Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Foreign.
[00:00:08] Hello and welcome to the very first episode of the whole Health Revolution podcast. I'm Rachelle and I'm a clinical nutritionist, a naturopath and a medical herbalist. And this podcast is all about helping you take back control of your health with whole food, nutrition, lifestyle strategies and a really holistic approach. No fads, no extremes. I'm very strict on that. I can't stand fad diets and it's all science backed, experience driven tools that really do work in the long term.
[00:00:38] So I thought it would be fitting for the first episode to share a little bit about who I am, where I've come from, my own health journey and what I do today and why I do it. So my health story actually started really young when I was on my very first diet. I was actually aged 11 and it wasn't because I wasn't even overweight. When I look back, I really wasn't, but I'd already absorbed that sort of that message that so many of us get that thinner is better and our worth is tied to how we look. And this was in the 80s, so we think about those times and this was when the low fat era was really coming into play and I really took hold of that.
[00:01:14] So that first diet really set me up for years and years after that of yo yo dieting. You name a diet, I've tried them all.
[00:01:22] And by my late teens I was bulimic because I thought I was cheating the system. I could eat what I wanted to, I could purge and I would stay at a decent weight. I was once again wasn't overweight. My weight did fluctuate a little bit and I was even at Weight Watchers at the same time. So I was doing Weight Watchers. I would diet for a wee while, I would then binge on certain foods, I would then purge and the scale would be in my favor usually the week following.
[00:01:49] And if it wasn't actually, either way, even if I'd lost weight or if the weight had gone up, what would I do after a meeting at Weight Watchers? I'd probably go straight to McDonald's and reward myself or punish myself with something, depending on the result. That was my spiral.
[00:02:05] But what saved me at the time was the gym. I'd always loved the look of muscle and loved strength and lifting weights. I looked up to people like Arnold Schwarzenegger and at the time, Corey Everson. She was a big name in bodybuilding and I loved that. So it really helped me gain that sense of purpose and control that dieting really Never could. I was never in control, even though I felt I was with bulimia, that's completely out of control.
[00:02:31] It was the first real shift for me from obsessing over food to then focusing on what my body could actually do.
[00:02:37] So that was in my late teens. Now, fast forward a few years. At the age of 19, I'd overcome bulimia with the help of my family and friends and I traveled to New Zealand. I met a guy in New Zealand and we got engaged. And there you go, that's the story. So I came over with him and I'm still here today in Auckland, New Zealand.
[00:02:57] And over the years, I'm now at the ripe old age of 54. Over the years, I became a mum. I've got three children and I've now got two beautiful granddaughters as well who all live with us here in Auckland. And things are going really well. You know, I'm really happy and. But it's been a journey to get here, so I'm just going to rewind a little bit. So my mid or early 40s, actually. My husband, who I actually met in the gym when I was a fitness instructor, took me along to a powerlifting competition. It was his first comp and I was there to support him. I'd never been to one before and after watching him, I thought to myself, I really need to try this. I was hooked. You know, I just loved seeing all these achievements, achievements that these people were making on the platform and it didn't matter that all shapes and sizes, all ages, all different abilities, they were lifting different weights, you know, it was amazing.
[00:03:46] And I loved powerlifting because it wasn't really just about how I looked. Once again, it was also, it was truly focused on how strong I could be and I was competing against myself and nobody else. I wasn't really comparing myself to anyone else.
[00:03:59] So me and my hubby were part of a gym called the Coast Barbell Club. They were great days. It really felt like being part a family. And yeah, you know, there were some egos here and there. That's the gym world, you can't avoid it. But the support and the camaraderie that we had between us really outweighed everything. And it was a fantastic time in our lives.
[00:04:18] Many of us had families, so the kids were often at the gym, running around and they were being brought up into that healthy environment.
[00:04:25] But then in my mid-40s, I shifted from powerlifting to try out a bodybuilding show. It's been something I'd always wanted to do. My Husband was also dieting for bodybuilding at the time.
[00:04:36] But for me, this is when things started to unravel. You know, bodybuilding is an extreme sport in so many ways and lots of people come into it because they're not happy with their bodies. That was my reason. And some just want to improve on their body and just see how far they can get with and how far they can push the envelope, if you like. And I mean, some people do, they compete year after year after year, very successfully. But for me it was really because I was always searching to be happy or happier with myself.
[00:05:04] I'll admit the training wasn't too hard because I'd been training in the gym for years and I actually loved that part. But the dieting was absolutely relentless. It was 24 7, there was no deviating from the plan. It was so strict and honestly, in parts, it was soul destroying. I was starving in parts.
[00:05:21] People stopped inviting me out to social occasions because they knew I couldn't eat or drink. So I became the boring one that was just always training for a bodybuilding show. And when I think about it on the outside, I looked absolutely amazing as my body started to transform. It was amazing and it was fascinating watching how I could change, literally when I got close to the competition, day after day, seeing the changes. And in fact, when I stepped on stage, I was about 9% body fat. Now that is really low for a female. My periods had stopped ages ago because I was so low in body fat. But gosh, I had an eight pack and I had muscle definition that I could only dream of. It really came together really well. I won the my division, but on the inside I was still not happy. I picked myself apart. I remember looking at the video of myself on stage, which I'd practiced my routine for months and months, spent a lot of money on people helping me do this.
[00:06:18] And all I could see in the photos in the video was a little bit of saggy skin on my thighs around my butt. That's all I was focusing on. The rest of me looked absolutely amazing. I used to get, people stop me in the supermarket and say, wow, you look really good. You know, it was kind of strange because I didn't actually like that, that attention, to be honest.
[00:06:36] And at the time my kids probably thought mum was permanently grumpy because I was, was constantly in starvation mode.
[00:06:43] I was moody, I was depressed, I wasn't really much fun to be around. And that's all during the prep stage.
[00:06:49] And during that stage I also started getting strange symptoms. I was getting Excruciating muscle cramps in all different areas. In my neck, in my abs, in places you just don't get cramps. I was getting heavy mood swings because I was starving.
[00:07:04] Uncontrollable muscle spasms as well. I actually thought at the one stage I had Ms. And I got tested for it, it was horrible. Sometimes these cramps and that just left me doubled over and I couldn't breathe.
[00:07:17] After the show, what happened, which happens to many people, I gained all my weight back and a little bit more padding happened rather fast. It took me weeks to gain my weight back, which took me about a year to work hard to actually gain that physique. So it was quite soul destroying as well. I didn't want to go out because, you know, I felt like people saw me as this bodybuilder and then all of a sudden, God, what's happened to her sort of thing.
[00:07:42] So, yeah, I fell into a bit of a depression.
[00:07:45] I couldn't plan any social events because I honestly didn't know how I would feel from one day to the next.
[00:07:52] So it was not a good time in my life.
[00:07:55] The height of getting up on the platform or getting up on stage and bodybuilding soon came with a heavy fall afterwards. And my boys were only young at the time and I found that incredibly tough too, because I really wanted to be there for them.
[00:08:10] And at the time I was trying to search for answers. Why was I still feeling this way? Even though I'd stopped the dieting, I wasn't competing anymore. I was just getting back into my sort of quote marks normal life.
[00:08:23] So I saw specialist after specialists. I spent a lot of money trying to find answers for why I was in pain all the time, why I was so exhausted. And eventually, two years later, or a few years later actually I was diagnosed with fibromyalgia. Now I actually kind of almost self diagnosed that and went to the doctor and said, hey, look, I think this is what's happening. This was after I'd seen so many specialists that couldn't come up with an answer for me.
[00:08:49] And when I was, it was years later that I put the pieces together and she did the questionnaire with me and it seemed that, yes, I've got fibromyalgia, but also as a bit of a double whammy because when I was prepping for this bodybuilding show, I was also in perimenopause. I didn't know it because my periods had stopped. So it was around this time, this was before I had the diagnosis of fibromyalgia. Actually, when I was searching for answers, became a pivotal point in my career, which was when I went to see a naturopath. She was a student naturopath at the South Pacific College of Natural Medicine in Ellerslie. Fantastic place to study.
[00:09:25] But she was the first practitioner who really listened. Instead of segmenting me into symptoms and body parts, which the modern medicine does, modern medicine model, she looked at me as a whole person.
[00:09:40] You know, she put together a plan that focused on nutrition, on lifestyle changes, and some carefully chosen supplements. And these were implemented at a rate that I could handle. And I slowly started to feel better. It took a while because I couldn't do too much at the time, but that experience just changed my whole trajectory.
[00:09:59] And within weeks, honestly, within weeks after I'd seen her, I enrolled in a Bachelor of Natural Medicine at the same college. I thought, yep, this is me. This is what I want to do. Because I'd been involved in health and wellness for many years. I was actually a personal trainer at the time, and I've been doing that for years. So I've always been involved in that. And I knew that I always wanted to help people, but now I wanted to help people who were suffering. Like, I had people who felt that they'd been let down by the system and didn't know where else to turn. It's a horrible place to be. You actually start to feel like you're a hypochondriac and it's all in your head, especially with something like fibro, because on the outside, you look absolutely fine. And there was another light bulb moment at the same time. I was looking back at photos of myself when I was on stage, and, you know, one photo that I'd been so critical of, I realized that, God, I looked amazing. I really did. And it's something that many people would never achieve in their lifetime. And I should have been proud of that fact, but I wasn't able to see it back then. And so, yeah, the light bulb went on, and I knew that I would never truly be happy if I kept chasing that perfection, because perfection is never going to happen. I needed to really shift my. My focus on how I looked to how I felt. And that was a real paradigm shift for me. It changed completely, and my focus then became health and not the number on the scale. And this is what I coach today, really.
[00:11:25] I see people all the time that want to get to a certain number on the scale, and then they'll be happy. Well, I can tell you, it ain't gonna happen. It's really about being happy and loving who you are now and enjoying the journey. You must enjoy the journey. Because if it's hard work to get to your goals, to where you want to be, whether it's improving your health or losing weight, it's going to be a hard journey and it's a hard one to stick to as well.
[00:11:49] So as I say, I've been involved in health coaching and personal training for over 20 years now.
[00:11:54] But since graduating as a naturopath and nutritionist, I've spent years studying and working with clients. I've helped women, I've coached women in perimenopause and menopause for the past eight plus years. And I've supported people with all sorts of different conditions, with digestive health, hormonal issues, stress related conditions.
[00:12:14] But my biggest passion is metabolic health. So we're looking at type 2 diabetes, insulin resistance, high cholesterol and high blood pressure. All of these that come along with these metabolic issues.
[00:12:24] And they're so connected to diet and lifestyle. And the thing that I get excited about with these with metabolic conditions are that they are reversible or at least manageable with the right support.
[00:12:37] And it's something that's just getting out of control at the moment. You know, our type 2 diabetes rates are just, just increasing exponentially. We're getting all these health conditions that we never used to suffer with, never used to die of. And even Alzheimer's has now been labeled type 3 diabetes because it's got that relationship to a poor diet, to poor lifestyle practices, high sugar, high crappy carbs, basically.
[00:13:02] So all of this, my journey up until now, plus my study, I've got two degrees and one in sport, one in natural medicine. This has all led me to create the program the Whole Health Revolution. Because seeing one on one clients is amazing and I love it. But I want to reach more people. I feel that I really need to reach more people and help people that are coming to me. I've had a lot of people over the years come to me from bad diets, restrictive eating patterns, and it can destroy you. And it's very hard to get back onto a healthy eating pattern when you're severely restricting calories. It's not just about calories. Yes, they do play a part. But it's really about optimizing your health now from the inside out. So the health whole health revolution combines everything I've learned over this time.
[00:13:46] And inside the program you find weekly recipes all made with whole foods. I release four new recipes each week.
[00:13:53] There are eight meal plans to help get you started. So it's based on an eight week sort of startup period. This is where we start to work on changing those habits bit by bit.
[00:14:03] Because we often find that an overhaul of your health, changing everything all at once can be really hard and it's very hard to stick to and I'm not really a big advocate of doing it that way.
[00:14:14] James Clear writes about this in his book Atomic Habits. That we need to be making these changes bit by bit and celebrating those small wins and just keep adding onto them bit by bit.
[00:14:26] Inside the program, there's also structured workout plans, there's movement, it's not just about workout and grinding and heavy weights, it's about movement, stretching, there's yoga, Pilates, all sorts.
[00:14:37] And also with the program, I offer my one on one coaching and support. And, and this is as often as my clients want to use me, my experience and expertise, I'm there for them.
[00:14:50] So I can really tailor the experience to everybody. I also do a weekly zoom just like this one and I cover all sorts of topics on health and wellness. And already I've seen so many members experience more energy, fewer cravings, better blood sugar control, balanced hormones, and that renewed confidence because it's all about the achievements that we make and it's long term health, health and well being. Nothing that I put in the program. You can't do forever. You know, if you look at a diet and you think, gosh, it's very restrictive and if you can't live by that diet forever, it is not going to serve you in the long run. It's only going to, it'll probably do its job. You will lose weight, you lose weight quickly, perhaps, but long term, it's not going to work. I promise you this. If it feels too good to be true, it is.
[00:15:36] And it's usually those kind of diets that fail you. You don't fail those diets.
[00:15:41] So that's for me, for my first episode, just a little bit about me. Because I think it's important to know, okay, who's given me this advice, who is she? What's her journey?
[00:15:50] So from dieting at age 11 to bulimia to powerlifting and bodybuilding, I've been through illness and depression and finally, you know, I've found my calling in natural medicine and my journey has been an interesting one and I wouldn't take it back for anything because it's how we learn, isn't it? And it's how we grow and it's also what's given me the passion and the empathy as well that I bring to my work today with my members and my clients.
[00:16:14] This podcast is going to be an extension of that work that I do. Each week I share tools and insights and stories that help you reclaim your health back, boost your energy, feel at home in your own body again. We only have one life. It's so sad if we spend that whole life beating ourselves up.
[00:16:30] I'll be covering lifestyle interventions as well as how to integrate whole food nutrition into your life. Food is medicine after all, and it's very healing.
[00:16:40] But at the moment the food that is available to us in the form of ultra processed foods is killing us. So it's so. It's such a passion of mine to be able to help my members feel better, live longer and just be so happy in their own skin. So thank you for being here with me on my very first episode. If you'd like to learn more about the whole health revolution or join us inside the program, please check out the link in the show notes. And I do offer a free 15 minute consultation so you can see whether it's good for you.
[00:17:10] So until next time, invest in your health today so it doesn't become an expense later.
[00:17:15] Thank you for joining me once again and see you next week.
