Your physical appearance is important to you; it’s something we all take pride in. But I think it’s more important that our body is a direct reflection of how we treat ourselves on the inside. Today’s guest, Bree Argetsinger, also known as The Betty Rocker, is all about practicing self-love from the inside out.
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Bree is a certified Exercise Coach, certified to help you realign your body through manual therapy, and ISSA (International Sports Sciences Association) certified fitness nutrition practitioner. But more than this, she’s an incredibly motivating woman who has been through it all. When Bree was in her early 30s, she burned out her adrenal glands and has spent years learning how to correct them.
The Betty Rocker promotes a natural approach to diet, one that includes plenty of whole foods that will help you feel fuller for longer. It can be overwhelming when faced with so many good choices, and many women struggle with this. But through making those healthy food choices and realigning our bodies through corrective exercise, we are well on our way to a better body. Bree actually promotes sitting on the floor while working… or more specifically, working from a variety of positions when you can. We’re not meant to stay still all day!
As a survivor of assault, Bree understands what it’s like to work through these emotions, which are especially prevalent during perimenopause. Women need to build a strong community around them to help through any and all the emotions that come up during these tough periods of our lives.
Bree explains what types of exercise we should be doing every day. And she gives us some special insight into what the perfect burpee should look like - spoilers: I’ve been upping my burpee game based on it. If you’ve been seeking preventative healthcare, such as chiropractic or physio, it’s probably not enough. You should also be addressing the muscular movement patterns and improving your bone strength and health.
Lastly, self-care, self-love, and embracing “flawsome” is a huge part of Bree’s message and training. It’s so important for all aspects of our health to love ourselves and take good care of our mind, body, and soul.
Have you ever felt paralyzed by all the good choices you can make? Do you know how to handle previous emotional or physical trauma? What type of exercise really gets you going?
In This Episode:
- How you can burn out your adrenal glands
- What kind of whole foods you should be including in your diet
- How we can be overwhelmed with good food choices
- How you can realign your body through corrective exercises
- Why you should sometimes sit on the floor when you’re working
- How physical assault can manifest itself in perimenopause
- Why you need to build a strong community around you
- What EMDR is and how it can help you reconnect with yourself
- What one movement you can do every day to get into your body
- How to do the perfect burpee
- Why you need to address your muscular movement patterns along with preventative healthcare
- Why self-love is so important in all your health journeys
- What it means to embrace “flawsome”
Subscribe to Couch Talk w/ Dr. Anna Cabeca on Youtube
Quotes:
“I think it’s very natural, as women and men, to take pride in our appearance. And so, I don’t think it’s wrong to care about your ascetics at all. I think that how we look and feel is a by-product of how we treat ourselves.” (17:12)
“Consistency matters. If you don’t take action, something small, each day, it makes a difference.” (18:39)
“Working on our physical body is a gateway to working on our mind, our spirit, all of the things.” (23:05)
“The body doesn’t exist in a vacuum. You can’t look at one organ and say that everything [wrong] is because of this organ, you can’t look at one system of the body and think that it doesn’t affect all the other systems.” (41:09)
“Everything is connected. You need to get to the root cause of what’s causing the weight gain, what’s causing the issues. Find a way to love yourself so that you can think about things from an empowered place. You can help uplift the people around you. It’s pretty much everything. You have to be willing to be honest with yourself if you’re going to be asking people to be honest with themselves.” (41:37)
“I’m going to create my own version of awesome and I’m gonna represent it, and I’m gonna love myself as hard and as fiercely as I love my best friends.” (45:56)
Links
Join the free Make Fat Cry 30 Day Challenge!
Find Bree Argetsinger on Facebook | Instagram | YouTube | Pinterest
Join the KetoGreen Community on Facebook
Transcript
Bree:
We think we can only be worthy of love when we have our career dialed in or we make $1 million, or we marry the perfect person, or we don't have cellulite or some bull crap that just is simply not true. It's an idealized image. I don't know who idealized these stupid images in the first place, but they did it to sell products that I don't need. So I'm going to create my own version of awesome, and I'm going to represent it and I'm going to love myself as hard and as fiercely as I love my best friends.
Dr. Anna Cabeca:
Welcome to Couch Talk. Here I am, Dr. Anna Cabeca. Grateful to be with all of you today as we really get into a deep discussion of connecting our body, mind, and spirit. With one of the world's best fitness trainers, therapists, and coaches that I have ever met in my life. And you know I need some really amazing people. Well, I'm thrilled to introduce you today to Bree Argetsinger. She's also known as the Betty Rocker and Bree for short. So she is amazing. She's a check certified health coach. She's a nationally certified, structural integration practitioner and ISSA certified fitness nutrition practitioner. She has just an amazing history and has an audience of over 2 million people that have taken her challenge, Make Fat Cry challenge. And that's amazing. We're definitely offering that to our audience today and encouraging you to get to know Bree and her community. And as we hit some sensitive topics, I mean, today we're going to hit on the exercise that we can do that will make the biggest fitness change in our life. We're also going to hit on some emotional experiences that we may have had that keep us from achieving our goal. And what are the ways that we can overcome even our biggest challenges, whether they be physical, mental, emotional, or spiritual? So join me in this special Couch Talk, and I introduce you to Bree Argetsinger, the Betty Rocker. Here we go.
Dr. Anna Cabeca:
Welcome, Bree. It is beautiful to have you here. I've been so looking forward to spending this time together with you. So welcome.
Bree:
Thank you so much for having me. I've been looking forward to it too.
Dr. Anna Cabeca:
Well, I tell you, I'm one of your Instagram fans. I love the imagery, the quotes, the inspirations that you put forth. So you are really like your own brand of fitness guru, spiritual, feminine, connected, energetic, and heartfelt heart-centered. So tell us a little bit about how you became you. How'd you become the Betty Rocker?
Bree:
Oh my gosh. Well, I thank you for seeing all of the different aspects of me just from looking at my Instagram. That means a lot. I also am a huge fan of you. I have loved your book and sharing you with my audience. You're just an amazing force for good and for women. Thank you so much for all the things you do. It's funny you probably heard the name the Betty Rocker and you were like, "What is this?" It's funny because I got called punk rock Betty Crocker growing up a lot because I was always a little bit of a wild child and at the same time I had this very nurturing side. I loved baking and I love taking care of people. And I especially liked noticing when someone had a challenge around something in specific and helping them find a solution that also helped them reach their goal. So I first really got into the specialty baking when I was working with motorcycle racers and had many of the guys asking me, I was actually a structural integrationist for many years. I was realigning their bodies and I was working at racetracks. And I loved that-
Dr. Anna Cabeca:
[crosstalk 00:03:57] structural integrationalist means.
Bree:
Okay. It's a form of manual therapy. It's hands-on, a lot of trigger point work, a lot of mile fascial release. A lot of in my toolkit, I also had a lot of sports stretching and prescriptive exercises to give. I find out that I have a lot in common with a lot of the PTs that I work with and also technically trained massage therapists as well who have more manual therapies, sort of kinesiology background because that's what my sort of background was in coming into this aspect of taking care of the body.
Bree:
And as I was taking care of these guys, they were often asking me for specific eating tips because they would see me come to the race track with this cooler packed with healthy food, and I was eating all day long taking care of myself to keep my energy up. I was walking on these guys. I was pretzeling them up, moving them around. There was this saying at the race track always like, "Go see Bree." If there was anything wrong with them, they'd be like, "Go see Bree." Because they could always count on me not only to take care of them as best I could but also refer them to things that were beyond my scope, which I think is something that's an often under talked about an important piece of the work that we all do.
Bree:
We don't know everything and I certainly didn't at that time, still, don't. But they were the ones that asked me for eating help. So I went and got more certifications and I started writing my very first meal plans. And also started a blog to follow the journey that I was on in healing my adrenal burnout, which is something that kind of happened from going a little too hard, too fast, too long. Which you're more of an expert on than I am, but I certainly learned the hard way what happens when you crash your adrenals and burn out your energy very early in my early thirties. So that's part of how I got here. Part of what turned into the Betty Rocker.
Dr. Anna Cabeca:
Let's talk about that a little bit. So what contributed to your crash?
Bree:
As you know, I was just mentioning I was taking care of people physically. But I think I was really attracted to that because I was really trying to figure out how to take care of myself. I had a really hard time with physical touch. I had I think been unknowingly attracted to doing that type of work because I was trying to find a way to have a positive touch be a part of my life. And that kind of a trauma history with a lot of physical abuse, it was an important part of my journey. I had a lot of outlets for the underlying stress I was always under from a lot of that past trauma. And a lot of it exhibited itself in a lot of risk-taking behavior. I craved adrenaline because that was the only place I felt really calm. I was constantly anxious, and I would mitigate that. I was very socially anxious and I would mitigate that with a lot of alcohol abuse, drug abuse, and over-training. I was chronically over-training because I was obsessed with how I looked and I wanted to be strong to protect myself. But also wanting to be strong because I really experienced getting, I felt confident when I was validated by the way I looked. So I just had a lot kind of a soup, a storm, a perfect storm for burnout. I think going on that I didn't understand.
Dr. Anna Cabeca:
That's huge. And thank you for sharing. So physical assault, sexual assault, assault in general, trauma, all of that creates physiology under the surface, right? So there's that underlying under the surface physiology. It's like an example of the ducks swimming on the water paddling like crazy under the surface. And physiology, because I've had the same trauma, or similar. Sexual assault, loss of my son, accident, trauma, PTSD. It's that constant physiology under the surface that can create this massive disconnect. And highly intelligent people, highly motivated people compensate through a sort of self-medicating. The workaholism, I know that was one of mine too. And also what we can gain, what gives us a perspective of perceived control in our life. And then there's the underlying, we cannot blame ourselves for oxytocin seeking behaviors as a form of self-medicating this physiology that I call the oxytocin cortisol disconnect. So it may be sexual, it may be risk-taking, it may be alcohol, it may be shopping, it may be pushing the envelope in so many ways to give us dopamine, give us oxytocin. And that's physiology. So highly productive, highly intelligent, highly aware, intuitive people can find themselves just paddling hard and fast.
Bree:
I love the duck analogy. It's so perfect. You're on the surface, everything looks so serene because you have this illusion that you're in control. And then actually under the water, everything is complete turmoil. Have you read Gabor Mate's book When the Body Says No?
Dr. Anna Cabeca:
Mm-mm (negative).
Bree:
it's an incredible book that I would recommend. It's all about the stress disease response. And he's done an enormous amount of research around these chronic diseases, so many of which are traced back to sexual trauma, physical trauma. But really just the stress response that's a result of bad things that happen that we have unresolved in ourselves. And that was certainly true for me and my body was saying no. And that's why I burned out so hard. And it was really that huge crash that I had where I just, no matter how much I trained, I was still gaining weight. And then 31, right? I was 31, and I was just exhausted all the time. I had that tired and wired kind of a feeling. My libido was completely gone, and that was odd for me because it had been such a supercharged sort of aspect of myself for so long.
Bree:
I went to see a naturopath, which was really fortunate who diagnosed me and helped me kind of get on track. But I decided to go kind of back to my roots. And I had gone to Tufts University and was studying nutrition and indigenous cultures, so anthropology, that was my major. Of course, I dropped out after two years because I was just too much of an adventurer. I couldn't stand being in college, but that was really what I was the most interested in, and I went on to pursue more training in that regard later at Florida International University and then later in Colorado.
Bree:
But I was just so fascinated by how people have used food as medicine, and I really went back to my roots and started to do a lot of independent studies, and started to apply things and self-experiment. And started making green drinks, and green soup, and green smoothies and started cooking a lot more. And just getting really aware of how grain preparation was so important. I'm really not anti-carbohydrate. What I am is very pro-anti-inflammatory, complex, whole food-based carbohydrates. And that's really just a tiny part. What I really care about is whole foods and finding whole foods that have been grown responsibly with as many of their available nutrients as possible. And of course, supplementing when we're not able to get everything that we can from the soil and from our whole foods. And that was really what ended up, I had started a blog just talking about all this stuff and how I was eating because I was healing myself.
Bree:
And it was about a year into the blog that I got an email from Whole Foods Market and the healthy eating specialist was like, "Hey Betty Rocker, one of our team members is being featured as the healthy team member of the month and she's lost 50 pounds over the past year. And when we asked her what her success was really being attributed to, and she said, "It's Betty Rocker. I read her blog, she comes into the store, I've met her. She's the reason behind why I was able to have this transformation." I mean 50 pounds over the course of a year is a really healthy, really good weight loss, especially if you're just looking at actual body weight loss. Because this isn't accounting how much muscle she may have gained in the process. And she was in her early fifties at the time.
Bree:
Anyway, it was really great. They asked me to start teaching cooking classes and that's where I started to sort of develop really the confidence that my blog was actually really serving people. Because I had been writing it just to help log all of the things I was doing that were helping me. And it ended up really helping someone else, specifically someone who I knew. I met her at the store. I would talk to her. I was always fascinated by what the people that worked in the store, what knew about the food. Where did it come from? Is it fresh?
Bree:
A lot of the times, it's so interesting. I had an assumption that people who work in places where they have this abundance of food would know the most about it, would know how to take care of themselves. But I found often the opposite was true. It was so frequently that we're up so close to and have all of this abundance of information, and we're overwhelmed by choice or we're overwhelmed in knowing how to take care of ourselves. So I just really wanted to make things simple, and accessible. And that was really kind of the foundation of the Betty Rocker blog and of everything that I do.
Dr. Anna Cabeca:
Well, I have to tell you, you've done amazing. Now you have over 267, I don't know, 300,000 followers on Instagram. You have an amazing blog, amazing presence, and a podcast. And you are embodying a work/life passion that is serving you and serving others. And what I liked you said that through helping you, you helped someone out. So helping me, helping you. And I want to emphasize that. Write it down everyone who's listening, helping me, helping you. Because we can't give from an empty cup, right? We have to help ourselves in order to help everyone else. And especially for busy working moms, it's crazy. Often we're the last on our to-do list. That doesn't create much sanity in the long run. And in the short run for sure. So helping me, helping you. And that's a really, really good way to approach it. And that now you've served and how hundreds and hundreds of thousands of other people. So I want to you for that.
Dr. Anna Cabeca:
Now as you've transitioned more into the whole recognizing how this underlying physiology affected your physical health, you've incorporated that into your messaging, into your training, into your coaching. And I want you to talk about that too because what drew me to you, number one, we met, we met with JJ Virgin out in, where were we? I don't remember. Austin, California. San Diego. Austin.
Bree:
Yeah. We were at Michelle's event, which was so awesome. I think we were in the VIP. Of course, we're so in the VIP Anna.
Dr. Anna Cabeca:
Yeah, there you go. It just means good champagne. I loved it. And so was able to yeah, connect with you. And just feel like energy, sincerity, compassion, and a desire to connect. So that was definitely what attracted me to you and your messaging, and has piqued my interest. Now I'm like, "Okay, I'm doing whatever you tell me to do Bree. Just make it easy. Just give me one thing a day."
Bree:
And that's actually what I ended up creating, something that is really meaningful to me. Over 2 million people have actually taken my Make Fat Cry 30 day challenge. And I named it Make Fat Cry because it was such a catchy, fun slogan on Instagram that kind of made me laugh. You know? And I think a lot of what I've really focused on doing. My family will tell you this, and anyone who knows me will tell you, "Bree is really good at meeting people where they're at." Because I don't expect everyone to know everything that I know. I didn't know everything that I know when I was starting out. And had you come to me and given me this big spiel about the inner workings of the body and how all the systems affected each other and how I really needed to start with sleep, I would have been like, "Cool, but what workout can I do?"
Bree:
And I really had a focus on my body the way it looked. And I think that we are so indoctrinated to think about our body and the way it looks. And this is like a natural thing as well. It's part of our brain chemistry. We know that the way our body looks on the outside has a lot of correlation to how we feel on the inside and to our health. And I think it's very natural as women and men to take pride in our appearance. So I don't think it's wrong to care about your aesthetics at all. I think that how we look and feel is really a byproduct of how we treat ourselves though. And that's kind of where I come in.
Bree:
So I really do show a lot of workouts. I show a lot of the things that you can do to get the aesthetics. But if I really am infusing them with that message of why we're doing that not only in the knowledge piece about how it's going to affect your body now and long term but in how you're talking to yourself along the way. Because if we can shift that inner dialogue, everything else shifts and it lasts. And the Make Fat Cry challenge piece was so that I could give people, because you just said, "Tell me what to do each day." The Make Fat Cry challenge gives you something to do each day. And it's free actually. It's a 15 minute a day workout video that I sent you via email and you can get it if you just go to makefatcrychallenge.com you get a 15-minute video a day, every day. And it gives you something different to do for 30 days. And what's the catch you might ask because of course, I don't just do this for my health.
Bree:
The catch is that the video goes away every 24 hours, and that means that you have to stay on track. So I don't just do this for my health. I do this for your health because consistency matters. If you don't take action, something small each day, it makes a difference. Whereas if you do take action, something small each day, even as small as 15 minutes, I think Geico said at best. 15 minutes could save you 15% or more. And I like to say 15% or more on life expectancy.
Dr. Anna Cabeca:
Yes.
Bree:
On your health overall. So that's why I created this 15 minute a day challenge. And it goes away every 24 hours. So you have to do your workout or it's going to expire. And it's different every day. They're not all hard, intense workouts. They're written by someone who knows the body. I'm a check certified fitness instructor and I really understand function as well as aesthetics. And what I primarily do and a lot of the programs I've created helps you realign your body through corrective exercises combined with fitness type exercises. They're all fitness exercises, but people write to me afterward and say, "I have better posture. I'm standing up, I'm an inch taller. It's crazy. And thanks to you referring me to go see a physical therapist or a chiropractor because I was telling you, 'I'm having knee pain. What exercises can I do to avoid the knee pain?'" I'm like, "No, don't avoid that. Go treat it then come back to the exercises." You ask me what you can do each day. The Make Fat Cry challenge is a good one.
Dr. Anna Cabeca:
Perfect. Make Fat Cry, love it, challenge .com. All right makefatcrychallenge.com, I wrote it down. And I think one thing you said aesthetics is a big deal. We have to take care of our bodies, doesn't matter how old we are. I went through that in my thirties where I was fat mom, and gradually unhealthy, and really just but so highly compensating, right? Compensating work, work, work, work, work. 80, 100 hours a week. And the body was in rebellion for sure.
Dr. Anna Cabeca:
I want to talk, I want to make that, it is important that we care for this body. Biblically, we say the body is the temple of our spirit. And the word temple actually translated from the original is the word for cathedral. So the body is the cathedral of our spirit. So ornate, decorated, every detail matters, right? It's important. And what's really important is a strong foundation or it completely crumbles. And for our spiritual energy, because our spirit is energy, our body is energy, our hormones are energetic molecules. In order for us on the physiologic hitting deep science, and the physiologic level and to quantum physics, we need healthy structure and function. We need healthy neuronal pathways. We need healthy cell membranes for the cell to cell communication. So it starts small. Physiology is critical for behavior. And muscle building, strong bones, strong brain. So creating a physical routine that fits into your life and that you can have fun with is longevity producing the blue zones. I'm writing a blog right now. I'm doing my birthday blue zones and I don't know what else, blog. So birthdays and blues zones blog. So I was looking at a lot of the blue zone research again because I just think it's so cool to look at cultures.
Dr. Anna Cabeca:
And as an anthropologist, just that background in anthropology, I love world cultures. What has been done for thousands of years in a society that has flourished, or collapsed, right? One thing is moving naturally. Walk to the grocery store. Carry your bags, don't push them. You know?
Bree:
[inaudible 00:22:25] floor if you're working at your desk sometimes instead of on a chair.
Dr. Anna Cabeca:
Yes. Yeah. That concept of moving naturally and how you can incorporate that into the day is critical. So I'm excited about this Make Fat Cry challenge. So listeners, get that Make Fat Cry Challenge.
Bree:
Anna, I just want to say how much I love what you said about the Cathedral. It's such a beautiful way to describe it and about decorating it, and that's such a natural thing. I describe the body as a vessel of awesomeness personally in the way we talk about it. And I just really think about it as a vessel because of everything of crucial importance that it houses. I feel like it's working on our physical body is a gateway to working on our mind, our spirit, all of the things. And it doesn't have to be done in that order. But so many people who I meet where they're at, it's the body that they're focused on, so it's the body that I meet them with. And that's how we get to the other parts that end up making the biggest difference longterm. So it sounds like we're so aligned in the way that we approach this.
Dr. Anna Cabeca:
We are. And I want to dig deeper into this because so many times it's something energetically that's keeping our body where it's at. Whether it's pains, aches, obesity. There are other factors. And certainly hitting back to the sexual assault. Sexual assault and sexual trauma can take us inward, can make us cover-up. Cover us with fat, a sense of unattractiveness. It doesn't matter how attractive we are and how damaging that is to our self-image. And how we can overcome it. This is a deep discussion. But the concepts of 30% of women that I've dealt with, probably 40% have had some form of sexual assault in their life. And for many of them, what I see especially in this peri-menopause time period, and this is the period I call neuroendocrine vulnerability, age 35 to 55. There's this resurfacing of that trauma. We have a harder time with menopausal symptoms, have a harder time with mood swings, irritability, and that's just this whole neuro-endocrine vulnerable time period. So past traumas can erupt or come back to-
Bree:
Particular in that specific time of a woman's life is what you're saying?
Dr. Anna Cabeca:
Mm-hmm (affirmative). Yeah. So this is where gaining the different spokes on the wheel, so to speak. Different ways that we heal our body and recognize the body, mind, and spirit are connected. That this is a function of working together. All aspects of our whole cell in order to gain whole health. And I wonder what's your experience in working with women who have had sexual trauma is in reclaiming this self-confidence body image but connecting them back to their heart, their soul.
Bree:
Yeah. It's interesting that you ask this because this is something that I've almost never spoken about my own sexual assault and these types of things in my past, actually being molested. And part of why I haven't spoken much about this yet is because it's a journey of healing, of coming to terms with yourself in this way. So if I haven't connected a lot with my audience about these topics specifically pertaining to sexual assault, it's because I've been personally working to find a place to speak about them in an empowered way. And I wouldn't mention it to you if I didn't feel like I was there now.
Bree:
It's something that I feel really is pervasive in our culture, and it's not just the actual physical assaults that happen. There's an assault on our psyche that happens almost every single day. And it's so pervasive. It's everywhere around us.
Bree:
I remember being in sixth grade sitting at a table in the library with four other little girls, and one of them read a statistic. And it's crazy that this is in sixth grade and she's like, "One in four girls is sexually assaulted." And I remember looking around the table and there were four of us and thinking about, "I'm the one in four." But wondering now how many of the rest of us had that happened to or was it going to happen two in the future?
Bree:
It's almost like if we don't talk about it, we don't ever get to heal it. Not only for ourselves, but for everyone around us. And as a practitioner yourself, you're working a lot more one on one with people. I'm working one to many. I'm teaching fitness programs. I have an inner circle, an amazing community of women. And they talk about a lot of these things in that community. And there is such an important aspect of having community, of having a community of women to support you. And I think that that is probably, that's been the place where I feel like I've created the safest space for everyone to bring all of the things that are on their hearts and that they're weighing them down in their bodies. And I feel like so much of the weight that we carry comes from this sort of psychological weight that we are literally dragging around with us. Because why is it that we can't actually lose body fat? It's not really, even when we're exercising and we're eating properly, why is it that our hormones are going crazy? Is it because we're old? Is it because of some external factor? No, a lot of it is internal. It's cellular. It's stress that we carry with us constantly, chronically from all of these things. And not only things that have happened to us, but that are constantly being put on us.
Bree:
Like I talk to my tribe a lot about doing a social media detox, going through and seeing who are you following that makes you feel disempowered when you look at their feed? Whose messaging out there isn't actually uplifting you? My friend Sheri Salata who just wrote the beautiful-
Dr. Anna Cabeca:
I love Sheri.
Bree:
Amazing. One of my favorite concepts in her book is this word upliftment. And when I read that word I said, "That so beautifully articulate what it is that I feel like is my life mission." It's not just about empowerment, it's about upliftment. How can we reach and reach everyone up along with us? And this is something why we're so connected through JJ because this is what JJ does. And all of the strong, powerful women that we surround ourselves with. And what you and I are talking about right now is a community. Is having a strong, powerful community of women to have a shared experience with. To examine what's happening to us, what's happened to us, what's happening around us in the world. To talk about it collectively, to gain strength from each other, to use each other's collective experiences to uplift ourselves, to empower ourselves. And also to resource ourselves.
Bree:
I've been so fortunate to have found EMDR therapy, which for those listeners who don't know, it's eye movement desensitization reprocessing. And if you're the video you'll see me, I'm moving my finger back and forth because it's a like a light sensor that goes back and forth while you are processing some of your trauma. And it can be incredibly restorative and reparative and have these far-reaching effects. It's taken me from being extremely reactionary to being able to really the present and be more centered, and obviously have a much more rich, fulfilling life, and deeper connections.
Dr. Anna Cabeca:
EMDR is something I write about in the book too. And I found it essential going back to our duck analogy, right? That peddling under the surface. EMDR helps calm that down, disconnect from that constant stressing under the surface.
Bree:
The Hormone Fix. If anyone hasn't read The Hormone Fix by Dr. Anna Cabeca, let me just say what an amazing book this is. It is so amazing. You have done such a tremendous amount of work. And I think I mentioned at the beginning of this interview, but so many of my readers and members in my beautiful Rock Your Life community have that become your fan and comment about your work. Because so many of my women are, they're there in that a period of pre-menopause or post-menopause. And I'm not quite there yet, but I know I will be. And I'm so grateful to have this resource to know how to prepare myself. And you're connecting all the dots that are so essential to really fully integrating everything.
Dr. Anna Cabeca:
Well, it's been a long road, right? Help me to help you, and that's definitely all throughout the book. But I found EMDR to be this beautiful speed therapy. And like you said, instead of reactionary, instead of reacting, learning to respond. You're again integrating back into your body, into your spirit, so that you can respond.
Bree:
Listen and respond, listen and respond. And listening also is so important because we tend to drown out what someone else is singing when all we can hear is our own fear or our own stress response. So I feel that we can be more responsive when we are able to also take in more by listening.
Dr. Anna Cabeca:
Yes, I agree. And again, the work starts with awareness. Because if we can say, and I can say personally through past traumas, adverse childhood experiences. Those are, we may say, "Well I have dealt with that." I have found with EMDR, I've been able to really deal with it. Really to clear some neural pathways that were hyper responding. And it's fascinating. It's so fascinating to me. So it comes with a combination of things. And that brings us back to empowering our physiology through physical health, and how we nourish it as well as how we nourish it with what we eat, how we nourish it with what we see, how we nourish it with what we think, hear, and feel. All of those aspects. How we move, how we move. What's your favorite? I'm going to go to movement too, because I know I'm just going to be all the other, my listeners, too. Give me a movement that I can do on a daily basis that will help me just get into my body.
Bree:
So a movement that I love? Actually, it's funny because it's a movement that I hate and love at the same time. And I've learned to love it because the more I've practiced it, the better I've gotten at it, and the more it serves me. But there are two things that I like to do almost every day.
Bree:
One is the sun salutations. I love creating rituals for myself. I think that having some type of ritual each day, even if you just do five minutes of something that's just for you, can really help you make you feel like you owned your day. When I don't make time for my mini-meditation or my sun salutations, I feel like the day owned me. And regardless of if I did a workout or specific ate well, sometimes I just feel like I didn't make that time for myself, you know?
Bree:
So the sun salutations are, they're from yoga. It's a stretch that you flow through. I usually do five. But I do something specific when I do them is I actually think about my appreciations and my gratitudes when I go through my sun salutations. And this is actually something that you do on day eight with me of the Make Fat Cry challenge. You actually get to do sun salutations with me and we think about what we're grateful for because it's just something that's really restorative. It takes us out of sympathetic and puts us into parasympathetic, and can calm our mind. Some people find it easier to meditate by sitting, and I can certainly do that sometimes. But I find a moving meditation is what really works well for me.
Bree:
And if I were to tell you one exercise to do every day to really get your body to, to get it going and really hit everything. #SorryNotSorry Rock Your Life fit fam who's listening to this. It's the burpee. Burpees are [crosstalk 00:34:45] this is the reaction I get. There's different variations of burpees that you can do like the slow burpee, which I love. So that's where you place your hands-
Dr. Anna Cabeca:
Okay. I'm just going to say this. I couldn't box for six months because a burpee, I ruined my shoulder.
Bree:
That's why form is of the essence, and this is one of the most important things that I teach when I'm teaching a workout is the form that your body uses as you place your hands. As you step back, how your core is positioned. The fact that we always engage through our shoulders if we're doing a pushing movement. Because if you're rounded forward, you're creating too much pressure on the biceps tendon that comes through your little chromium process of-
Dr. Anna Cabeca:
Hurting just thinking about a burpee, Bree.
Bree:
Yeah, it gets pinched off. So many of us are sitting all day already and our eyes are in front of us. So naturally, everything we do is in front of us. So you're almost always working your chest muscles, your forward motion muscles. So you have to almost think about cross-training for your life. You need to do more back pulling, you need to do more exercises for your posterior chain.
Bree:
So if you are going to do the burpee, which I still think is one of the most perfect exercises, you slow it down. You don't jump through it, you step through it. You do it with a lot of deliberation. You engage your core as you come up from that squat. You don't have to jump.
Bree:
But there's something specifically important about coming from down on the floor to standing up. It engages a ton of your core muscles. There's a lot of integration that happens between all of your different joints as you're moving through this. And it's a very healing, it's almost ritualistic the way that you go through it. Just like a sun salutation is. I compare the two because while one is a more slower, more flowing movement, the burpee is more of, it feels like it's going to be faster. Yes, exactly. But if you slow it down, you can almost make it meditative. And you can really feel your way through each of your joints articulating, notice your core engagement. And notice yourself just owning your body. This is the type of warrior exercise that I particularly prescribe.
Dr. Anna Cabeca:
Talk me through the slow burpee now.
Bree:
Okay. So, Anna, you're going to stand with your feet about three-quarters of the way up your mat. Standing tall, engage your core. And those of you who are listening can do this right now while you're listening. Stand tall, engage your core. And hinge forward, plant your hands down in front of you. Bend your knees slightly, and go ahead and step it back. Step your feet back one at a time, coming into a tall plank. You can also drop your knees to the ground here and come into a kneeling plank. What's important, and just hang out here. Just feel these things as I say them. I want you to engage through your shoulder blades. Gently pull your shoulder blades away and back even, as you're pressing down through your finger pads.
Dr. Anna Cabeca:
Backward and down?
Bree:
Shoulder blades back and down gently, pressing your hands into the floor, which will engage your lats slightly as well. And then your core, your belly button is going to come in and up. From this position, you can either drop to your knees or you can just hold the plank. You can do a pushup, either kneeling or on your toes. And then you're going to walk one foot out to the outside of your hand. And then you're going to walk the other foot out to the outside of your other hand. Load the weight back in your heels and come to standing. You've just completed your first slow burpee. And I love this one because you're getting a little bit of a sumo burpee, which really targets your glutes. And you're getting that sumo squat as you come up because your feet are going to be out in a nice wide position, which I love. And you squeeze your butt as you come up. That's basically it.
Dr. Anna Cabeca:
Okay, I will try again. I will. I will. And by the time we publish this, I'll put a comment in our blog and show notes about-
Bree:
The slow burpee. And if you want a little extra variation when you come up out of that slow burpee and you come to your standing, drive one knee up, and then drive the other knee up. So do like a march in place, so that you get a little extra lower ab bonus.
Dr. Anna Cabeca:
Okay. Okay. I'm doing it, I'm doing it. So I'll be doing it. I'll incorporate that into my daily routine and see.
Bree:
All right.
Dr. Anna Cabeca:
All right. Shoulders back and down. I know the big thing is shoulder protection. So I'm a boxer.
Bree:
It's the shoulder joint and the pelvis. Those are the two joints. Because we've got these extremities. But your shoulder really in particular because it's a very shallow ball and socket joint, and all the stability of the shoulder comes from the musculature that surrounds the shoulder joint. So when those muscles become imbalanced, like your chest becomes overdeveloped, your back becomes weak because you're always sitting rounded forward and you're always working with your hands in front of you. You're driving, you're eating, you're on your phone, you're doing all these things. You forget how weak that back is, and you go to see someone and you're like, "Work on my back." And all they do is dig into your back and you feel good for a day, but then it comes right back. It's because those muscles were stretched out, they were weakened. What they needed to do was really open up the trigger points in your chest. What they needed to do is tell you to strengthen your back muscles, stopped rounding forward all the time. We want to treat the root cause, not the symptom. And that's part of what I'm able to do with the exercises that I teach and the workouts that I do, and the awareness of the body from the inside out, which is so essential. Exactly like you do. [inaudible 00:40:15].
Dr. Anna Cabeca:
Yeah. I like what you said. And about as an osteopath, I trained, I went to osteopathic medical school. So working for the opposing muscle groups, right? So you release the opposing muscle groups and you get that stretch. You don't work on the ones that are already strange. You work on the other ones to release them. So I think that's powerful.
Bree:
Understanding the way that the body is, it's almost like you look at a blueprint of a building the way that the body works. Going to just, this is why I tell people. It's great if you're going to the chiropractor, but your muscles attach to your bones. And if you're not also getting manual therapy or doing some type of exercise, addressing your muscular movement patterns as well, you may not get a long term lasting effect. You might be addicted to that for the rest of your life. And props to all the amazing practitioners out there working on the body. But as we all know, the body doesn't exist in a vacuum. You can't look at one organ and say that everything is because of this organ. You can't look at one system of the body and think that it doesn't affect all the other systems. Just like we're talking about with stress levels and with sexual trauma, and physical trauma. These are things that affect our psychology and our emotional state.
Dr. Anna Cabeca:
And our physiology.
Bree:
Affected as a result. So everything is connected. This is exactly what you were talking about, about going to the root because of what is causing the weight gain, what is causing the issues. And finding a way to find that love for yourself so that you can speak about things from an empowered place. You can help uplift the people around you. It's pretty much everything, and you have to be willing to be honest with yourself if you're going to be asking people to be honest with themselves, and help them see themselves. Because I feel like all of us are simply a mirror. We're holding up a mirror for each other. And if your mirror is cloudy because you haven't done the work to find out what's at the heart of what's going on with you, you're going to always be reflecting back something murky, and you're not going to get to the heart of the issue.
Dr. Anna Cabeca:
Yeah. Well said. And one common thread that I see through your work is that concept of loving yourself and having love for yourself.
Bree:
It's a practice, isn't it? If you're doing a burpee, you can't approach the slow burpee and be like, "Well, I'm going to fail at it so I'm not going to try it." Right? And you're going to do it and you're going to be like, "I went sideways on that one." Or, "I came up and I stepped sideways, so I quit." Right? You're going to try again. Because we're practicing, we're always practicing.
Bree:
I love in yoga, there's always this invitation to fall out of a pose and then to fall back into it. Life is like that. And I will say with my own journey of self-love, it's a practice. There are days when I really struggle with it. But having the tools that I have used and having a community of people who care about me and I care about them, it's such a strong anchor point that brings me back. And it's really important. That's the foundation of the self-love.
Dr. Anna Cabeca:
So what is something that you've said to yourself and said to your clients to ignite that self-love, or reconnect with that self-love when you're not feeling it?
Bree:
Thank you for asking. I think I should just have this tattooed on me actually, this word. It's another fun word that I found on social media and I kind of claimed like I sort of claimed to make [inaudible 00:43:43] because these phrases were out there. This one is flawsome. And flawsome is really fun because I love that I'm perfectly imperfect.
Dr. Anna Cabeca:
I get it. Okay. Took me a second, awesome to flawsome.
Bree:
I'm flawed, and I'm awesome. Right? And it takes the pressure off me. I don't have to be perfect. It's like what we were talking about with the practicing things. You don't have to do the perfect burpee to be practicing burpees correctly. All of us have this sort of idea. I was such a straight-A student because I felt like I was supposed to be so perfectly academic all the time or I wouldn't be praised. And I feel like we all have this idea of we have to get it right, we have to get it perfect. But really you don't, you have to get it flawsome. Because you're awesome, and you are also flawed. And we have to accept that we don't have to be perfect to be great. And that I think helps me mentally get past my hurdles.
Bree:
I remember when I first started teaching fitness classes and fitness to my members in my online classes. And if I would make a mistake, was I supposed to stop? Because I recognized early on that if I had stage fright or I was worried about how people were perceiving me, that was all about my ego. I was all worried about what people thought about me, instead of remembering I was there to serve them. I was there to help them.
Bree:
And if I made a mistake and I could laugh about it and keep going, it gave them permission to make their own mistakes and to keep going. So I got over myself, and I just allowed myself to be effing flawsome Anna. That's what I am.
Dr. Anna Cabeca:
Yes, you are.
Bree:
Thank you. And that's really a big piece of self-love for me, I think is why I brought that up. Is because we think that we're only worthy of love when we have a perfect six-pack abs. We think we're only going to be worthy of love when we can wear a bikini. We think we can only be worthy of love when we have our career dialed in, or we make $1 million, or we marry the perfect person, or we don't have cellulite or some bull crap that just is simply not true. It's an idealized image. I don't know who idealized these stupid images in the first place, but they did it to sell products that I don't need.
Bree:
So I'm going to create my own version of awesome, and I'm going to represent it. And I'm going to love myself as hard and as fiercely as I love my best friends. And I think this was a tool that really helped me a lot, was thinking about what I would say to someone I loved who was struggling. I would think about how I would support her and I'd be like, "I'm not saying that to myself, am I? I'm saying the opposite. I got to get a handle on that."
Bree:
So when I have troubles now, I write down my troubles in a note app on my phone and I assign them to someone I love. And I give that person advice about the problem. And then I take my own advice. And it's a hard exercise to do because it makes me be super radically honest with myself. But it's so helpful. Because I'm smart, and if I get out of my own way, I can be smart for myself.
Dr. Anna Cabeca:
Absolutely. Your own best coach, right? Even the best athletes have coaches. And this is fascinating, and you'll love this story. I had that client who was in one of my magic menopause programs. She got on finally and opened up during one of our final calls. And she says, "Dr. Anna, I've just felt like I don't deserve to be healthy." And she just cried. So I asked her why did she feel that way. And she said, "It's been a long time. Even since I was a child." I said, "Well, go back to yourself as a child. And what would you tell that child-like self of you? What would you tell her, and how would you talk to her? How would you represent her to her?"
Dr. Anna Cabeca:
And then she was just that she's loving, and she's unselfish, and she's kind, and she's playful, and she's generous, and she's caring, and she's helpful, and all of these beautiful characteristics. And I said, "Well that's your truth then, and that's your truth. And we have to recognize that all these things that the words that have stuck to us over the years aren't our truth. So releasing that is liberating." And I got an email from her today and she said the amount of progress she's made in these last three weeks has been amazing because she now thinks of herself as those six-year-old qualities whenever she starts getting an, "I don't deserve it. It's my fault. It's this, that, and the other things that," she's carried on, the weight she's carried all these years. And just a renewal in her energy, in her voice, in her messaging has been truly inspiring. This is someone in their fifties right?
Bree:
It's only halfway. She's only halfway through life.
Dr. Anna Cabeca:
Yeah, yeah. We've carried a lot of stuff a long time and used this time period of empowerment to release it, to shut it if we're still carrying it. But whatever age we're at it's powerful.
Bree:
It's so powerful. And to think about how you've just unlocked years for her life to be so much more productive and beautiful. Like where she feels herself more. It's so powerful. I interjected that, she's only halfway through her life because I really feel like we are so attached to thinking that we can only live a certain number of years, because of the way that we've been conditioned the same way that we think we're not good enough if, because of the way that we've been conditioned. And I think it's possible to live longer, to live healthier, to live more fulfilled now than it ever has been with access to these very simple and very important tools of self-exploration, of awareness, of the kind of coaching that you do and I do. And the tools we have for nourishing our bodies, moving our bodies, and the kind of science and medicine that are all kind of interconnected in this very special time we live in. I think that so much more as possible.
Dr. Anna Cabeca:
Absolutely. Absolutely. One other thing I asked her was if I was feeling that way, what would you say to me? So that mirroring back is really powerful too because sometimes it's even hard to go into the [inaudible 00:50:01] state. And I said, "I felt exactly the same way that you have, and what if I stopped there?" Right? So many of us don't recognize the scars that we've had underneath. The overcoming, overpowering. But it's a work in progress. And I like what you said, that when you wish to convey something, you've done the work on it, right? You've done the work on it. And that creates a safe space and authentic connection, and authentic communication from which to heal collectively from. Because as we recognize, we're not alone. We're not alone.
Dr. Anna Cabeca:
Well, you have inspired me so much, Bree. You have inspired me in so many ways. And I know that when we do our Make Fat Cry challenge and our daily burpees, slow burpees-
Bree:
You can choose Anna, you can do the Make Fat Cry challenge. You don't have to start with the burpees. You can do either one. You're not going to have to do burpees every day in the challenge. I'll give you some other exercises to do. Your choice.
Dr. Anna Cabeca:
Deal. Okay. And, I love it. So tell people again how to get ahold of you and where to go to find you.
Bree:
Well, you guys all know where to go get the Make Fat Cry free challenge, which I think you will love. And if you would like to use my free resources, my workouts to see what my workouts are like. If you want to check out any of my whole food free recipes, some of my motivational writing. It's all available to you on thebettyrocker.com. Please connect with me on my social media, on Instagram, @thebettyrocker. And of course my Facebook fan page. I would just love to talk to you and to get to know you. Just a warm invitational welcome to Rock Your Life if you find yourself so inclined to be a part of my community as well. I know Anna's community is amazing and that's part of, I feel like we're already so connected. So you are always welcome in my world in any way that you choose to show up.
Dr. Anna Cabeca:
Wow. Thank you so much. Thank you for spending time with us and inviting my audience to your community, to your challenge. It's loving. It's definitely compatible. So I'm excited to be there too, and to be part of your community.
Dr. Anna Cabeca:
And I want to thank all our listeners for joining us today. And I know that we've hit on some really sensitive issues. And there may be some journaling, some prayer, some meditation. Don't ignore what's coming up. Don't ignore what's coming up in you right now, because this is a powerful time period in your life that if it's coming up now, then it needs to be dealt with in a loving, kind way as you would to that childlike self within you.
Dr. Anna Cabeca:
If you hit additional help, comment below, reach out to me, reach out to my team at drannacabeca.com. And we are here to help you. This is a powerful connecting of our body, mind, spirit, energy, and working through underlying physiology that's not our fault, right? That's not our fault. That we can heal and we can fix. Doesn't matter how long we've been dealing with any of these underlying issues that could be impeding our personal growth, and fulfillment and joy. So we want to live through a life of joy and look through, look at life with love and remove the fear base that we be dealing with right now. And I know some of you listening are.
Dr. Anna Cabeca:
So I encourage you to reach out and let me know how I can help you. And certainly, share this very, very special episode with your community, with your friends. And share your comments below. Thank you for spending time with me on Couch Talk today and our beautiful guest Bree, the Betty Rocker. And I look forward to seeing you all next week.
