The Bobby Bones Show - MORGAN: Integrative Health with Cara Clark & Body Image Resilience With Lindsay Kite

Episode Date: March 9, 2025

Take This Personally with The Bobby Bones Show's Morgan Huelsman are honest conversations with experts & friends, helping us all feel less alone!  In this week's episode:  There's a delicate balance between feeling happy & healthy in our bodies while also acknowledging body image issues. This week, Morgan has on Cara Clark first to share her expertise on all things integrative health and how her own past paved a way for her career. She shares her perspective on balancing a healthy lifestyle, a growing business, and being a mom of 4. Then Lindsay Kite is on, she is one of the co-authors of the book 'More Than A Body." She shares why the body is an instrument, not an ornament, and the root cause of body image issues. Plus, how we can be body image resilient in our day to day lives.   Follow Cara Clark: @caraclarknutrition Follow Lindsay & Lexie Kite: @beauty_redefined Follow Morgan: @webgirlmorgan Follow Take This Personally: @takethispersonally   Enjoyed this episode? Subscribe to Take This Personally with Morgan Huelsman wherever you get your podcasts!  https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/take-this-personally-with-morgan-huelsman/id1758726679  Take This Personally with Morgan Huelsman. Honest Conversations with Experts & Friends, helping us all feel less alone. We’re all trying to be the best versions of ourselves but navigating life’s challenges isn’t easy. We may go to therapy, but how does that therapy translate to real life? That’s where this podcast comes in. Look at this podcast as your challenger friend who wants to push you to be the best version of yourself all while lifting you up. We’re going to lean on each other’s experiences to become better, more confident humans. And just maybe… a little bit at a time… feel a little less alone in this big world.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an I-Heart podcast. Guaranteed human. A win is a win. A win is a win. I don't care what you're saying. Yep, that's me. Clivert Taylor the 4th. You might have seen the skits,

my basketball and college football journey, or my career in sports media. Well, now I'm bringing all of that excitement to my brand new podcast, The Clifers Show. This is a place for raw, unfills of conversations with athletes, creators, and voices that not only deserve to be heard, but celebrated.

So let's get to it. Listen to The Clifford Show on the IHard Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. And for more behind the scenes, follow at Clifford and at TikTok podcast network on TikTok. When a group of women discover they've all dated the same prolific con artist, they take matters into their own hands. I vowed. I will be his last target. He is not going to get away with this. He's going to get what he deserves. We always say that trust your girlfriends.

Listen to the girlfriends. Trust me, babe. On the Iheart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. This week on the Sports Slice podcast, it's all about the NFL draft. And we've got a special guest. The director of the NFL's East-West Shrine Bowl, Eric Galco, joins the Sports Slice podcast to break down what really matters when evaluating draft prospects. From hidden traits teams look for to the biggest mistakes franchises make to the players flying under the radar.

This is the insight you won't hear anywhere else. If you want to understand the draft like an insider, you don't want to miss this episode. Listen to the Sports Slice Podcasts on the Iheart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. And for more, follow Timbo Slica Life 12 and TikTok podcast network on TikTok. This week, we are focused on the body and all in good ways, nothing to be concerned about. I'm hoping this episode empowers you to do things that are helpful for you and your body. First, I'm bringing on Kara Clark, who is an integrative nutritionist and wellness educator in integrative health, blood chemistry, and sports and clinical nutrition.

She's going to share her story of how she got into this line of work and how she balances health and wellness in her home as a mom of four girls. And she's going to share a lot of her perspective on the health industry and how she's helping people understand their bodies better. Then I'm bringing on Lindsay Kite. She's one of the co-authors on the book, More Than a Body, and has a PhD in the subject matter. We will talk about body image resilience, why body positivity is more than a movement, and how your body is an instrument, not an ornament. I'm super excited this week to be joined by

Kara Clark. We were just talking about our love for the Midwest for both Midwest girls. Hi, Kara. How are you? Hi, I'm good. How are you? I'm doing good. Thanks for joining me and being on here. Beyond you being a Midwest girlie along with me. You are also an integrative nutritionist and wellness educator. You've done all types of clinical nutrition. You're just telling me how you were an athlete in college. And now you have a book coming out. So walk me through your story a little bit, how you got to the path that you're on now. First of all, I love the name of your podcast. I think it's really cute and catchy. And I don't know, I'm excited to share personal things. That's where we're going to go with this. We get things. We really want people to take this personally. There's a reason for

Yeah. When I listen to podcasts, I like want to know about people because I can find what they teach on their website or whatever. But I'm like, how did you get there? So I love that. Well, and it gives background to who you are. Like you're telling me what you want me to know, but why should I listen to you? Right. Exactly. What is your experience? Because, you know, everybody has a story. And, you know, ironically, when I was getting into nutrition, it was still really fitness-based human calculator, so to speak, calories in, calories. calories out, very calorie oriented, very number oriented. And everybody had this big weight loss testimony. And I was a college athlete, so I did not have a weight loss testimony. I had issues with

weight because my coach wait us every two weeks. That's another story. That led me into more of a disordered eating path. So when I found myself in a path that, like, I lost a little bit of control, I had to reevaluate what did I want for my own life? And like, how do I reach people who are in this phase because this is hard. I don't want to, I didn't want to do that. I'm a faith-based person. I didn't want to offend God and hurt my temple, so to speak. So yeah, at 22, I started credentials to become a certified nutritionist, but it was partly because in basketball and college, I knew like that level of performance was achievable, but nobody could guide me on how to get there. I had to discover it on my own. I was always sick during playoffs, like immune system

break down. Why is my immune system breaking down? What am I supposed to be eating? Everybody's drinking Gatorade and it hurts my stomach. You're having these chronic issues. Yeah. Chronic issues are something that often isn't talked about or able to be discovered in traditional medicine. Because they're invisible. Back then, 17 years ago, people wanted this visible breakthrough. A weight loss. How do we easily fix this? Yeah. How do you easily fix it for sure? So my thought process when I created my business, which, you know, this will tell you a little bit more. So since we're taking it personally, I decided to start my own business officially right when I got married without telling my new husband. Oh, gosh. Okay. What was that like? And by the way, I was pregnant. A lot happening in there.

And now you're a mom of four girls, which, again, it just seems like there's this thing that has happened with you in your life where there's always been a lot happening. There are always, chaos is normal. I'm one of eight from the Midwest, like we talked about. So chaos has been normal for me, which is ironic because a couple of my breakdowns in my body were because of stress, but not because I was more stressed because I never dealt with the stress at hand. So yeah, got married, got pregnant on her honeymoon, even though I text my mom from the Dominican asking her if I was fertile on day nine or whatever. And she said I wasn't.

She said you weren't. Did you already know at this point? No, I had no. idea. Like I only just started tracking like fertility and stuff when right when I was getting married. I didn't think anything of it. So yeah, I was fine though. Like I wanted to be a mom my whole life. I could have skipped the wedding. That wasn't for me. I wanted to be a mom. But yeah, I never said my husband, do you care if I quit my well-paying job to start my own business? It was just like, hey, by the way. And what was the well-paying job? I was working at a law firm. I was like running a

department. I shouldn't have been running only because I was in Orange County. did I get the job by the way I looked. Okay, wild, but also crazy jump. Yes. Athlete, nutrition stuff. You were not working. And then you were working at a law firm. And then you started your own business, which I'm assuming is this what you're doing now.

Why? What was like, I need to start this business and leave this job? The urgency to heal my own disordered eating. And that's what it always is. It's our own chronic issues that we want to hear. heal from. Like I said, disordered eating is very invisible and a lot of people don't go to the doctor to get a diagnosis, you know, but it controls your mind. It controls every part of your day. It controls your energy. And so when I was trying to figure out food, I wanted there to be a purpose involved

and I wanted it to be providing energy. I thought as a performance athlete, everyone wants to perform on a daily basis. No way nobody wants to stop performing or not have energy. And so what I built into my philosophy was to help me get out of my eating disorder, but also give people purpose and performance in their everyday life. So then I created my nutrition philosophy. So 17 years ago, I've stuck with it for 17 years, but I've added into my credentials. Yeah, you've evolved in a lot of that. For you, what did the disorder eating look like? Because that's another thing with it is it looks different for everybody.

Yeah. So for you, what was that like? It wasn't like binging or bulimia or anything like that. It was more like what they would call orthorexia, like overly working out and overly calculating calories and stuff like that. And was that because you had mentioned in the beginning of this, a coach who was weighing you, was that part of this where all this started? I mean, I didn't weigh myself then, but I didn't.

did move from Oklahoma to California. So looking a certain way felt like it was a high priority for a 22 year old. A cultural shift. It's a huge culture shift. And yeah, I was just finding myself and like my identity outside of being a student athlete and going into the work world. I was broadcast journalism in college. I fully thought I would be like a sideline reporter until I found out what their lives looked like and their hours looked like. And I knew I wanted a family. I met my husband like five weeks after I moved to California. Oh, wow. Okay, and so what was that like to, you're going through this. You had just made a big move.

You just met your husband. Well, now husband, obviously he wasn't then. But what was that like for you? Like you were experiencing in your body as all of those things are happening. I've always been somebody who goes with the flow. What do they say? Ask forgiveness, not permission. That's kind of like the way I am and it's not something I think about.

So I do have to apologize a lot. I'm really good at apologizing. I can, you know, say things I didn't mean or whatever. But anyway, it wasn't like this crazy experience, but I did know that for myself I needed to feel right with God. And so actually it led me to this very adult spiritual experience that you don't realize when you're a kid that your worldview is just what you learn from your parents and your church and stuff, you know?

And so when I was able to adopt that, I was like, oh, I can feel faith. And that feels good. And so I actually got with a spiritual director. And he told me, and I've shared this many times, but I feel like it's really powerful for people to hear. He said, if you count your, or if you keep a prayer log, like you keep your food log, you'll be a saint. Interesting. And that was like groundbreaking for me. I was like, oh, yeah.

Well, and especially with your experiences that you had, and that probably was just such an powerful correlation for you. Yeah. So that was this shift then into this world, the nutrition, wellness. How long did it take you to get your body back to the track that you would feel was healthy? The second I got pregnant, I was like, it's not about me anymore. And that was what healed me. And so for me, it was like circumstance. And I don't know if that happens for everybody.

I still not like being weighed while I was pregnant. Understandably, so you're growing another human. Yeah. That comes with some territory. Yes. And I wasn't even somebody who gained a lot of weight being pregnant. But from the second I found I was pregnant, I was nurturing the baby. And that's when I really focused on my macros and not so much the calories,

but like making sure I was getting the combination of carbs, fat, and protein every time I ate and eating real foods. So I was just really focused on nourishing the life growing inside of me and not really myself anymore. So being taken out of myself is how I healed. Yeah, and that makes sense. I don't think it's uncommon to hear. You talked to a lot of parents, and there's just a shift that happens. And it sounds like for you, it was especially a shift in your health and wellness. But also what you are doing when it comes to nutrition and integrative health and stuff, it's kind of this, I don't want to say untapped market, because people have been researching nutrition and diets for years. But the integrative health is

just a little bit uncommon. It still is today as far as trying to really blend all things natural along with traditional medicine and just finding the right flow for each individual person. So when you were getting into this, how are you like, okay, how do I figure out how to do this for myself and then start to teach people about this? Because you don't have a lot of studying material. Right. Yeah. And I wouldn't say I was integrative then. I was really focused on just nutrition. Okay. And so learning how to be a nutritionist and help guide people on the energy of food and not so much like the calories of food, even though calorie is a measurement of energy. I started working with sororities all over Southern California because I knew they were probably battling

the same thing that I was. And I trained them through boot camps and then I taught them how to grocery shop on their budgets. So that gave me so much purpose. It also helped me understand and like human behavior. So a huge part of guiding anybody on anything wellness is understanding human behavior and being patient and like being a good listener. My husband might argue that I'm a good listener, but I'm really good listener for my clients. That's different in clients versus marriage. We're walking different territories there.

You were mentioning to how everybody's very different and the body's different for everybody. And you're talking about listening to your clients. how do you, when you get a client, what are some things that you're paying attention to about their lifestyle that's going to help you on the nutrition side of things? Yeah, that's a really good question and comprehensive question at that. I'll just start with saying why I became an integrative practitioner as well as an integrative nutritionist and not holistic and not functional. Okay.

Because I think, you know, there's naturopath, there's functional medicine doctors, there's Chinese medicine doctors. There's all these things. But I knew that at the root of people's food issues, most of the time people were coming to me in the early days. So in my 20s were weight loss or sports performance. I had a lot of people being referred to me for sports performance. That was always fun for me.

My next health breakdown happened in my 30s when I was just burning the candle at both ends. I had four kids in five years. I was pregnant in nursing. seven, my business blew up, turned into a business. I thought it was a hobby. I was pursuing my passion. My husband was earning the money. And, you know, for seven years, it did not matter what I made. You know, I just got to pursue my passion. I got to be a mom. I got to have the kids. And then overnight, like, I had this huge influx of people. And I was like, okay. And I had, I was having my third child at that point. So I got a thousand emails in a day. I'm not even kidding.

Where did that come from? Orange County Housewife. Okay, you got mentioned on there? I got brought into the scene of celebrityism, and I always avoided it, to be honest, and it was hard to avoid where I lived. Yep. Well, and everybody there wants to be. Everybody wants health help.

Like, it's just never ending in that area of the world. So overnight I had to build, I had to streamline something without any employees. So I built my challenge programs, and those are, seasonal and then years later I built this membership so and I have this whole team of nine amazing women that do all the things but anyways while I was having kids and then running a full scale business which I didn't necessarily intend for I just had I really did just have always been the hardest worker I know but it really did just happen does that make sense yeah absolutely like I didn't have the strategy in mind but I worked my butt off yeah you were doing the hard work and it just paid off

you just didn't realize it was going to happen in that quick right Right, right. It was literally, that part was overnight, but they say overnight success takes 10 years, and in that case it was eight. Yeah, it always does. There's always, everybody wants to look at the moment that it happened, not all the years leading up to it. Right.

And it is crazy how, in the blink of an eye, like, all that work paid off. But for me, I didn't have any intention of hiring a nanny or, like, my motherhood. So to have grown a business as a mom. and then years later deal with some health issues with one of my kids and got pretty sick myself because like you, I was waking up at 3.30 in the morning so that I could get my work done before my kids woke up and then I could get another three-hour window while they took naps. So I had a beautiful structure of routine of sleep in my house, but I didn't realize like how much it was hurting me and how much it was hurting my nervous system and my adrenals and my cortisol.

And, you know, first my skin broke out. You know, I'm in my 30s. I'm like three years post-nursing my fourth child. I should be like in my prime, right? Like I did all the hard things and now I should be flowing. My skin started breaking out and then I got really lean, like to the point where I couldn't put weight on. And then I'm like 33, 34, then I got insomnia.

And I thought it was all spiritual. So I, like, did all the prayer work. I got the spiritual advisors again. For me, I always go spiritual first. And so I have acne. I have insomnia. I have nervous system issues. Like, I'm on the brink of feeling like death all the time.

And I'm a nutritionist. And you're like, I thought I'm doing all the right things. I was invincible. Yeah. I ate right. I exercised. I did what I was told by the fitness industry and by my original credential. So I started working with a functional medicine doctor and a Chinese medicine doctor and started putting my body back together, started to understand.

I had to, I mean, if I was going to take care of four kids all day and run a business, I had to optimize my sleep, not sleep less. So started putting the pieces back together and then exploring further. And the reason I became integrative rather than functional, quote unquote, which are similar, to be honest, I feel like functional tries the thing. throw solutions at the problem, whereas I wanted this, like, root cause approach. So even years later, I still had some adrenal stuff coming up. Some, like, I was doing all the supplements. I was doing, like, 13 supplements a day. For some people, that doesn't sound like a lot, but I like my clients to be like five or under a day, unless they're on a healing protocol. So for me, integrative is using Ayurvedic, which is ancient 6,000 years old, like the original saunas and castor oil wraps

and the dosha body type and stuff like that. I like assessing the body with this ancient medicine in mind. I like exploring Chinese medicine, like I said, Chinese circadian rhythm. They have this clock that helps us identify what organ systems might not be optimal based on the weakness in the time of day. So our sleep cycle, if we're waking up at a certain time, every night, we can look into the Chinese circadian rhythm. So I use a little Chinese. Biomolecular is supplemental. But it's also therapeutics.

It's botanicals and herbs and that kind of. So it's not just like vitamins and minerals. And I don't like to just supplement people based on their labs either. I want to find the root cause and help the body be able to activate. That's so hard to do too because the root cause, you're like, I've learned the body's just kind of this onion that you're just constantly peeling back to be like, okay, what are going to find now what's next we took care of this now what's this well and especially because i sounded so midwest especially it's okay we like the midwest though especially because a lot of our root causes

were brought to us by birth yeah we came into the world with them and so it's our normal and so we don't know any different yeah you don't know any different so about 33 34 i did a bunch of integrative functional work and then around 38 i did a bunch of root cause stuff and then that really opened my eyes. Talk about peeling back the onion, you start to not relive, but see some of these, like, trauma experiences. Like, I started getting hives at eight. Why did I start getting hives at eight?

Well, once I started addressing the root cause, I figured out why I started getting hives at eight. Why? I'm not going to go there. Okay, okay, okay. I mean, it's related to trauma, right? Kids forget things. And your body holds it somewhere. But your body doesn't.

Your body does keep score. I love that saying. your body keeps score because it's so true. So when I started doing root cause through using bio-energetic medicine, and then I use quantum. So light therapy, pimp therapy. Are these, have you heard of these before? Oh, yeah.

I'm just, I wasn't sure how far it went down. I know. I mean, it goes pretty far. I won't get too far into it. But I like incorporating all of it because it depends on going back to the bio-individuality of the person. First, like what are their epigestion? genetics, meaning their lifestyle practices now, can they be compliant with the food? Because I can do

like a pull, or a full pullback of all the food that they're eating and like only put in food that their system can optimize with. Interesting. Which would be super helpful for anybody. It's super helpful for anybody. I discovered it by working with autoimmune people. And then I'm like, so why doesn't this work with anybody inflamed? Okay, it does. Like this is a full body reset. and you're not restricting calories or food, you're restricting certain types of food that are harder for the body to digest. So if a food's harder for the body to digest, it's going to take energy to do it.

So the energy is going towards digestion and not healing. So if we really pull it back and we just put food in the body that can be used, that's bioavailable immediately, then the body starts to restore. So people want to like always add things in. I'm like, well, what can we take out? That's true. But it has to be like mentally, emotionally, and physically available to the client. And it is true because that's why I ask lifestyle-wise,

because so much of health and wellness where people struggle is convenience and accessibility. And that's where you have a lot of people who are like, yeah, I want to do these things. I want to take care of myself. But I don't have the tools. I don't have the time. And how do you start to do that? And then you start to do your own research, which you've been able to find your way through, right? But to the normal person who has no knowledge or any version of training, they go online and you have so many options.

Which option do you go down? Okay, this is. They take, they want to take something. They always want to take stuff. Everything is just a different journey, a different battle that you have to go down. So it's interesting to hear that perspective, not once and all of the, my research that I've personally done, have I ever heard somebody be like, well, let's like remove some things, but also keep stuff in. Yeah. That's just a different strategy. Yeah. I want to go a few

different areas here on some of the things you said. One of them you mentioned supplements. Supplements are very common, especially as people are trying to understand their bodies, better. Supplements tend to be something that people go down, especially coming out of traditional medicine and into a more functional lifestyle. Why do you say five and under? And what's this deal with supplements. Because most of the time when people are coming to me, they've already been here, there, here, there, like five different other places. And typically, they're loaded up with supplements and they have all kinds of gut issues. So in order for a supplement to work, it has to go through the gut and then get to the bloodstream. And it gets to the bloodstream

from the gut. So if you don't have, like, pretty optimal gut health, then there's not a lot of encapsulated unless it's wrapped in fat, which is hyposomal. It's a little. It's a little. liposomal is a better option for somebody who's really trying to heal. So my rule of thumb is foundational support. So foundations with food, foundations with movement. That doesn't mean more workouts. It means like matching what the body is able to do with its stage, stress, and otherwise. And then foundations of activation.

So we activate the body in general with an active multi and omega-3 or balance oil. and a probiotic. So these are the three starting point. If you can only afford $4 a day, that's where you start. If you're somebody, food is not pleasurable because it's like always disrupting, meaning like loading gas, everyone complains their bloated inflammation. We're going to do digestive enzymes with that foundations. If you're somebody's super high stress or high strung like me, then we're going to do magnesium and optimize the body that way. And we're likely going to going to do an active bee because somebody like me is burning the adrenals out. So we're burning our bees. Burning the bees. That's five, right? And you had mentioned these. And again, you can go online

and you say, everybody needs this. Like you can see it. You got influencers school or you have so much content that's happening out there. But truly, is there supplements that every single person needs? Is there things that every single body is going to need? Does that actually happen, or is it more so often that your body is unique and you need to treat it as such? Yeah, I mean, if you have the resources to really do the bio-individual approach, 100%. Test don't guess. But functional medicine testing and integrated medicine testing is going to be, if you want

to find out your biomarkers on all of your vitamins and minerals, it's going to be like $1,200. So that's not available to everybody. Again, back to the accessibility side of it. Yeah, right. So just general rule of thumb, I'm going to suggest, you know, an active multi, like Thorn or Equalife. Right now I really, for somebody that is aware that they have MTHFR, I like this supplement called NLight for their active multi.

So if I have a little bit of data on them, I can make suggestions. But yeah, if we're just generalizing this, go with an active multi. even Mary Ruth's vitamins, which are accessible on Amazon and most people can pay for them, are good. Okay. That's good to know. I think for a lot of people, too, because just like I said, the accessibility thing is what is so difficult.

And that's why I think people turn to the Internet. They're trying to find answers the best way they can. And yet they end up burdening the body. Yes, because it's often that a lot of things band-aid. We're back to the root cause. It's, again, onion. It's all onion. And there's so many different layers.

and a lot of complexities of human, which is why health and wellness, I think, goes so much beyond understanding just your nutrition and the things that you're supposed to have in or not have in. It's understanding things as a whole. And I love that's what you're practicing that.

You're also preaching that in your own life. Yeah. A win is a win. A win. A win is a win. I don't care what I'm saying. Yep, that's me. Clipper Taylor the 4th. You might have seen the skits, the reactions,

my journey from basketball to college football or my career in sports media. Well, somewhere along the way, this platform became bigger than I ever imagined. And now I'm bringing all of that excitement to my brand new podcast, The Clifford Show. This is a place for raw, unfiltered conversations with some of your favorite athletes,

creators, and voices that not only deserve to be heard, but celebrated. One week, I'll take you behind the scenes of the biggest moments in sports and entertainment, and the next we'll talk about life, mental health, purpose, and even music. The Clifford Show isn't just a podcast. It's a space for honest conversations, stories that don't always get told, and for people who are chasing something bigger. So, if you've ever supported me or you're just chasing down a dream, this is right where you need to be. Listen to The Clifford show on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. And for more behind the scenes, follow at Clifford and at TikTok Podcast Network on TikTok.

There's two golden rules that any man should live by. Rule one, never mess with a country girl. You play stupid games, you get stupid prizes. And rule two, never mess with her friends either. We always say that trust your girlfriends. I'm Anna Sinfield, and in this new season of the girlfriends, Oh my God, this is the same man. A group of women discover they've all dated the same prolific con artist.

I felt like I got hit by a truck. I thought, how could this happen to me? The cops didn't seem to care. So they take matters into their own hands. I said, oh, hell no. I vowed. I will be his last target. He's going to get what he deserves.

Listen to the girlfriends. Trust me, babe. On the Iheart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Everyone, I'm Ego Vodom. My next guest, you know from Step Brothers Anchorman, Saturday Night Live and the Big Money Players Network. It's Will Ferrell.

Woo. Woo! My dad gave me the best advice ever. I went and had lunch with him one day. And I was like, and dad, I think I want to really give this a shot. I don't know what that means, but I just know the groundlings. I'm working my way up through, and I know it's a place that come look for up and coming talent. He said, if it was based solely on talent, I wouldn't worry about you, which is really sweet.

Yeah. He goes, but there's so much luck involved. And he's like, just give it a shot. He goes, but if you ever reach a point where you're banging your head against the wall and it doesn't feel fun anymore, it's okay to quit. If you saw it written down, it would not be an inspiration. It would not be on a calendar of, you know, the cat. Just hang in there. Yeah, it would not be.

Right, it wouldn't be that. There's a lot of luck. Listen to Thanks Dad on the IHeartRadio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcast. You were talking to your high strice and you shared bits and pieces of your story as a mom of four daughters. And you have a husband. Like you have all the reasons to not be doing health and wellness. You're busy. You have your own business.

Like how do you do it? How is this working for you? Well, part of it is I have to. If I don't stay pretty straight and narrow on my choices, it's easy for me because I'm obsessed with feeling good. Let's face it. I want to feel good every single day. I don't like feeling bad ever. I'm a wimp when it comes to any symptoms.

If my ring is even, oh, you're showing some mild symptoms. I'm like, oh, you're like, okay, great. I have to restart everything. So I have to. I chose this. This is my dream life that I'm living right now. I'm not going to watch it fade away. So having four kids keeps you in the present moment.

And that's the nice thing about the chaos of my life as I'm all. always in the present moment. So I'm not having to do all this meditation work to get in the present moment because I'm in the present moment. My meditation work is to, you know, ring out my nervous system a little bit. So the, why do, like, why do I do it? How do I do it? I think people should just come love with me and see. I don't know how to describe it. But generally, I follow my food philosophy. I eat within the hour of waking up. I don't drink coffee on an empty stomach. Those are two big ones that I think a lot of people don't do. I try to exercise every day for 30 minutes. And I don't like the only reason I say try, I'm obsessed with working out,

like I mentioned from the beginning. But my day doesn't always a lot for it. And so by lifestyle, I have a lot of neat movement. Have you heard of that? Non-exercise, thermogenesis. Okay, what is those? It's tracking the movement of our body. I'm up and down the stairs. I'm up and down the stairs. We were talking about your stairs. You know, putting laundry away, doing dishes. I have a lot of movement. Walking my kids to school, walking the dog, just a lot of movement. And I try to prioritize movement over going to a workout class because I know it's not

realistic for me in my stage of life. And I'm okay with that because when this is set and done and the girls move on, that'll be like the hard part for me. I'll have a harder time staying structured and regimented then. Yeah. Like right now I have to drink my water. I have to take my detox baths. I have to do, take my vitamins or I pay for it, you know?

Yeah. When I don't have to anymore, when like space is totally cleared up, then I'm going to have to deal with all my issues. You're like, there's a lot of purpose behind this side right now, so I'm just going to face it into that. No, but that's also very real, right? Because it's easy to look at somebody like you who has all this knowledge and has the experience and be like, well, yeah, that's easy for.

her. Yeah. But you have a very busy and full life. Yeah. And you've made it a priority, but that's your drive. Right. So I think that's something for people to think of is, what's their drive? What's their reason?

That's your reason. And this is why every day you're like, okay, I have to do these things. Right. You have your purpose. So finding a purpose, I think, will help people in attaining these goals when it is, you want to look at it and be overwhelmed and say, there's no way I can do this. Right. So I think that's part of that.

Well, and I, in my membership this year, I started the year off with a coaching session of having them reprioritize and not just what's important, what's not. Like, what's relevant to what you're aspiring to do? Why are you here? You're in my membership for a reason. So let's lay it out with priorities instead of goals. And I felt like that even helped me. Like, I was telling my team the other day, I don't have time to help in my daughter's

school, quote unquote, but that's what gives me great joy. So I'm reprioritizing that in my schedule. So I go do that every Tuesday for an hour or whatever. People think I'm crazy. I coach my kids' teams because that's a priority to me because it gives me so much joy. You know, I don't not do things because I don't have time. I restructure my schedule for my priorities. Does that make sense?

It absolutely does. And it is something that is difficult, right? Because a lot of topics on this podcast in general has always been, it's easier to do stuff that's not hard. Yeah. That's just true. Unfortunately, and it's easy to get stuck in ways where it's just you're taking the easier route or you're repeating the same cycle.

What you're talking about is a hard choice to make. You have to make the choice to make things a priority and restructure your life to make that happen, which we love to think that we can do. But when we're faced with that decision is often, I'm okay. Yeah. It's true. To cook dinner or grab dinner, for sure. It really is.

And then back to the convenient side of things and understanding all of that. So understanding that things are a priority is necessary. I also want to mention to you. So on my side of things, you're going to probably have a lot of tips in this area. I've been a vegetarian since I was eight years old. It was a decision that I made very. In the middle of Kansas, no less. Yeah, very young.

My sister told me where my main. McDonald's cheeseburger came from and I said, I am absolutely not eating this anymore and declared right then and there to my parents. Very strong opinion of me not to, but I did and I was stuck with it. I'm not 31 years old. It's a long time of being vegetarian. But one of my biggest struggles, and I think so many people's struggles, regardless of being vegetarian, vegan, or eating all kinds of meat, is getting protein in all the time. And it's so important, but it's so hard to do. It is. I don't know why. I mean, that's why I think it trends to say prioritize protein, because really I prioritize all three macros, but it is the one thing that you don't naturally grab.

Fat's easy to get fat is twice as nutrient dense. You don't need as much. So by the looks of it, you eat half the fat as you do carbs and protein. Yeah, protein is not a natural thing for people to grab. You're 100% right. I wonder what's involved in that human nature and evolution. I'm with you, it's hard to think about the animals. And I have actually a friend from Kansas who found out where her pet pig went. Oh, no. And never ate meat again. So. No, that would traumatize me.

I know. It is traumatizing. And I went through a stage where I was vegetarian and it was so inflammatory for my body that I had to make the hard choice. So like, but yeah. And like when I'm working with somebody, there are emotions and there's physiological things and there's physical things. and there's mental things.

And so I have to help the person build back regardless of my beliefs. Does that make sense? So anyways, what was the original question? Oh, protein. Well, the hard part. You can also talk about, because you had mentioned that you do the three groups together than just protein too. So if that's better, feel free.

This is just the hot thing on social media. Everybody's talking about protein. It's because it's hard to get. It's not natural. Even like my daughter that came home early today, she made herself a huge, and she's like, I just don't know what protein to add. So it's just not natural unless we're like deferring to dairy. Everyone wants cheese and yogurt.

Yeah. Oh, yeah. As a vegetarian, that's the one reason I can't go vegan. Yes. I've tried. And it is to that point. And because often like when people think about protein, when they think about a healthy meal, it'd be like veggies, rice, protein.

Yes. And people are so tired of doing that. Right. again, indoctrinated by the fitness world. Exactly. And they're tired of that. So they're like, okay, well, how can I find other ways to get in protein? Then you start looking like, well, maybe there's really not all that many options here.

Well, there's not like very many pure, complete proteins for vegetarians. That's just the truth. Theory is one. So you're right on that. And even... Cottage cheese is like my best friend. Yeah, I love cottage cheese. I did a bioresonance scan with physics measuring my voice.

So I do all the testing. I love this. And cottage cheese came back perfect. I was like all the wavelengths match cottage cheese in my body, which is ironic because I don't do well with most dairy. Okay. So cottage cheese though was the same one. I need, you keep telling me all these things. And I'm like, okay.

Do you do eggs? Are you pescatarian? I do eggs. But it's like a weird. I have a weird relationship with eggs. Sometimes I'll be like, yeah, let's eat them. Nobody can have a relationship with eggs anymore. They're just confiscated permanently.

I know. They're gone. They are. I saw a place was doing in New York. They were doing like Lucy eggs where they're just selling like one. I'm like, imagine you just go and buy five Lucy eggs and you're trying to make it home with these Lucy eggs. You're like back in high school when they gave you that as a baby to take care of. Oh my gosh. Yeah. And I'm like, what are you going to put your Lucy eggs in now because you don't get a cart in is a whole thing. That's funny. I didn't know that. Yeah. And then like when you take the deeper dive and I know we don't have all the time. in the world, but vegetarian protein is plant-based. And a lot of these plants are not organic

and they're not grown in rich soil and they're high in arsenic, which is a heavy metal. And so then you're like, where do I turn? And then the nut milks and stuff, they're, unless you make your own, which, like, who has time for that? It is getting to the point where you're like, I might as well just have my own garden, make my own things, don't go to the store. I know. Never need to go to the store. If we end up in an apocalypse, I suppose that would help everybody else. Every time I hire Instacart and ship, they put me over the edge with their replacement. So, or lack thereof.

Yep. Every time. Well, that is like a big topic. But what is something to for you? Because you've been in this so long, you personally, maybe it's something for other people, however you want to walk down, you can. But what's something you wish you had known sooner about whether it's nutrition, health. Yeah, the biggest thing I wish I had known is about adrenals. And taking this more integrative, our adrenals are on top of our kidneys. And our kidneys in Chinese medicine are our heart. So in American, in our understanding, the kidneys are the air filter to the body. And so if the adrenals are down, it affects the kidneys, which affects your drainage pathways, which,

you know, and then affects a lot of other things, obviously. But if I understood supporting my adrenals through my pregnancies, through starting my business, I don't think I would have had the major two-year breakdown that I did where I thought everything was going to lose everything. So, you know, supporting your adrenals is not a simple topic. It's different for everybody. it's not vegetarian. They all are. That's fine. I know.

So that's one thing. And then obviously the nervous system, I think that, like I said, we define things as normal for ourselves because we're used to it and because it became our normal. But having balance in the body and regulation of the different systems is what we should be seeking, not keeping our normal. That's really good information for other people, too, to have. but crazy. The adrenals I learned about too when I also had went into some, you said the supplemental

side, what would that be referred to as in medicine? Oh, biomolecular. Yeah. More supplement. And one of the biggest things, high stress, I had bad adrenal because I had such a high stress job. And I was like, I didn't even know those exist. I know.

What are you talking about? Well, and it seems like a loose term, like adrenal fatigue, because for me, I was hyper. I wasn't tired. Like, I couldn't even go to sleep. Yeah, you're like, this feels like that's not hot. Yeah, it didn't sound right until I really started the path of discovery. Yeah. Well, I could, listen, Kara, we could sit here all day and talk because I love everything that you're doing. Your story is amazing. But I do love to end the podcast with a motivational tip, if you will, or something that you feel like can help other people or something that you just feel like on your heart to share. So, So something motivational to end us here on a high note.

Yeah, that's awesome that you always share motivational things. I think for most people, when they do start health journeys, it's fleeting that they don't see results. So really tap into how you feel. You can measure how you feel. Do you have energy? Do you feel good rather than what the scale says or what your clothes say? If you feel good, change will come.

That's a really important one, especially right now. because the impact of social media has a lot of us seeing ourselves differently and thinking that the scale is still one of the most important things when it really isn't. Right. It has a lot to do with how you feel. So Kara, thank you for joining me. Thanks for being here, sharing your story. You do have your new cookbook that's coming out.

I did want to mention too because weird connection by way, country music, you have a forward in there from Carrie Underwood. Yeah. What's that connection? We went to college together in Oklahoma. Okay. You said, oh, now this is making sense. So been friends since college?

Well, yes. There was a window of time where we lost touch, but we moved here because they were very welcoming to us. Wow. Okay. And have you guys worked together at all on the nutrition side? Because I know she's also huge in-hap-al-l-l-l-l-it. I was a contributor to her book, and I'm the nutritionist on her app.

So I developed the recipes for her Fit-52 app. But, yeah, we try to keep our relationship super, like, friendship. Yeah. And, you know, personal and not so much work. Nice thing with somebody like her is you're not even working with her. You're working with her team. Yeah. So, you know, we always keep our relationship friendly.

No, that's a good thing. Well, I love that. And it's friends supporting friends. Yeah, exactly. You helped in some things, but also the core of what you guys are. Yeah. Oh, and Carrie Underwood's nutritionist. I'm like, we're just friends.

She doesn't listen to me. Yeah. You're like, well, I mean, Carrie Underwood's in great shape. I know. At some point, you just be like, and I can't even claim it. It takes her five years. went after I say something for her to follow through. Oh, hey, Carriano would just like the rest of us, you know?

We're all learning. But I'm really excited to see your cookbook take off, just like everything else has happened for you. But again, thank you for being here. Thank you. I am joined by Lindsay Kite. She is one of identical twins. They are two twins who promote body image resilience after getting their PhDs from the

University of Utah in the study of female body image. but they also have a book called More Than a Body. I'm just so excited to have you on. How are you, Lindsay? I'm good. Thanks so much for having me, Morgan. Yes, I'm excited to get a talk with you because your book is so powerful for so many people. I'm shocked how I hadn't heard of it until I stumbled upon you guys on social media. And I was like, these guys are perfect. I need to have them on the podcast. So tell me a little bit how you guys got into this line of work. Sure, yeah. Thanks for this invitation, whether or not you had heard of our book or our work or whatever. I'm glad you stumbled upon us. So love that. And I can fill you in on the whole background. I would say Lexi and I first got started in this work because we had been so affected by our culture's really crazy, harmful ideals about bodies and weight and beauty growing up. And so we were kind of primed to recognize this as a real issue within ourselves. I'll start from when we were both in college and we were trying really, really hard to be different. But we both took separate sections of the same class on media literacy. So it was basically just the ability to see and

deconstruct media messages, why images and texts are curated the way that they are and engineered the way that they are. And one of the elements of that was on gender and how women are represented and portrayed in such specific narrow one-dimensional ways. So Lexi and I grew up feeling so abnormal, just so embarrassed of our bodies. And like, we were just so gross and overweight and will never be good enough and always striving for more. And in college, once we both were in these separate classrooms learning this message that we had kind of been tricked into thinking that we were wrong, that our bodies were uniquely gross and problems in need of fixing. And instead, that was something that media was literally profiting off of. There are so many

industries, corporations and people that were banking on us feeling so insecure, always needing to buy the next product or the next diet plan, whatever it may be. Lexi and I being identical twins, I think, were always really hyper fixated on what we look like because everyone else was about us meeting people growing up, really still to this day when we're together, we'll meet someone for the first time. They will look us both up and down to scan our whole bodies and phases. And especially when we were little, they would pick out those little differences. Oh, okay, so you're the one with straighter teeth or you're the one with the rounder face and it was always just kind of a competition but it made us really really fixated on what we looked like and how we compared to

each other and I remember constantly scanning my twin sister's body up and down to see okay that's what I look like in those pants that we share and just being really self-conscious so learning about that in college and starting to figure out that actually your body image is this whole, it's a construction. It's built by our society and so many of us have it regardless of what we look like. We feel so negatively. That was the start of so much more. That led to how many years, 10 years of higher education. Lexi and I both earned our master's in PhDs and we did it together and did really complementary research about the objectification of women. Now we see ourselves as object, not only why that happens, but how to fix it, most importantly. And that's

that's the body image resilience that you mentioned earlier. It's so cool that you guys as identical twins had planned, we're going to have our own lives and we're going to do our own thing. And somehow it still panned out that you guys ended up studying the same thing coming together and really focusing and understanding this stuff together. I think that's awesome. Yeah, isn't that wild? We wanted to be different so bad and just couldn't do it.

We just couldn't. We have the same interests and had such similar experiences that we decided we were just going to use our powers for good instead of evil and stop fighting so much and being in competition and instead focus on the same thing and try to do some good. It's really helped. I think our work has gone a lot further and we've been able to do so much more than we could if it was just one of us solo. Things have evolved in the, oh man, we've been doing this for 10 years, 16 years. We started in 2009 when we finished our master's degrees. So yeah, this has been an ongoing process. I think that's super cool. Sometimes you just got to let life work out how it's supposed to work out instead of biting it.

So it sounds like that's what happens. Totally. I don't think that we can really start the conversation about why the work you guys are doing is so important without discussing the root cause of body image issues. You know, before you came on, I also had a friend on Kara Clark, who's an integrative health, really is focused on you feeling good in your body. And that's the focus rather than focusing on the diet and trying to change your body. body, how do you feel good? Let's find a way to make you feel good. And we talk a lot about root causes. And I think this is also a topic where there's a root cause to this and there's something that created this and is part of this story that we often don't get to the bottom of when we just feel,

I hate my body. And that's that. But there's something behind that. So can you share a little bit about what that might be? Yeah, definitely. The root of all of this and the research that Lexi and I have done has really pointed to the objectification of women's bodies. So in our culture, all of the media images that all of us have been surrounded by since we were growing up has been really curated so that women look one particular way. So think of the media images that you were surrounded by growing up. Of course, media was a little bit more limited then, but we all shared these same cultural images and messages about which women were worthy of being featured or depicted in media, whether it was your local news anchor, a national news anchor, what

girls look like in your favorite TV shows, movies, magazines, advertising, you'd walk past on the street, like literally everything. We generally saw only very thin women, often white women or women with light skin tones, if they were women's color, long hair, flawless faces and bodies, meaning no cellulite, no stretch marks, no acne, no wrinkles, no gray hair, typically very young-looking faces and bodies. So we have this one very particular idea of what it looks like to be not just an attractive 10 out of 10 woman, but what it looks like to be a normal woman or a healthy woman. All of this has been really curated in our minds through media messages. And some people say it's like a chicken or the egg situation. Did people have these preferences for one particular body type or did

industries create these preferences or did media start that and reflected it to us? And now we just take that in and try to emulate it and reflect it back. The truth is, I'll use a word that I don't think people love to talk about often in a lot of circles, but patriarchy. When men are largely in power, when decision makers are overwhelmingly male, then often the images and the messages that we'll see in society will reflect those types of preferences. So we talk about a male gaze that is perpetuated through media, all types of media. That means the women that you'll see depicted or featured at all are typically seen through the lens of what a straight male would look at. So the way the camera pans up and down a woman's body and zooms in on certain parts of her body.

Think of your favorite TV show. It could be a reality show or a scripted show, whatever. Even one that is specifically for women, you'll still see the camera zoom in on parts of her body. body and the dialogue will focus on what she looks like. It was even worse when we were growing up in a lot of ways. So that patriarchy and what sells and what's deemed attractive or desirable or okay enough to be shown or celebrated was really very one dimensional and it's created these generations of women who feel defined by how we look. Not just that we don't feel beautiful, but we feel obsessed with what we look like, period. Some people do feel beautiful. And that's what we, when we talk about self-objectification, that means you grow up in a society where you're surrounded by the objectification of women.

And then you turn that lens on yourself. You learn to self-objectify to see yourself as an objectify. So not a dynamic, fully thinking, feeling human being with agency living inside this body. You start to see yourself as the rest of the world sees women's bodies. And that is as bodies and not as people. we learn to self-objectify and moderate everything we do through the lens of how do I look right now? Who is looking at me right now? Do I need to suck in? Do I need to sit in a different position?

Do I need to keep my chin up? So my double chin is showing. All of this follows us throughout our whole lives. And we learn it from a very, very young age to self-objectify. A win is a win. A win is a win. I don't care which I'm saying. Yep, that's me, Cliver Taylor the 4th.

You might have seen the skits, the reactions, my journey from basketball. to college football or my career in sports media. Well, somewhere along the way, this platform became bigger than I ever imagined. And now I'm bringing all of that excitement to my brand new podcast, The Clifford Show. This is a place for raw, unfiltered conversations with some of your favorite athletes, creators, and voices that not only deserve to be heard, but celebrated. One week, I'll take you behind the scenes of the biggest moments in sports and entertainment, and the next we'll talk about life, mental health, purpose, and even music.

The Clifford Show isn't just a podcast. It's a space for honest conversations, stories that don't always get told, and for people who are chasing something bigger. So, if you've ever supported me or you're just chasing down a dream, this is right where you need to be. Listen to The Clifford Show on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. And for more behind the scenes, follow at Clifford and at TikTok Podcast Network on TikTok.

There's two golden rules that any man should live by. Rule one, never mess with a country girl. You play stupid games, you get stupid prizes. And Rule 2, never mess with her friends either. We always say that, trust your girlfriends. I'm Anna Sinfield, and in this new season of the girlfriends... Oh my God, this is the same man. A group of women discover they've all dated the same prolific con artist.

I felt like I got hit by a truck. I thought, how could this happen to me? The cops didn't seem to care. So they take matters into their own hands. I said, oh, hell no. I vowed I will be his last target. He's going to get what he deserves. Listen to the girlfriends.

Trust me, babe. On the Iheart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. What's up, everyone? I'm Ego Wodom. My next guest, you know from Step Brothers Anchorman, Saturday Night Live, and the Big Money Players Network.

It's Will Ferrell. Woo! Woo! Woo! My dad gave me the best. advice ever. I went and had lunch with them one day and I was like, and dad, I think I want to really give this a shot. I don't know what that means, but I just know the groundlings. I'm working my way up through and I know it's a place that come look for up and coming talent. He said, if it was based solely on talent, I wouldn't worry about you, which is really sweet. Yeah. He goes, but there's so much

luck involved. And he's like, just give it a shot. He goes, but if you ever reach a point where you're banging your head against the wall and it doesn't feel fun anymore, it's okay to quit. If you saw it written down, it would not be an inspiration. It would not be on a calendar of, you know, the cat, just hang in there.

Yeah, it would not be. Right, it wouldn't be that. There's a lot of luck. Listen to Thanks, Dad, on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcast. You mentioned so many different details here that I want to get into. I'm one of those people, much like most women are. I watched so many Disney shows.

I watched all of them. I loved consuming media. I loved looking at magazines. I was a young girl. That was so fun to me to do. But now, as an older woman, you look back and you see the things that you were consuming. And now I'm having to retrain myself to see things differently. And I think this is so difficult to do for people because you're retraining.

decades of things like you mentioned that have been ingrained in our heads. So how do we start to retrain ourselves? What does that start to look like for someone who is quote unquote waking up and realizing this isn't the norm? Yeah, that's such a good question. And I just want to acknowledge how amazing it is that so many people are even thinking about that. Like how incredible is it that we are in this day and age, our generation is starting to push back on the. ideas about what it means to be desirable or healthy or normal or whatever. And we're doing that not only for ourselves, but for the generations to come. And even for the generations before us, I do this stuff for my mom and my grandma, who's still fixated on what she looked like and how many

calories and carbs and sugars she's eating. All of this, I think, is so important. And I want people to think of their motivation for why they're even asking this question. Why do you want to retrain your brain? It's probably because you have been harmed by this stuff. It's because you have wasted too many years of your life, fixating on what you eat to become smaller instead of worrying about how you feel right now. And I don't mean how you feel about how you look. I mean literally how you feel, how you feel about experiencing the world and moving in the world in this body that you were born into and that you will live every second of your life

in. We should be so at home in these bodies. And instead, we feel so separated from them. We watch ourselves being looked at. we imagine how we look as we live our lives and that holds us back. It stops us. Think of little girls in middle school who stop raising their hands in class and they start sitting out in PE class and they drop out a dance and volleyball and anything else where they don't want to be looked at. And for me, it was swimming. Once I got into high school, I completely quit swimming because I was too worried

about these boys from my high school seeing me in a swimsuit. Think of what you lost and missed out on. So a lot of us are starting from that baseline of I can't do this anymore and maybe it's even for your daughter. The people who are having babies right now are waking up to these ideas that I don't want my kids to deal with what I've had to deal with, even if I'm still dealing with it right now. I got to fix it for me so I can help with them. And let that be your motivation. Honestly, keep that kind of rage and that willingness to fight and push back and let that fuel you in this journey. So when I talk about body image resilience, I'm talking about something that's a few steps beyond just body positivity. I'm not just telling you, you're beautiful just the way you are. You should feel

great because your flaws make you beautiful. And everyone thinks you're prettier than you think you are. That's been kind of the messaging that we've heard over the last couple decades. That's the really just public kind of big mass campaign sort of messaging that is nice and it's good. There's nothing wrong with it. But the problem is we need to go a little bit further than that. Because if you really think about it, all of those messages are keeping us fixated on beauty, whether or not we feel beautiful, whether or not we are beautiful. Beauty remains the key to our power and self-esteem, and it shouldn't be. With body image resilience, you are coming back home to your body.

Your body not as this beautiful thing for you to display and to be admired by others, but this instrument that is your home. the subtitle my book with Lexi is more than a body your body is an instrument not an ornament and we named it that specifically with your body is an instrument not an ornament as the subtitle because that is this mantra that we've been sharing for the last 15 years or whatever and that kind of sums up this mission that we are that we are on that in order to really progress and to make any headway toward feeling comfortable and at home in our bodies we need to see our bodies for what they really are, instruments for our use and our benefit and our experience, not ornaments

to be looked at and to be admired. Let that fuel your journey. I'm really glad you brought that up. I love that saying that you guys came up with. And I'll get into that a little bit more here in a second. But something that weighs super heavily for me, and I'm sure for other people, I have struggle striking this balance between I know that I want to love my body and I want to be comfortable in my skin and I don't want to listen to things, but I also want to be healthy and what does that look like? And we balance the two of those things is such this very delicate area because when you start to get into the health side of things, you start to look at yourself in a certain way and you're obsessed with a scale or you're trying to focus on what your body looks like. But so much of what I

think is important is again striking that balance of I'm comfortable in my skin but I want to be strong and I want to be healthy and I want to feel good because I feel good and I'm nourishing my body in the right way. Yeah. But how do we do that? Because I know for me that's a daily struggle. I know that it's a lot for everybody else and we're constantly inundated on social media with so much content on multiple levels of this. So how do we sit there and find that delicate area where we're honoring the fact that we don't need to change, but also we want to be healthy? Yeah. Your question is great and it reflects one that everybody in especially our society asks when they start to be confronted with these topics. And it's actually what my whole

dissertation research was based on. My research was on how women, define health and fitness for themselves, how they understand it, what does it mean for a woman to be healthy and fit? And how do we fix it? Because at the root of your question, it shows this confusion that almost all women and all people in our culture share, which is the idea that help means looking a certain way or weighing a certain amount. And when you really dig into the real research on what health and fitness truly means and how to truly define it in an effective way, you find out that your weight, your appearance, your body fat percentage, all of that is actually a really flawed way of thinking about a person's health and fitness.

So mass research since the 70s shows that the most effective way to determine a person's health or fitness is their physical activity level, not how they look while they're engaged in physical activity, not whether they're running marathons every month, not how jiggly their thighs are while they are engaging in that physical activity. It's simply how often you are moving your body and getting your heart rate up. That is how you can judge health or fitness for most people. Obviously, go to the doctor, get all of the testing done that you possibly can to find out what's really going on in your body because everybody's body is different. But the reality is you can judge whether or not you're healthier fit by internal indicators, like your blood pressure,

your cholesterol, your blood sugar, your respiratory fitness, all that kind of stuff that a regular doctor can help you really get a handle on and how often you are active and getting your heart rate up. People who are totally healthy by all of those measures look a huge variety of different ways and weigh a huge variety of different weights. So when I say your body is an instrument, not an ornament. That is actually the answer to your question. I want to be healthy and I want to love my body means I'm going to use my body as an instrument because my body is important to use how I feel better about my body is by using my body, honoring my body, engaging in enjoyable activity. And that is truly the best way to improve your body image is to think of your body as an instrument

and to actually use it that way. My research showed that most women defined health or fitness. by their weight, their body mass index, or their pants size. And so my whole dissertation research was how do we intervene to share accurate information about how to define health and fitness so that women can have a better understanding for themselves and then set better goals for their own health and fitness. And what it showed was that women often would start by, they would pick goals for themselves, like New Year's resolutions, basically, that would say, I want to, lose X pounds by this date or I want to get back into these pants that are in the back of my

closet or I want to get into this weight category. And those goals, though they sound like they're pointing toward health, are often not only unachievable, but they lead to worse health outcomes. Because when you are striving to lose weight instead of to improve all of those internal indicators of health or to just move your body at a pace and duration that is healthy for you, then you are getting hung up on factors that are not always within your control, especially for women, because these measures, we might have a weight number in our head that's a total lie that we heard on the internet that, you know, women who are the most beautiful weigh this amount or this height or whatever it is, it's all such a weird arbitrary system. And you know that.

you know that people's weight fluctuates and you're shocked when you hear what someone really weighs and you think she looks so great and wow, I can't believe it's that much. Everyone's weight is just like a whole different independent story and it really doesn't have much bearing on their health or fitness. So the better sounding goals, not even better sounding, but actually more effective goals for women's health and fitness would be to say, I want to get my heart rate up to X rate for 30 minutes, five days a week. That is kind of baseline what doctors recommend. But the most important thing is to do something that is motivational and fulfilling for you. So whatever activities it is, don't do something you hate. Don't do something that's a punishment because you ate too much or because

you think your body's disgusting. So you've got to go run on the treadmill late at night for two hours a day. Pick activities that are actually enjoyable that you'll look forward to. And they will help you have this greater appreciation for your body and how it works and what it allows you to do and to experience rather than just measuring its, you know, its weight, its relationship to gravity that can be so discouraging and doesn't actually improve your health. I'm so glad you referred to it as a relationship to gravity because that's really all it is. Right. Isn't it? It is. And something that's really helped me in this area, I have focused on when I say I want to be

strong, it's not to look a certain way. It's I'm a single woman. I have to take care of things by myself so I want to be able to lift things. I want to be able to take care of stuff by my own. So I got to be strong to take care of myself. And I want to feel good because feeling good means I am a good person. I can be out there living in the world and interacting with the world because I feel good because I'm nourishing my body in a way that feels really good to me. And that's so important to find but even someone who like me feels like I have this whole grasp on what I'm doing and what that means doesn't mean I don't go on social media and see all kinds of things and be like, dang, I wish I looked like that or I wish I had that body or I don't have that. Do I need to do this? Or you can get so derailed so quickly because of everything that's out there. And that was something I would love for you to share your input on because I work in social media. I love social media for the fact that it can bring people together and it can bring people like us.

together who may never come together. I think it's a beautiful tool. But it's also a place that people have used to really, gosh, just hate on women in every way in which they do something. They could do everything correctly and there's still hatred toward them. There's still this insane goal of making a woman feel worse about herself. And I don't know why that continues to keep happening, but I I just love your input on that because I know when I get on social media as a woman, I hate being there sometimes because I know that I'm going to get hate simply for existing. Yeah. Well, it comes back to what I said at the beginning about it being profit-driven and sexist.

Really, these beauty ideals are a way to keep women in our place. Women aren't really able to progress as much personally in our individual lives and in society collectively when we're so fixated on how we look and when we're measuring our ourselves against these really unattainable and really hypersexualized out-of-reach images that we're comparing ourselves to, often totally photoshopped and filtered and edited and everything else. But I just want to honor how difficult it is to live in a society like this and to be surrounded by these types of images and messages for our entire lives. You could be the most educated, the most successful, the most loved, well-informed person who's

totally at ease with yourself in every other category. But if you're a woman who lives in this Western society where we are being evaluated by how we look and we're judging ourselves according to those same measures, then you're always going to come up short. And so this is not a you problem. This is not an individual problem of anyone, any one of us not being strong enough or having high enough self-esteem or having enough willpower just to abstain from eating all that stuff that I know I shouldn't have beaten or having the discipline to exercise more. All of that points back to me as the problem, you as the problem, you not having enough self-control, you're not doing all the right things in order to be as hot and thin and sexy

and young-looking as you think you need to be in order to be happy. What I want to point out to you is that that's not the case. And our whole society, our whole culture, and so many industries are engineered to put that blame on you when the reality is that this system that we're surrounded by is really the thing to blame. It's been so carefully curated to drive those feelings in us so that we will then buy the products and follow the people and engage in the activities and the services that make people money and that keep this hierarchy in place where women were never quite good enough. We're always going to need to try to be better because we're not quite worthy of love. We're not quite worthy of

empowerment and happiness and confidence and whatever else we want because we just don't quite look the part, even if everything else in our lives is 10 out of 10. That is a losing system. It is a rigged game. And that is the game of objectification where we are objects. And these objects, the rules for what makes a good object, a perfect object, are ever changing, are impossible, always perpetually just out of reach. And how do you know? Because even the most beautiful 10 out of 10 women in this world don't feel perfect. They don't feel like they are always worthy of that love or their images are getting edited 100% of the time. They are still getting cheated on. They're still having major health issues. They are still

going through the same difficulties that all the rest of us are dealing with in our bodies that are flawed compared to theirs. And I also just want to point out that these things that we want, like what you said, we want love. We want confidence. We want these success in our careers. These are all universal human desires. We want all of this.

And yet men are able to achieve all of that without having to have a body that is exactly perfect and up to these really particular standards. And I'm not saying it's not difficult for men, because men are being faced with a whole variety of appearance-related ideals and ideals on a variety of other factors about their success, their wealth, everything else. But for women, we have to have all of those other attributes and always be judged by whether or not we have a body that is perfect. And the ideals for women are incredibly hard to achieve because they are based on thinness and youth. And you cannot have thinness and youth forever because our bodies change. And by our very nature, through puberty and through pregnancy and through all of the hormonal shifts and age and everything else, our bodies are changing every single day.

So this is a losing game. And when you try to play by that system, you fail, even when you are amazing in every other way. So this just should point out to you how rigged the system is. and not how wrong and at fault you are. We all want all of those things, and we have been taught by well-meaning family members, by the media that we've been surrounded by, especially the social media,

but also movies and TV and everything, especially advertising, that in order the best way to achieve health, happiness, success, empowerment, and especially love and desirability, is to be more hot, to be thinner, to look younger, whatever. that is all not true. It is not true. I just want people to be so critical when that thought enters our minds. We think we're improving our lives by losing weight or by getting the new cosmetic surgery or whatever procedures, when in reality we are just striving for this bar of perfection that continues to be raised further and further out of reach. And the closer we get to it, the further we feel from it so much of the time. It is a losing system, but weak and can feel happy and confident and at home in our bodies, regardless of how we look. Literally this body that you're sitting in right now, I'm talking to everyone who's listening.

This body that you are in right now, you can be at home in that body because it's yours. It does not matter what you look like or what you've done. And you might feel like, well, no, I don't deserve that because I have no self-control. And I haven't done all the right things and gotten all of my shit together. The reality is you are worthy of love, of empowerment, of confidence, no matter what you look like and what choices you've made. Because you were born into this body. And this body is important and it's yours. We need to start from that standpoint, that your body is your home.

It's not your enemy. I love that I put myself in the position to then to have you share that. Because again, it's back to what you're saying, where. we all have these feelings because we're human and this is a real thing that we're experiencing day in and day out. And so as much as somebody can be so well versed and so you know that the right things and you know the right way to see it, it doesn't mean it's not going to creep in and try and come back at you all over again. Something that I really feel that has helped me because it's also in this, all these beauty trends and the fashion trends and you need to be doing this

cosmetic thing to what you said. Something that's really helped me is that I've taken the power back and all of that where I don't participate in trends unless it's something I love, unless it's something that shows up and I'm like, yeah, I look good in skinny jeans. I look really good in low rise or you feel great because you decided to get Botox. Cool. I love that for you. If you chose that for you, then I think that's what helps. us a lot to take the power away from it and say, I like this because I do. Not because they're telling me to, not because I'm seeing it on somebody else and it looks really good and, oh, I'm going to make it work on me. There are so many trends that come down. I have, I learned this is a very hard

way, especially in my early 20s. So much does not look good on me. I do not, that is not built for my body. I say that often, especially when it comes to the fashion industry. I have a very short torso. I'm very short. Most things do not fit me. I had to stop falling into the trap of the advertising and say, I have to do this for me. And if I like this trend for me, cool, I'll get it. But I'm not going to participate just because it's the cool thing to do. And taking that power back really helped me. I like that.

Yeah, there's so much freedom. I think sometimes that comes with age a little bit where it's like, I remember the last time that trend was around. And it didn't look out on me then. And when I was in seventh grade, trying so hard, I don't have to do that now. I'm 39 years old. I get to wear skinny jeans as long as I want to or high-wasted jeans, even when low-rise jeans are coming back because I know that I physically cannot withstand another round of low-rise

jeans. I can't do it. Exactly. And I hope that having conversations like this and grays it even sooner for people in their lives, we've had to your point. It is, it comes with age. It comes with wisdom. but I hope that us talking about it and grates it even earlier and continues that and

maybe someday we finally push it all the way back and there isn't this lingering thing that's existing out in society. Long game. I love a long game. So we are here for that. Totally. Yeah. We're fighting that hard vibe.

But Lindsay, thank you for joining me. Thank you for being on. Is there anything else you want to make sure you want everybody to hear that you feel is so, so important? I would say that I would put this all in the. this model of body image resilience. I mentioned that word. And I just want to point out that the last things we were just talking about, you know, wanting to be able to feel good and make choices that help you feel more comfortable rather than more at odds with your body, all of that fits in this

model of body image resilience, where we start out what we call a state of normative discontent, where most of us feel pretty crappy and uncomfortable in our bodies. Our body image is poor. Then we are always faced with what we call these disruptions to your body image, something that makes you question or rethink your relationship with your body. So it might be comments from another person about how you look. It could be going through a breakup, pregnancy, really anything that makes you change your relationship or your view of your own body. We are forced to respond to those things. So some of us will respond and try to feel okay and ease that shame that we feel by numbing ourselves, and I call that sinking deeper into shame.

So maybe you numb yourself through disordered eating or through compulsive over exercise or abuse of alcohol or drugs or anything like that. Cutting, self-arm fits in that category. The other things like things you just mentioned where you're trying out the latest fashion trends or you are planning for the next cosmetic procedure, maybe you're getting Botox, maybe you're saving up for breast augmentation or whatever the thing is that you think you need to fix, all of that is a way we try to keep ourselves, keep that shame at bay and just stay comfortable and stay in that comfort zone. Unfortunately, those things don't last very long. So even if you do get

the Botox and you do get the new fashion whatever, you do go on the liquid cleanse for the weekend, it doesn't ultimately solve your problem because we come back to the same place we always were, that normative discontent, and we're always going to be disrupted from that state of normative of discontent. The way out is to start building your body image resilience. So when you're faced with a disruption the next time, you read a negative comment about yourself, you see a video or a picture of yourself that you ate. If you gain weight because of a health problem or whatever the thing is, that's when you're disrupted. Your shame is at the surface. And you can choose how you respond to that. You could do the same things you've always done. And maybe it's through

prescription drugs or self-harm or a crash diet. Or you could say, I don't want to want to be in that same cycle for the rest of my life. I don't want to slap a band-aid on it. I instead want to build these skills to be able to respond better this time and next time and next time and next time and next time. And it gets easier every single time. That's what I want people to know. You might still be struggling now at this, at your old age, but you don't have to struggle this much the next time a disruption comes along. And that is if you take the time now to learn how to come back to your body as your home, to see your body as your ally instead of your enemy. And you do that through building up your media literacy, learning to question media images, learning to curate your social

media feeds and all of the images that you take in because they are teaching you what is valuable and what makes you okay or not okay every single day. You need to use your body as an instrument instead of an ornament, learn how your health and fitness really can be defined personally for you and how you can build that and grow it in ways that are really empowering. There are 10,000 other things you can do. I would highly recommend starting with my book, more than a body. Your body is an instrument, not an ornament. There's a workbook that goes along with it called the official workbook for more than a body that Lexi and I just published last year. And it has these daily tips and strategies that literally walks you through this process to build your body

image resilience. And there's 10,000 other ways. You could follow us online at beauty underscore redefined to see some of those other tips in action. But I just want people to know, this is achievable. This is doable. I'm almost 40. I'm 39 from a very, very young age was so self-conscious, so fixated on how I looked and just felt disgusting. And I sit here today bigger than I ever thought I'd be at this age. I'm still single. I have a great life. I say those things. thinking that if I saw myself, my 16-year-old self, if I knew that I was going to weigh this much and be single and whatever other things, I would be horrified. But I sit here truly at peace, happy, feeling great, feeling successful in all of these ways, regardless of how I love.

And I am able to be at peace because I have built my body image resilience by facing these disruptions head on and proving to myself that I am fine, that I am okay. That I am okay. and I am at home in my body. And I know everyone can do the exact same thing. So that's what I'll leave you with, a long-winded way of saying that you are fine and you're going to do great. No, it's perfect. It's a testament.

You're not only preaching it. You practice it. You're living the lifestyle that you want other people to be able to also live. I love the work that you guys are doing. Thank you for shouting all those things out and sharing just all the different pieces. I think it's helpful in our journeys as we continue to fight the good fight and keep fighting for ourselves. I think that's very important. So thank you for being here. Thanks for talking with me. Of course. Thank you. If you're new to this podcast, every episode features a

different topic that I've found are very important to discuss through ways of experts to give us tools and an understanding and then friends who share their journeys of hardship. We've talked friendships, careers, dating, grief, therapy, relationships, mental health, confidence, you name it. As always, thank you for being here and I'll talk to you all next week. A win is a win. A win is a win. I don't care what you're saying. Yep, that's me. Cliver Taylor the 4th.

You might have seen the skits, my basketball and college football journey, or my career in sports media. Well, now I'm bringing all of that excitement to my brand new podcast, The Clifers Show. This is a place for raw, unfills of conversations with athletes, creators, and voices that not only deserve

to be heard, but celebrated. So let's get to it. Listen to The Clippert Show on the IHeard Radio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcast. And for more behind the scenes, Follow at Clifford and at TikTok's podcast network on TikTok. When a group of women discover they've all dated the same prolific con artist,

they take matters into their own hands. I vowed. I will be his last target. He is not going to get away with this. He's going to get what he deserves. We always say that trust your girlfriends. Listen to the girlfriends. Trust me, babe. On the Iheart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast.

This week on the Sports Slice podcast, it's all about the NFL draft, and we've got a special guest. The director of the NFL's East-West Shrine Bowl, Eric Galko, joins the Sports Slice podcast to break down what really matters when evaluating draft prospects. From hidden traits teams look for to the biggest mistakes franchises make to the players flying under the radar, this is the insight you won't hear anywhere else. If you want to understand the draft like an insider, you don't want to miss this episode. Listen to the Sports Slice podcast on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. And for more, follow Timbo Slical Life 12 and TikTok podcast network on TikTok. This is an IHeart podcast. Guaranteed human.