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Guest: Rebecca Washuta

Release Date: 1/31/2024

Welcome to Trulyfit the online fitness marketplace connecting pros and clients through unique fitness business software.

Steve Washuta : Welcome to Trulyfit. Welcome to the jewelry fit podcast where we interview experts in fitness and health to expand our wisdom. And well, I’m your host, Steve Washuta. Co Founder of Trulyfit and author of the  Fitness Business 101. on the first episodes are typically just me. And they’re about five to 15 minutes long speaking about something that is trending in the health, fitness and nutrition communities.

Steve Washuta : But today instead, and maybe moving forward, we’re going to change that format. So I have my sister Rebecca on who’s a dietitian, and we’re going to be talking collectively both giving our takes on different topics that are trending in the fitness or health and nutrition communities. Today we talked about using a gym bag, is it too much? Or were you impartial? Do you think is necessary? Somatic exercise? What is it? Is it nonsense?

Steve Washuta : Should your trainer be in great shape? Why is Topo Chico so damn good and a host of other topics? With no further ado, here’s Rebecca and I All right, welcome back to the truly fit podcast back. Thanks for doing this again. This was kind of round two here of the new format where we run down a list of trending topics in the health and fitness and nutrition world. And we talk about them sometimes it’ll be arguments, sometimes we’ll just discuss them as is and a little bit different format than the typical interview format. But thanks for hopping on.

Rebecca Washuta : Yeah, yeah, this should be fun. I’m excited about today’s topics. Before we jump in, we have to address the elephant in the room. What’s going on with your face.

Steve Washuta : I have a bandaid on my face. Underneath my eyeball for those who are not watching on YouTube and listening. I am not bringing Nelly style back. If you even remember who Nelly is. We were banded. I was facing yourself. I’m dating myself for sure. I wonder how old Nellie is. He’s probably like he’s probably 48 years old now or something. But yeah, I just had some little skin lesion thing went to the dermatologist. They froze it off and it looks worse than it is. So I have a bandaid on my face covering it up. Yeah.

Rebecca Washuta : And you know the to build off of that public service announcement. Go get your skin cancer checks. I live in Miami, so I get them every six months. You’re in Texas. I’m hoping you’re getting them every six months, but it’s important. Yeah.

Steve Washuta : You know, I had something on my ear, which they call some DERM jargon that I forget some sort of keratosis. So I get that checked every once in a while because you know if it grows, if it changes, although it’s not cancerous Now, that doesn’t mean you can’t turn cancer. So always good to get checked.

Steve Washuta : Topic number one today, using a gym bag, is it too much? Are you impartial to it? Do you use a gym bag? When you go to the gym? What do you think about people who have gym bags? And maybe we should even add to this because more so than the gym bag now is people bringing their tripods and phones to the gym. So it’s like gym equipment? Well,

Rebecca Washuta : not gym equipment, photography equipment, right? i Okay, I love the idea of a gym bag, one because if you’re bringing a gym bag, it means you’ve made plans to go to the gym, right? You’re not waiting to the last minute, you’re like packing your bag the night before you’re thinking about what you need. So I like the idea of you know, for people who are just getting started right going going to the gym.

Rebecca Washuta : it’s nice to be able to plan ahead to really to and to know what you have with you. And then also you can plan for how long to stay right. So if you need a snack, if you need a water, if you need an electrolyte drink, you can have all that in the bag. And I think it allows you to stay longer, rather than thinking like, oh, I have to go home to get X, Y or Z. So I am pro gym bag. Yeah,

Steve Washuta : and I’ll say, however contradictory the sounds, it allows you to plan a not plan because what it also allows you to do is bring a bunch of stuff dependent upon which workout you’re going to choose. And then you can decide when you get to the gym. So let me unpack that I get to the gym. And I planned on doing something on the Smith Machine, and it’s being used. So my backup plan is now to kickbox.

Steve Washuta : Luckily, I have a gym bag, so I can just put on my boxing gloves because I brought my boxing gloves, right. So yeah, so you can pivot if you have all the things that you need. Maybe you have wrist straps, because you do a heavy, heavy Olympic lifting. You weren’t planning on doing it that day, but you felt better once you warmed up. And now you want to do your heavy Olympic lifting. Well now you have your wrist straps in your bag.

Steve Washuta : So I do think it is good to have a gym bag and be prepared with all of the potential that you’re going to use. Now moving on to the other subject. I don’t think it’s good to be in the gym, filming yourself all the time and having a tripod. And now you’ll start noticing people who get like kicked out of the gym. There’s all these like tick tock videos, people getting kicked out of the gym and like no tripods in the gym and they go like, what why am I even working out now?

Rebecca Washuta : What is the point if I can put it on social media? Yeah, I feel like I go to the gym, to have time to myself to have peace to have time away from my phone to have time away from friends and social media. So you know, I’m not someone at the gym who like likes to chat and hang out and catch up like I am there for me I want to get in the zone. So when I see people doing that type of stuff, I think it’s distracting.

Rebecca Washuta : And also you don’t want to be in the back of someone’s video or, you know, if you if you are new to the gym and you’re kind of self conscious, right? There are still machines that I’m self conscious on. I don’t I don’t really know how they work. And if I see someone filming and maybe they’re not even filming me, but I think it’s gonna make me more nervous about it. So No, I don’t like it. Yeah,

Steve Washuta : I agree. You’re You’re,

Rebecca Washuta : you’re someone that brings your phone I like I see you kickboxing and stuff, right? You record yourself doing that, but you always make sure they’re around.

Steve Washuta : Yeah. And very rarely, if you look at the percentages and the time I spent in the gym to the time it’s being recorded, for me, it was like almost a must, because of what I do in my industry. It’s like, okay, I have to record some videos here. That makes sense. You know what? So you know, I work out probably five days a week of the seven days I do something, and maybe once a month, I’ll record 40 seconds of something, you know, and put it out there. I’ve

Rebecca Washuta : seen anyone in your background, like, it always seems like you found a little space or a knock, and it’s just, you

Steve Washuta : know, ones in the background. It’s, I make sure it’s just me, it’s at times when I you know, the gym is not at a you know, quote unquote, high time. It’s at a low time. And, yeah, it’s not like performative either, if that makes sense. Like, that’s just the workout I’m doing. And I just record a little bit of it. Whereas for other people, it seems so performative.

Steve Washuta : And I get it. Sometimes it’s part of your, your brand and your mission. And you believe that, hey, I, this is how I’m going to get money, I need to show people not only what I look like, but what I do, because if I’m good at this, and other people ask me, Well, how do I get good at this, and they will hire me, I get that. But there has to be a line, you have to you have to draw a line somewhere between you number one enjoying your workout, you’re respecting the gym and the other people’s time. And if you really want to make this your business model, well then build a gym in your house.

Rebecca Washuta : Yeah, I think that’s what it comes down to respecting the other people there. Because, you know, seeing workouts online, does inspire people, right? You see somebody doing a workout, you’re like, I’m going to try that machine, or I’m going to try these lifts or look at what she’s doing, like what he’s doing. So I appreciate that. But yeah, you need to do it in your own time, get to the gym super early, stay super late, you shouldn’t be making other people uncomfortable.

Steve Washuta : I do wonder though, how much to just play devil’s advocate? How much is inspiring versus actually deflating? And I don’t know this for a fact. But how many people look at some of these videos and look at these people? Well, we know we know a lot of people do, because we know now that you know, mental health rates and suicide rates of teenage girls and these sorts of things are up. It’s like, how many people are actually doing it? Because they believe they’re helping others in this altruistic fashion? Or because they just want to pump up their own ego, and then pretend that some business and marketing thing, but at

Rebecca Washuta : least they’re showing that they’re putting in the work, right? So I remember when Victoria’s Secret used to be a big deal, right? The Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show, they’d interview the models, they’d be like, so what do you do? How do you get in shape?

Rebecca Washuta : Like, oh, I walk I like I’ll jog. You know what I mean? Like they said, Oh, I love to eat pizza, I love to eat burgers. No, you don’t like you absolutely don’t look like that and do that kind of stuff. So I do appreciate saying like, Hey, if you want to look like this, this is the type of work you have to put in. Right? They’re not saying I this is natural, or I get this just by sitting on the couch, like you have to work. Yeah.

Steve Washuta : On to the next topic, because I’m sure we can beat that topic to death. Somatic exercise, I know that you don’t really know what that is totally. It’s something that is on my radar a lot because it’s just I guess you would say it’s a, it’s a niche that is up and coming. And it’s a little bit’s annoying. And I’m going to tell you why. So first somatic exercise.

Steve Washuta : Soma comes from the Greek word like relating to the body or of the body, which kind of doesn’t make sense, because all exercises relating to the body. So do you have somatic exercise, right? You have exercise that doesn’t relate to the body. But what they, what they really mean is like mindfulness, and I’m all about that, right? Being being mindful, being in tune with your body. Meditation is great.

Steve Washuta : I have a few apps that I used to use, I don’t do it as often. Sam Harris’s app specifically is the one that I enjoyed the most. Waking up. And I guess the the issue lies in, they take it a step too far sometimes. So instead of just saying, okay, somatic exercise could be something like when you’re in a yoga class, and they go oh, wiggle your toes when you start a class like feel your toes in space, like whatever, okay? It’s like mind body connection.

Steve Washuta : You’re you’re feeling your body, you’re understanding your body. I do think the yogi’s feel like they have this like unique experience with understanding their body better than other people, which is just not the case. So like, from all the people I work with the people who understand their body, the best are actually bodybuilders because they have to isolate specific muscles so much, to get them to look a particular way that they’re so in tune with their body, right? So it’s like, oh, unless I have the perfect VMO vastus medialis.

Steve Washuta : It’s like the, it’s one of the muscles like in your thigh, then I’m not going to win on stage. So I have to make sure that I’m like working that muscle more so they really know how to like contract muscles. But But anyway, so now they’re the somatic exercise. People who are typically just people with like a low level certification or yoga certification are talking about like trauma healing, and like helping women through menopause or doing all these things and I just think I feel like it’s a slap

Steve Washuta : On the face of people who really do that stuff, to people have their PhDs and spend 10,000 hours like working with people one on one. And for you to come in, it’s great that you’re trying to help people, but claim that through, you know, your breathwork, and your sort of yoga s techniques, you’re going to help somebody through trauma seems to be, you know, over the top.

Rebecca Washuta : I know you hate the woowoo stuff. So this is where we differ. I think, you know, you won’t find a ton of literature on this, but it’s like, we have to start somewhere, right? Like someone has to come up with theory. And then we have to put the clinical trials in place to prove it. But there’s, there’s a couple of studies that talk about, you know, we, we carry the theories, we carry our trauma in our body, right.

Rebecca Washuta : So like, if you go through something really, really stressful, there’s a mind body connection, you carry it in your body. And so some examples of this is like, sometimes if you’re getting a massage, some people just might cry, right? You hit like a certain part of your fascia. And you’re like, Oh, you’re overcome with emotion, right? There’s this idea that your emotions aren’t just stored in your brain. They’re there, they’re in your body.

Rebecca Washuta : I know you hate that. And I think as long as people are like guaranteeing results, right? If you’re like, Hey, do you want to try breathwork? Now breath work has been around for centuries, right? Like breath, work and yoga. And so there is a lot of evidence behind that. But I understand there are some of these new modalities. So it’s like, okay, if you lie here, and we do some sound meditation and, you know, wiggle your toes, you’re going to be healed? No, I, you know, I think they’re,

Steve Washuta : I agree, I agree with you. My hesitation is when these sort of Guru type people combine all of the things and then tell you they’re going to fix something, rather than just being good at one thing, right. So if you’re a breathwork person, great, yeah, if you’re somebody who works on meditation, great, if you’re someone who works on mindfulness.

Steve Washuta : Great if you’re someone who works on, you know, fascia of the body, great, but when you pretend to have an expertise, and all of these things, and then and then you can fix all these things and help people out, it starts to get into that sort of like guru esque area. To me, that just gets a little bit, too woowoo. It’s like, there’s no way that you spent enough time to like, be an expert in all these areas.

Rebecca Washuta : No, and I am not a fan of anyone practicing out of scope, right? So I don’t want my trainer to try to show me how to meditate. I don’t want my you know, the person that helps me meditate to show me how to do a squat, right? It’s like practice within your scope. You shouldn’t be. You shouldn’t be teaching things that you’re not qualified to teach. Because ultimately, someone’s gonna get hurt. You’re not going to do it. Right. You know?

Steve Washuta : To check on to the next topic, you want to introduce this one? Yeah,

Rebecca Washuta : so should your trainer and your dietician be in great shape?

Steve Washuta : You want to go first?

Rebecca Washuta : I think we’re gonna get a lot of heat for this one.

Steve Washuta : I did I did a podcast on this actually sort of siding with the side, you probably don’t think I’m gonna side with. Interesting,

Rebecca Washuta : okay. Yes, I 100% think your dietician and your trainer should be in good shape, in the same way where you wouldn’t work with and an investment broker that’s flat broke, right? You want somebody to be walking the walk, you want them to know that they believe in what they’re selling, you also want to be inspired by them, right? You want to look at your trainer and say, Wow, I’d love to have abs like that.

Rebecca Washuta : I’d love my calves to look like that. You want to look at your dietician and say, Oh, she’s eating salads, right? I remember you told me the gym you used to work at, there was like a dietician who was significantly overweight. And then when you go in her office, she was like eating snacks all day. And it’s like, Well, why would I want to work with this person?

Rebecca Washuta : Because I think in our industry, it’s about more than knowledge, right? I think you can find anything you want to know, on the Internet for free. So it’s like the benefit of working with us is it’s also the coaching behind it. And it’s taking knowledge and putting it into action. And so you want to see that the person that you’re working with has done that, too. And it’s been successful.

Steve Washuta : Yes, I agree. There are so many people who are in very good shape. Who for this is a term that Jim Harbaugh just used, actually, which is really funny, who were born on third base and thought they had a triple. Do you understand what that means? Right? For sure. Yeah, you didn’t do the work, right, you’re just you’re you’re 18 years old, you’re in very good shape already.

Steve Washuta : That doesn’t mean you have better knowledge than the 68 year old trainer, who maybe used to be in good shape. But now they have kids and they have grandkids. And to be a trainer. Typically, you have to teach to be a good trainer, I should say, you at some point in your life, you’ve done group fitness, and group fitness will really wear on your body.

Steve Washuta : If you want to start making money, you want to teach three spin classes a day, and then you go to Zumba class or something you are wearing out your body, unfortunately. And not to say that that’s great. As a trainer, you should also recognize that and not do that. But you might have a knee issue, you might have an ankle issue and you might be a little bit overweight, that 68 year old that’s accrued 40 years of knowledge is going to know more than the 18 year old who’s in good shape.

Steve Washuta : So I do think there are some caveats to this. You do Yeah. There is a difference between a trainer being extremely out of shape. But I do think when you get to a certain age So that naturally there’s, it’s it’s harder to stay in great shape at a certain age, right? You can’t compare what what a 48 year old looks like and an 18 year old looks like the 48 year old might not have abs. That doesn’t mean he doesn’t know better ab exercises than the 18 year old. No, I

Rebecca Washuta : get that. Yeah. And if you think about you make a good point. Because if you think about the top athletes, right, like Michael Jordan, Serena Williams, their coaches aren’t top athletes, right? Like Michael Jordan’s coach for like personal coach wasn’t the best basketball player of all time. He couldn’t be right, because that was Michael Jordan. So

Steve Washuta : And if you look at that back, there’s actually almost like an inverse relation between the best coaches usually played, but they were never good. And this the sort of the speculation is, is because they had to do all of the things and learn all of the things to even be good enough to make the team which makes them a better, more well rounded person who could not only relate with our players, but understands all the nuances.

Steve Washuta : Where if, again, if you’re born on third and thought you hit a triple, like, let’s take Mike Singletary, for example. He’s one of the best linebackers of all time, he was a terrible head coach, because he didn’t he didn’t understand why his players couldn’t make the plays. So what you’re Why aren’t you making that play? So well, because not everyone is as gifted as you are, right?

Steve Washuta : There’s you have to scheme things up based upon your players. And I do think that that comes with a trainer, and a nutritionist. So maybe with a nutrition, it’s almost better that at some point, you didn’t look great. You weren’t in great shape. And then you got there and you maintained it. Yeah.

Rebecca Washuta : And that’s my story. You know, there’s a saying that you can best help people out of a well, you’ve already been down, right? So if you were overweight, and then you, you know, found your way back and got in shape, you’re gonna be able to help other overweight people do the same thing. Similarly, right, if you were the worst person on the football team, and then you became Tom Brady, like, maybe Tom Brady would be an excellent coach.

Rebecca Washuta : I don’t know. So I think yeah, not everyone is a good teacher. But I do personally, if I’m going to work with someone, I want to be inspired by them. And I don’t mean, you have to have washboard perfect abs, but you can’t be I can’t look at you and think you’re out of shape. Yeah, that’s not gonna inspire me at the gym, I want to, you know, I think there’s probably there’s probably like a middle ground, you know, yeah,

Steve Washuta : I think for like, let’s say, a physical therapist, it probably wouldn’t be a big deal. Because of the fact that you’re much more technical in helping somebody off for a short, short amount of time, and you’re just looking at the anatomical features. Whereas in almost everybody who comes to a trainer, at some point in their journey, it’s usually the first juncture of the meeting, is looking at some kind of vanity change.

Steve Washuta : Sure, even even if they have an injury, they will always add in, like, Hey, I, you know, I just got over knee replacements, I want to start at the strength of my quad work on my knee, but I also am gaining some weight around my midsection would love to lose four pounds, but there’s always kind of some sort of vanity goal in conjunction with maybe another goal when you’re coming to a personal trainer, whereas physical therapist is not the case, sometimes you’re just going there for a short period of time to rehab something, and that’s fine.

Steve Washuta : So if if a trainer wants to be more of a corrective exercise specialist, maybe they’re helping an older population, but as a general rule, right, as if you’re just a general trainer, or general, nutritionist helping everybody out, yeah, you’re gonna have to, you’re gonna have to walk the walk. And if you talk to talk, or else, you’re just not gonna get clients,

Rebecca Washuta : for sure. And you know, there’s a whole body positive movement healthy at Every Size. And I struggle with that, in that, you know, I think you can strive for health at any size. And I think it’s great that we’re making, you know, mannequins at the store that represent the population, and we’re making workout clothes that fit everyone, that’s great.

Rebecca Washuta : But I don’t think you can say healthy at Every Size, because then that doesn’t encourage people to get in shape, right? If you can say, I’m already healthy, this is it, I don’t need to lose weight. And, you know, generally speaking, from all of the clients that I’ve worked with, if you look at someone who’s overweight or obese, and you look at their labs, you know, I think the number on the scale is one very small data point.

Rebecca Washuta : That’s not and it’s not the most important. But if you compare their labs, they’re they’re usually unhealthy, right? They’re less healthy than someone who is of normal weight. So, you know, BMI is also not a good marker, but there are specific labs you can look at, you know, you can look at body fat percentage and muscle mass, there’s specific things you can do and it’s not, it’s not natural to be obese, right? It’s, it’s unhealthy for our heart, it’s unhealthy for our organs.

Rebecca Washuta : You accumulate more toxins because your fat cells grow so large. So, you know, I think we need to focus on striving for Health at Every Size, recognizing that it’s not the people’s fault in the same way where someone got diabetes, you wouldn’t say like, well, that’s your fault. You’d say like, okay, how can we help you and that needs to be the same mentality like it is. It’s, it’s an illness obesity is an illness and we need to stop blaming people, but help them you know, take accountability in way that encourages them to make some changes and, and get the help they need. Yeah,

Steve Washuta : I think that’s tough in this environment only because what ends up happening is you have these communities, and everyone’s fighting online because you can’t see facial cues and mannerisms. And then people start saying things like healthy at Every Size. And they, they feel like they’re speaking it into existence, like, Oh, if I say it, it’s true.

Steve Washuta : It’s like, that’s not how life works. So you can just say something, it’d be true, you have to then argue for it, like we’re doing here, right? We have to talk about it, and expand on the topic. And there’s so many of these people say, it doesn’t matter to people called Doritos, junk food. It’s not a junk food. It’s like, yeah, it is a junk food. Right, like, so I think, you know, people are more and more inclined to just say, Oh, if I speak something out loud, and I say it, you know, forcefully, then it’s true. And then you have all this, your body positivity. It’s like, listen, there’s a there, we have metrics, we can look at labs, like you just said, we have particular metrics,

Rebecca Washuta : show shows overweight or obese and show me their inflammatory markers, show me their cholesterol and show me their blood pressure, I guarantee that’s not in a healthy range. And

Steve Washuta : if it is then good for you, then you are healthy at any size, but that’s not. Yeah, you’re the exception. And, and to focus on the size rather than those numbers seems wrong from both angles, from from our angle, to point to put just to say that and from their angle to say, hey, you can be healthy at any size.

Steve Washuta : It’s like, well, you can be but you but are you trying to be you doing like I always see this, like you being 300 pounds. And doing Pilates twice a week does not mean you’re healthy. Like you’re more limber than usual. But you’re not healthy. You’re not helping your heart health by sitting on a reformer. Sorry to say. So that’s that’s a lot of the industry that I see now.

Rebecca Washuta : For sure, yeah, there’s there’s definitely two, two different groups. And it’s hard because there is so much back and forth that the science gets overlooked, right, and we have to go back to the science, let’s look at people’s lab values. The correlation is, if you’re significantly overweight or obese, your lab values are going to indicate that you have some health concerns, or it’s leaking

Steve Washuta : into the medical system. Even my wife who’s a physician has to sit through like nonsense, like credentialing, CEU stuff, and talks, when people come in and say like, Hey, we need to be more, you know, body positive. And here are all the metrics and stats about why people are actually healthy. At larger sizes in larger bodies, and the terminology, we can’t call people obese, they’re dealing with obesity, they have this disease as opposed to them like being obese and you know, acquiring this. It’s like having cancer patients

Rebecca Washuta : anymore, right? Doctors can’t talk to their patients about losing weight, and I think we’re in we’re in a bad situation. Because 70% of the population is overweight or obese, and it’s bankrupting our, our medical system. So yeah, something needs to be done.

Steve Washuta : Not to mention why it’s so important at a young age that Kayla has all the stats my wife about, if you’re obese, at a certain age, the likelihood of you staying obese is like tenfold, right? Whatever it is. So if you’re obese at six, the chances of you being obese at 26 is going to be like 10 times higher. So it’s very important that we have these conversations with kids and their let their pediatricians handle this,

Rebecca Washuta : for sure. And you know, there was some misinformation that came out from someone. I want to even say like the Surgeon General, right, someone who should not have said this, but basically came out and said, obesity is genetic. And so everyone’s like great obesity genetic, not my fault can do anything about it.

Rebecca Washuta : No, there are components, right? There are small components that have you know, where there’s a genetic factor, but generally speaking, the reason why if your parents are obese, you’re more likely to be obese, is because you’re following in their footsteps or following in their habits. If they have Doritos for dinner, you have Doritos for dinner. If they sit down and watch TV for eight hours, then you sit down, right? It’s like it’s the habits that you create is the fact that you’re in the same household. It doesn’t have to do with with sharing genes.

Steve Washuta : To check couldn’t agree more. Next topic here. Why is Topo Chico so damn good. I woke up this morning. I was very upset. I went to my fridge and I was out of Topo Chico instead I’m drinking a spindrift, which is my second favorite seltzer. It’s a little bit different, obviously, spindrift. We’ve had this conversation before in other podcasts because it’s one of the only sparkling waters that doesn’t use, quote unquote, natural flavors. So I do drink more spindrift than anything else. But Topo Chico is certainly my go to why is it better than everything else? And do you think do you agree with that?

Rebecca Washuta : 100% Yes, I actually don’t buy it as often because it’s expensive right? I don’t know how it what it is in Texas in Miami. It’s pretty expensive but

Steve Washuta : cheaper in Texas because they get it make it a Mexico okay.

Rebecca Washuta : So let’s break it down. So one Topo Chico is a mineral water. It’s a sparkling mineral water, meaning that it comes from a natural source so it can come from a natural spring. In this case, taboo. Chico comes from an inactive volcano in Mexico so they bottle it there and so many mineral waters are gonna have different tastes because they have minerals in it right as opposed to like Dasani or or awkwafina.

Rebecca Washuta : If you’ve tasted Fiji or Evian, the taste is different because they have natural minerals that are in the ground that get absorbed into the water. So Topo Chico has its own special, like recipe, right, so to speak from this volcano of minerals. That makes it you know, super specific. Some people say it tastes a little bit salty. I even think it tastes citrusy. So it’s interesting, but I it’s definitely unique.

Steve Washuta : Yeah, it’s, I think it’s more bubbly. I don’t know if they add extra carbonation to it, or if it’s just naturally more carbonated than other beverages that are normally

Rebecca Washuta : add back the carbonation that is lost in the bottling process. So it’s supposed to be you know, as close to what you find in nature as possible.

Steve Washuta : I think it’s more bubbly or in some respects, like how the bubbles work how the Fizz is,

Rebecca Washuta : matters to Yeah, some but some have big bubbles of tiny bubbles.

Steve Washuta : I feel like this is just a pure guess there’s like way more tiny bubbles, like that’s what it feels like in my mouth. And it’s just like, it’s a good like, like oral feeling. And then in addition to that the taste is better. It’s cleaner. A lot of the a lot of the shelters I have obviously they have really fake tastes, where they almost like dry me out like this. Is this hydrating me? Or is this like dehydrating me? Well? No, because you

Rebecca Washuta : need electrolytes to be hydrated, right? And so some of these other whether it’s sparkling water or normal water, if it’s distilled to the point where it doesn’t have any minerals in it, that’s not good. You want those minerals, you need those electrolytes in order to really hydrate like, that’s why Gatorade works. That’s why all these electrolyte supplements work. So you can you could really feel good, but I think the other component is how it’s packaged. So I’ve only seen Topo Chico and glass bottles, you too, or do you do they sell in the camp?

Steve Washuta : Not in a Can they do have it in plastic bottles, but I don’t buy it in plastic bottles, I buy it in class bottles,

Rebecca Washuta : glass bottles. And so there’s a difference in the packaging, right? There’s a difference between glass and aluminum. So when I was in the pharmaceutical industry, on all of the drugs that were coming out in order to be commercially approved, right and go to market, they had to do this testing called extractables and leachable testing. So they’re testing to see whether the container portions of the container can leach into the liquid, right?

Rebecca Washuta : So if you’re someone who’s taking like humera, right, they want to make sure like the syringe isn’t little pieces of the syringe aren’t getting into the medication. So they have to do that testing. We don’t do that with food. And so our packaging, you know, you don’t know how things are being stored. If something is on a trip from California to New York, what is the temperature? What does that look like? The packaging can actually leach into our food. And so

Steve Washuta : it can I assume it does?

Rebecca Washuta : Absolutely it does. And they’ve done They’ve only done, you know, a handful of studies on it. But yeah, they’ve proven that plastic is leaching into water and that aluminum is actually leaching into the water. And so glass is much safer. Aluminum is also a neurotoxin. And so they found that when they look at people with Alzheimer’s and they’ve done the pores postmortem autopsies, they have higher levels of aluminum in their blood.

Rebecca Washuta : And so some of that is in their blood and in their body in their tissues. Some of that is like okay, aluminum deodorant, right? There’s lots of sources of aluminum in in our daily lives. But why would you add more with the sparkling water, right? And you have to assume like the pH of the sparkling water is different than normal water. If it’s in there long enough, under certain temperatures, maybe it’s corrosive and that aluminum is, is leaching into the sparkling water.

Rebecca Washuta : I haven’t been able to find any studies on that. I have a feeling that they’re you know, are people high up at Coca Cola probably preventing these studies, because the glass bottles are more expensive, but I think that that adds to it too. Because even when I was younger, and I used to drink Coca Cola, Coca Cola in a glass bottle always tasted different than Coca Cola and I can’t everybody

Steve Washuta : thinks that I feel like that’s that’s a you that’s a unanimous thought process for most people without having anything to do with health. Just taste.

Rebecca Washuta : Yeah, for sure.

Steve Washuta : Also, the next less of a trending topic and more of an observation is I’m a golfer, I talk about golf a lot on the podcast. And there was a point during COVID where the golf courses were crazy, because it was an outdoor sport that they were allowing people to do. So people, when they if you were in areas that were especially highly restricted to do anything and you got a golf course open, you got to get outside and do something.

Steve Washuta : It was like an event. And you know, there was a point during COVID Where it depended upon again, what area you lived in parks could have been restricted. They said you can’t go to certain parks in Miami. Yeah, the beach was closed in Miami, New Jersey in other places during certain stints of COVID. And obviously, this was all state specific so it opened up at different times. But during those times, everyone was clamoring to get outside and they were a Being sometimes argumentative.

Steve Washuta : There were people who were like fighting with the cops and the police and the park rangers saying like, no, I need to get outside, this is what I need to do. But now that there’s no restrictions, I feel like there’s a lot less people outside, it’s all calm down, people are back to just watching Netflix on the couch. Do you think that this was just kind of like the natural push of people to say, like, you can’t tell me what to do. And we really rather prefer to watch Netflix and to be outside.

Rebecca Washuta : I think it’s both. So I think when someone tells you not to do something, you’re more inclined to do it right. And I think that’s even on a subconscious level. So I had a professor in college, I can’t remember if it was like a marketing or psychology class. Anyway, he came in the room, he wrote the read on the board and said, think of a color can’t be read. And immediately, it’s going to be read, right, subconsciously, that’s what you’re going to do.

Rebecca Washuta : So I think that’s part of it. When someone tells you, you can’t do something, there’s an urge to do more of it. And but I think it’s also location specific, right? So I’m In Miami, it is, you know, 70 plus degrees, 1011 months out of the year. So people are outside a lot. I see it a lot. I wonder if it’s seasonal specific where you are. But I can say for myself, there was definitely a change pre and post COVID. So pre COVID I was indoorsy. I like you know, I like having meals on on balconies or terraces. But that’s it. I’m not I’m not into camping. I’m not into being outside.

Rebecca Washuta : And then you know, I lived in Miami Beach for years at that point, and I probably go to the beach, once a quarter, right. I just wasn’t interested. I was only a couple of blocks from the beach. So now, post COVID I yearn to be outside like I my body craves it. And even when it’s raining, I’m like, I’m gonna go for a jog. I just want to be outdoors. So I think it it’s probably person dependent. But I think there probably has a lot to do with the subconscious mindset of you can’t go outside. Well, now I really want to be outside. Yeah,

Steve Washuta : I also think it’s I’m sure it’s geographic dependent. And part of my view is skewed because during the height of COVID, I was in Oklahoma City. And I lived in the city like the downtown city. Yes, it’s Oklahoma. But it’s, you know, because you’re in the heart of the city. There’s a different sort of people there. There’s people who are getting out more who are doing who are doing things who want to be out. There’s a reason why they live in the city, we can walk to shops and walk to a restaurant.

Rebecca Washuta : They’re not used to just being at home all day. Yeah, they’re used to constantly being out. Now

Steve Washuta : I’m more in a kind of a rural area in Texas, where that’s not the case, right? People people’s idea of getting outside is opening up their garage, and I have a bar in their garage, and they’re watching the Cowboys game on a recliner with the garage open. Right? Yeah. So it’s just, it’s nobody walks here. And the it’s just not outdoorsy.

Steve Washuta : And part of the reason is sometimes it’s just temperature weather dependent. It’s like you have all the extremes for six months a year, it’s over 100 degrees, and then it’s below 40 for two months. So you got you got four months where you can be outside the rest of the year, it’s too hot or too cold. So as opposed to you being you know, South Beach, you can be outside for probably 10 months of the 12 months and and really have it be enjoyable if not the the full year. So I do think I’m sure it has something to do with that.

Steve Washuta : But I just for me, I I felt like there was such a big push for people to get outside in a good way. And it seemed like people were saying, like, Hey, I care about my body, I want to be healthy, you’re telling me to, you know, you’re telling me to take take these vaccines and I want to go outside, I want to be healthy. And then you turn around. It’s like, everyone’s just back to, you know, Netflix and McDonald’s and they forgot that, hey, we still need to be outside and thinking about our bodies, not just because we want to be defined, but because you know, are these things matter for our health? Because we

Rebecca Washuta : actually care? What, how would you say you’ve changed? Like, did you become more outdoorsy post? COVID? Did you go back to the way you were before? Is it different? Because now you’re in Texas?

Steve Washuta : Yeah, I’d like to say, unfortunately, I become more comfortable being indoors, I have to force myself to be outdoors because of the fact that COVID forced us indoors, that you almost get comfortable with that. I don’t prefer it by any means. But I do find myself having to like say oh no, you you need, you need to get a 30 minute walk into that you have not been outside at all.

Steve Washuta : Whereas in COVID That was just just a normal thing. But I like you I’m not outdoorsy and the word that people will typically use where I want to go camping or go on a hike in the wilderness. I’m deathly afraid of any animal that’s faster than me, which is basically every animal. So I that’s that’s not my version of outdoorsy my version of outdoorsy is going to the whatever the local downtown is and walking around and window shopping and going in and getting a bite to eat somewhere to new restaurant.

Steve Washuta : You know, that’s, that’s my version of being outdoors. So I don’t think it’s changed me in a unfortunately in a positive way. I think if there was a positive it’s that I do recognize that you know, working from home. Now, you know, in COVID, we have to remember that we need to get outside we need to get some song we need to get there. We need to get some fresh air as our grandmother used to say go get some fresh air and just just walk around. It can be completely aimlessly. You sometimes you could have headphones sometimes you could do it without it, but you know, just get outside.

Rebecca Washuta : Yeah, she was on to something. Speaking of hikes, I went hiking for the first time this summer, we went to a little town in Switzerland called Zermatt. And similar to you, I’m like terrified of animals like I’m, like petrified to therus, the idea of being chased by a bear. I’ve seen some YouTube videos, it’s just like horrific, right? That’s my worst nightmare.

Rebecca Washuta : But if you want to get into hiking, you have to go to places that are above the treeline, and then you avoid those animals. So like the place where we hiked in Vermont, we were in the mountains, we were in the Alps. And so at least the guy told me this, maybe he was just like, trying to call me but he’s like, don’t worry about anything. We’re above the tree line. So there’s like no animals up here. And we didn’t see any animals, it was just burnt. So consider it. It’s

Steve Washuta : interesting. Maybe this is a whole nother conversation, but like sort of mixing exercise with leisure. And you know how people do that and why they do that and like what you know, like, so you can consider hiking in a sense of mixing exercise with leisure. Right? That’s part of the reason people do it. So for me, like yesterday,

Steve Washuta :  I just grabbed my basketball went outside, it was 75 degrees and sunny. And I just like play basketball by myself. But it was like running sprints on the court running full court doing stuff and outside basketball. And to me, that’s my kind of leisure mixed with, you know, on and activity right, where I’m, excuse me leisure mixed with exercise, when I’m combining both of those things. For me, I guess I just don’t see hiking as that I would I wouldn’t do it.

Steve Washuta : Specifically for exercise, I would do it because like I’m in a destination and I wanted to and I wanted to do the thing that everyone does when they’re in this destination as a leisure activity, but I don’t think I would enjoy it as a as a combination. Leisure and exercise Maybe also because I feel like it would be strenuous enough. No, I feel like it’s too long. I can’t, I can’t fathom, like giving even two hours of my day to that sort of exercise. Like I can be in and out of the gym with a good workout in under an hour. I can go run around exercise it’s

Rebecca Washuta : a leisure because you get to like look around and see the view and chat and and what does the Japanese call it forest bathing? You’re like taking a Nietzsche. Yeah.

Steve Washuta : Well, when does leisure lead to anxiety? Because you’re having too much leisure and you’re worried about all the other things you’re not getting done? I guess that’s No,

Rebecca Washuta : you have to you have to be on vacation has to be the right yeah, the right combination of of elements. But I was never a hiker, I would say until this summer. And then after that trip, I was like, Oh my gosh, this is really fun.

Steve Washuta : We should do this. Yeah, I have a friend who flies around the country now and those large hikes. Okay, I’ll let you introduce the next topic.

Rebecca Washuta : Okay, next topic is the no thank you bite. So we both have two young toddlers. And this came up because we sort of disagree on how to approach mealtime. So Steve, you have the perspective that if you put something in front of your daughter, Mackenzie, you’re going to ask her to at least take one bite? And then say no, thank you. And I said, I don’t believe in that. So do you want to give me your perspective first?

Steve Washuta : Yeah, I will say as a caveat here. If she says no, I don’t hold her down and shove the food down her throat. If she says no, that’s fine. Maybe I’ll ask one more time. And maybe I’ll take a bite of it. And see if she’ll take a bite of it. It’s not it’s not it’s not a must.

Steve Washuta : But if I’m making dinner, let’s say last night we had like wagyu ground beef with broccoli and rice. And she doesn’t like what things were all together so I just separate hers. So she had beef and one thing she had broccoli in the other and and yellow rice and the other were kale and I will mix hours together in a bowl.

Steve Washuta : And she ended up trying everything but if she had not tried everything I might have just said can you take a no thank you broccoli bite and if you don’t like it, you can just put it to the side. And for me it’s it’s an IT. It’s a little bit to do with just parenting and me not wanting her to be able to say no, when I asked her something that’s really simple. Forget about it has anything to do with food.

Rebecca Washuta : Maybe it’s like put your shoes on. Yeah, anything? Yeah,

Steve Washuta : it could be anything. Hey, can you try whatever the thing is, can you try this for me because I’m on the adult and I would never ask you to do something that I believe could harm you. You might like it you might not and it’s fine. I get why it could div help or aid in some kind of bad nutrition habits down the road.

Steve Washuta : And I’m willing to change that. Like I said, I’m not like it’s not like I believe this is the only way and everyone should do this. It’s just something that I’ve tried out and I feel like so far with my kid it hasn’t it hasn’t caused any problems and it hasn’t hurt the process of her being specky for

Rebecca Washuta : sure. And I think, to your point, it depends on the child, right? I think you have to parent to your child. And if you have multiple kids, maybe you’re even parenting them in different ways. So all that to say we have two very different two year olds. And it’s funny because as as more of an uptight dietician, my daughter, Amelia refuses to eat most of the things I put in front of her, right.

Rebecca Washuta : So it’s very, it’s been very challenging for me. But you know, as a as a dietitian, and I want to preface this by saying, I’m not a pediatric dietitian, I trained under a pediatric dietitian, I decided not to go that route, because it seems like it’s more psychology than it is actual, you know, the biology of what’s in our food, but the job of the parent is to put us to offer food to our to our children not to dictate how much or what they eat, right.

Rebecca Washuta : So if you give her one of the little baby plates with the wagyu, beef, and the rice and broccoli, and she decides to only eat the rice, that’s a win, right, we shouldn’t be dictating specifically what they eat. Because and this is for a number of reasons. One is you want them to sort of trust their instincts and trust their body.

Rebecca Washuta : And if they think something is weird, you want them to sort of to go with that, right. So even though it seems a little outrageous, and as parents we don’t have a lot of time textbook is you can put food in front of your toddler up to 15 times and if they don’t eat it after the 15th time, well, then you know, maybe you can try a different strategy. But eating is only one piece of the pie, right.

Rebecca Washuta : So they’re also developing their sensory skill. So so if they if she plays with the Wagyu beef, that’s good, if she picks it up, and she smells that if she puts it between your fingers, if she symptoms early, it will pick something up and like touch it to her tongue and then still not decide to eat it. But like it’s a win if they’re like getting more accustomed to the food, right. They’re like developing their sensory skills, they’re getting more used to that food. The other issue is, you know, and it seems like with Mackenzie, she’s not super stressed out.

Rebecca Washuta : She’s, you know, you’re not domineering or overbearing in a way you ask her to take the bite. But I think for other kids are really I get stressed out easily if I you know, if I were to ask her to try something. So we don’t want we don’t want kids to associate mealtime with a stressful situation. And then also, you know, just from like a biological perspective, the reason why for 1000s of years people have sat down to eat.

Rebecca Washuta : The reason why in many cultures, we take a breath and say a prayer before we eat is because we need to be relaxed in order to digest properly. So when we engage the parasympathetic nervous system, that’s going to activate our gallbladder, our stomach, our intestines, and that’s going to go and allow us to digest properly, if we are stressed, the blood vessels in our gut constrict, and you’re not going to absorb nutrients in the same way.

Rebecca Washuta : And so you know, if it gets into a situation where the toddler is stressed, because you’re asking them to take a bite, you know, then anything she’s after that isn’t going to be absorbed properly. So, again, you have to parent to your child. But that’s, that’s my approach.

Steve Washuta : That’s all well said. I think my one kind of hiccup in that is I don’t believe toddlers are rational. So you know, letting them they’re not. They’re not well, but that leads to them, letting them dictate, like, their instincts. I think their instincts are wrong. Their instinct like Mackenzie’s instinct is like, most toddlers instincts are like suicidal, they’re like, they’re trying to jump off couches head first.

Steve Washuta : So there is a part of me that says, like, I do need to also guide you a little bit because your instincts are not always rights, in a sense, like one day blueberries or your favorite food the next day, you’re throwing them across the room. So I, I guess that that’s, that is my one kind of pushback is that it’s not I again, I think there’s a wrong way to do it, I would never force her to do it. I just ask once or twice. If she doesn’t want to do it, that’s fine. And I’m lucky enough because my kid is such, it’s such an easy eater.

Steve Washuta : She She eats everything, it doesn’t really matter. I haven’t been forced into those situations. And maybe if I saw it from the other side, I would think much different. I would I would have to approach this much differently. Right? So I’m only seeing it from one side. But I do think they need to be handheld a little bit in the food process. Because they’re toddlers, they need to be handheld in every process. For

Rebecca Washuta : sure. And so, my take on that is you offering what you decide to offer is guiding them right so you’re only going to put healthy food on their plate. You’re not gonna hopefully be putting like candy or Cheerios or whatever, right? You’re just you’re putting real food on their plate protein and healthy carbs and healthy fats.

Rebecca Washuta :  And so that’s how you guide them. So you know, they’re learning sort of to trust their own. agree they’re not rational but they’re learning to trust their own intuition. And I do think there is something to like it. They know. They they know intuitively like when they’re hungry and when they’re Full and and you want them to be able to tune into that, you know and not not get that from outside sources right the like so so what you’re saying is different than the clean clean your plate or you have to eat dinner, no dessert.

Rebecca Washuta : It’s different. I think those are extreme approaches. So you know, you find in the middle, what works for you and your child, Mackenzie doesn’t seem stressed, when she eats, I bend over backwards to like, really accommodate early as she still gets stressed sometimes. So, you know, you have to again, you have to parent to your child. Yeah,

Steve Washuta : it’s, for me, like I said, it’s, I probably would use a different approach if I had to use a different approach. And I do think it’s interesting to look at all of the, because there’s so there’s so much literature on on on this now, where people tell you actually the best thing to do is to put all the food in front of them, including their dessert, and just let them decide, don’t make dessert special.

Steve Washuta : So you just put their little brownie down next to whatever else and you know, put their juice box down, they want to have it they want to have it. And I just I feel like it’s again, we’re just we have all these people who are pushing against whatever the old narrative was, instead of just using like your instead of just using again, like a like a rational, reasonable common sense approach.

Steve Washuta : The common sense approach is put healthy food in front of your kids to hope hope, hope that they eat that if they don’t eat all of it, hope that they eat some of it. And make make make it not a big deal. Don’t Make mealtime such a big deal where you are either extremely excited, or extremely upset if something doesn’t go, right, because that’s going to make the situation more difficult. Yeah,

Rebecca Washuta : the idea behind the not using like dessert, not serving that last is you don’t want to use food as a reward. Right? So the idea is like, eat your dinner and then you can have ice cream, or then you can have the brownie then then they’re thinking of the brownie as a reward right then later on in life, maybe that leads to binge eating disorder, right, or obesity or being overweight.

Rebecca Washuta : But I think that, that maybe maybe has a place if you are staying away completely from any packaged or processed foods. So if dessert is blueberries, I’m okay with that. Sometimes I do that I put blueberries and chicken and squash on her plate and if she wants to eat the blueberries, okay, that’s that, you know, that was technically dessert.

Rebecca Washuta : But like, that’s what you want to start with. That’s fine. But brownies shouldn’t be incorporated into it right? Nothing with refined sugar should be should be given to children under two anyway. But I think that mindset only works if you’re serving whole fresh food, nothing packaged or processed, or that has added sugar. Now

Steve Washuta : well, also just to be completely transparent, honest here. This is kind of a what my wife and I try to do. But then when my wife’s not home, I’ll give my daughter whatever she wants. I’ve never said no to McKenzie and her entire life. I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to say no. So she wants to yogurt pouch, she gets the yogurt pouch. That’s pretty much how our relationship dynamic goes. Yeah,

Rebecca Washuta : you know, it’s like, oh, well, you can have a parenting theory and a style and then all bets are off when you’re in the kitchen with them. Rationalizing

Steve Washuta : are not a big deal to Yogur Scott. For biotics start over tomorrow, well, it will still better eating habits tomorrow. That’s what I keep telling myself for

Rebecca Washuta : sure I you know, it’s every day is a challenge. So you just have to you just have to survive sometimes with toddlers.

Steve Washuta : So you have these friends, and actually, you probably are these friends in a sense, but you certainly have these friends and I have these friends and people who go to Europe, and they tell you about their vacation. They go Oh, I was in Italy and then I was in Greece.

Steve Washuta : And so would you do oh, well, we just honestly we drink wine all day long. Would you eat? Oh, we ate whatever we wanted. Did you work out? No. Oh, okay. Well, you must have come back every year, right? No, I somehow lost six pounds. And I feel great. It’s like, well, how did that happen? And this is this is not like a one off story. This is everybody who comes back from Europe tells you the same, the same spiel.

Steve Washuta : Is it all the walking that people are doing? Is it the fact that their foods have less preservatives is the fact that their wine has less preservatives? Is it the fact that they’re really happy? And that it adds to maybe your overall health and wellness? Because you’re so happy on this trip? Is it a combination of all these things? How do you unpack all of what I just said? For sure. I

Rebecca Washuta : think it’s all of that. I will start by saying yeah, European cities are more walkable, just in general, right? It’s easy to do that I’ve used my Fitbit when we’ve gone to Rome or Paris or you know, even London and it’s easy to get 15,000 steps in in a day where like here I have to really try to get that many steps like it’s just it’s normal. It’s easy.

Rebecca Washuta : It’s it’s more pedestrian friendly. So I think that that’s one factor. The other factor is the you know, for people who say they have a gluten allergy or a gluten intolerance like I do. So the dough there is different. So Europeans bake their their dough in a more traditional way and they allow it to rise overnight. And because of that the enzymes actually eat that the gluten, so their bread naturally is less gluten in it.

Rebecca Washuta : So their pasta, their bread, all of that their pizza is going to have less gluten in it naturally. And so that’s why people who have a gluten allergy sometimes are okay eating bread and bread products in Europe. The other issue is our agriculture is is not in good shape here. So we use a ton of pesticides. I printed statistics because I wanted to read through them.

Rebecca Washuta : But in 2021, the Environmental Working Group found that 95% of oat products 95% are contaminated with glyphosate, the Canadian Food Inspection Agency found that 80 to 90% of wheat products, pizza crackers, pasta, this is a Canada that still are contaminated with glyphosate. So a lot of the really toxic pesticides are banned in Europe.

Rebecca Washuta : So they’re not using them. And I think that’s what factors into how people feel when they’re eating foods in the states that would traditionally make them feel pretty crappy. And I think similarly with wine right there. They’re not using the same pesticides. It’s more common to have organic farming processes there. Even if it’s not officially certified or labeled organic, they farm in a more organic way with less pesticides, so it’s noticeable.

Steve Washuta : Yeah, I think the the sulfites too, typically you don’t see the sulfites in their wine.

Rebecca Washuta : Religiously French wines, very low and sulfites. Yeah,

Steve Washuta : I suppose to the extent that they’re going to be here, and I do think the outdoor component might be understated, I think, typically, the average person, especially if you’re somebody who works nine to five, you’re an accountant, you’re indoors all day long, you’re sitting down, and you don’t get much sun, you certainly don’t get many steps.

Rebecca Washuta : Even now you’re gonna work, right? Think about transportation, you’re either sitting on your car or sitting on the train. You sit all day, right? You talk about life, I tell

Steve Washuta : the story all the time you you’re in bed, you’re lying flat for eight hours, then you wake up, then you go sit down at your kitchen nook. And you you know, you eat your bagel sandwich or your bowl cereal, then you go sit in your car, you drive 45 minutes to work, then you go sit in your desk for seven hours and you go sit in your car drive back home, you go sit down, you eat dinner at the table, then you sit down on the couch, watch two hours Netflix, and then you go lay back in the bed for eight

Rebecca Washuta : hours. So it’s great. And then people are like I heard the number one complaint now is back pain. That’s why because we’re not standing because we’re sitting there laying all day. Yeah,

Steve Washuta :  what happens is, I mean, there’s a lot of reasons and I’m I’m not going to sit here and tell you everyone’s issue. But a lot of people’s issues is that you know, your your hip flexors, and most of those muscles on the front of your body start to shorten, because they don’t need to lengthen because you’re only sitting, so those muscles shorten and they go in.

Steve Washuta : And then that causes sort of a pelvic tilt process that pulls down on your pelvis, and we get a pelvic tilt, that puts undue stress on your back and your hip complex, and so on and so forth. Not to mention just overall weakness, that a lot of people think there’s a whole nother conversation that you can’t be tight and weak. Steve Washuta : They think tight is associated with strength. So if so if I work out too much, then my muscles are tight. And that’s how it works like you can be tightened weak. In fact, most people are tight and weak in the front of their body, in their hip complex area. But yeah, so you see, like, we’re again, we’re going back to what we’re saying before, you have an accountant, and he’s usually sitting down all day.

Steve Washuta : And, and now he goes out and he’s in Greece, and he’s outside for six hours, he’s getting sons, he’s going strong, and he’s getting good air, he’s happy he or she like this is this is a, this is a big component of why vacations people come back a lot of times later to is not only the exercise, but the happiness in the outdoors aspect that they don’t get in their normal lives when their cortisol levels are high. And they’re stressed out.

Steve Washuta : And they’re, you know, right there, they’re going there in traffic and they’re beeping at people and they’re cursing at people and they get home and their toddler shit their pants and the wife burnt the dinner and whatever else is going on. And they’re running around crazy. It’s like okay, now you get away from this. And then add in all of those other factors we just said, that’s a recipe for for your body to be functioning at a higher level. Yeah,

Rebecca Washuta : and I think people really discount walking and I am such a proponent of going for a walk I walk for at least two miles every day, rain or shine, it has changed my life. You know, maybe not so much physically but mentally just to have that time to myself to reflect.

Rebecca Washuta : But, but physically it does really help so if you have eaten a big meal, and your blood sugar starts to spike, the best thing you can do is go for go for a walk. So you go for a walk about 20 minutes after you eat, it’ll help stabilize your blood sugar it’ll help balance it out.

Rebecca Washuta : And you know that’s why people gain weight your your your blood sugar goes up and then your insulin goes up and insulin is like miracle go for fat cells, right? So insulin is what’s causing our cells to to retain those glucose molecule molecules. So yeah, people you know, don’t give walking enough credit, but I think that has a lot to do with it. Little

Steve Washuta : a little bit straying off topic somewhat here a brand inch off of this tree. I think it’s a really good relationship builder to Kayla and I always take walks together. And you’re going to be talking about things that are important, because that’s inevitably what happens, right?

Steve Washuta : You’re like, okay, hey, we’re on this walk, we have to talk about the, you know, the trip that we’re, that’s coming up next Saturday, we have to talk about, you know, redoing our, whatever life insurance policy, whatever the things are, that are on your mind, because there’s nothing else to do, you’re not gonna be looking at your phone, the TV’s not around, your laptops aren’t around. So I also think it really helps to have good conversations,

Steve Washuta : whether that’s with yourself, like you said, whether that is you almost in a meditating type way, being able to walk through all the important things that you have on your maybe it’s your short term agenda, or your long term agenda that you that you want to deal with, but if you’re with your partner, it’s even a better way to have these conversations and get away from the phone and get away from the laptop.

Steve Washuta : because we there’s all these like memes, it’s funny on Instagram, and these videos now it’s like, you know, you’re you’re sitting on one couch, your significant other sitting on the other couch, and you’re both like sending each other reels. So it’s like, there’s like, the, the proper conversations are not being had to kind of move families forward. And I think the walking really kind of helps push that forward. Forsure. And you mentioned cortisol before and I think, you know, exercise obviously can can lower cortisol levels, but those relationships right positive feelings, and and reducing stress really helps too. And I think a lot of people don’t be of cortisol enough credit either, right?

Steve Washuta : They think I am not in good shape because of diet and exercise. And that could be true, but stress plays a huge, huge role. That’s you know, that’s mainly what what is causing people to retain fat in their midsection, right? The belly fat is from cortisol. So if you can go on vacation, and you can take time away and you can really lower your stress levels. Or if you couldn’t, you know, be at home and go for a walk with a with a spouse or with a partner. I think that really helps deal with the cortisol and balancing your stress hormones and eventually, you know, helping you maintain your weight.

Steve Washuta : It’s almost as good as a somatic exercise healer almost. Well, we’ll end on that note, this has been an episode of the truly fun podcast back. Thanks for joining in.

Rebecca Washuta :  Yeah, thanks so much.

Steve Washuta: Thanks for joining us on the Trulyfit podcast. Please subscribe, rate, and review on your listening platform. Feel free to email us as we’d love to hear from you.

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