The Bossticks - Heidi Powell On Burning Fat, Becoming Resilient, Overcoming Eating Disorders, & Building the Body You Want!

Episode Date: November 13, 2024

#775: Join us as we sit down with Heidi Powell – a world-renowned transformation expert and former TV Host of ABC's Extreme Weight Loss. Throughout her journey, Heidi has turned personal challenges into strengths, becoming a certified personal trainer, bestselling author, podcast host, bodybuilding champion, & serial entrepreneur. In this episode, Heidi opens up about her recovery from an eating disorder, navigating women's weight lifting, the challenges of sharing relationships publicly, healing from loss, & her path of personal growth.   To connect with Heidi Powell click HERE   To connect with Lauryn Bosstick click HERE   To connect with Michael Bosstick click HERE   Read More on The Skinny Confidential HERE   To Watch the Show click HERE   For Detailed Show Notes visit TSCPODCAST.COM   To Call the Him & Her Hotline call: 1-833-SKINNYS (754-6697)   This episode is brought to you by The Skinny Confidential   Head to the HIM & HER Show ShopMy page HERE to find all of Michael and Lauryn's favorite products mentioned on their latest episodes.   Visit sodajustgotreal.com to learn more about Evolution Fresh Real Fruit Soda and find a store near you.   This episode is sponsored by Ritual   Get 25% off your first month at ritual.com/SKINNY.   This episode is sponsored by Dreamland Baby   Go to dreamlandbabyco.com and use code SKINNY for the buy one, get one free deal from Dreamland Baby.   This episode is sponsored by Kora Organics   Visit koraorganics.com and use code SKINNY at checkout for 20% off your first purchase.   This episode is sponsored by Fatty15   You can get an additional 15% off their 90-day subscription Starter Kit by going to fatty15.com/SKINNY and using code SKINNY at checkout.   This episode is sponsored by Primal Kitchen   Visit PrimalKitchen.com/SKINNY and get 20% off your whole order with our personal code, SKINNY, at checkout.   This episode is sponsored by Branch Basics Save 15% on your Starter Kit or their new Hand Soap when you use code SKINNY at branchbasics.com. Produced by Dear Media

The following podcast is a dear media production. She's a lifestyle blogger extraordinaire. Fantastic. And he's a serial entrepreneur. A very smart cookie. And now Lauren Everts and Michael Bostic are bringing you along for the ride. Get ready for some major realness. Welcome to the skinny confidential, him and her.

So when they found out and when they force fed me, I would say for the next two years, three years, got hell worse. I mean, like, that was like the beginning of hell, truly. The beginning of the addiction. Like, I see people who have drug addictions. And I don't know what that's like. I don't know what alcoholism is like. I do think, though, that the depths of darkness that are experienced in drug addiction, alcoholism are the exact same in eating disorder world. I always want to keep things fresh on this show. And I love having conversations where people have personal stories. raise a unique perspective. I initially saw Heidi Powell online.

She was really into lifting weights. And you could just tell she was very intentional and thoughtful about her body and her personal fitness journey and her family and her mental health. On social media, she's navigated family dynamics. She's talked about body image struggles, her eating disorder. She has been really, really positive through all of this. and she's been really open. In this episode, we dive really deep into parenting, weightlifting,

recovery from eating disorders, her family experience, and her relationships. With that, let's welcome fitness expert, mother of four entrepreneur, and the co-host of extreme weight loss to the show. This is the skinny confidential, him and her. Heidi Powell, I think if you go through your DMs, I might have harassed you multiple times to come on the show just because after following you and watching you,

you're just so multifaceted. I said this off air. There's so many different things that you do. Mother, you've been a wife. You're so open about weightlifting and building muscle as a woman. You help people lose weight. You're inspiring. You just kind of hit all the points.

Thank you. Welcome to the show. Thank you. Why have you been ignoring us for so long? I'm happy to be here. What was that? I know. I'm like harassing her. so long. I'm racking. Well, I actually heard a reel you guys had done recently where I think it was you saying

after kids, the things that were a yes before can't be a yes anymore. And it gets to the point. I have four kids, right? 19 down to 10. And I don't even see most of the DMs and the requests that come in because my team is kind of dwindled. So it wasn't that I was ignoring you guys. I just didn't even see it.

I get it. With four kids? I'm hanging on with two. I can't even imagine four. How old are your kids? and four. Oh, those are fun ages. They're fun ages.

It's better and better and better. Oh my God. Oh my gosh. I love that energy. I'm telling you 19 year old, 17, 18 year old, amazing. It continues to get better. I like that. I imagine it's kind of a trip at this point being able to like kind of like hang out with your

adult kids. Yeah. The other day, what was I doing? There was someone. Oh, it was the coach of my son's wrestling team. And I was telling him, thank you after he like looked my age. I thought he was my age. You know, you like forget how old.

you look sometimes. And I was like, you're amazing. Thank you so much. blah, blah, blah. And someone mentioned to me he was 22 and I'm like, that could be my son. He's literally two years and two months older than my actual son. And I like thought we were the same age. So yes, hang out with my kids. Heidi, let's be real. What are the mom, not the moms? What are the, what are the, your son's friends doing with you? What do they, what do they do when you walk into school? I don't even pay attention. I'm sure you know. Listen, I need to talk to you about your son. We're going to need to need a book about an hour and a half. I do remember what people would do when my mom was, you know, I was at home and my mom was beautiful.

All the boys would come over and I thought they were there for me. They were there from my mom. You were sort of a pioneer with weightlifting and you look amazing and you set off air. People think that you need to be like running to lose weight. Talk to us about your journey with weightlifting and how it even. began. So interestingly, I was someone who for years, I would maybe even a couple decades, the first two decades of my life when I was old enough to like understand working out, I believed in order to be thin, which is what I thought I needed to be in order to be loved,

accepted all of the things. I needed to run and I needed to eat less. So for the first half of my adulthood, I was a cardio bunny. I had had an eating disorder as a teenager, early 20s. And sometimes with that comes that excessive running, under eating, all of the stuff, right? I did not get into lifting until I was actually, I mean, I lifted, but I didn't actively try to pack on muscle until the end of extreme weight loss. So it was season five of the show, which was 2014 is when it was filmed. Chris and I were on stage and someone on one of our participants on stage had said, hey, you just spent an entire year pushing. us and helping us do the things that we never thought possible, like climbing, whatever, Machu, Pichu, all these things. You guys spent five years doing this for everyone, yet no one has

ever turned around and had you do it for yourself. So at the end, they said, we want to challenge you, me and Chris, to do a bodybuilding competition. And so that was literally, I mean, I lifted weights earlier. I've always lifted. But actually lifting to pack muscle on was not until 2014. and then that started for me like, okay, how am I going to, how do I do this? That's when like it really clicked for me in order to pack muscle on. And in order to actually burn the fat that most people want to burn, it's not about running and not eating. It's actually about eating enough. Sometimes actually you have to eat too much. You can't create muscle with nothing. So eating enough and the perfect balance of proteins, carbs, and fats, lifting.

hard, slowing down the cardio. In fact, I didn't do any for like five years so that I could gain. And then that's kind of, that's how that started. When you started lifting like heavily, as you said, what changes did you see? And also did that help, I've heard this from a lot of people, give you confidence to almost, I don't want to say get over your eating disorder, but kind of recover. It's so funny you bring that out because most people, here that I went from having an eating disorder in my teens in 20s to really just bandating my symptoms. Like I thought I had recovered, but it was just a band-aid. Like there was still the dysmorphia.

There was still the fear of food. There was still the, I mean, I was on the show. And we were doing cardio all day with our participants because they had so much weight to lose. We were lifting with them. But like I was hiking all day. So I was, that was kind of a band-aid on, I didn't have. I wasn't bulimic anymore. I wasn't anorexic anymore.

I wasn't doing any of the thing. I didn't have a food addiction anymore. Thank goodness. But the dysmorphia that underlied all of it was actually still there. Like the idea or the thought of slowing down my cardio. The idea or the thought of eating too much, like a calorie surplus was still super scary to me. And so going to bodybuilding, it was actually a bikini competition is what I was doing. Bikini is the, I don't want to say the lowest.

It's the most petite of bodybuilding. So for anyone who's listening, who doesn't understand what it is, it's bikini figure is the next size up, physique is the next size up. And then bodybuilding is a whole class, like category above. So for me and my build, I was going to go into bikini bodybuilding. Many people have reported that going into bodybuilding after an eating, disorder has been not great for them. Or maybe they went in without an eating disorder and they came out of bodybuilding. They came out of competing with an eating disorder. Something beautiful though,

you nailed it. Something beautiful happened for me. I was afraid of putting calories in my body. I was afraid of not doing cardio. Hiring a coach who understood female psyche, really, because he'd worked with so many females who also understood that it wasn't just about leaning out, but it's about making sure you have adequate calories to build muscle and also understood that cardio was going to ruin it, like kind of slow down my muscle growth, was the greatest thing. So right away, he actually saw me. He said, okay, you have a long journey. Like, we'll put you on stage in a month. Like, you want to be on stage. Maybe it was two months. But I'm letting you know you're not going to do well. I went on stage. I did not do well, but right away he had me eating about 25, 2,600 calories.

And then after that 25, 26, I had graduated over time to 3,000 calories a day to try to put muscle on. Now, that being said, I felt like in my mind, the world would look at me and be like, you're ridiculous, but I felt fluffy. Like I, the mental part of me was like, oh my gosh, I look terrible. I don't know, X, Y, Z. I don't know if this is going to work out. out. I did a weekly check-in with my coach, though, who could look at my body and say, you, your mind, like, what you're seeing in the mirror is not accurate. You look like you're on track. And I finally, he had to talk with me where he's like, I need you to actually trust what I say. Like, my name is on your transformation. If you get on stage and don't look good, that reflects poorly on me. So I, from that point, gave it up. I trusted the process, went all in, with,

which is exactly what I ask people to do when I work with them, yet I was having a hard time doing it myself. And yeah, over time, it became the most incredible thing where food no longer scared me. I understood macro counting, all that. I understood building, but I didn't have to be so anal about it that it destroyed my life. It's so interesting to, like this topic's come,

we didn't know for a long to show a long time, but the topic of muscle building and female muscle building has come up more And it's so interesting for me as a man to listen to it because men go about it the whole different way where we know, okay, if you want to grow and build muscle, you have to eat a lot more than you're going to. And then you're going to feel this weird period of time where you're, to your point, a little fluffier and a little bigger. And you're holding more water retention. And then in order to get that like cut, lean look, then you start, like, you have to do that first before you can get it. And you also need to put the muscle on so you can burn the fat.

I think a lot of guys already know this. and it's interesting for me to hear women talk about this now because it keeps coming up. But it's counterintuitive and I think scares a lot of women because all of a sudden the scale starts to change and you start to look differently. And it's almost like you have to get to this point where the muscle's there for the other stuff to take effect. And a lot of people don't believe that that's going to happen. Does it make sense? It does. And I think a lot of women have this false idea.

I mean, then I studied and researched and experienced a lot around this since that point. And many women, I was one of them, had the idea. Like many women have the idea that if I lift heavy and if I eat a lot, then I'm going to look like a man. That's what I had. That's what I thought I was going to get bulky. Yes. And so they don't want to lift weights. They don't want to eat a lot. They don't want to take creatine. I don't do creatine. But when I was actively training for a show, I did. They don't want to look like a man or get manly. I would get messages all the time about it. So they don't do it. But we are not physiologically. Like we don't have the hormonal. release. We don't have the hormonal setup to look like a man. And the people that you're looking at in the gym who are women that maybe are bulkier are probably in there for three to four hours a day. Like if you're talking about lifting weights four times a week, they're taking. They're right. There's so

taking. I think a lot of guys that work to build muscle laugh at this too because it is so hard. Like that's we go for hours just to do that. I guess the idea that someone's going to do this for a little bit or they're going to incorporate and then all of a sudden it's going to happen. I want to know what they're doing then because I want to do it for me. Does that make sense? And I, I'm the same way. Like, like, even now in my life, I'm at a point where I don't have as much muscle on me as I like. I got to the point where I loved how I felt and how I looked at 125 pounds. My body wants to be at 110. It is like it's everyone's body is different. I like me at 125, but to maintain the muscle to hit 125, 130. I have to eat all.

day long, I have to load in carbolin. Like I'm literally adding 200 calorie scoops of carbohydrates to shakes in between my meals just and it takes time to get there. So it is, it's a full-time job to feed your muscle. Don't you think that you've trained your metabolism to be so fucking crazy because you've lifted weights? Like this is the other thing I don't think people understand. When you lift weights, you're activating your metabolism. You have activated your metabolism so much and so well that you're a machine with burning food. You're right. So you are very right. So muscle, we've heard this a million times, but I'll just kind of lay it out. A pound of muscle looks smaller than a pound of fat. But that pound of muscle, although smaller, it is mightier.

Like the more muscle, that's why weight shouldn't matter, right? Because if we have, you might look the same, be the exact same volume or size as someone else. And you might be a much heavier because you have more muscle on you, the more muscle you have, the more fat you burn the muscle is it kind of it propels the metabolic engine. So yes, it increases our metabolism, which is why we shouldn't be scared of having those muscles, of feeling that you do have to feel bulky for a while. What happens is we kind of inflate and grow the muscles usually first and that fat layer is still there. That's why a lot of women will lift for like a week, two weeks, three weeks. And they'll be like my pants don't fit. I'm done. Like I'm bigger. I'm fatter is what they say. You've just kind of pushed the fat out a little bit,

but you have to do that so you can solidify that muscle and then start to shrink the layer of fat on top. So are you saying that everyone has it ass backwards and that women are confused with what actually is happening. For sure. Yes. Oh yeah. And once you figure it out, like, you can't and see it. No, you can't and see it. I can't go to an airport. I'm like, oh my God, whatever we need to put more muscle on is a society. Like, I'm sorry. This is like, this is, this is, we need to put more muscle on. And if we had more muscle on, we wouldn't have to be so worried about the food. Just think about the skeletal. There's so much freedom in it too. You know, I feel so much better than I did. Yes. But just think about like the skeletal structure of aging people. And what I've said is on the show and I got pushback

one time when I said like if you have back problems at 35, 35, 35, 30, 40 years old, like it's like if you have back problems at 25, 30, 40 years old, right? Like, it's likely because you don't have the proper muscle structure in your back or your legs. Yeah, and you're probably not drinking enough water. I mean, there's so many things, right? If we just did the basics and we trusted that food was here to fuel us and build us and make us healthy, like food is medicine, right? And yeah, food is medicine, lifting is medicine.

Like, osteoporosis is a real thing, especially in women. Like, we need that resistance training to be. our healthiest as we age. We need muscle. I want to go back. You mentioned... I love your cards, by the way. Those are so cute. I find, right? A little branding. I want to go back to what you mentioned about your eating disorder. Do you remember a point when you were young that activated it? I'm always interested in this as a mother to a daughter. Do you remember something someone said? Like, what sort of tipped the tipping point for you to go into that? Or was it just a death by a thousand and cuts. And now being this age and looking back, what's set you to even having an eating disorder

to begin with. So I do remember a specific moment. But before I say the moment, I think there's a stage that was set already that maybe predisposed me to have dysmorphia. I'm going to say dysmorphia because that's kind of the root of eating disorder for me. It was for me. My mom, and see as I I say this, I'm going to say I recognize that the stage I'm setting is very similar to the stage set for my kids. And so I have done things different. I recognize this. My mom was a blonde Barbie, a muscle Barbie. Okay. She literally, my mom is the most gorgeous woman I know. And my dad was like a six foot one Mr. Clean, like big bald head, huge muscles. And just they were successful. They were happy. They were everything. Like they were beautiful. And a.

They're still with us? My dad passed. I'm sorry. Thank you, 13 years ago. My mom is still here. And she's just, she's awesome. I love her. And I saw the way that my dad loved truly. You've never seen a husband and wife treat each other the way that my parents did. It was magic. Not just because my dad's passed. It really was. I saw how he treated and how he loved her. They went to the gym together. They did all these things. I was the one girl in a family of, three, I had three, there were three brothers in just me, so the one girl and four kids. And I, my, how do I say, this will go deep, but it's just, it's how it was. My dad knew how to raise boys. He coached their sports. He did all their things. He did not know

how to raise a daughter. Yeah. And I think back then it was different too. So it was either I was, you know, treated like one of the boys or maybe I was my mom. moms to, you know, deal with or figure out or. And so there was a huge part of me always trying to please my dad, always, like wanting his approval, wanting his love daughters. You guys, they can't preach enough. They need their dad to love them and to coddle them. And I don't, he loved me in a way that maybe was different than what I needed. And I was, he was, he was a hard dad, very hard. He had high expectations. And so I thought, in order to be loved, the way that my dad loves my mom, like in order for him to, because he just loved her, like,

put her on a pedestal. I need to make sure I look like my mom. I need to look like my mom. I need to act like my mom. I need to try hard to be like her. And I, she was 5'4. I outgrew her. I was 5.5.5. She was, say, 115 pounds. I outgrew her in high school. All I saw was how much bigger I was than her always, right? We didn't fit into the same pants. She never made me feel bad, but just, oh, shoot, those don't fit you. Here's some different ones was like, I'm not my mom. I don't look like my mom. So there was this humongous fear.

And my family, I felt like was perfect. Like, truly, they're funny. I love, and I felt like I was the one who was always messing up. Were you the youngest? No, I was the second. Okay. I think there's a very high expectation placed on the oldest kids most often. Yeah, sure.

Mine there were, right? And I had that high expectation. combined with, I was the only girl, so maybe they didn't know how to raise me, but boys were like rinse and repeat, you know, and I couldn't get my dad to be proud of me the way that I wanted that, wanted, right? So I was constantly trying to look like my mom. I never wanted to be overweight. I never wanted to look a way that wasn't going to be approving to him. Now, the moment, though, that I remember body image sticking out, my parents, as we were younger, would always take us to the gym. I don't know why. I don't think they thought I was overweight or anything, but especially me.

They were both weightlifters at the time? Yes. They lifted weights. They did protein shakes. You guys, when I was like in junior high, elementary school, before anyone, my dad would have the big RX bars that he would eat like, he's like, oh, I love these. Each of them had like 50 grams of protein. He ate like five a day. I don't think he realized it was like definitely too much protein. But then my parents would pack lunches that had just because they were into health. They wanted to share what were. for them, but I heard it as, okay, something's wrong with me. Like the lunches were salad with fat-free, calorie-free, zesty ranch dressing. And so I had thought something's wrong with me. They were not saying that. That's what I heard because they were just, oh, here's some fat-free red vines or here's the snack wells. And here I was probably 120 pounds. So I was, and I was very

fit. But I remember getting in the car on the way to gymnastics. I was also a gymnast. And a cheerleader who they threw up in the air, right? So I was the one, I was conscientious of how much I weighed. Get, I had a leotard on and I put the seatbelt on. I might have been 10 ruby's age, my youngest, put the seatbelt on. I saw skin folding over the seatbelt. That's all that it was. But I saw, 10 year old Heidi saw fat. And then I looked to my friend next to me who was very petite. She, you know, none of us had really gone through a growth spurt, but she was a little skin and bone tiny thing. And she was tighter than I was. And that was the moment for me where I'm like, ooh, like something's wrong with me. Like I still vividly, I haven't thought about that for maybe

15 years. But that was the first moment and then add to it all the stage that had been set. And, you know, in my junior year, I blew out my knee. And so I could no longer work out. And if I can't work out, then I can't eat because then I'm going to get fat was my mentality. Did your parents never contextualized why they were so into health and fitness or they was just like something they did I don't think they knew so something they did then it was something they did that had them stick out in a beautiful way like my parents were actually a light to everyone around them they would get their neighbors to work out I mean this was like 19 the 80s the 80s they never sat you down and said we did this because we like to feel good and we like to feel healthy

and it's not because like we want to look a certain way but it's like they never like It was just kind of like, this is what we are. Like, what these... I don't think until the day my dad died, I don't think he realized that there was a connection between them going to the gym and me having an eating disorder. Because my dad's story was, what the heck is wrong with her? Like, all this stuff, and you are the one who, you know,

is kind of like, you, something's, what's wrong with you? Truly, it was like a what, because they just didn't understand it. Eating disorders were much more size. in the 90s and early 2000s than they are now. I mean, and if there was an eating disorder on the front of a magazine, it was like, my parents would put it in front of me, like, look what's going to happen to you because they knew at the time I had an eating disorder. And I then would take it, because I was like, okay, that doesn't matter. What matters is that I end up looking the way that you need me to look. And so I'd read it and figure out how to fine tune my eating disorder instead

of like how to fix me, right? I remember like when we were growing up in high school, there was websites that you could go to. I had a friend who had an eating disorder and she would go to these websites and they give you like ED tips. Was there a moment that you remember that your parents noticed that something was wrong? Like, did you just start losing weight? I had an eating disorder sophomore and junior year, but it was anorexia. It had not yet turned into bulimia, blown out ACL, which took me out for like eight months. Then it really got. bad between my junior year and my senior year, I had gone from 120, 125 pounds down to 98, 97 pounds. And I was 5.5 and a half. So I had really gotten tiny. I feel like my cheer coach was the one who

brought it up to my parents. I don't think my parents knew what had happened. But that led my dad, who was very strong and like, you're going to do whatever the heck I tell you to do, kind of a person. I didn't have an opinion as a child. Nothing. It was just. you are what I tell you you are, you're going to eat a cheeseburger. And so it wasn't ever like, I'm so sorry, what's happening. You know, parents back then were not like parents now, right? Emotions didn't matter. My dad, I remember, would force feed me or like, you're going to eat this cheeseburger and fries, which was my biggest fear at the time. And so that then cued bulimia. Right. Well, they're going to force feed me. And I don't even think I had to, you know, go F off

attitude. It was just more like what, like, I can't keep this in me. I'm terrified of what's inside of me. Let me learn how to throw up. And so, yeah, those sites, it wasn't sites back then. It was really magazines that I would actually find, like, how. They also used to show in school, like, I remember being in school and there was like some creepy videos of people throwing up. That was so. In like the jar. You never see it? Yes. That's the exact one they showed us in the jar. And I was, I was in the closet. Yeah, to be honest, we even though, like, we probably, what is that exposure therapy? To be honest, we probably saw the same video.

Like, they probably don't update those videos for, like, they just probably leave that one video. In the jar. Yeah, I know. And it was in the woods, right? In the closet in the woods, yeah. Yeah, I told you, that thing freaked me out, man. Oh. So, so when, when your parents finally found out, how did you start to recover when you were young or did it take, like you said, you had kind of been hiding it as a body dysmorphia for a long time?

So when they found out and when they force fed me, I would say for the next two years, three years, it got hell worse. I mean, like, that was like the beginning of hell, truly, the beginning of the addiction. Like I see people who have drug addictions. And I don't know what that's like. I don't know what alcoholism is like. I do think, though, that the depths of darkness that are experienced in drug addiction, alcoholism are the exact same. in eating disorder world. So go back to what you think helped you.

I don't know if the right word is recover. I had mentioned it had gotten worse, right? My eating disorder, I had graduated high school a year and a half after that. And then I lived on my own. And having been under the rule, I'm going to call it, of a very strong will dad and being on my own against his will. right? It was like I had freedom and all of the pain of childhood had hit and college was a disaster. I went from being like a straight A student to ASU. I was like D's and F's. It took me moving away to Utah to try and do school with my friend.

Like I think the number one thing for me was living life on my own. You have to kind of experience it. Like no one. I think there's a lot of parents that are like my daughter is going through this. How can I stop her? my first response to that almost always is no one can really stop the path that she's on. Like for me, no one could have stopped me from needing to experience life and the way that I did to teach me that food wasn't scary. But I had to walk through those steps. No one else could walk through them with me or for me. I think what made it more difficult and what will always make it more difficult for anyone

in the middle of an eating disorder is feeling like the people around them, have conditional love for them. Like, if you don't fix yourself, then I'm not going to love you. Like, that is like a, you know, like that makes it worse. Or like, I can't believe you. I can't, something's wrong with you. Making someone feel like something's wrong instead of, hey, I'm sorry, you're going through what you are. Like, how can I help? What can I? I, I wasn't able to heal myself or be healed or even begin the journey until I felt like I had a safe space, right, till I had someone who I could talk to who could understand. I think that's a self-aware thing to say, though, because a lot of people go up

resenting the people around them because they can't stop whatever cycle they're on. And I think recognizing that some things people are going to do regardless of outside input, like there's certain things, like, even, you know, there's certain things in business where I'm hesitant to give people advice. I'm like, there's no way to teach someone until they actually do the thing or go through the thing. But sometimes you go people grow up and they are resentful and say like somebody else could have stopped this. But I don't think that's realistic in a lot of cases.

No, I agree with you. I really do think we all have to go through what we're meant to go through. And I mean, no, I don't know if you're saying people who have suffered from like an eating disorder are mad at the people around them. Like I'm just saying people in general sometimes think that outside input would have stopped whatever behavior they were doing. That's a lack of responsibility in my opinion. And in any way, right? Like, we are all, like for my eating disorder, I don't even like to say the story I can tell,

but I hesitate to say it because I'm like, I don't want anyone to think it's my parents' fault. No, you could have had two girls in that situation, and one would have gone my way, the other would have gone a totally different way, right? It's my decisions, my, yeah. Yeah, I'll just pick out myself. Like, there's things that I've done in my life

in earlier in my career when I definitely as a kid that I can look back and say, well, if somebody would have stepped in and told me, I just know my sense. It's not true. I was going to do it regardless of anything. And like, I had to make those mistakes and learn from them. The tragedy is people make the mistakes and then they never learn from them. They blame everybody else.

Yeah. And maybe it's possible. I think this, the same thing. But maybe it's possible someone gave you the advice or gave me the advice, right? That I needed. But I couldn't hear it. Right. Maybe you couldn't even, it like, bounced off the walls because you didn't have the experience to even know what they were saying, right?

So that's kind of how I feel. And I made a lot. I've been more mistakes probably than most people. And it's because I just, I needed to make them to get to a point where I'm like, okay, I have all the pieces now. And I don't make as many mistakes these days. When, at what point do you meet Chris, your first husband, who you had your four children with? Okay. So Chris and I had two.

I've been married twice. Oh. And in the way, like the eyes of, you know, my friends online, I think many of them think I've been married three. three times because Dave and I had such a deep relationship. It does feel like three marriages. But yeah, so I was married right out of high school when eating disorder was, in fact, this husband, I don't even think he knew I had an eating disorder. I had hit it the entire time. But yeah, so I married someone right away, had two kids with him. I was raised Mormon and like I thought I needed to get married young like my mom and dad did, two kids. And then it was that eating disorder

band-aids started when I was pregnant because pregnancy was like, oh my gosh, I'm building a baby. Do I want to build this baby with healthy foods or am I going to ruin this baby? I had a friend who had an eating disorder and her baby had severe complication. So I knew I didn't want that. So I had two kids with my first husband. We divorced because I realized five years in. I didn't even know what decision I was making. And the eating disorder came back during that. So I thought I had fixed it. It came back during divorce. I started going to therapy for the first time.

All sorts of therapy. Eating disorder therapy. Personal therapy. Ended up going to a self-improvement seminar in the midst of all of this. I'm like actually, you know, consciousness is like coming. I'm seeing the world and seeing my life and myself for the first time. And I go to this self-improvement seminar. It's called Landmark.

I don't know if you guys heard of it. Yeah, heard of it. Two days in, like there was this guy with all these. muscles and like he would bring this like thing, it looked like a bomb. It was like this carrier that had a timer on the front. And I'm like, what think is that? We would both, we were the only two people who brought our lunch in the entire thing. And we would like measure our food and whatever. So he would pull like down the sides and like these color coded containers would come out with like marked and Disha and he'd like have his protein in the red and his carbs in the yellow and he's eating

this food. And I was like, oh, I also didn't want to be in a relationship. So I would kind of avoid him. And then I had this cooler. I would eat my food. And he came up to me. And I was at a point where I'm like, if any guy comes up to me, I do not want anything to do with him. I'm like a mess right now. And he's like, I want to know what you do to get those guns. Like he was commenting on my biceps and I'm like, oh, anyway, we started talking because we both brought our food. This guy's name was Chris Powell. I kind of avoided him. But the final day, he needed a ride to his car. And so I let him get in my car. We ended up talking for like three hours in the parking lot and just we were at a point where we were deconstructing our lives and saying all the things,

mistakes we've made and here's the mess I'm in and here's what I'm committed to growing. And we became best friends. Like truly, we, to this day, I actually think there's a level of best friendship with he and I that will never go away. But yeah, so I started with Chris just helping him build his business. So he was fresh out of his car. He lived in his car because he'd invested all of his money into this product, this invention called the stack system, which was color-coded containers with marked indicia. So you fill the protein to your weight and you fill the carbohydrates to your weight and he had this whole carb cycling manual long before like six-pack bags was the thing. Like this was 2008 that we met and he'd been doing this for years before that. And so, but yeah, you put it in this bag and you

have a timer so you eat every three hours. So Chris had put all of his money and then some into stack system, ended up homeless, living on other people's couches and his car. And he and I met right after that. And I was a fixer. And he, you know, hadn't filed his taxes in four years. And I'm like, I can fix that for you. He didn't, he was drowning and overwhelmed with business stuff. And I said, I will, you know, on days where I'm not doing real estate, which is what I was in at the time, or in between my stuff, I'll help you. I have. to love business. And so we became best friends. And I was his business. I helped him clean up a lot. He was shortly in thereafter like in this kind of business mess that I helped him clean up.

And we built a company together. And then he decided he wanted to create a show. And so we went and created a show. What point do you guys start to fall in love? Is this after the show during the show on the show, because the show was a real hit. Okay, let me say this. So Chris and I, we were dating way before the show, right? When the show was created, we were boyfriend and girlfriend, but I was always and equally just as much, his business partner. Chris, up to that point, I don't think, this is going to sound really interesting, but I'm going to say it. I don't think I knew what it was like to have a romantic relationship until Dave. Okay. Now, Chris and I, I had...

Because it started so like... Chris and I were... I just didn't know. I mean, my first husband and I didn't really connect at all, right? We didn't click... I didn't, I had no... I didn't date a lot. Chris and I had, and still do, the deepest, truest appreciation for each other.

So before we said, I love you, we said, I appreciate you. And then we got to the point where we were, and we would say, okay, appreciation is actually deeper than love. Because I really truly, and this is. I get emotional saying this, but like, he is one of the most genuine, kind, talented, big thinking, just amazing humans. I have such respect for who he is. I appreciate him so much. And he, in me, saw that all I wanted to do was help him. All I wanted to do was take his dream. He's a dreamer and I was a doer. And we literally poured everything in to build something amazing. And I feel like it was a God thing because the heavens aligned, the, you know, I'm sorry, the heavens

open, the stars aligned. And this path was opened up for us. He's a manifest or you're a generator. 100%. Yes. Uh-huh. Yes. Yeah. So it kind of now when did we fall in love? So love just looked so different. I think there are different types of love that you experience at different points in your life. Love for us looked very different than love for, say, me and Dave, right? He and I had just a true partnership where his strengths were my weaknesses and my strengths were his weaknesses and there was a mutual respect for creation in all the ways, right? So that was great. And then we ended up having babies after the show started. I am very passionate about examining the products that I put into my body or on my body on a daily basis. And something that I do every single day that I've done

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One thing that has absolutely changed my life. This is a gift that I give everyone I cannot shut up about is a gently weighted sleep sack. Why has this changed my life? Because it's changed my sleep. I sleep so well because my son is sleeping through the night. He goes to bed at 7.30. He wakes up at 7. I attribute this to a couple things. An all dark room. We have no light in the room. I have my air filters going. I have no white noise. I don't like any sound in the room. And then I'll do a gently waitic sleep sack. And the one that I use is by Dreamland Baby. I've been using it forever. It's such a good one. What it does is it makes my son associate this thing. gently weighted sleep sack with sleep. Like it's time to go to bed. He knows that. It's almost like a dog whistle. So what I do is I'll put it on him. I'll zip it up. And he immediately relaxes. His nervous system calms down. He goes to bed. It makes total sense because we do this like as adults, right? We use like a weighted blanket. And what's amazing is they have an early black Friday situation happening. Go to Dreamland babyco.com and use our code skinny for the buy one, get one free deal from my favorite

Baby brand Dreamland Baby. Our code Skinny works sitewide on both non-weighted and weighted products, PJs and more, as long as they're of equal or lesser value. Feel free to mix and match, but note this is final sale. Use our code Skinny at checkout. This is a great way to stock up on Dreamland Baby products or to give gifts. When Amanda Kerr came on the podcast, she said her number one secret is a specific ingredient. It's called Noni. And she liked it so much that she actually created her own oil out of it. And I have been incorporating this into my skincare routine. I love oil in general. It is the most beautiful oil. It's like glowing and radiant. It's on her site. She owns the company Cora Organics. I'm sure you guys have heard of it. It's a beautiful skin care line. Every single ingredient is made with

intention. It's really good for dryness, damage, plumping. But she just swears. She just swears. by this specific ingredient, which is Noni. It's so popular on TikTok. I see it all the time on social media. I see people raving about this ingredient. So I kind of harassed the brand to send it to me, and it is so beautiful. If you want something that just like lifts and plumps your skin, I'll use it for like facial manipulation. It's a really good one. If you go on their site, you can also check out the turmeric brightening and exfoliating mask. This is another one of Miranda's favorites. Her skin is beautiful in person. They also have a plant stem cell retinol alternative serum. I really like this because I'm not a huge retinol fan and over 80% of traditional retinol users said this serum had the best

results, like better than retinol. If you're into clean certified organic skincare like I am and you want fewer toxins on your skin, check them out. Visit core organics.com and use code skinny at checkout. You get 20% off your first purchase. That's K-O-R-A-O-R-G-A-N-I-C-E-E-C. and use code skinny for 20% off your first order. As the show is on and you guys are, I don't know if you want to call it in love appreciating each other. We definitely had, yes, loved each other. So I don't want to sound like we didn't.

You loved each other. Just like different. So how are you, how do you guys show up on a show while also having kids while also having a business? And you also had two other kids. How are you like balancing all this thing in your life? It was a lot. Yeah. So when we started the show, I was just, I was Chris's manager. And tell us anyone who's listening that doesn't know the show, give us context of what the show is. So the show was on ABC. It was like the end of the era of network television hits, right? So it was on ABC, which, you know, it was TV, not a streaming thing. And it was, we got to spend one year in, it was 76 participants' lives. So we kind of layered it and it was just, it was a lot. We spent.

one year helping them transform their lives, losing half their body weight. So it wasn't just about weight. Now, to the viewing audience and the marketing team, yeah, we get them in by showing them the hard workouts and these amazing transformations. But what really happened is we would transform their lives from the inside out. Yes, it was diet and exercise, which is what Chris was so, you guys, he's the most scientifically, he's just awesome. He's so smart, guru. He taught me most of what I know in that space. He kind of laid the foundation for me. I, keeping someone for a full year, though, and transforming their bodies like that requires mind, heart and soul transformation.

I am a very feely emotional person who has dealt with my own addiction. My dad had addiction as well. We went through treatment with him. So there was kind of a background of overcoming addiction. So our tag teaming was amazing, right? But when we started the show, I was just as manager. I would do all the agent connections and the business stuff and working with the business management team, all the things. I, though, because I'm a fixer.

It was like when Chris was having a hard day, which was right away, because he went from only doing one massive transformation. He'd helped a guy lose 400 pounds over the course of 22 months. And there were a couple documentaries they did when we were dating. It was really awesome. Wow. He had one transformation to suddenly ABC's like, like, okay, we want to do eight people at once. It's a lot of energy.

It was a lot. And filming a TV show, just the camera element is a full-time job in and of itself, transforming one person is a full-time job in and of itself. So it's like he had these two full-time jobs, but, you know, it's one person times eight that he could not manage on his own. And Chris, like the pressures of the network, it was like the production crew came from Biggest Loser. So they were very used to fast weight loss, like drinking pickle juice to trick the scale and gain weight one week and then losing it all.

It was just like fast weight loss was expected. And so when the numbers in a year-long transformation, the numbers are not exciting. Sometimes we have a big loss, but mostly it's not huge, right? The pressure of the network and the production company was a lot for him. So I very quickly stepped in to kind of help Chris juggle. Six months into season one, we're only having. halfway done with that season. ABC picks up another season, like they cue season two, and it's 16 people. So then we're juggling 24 people. And that was the point where I'm pregnant at the time.

I jumped in. We had people coming to Arizona to live with me and my kids. So I had two kids from my previous marriage, who we had 90% of the time. And I'm pregnant with my third. And I had a ton of energy, though. I was like 27, 28 at the time. So I could do anything at that point. But yeah, I have people living in Marley's bed. So my kids would sleep in my room. We had the beds there. I would wake up. I would get my kids off to school. We'd go hiking. Actually, I would hike before they went to school. What if you didn't like the person? Well, I like everybody. I can truly look at anyone. It doesn't matter how nasty they are. And I can find the good in them. And I can connect with that. What a great quality.

That's a very special quality. That's unique. I actually loved the problem children. I can look at anyone and find the bad quality. This is Larry David. No, you can't stop. So you had them in your home and you're going through all the protocol within your home while you're pregnant. Cooking their food, cutting their chicken, weighing it, like carbcycling them.

I'm doing everything for them. I had trainers that I would hire to kind of do kickboxing with them or whatever. We ended up the next season getting an Arizona boot camp house. that was just down the street from us. And so then I became the head of the Arizona boot camp house, which then the producers were like, this is awesome. Like the husband is doing his thing here,

traveling around, right? Going and surprising people, taking him on these massive adventures. And the wife and her kids are literally hiking in Arizona with the people who aren't losing weight. So they started pulling elements of real reality into the show. And then I became co-host. So it kind of not, I didn't try for it.

I was really uncomfortable with it. This all just happened. What is it like when your husband's traveling, you're pregnant, and all this is going on? That's where I would think it would be hard to connect. Let's try it out. We'll see what happens. Go ahead. You go travel.

You leave me alone for five minutes. Let's see how that goes. You text me. I go to the grocery store and you call. An experiment. So what is that like to have your husband traveling? You're pregnant. You've got a network show.

It's like so much is going on. It was a lot and it was layered with, I was. Those are you're young too. Six, seven months pregnant. Yeah, I was six, seven months pregnant with cash, my third child. Chris is my first. The show was about to air. The season one was about to come out.

It had been a year and a half or so. And my dad passed away who I didn't even know at the time that I had a lot of childhood wounds around, right? Like I didn't even, I had no awareness of this. Did you ever get to speak to your dad before he passed about any of this stuff? Nope. She didn't know. She wasn't aware. Nope. And even...

Oh, sorry. That's a bummer. No. It's okay. It's okay. It's a good thing. I'm not, I don't kind of, I don't run away from talking about it. But even the mention, I'm like, man. Yeah, sorry. No. When I asked it, I said, oh, that's going to hit it.

No. It is a thing. You know, I was telling someone the other day. I'm like, I, you know, everyone will talk. Many people will say, oh, I had a conversation with my dad. dad. I still. It's okay. I think that that even if you had had the conversation sometimes, I think what I've realized is I've gotten older that everybody's doing the best that they can. And so he probably thought he was doing the best he could. And that's that generation too.

It's just a different. My dad's older. My dad's turned 80 this year. I hate me saying this age on the show. But it's just I think that generation, like I think about the way they were parented. Yeah. And there was just not. not a ton of, I think, of emotional capacity. That's that. And he was, my, my mom was 17 when he and my dad, she and my dad got married and had their first baby. 17.18. And it's crazy for people to think about now. Really, you guys so much of who I am, like truly, because I, I know who I am. And I'm super proud of who I am. I haven't always been. I would say like 90% of my good qualities are actually the same

qualities my dad has. Like, we are very similar in so many of the good ways. And then the 10%, he was just very young, you know, and every, every child is going to be like, my parents were 90% great, 10% really freaking hard. We all have childhood trauma, right? And so I recognize that. I actually, I love the idea of radical forgiveness. Yeah. Right? Which is like, my, I feel like there are things, I feel about even saying this, because like, I love that. my dad and I appreciate him so much. And there are things that I, you know, have worked on forgiving over the years. But radical forgiveness is the idea that when you realize who you are today, like who I am today, who I've evolved to be, who I'm proud of is exactly who I am because of how

they were. Like I have nothing, you realize you have nothing to forgive. I have nothing to forgive, because I am all of the good that I am because of him. And also the heart, like the other good that I am is because of maybe what I felt like I didn't get and I've grown and walked through a really treacherous path to get to where I am. That's evolved, Heidi. That's evolved. I like radical forgiveness. I'm here for it. I think that it's also, I mean, we have young kids and you have some kids a little bit older, but I worry sometimes, like there's this whole new terms like what's called gentle parenting.

I was like, I didn't experience that. But I almost think, like, is that really the best idea? Like, I don't know. I mean, a lot of the things that maybe I grew up with and a lot of the kind of, you know, pushback that I had as a child, like was maybe not just gentle parenting. But maybe then set me up for success later, right? I don't really necessarily think we need to brand parenting. I feel like the internet is constantly trying to brand everything. I feel like parenting you can be a mix. of gentle when it's right and the situation is right. And you can be a mix of hard and you can give them some grit and some resilience and you can be loving. I don't really think we need to like brand parenting. I agree. We had a woman. And there's not one way to do it.

Oh, yeah. I mean, when they say like there's different, like all these different things, it's just like exhausting. It's like, fuck, I'm just trying to get through the goddamn day. I want to take a shower. This goes back to like, even wait, look, I think humans are really good at doing. as much as they can to seek as much comfort as possible. What I like about weightlifting in the gym is it's a moment where you have to get uncomfortable to later be comfortable.

And I think part of my job as a parent is to prepare my children for what the world is really like so that when they get hit with the reality of the world, when they leave the nest, they're not so shocked or surprised by what the world actually looks like. And I think there's a lot of young people that I work with and then I see all time and I'm not so old, but just younger people. And I think it's always interesting for me to watch the people that struggle the most. And typically what they struggle with the most is they're out, they're just shocked that this is what the world is actually like. Like, no, it's not fair. You're competing with killers. It's hard. It's not going to be easy. You're going to feel sad. Yes,

things cost that much. Yes, you're going to have to figure out a way to pay for them. No, it's not going to be easy. No, you don't deserve it right now. And I think like the people that transition into that the eases are the ones that have kind of had that up. like, okay, the table has been set and the expectation has been set in reality. The ones that struggle, like, wait a minute, I didn't realize it was like this. I think that's a, that's something I think about all the time. We are like on the same page. So I don't know that I would, I don't, I mean, I'm not sure if social media would think this,

but I don't know if I would call myself a gentle parent. In fact, I know I wouldn't. I am a very firm parent. But what I also, like very firm. Like, I am the one when I say something, I recognize I'm doing them a disservice. I don't stick to it. So like if I say you're grounded, if I go back, like now that sucks because I have to be available when you're grounded. I have to stop my life because I grounded you and you need to stay home, right? So that sucks. But also I said it. And if I don't stick to it,

you're not going to understand the concept of consequences and life's going to suck for you when you leave my house, right? I am definitely not a gentle parent, but I am a very intentional parent, right? Love that. What I do, because I agree with you. But I think every kid, need something different. I have four kids. It's like I'm a different mom to all of them. My youngest does really well with gentle parenting because she's gentle and she's just different. My two middle ones, they need like the hammer dropped quite a bit more, you know? And they do better with that. We're in for it, Michael. Yeah, you are. What? Going back to your story, because I just want to tell you have this incredible story. When do you and Chris decide that you're going to divorce?

And if I'm fast-tracking to that, please fill in the blanks in between because you guys ended up getting divorced. But it seems like, and this is from social media, so correct me if I'm wrong, that you guys did it while still being friends. Yeah, we are still really great friends. So it's a long, windy, deep road, right? I think maybe one of the best ways to explain it is Chris, maybe marriage was not really, marriage was never a thing we were going to do. let me just start there. We were never going to get married because we had a slightly different relationship than I know relationships to be now, right? So it was not like some of the relationships I've had in the past most recent. It was very much a partnership. It was a friendship, a deep friendship.

It was a partnership. But business was both of our number one priority. And I feel bad even saying that because as much as we, yeah, if we wanted, I wish I could say kids and family were, but our career and the show and Chris's dream was really whatever we were great parents around the show. We were great. Like we did awesome vacations because of the show. But like the show and Chris's vision that he had was the center of all of it, right? And I was so desperate for love that I would have done anything. I didn't know who I was at the time still. I was still coming out of and naturally healing and eating disorder at this time because I was working with eating disordered people. We had the same disorder. It's just theirs was not, they couldn't hide it, right? Because they ate and they didn't,

they weren't bulimic. So their, their scars were present. Mine were something I could hide. But I slowly started coming out and talking about my eating disorder in the show with the people, which is freeing. Chris then learned about it as we were shooting the show. And that was healing for me. It also created more media. And I don't even want to say media because I don't want to say, It was much harder when I was a face on the show for me and Chris, for various reasons. Because I think in every relationship, you have your roles, right? You have to have, you have to understand. The roles are going to evolve over time.

But you're clear on what your role in the relationship in your life is and you're clear in what yours is. And I'm sure it's something you guys talk about. Yeah, she's always like, you're the, I'm the most talented face of this. I just say I'm the star. Are we not clear? Are we not clear? And his mom also tells him too, so we've got to remind him.

But go on. Yeah. But I think it became hard because what was maybe Chris's role felt like it was intruded on by me because I was the leader of the home who literally ran this. It's an organization. The home is with the nannies and whoever, right? Housekeeper, because we were traveling all the time. And then I was the leader of finances.

I was the one who managed our finances because I always had been. I was the leader of the business site. So I was managing Chris. Then I had a brand and I was managing my brand, which was very hard. And then I was showing up on screen. That's a lot. And so it was a lot and it became really difficult for us. And I, as a little girl who never was allowed to have an opinion, started healing my eating disorder and other things through therapy.

Suddenly I had an opinion. And we, marriage felt hard. hard. It was the way we would say it is there was almost like an infection. Like when you have an infection in the body, if you don't clean up that infection, right, it's going to spread to all the other parts of the body. In our life, everything was great. Our career was great. The kids were great. All the things were great. Our family dynamic was phenomenal. Like, it's still phenomenal. Like, it was awesome. The marriage and the expectation that we placed on ourselves to be married and what it didn't look like. We didn't do date nights. We didn't. And I, it just became mucky. And it was something that

had started to bleed or spread to the other areas. And so we made the decision. We don't want to do that part. Like there's stress. There's, we were both not showing up in certain ways as our best selves because of the tension and the stress of pain that comes with marriage, not just marriage, but all the parts of marriage, right? And so we did, we decided, okay, our original idea of we're never getting married because it does place a pressure, which we ended up getting married because I said, hold on if we're going to have babies, you have to marry me. It was more of a, it wasn't like, I love you, let's get married.

It was like if we're going to do this family thing, society and religion says we need to be married, so you got to marry me. Well, and you guys also had your lives on television with the world to see. Everything was public, social media. And yeah, so divorce, we decided in 2019 that we were going to get divorced. And we lived together for a full year. So like, and it was great. And we didn't tell anyone, no one.

You were getting divorced. And we were going through it. I mean, the people, our business partners knew. It sounds like, it sounds like the kids knew. Everything was great. Just the marriage was just not it. Yeah. And so by the time we decided to announce it in 2020, a full year later, we were already

divorced. The kids had a full year. to process without the world telling them how they should feel about divorce. And yeah, it's really great. Like he is, I was just at his house. I dropped the kids off last night. He had me come in and try his baking creations and try this one. He's just, he's the nicest guy. Yeah, he seems like on social media, he seems like very good vibes. Very nice. When 2020 happens, at what point do you do a podcast with Dave Hollis? How does that even transpire? So, well, what's funny is, yeah, I had flown in here because Dave was in dripping springs. Do you know this?

Yes. Now that I, you're refreshing, I forgot that they were in Austin. Yeah? I didn't realize you did the podcast in Austin. So July. Because we never met him, but we met Rachel and she was out here. Okay. So apparently the story is that Dave was great. But the story is Dave had shown Rachel June 20th or whenever Chris and I had announced. We didn't know each other. He showed Rachel the announcement and was like, I can't believe Chris and Heidi are getting married or divorced. What? You know, because we all have an idea of how a marriage looks when we don't know the reality. And then it was like a, he said, I feel like that was the beginning of the dismantling of our marriage. And it was like almost like maybe a subconscious, I don't know, dismantling or permission for their marriage to dismantle is how he felt. Well, there's similarities now that here you talk. I mean, like if you put, if you put that kind of public, what I always think is if you put that kind of public pressure is like being that thing.

to get personally, Lauren and I are very careful not to present that image. Like you don't see us skipping out of beach or holding hands. Like we talk and we work together. Everyone knows we're married and we know each other for a long time

but like we don't do the we don't present as like this the perfect couple online and it's never been our thing to do. It just feels like I don't need, you know, because there's relationships aren't perfect. Yeah.

You know and people go through shit and I just feel like. But it's hard when you have a network controlling the edits. I mean there's a lot of different puppets in the kitchen there. Yeah. And even if you are a perfect couple, it's like, don't put it out there because I kind of feel like it's a kiss of death. I don't want people comment out.

Yeah. Everything is going terribly for us. Truly. No, but they, I mean, I didn't know him, but I met her. And I think we told her this when she was on the show. It was like this image of this thing and like telling other people how to be the thing. And I was just like, well, that's a lot. Yeah.

Yeah. It is. And there are similarities because, you know, Chris and Rachel were truly the ones with the vision and the brand. right and Chris when I stepped in in 2008 he had a decade or longer into his vision right so like there was like this was his and and so maybe it felt hard when I'm like okay here I'm benefiting off of because I was only on screen to be honest it was I every me sitting here I me sitting here and having anything the way that I have is truly because Chris yes I worked my ass off you know But I really have deep appreciation for him.

Well, you need both. You need the visionary and you need the person that can help the visionary execute. Yeah. It's rare to have one do all of it. Yeah. Yeah. And this was never my dream. So it's like he kind of, our life led us to this amazing thing.

And he, you know, is the cat. So Rachel and Dave, yes, he was kind of the, he came into public life later. And I'm sure that made it very difficult because it is hard. But yes. So I came. July 2020 is when I landed here in Austin to go do a podcast with Dave Hollis who wanted to podcast about divorce because I was already in Texas. And I drove to his house because I didn't know if it was too. I had no idea what I was walking. Drove to a house and pulled up and yeah, I asked him how

I said, how are you doing? Didn't even know each other. How are you doing? And he said something like fucking shitty because divorce was going through or happening. And then, we walked through, he started giving me a tour of the house, and he said, he then broke down crying. And I said, okay, we're going to talk. We're not going to shoot a podcast. So I sat there because I'd been through at this point to divorces. This was his first. And so we just, I was therapy for him for, I don't even know how many hours. Never recorded the podcast. And we just became safe, really safe, connected friends. And dating didn't happen for months after that. Quick break to talk about fatty 15 guys. This is an absolute game changer.

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Why would you clean your house in the environment you live in with toxic chemical fragrance cleaning supplies that are doing harm to your system? We know this now. We have all of the branch basics is it replaces all of the cleaning supplies in your house so it's cost effective. Of course, we have a special offer for our listeners and viewers save 15% on your starter kit or their new hand soap when you use code skinny at www. branchbasics.com. Again, that is code skinny for 15% off when you purchase a starter kit or their new gel hand soap at branchbasics.com. What do you do when you start dating someone who's in the public eye like that and is gone? Like it's, it just, it seems like it's a lot. How do you even know how to handle it? There's no like sort of rulebook for it. Yeah. Yeah, there's no rulebook for it. And also, I think I have only known having social media and having a public relationship.

I didn't have social media until I was on a TV show. And so for me, it's like you go on a TV show, crap, I need to start up something called Facebook and Instagram, which is showcasing my family's life. It's all that I know. I can't really conceptualize 500 and whatever 1,000. I don't know how many people that is. I don't know what 700,000 people on Facebook actually is. It's just, here's my life. People like it.

So Dave, when he and I did keep it very quiet for a while, like, I don't know, eight months. even talk about our friendship for eight or nine months. And then by the time we talked about it, we had been dating for a handful of months. And again, it's kind of all he knew too, right? Like the second he got social media, it was showcasing his family. So we both, maybe in hindsight, I'll say going forward, that will never happen again. Never. I don't know. You're not going to put it on social media. I mean, if I'm getting married again, which I don't know if I'll do or not. I'm not saying no anything, but I don't want anyone having an opinion on my relationship next time. Right.

It was awesome though. Like there was, Dave and I, whatever chemistry was seen on camera was 10 times better in person. We were electric conversationally, emotionally. We had so much fun together. And so that was all real. But I think some people have an easier time dealing with criticism than others, and that was really difficult for him. Like, I think that was the root of his depression was what people said online, where I don't even think I knew it existed, and I don't give two shits about what people

say online. I think it's not something that you can prepare for online. I think it's either you're that way always, or you're not. Meaning, like, I don't think social media changes, like, if you can handle criticism or not. Like, I'm going to being a kid and never giving a shit, and you were probably the same way. And I think Warren, too. I was raised with the other. my dad. I couldn't give a shit. Yeah. I mean, like, I feel like if you're not being criticized, you're not doing something right. I was like, I mean, listen, here's the deal.

I love you, man. They're going to be talking about this on the hazy. I just know, you know, it goes everywhere. But if you hear this, like, I already got it from her my whole life. Yes. So I was like, but nothing you're going to stand on. But anyways, I think like doing what we do in, you know, in various capacities, I think the people that are not.

not used to that, regardless of social media, that then start doing this, they have the biggest problem with it or the toughest time. It's like, and what I tell people is, if you're going to have a tough time with that, do not put your life on the internet because you could be Mother Teresa and they're going to say something bad. Luckily for us, like people only write really nice things about me all the time. Like there's nothing on that. Well, at least that's all that you see. Yeah, there's nothing on the internet that exists. No, I'm just joking. But I think you, if you're going to put yourself out in any public fashion, all or even try to build anything online, the criticism and the jabs and the things, it's just

part of doing anything. Were you able to coach him through that and help him? Or do you think that you weren't getting through to him, which brings you to the beginning of the episode, is you can tell people all these things, but they're going to do what they want? Yes. So if someone would write a mean comment to him, would it just like throw his whole day off? It would. And I couldn't figure out at the beginning of our relationship, why sometimes he would just be in his phone.

And at first I was like, oh, do I not? No, it was because there are certain hate sites that I know exist, but like, to me, it doesn't exist if I don't see it. It's kind of like in the Lion King, you know, it's like everything that touches the light. It is like, what about that elephant bono? It is like, you don't go to the elephant bonyard. That's it. That's it. Like, one of the things I had, and I think he and I, this is going to sound, I can't believe I'm going to say this, but I'm going to tell you. I was joking at one point, but serious. We would kind of joke about this. I said, I think. feel like I got a, like not an actual STD, but like a public life STD when you and I started dating, because there were so many haters that then attached to me. And then I, like the, you know, bone graveyard, light was shined on the bone graveyard. And I'm like, oh my, I didn't even know. I had no idea that level of hatred and meanness existed. And so I quickly was like, okay, shutting that light out because I'm reading this awesome book called A Happy Pocket Full of Money. I don't know if you've read it.

Oh, it's so good. Basically says an object, something doesn't exist unless someone is there to observe that it exists. Right? That's what I do. You have to read this book. I call it oblivion. It's true. I just am oblivious. I don't think it exists. Yeah. So if I am What are you talking about the bone graveyard? I'm like, what bone graveyard? I've never looked there. And the words will have impact. So if I read the words, I know myself to know, it'll impact. Yes. That's exactly how I feel. So I'm not going to read them. If I go and scroll on social media, this is what's going to happen. If I scroll on TikTok too long, this is what's going to happen. So let's do the math equation and not do it. Yes.

It's literally that easy. The stove, we have been burned. I would tell some of my employees would, you know, then they would be on a camera shot and something would happen and they knew about this hate site because Dave knew about the hate site. So it kind of was this toxic environment for a minute because of the hate sites and everyone knew about it because Dave was really affected by them. But my thing to them would say, okay, everyone, we've all been burned.

The stove burned us. It's freaking hot. We have the choice now. Are we going to go turn the stove on again and touch it? Or are we going to like back away? Like we, that is a hot stove. Do we touch it or do we not? We get to choose.

Do we want to be happy or do we want to be miserable? That's the most eloquent explanation of how I personally deal with the criticism on the internet. It's like don't touch the stove. Yes. Yeah, but it's not even just the internet. It's like life. Yeah.

Still. You have the power to ignore energy. Yes. If it's negative. You can rise above it. Don't absorb it. Yes. But even the way you speak to yourself, like, you know, I've told people that I think

if you're going to try to build anything in your life or if you want to be a good, the moment you start speaking poorly to yourself is the moment you would derail. Like what you say to yourself probably like I know sometimes in my own life that I can come off a certain way. I'm just so adamant on not speaking to myself in a poor way because I know if I do, that's, that will become my reality. So it's not that I don't, I can't, I can acknowledge shortcomings, but if that becomes my consistent pattern in the way like, oh, I'm a failure, or I'm not a good this or I'm not a good that, like that becomes your reality. So do you think that the hate site was

becoming the narrative in his head? Well, I think in order for a hate site to become the narrative in your head, the narrative already has to exist. Right. And so I don't know, like, I have, ideas of, you know, I'm sure everything comes from life and growing up and whatever it is, parts of his life. I think he, you never got to meet him. He truly was always trying to make everyone happy. Like he was so fun. He was so kind. He was such a giver. And truly, like, I had someone tell me the other day, they said, Dave was like your magic carpet. Like, he like carried you around. He lifted me, you guys, I felt the most beautiful, the most loved of this when Dave and I were together for the first time in my life. I felt dated. I felt taken

care of. I felt like I like there were times where I'm like I think he's made my head too big because I he just made me feel like I was the most valuable thing on the planet. Now in hindsight maybe part of him did that because he really craved that. So I like to believe I did the same for him in the final years of his life. But and I'm the same way. right. So it's like the places we lacked as a child, maybe is where we overcompensate as we're developing and growing and trying to find who we are. And so maybe he was always giving others and me what he really wanted himself that he didn't feel like he was getting, right? Do you think you mentioned you were a fixer? Do you think you're trying to fix him looking back?

I don't know that I knew at the beginning what there was to, I don't think I knew at the beginning what there was. Let me just say that. I didn't know it's public that he seeked treatment himself for alcohol about a year before he passed. And so I feel okay saying that. I don't think I realized there was alcohol involved at that capacity until just a couple months prior to him seeking treatment. So his and my connection actually didn't feel like there was anything to fix. In fact, we had talked about it at the beginning like, oh my gosh, what's it going to be? like to be inside of a relationship that doesn't need to be fixed, right? And there were, it's just

it hadn't really come to surface yet. And I had my things that I needed to grow on and learn. But yeah, I, by the time maybe those things had come out truly, you know, they say it's not the width that matters. It's the depth of the relationship. So it wasn't the amount of time he and I were together in that small two and a half year window. The depth felt like we'd been together for 20 years. Because just emotionally, we were like, and intellectually, we connected. Is it weird that you guys were both with, you both had divorces and then you're both with people who are well known and you guys are well known. Is the dynamic of that weird having all of you guys well known and famous and, I don't know, I would call you guys like celebrity entrepreneurs, all of you? It didn't feel weird

because it's all we knew. Right. It actually was very, it felt very comfortable. and natural. It felt like he, because he did, he saw me more than anyone had ever seen me in my life. He understood. That makes sense to me. Even that. Like it's like, oh, we, we understand our divorces were similar in many ways, different in others, right? It would be weirder for both of you to date people that had not experienced the things that you guys had experienced in a public way. Yeah. Yeah. So there was compassion for what I might be feeling. I had compassion when he had a hard time with criticism because it's like, oh man, like that would suck, right? like the average, I don't mean to diminish it, but the average person that doesn't put themselves out there in a public way is not going to be able to relate to thousands of strangers commenting on your life on the internet constantly. And, you know, like, it's just, unless you've been through it, I don't think you can relate to it. It's true. Yeah. And, and also there was something awesome about, I felt like, you know, you always wonder what other people's motives are in dating.

and it's like, do they like me for who I am or do they like me for what they see online? I think because Dave had that same fear and we both got to be like, here's who I really am. Like on, I'm this, I like to feel like I'm the same on and off camera. But it's nice because he wasn't with me for who,

regardless of what some of the hate sites would say, he wasn't with me for, he was truly with me because we loved each other so much. Were you guys together? when he passed away? No. Separated. He and I had,

I haven't really talked about this much, but he and I had broken up a handful of times. Maybe, maybe actually only a couple, too. But even after we broke up, it was like we couldn't stay away from each other.

The chemistry was just too strong. And the breakups were, I mean, I think just there's the obvious, he's in Texas, I'm in Arizona, we have kids that are different ages. We never really got to a point where we were talking.

about getting married because it just wasn't going to be a thing, right? Like he's not going to uproot his kids and his ex-wife. I'm not going to uproot mine. I have two dads in Arizona. And so really, we never really got past the soul connection and like the best friendship I've ever had in my life. We never really got past. And like the best like romantic, everything. But like building a life wasn't even a thing we really ever talked about. We would kind of dream about it sometimes, but we're like, it's not really realistic. So I don't, I think, we knew from the beginning that was going to be hard. And then when some of the challenges that he was dealing with came up,

it wasn't even like I broke up with him. It was like I think he knew too that the things he was dealing with, I could be a friend to him. But when I was a lover or a partner in that way, it actually hinders healing because then I believe they start to make the decisions to heal for me. Right. instead of for them. And so we had broken up and then he went into treatment. And this was in

2022, beginning of 2022. And we would all, I mean, we never stopped talking, not one single day until the night he died, never stopped talking. And very long, deep, amazing conversations. It's just they would shift. I will say towards the end of his life, it was more, maybe more real for him that it was the thing that wasn't going to last forever and that was really difficult. I actually, I didn't, I don't think anyone knew what he had passed up till, you know, things came back. But I actually went, I heard people say online and I was like, I think he died of a broken heart. I think it just was hard to accept the reality that he and I were never, we were never going to have a life together. And it was hard for me. That's why it's like, even though we knew,

I couldn't imagine my life without him. Like when he died, like the first day I was like, it was almost like day sober. Like I was like one day without Dave, check. I had to like. It's overwhelming. When he passed away and you see all these salacious headlines that are so gross and all like, do you have to get off the internet?

I mean, I feel like if I was your friend, I would say get off the internet and do what you're doing and just check off the days because it's the internet. make so much shit up. Yeah. And it's like so salacious. Yeah. How do you handle that? So I didn't read anything. I actually didn't go on Instagram for a month and a half. Yep. Yep. Good for you. But it was more because I was so heartbroken. Like I, it was really hard. It was harder to lose Dave than anyone in my life. I mean, I lost my dad and that was hard. Like, the hardest thing I'd ever experienced. Losing Dave was, I don't know, you know, I feel like the only

thing harder could be losing a kid. I mean, when you have chemistry with someone like that. Yeah. And it sounds like he lifted you up so much. He did. He did. Yeah. Again, it's such a unique thing that you've been through to also have to do it in front of the world. Yeah. It's like you don't, it's, you don't even really have anyone that you can relate to or call on because it's, it's, It's kind of weird. Yeah. It's interesting. We've met a lot of people in the space.

We never got to meet him. But people that we know that knew him, nobody says, everybody says similar things to what you're saying. And even Rachel came on the show and was, you know, singing his praises. Yeah.

Which says a lot to his character. Yeah. He was very, he was so funny, you guys. You've never met a funnier person. Like, just so charismatic.

He would have everyone in the room. Like, his in person, his in person attraction, attractiveness is, is just humongous because of his light and his energy. But yeah, so I did go offline. For, I was like, I need to be here for me and my kids.

My kids had gotten really close to him too. Even, I mean, the day, he died technically, I think it was the night of the 11th. But, you know, it's when someone from the county sees him. Not alive is when they say death date. So February 11th, that day was my son's birthday. And he had sent him the nicest. most generous Amazon gift card with the sweetest. I mean, a text that long, just about how proud he was. And he sent me a screenshot. And that day, he had actually sent this whole, it was like his soul

knew it was time because he sent me the most insightful, like, hey, you know, coming to grips with where you and I are. It doesn't mean, like, I'm not just losing you. You're not just losing me. We're losing our kids, you know, and just like telling me how much I meant to him and how how much I loved him and how much he approved. You guys, it was the most beautiful day of text messages and phone conversations ever. Well, can you imagine if you didn't have that? That's so special that you have that. I'm not kidding you. There is closure with him. The most beautiful closure, our conversation we had right before he went to bed that night. And yeah, I feel complete. And it could have, gosh, I think I'm like, man, this is why they say, never go to bed mad at your spouse. Never.

We weren't spouses, but never go to bed holding a grudge. I believe that fully. Like grudges take energy. And if that person dies, no matter how much you hate them or dislike them today, I can't imagine how painful that would feel, right? But to know that like he passed, I kind of felt like I got to like hold his hand, you know, to the other side. is how I felt. I think that's good advice. When I ask you to bring up my neck pillow and you act like I've asked you to hike Mount Everest. Just do it and be honored.

Yeah. Be honored. I bring up every time. I think. Hold on. There's six neck pillows. So I get, I bring.

They're in a warmer. I even strut. They're in a warmer. Bring her the right one. I just read her mind. And I carry two. And then I say, that's the wrong one. I have certain different ones.

One's lavender. One's different. That is amazing. When you look at where you are now. What can we all expect following you now? Because I feel like you've had evolution on social media. I've really enjoyed following you. Where is Heidi now in this moment?

How do you feel? You look amazing. Thank you. I actually feel really amazing. But I feel amazing, I think, because I stopped doing anything for anyone else. Good for you. And Dave's, right before he passed, he and I were working through. He was helping me work.

figure out how to, my load was so heavy. There were so many employees and so many expenses and so much over. It was just, I was burning the candle at both ends doing events and challenges and app and supplement, all these things. And I didn't see my kids as much as I wanted. So that was, he knew I was trying to get to a point where that wasn't the case, even if it meant living a smaller life, right? And I had made the decision to shut everything down. He knew this. And then, and I, and I, and I, I would go back in. I'd be like, okay, I'm going to shut it down. No, no, no, I'm not. Because there's fear associated with that. Him dying was like, I always say it's like the nail in the coffin of my old life. Like that was the moment where I'm like, okay, I never know when my last day is going

to be. Life is so fragile. I do not want to go out this way. Like I do, if I died today, I would not be proud of the kind of mom that I am. I wouldn't be proud of who I'm being to myself. Like I'd be proud of who I'm being to everybody else. But I wouldn't be proud of how I'm being to myself. So it needs to change. And I took a massive leap of faith, shut everything down except for a few core things

that required little to no energy. It's crazy because I thought I was going to be losing money. I'm not. I'm still making money somehow. I'm net positive each month. but I also am only doing the things that light me on fire. Good for you. And if it means just a podcast, great.

And my app and my supplement coming, but I'm not doing all of the things that took tons of energy and took me away from my kids. I love being with my kids. My relationship with my kids these days is better than it's ever been. Let's knock on wood. If I went today, if my time was today, I would be so proud of where I'm at.

I would not want to leave my kids, but I also feel like they'd be fully loved and prepared. And so on social media, what can you expect? Just me. And I'm not going to tell you what that's going to look like. And your show? Yeah, yeah. What's your show?

Tell us your show. It's called Heidi's Lane. So my name's really Heidi Lane. It's just, it was Powell from Chris and I in the show. It never got changed Heidi Powell. So kind of the slow transit. to association with my name, Heidi's Lane. And you don't know what you're going to get.

I love this. Your new fresh energy has to do with a little bit of Dave's maneuvering. It sounds like he's gotten you to this place. And you could thank him for that. For sure. For sure. You look beautiful. I love following you.

Your energy is amazing. And if anyone who's listening is looking to get into building muscle or weightlifting or tips or positivity or inspiration, I think they all have to go follow you. Where can everyone find you? Pimp yourself out. All of my social media's, Instagram, Facebook, even TikTok, I'm not on there that much. It's at Real Heidi Powell. My podcast is Heidi's Lane. Thank you for doing the show.