was like the hardest thing I've ever done in my life, because I literally don't agree with it. I mean, it's literally sad to see her decline, and she's declined so much. But with that, as I gave her that gift, I also gave a gift to myself. And that gift to myself was sensory deprivation floating once a month to help me like, like, I'm not going to push her. I can't control her at all. But I can up my self care, because I'm the one that has to watch this. I don't think that you, I mean, you can live by example, but sometimes when you live by example, sometimes it's people's purpose to be opposite from you.

Or, you know, my mom would go into, I'd go to the medical appointments with my mother and my mother would say, oh, she calls me Sherry. Don't listen to that Sherry. She just wants you to exercise and eat healthy. Don't listen to her. She would say that to the doctor because I was telling the doctor, Hey, you know, she's not doing this.

She's not doing that. And she spent her life just like resisting and pushing my exercise, my healthy eating away. And sometimes the more you push somebody to work out and eat healthy, the more they're going to resist you. So sometimes you got to wait until they're ready to change. And with that way, sometimes people, you know, if you look at the cycle of change, there's pre contemplation. And down here in that pre contemplation stage, sometimes people don't believe that they're able to exercise, that they'd stick with it, that they'd be, you know, it's hard, it's intimidating. So I would work on like encouraging

them like, wow, look, you know, you said that you couldn't exercise mom, but man, you raised your hand, you know, you did this, you did that. So anytime they showed progression and, and doing movement more, I would encourage that and try to build up the self-efficacy. Um, because that's like, if you didn't ever think that you could stop drinking or stop smoking, you, you like wouldn't people don't change unless they feel like they, they're going to be able to make a change successfully and if they have support around making that change and you know really when the the change is better than not making the change and i so wish that that would have been the case for my own mother you know i wish you know with her parkinson's that that she would have been the case for my own mother you know I wish you know with her Parkinson's that that she would have made that change because she would not be so um not able

to move right now but she didn't and and that was her choice and I got to be okay with that and in order for me to be okay I just I float I give myself a gift um it's so it so to answer your question in a nutshell you can't make other people change unfortunately people you uh when they're ready hey you said you can't increase your self-care you said a lot of really powerful stuff right there. There's a lot to what you said, and I want to kind of highlight it a little bit. You said sometimes it's people's jobs to be opposite of you, and that's really powerful. And then talking about change, you know, I think we sometimes feel it's our job to change people, you know, and I've been doing that for a long time, even with my own social media. Like, I want you to do this because it's making me feel this way.

And then I have changed my own dialogue around to be more like, this is what I do. This is how I this is how it makes me feel. And maybe you'll enjoy it as well. You know, so I've kind of given up on this like this this fight this like resistance that i felt like i was fighting and i kind of have just explained it a little differently and said this is what i do this is how it makes me feel and and hopefully you find it useful for yourself yeah yeah it's it's and me, I'm going to get a pillow. Sorry. I'm going to sit on a relaxed pillow. And for me, that was always super hard for dealing with my mother, you know, because I, I do believe in it so much. And, and, yeah, so yeah, I, I push it. I try to push it by example, you know, and I try to sell it. I mean, for me, there's nothing better than like reading about like how eating healthy and exercising affects your neurobiology. You know, I love that stuff. I want to talk about it all day long. But other people just aren't that interested in it. people just aren't that interested in it. People like if I'm wearing a swimsuit and I have like abs and everything, people are interested in that. I want some of that. It's like, to me,

it's like, it's not about your body. I mean, it is because I bodybuild. But you know, you have to understand that I'm using that bodybuilding as a tool to be on target with my behavior. that I'm using that bodybuilding as a tool to be on target with my behavior in regards to eating. And I mean, I don't need any tools to be on target with my exercise. I mean, that's just, I just do that. Something I learned years ago, which might be helpful to some people listening to this when it comes to any relationship your relationship with your mother my relationship with my wife anyone's relationships and it's this idea of this one question and the question is how can I love you more you know and so if you think about like my wife let's say wants to go on a walk and I'm thinking like F that like that's the last thing I want to do I don't want to

go on a walk or I don't want to go wine tasting or I don't want to do, you know, something that's even just watch a particular show that she might want to watch. And if I think about that question, I'm thinking this is a point of interest for her. This is why she brought it up. She wants to do it with me. Don't be an idiot. Just take the opportunity and just do what the hell she says you know and just and who knows maybe we'll both have a great time doing it and it just allows it's

another opportunity you don't have to say yes to everything there's just another opportunity to love someone more and just show you show them your interest level and that's i think that's what we're we're always trying to do i love that because you're investing in the relationship. In order to have the relationship work and not have the work out, you need to invest in the quality of the relationship by spending time together, doing what the other person wants to do. It was so funny. The other day, my husband and I were working out,

and we had to do this cardio job. And my husband loves anything where you throw a ball or a frisbee he's like like a retriever dog no i'm just kidding um he just loved that and we started like throwing this ball and he's like he like lighted up and it was just like you could just see his face he was like yeah i love this and um he plays basketball and he grew up with his father throwing the ball to him. And all the time he wants to take a break. And we have two daughters, right? He's like, you want to throw the ball with me? Throw the ball with me.

And I'm like, oh, geez, I might break a nail. So I don't like to as much with him. But he's just like dying for that. And I really got the other day that when we were throwing this ball that he needs this. You know, yeah, we spend time together hiking and investing in our relationship through movement and through maybe watching the show or what have you. But that that whole activity of rowing a ball together, like my husband grew up with that. That was his bonding time with his dad. That's like what he likes to do to relieve stress. And like, I should be doing that more. And I was like dying. I was

in tears dying because the look on his face when he was touching the ball was just hilarious. He was, like, truly happy. I was just like, I just haven't seen you this happy before. Like, I need to do this more. And I'm thinking, like, gosh, can I order a med ball on Amazon? Because that will be two for one because we were using a basketball, you know, and doing tricep push-ups on the basketball. I mean, you know, if Iiceps push-ups on the basketball i mean you know if i had known that i'd have to i would have gotten my equipment from the gym if i had known that this

was going to happen you know and had some time to prepare but yeah and we're working with a basketball pretending as if it's a med ball oh well cool i was curious actually about this then um because right now obviously you're not able to go on as much nature walks and trail walks you're having a workout at home i am oh you are yeah it's really cool the nature preserve i mean i don't see my clients up there because i just think it's unsafe. There's a lot of people. But my nature preserve has made their single track trails one-way tracks. And I try to go out like in the middle of the day where there's not as many people up there.

The parking lot's crowded. The parking lot's full. There's more and more. And Mid-Principal Open Space Reserve is open right now. They want people to be out exercising and on trails. The beaches and public gathering stuff is closed, but that stuff's open. They're encouraging it. And I think that if you look at the research around the T cells, this and that, about like being in nature, that supports it. In my mind, that justifies it.

And I don't know why. Can you guys, I mean, I know that you guys are from the Sacramento area. Can you guys work at nature preserves up there? I mean, I bet you all trails are open, right? Yeah, we went and walked on a trail not too long ago. And it was open. But I don't know if they've since shut any of that down yet. But there was there was probably too many people, you know, on the trail. They should probably look into maybe limiting the amount or something like that, you know.

Yeah. I've been working on my kind assertiveness skills when I go out there because I have to tell people, Hey, I'm coming up on your left. Can you move over to your right? You know, thanks for turning away. Wow. That's great. Social distancing. So I've been having to speak up a lot because there's so many new people out on the trails right now that have never been out there hiking or on a nature trail and they just don't know the etiquette and some people aren't really following the social distancing. So yeah, your question, I'm so sorry. You were going to ask about like, what do you do if you can't work out of the trail? You know, what if we're in lockdown and we can't do that?

What was your question again? Yeah, I was actually wondering like how you're, what you're suggesting to your clients? Because obviously, you know, you're asking them to work out at home if they can't go to the gym. But what other practices are you having them do to keep everything up here kind of sane if they're not able to really get out? I'm literally, right now when we're not on lockdown and we're at shelter in place, I'm literally encouraging my clients to go out into the neighborhood.

encouraging my clients to go out into the neighborhood. I have a client that has autoimmune disorder and she is staying inside and I'm having her moving more and exercising more inside. But anybody who doesn't have an autoimmune disorder or feels comfortable to go outside, going out in their neighborhood and taking a walk. And I'm highly encouraging people to go to different nature preserves and just experiment with all these different things. And for us as a family, we're doing that. You know, every weekend we're going to a new nature preserve, hopefully less crowded, and we're getting out there. So, yeah, I think that that's really important. And I am going to add one little thing here. I am encouraging people

to take rest days right now. And that's one to two rest days, and to really focus on not exercising to exertion, because when you exercise really intensely, it brings down your immune system. I think it's like 72 hours afterwards. And that's really not what I want right now. So I am encouraging that when they exercise, they exercise at a zero from 10 scale, like about a seven, and that ten scale like about a seven and that they do take their rest days and that they don't exercise when they're tired they didn't get enough sleep when they're um you know have a fever or anything like that that they boom take it off and and have that rest and recovery and for me i'm really upping the meditation, the sleep.

I love sleep. I love it. I sleep a lot. But I do that because, you know, I move a lot. And it's super important to have that recovery, that conscious recovery. So I am stressing that as equally as getting out there and move, in nature exercising i'd love for people to do that but i don't want people to overshoot that right now just because of the toll on the immune system um you've mentioned t-cells quite a bit uh what are t-cells exactly uh beats me now um no it's like um it's part of the immune system i i think i believe it's

as part of the um white blood cell um spider t cell so they they would run around with that crowd and help fight infection got it and then so would um more cardiovascular training be better for that or would like more hit or even more like weight training be better or is it all good that was really that was related to being in nature so okay i mean got it in in regard to that so if you can bring your workout outside like i i usually do my own workouts outside in my yard as much as possible so i have you know the vitamin d from the sun all the nature elements i think it's like a little bit better for me because i'm getting the microbiomes or the biomes from the soil you know and i i literally like my first week out i was

doing like a low push-up and just holding it on the grass and I ended up getting this rash on my face it turns out that I'm allergic to grass you know but when I was doing it I was just like hanging hovering for the longest time being like this is so good for me I'm being so close to the grass so yeah so when it comes to working out if you can throw it into your yard or any space outside, that's how you would get the fighter T cells to increase because that was specifically related to being in an outdoor environment. What got you into bodybuilding? Because it's unconventional. Female bodybuilding is kind of unconventional. You know, female bodybuilding is kind of unconventional, but then also, you know, having done it, what did you say?

You started like 40 years ago or something like that. So that's very uncommon. What got you interested in gaining muscle? Well, when I was younger, say 19 to 20, I really wanted to be a bodybuilder. I went to all the shows. I was just like, yeah, yeah, yeah. You know, if I can only eat healthy, you know, and, and, and I was just like really into it. And like, if you think of a timeframe of this, this was probably like 84, 85. And when I went to the shows, the, everybody started using steroids at that time. Female bodybuilders started using steroids at that time. And I thought, oh, my gosh, like, I don't want to do this.

Like, because I'm so competitive that if you put me in an environment like that, I would start using steroids to get there. You know what I mean? It just, like, wouldn't take much. So I decided when I was like 20, 21, that I'm not going to do this because of the road that I would go down. I'm young. I haven't had kids, this and that.

And so I didn't. And I just kept working out and I've been working out ever since. But then when I was I gained a lot of weight with my second pregnancy. I mean, I was really big and I was really devoted as a mom and gave all my attention to my kids. But I always kind of worked out. And then I started getting in better and better shape as I aged. And every year I would challenge myself, like Jack LaLanne was one of my, do you guys know who Jack LaLanne is? Yeah, absolutely.

Okay, good. He's somebody that I grew up admiring. And what I admired about him was every year on his birthday, he did something to challenge himself. And so I was like, I don't want to be just like Jack the Lame. So I started challenging myself every year on my birthday. I remember one time I was into Ulta running, and I tried to run 50 miles for my 50th birthday. And I got to, without a lot of turning and i got to mile 43 and like when i did this it's like we had 12 hours to do this and i was driving electric so i had to go move my electric car off the charger during this like 12 hour period and when i got back i was just like oh my god my body can't move you know it was like mile 14 15 i was like ah and and so anyhow

um making a long story short everybody knew me at the gym as somebody that would take on the challenge and i was meeting with my personal training friends and and they they said hey you know shirin why don't you do this for your birthday competition and and it was a natural bodybuilding show and i said oh okay let's do it and so i started um i started for my first show at age 51 with only four months prep and like literally yeah isn't that crazy and literally i thought that they were gonna throw like rotten fruit at me or something getting up on stage i mean really i had nothing and i ended up taking um second place and i don't even know how i did that and i was just like oh my gosh you know if i get first place then i can become pro

obsession sets in. And then I had been competing every year since then. Like, I don't even know how I did that. I mean, basically, let's face it. When you show up to a show, it's like, who else was there? And I think I was like so excited. I was just, I don't know what happened. But yeah, somehow I landed with second.

And I was just like, somehow I landed with second. And I was just like, wow, this is awesome. So then I kept competing. And then afterwards, I wasn't doing this good. I would get really nervous, mess up my back pose, this and that. And then the last competition, I got first in 40 and over. And I was age 55. As a matter of fact, I did a pose where I went, I'm 55. And everybody was like looking at me, but I was so happy to do that up on stage. It was so nice. But I got first

in my age group and I tied for second overall. I compete in natural bodybuilding now. And the reason why I do that is because my dog's coming in. The reason why I do that is, hello. I wanted to make sure that, you know, like I didn't compete when I was younger because of the steroids. And now that I'm older and there is natural bodybuilding, I do want to support that just, just because like, it's something that I believe in and I believe in the community. So, um, yeah, so I, I started doing it because my coworkers dared me and they know I will do anything that you dare me to do, including walking on heels. And as a matter of fact, my one co-worker um teaches people to pose in um in bodybuilding and and um bikini and he really wanted me to do bikini because he didn't think i

had a lot of muscle mass and i don't have a lot of muscle mass and um i'm like i can't do that i have two teenage daughters i just you know i'd rather come in last place and do what I want to do than do that. And plus, I drive him nuts when I'm trying to pose. He's like, no, no, no, no. Don't do it like that. Walk like this. With your hair like this. And I'm like, if I do that, I'm going to fall off my heel. Not going to happen. What's your diet like? What's your nutrition like? Oh, I, you know, my diet is like one of the key things. So you should know I have like, I've had food allergies my whole life.

And, and I've been like one of the weird people i stopped eating like wheat and gluten at the age of 25 and um i've always been allergic to dairy um so i've only had like like i'd say like five years where i ate dairy in my whole entire life um so and and i worked with different coaches so i have a coach right now that really supports me in my autoimmune disorder eating. And, and so I primarily fish, bison, three ounces, breakfast, lunch, dinner, maybe one or two ounces, I have like this special protein powder that I think is like the biggest treat ever. I put a little bit of water in it, mix it up. Sometimes I'll dip

90% dark chocolate in it. So I primarily eat like fish and protein and vegetables, like a lot of vegetables. I do have the flexibility of having more fruit. I have an orange tree out there in the yard. I will definitely engage in eating the oranges right now just because I don't have the energy to look for it. I'll eat berries and stuff like that. I eat olive oil, a little bit of avocado. I was eating coconut oil for a while, then I had some issues with that. So I had to cut back just for my body. But primarily, like a lot of whole foods, I don't eat anything processed. But yeah, I just I don't. I mean, I did have a bison bar last night. And I do have a little bit of the protein powder.

Um, which is like a thorn protein powder. Um, sorry. Um, yeah, but yeah, just basically good, healthy, whole foods. And I really stress that with my clients because a lot of times I specialize in working with people with ADHD. And a lot of times people don't eat. People just don't eat. They forget to eat. They get busy, this and that.

And I think that's a hurdle on your neurochemistry and it makes your stress more. And talk about communicating in a relationship. and it makes your stress more. And talk about communicating in a relationship, you know, that's going to make things so much worse if you're not properly nourishing yourself. You know, I'm really curious about that as far as individuals with ADHD is concerned, because I don't know if I'm wrong about this, but I've heard that like a lot of people just get misdiagnosed for having ADHD and ADD and they get put on medications when they potentially don't need to be put on medications. So my main question is like for the parents that are listening to this, that think or they've been told, oh, my child does have this. What are the things that like they should look for? They should pay attention to that are red flags that it's actually their child does have that or their child doesn't have that and then ways to move forward i think that there's a lot of research

saying that if you're not getting adequate sleep if you're not getting adequate nutrition if if you're not moving that and primarily it's like the sleep in and after that it really looks like adhd you know so when when i work with parents with adhd i do my my whole adhd parenting class but at the end i really stress my four little wheels and and that is, you know, sleeping, relaxation, exercising, nutrition, and that the fourth one would be sleep. So this one would be relaxation. So I'd like to say that I don't care whether or not you have it, or you don't have it. and ADHD is not like a pregnancy test where you know yes you're pregnant no you're not it's like a spectrum of symptoms and disorders and over here you might be ADHD as well as an autistic spectrum type of disorder and over here you might have mild

symptoms but what we're looking at is does this interfere with the quality of your life and does this overwhelm you and affect your attention? And if the answer is yes, then you should do something about it. And when you do something about it, I mean, there's this book called Finally Focus and it was written in 2019 by a psychiatrist in Monterey, Carmel. And he really goes into the dietary, sleep and exercise components on ADHD. I mean, if you're really looking at what makes a good ADHD day and a bad ADHD, it would be those lifestyle components. So instead of just doing medication, he goes in and says, hey, you know, let's check for food allergies.

Let's make sure that you're getting like proper magnesium, zinc, all these different things that would help your neurotransmitters communicate better and let's take a look at that and let's integrate that into the treatment and i work hand in hand with adhd clinic in los altos that does a lot on that as well and works with nutritionists with clients to help make sure that they're fueling properly. So sometimes people are able to do the lifestyle approach. And that's something that I really preach with my clients. I'm after using lifestyle to change their ADHD symptoms, to change their anxiety and depression symptoms, because you can do so much with that. You can do so much with that you can do so much but sometimes people

need a little help with the medication and and that's okay too but to think that you you know like it's a misdiagnosis and or you just need medication i i really think that you're doing a disservice to humankind by doing that. I mean, I think that it's quite frankly like the cheap way to go where you don't have to address your lifestyle. And I think that when you address your lifestyle, there's just so much more that you get. You get self-efficacy and you get self-confidence. I mean, there's just so much more that you get with the lifestyle approach. So I'm preaching the lifestyle approach from any kind of disorder. Medication may not even be a good place to start unless the symptoms are really drastic. Would you agree with that?

I think that, yeah, I think that medication can be effective. It's really fast acting. But I'm really into the lifestyle part of it. Like the meditation, if you learn how to meditate, if you think about this behaviorally, when you're getting your mind focused on the mantra, your breath, whatever, and it gets off track, and you bring it back on track, you're actually strengthening that part of your brain, I believe it's called the corpus callosum, that helps you bring it back, just like you would a muscle at the gym when you're lifting weight. And the more your mind gets off track, and it will get off track more often with your ADHD,

the more you strengthen it. So from that standpoint, your lifestyle things will do more to help your brain be more independent and better operating for a longer period of time without the side effects. And that's, that's what's important here. And it will, you know, help with cognition in the long run. You know, I always tell people that I'm going to be the smartest cookie in the senior center, you know, with all my behaviors in my lifestyle. center, you know, with all my behaviors and my lifestyle stuff. You know, I am curious about this too. And I feel like you kind of answered that question throughout everything you're saying,

but have you seen individuals just like, cause, and I know there's a spectrum of how, I guess how, how strong their, their sickness is, but have you seen individuals be able to come off of medication with lifestyle changes all the time? All the time. Yeah. All the time. Um, when people work with me, um, like we get their lifestyle stuff up to par and then they slowly start weaning off. I mean, the truth of the matter is that there's plenty of research that says, Hey, you know, if you're exercising, if you're eating healthy, if you're sleeping, you know, and relaxing, that this is lifting you up. This is going to support you. And it's not, it's like supporting the neurotransmitters.

I mean, it's like hardcore evidence around that. Got it. What is ADHD exactly? I mean, and do we all kind of have it? Like, it's hard to concentrate on anything nowadays. Well, stress will make it hard for you to concentrate. So anytime you're thinking about other things and stressed out, it makes it harder for you to concentrate. And if you look at the ADHD person, the number one thing that they're going to experience is feeling very overwhelmed.

So I think that right now, you're probably right. There's a lot of people that are very overwhelmed right now, making it super hard to focus and concentrate. But back to your question, it would be so much so that it would affect the quality of life. it would be so much so that it would affect the quality of life meaning that when you're in class You're just not on topic With focusing on what the teacher is saying you're like more looking at the window or you know doing other things sometimes people can have sensory processing disorders where

They're more concerned and they feel things so much it bothers them like for me I wore my first mask yesterday and I was just like oh my god like this doesn't feel good and I'm like oh it makes me want to eat and touch my face more it's like what's the purpose of a mask if it's going to make me like you know and I just realized like that's my sensory processing step you know like of course you know the mask would bother me and I need it like a super silky mask or whatever. And things like that are really overwhelming and take your focus away. So ADHD usually have a lack of dopamine and norepinephrine. It's low and we need to raise those two neurotransmitters. Actually,

GABA is an important thing with ADHD that tends to be low. So do we all have it? Yeah, we can have a tendency to go there. Is it going to be enough to get diagnosed? Maybe, but probably not. But if you did get diagnosed, you can do a lot with lifestyle. Do you think school maybe potentially makes those things worse? Like maybe we ask too much, you know, for a six-year-old or eight-year-old to have to sit through such long periods of class? Absolutely. Developmentally, the ADHD kid is two years younger. So if they're six, they're really like four, right? Developmentally. And it's just really unrealistic to have the kids sit down and do the things that they have to do. I mean, if you look

at the kindergarten curriculum now or first grade curriculum curriculum that's like crazy it's really crazy i mean like we were playing back then and developmentally there's like a lot of research saying that developmentally kids just aren't ready for that i mean i gave both my kids the gift of another year and um hey i just really got screwed with that this year my daughter is graduating from high school now she's not able to graduate because I gave her that gift. It's all my fault. God, I feel so guilty now. But I gave him the gift of another year because developmentally, if they're like, she was a November birthday, and developmentally, you get a December baby, like December 6th with a November baby in a room in kindergarten or first grade. Yeah, those later developmentally kids, you know, from August to December are going

to be behind. And if there's any kind of learning disorder or ADHD, they're going to be even more behind. And I think that I've seen with my kids' school that they're becoming more interactive with high school and more projects and more hands-on, which helps with learning and retention and helps your ADHD kids focus a little bit more. But in the elementary schools, it was kind of brutal. in the elementary schools, it was kind of brutal. I'm a December kid and I have definitely had my fair share of learning disabilities. I wasn't really diagnosed with anything in particular because just like the school I went to and the year that it was, I've never, I never heard of ADHD. I'm sure that there was probably people studying it at the time, but you know, it's 30 years ago. So I didn't really,

they didn't know how to deal with it basically. I got labeled as ADHD and dyslexia when I was a kid and like, I'm older than you, but I was really bad. And what I mean by that is like, I'm older than you, but I was really bad. And what I mean by that is like, I also had like really bad speech impediment. And like, I would just be all over the place. And like, my learning disabilities were like, so insane. It was, it was crazy. And I think that's, that's probably why I love the lifestyle technique so much.

Because in my mind, mind like I'm really trying to level out the playing field like I will do anything to get my brain to be normal in regards to my learning disabilities and my ADHD like anything you know and and like the lifestyle stuff is definitely my vehicle to be to be normalizing my brain and and that's what i noticed when i was younger like this stuff really makes a difference like how i eat really makes a difference with how i'm able to focus and be on target with that but yeah so um yeah sometimes it does go undiagnosed i see a lot of people who come to me when their kids get diagnosed because it's so hereditary. Like, so if it's like two parents have it, you have like an 85% chance that your kids will have it.

If one parent has it, I think it's like 25 to 50%. So it's very highly hereditary. I'm sorry, I messed up there the stats if one identical twin has it you have an 80 85 chance that the other identical twin two parents have it is a 50 chance one parent is a 20 25 chance that the kid will have it i'm also curious actually because it's like nowadays you'll see every single kid or a bunch of kids have phones ipads tech um do you know if there is any uh effect positive or negative of you like kids with technology that have adhd is it a pot like in terms of general day-to-? Is there a positive effect? Or is it

generally negative? Is there a way that parents should think about handling this, instead of just putting their kid in front of a screen? Yeah, I mean, you know, you follow the screen guidelines per day, it's really healthy. I mean, a lot of times when you're ADHD, you're going to be hyper-focused on things that really are of interest to you. And a lot of times the screens and games are very, it makes the kid hyper-focused and really absorbs their attention. But you ought to know that there's other things that other kids hyper-focus on, like playing Lego or reading or playing an instrument or a sport, you know? So I like the hyper-focus to be on those areas because it would really benefit

them more than the screen time. I think with the screen time, the things that I like to look for is like, are they moving? Are they avoiding screens later in the day so that it doesn't interfere with their ability to sleep at night and have a restful sleep? What else can you be doing instead of screens? And if screen time is something that you really, really, really enjoy, how can you fit it in a little bit, but not have it be too much? So it interfer with you know quality of life you doing the lifestyle thing socializing with other people so back to your question screen time is easy medication is easy right because like it is like the electronic babysitter it is like a sure way

to like i even see it at the nature preserve where the parents are bringing their kids and the kids are on the screen and it's just like that's the good way to keep the kids on the trail and out of the poison oak and this and that because like they're like yeah but um it's not healthy for them you know and like the nature preserve is inviting like you know butterflies caterpillars there's just so much to see that it's inviting the kids to get out of the screen. So when you look at nature and ADHD, nature is one of the best things you could do to be in a nature environment for your ADHD and not on the screen. So that was some really roundabout way. Ah, look at you and your glasses.

Yeah, the screen's just a little too bright now awesome thank you so much uh for your time i really appreciate uh you coming on the show and and sharing uh this information with us so it sounds to me like uh you know sleep you know getting in uh you know some some of proper nutrition. Everyone's got their own kind of take on that, but getting some sunlight and getting your sleep not only will assist you all the time, but it will assist you especially right. And exercise will really assist you especially in these times of this virus floating around.

Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. Yeah. Well, it was a pleasure to be on the show with you guys and to meet you. Thank you so much. Enjoy the rest of your day. And I hope that, I hope that you guys stay well and healthy and continue doing what you're doing.

Awesome. Thank you so much. Thank you so much. Yeah, that was awesome. Bye. Okay. Later. awesome thank you so much thank you so much yeah that was awesome bye bye okay see you later i was really hoping that we'd be able to talk to her about her fountain of youth

because i mean there definitely are some like we've talked about lotion but you know uh she wasn't going to give away that secret no i was hoping so i will say say I washed my face for the first time the other day. Slow clap. How did it feel? Well, you'll really love this. I was really, really tired. I was like, dude, I got to take a shower. And I blinked.

And like, you know, when like the sweat like burns your eyes, I was just like, oh, I was like, no. I was like, I don't want to shower right now. So I washed my face and went to bed. Good. Good for you. But I was filthy, though. I just didn't want my eyes to burn. At least you did that. Yeah.

Yeah. I don't know what I washed it with, but it felt invigorating. Yeah. I hope everybody takes walks after this podcast though because uh you know like it's it especially nowadays that it's good to go do that multiple times a day and even after this yeah and i hope people yeah take walks and then look at sherry sherry dang it sherry and sherry n and realize what lifting and bodybuilding can do because she said she was 55 i was like there's no way but man that's and two kids like this is somebody that i can like tell my fiance like

hey check out what she's capable of doing you know like this is good motivation so i don't know man i'm all surprised i had no idea that's great sounds like she doesn't eat a lot of uh a lot of carbs and it also sounds like she doesn't eat a lot of fat because she's eating eating like fish and and vegetables and she did mention like a little bit of olive oil and avocados and stuff like that but yeah she probably is just getting in that protein. Yeah. We know how useful that can be. I mean, what was his name? Neiman. Yeah. He's really big on that. And yeah, it's just, I think the biggest thing that I got from her was the exercise part. How do you encourage somebody to exercise?

And just like you got to just not, there are some people in my life that I'm just like, they just got to back up and I just got to let things run their course. And if they choose to, they do. If they don't, they don't. They'll hear it from a person that will just click with them. You know, I remember, you know, for years telling my family about, you know, omega-3 fatty acids and, you know, cardiovascular training and weight training and different things like that. But until it was said by like Oprah or Dr. Phil or, you know, it came from, you know, some other celebrity or person, then that's when I would get the questions about it. You know, hey, what is this thing Oprah was talking about? Or what is this thing that I saw on TV the other

day? You know, now it's now they're interested all of a sudden, but that's the key is they're going to have to be interested. And I think people are probably smart enough to recognize like, I'm not really, I'm not interested in that. I don't want to be like in SEMA. I don't want to be like these fitness people. And I think that they maybe think that it's too large of a mountain to climb, but maybe they don't understand that just getting exposed to it for a handful of days can start them off into a really healthy direction, you know, but they're going to have to stumble upon that themselves, right? Very true. Yep. So we have... Tough to back up though.

Yeah, we have another podcast to get ready for and I really, really got to go to the bathroom. So yeah, I know it's bad. Well, so I had a little bit too much coffee this morning and my stomach's rumbling. So I just got to make sure everything is cleared out before the next one. Just in case, you know, you never know. Yeah, what time is make sure everything is cleared out before the next one, just in case, you know, you never know. Yeah. What time is it? It is 1224. So we have a little bit of time before the next one, but, uh, yeah, it was really good timing on, on our part. So thank you everybody for checking out this episode. Um, we talked about perfect keto to start things off. If you

guys are interested, check out the links down in the show notes and the YouTube description. Please make sure you're following the podcast at Mark Bell's power project podcast. Oh, no, mine is podcast on Instagram at MB at MB. Dude, I'm falling apart.

I really got to go at MB power project on Tik TOK and Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, all over the damn place. I am at, I am Andrew Z and SEMA, where you be. And it's SEMA on Instagram, YouTube.

Nseema Inyang on TikTok and Twitter. Mark? I'm at Mark Smelly Bell. Please go check out markbell.com. Got a lot of free workouts over there. Giving away the whole month for free so you can get your at-home exercises if you have minimal gym equipment

and if you have no gym equipment. Strength is never a weakness. Weakness is never a strength. Catch you all later. Bye. Power Project, thank you for checking out this episode with Sherry and Lee. And thank you, everybody, for rating and reviewing the podcast on iTunes. I will say it again and again and again. We cannot thank you enough because it does so much for us right now. We want to give a huge shout out to Jackie Sean. Jackie says one of the best podcasts quote, Mark Smelly Bell is all heart and all in whether it's powerlifting,

his family, his business, he gives it all. He is truly an awesome person. This podcast has awesome guests doing big things. If you want to open your mind or change the way of looking at something, need encouragement or have a good laugh, this is the podcast. He is humble, works his tail off, and has a great sense of humor. He is genuine and so down to earth and relatable. That's why they call him the People's Coach.

I'm a forever fan. Jackie, thank you so much for that. Man, that's so kind of you to say all that good stuff about our boy Mark Bell. Thank you so much for taking the time out to do that. If you're listening right now, if you would like to hear your name read on air, please head over to iTunes right now, drop us a rating and a review, and you could hear your name on air just like our homegirl, Jackie Sean. We'll catch you guys on the next one.

Peace.