Aging with Vitality and Strength, with Dr. Sandra Scheinbaum @functionalmedicinecoaching

Hello and welcome back to the Feel Freaking Amazing podcast. Look who I dragged in today. We have an awesome guest today. It's Dr. Sandra Sheinbaum. She has devoted nearly four decades to clinical psychology. And Dr. Sheinbaum is renowned for her expertise in positive psychology, mind body medicine. She's also an author and host of the Health Coach Talk podcast that I was on a long time ago. And in collaboration with the Institute for Functional Medicine, she founded the Functional Functional Medicine coaching academy in 2014. So happy anniversary, Sandra. And it's shaping the future of holistic health hair care. So, Sandra, welcome. We're so excited to have you here today.

Oh, thank you, Wendy. I'm so excited to be here. Yes.

So I'm not on social a lot, but one day I was kind of flipping through and you pop up in my feedback and you're upside down, you're doing a handstand, and then you're lifting 50 pound plates. And if you've ever met Sandra in person, she is petite, very petite. Just cute and petite. And if you break five feet, I would be surprised. You're very petite and you're extremely powerful. And I think what was so inspiring to me is, you know, you referenced something like, at my age, you were talking about yourself. And really our premise is that you be vital, vibrant, healthy, alive, able, and interested in intimacy till you're at least a hundred. And every decade's meant to get better than the one before. And you really personify this. And so I was hoping you could tell us how you got into strength training, because we'll show a clip on the YouTube video, but it's pretty powerful. Sure.

Well, I was never into strength training, and I regret that. But I grew up in an era where women did not strength train. I didn't even exercise. I was the worst person, you know, I was that one that nobody wanted on their teams for basketball. The last one, I was a nerd. And I just. I was comfortable studying any sports. Forget it. And I never thought of myself as athletic through high school, through college, when I started out many, many years ago as a teacher in special education, then became a psychologist, then formed, founded the school to train health coaches. And it was in the 80s, I would say, when Jane Fonda aerobics were big and I had all the cute leg warmers and striped leotards. I had a whole wardrobe. So I would do the aerobic glasses. And in this particular gym at that time, there were nautilus machines. And so we would go around sometimes before the class was starting, the aerobics class. I would do some of the machines but had no idea what I was doing. And never to the degree where I would build muscle. It was just going through the motions. And then I was, I did a lot of dance and I still take ballet and I take tap classes. And so I was naturally drawn to yoga, to Pilates. And it wasn't until I really started about, I would say maybe five years ago. And so that was when I was, you know, turning around 69, 70 and, and just thought really preserving muscle is so, so important. And so I just became very committed to that. And during the pandemic when as I had been going to a gym and working with that seriously at that point, but when I was at home, I just started building a home gym. One of the best things I started to do was push ups and decided, okay, if I can't go to the gym and do any training there, I can do body weight exercises. So I started doing pushups and just kept it going. And so I was up to, I could do 300 a day. And then, you know, how many can I do to failure? And in fact, there was just a study that came out that showed the number of pushups you can do is better at predicting your chances of having a heart attack than actually your LDL cholesterol. It was.

So I'm going to be videotaping Wendy doing pushups now just so I can't do pushups yet.

I've been working on it, but for.

Some reason the muscles are working right.

Okay, when you started, did you, could you do a full on push up when you started?

When I started, I could not get to the ground. I could not do a full pushup. I was, I can get to the.

Ground, I just can't get back up.

So I started with one and then I was really excited when I can do five. So now every day I incorporate these. I do yoga every morning and I incorporate these. They're chaturanga pushups or yoga where your elbows are against your side. And so I see how many I can get to and it varies because how we feel is different every single day. But I can usually I just go to absolute exhaustion where I can't do one more. And so I can get to 15 once I've got up to 17. And then during the day I will find another time and I will continue to do pushups and my record is going up to 70 and then I'll rest for like 10 seconds and then I'll try. I do 100 every day and then I have a TRX at home, which is great, and I do pull ups on the trx. So I do exercise snacks throughout the day and it's just non negotiable. It's like brushing my teeth. I just find ways to incorporate this throughout the day. One of the things that has been really helpful is using something called a tonal, which I invested in.

That's the only thing I wanted to get.

What I love about tonal is that you can increase the weight in one pound increments. Because often, like I'll go to the gym and these machines, first of all, they're not built for women and certainly women my size. So it is very tough because you have to increase. It has to be like a five pound increase or sometimes even ten pound. And if you can't get there, then you can't go up efficiently. So I love the tonal because I can go up in one pound increments and then there are just certain machines. I just decided I was going to see how far I can do. So leg press I will do every other day or every third day and see how far I can get. It was interesting. So I have gotten up to £350 on the leg press. And so I. What happened was.

You're a badass.

The fitness director happened to be walking by and he stopped because I was just resting and doing leg presses. And he looked at the weight I had stacked and it was 150 pounds. And he said, boy, that's a lot of weight for you. What I didn't tell him was that was my warmup set. That was like I was just starting. And full disclosure, there are different ways to do leg presses. And so I can get to £350 if I have the seat moved a little farther back. If my legs are right up against my body, then, you know, I can, it's. I can't do that strong of a weight. So I, I try different, different ways. But I always like to challenge myself. It's like. Which I never did in my earlier days. So I would do, you know, 10, you know, sets of 12. Okay, I'm done. But now. Oh, I can. I'm gonna try with. I'm gonna add five pounds and see, and even if I can barely move it, that's what my understanding is that it's that to exhaustion, like you go where I can't move it anymore. So that's what I've been doing. But just all day long, my whole day is movement. So I'm sitting on a bouncy ball. Right now I have my hand grippers because grip strength is one of the. It's so important. So often during meetings, I'm just working on grip strength. So just try and incorporate throughout the day.

There's a lot to unpack in what you just said. Okay. Because you're a health coach and you coach the health coaches. And so I'm imagining that a lot of what you're coaching people on is mindset, right? And, and, and I always add that word yet. And our kids are not, you know, we're married, right? Like, that's my husband and my partner.

So we're.

I don't allow the kids to say, I can't do that. You can say, I can't do it yet, or I haven't mastered it yet, or I don't know how to do it yet. But you always have to add yet. So your brain knows that there's an opportunity and a possibility as opposed to. That's just the way it is. Suck it up, buttercup. Right? Like, you have to keep growing so you have a growth mindset. That's one thing I notice. And then the other thing that's really poignant for me is I think like a week ago I had an hour to get to the gym, get changed, workout, and get back to a meeting. And I was like, am I going to do this or should I just stay and do my portals and do my emails? And I was like, no, anything is better than nothing and everything we do makes a difference and it doesn't have to be perfect. So I went and I worked out and then I was like, oh, cool, I sweated, you know, so there's something about working it in. Right? You said exercise bites, that, that it, it can occur. It doesn't have to be this big thing where you go, get strong, you just do it as you can. And then the third thing that you said, that was brilliant. I'm all, I work with two trainers at the Y down the street and I'm always fetching at them. Like, these weights are made for men. These weights go in five and ten pound increments, and women really should be in like two pound increments. And just based on the amount of testosterone and our strength innately. And. And he's like, I know, but what can I do? So they hand weights that are two and a half pound increments. So that's been great. So in the last year, I've been able to double my weights, but it is hard to go from five pounds to ten For a curl, I can go from five to seven and a half and then seven and a half to ten. So I'm at ten now. But I wasn't there when I started. So there is definitely something about pushing yourself and getting, getting increments going. So that's pretty cool. And I really want to tonal. We want a total. And then I was like, oh, I only know one person who uses it. They love it. But. But when you're talking about strength costing.

Us money, Sandra, Right.

You gotta spend money to save money. I'm sure there's a sale going on.

Right?

So. So I think that's really poignant. And can you talk a little about when did you become someone with a growth mindset and how do you train your coaches to do that?

Sure. Well, I was someone who had the opposite of a growth mindset. I was a failure mindset. I was in, in high school and colle. I would, I studied excessively because I probably have adhd. I thought I had learning disabilities. So I was like just so focused on not failing. But I was always convinced I was going to fail. And what I was fortunate to have the privilege of training with Dr. Albert Ellis, who is one of the fathers of cognitive behavior therapy, where you learn to catch these catastrophic thoughts, these irrational thoughts. I was a professional at doing that. I was so good at saying, oh, something would happen, I'd have a setback. This is awful. This can't be happening. My day is ruined, my life is ruined. And it was all very much negative kind of thinking. I had panic attacks, a lot of anxiety, worrying about the outcome. And by combining positive psychology, which at the time I was practicing, didn't have a name yet, that didn't happen until the mid-90s. We're talking like starting to do this back in the late 70s, early 80s, and the idea of focusing on what's right with you rather than what's wrong with you. And that's what I did when I was testing a lot of kids with learning disabilities. And I always focused on their strengths, which was. I was an anomaly because it was mostly what's broken with you. So that's how I started to look at what my own well being and how, gee, you know, how can I shift this? And so that idea that you can take a thought like, oh, it's all over, this is hopeless. I' never, I'll never gain strength. For example, I can't build muscle. I'm too old for that. And wait a minute. And so reevaluating a lot of it is learning perspective. A lot of it is, as you say yet. And you have this big, audacious goal. Like, my goal is to do an unassisted pull up and every time I move an inch closer, I celebrate that. So it's that celebratory, like, yes, I did it, and focusing there. And also the ability to look at. Each day is different, each moment to moment. And so you can change, you can change your emotional state. And so instead of saying, oh, I have to go to the gym or I don't have the energy to work out, well, this is going to feel so great. I will feel so great after I've done it. And also it's habit, and that's in terms of coaching. So we train our coaches to help with change when change is hard, and changing habits is so hard. But when working out becomes a habit, it's like, I don't think about it. I get up, I wash my face, I brush my teeth, and I immediately then go to my yoga mat and I start every day with a headstand and handstands and splits and these are poses that I know if I don't do this on an everyday basis, I will lose it. Lose it or lose it. It feels good. Yeah.

I have a couple questions. You know, I haven't let you talk at all, by the way. Jump in whenever you want.

Right.

So tell me if this is too personal. Okay, you don't have to answer this. When you started versus now, is your body different?

Yes.

Can you speak to that?

Yeah. Oh, yeah. So I never had glutes, I never had a butt. And I always thought, oh, good, you know, like, you can't be too thin and, yeah, I could wear a size double zero pants. And. Yeah.

And.

And as I started learning more and more, and a lot of it is due to Dr. Gabrielle Lyon, muscle Centric Medicine. And as I started getting into my late 60s and now in my 70s, I'm so focused on avoiding sarcopenia because I see it happen in all my, just about all my contemporaries, friends that I have been friends with for a long, long time. And I can see they are losing muscle. Except those who are working out, who are committed to resistance training. And so the, so the idea that I could start building. And so I, I now have a butt. And I actually like, those double zero pants don't fit so well. And in the old days, like in when I was 30, that would have been a bad thing. Oh, I better go on a diet. You know, I better do something because it was all about that bad appearance. And now I like, I love to feel like, no, I have, like, my thighs are. Are really strong and. But I can see a difference physically as well as well as my arms. So I see your arms, I don't.

See your tush, but I see your arms. And I'm like, your arms look amazing.

Back in, when I was in my 30s, I remember I was in the gym with a friend of mine at the time, and we were just walking around the track, probably waiting for our Jane Fonda, like, aerobics start. And she said something to me, which wasn't very nice, but she said, you have no definition in your arms, which was true at the time. So I was in my 30s at the time. Now, fast forward. I'm 74, and I've actually built muscle and I track it through the scales where you can track skeletal muscle mass. And I look at when I had it tested. The first time I started tracking it was in 2016. And from then to. To. To now, I've put on like seven pounds of muscle. So.

So I wanted to double clip on a couple of things. One, yeah, I just want to make sure everybody knows definition of sarcopenia, which you later stated, which is muscle loss and happens very commonly as we get older. So that's. And one of the best predictors of longevity is muscle mass. So that just to be clear, and then the other thing that you're really highlighting and I think when you said, but I really want to double click on this is it's never too late. Like, you're actually, you're. You're better now than you were. And not only that skinny. Fat is just being skinny does not mean you're in good shape. Like, if you have no muscle and just all of that, that is just fat. It's actually worse for you from a health point of view than being. Having extra weight on you, but having muscles underneath. So I want to really highlight how important muscle mass is.

Yeah.

Thank you.

Yeah, absolutely. That is what I'm committed to. I mean, frailty is just so, so dangerous.

So we even haven't even talked about the bones benefit.

All I was just about to go there, right?

Like. Yeah.

So I was gonna ask if you're willing to share, did you do anything in addition, like, when you started doing weights, did you also start to do eat more protein or take testosterone or take any type of peptide or is there anything else you've augmented with? Because from the outside, I'm like, oh, okay, well, I'm gonna go do that right Is there anything that rounds it out and obviously work with your trainer and work with your doctor and blah blah, blah. But do this isn't medical advice. I'm more just like how. What else did you do to give a full picture of everything?

Yeah. So I have been really have followed so many diet trends. If you were in my kitchen and see all the cookbooks, oh, here's the fat free. Here's the, you know, it was in.

The 90s, the fat free 90s.

Before that I had the macrobiotic, you know that diet and the veg. I read Diet for a New Planet or Die for New America and no more meat, no more chicken and then eventually no more fish. And I was a vegan. I was a raw vegan. I didn't know how bad I felt. I remember going to a dance class I could barely in. Dance classes are always upstairs this long stairway could barely make it because what I would do, I would get up in the morning and I would grab going to class. I was with my daughter, she was homeschooled as an actress. I was accompanying her and I would take the classes as well. We'd grab a bag of carrots or a banana and think oh that's great, that's. So I did 180 degree turnaround in the last few years. Really appreciated. I first of all started eating meat a lot and focusing on high quality protein. A lot of protein. And I do supplement. I use essential amino acids during workouts. Creatine is absolutely something that's part of my routine. Neurolytic.

Do you do it before your workout or during your workout or after your workout? When do you do your creatine?

Yeah, I usually do it in between since I'm like always working out. So the only thing I have to do fasted is my yoga inversions. There's nothing worse than. And I've experienced this sometimes being in a yoga class. Like a hot. You can't eat for me at least I can't have anything for like at least three, four hours and even then. So I like to get up and on an empty stomach. That's where I will do my handstands and that yoga practice and then I will have a power smoothie and I'll put the creatine in there and and then do strength training sometime like midday or, or around noon before lunch and then have a big, a big lunch with lots of protein. And I follow the advice of J.J. virgin and Gabrielle Lyon and it's like I try and get at least 30 grams with each. Each meal. So I aim for 100 grams of protein.

That's a lot of protein. I'm always proud when I get like 15, 20. And it's hard.

Sometimes it can be hard. Yeah. Yeah. And I prioritize protein and a lot of things. We teach a lot about nutritional psychology and there's so many gender differences in how people eat. And if I was thinking about this because I was at a luncheon a few months ago and what's on the menu, I've never been to a ladies luncheon, fundraising, a bridal shower where they served anything but like a dainty salad with maybe some chicken strips on it. But never, like, it would be unheard of to have like a big steak, you know, but yet guys go out and they're going to order that big steak. So there's a lot of gender differences that are very deep seated that may have messages that were passed on from, you know, our mothers, for example, or grandmothers and how we eat. But also the be the sense that, you know, protein is bad for you. I have a lot of people who are like in my age group who we go out to dinner and again, they're like under a salad with like two shrimp on it and like. And then that's not enough and where's the beef? Yes, exactly.

What were you going to say? You were going to say something.

No, I was. I was going to actually go back a little bit to coaching, but I don't want.

Yeah, before we, before you go to coaching. So. So interestingly, I was sitting next to Tim, JJ's husband, at an event and he was flat out bullying me. He was like, you need more protein. You need to get more protein. I was like, dude, I'm full. He's like, I don't care. You need to eat more protein. And he sat there while I was like, okay, I'll get it in. But it was. Sometimes it was. He said, you just have to train yourself to eat more protein.

Yes.

Because I just, I got full. And he said, just a few more bites. A few more bites is like 10 grams of protein. So get that in you. And so I did. So I've been really mindful of that. But it can be challenging.

It can be really challenging. But that is something that I, I found. I will eat the protein first. And it's the first thing I will consider is like, how am I going to. And plan it out throughout the day and then supplements. So I use whey protein. I'll put that in my smoothie. I'll start out with I usually sheep's milk yogurt as opposed to cow's milk yogurt. And so that'll be the base of my smoothie many days. And I'll then add a good whey protein concentrate and sometimes even more. So a few months ago I broke my fifth metatarsal bone in my foot, so I was out of commission. And so my first thought, talk about negative thinking, like, this is awful. I'm going to waste away, I'm going to lose all my muscle. I'm not going to be able to work out out. But I was determined to have a good outcome and to not lose strength. So what I did was I immediately googled what exercises can you do. I had this boot, but I was okay, I'll do push ups like knee with bent knees. And I got okay, I can do those every day. I can do all the things. The bench was my best friend. I was doing all the upper body exercises on bench core exercises like crazy. But my protein, I figured, figured I need to really increase that to have good bone repair. So I was eating like so much protein and other supplements for that. So luckily when I got right back to it, I hadn't lost muscle mass, which I was really afraid of. And also cardio as well, because I wasn't doing my walking or high intensity interval training with this boot on, but doing the best I was doing rowing that worked with one foot.

You do hormones too or no?

So I was of the generation that was so scared by the Women's Health Initiative. It's going to kill you. You're going to get breast cancer. Stop. I had never considered because I luckily went through menopause with no hot flashes or symptoms. I just. Or if I had them, I just, I. My work at the time was as a psychologist, a health psychologist, and I help people through imagery. And so whenever I started to feel hot, I would just focus on, it'll feel so good to like be in cool water. I would create images of the exact opposite of what was happening, what I wanted. And that really worked very well. So I never felt I needed hormones at the time. And just lately I thought, I wonder because we just interviewed Dr. Felice Gersh for the podcast and I think the thinking has really turned around in terms of bioidentical hormones. So I just started a trial. So you're like, oh my gosh, I'm 74. Like the age when you're supposed to, that's out of the range. But the thinking is, well, maybe not. So it's an adventure. And it's curiosity, which is the. As you get older, what people lose. That is the most dangerous thing to lose is curiosity. Love of learning. I hear people say all the time, I just heard someone the other day was my contemporary, well, I have my friends. I don't need to go out and make new friends. I have my set of friends. As opposed to, it'll be great to learn to meet new people and have these new connections or curious about trying new things. What it would be like if I did go to the gym and start weight training. I wonder how I would feel. So we lose that curiosity and turn more inward. And so it's important to fight against that, to maintain that, because all learning starts with curiosity. Like, oh, I wonder what I want to learn that. And so it's a real important strength to keep.

How do you train the coaches to work with people on that?

Yeah, so this comes from positive psychology. So a big part of our curriculum is positive psychology. And a big part of positive psychology is a study of character strengths. And so it might be that it's the questions that coaches ask. Was there a time when you really enjoyed learning something and you were in such an engaged state of flow that you really love that process? And they might think back, yeah, I remember what it was like when I was in third grade and school started and I got a new notebook and opened that new book, and I was excited about learning new things. And then draws the conversation back to, well, how can you take that now? Or conversation about wanting to live life now for your future self. And people might say, well, it sucks to get old. And I just see doom and gloom ahead, as opposed to having that vivid picture of playing with grandkids or whatever it is that is going to matter most to you. You.

I just want to pause for a minute. Sandra, I'm sorry for interrupting you, but something you said I just really want to highlight. I disagree 100% that it sucks to get old. I think what sucks is to be aged. But the aging itself is not the problem. It's the mindset and the behaviors that come along with expecting to fail, but aging itself. Like, I'm so much happier now than I was in my teens, 20s, 30s, and even 40s.

I keep.

Someone said to me, I'm turning 50. I'm like, you're gonna love it. It's so much better than the 40s and the 30s. And so I just think that that mindset of it's not the aging, it's the aged.

I love that. And that is exactly my perspective because I love how I feel right now. I have energy, I love what's to come in terms of things I'm looking forward to. And so when I hear my, you know, be with people who are my friends, my contemporaries and they're all sitting around talking about what aches, what. And I remember my mother who, she said she would hate it. I hate being with all the ladies. All they do is talk about what's bothering them and she would always try to change the conversation. And that's what I do now I really have to have a boundary. I want to support them, but not to the point where I am part of that kind of thinking. And it takes work to have that. When you hear someone in that kind of very negative states to focus on and it's your self talk to say, well, it's not the same experience for me. I might not say that to them overtly. They won't be my friends anymore. But that's my thought. And also I like being with younger people. That's why I'm you know, involved in like we are both in mindshare. Well, I'm probably one of the oldest people. I am one of the oldest people in the group. Many other events like that where I would be the oldest person, I think take classes. I'm going to a pilates class later today and by far I could be the grandmother of most of the people in that class. But I like the energy of being with younger people.

I think you really, you keep highlighting things that I want to keep unpacking. So we always sit with, you know, the future you live into is, is guiding your day to day behavior. So if your expectation is you're going to be old, decrepit, hunched and beaten down and have no reason to be here, that's what you're going to do now. Right. Because there's no reason to expand and grow. But if you believe that you're meant to be vital, vibrant, healthy, able and interested in intimacy and grow and expand and make a difference forever, that's going to drive your behavior today too. So the thing about a powerful future, what's so powerful about a powerful future is that it actually does change your behavior right now and it can be negative or positively powerful. Right. You can, you can have. Sounds like some of your friends are in the aged category and they're focusing on how little hope there is because they have no future. That's inspiring them.

Absolutely. I think having a meaning and purpose in life is so, so important. So having what I Do at functional medicine coaching Academy. This mission to train health coaches to. Our world is such. So chaotic. There are. People are getting sicker and sicker, as you know, and health coaches can be really insecur. Instrumental in guiding them through lifestyle change. So that's my mission, and so that is a big part of helping to thrive personally, because that mission for me is just beginning, and I want to be able to help so many people have better quality of life through health coaching. So I love my work. And often people retire at my age and they lose that or they end up sitting all day and even, you know, like, plate. I'm an assemble because I don't play. I don't play cards. I don't play canasta or mahjong. And that's the primary activity. Most of my friends and one of the reasons that I. I never liked cards. Neither did my mother, actually, and. But I don't want to be sitting that long. I would have spilkes. I would be like, I gotta get up. I gotta. This one has spilke. Yeah.

For the listener, spilkes is like, you gotta move.

You gotta go somewhere.

You can't sit still. You're on the go. This one has it. You have it. I'm gonna sit all day and read a book. I'm happy to do that. But I am gonna get the hand grip thing. Cause I do think hand grip is. Is critical. My trainer is making me do farmer's carries, and I'm up to £30.

Oh, that's great.

And by the end, I'm like, you know how when you were kids, someone would say, like, squeeze my hand, and you would do that. Your hand would freeze in one spot. That's how my hands are at the end. But I do think I'm getting stronger. Have yet to get more cut, but I'm getting stronger.

So I have.

Strong is good, right? I have a weird question. Are there ever people who come into the coaching program with you and you're like, no, sorry, no, you can't stay. Are there people who, like, get kicked out?

Our program is 12 months, and it's nurturing and it's personal transformation as well as professional. So they meet in cohort groups. Groups for two hours a couple times a month. And they learn to coach. But they are coached themselves. And it's that part that is so key. So they may come in with expectations of what a coach does. Like, oh, I'm gonna provide meal plans for people. I'm going to interpret their labs. Well, you didn't go to medical school for that. You didn't have that kind. That's not what a coach does. It's more the. You inspire people to change, you focus. That's the power. Why it's so powerful. But we get a lot of people who are from healthcare. We have a lot of medical doctors training with us and they have the hardest time, they have a hard time because they're like the doctor dictator. Okay, I have the plan for you. This is what's wrong. Basically just do it. And so they have to unlearn that to learn the coach approach, which is very, very effective if they choose to become a coach. If they are continuing to practice medicine, let's say they are more effective in guiding their patients to. But it is a learning process of undoing and as opposed. It's like not telling people, but it is asking the right questions and it's client centered because health coaching comes from humanistic psychotherapy. And so that is where that unconditional positive regard, client centered approach comes from. And so it is very much being able to appreciate that person you are working with that they have the ability to change. And you are helping them to feel empowered to make those choices that will improve their health status. So yes, we have never had people we kick out, but they learn. They learn a new way of being both personally and professionally.

Yeah, I mean my question was really partly you answered but it's really like we. What can we say to those people that have. Don't have that growth mindset that really start starting from. No, I'm. Oh, it's. I'm 50 years old. I'm supposed to lose my sex drive and have muscle aches and blah blah, blah. Like that's 90% of people that come in. Part of what we do is we give them a future. Like no, that's not really supposed to be that way. That, that's, that is common, but it's not necessarily optimal. Nor do you really want to view your life that way.

Yeah.

And there are still people that are just. Yeah, that's nice. Thanks for sharing.

Well, you can't open a closed mind, but you can give people possibility who are open to it and want it. But if they're not open open, then they probably don't wind up in our practice. Honestly, they're not a good match. But I do think it's. But yeah. What do you say?

Yeah. So you work with them at whatever stage of change they're at. And some are just perfectly content with where they are. Think of Homer Simpson. No, just preconcept no desire. But some are contemplating. And I think you can work with people at any stage. And I've seen it. And it is really showing having to remove your own biases, which is so hard as a coach or as the practitioner to really appreciate this person right now, even if they don't change one bit. And then you ask them kind of, what. What would they want their health for? Suppose if you had more energy, what would you like to do do in your life? What matters to you? What gives you such joy that you would want to wake up every morning and do that thing? And they might say something that appeals to them. Well, I'd like to go out and play golf more. Or I would like to. Usually it has to do with family. I want to be around to see my granddaughter get married or my daughter, my son. I want whatever it might, might be. And then, so then you backtrack and you know, well, and you can state, you know, well, people who, you know, there's a lot of research now. There's a lot of evidence, and I've seen it personally, that somebody who gets out and walks every day can get a lot of energy back. What are your thoughts about that? And, you know, and would that be interesting to you? You know, would you like to talk more about how that you could work that into your day and so whatever they come back with, then you would continue that conversation. Well, it's hard. Well, how. And then how could it become easier for you? On a scale of 1 to 10, how likely if it would be like just walking around the block, how likely would you be to do that? If we could say you'd feel better afterwards. Words. Are you interested in doing a little experiment about that? And they might say, well, I guess. Okay, well, let's focus on how you can start. When would you want to start that? Do you have shoes, do you have walking shoes that are comfortable? And you can really keep dialing it down to maybe then your big goal, the first goal is they're going to get a better pair of shoes that won't hurt their feet when they're walking. And so, you know, and that would be a gain that would. And then let's start with five minutes. Can you do five minutes? Oh, I can do probably 10 minutes. And then might come back and say, well, I felt good doing that. Well, what are your thoughts about upping it to 20 minutes?

That's great.

It sounds really cool, like you've applied this to yourself too. I don't know if you started with yourself and then got into coaching. But it sounds you started the coaching much before you. You transformed yourself. So it's almost like you got the benefit of transforming your thought process for others and then it applied to yourself, which is just fascinating. So there's always these collateral benefits that happen that you don't even expect.

Absolutely, yeah. Because the coaching curriculum was from my almost 40 years of working and I was doing stress management, like stress management for teachers back. I found my old notes a few days. A few years ago, back in the 70s, in 1975, I had written an article about, you know, breathing techniques. We didn't call it breath work, that was not a term back then. But yeah, quieting techniques, relaxation, breathing, thought changing. And you put it all together and you integrate it and so it's very, very powerful. And so it's. I apply all of that personally and I always told people I don't. I'm not going to teach you anything. We're not going to focus on anything that I haven't found to be helpful myself.

I never refer to anyone unless I've tried it myself. Basically. Yeah, I'm like, I want to try it out. So I'm the. I'm the human guinea pig. Try everything.

Yeah. No, I'm just thinking as you were talking, different stages of change. I have a patient that I literally talked Bluetooth to face. He's diabetic and really great guy. I've been talking to him for probably five years and nothing changes except got him to where CGM continuous glucose monitor. And things changed almost instantly.

He needed the data.

He needed the data.

Oh, that's fantastic. Yes.

It's like some people need different things to motivate them. He just needed to see it.

He needed to see the negative impact of what he was doing.

I told them the same thing hundreds of times before, but he needed to see the data. So yeah, everybody needs. Comes from a different place and needs a different. That's pretty cool conversation that we tried motivational interviewing, not motivational.

Yeah, I love that. And yeah, it's. It's personalized. This work is. Is. You know what? It doesn't. It's not a one size fits all. And some people like the data and then on the other end, some people might be overwhelmed, they might freak out by all the data and it might working in reverse.

Had a few of those too.

Yeah, right.

No CGMs for them, but CGMs for him. So first off, I would highly recommend people go to. You said it was on Instagram. I feel like it must have been Instagram that I was scrolling through. But where can people find you? Sandra?

Sure. Well, our website is functional medicine coaching.org Instagram. My personal Instagram is Dr. Sandy S A N D I and a functional med coach also on Instagram. And those are probably the best ways. We're also on Facebook as well and.

We'Re going to post the clip of you upside down and lifting crazy heavyweights. But if they want more, they can go follow you directly. So from both of us and all the listeners who I'm hoping are inspired by you, because I'm inspired by you, thank you for being here. It's really a pleasure to have you on and I can't wait to see how many people you inspire. You're really truly inspirational, Sandy. So thank you.

Well, thank you. Thank you for having me.

New people of equipment.

We're going to get a tonal some point.

Thanks Andrew.

So thanks and to the listeners, thanks for joining us for another episode of the Feel Freaking Amazing podcast. And as always, we look forward to talking to you next time.