Candid Conversation with Host Adrienne Barker, MAS

really just doing what everybody else is doing. They're like, whatever. You are— you really, you really have— you, first of all, you look like a model. The way you are, and I think that's, that's what kind of like why I follow you, because you, you are really— you just got it all like together, and then you're here, and you really are. So who is Selena Watson?

That's me. I am, I don't know, home right now managing some chaos at the Watson household. I've got my two kids right here, uh, two of the four, but they were doing online school, so we're overseeing that. Do you want to say hi?

Yes, yes, yes.

Get Susie and you can come say hi. Susie is our cat, and then this is Amber.

Are you in a 3-bedroom or a 2-bedroom?

We're in a 2-bedroom.

Oh, so beautiful. So is that the porch? Oh, your cat is— you are so cute. I love the pictures of you, and you were running with your mom the other day. And I, I used to live where you live, not in your apartment. I used to live here. Wait, my daughter went to, um, she went to Orange Grove, and then before Orange Grove she went to— where are you going? What's the school name?

She goes— she goes to Sonoran Science Academy.

Oh, okay. So Lana was going to the public school that is right down, um, it's escaping me, but— oh my gosh, you are adorable! And where did you get your freckles? My mom.

You can't see mine because I have makeup on, so—

but yeah, does she have like a little bit of a red hair?

It's like a strawberry blonde probably, and it's super long.

It's super duper long. I love seeing you swim in the big pool, honey, because we lived there for 3 years, so we got to enjoy. I, I love it. Are you over by the golf course?

No, we're in building 22, so we're kind of toward the back.

It's beautiful, beautiful. But the javelinas What do you do about— you see the javelinas?

We did. We saw a pack of them. There was like 3 or 4 that just walked right by our window and went on their merry way.

They smell too. You smell them, right?

Oh yeah, they're nasty.

They're scary because I have a white fluffy dog. I don't know if I ever told you this, but when I first moved there, I was— we got, we got Pickles, and I was walking, and I was kind of walking up the hill a little bit, and all of a sudden I look up and there's a javelina. In my mind, it was baring its teeth. I really— because I really don't know if it was my, like, my imagination. It looks so scary. I got so nervous, I— my flip-flop, like, kind of, like, fell back on me. Pickles gets, like, torn around one of the light poles, and I fall down on my chest, and the thing is still looking at me, and I am scared. And I run in the house with Pickles. I pick him up, and my daughter looks at me, and she just starts laughing. And I'm like, I couldn't even breathe for, like, 4 months. And everyone's like, what happened? I'm like, I feel like a javelina, like, wanted to eat me, but I don't even know. The next day, a woman said that her, uh, she was bitten by a javelina because she was holding on a white dog. They do bite.

Really?

Yeah, don't pet them. They're gross.

Yeah, don't pet them. This one, she loves animals, so she would try to pet it. She tries to catch squirrels. What else do you do? You would adopt all of the animals in the whole world.

Oh, you can try snakes. Have you seen the snakes?

Really? I hate snakes.

All right, I'm gonna ask you one more question.

Sure.

When I first moved there, the coyotes— hearing them at nighttime when they're feasting is not a sound you got to get used to, that sound, right? Have you heard that? Yeah.

Have you heard them?

It took me a year and a half. What does it sound like? Can you give a little example?

Yeah. No, you don't remember? I don't want to.

I don't want to. It's so— it took me a while to kind of like not picture what was going on. I feel bad, but just, I don't know, because you hear them in the back, right?

Oh yeah, they're everywhere. They're just all kinds of wildlife. In the foothills.

Tucson.

What did we see the other day when we went to— for our run? What did we see? A baby bunny.

Oh, a baby bunny! That's perfect timing too.

Oh, it's too— like this big. I know. What did you name it? Um, Cotton Tail. Cotton Tail.

How do you make sure your, um, your cat doesn't get out? Does it— like, is that a worry or concern, or you just keep the doors Just have to be fast, right?

No dilly-dallying. Okay, so adorable.

So you like eating healthy? She eats so healthy. Do you enjoy eating healthy? Yeah, that's good.

What's your favorite? Brussels sprouts?

Maybe. Maybe.

She does love mac and cheese too, though. But, um, I don't know if you saw my post about, um, allergy testing. So we both did it together because I needed to have hers done. So I think we're going to start on Monday where we have to eliminate a lot of things, including dairy. Wait, so this little— she's a little mouse, she loves cheese.

So when you say allergy testing, are you talking about like where they prick you?

Yep. So we both did a blood test, and then I had 10 things come up as sensitivity or pretty high up on there that we'll probably avoid. She had 55. Wait, she lit up like a Christmas tree on a lot of food allergens. So we're gonna do an elimination process where we're taking out certain things that are causing some tummy issues, and then probably for about 60 days, and then start reintroducing some of the lower risk ones. But we probably won't reintroduce some of the higher ones like eggs, dairy, and gluten. So, good thing she likes healthy food.

You really have the best mom to do this for you. What was the— what made you feel that she had allergies, or you just could tell?

She suffers with headaches and intestinal issues, so when it continued to be a problem to the point where I was picking her up from school, we looked for answers from the doctor and didn't really get anywhere. So we had tried a couple different things and couldn't figure it out, like tracking all her food and stuff like that. She did a really good job with that, but it's kind of delayed symptoms is what we discovered. So you can't really tell what caused it because it could have been something she ate 3 days ago.

Any of it environmental?

Uh, no, it's all food. But she has regular allergies where she gets itchy eyes and stuff, and sometimes Susie will aggravate that. But for the most part, she's a pretty healthy girl.

So adorable. Your brother's quite the good looker, quite cute too. So how do you make sure Susie doesn't get out? What, what do you do like for Susie?

How do you make sure she doesn't get out the door and go outside to run away? We left the door open.

Is it a worry? Like, because I always wonder that with cats. Is that a concern? That—

or no, because we've, we've tested her. Like, we'll have the door open to the patio and she'll get a little like, uh, brave and she'll come out, but then she doesn't want to be out there, so she'll run back.

Maybe she naturally knows that there's, you know, because I mean, there's a lot of predators out there for, for partner.

That they wouldn't last long, right?

Do you love your mom's hair? Your mom's hair is so cool and beautiful.

It's just crazy right now.

Oh, it's so perfect for you.

Do you want to cut your hair short like mom's? I've asked her that before and she's like, I don't want to look like a boy. So do you think I look like a boy?

Yeah, you look like a movie star. You look like someone— because so many people don't have the face like you have. Like, you have that perfect face for it. You're like, you're like really perfect. And I know that— so this is interesting because, because you're, you're all about health, and I really want to talk about that so I can understand and share that, what, what health and how you got involved in health and, and your weight loss journey. And I think your husband too. So interesting. So do you mind like Like sharing the story with everyone?

Sure. So it started with me about 6 years ago. Um, God, it flies by. Where after my pregnancies, I had gained a ton of weight and I had yo-yoed with dieting and stuff probably since I was a kid. Just always the chubby kid. I kind of went up and down in high school and things like that. So it really got out of control when I had my children. And just, I got to a point where I had gone through a terrible divorce with their dad, pretty depressed and down and really wanted to figure out how to feel better because it just was like I wasn't the person I am now. It was a pretty dark time in my life and I was watching one of my friends who's my health coach, her journey for a while from afar, saw her results with whatever she was doing and then finally just had the courage to ask her Hey, do you think you could help me do what you did? And of course she did. And I started with just focusing on trying to shed some weight. That's where it started for me. And the program that I coach now was what I had done, and I was able to lose 100 pounds in 6 months, and it blew my mind. And then I have now been able to keep it off. So I've never done that before. And to be able to maybe put weight loss and stuff at the back burner where I'm not always constantly on a diet and really looking at shifting some of these Lifestyle things for the long term allowed me not to put it back on this time. So I felt like I had found just a true gift in our offering for other people who are struggling and praying for the things that I had been praying for, just help and something that I could actually do that was sustainable.

She's so cute.

And yeah, so it just developed from there. I loved it. I knew it had changed my life so dramatically. And then had decided to pay this gift forward. My husband was my first client and he lost 85 lbs as well. And then it's now rippled into thousands of people. It's just mind-blowing. And the purpose that I get from helping others achieve what they may not have been able to do before is so rewarding. And it also allows me to be home with these guys and work from home.

I love that. It's— it's— it— when I see your pictures and I try to like, you know, it's so weird, the feeds with, you know, how they are. But, um, but when I see it, because it's always— I really look at them. I think we all do because we see it before and after. And yourself, your before and after, it's always been like a wow to me because I've always struggled with my weight. And honestly, my brothers were horrible about always making fun of me with my weight, right? And so I had a— I was talking to— I don't know if you know Emily Eldridge.

Emily, I think of the name.

And Emily, um, I realize that that's kind of why by nighttime when I go to do events at night, like business after hours, I'm really insecure. And I kind of— it kind of hit me, that's probably why, like nighttime, and you feel— because, you know, and I joke around it, but like next— I, we spoke before about my getting on the program, and I'm just about there with the, uh, with what I'll need to do that. But it's I just can't get over what you do and you live and breathe it too. So I love that you offer your— so you come out with your own recipes or what do you do with that? Because you seem to really show.

We have tons of resources in our programs and the components that we have available that I just reshare what, what we eat and, you know, what we know is good and try to add value to other people's lives with sharing just healthy recipes that are, you know, my kids will eat and stuff.

So we're not eating anything weird, but really Brussels sprouts and macaroni and cheese, because I was actually wondering that the other day. I love broccoli in it, but what about— wait, how do you even make it? Can I have the recipe? How do you make it? So what, what are you doing differently instead of putting like a big block of Velveeta cheese in?

Oh, for mac and cheese, we'll usually make, um, she like— I've made homemade mac and cheese and she won't eat it, and she prefers like the boxed stuff. So instead of the ones that are like full of garbage, we usually get the organic or things like that. Okay, so we have it on occasion because it's not super healthy and we try to eat minimally processed foods. And, um, but with her eliminating dairy, we'll have to get pretty creative, and gluten um, in mac and cheese. We've tried cauliflower mac and cheese. She's not a fan, even though you like cauliflower, which is— what about oat milk?

Have you tried that?

Yeah, we do oat milk. We do, um, a lot of almond milk, some coconut. So I've been lactose intolerant since my early 20s, so it's— we don't have a whole lot of dairy in our house. Occasionally we'll do cheese and stuff because they still love it and it's worth the pain. I think she's the same way.

I love that. What— what can you, um, if I can ask you a favor, could you, when you're showing it, could you like actually show how you cook it?

Can you like really like—

because I, I just am not a really great— like, I'm like, I can make a chicken dinner, like whatever, like, but I'm not like— and I'm not super creative either, and I don't even like the kitchen. So I have this like relationship with it. I don't— and I don't— I I don't like a lot of like, I don't like red. I don't like spaghetti sauce. I actually have a very, I'm very picky, which doesn't help how I eat. So I, you know, I don't know. I'm very, I almost like bland food, but I want to, when I see like you were making, I'm like, she didn't show me how to do it though. She just has the recipe. You have everything there, but I'm like, yeah, I need that. Like literally how you do it. I need to see it.

No, I've done that a few times. So there's a video out there. I'll find it and tag you in it for how to make cauliflower pizza crust. I think we've made some things in the Instant Pot because that used to scare me, the pressure cooker, and I don't know why I was afraid of it, but now we use it all the time. We do a lot of stuff in the slow cooker so we can get like a bigger amount of protein and then repurpose it throughout the week so we're not cooking something different every night because that's a lot of work. So keeping it as simple as possible and really just finding what you like and starting with it pretty basic, and then you can Once you get the grasp of, you know, what will fuel your body based on what you want to accomplish, you can get more creative once you have those basics down.

Yeah, that's where I really do have problems because Alana stopped eating meat, so she doesn't want to eat hamburger, no pork, like nothing. So like chicken and then chicken every night. And I don't know, I really— it really is with this whole COVID-19, the biggest part, like when someone like years from now and the history books are like, What was your big— besides all the sad stories, and I watch way too much news. It's that challenge of not going out to eat because I'm still not sure what that looks like and what to purchase in the store. And I do like the Spanish stores, though. I really— before this happened, I was going to have my girlfriend walk me through the Spanish store so I could purchase and have a feeling. I needed a tour guide. And the Spanish have such really cool food, but it's really, really, really hard. I can make breakfast. So you know what I made this morning?

I made—

you know how you make a grilled cheese sandwich? Okay, so I made a grilled egg sandwich. So I put the— I took the bread, I put the little hole in it so that a little hole cooked the egg, and then put another piece of bread over and then flipped it so that when you cut in the middle of it, you have the delicious yolk. I mean, actually, that was like pretty— that was good. I should go— awesome. Yes, you really almost— I did that.

You made that. You'll have to show us how to do it.

I know, I really— but I won't be able to do it again. It's a crazy, crazy thing. So you're in— so what were you doing before, 6 years ago, before you got into health? What was your, um, were you working? What were you doing?

Yeah, so I had been in real estate since 2001, so it was basically all I'd ever done professionally. Um, but before that I bartended and did some food service and stuff like that. But for the majority of my career it was in real estate, and to be able to, um, leave that behind about almost 3 years ago now to coach full-time from home has been really fun.

Oh my God, I would be nervous if I was your husband to have you out like showing homes. I really would. Do you, do you see how beautiful you are? Just out of curiosity, not to be a weirdo, but like, do you, when you look, because you're so Perfect. Do you like— oh no, when you look in the mirror?

Um, no, I can't. Well, I think we talked about this too, is my life wasn't always so great. I grew up with a lot of trauma and, um, very poor and in an abusive household. So no, my self-esteem had always been pretty minimal. But finding myself and really figuring out what I want in life and working on some personal development and growth in those areas, I've gotten better. But no, I still don't look at myself and go, damn, you're sexy.

No, I would feel like your husband would wake up every morning going like, damn, you're sexy, because he really does. He's so sweet.

No, he's great.

You got a perfect face. What, um, do you have any talents? Do you sing?

I do. I actually sing in at our church on the praise and worship team and then with our choir. Um, but I've, I played— I don't even know how many instruments. That was my thing when I was a kid where I could escape, so playing music and singing and all of that. But yeah, art runs in our family. These two both love to draw and paint. Do you want to show your drawing?

Yes, please. You're beautiful. Your home is decorated so beautifully too. You're just a natural. You really— I could see it because I know the layout and I love it.

This is Theron.

Oh, Theron, hi! It's nice to meet you. I follow you on Facebook.

I see you. So he made— he, he's working on— what is this project for school? She said we have to make an imaginary company. Oh, to make an imaginary company. So his company is Hutter Wheels. We have all types of Hot Wheels cheap. And what I'm really proud of here is he just drew this by looking at a picture on the internet. It's the Lamborghini symbol.

Hatter Wheels, that actually could be a company, right?

So he's working— he did a business card because he's got to do a whole business plan and, um, his own website, like a mock-up of it. But that's what it— what he's been working on for school today.

Wait, how old is he?

Pretty cool. He's 11.

Oh my God, that is beautiful. That is really teaching them young, right? Does he have Hot Wheels?

Yeah, he loves Hot Wheels, so that's where I got it. I— he loves Lamborghinis. That was his thing. So for his last birthday in February, we had a Hot Wheels theme, and I put little Lamborghinis on his birthday cake, so he loved it.

Oh my gosh, I love— I can't believe that I move out and you move in. That's—

I know, it's—

and I really, really have to say, of all the places I lived, I thought that the Legends was one of the— I was just one of the— I loved it. I felt like when you shut the door, you feel like you're in a home. It was— it was quiet. Are you the first floor or the second floor?

We're on the first floor just because the kids are so loud. I wouldn't do that to somebody.

That's awesome.

Tell you the crazy adventure and why we're in an apartment?

No, yeah, I want to hear.

So in October, we had been renting this house for the last 3 years, and we're planning on either buying or building in the near future, but we just weren't ready to do that yet because we want to save up a pretty good down payment. And I had asked probably in May, the May prior, because our expiration was in October, if we could stay another 2 years. We negotiated everything. The property manager was not the greatest at communicating, and probably about 35 days before our lease expired, I'm asking again because 7 emails had gone ignored, can you please send me the information to get this moving? Because I really don't want to be, you know, moving last minute. My husband's gone all but 4 days in October with his job, and it would just be terrible timing. That's why I started early. And then I asked him once he sent it, you know, why does it take you months to respond to me? And immediately I got a response saying, you know what, on second thought, it sounds like you're not happy. Let's just go ahead and have you leave at the end of your lease. And so 35 days out, I'm scrambling. There's nothing on the market. And I have people that I know that still do property management. And so we ended up moving into an apartment. Because we couldn't find anything else. And it's been great and stuff, but it's going from like 3,500 square feet to 1,100 is quite dramatic. It is. And it's taken a lot of adjustment, but you know, we got rid of a lot of stuff we didn't need. It allowed us to get really lean in what we own and gave a lot of stuff away. But yeah, that wasn't in our plan, but current, you know, clearly we were meant to be here for whatever reason. And I think we've, We've enjoyed it. We definitely love having the pool and that kind of stuff, and then the area is super nice. We look forward to having a house again sometime in the near future.

It really— I thought it was beautiful. I just, just out of curiosity, did the property manager, uh, did they— do they have an animal in their name with their company?

No.

Okay. All right.

Because we ran into a very small company. But he was the broker and yeah, I'll leave it at that. It was not a good experience, but it kind of made me realize again, like the other side of what I used to do because I did high-end property management of that client experiment experience and really just treating people the way that you want to be treated.

Hi.

Oh my God, you're so pretty.

I see that.

Really pretty.

See that? I said to her, does she see it in the mirror? She's like perfect, isn't she? I know. And look at her hair. I mean, honestly.

So sweet. It's a—

no, we're honest. Sweet is nice because it's truthful. But like—

It's just because I put makeup on today. Usually, like, I look like a hot mess. I've got my magnetic eyelashes on. These things rock.

But I see all the pictures of you, and you're always so pretty, even when you're like that. Your smile is perfect too. She's really beautiful. So actually, I don't know if you recognize the behind, but she's in the Legends. Where we used to live. And she's got two— she's got an 11-year-old and, um, how old's your daughter?

She is 8.

So cute. And then a big, big cat that looks like a dog. I mean, big like a dog. Susie, it's a cat that's in the house. You see where the fireplace is? See how— see how about the fans, right?

It's not funny. You guys laughed and we moved in.

What, is your clubhouse open or do they close everything down?

No, everything's closed, the pool too. Like, it's so sad because, you know, this has been my reality of working from home, but new to a lot of people and being secluded and stuff. And it's sad to see so many people now have the time freedom they don't normally, but not being able to do any of the things that they would do if they had the extra time.

I know we said we're renting in Daytona Beach and it's quite beautiful in the pool and I love the grounds and but we're looking at— we'll probably rent a house because if this happens again, we really feel the loss of not being able to go to the clubhouse and the pool. And, you know, of course, yeah, those amenities to, to do it. But so my, my heart's in Tucson. My son Rudy lives there. So, and so he's sweet. He's 25. He's working hard. So he works at a medical dispensary. So they're quite nice. Yeah, he's awesome. And then I just love everyone. So now, are you friends with Diane Donato?

She's— I don't know. The name sounds familiar. I know a lot of people in Tucson from networking and stuff. So sometimes I'll remember the name or the face or vice versa, but sometimes not altogether.

I'm just thinking, because you would actually— that may be old water. You actually could be on TV. Like you have the ability to be a TV star. I know, but I'm curious. But you have a couple people in, in Tucson that really are making a living out of it. And so I'm just, I'm just saying. I know Abby's watching saying, yes, that's true. I like to see her.

I can't see who's watching. Hey Abby, she's—

I'm sure she is. She said she was going to. And Stacy Fowler, do you go to her, uh, Tucson Business Networking?

I haven't been able to go to that yet, but it is one on my radar because it is— they're like top-notch.

Yeah, and she does the Zoom calls on Thursday nights, so you can—

oh nice.

Yeah, go, go next time because it really is fun. She does a nice job with it. It's 8:30 my time, so last week I'm on at 5:30 going, what's going on? And then I realized, oh no, I gotta wait till 8:30, and I'm in bed at 8:30. So that was all— that's good for that.

Where is everybody?

It's so true. It's so true. I'm so glad that you took the time to, to talk to me and to like— I just get to see you, and I'm sorry to like if I'm embarrassing you, but you really are. I just love your face. So anyway, so let's get back together when we were talking about— for me, because I obviously— when does this come off?

Oh, stop, you're beautiful.

No, but it's okay. When does it come on? Is it— is this something that goes off first? Like, why does the neck seem to gain weight, or what is that purpose? What is the reason?

It could be partially inflammation and just that bloat and stuff. So people do normally see it come off in their face pretty quickly. So any of this area, I know that's where I lose my weight first too. Yeah. And I would be there in no time.

I thank you because I think right now too with, with everything going on that it's important to keep our inflammation down, right? Like to— I was saying earlier that we're pretty healthy ourselves as far as, you know, not getting sick and all of that. But yeah, and my husband too, he could, he could definitely—

I feel you.

He eats the chips like I don't understand. He doesn't know where the kitchen is, so I have to have little like— what's things that say here, here's the kitchen. And he's so not a gastrosexual, like he would not cook anything. And so when he's hungry, he goes for like chips. So I walked out there and he's eating a bag of chips with like the worst French onion, which who doesn't love French onion, and then cheese. And I'm like, you're double dipping, like literally double dipping with like two different dips. It's weird. So that's awesome.

Well, I've been there too. I'm totally a chip girl. Like I can't keep them in the house because I would— my daughter's shaking her head. I would eat the whole bag. And that's kind of like what I've learned in this whole process. The biggest change was here and really being able to develop some better habits and choosing different things. I'll still have chips every once in a while, but not to the extent that I did before because I know it's not going to make me feel good. I'm going to kind of beat myself up over it usually because we do that, right? Especially as women. And then I just know that it's not going to help me accomplish my goals. And I got big goals. I'm going to be 40 in almost exactly 6 months. So I'm October 18th. And my goal this year is to really take it up a notch, participating with some other coaches in my practice to go from good to great. So as good as I feel now, I want to be great and like the most fit that I've been in my whole life.

Oh, I love that. I will. I, I finally— I'm a stalker. I am your stalker. You know, there's no question. Hey, you know what, your trip to— your trip to Disney was kind of funny in a sad way. I'm sorry, I'm sorry, but can you share that story before you go? Because I— not that it's funny funny, but it was kind of funny in a sad— it was like you were so smart, so you were so excited to go, and then you like actually don't even let the kids know until they're in the car, and you like, okay, like they're going, and then, and then they're all like You were so tuckered out by the end of the day. Your daughter had a fever. Like, I was like, what was it like? What was going on?

Well, it was great. We totally surprised them because we went for the whole week of Christmas and it was their first time. So to kind of keep it off their radar and what we were doing, I had asked a couple months before, like, for Christmas break, since we didn't get to go anywhere for fall break since we're moving at the last minute. Um, if you guys could go anywhere, where would you want to go? And they're both thinking about it. I'm like, anywhere, think big, like what would you guys want to do? And so Theron goes, oh, I know, like, let's go bowling. How sweet is that? That's like his big, like, that'd be so much fun. So when we got him in the car, we had everything packed the night before, we, you know, while they were sleeping, so they didn't know we had suitcases and stuff. We told them we were going to go visit their dad at, um, uh, the airport because he's a firefighter there. So it was easy to get to the airport without any red flags or them being on to us or anything. So we went and visited him, and then we went to catch our flight, and they were then asking, you know, where are we going? Oh, Mommy found the best bowling alley in all of the United States, so we're going to go there. And when we got there, ironically enough, there was this pretty incredible bowling alley like walking distance from where we were staying. So we just went bowling and they thought that was it. That we took a plane to go bowling and then that we were gonna leave in the morning. So we were going exploring that following day and I asked Ember, I'm like, what should we do today? I don't know, where are all these people going? Because we stayed right by the park. I don't know, you want to follow them? Sure! So we're following them and I'm videotaping the whole thing. and you see Disney signs, it's on the trash cans, everyone's wearing ears. They're still oblivious. They had no idea until we're like literally walking in. Oh, this is Disneyland? Are we going in? Yes, we're going into Disneyland. Oh cool. Oh my God, you guys are so dense. Yeah, so we pulled off this surprise. Poor thing, she got really sick the last day that we were there. So had a fever and everything, and then our flight got delayed and she was just miserable. So we had some really good— I think the first 5 days were great, and then that last day was pretty miserable.

How long did that fever last that she had?

Um, I think it was gone within about 24 hours.

Phew, good, because scary. We didn't know anything about the COVID-19. Now you're all nervous about that. Yeah, that was cute. I actually thought to myself, you should be like putting this into Disney so they could see see how— you see like a story of how you fooled your kids. Because there was a year that Disney had a year of, um, they had a year of Disney Dreams or something. They were, they were, uh, wanting people to send in their stories of how they were, uh, maybe get a surprise for their kids. Actually, I'll tell you a really funny story and I'll let you go. Um, so we had in our office, we had a wonderful man named David, and at the time he was dating what was considered like a Disney ambassador. And so she had shared the story. This was the, the, um, Year of the Million Dreams. So you never knew where you were that you would actually have some kind of gifts bestowed on you. So maybe all of a sudden, like, it was all done by the, by the machines, but it would say, you know, oh, give this guest a free popsicle, or give this guest a free FastPass, whatever it is. So the story was a woman had gone through and she won the night stay in the castle, and it was everything you wanted. Like, if you wanted a milkshake at 2 o'clock in the morning and to ride the teacup, you could do that. And she said no. And so what he told me was that the staff followed her in the park to try to get her to understand that this was real and that she could go and get her kids. And she ended up refusing it because she really thought that it wasn't real. They tried the best that they could to get everyone involved to let her know that she had this a me— because that many people get to stay at the castle. So anyways, they could not give that gift to anyone else either. So they were—

oh no, they were all like skeptical and thought it was a scam, and they wanted—

they wanted her to be in it because then they could also be able to, um, to talk about that. That was part of the story. So they weren't able to— they had to say to her, if you don't go, we can't give it to anyone else. Like, we really kind of need you. But she still said no. So I always thought— I always keep that story close to heart because We used to live in Celebration, so literally we were like, when Alana was 3 months to when she was pretty much— but we moved around like when she was about 8 years old. But during that time, we would take the little World Drive into Disney and she would go to see Jack Sparrow because she had a crush on Jack. So we would get there for 4 o'clock, she'd do the tutorial, and then one day he said, Alana, come on up on stage. And I thought, oh, we really are going here a lot.

Because they all do her, right?

So we haven't been to Disney in years now because last time, you know, we just haven't gone. And I only live an hour there, but we have to, uh— I was thinking of going, but now this, so it's— anyways, I know, let's—

you know, it's a big deal, right, when, uh, Disney closes their doors. That's what got my attention was I was like, whoa, this is kind of scary because they don't do that.

I know. We were— when Alana and I were in Shanghai, we were— we wanted to go to Disney, but the problem was is that it wasn't so easy to get the tickets at Disney Shanghai because you had to buy them at a certain location. And then when you get to the park, if they— if you couldn't go in, you just couldn't go in. So you couldn't— there was no guarantee because they, they kind of closed it down so it's not so crazy. But they were closed for an awful long time, and then they opened back up wearing masks. My son is in Shanghai.

And so, see, oh, I didn't know that.

That's awesome. So once in a while I'll show— he has what's called Set For Set, S-E-T-F-O-R-S-E-T, and he is, uh, it's a workout with a mace, a steel, like, uh, steel rod with a ball at the end of it. And so, uh, really cool. He's got some great different exercises. And again, it's S-E-T-F-O-R-S-E-T. So he's in Shanghai and he just— it's amazing. So we were able to kind of go there and see him too, but This is a really cool— if you work out, it's a cool equipment. So there's, um, it's called Steel Mace Nation. So everyone that works on it, it's really— it's almost like it reminds me of, um, Color Guard because you're doing all these kind of like fun things, but it's very different. It's a whole nother workout called the Warrior Workout.

That sounds awesome. I'll totally have to look into it. But how proud are you of having like great kids that are doing amazing things?

Well, he said to me, Mom, you need to lose weight, so get on a program. So I guess that, that's the, uh, that's it. I'm almost there with, uh, with getting to the point where I can, uh, you know, afford it. So I'm excited about that. So it should just be very shortly that I'll be able to do that. So I'm looking forward to it because I don't like what I'm seeing. And I— yeah, and when— and that is really— this is like hard for me because I look at myself and I'm like, okay, scary. But it doesn't take away from like speaking with you and I love it. I'm so glad and thank you so much for coming and talking to me. And so my friends in Daytona Beach and all over can meet you and then, and then send me any of the information. I'll post it too so that if they are also looking to go on the weight loss journey with you in this program that you have, which is very cool, that would be nice.

Yeah. Anyone who's looking to improve their health overall for the long term. I would love to just even have a conversation with them, but I could totally talk to you all day. You're just amazing. And I was honored to have you ask me to do this. It's super fun.

It's so good. I'm going to meet you, and I look forward to meeting Misty. Misty, right? Wait, Misty. Yeah. Yeah. Her story touched my heart, but she also— I don't know if I would say the same thing to her. Her pictures of herself, she's a very beautiful woman. Absolutely beautiful. And I love the color of her hair and how I'm like— and so I just think to myself, does she realize how pretty she is? Like, she's, she's so cute. Like, like, you know, she's just adorable. All right, I will talk to you later. I'll shut up now. All right, good rest of the night. Have a great weekend.

You too. Thanks so much.

Thank you. Bye-bye. That was fun.