Flashback Friday: Mom-Strong in Midlife with My Trainer, Lauren

New episodes over Summer Break are tough, so this is the first in my Summer Flashback Friday Series! This is a good one to start with...Lauren is insightful and our gym-convos are, of course, unhinged! 

Enjoy!

Lara’s first guest is here—her personal trainer, Lauren Michi—and this episode is equal parts funny, real, and motivating. They talk about what training looks like in midlife, how the right trainer becomes a trusted person (aka “gym therapy”), and why strength training matters more than ever.

Lara shares her 2025 injury story: a fall that shattered and dislocated her left elbow, surgery, months of recovery, and the moment she decided to stop settling for “functional” and start rebuilding real strength. Lauren breaks down how injuries create imbalance, how to train safely around limitations, and why the scale isn’t the best measure of progress—especially for women navigating perimenopause.

They also touch on fitness and diet trends (weighted vests, no-carb confusion, protein obsession, GLP-1s and protecting muscle mass), and wrap with a Charleston spotlight on Forge: a clean, contract-free, 24/7 private gym with capped membership and a welcoming setup for strength and functional training.

Check out more info that Lauren recommends on weighted vests:

https://www.health.harvard.edu/exercise-and-fitness/what-are-the-benefits-of-walking-with-a-weighted-vest

https://www.uclahealth.org/news/article/should-you-walk-with-weighted-vest

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:05

Hello and welcome to the Midlife Mess podcast. Wow, I've been thinking about doing this for probably three years now. And I'm really trying to lean into my done over perfect era. So here we go. My name is Laura Thompson. I am a single, divorced, working mom. I'm 42 years old. And I just bought a house with my 70-year-old parents. Welcome to my midlife mess. Hey, midlifers. Welcome back. We are on episode six. That's so fun. I am very happy to have a very important person in my life with me today. And she's our first guest where you guys get to hear somebody other than me just talk at you. So please welcome my personal trainer, Lauren. Hello, midlifers. Lauren is like the only person that can make me do really awkward, goofy things in the gym and just in general, like push myself way more than I could ever do that because I'm a comfort girly. So true statement. She's very integral to my life. Um, thank you for being here.

SPEAKER_01 1:28

Absolutely. Anytime.

SPEAKER_00 1:31

How long have we known each other or been working together? I was trying to think, was it pre or post first kid?

SPEAKER_01 1:41

I feel like it couldn't have been too long after first kid. Because our kids are close in age.

SPEAKER_00 1:49

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:49

I feel like we had both like when when was Caroline born? April of 18. Yes. And Taylor is November of 17. I knew that when we were talking a lot when we first started working out, we had a lot of the same, you know, back and forth with our kids going through the same things around the same time. So I think I want to say six or seven years, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 2:16

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 2:16

I think so. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 2:18

I remember when I first came into Pivotal and they were talking to me about like, who do you want to train with? Tiffany scared the shit out of me. She scares everybody. And also Angie, because Angie's just like such a badass. They were like, yeah, she has five kids. And I'm thinking, like, I've got one kid and that's killing me. Like, seven kids. She has I don't know if it was like, yeah, I was rounding. I rounded down. Whoops. Lord. Yeah, she's amazing. I mean, they're both amazing. I and not not that you're not a badass. That made me that made it sound like you're like the softy of the.

SPEAKER_01 3:01

Which one is the easiest? That's the one that I went.

SPEAKER_00 3:07

I just felt the most in common with you, and just that you were the most approachable in my eyes. So thank you. We've had something in common for a while then. So you have seen me through a lot of life.

SPEAKER_01 3:23

I have. I have indeed. I've been through a a lot of the last, you know, the the last journey.

SPEAKER_00 3:32

Well, it's like through the whole midlife, like things were like going okay. Mm-hmm. And then they started gradually not being okay at first, right? And then do you know? And I I knew something.

SPEAKER_01 3:49

I just, you know, and you didn't you didn't come out and say it right away, but you know, you can always tell when someone is off. I knew something was going on. I just didn't know exactly what. Until you came out and just said it.

SPEAKER_00 4:06

I've definitely cried in the gym a couple of times, right? But did you do you remember any certain time when I like, did I have like a breakdown and just be like, my husband is cheating on me?

SPEAKER_01 4:19

Yes, that's exact that's exactly right then when I knew that definitely. So I could, I I would probably say maybe weeks before started picking up that something was a little off. And then in that that session, and I mean, let's face it, um, personal training is is very much kind of therapeutic as it is, great for your body. It's all kinds of therapy.

SPEAKER_00 4:47

You probably really do like, I mean, don't you think like oxytocin is released when you're like training and you're like, I'm like physically close to you, obviously, and and I'm like putting myself in a vulnerable position that yeah, I think you do really kind of like bond to your trainer. So it is someone that you really need to trust. And I mean, I feel like like our hairdressers also, you know, like they get to hear a lot of our life.

SPEAKER_01 5:19

Yes, true. Very much so.

SPEAKER_00 5:23

There was the first kind of like, oh Lord, things have like broken down. And then I remember that it was like when I was in my dating phase, that it was kind of like I had a new story for you every week, right?

SPEAKER_01 5:38

You did. I actually I looked forward to that. I was like, so tell me what happened. Yeah, who dispeded? Um, yeah, yep. All the things. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 5:50

I love that. That would be like confession time every week. I remember one time I requested to like use the hammer on the big like tire. The tire, yes, yeah, because I was like, I gotta just beat somebody's head in today.

SPEAKER_01 6:09

And I don't know whose head that was, but uh, you got some aggression out that day or the slam balls. We use the slam balls a lot then.

SPEAKER_00 6:17

Yeah, I do enjoy those. And now I kind of I enjoy the sled too. Yeah, that's kind of just like raw, like pushing something out of your life, yeah, out of your way. Remember that guy that was so hot at Pivotal before like the first pivotal location, yes, that rode the scooter. And we like he looked like Clark Kent.

SPEAKER_01 6:47

Oh remember? Wait, is he wait? So there were two of them. Is this the one that was covered in tattoos or no? Okay, so the other one. Yes.

SPEAKER_00 6:57

I think you're talking about that was we were like, there's no like the scooter ruins all the attraction. Yes, because either you have had a DUI and this is your only choice of mode of transportation, yes, which did we ever find out? And like that's not attractive because you don't have, you know, like you don't have your life together. Like, I'm glad you're doing what you can do to be a responsible human, but I don't necessarily want to hitch my wagon to that. And then it's also like if you're so cheap that you like right, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 7:36

Are you choosing to choosing? Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 7:39

I don't want you, I'm not a cheap girl. I'm not trying to sign up for that either.

SPEAKER_01 7:44

No, so I know exactly who you're talking about, and I don't see him. So I he must have lived, he must have lived somewhere off of 61 because I used to pass him on the moped all the time. Yeah, you used to pass. And I've seen him in a long way there. Yes, yes, and he did. He looked like a little Clark Clark Clark Kent. Very attractive, very attractive until you see him on a moped. Yes, yes, 100%. Oh, but do you remember the other one that was covered in tattoos?

SPEAKER_00 8:18

I would have been more attracted to him, so I'm surprised that I don't remember. Not as tall. That might have been it.

SPEAKER_01 8:26

Very, I think he I think he's married now. Yes, I think I recently I recently cyber stalked him, and he is married now. Just because I was just like, I haven't seen him in a long time. Yeah. I wasn't even sure if he still lived in this area.

SPEAKER_00 8:41

And so somebody signed up for that scooter.

SPEAKER_01 8:44

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. They sure did.

SPEAKER_00 8:47

You'd have to have a lot of redeeming qualities. That's great. We did that. So I've I trained with Lauren usually just like once a week for a couple of years, pretty consistently. And, you know, it was I've just personally just done once a week because again, that is still pushing myself beyond what I would normally be able to push myself. And you know, I'm not trying to be a bodybuilder or it's just in general is like kind of maintenance for me. And it I like it a lot. I like feeling more strong. And I was, I've gotten pretty strong. Yes. And then I moved just farther away from that gym. And but it was just enough that it was like inconvenient, extra effort for me to go there. And I was also in a phase of like, let's try to get our finances together. And just if I wasn't going to go to the gym, then it was like, all right, Laura, you're gonna stop paying for that. Yeah. So we didn't see each other for training at least for maybe just two years.

SPEAKER_01 10:07

I think two years. Yeah, because it was we had only been in that you had been in that new space once or twice, right? And I trained you in the new when we moved from one pivotal to the next. Yeah, and we were only in there may maybe a year and a half. So yeah. Yeah. I'd say maybe a year and a half, two years tops.

SPEAKER_00 10:32

Yeah. So then in 2025, such a weird year for me. I was like bopping along. I thought I had made a couple of like work changes that I thought, you know, were like I was gaining momentum in that area of my life. And then, y'all, in March of 25, I was walking through a parking lot and fell. And we won't go into a whole lot of detail about the fall because there may or may not be some things that come out of that. So suffice to say, I fell and just kind of everything crashed down on my left elbow, and that thing was dislocated and shattered pretty good. And this was my first broken bone ever.

SPEAKER_01 11:26

I mean, I didn't know that.

SPEAKER_00 11:28

Made it 42 years, and that was my first broken bone, my first ride in an ambulance.

SPEAKER_01 11:35

Lord, you just knocked a couple things off your list.

SPEAKER_00 11:38

Yeah, right. It was a wild thing. And I mean, let's see. So I fell that week, and then one week after I fell, I had surgery. They had to go in on both sides of my elbow to get to all the parts. It was like both sides of my elbow were broken. The one side was like just in tiny little pieces that there wasn't a way for the surgeon to use pins or anything that would have just shattered the bones more. So he kind of just had to like build a mesh, like spider web, and like kind of pull all the pieces back together. Because it was so in such like pieces, I had to be my arm had to just be like in a 90-degree angle for like six weeks before we could really start putting any weight on it and start like really asking it to bend again. So my muscles froze up so bad, and then just the scar tissue that formed. So I started doing physical therapy and I was doing that for twice a week for a while. I my mom, the the elbow thing really set off like a lot of movement in my life in a weird way. It was like, it was like it made things freeze in time, but then also started the ball rolling on some things. So my mom basically lived with us for it was a little over 30 days. And she jokes that it's like, wow, you were counting the days and the minutes and the hours, huh? Yes, I was. I guess I was. But it did actually show me that that we could be around each other that much, and it not drive either one of us totally nuts. So that was kind of one of the precursors for us eventually like buying a house together later that year.

SPEAKER_01 13:41

I love that, by the way. I love that.

SPEAKER_00 13:43

I mean, it's it's working out. I'm able to do this on a Saturday, right? Yeah. And where's where's my daughter? She's with them. They're doing something. They're doing something.

SPEAKER_01 13:54

That's why I am that's why I am hiding in my bedroom right now.

SPEAKER_00 13:57

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. As I was going through the process of getting the arm back up to full speed, I got to a point where it was like, all right, can it get any better than this? Like, I could do a lot of things in life functionally. And I just I remember the surgeon at a follow-up appointment asking me if I could do like normal, everyday things. And it was like, well, I mean, I can drive, I can like open a car door, I can do my hair, but like, am I really pushing myself? So it just kind of felt like I need to try to do the most.

SPEAKER_01 14:32

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 14:33

So I thought, where's Lauren? Enter, enter, enter Lauren Mishi. Yes. So when I got back up with you, you were at a new gym.

SPEAKER_01 14:46

I was. Yes, I was.

SPEAKER_00 14:49

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 14:50

Miss Tiffany had opened her own private space, and I had brought my whole clientele with me. So it was very perfect timing. I don't think it could have been any more perfect.

unknown 15:03

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 15:03

It was literally, I think, the week that we had opened.

SPEAKER_00 15:06

Really.

SPEAKER_01 15:07

And I was like, oh my gosh, it's like, it's like serendipitous almost.

SPEAKER_00 15:11

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 15:12

When I got your text message, and I was like, yes, absolutely.

SPEAKER_00 15:16

Come on. So what did you think? Do you remember when you like, you know, like I came over to the new gym and I like told you a little bit about this story. And then I remember you like, you were like, okay, stand there, like try to stand straight. And you're like, oh yeah, you're so imbalanced.

SPEAKER_01 15:41

I mean, that's just that's naturally what happens when you don't use something for so long. You were definitely even just the bend and the the arm couldn't completely straighten. And you could tell it was you weren't uncomfortable by any means, but I could tell you didn't like the way that arm couldn't straighten.

SPEAKER_00 16:01

Yeah. Was I like my whole like kind of posture imbalanced?

SPEAKER_01 16:09

Well, you it was almost like you had overcompensated so long not using that side that you relied so much more on your right side. I mean, it was very evident that you had been leaning on that right side for a long time. Definitely when we started, you know, moving weights around the weight difference between your right side and your left side was immense. Yes.

SPEAKER_00 16:36

And that's part of the reason that I I was like, okay, I already know the perfect person for me to test this out with because you're so good at working around injuries.

SPEAKER_01 16:49

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 16:50

I already knew this because I have a weird knee thing, right?

SPEAKER_01 16:55

Which you should tell that story. I still talk about how you had the blood thing done in your knee.

SPEAKER_00 17:03

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 17:03

I still try pu tell people they should try to seek it out.

SPEAKER_00 17:06

I'm a big believer in it. I have a disease in my right knee. It's called pigmented vilanodular cyanovitis.

SPEAKER_01 17:18

The fact that you know that and remember it's a lot of fun.

SPEAKER_00 17:22

I only remembered it. It's funny because it so it first happened when I was 15, and then nobody knew what it was. It has to be removed or it's going to start kind of just like wearing away at the things in there. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 17:43

Like your actual joint.

SPEAKER_00 17:45

Yes. We had so you know, I was like in my little small town then. So my little small town doctor cleaned it out. They thought I was away at summer camp when it first happened. So everybody just thought, like, oh, she twisted her knee. Any doctor that we saw about it just kept giving me like prescription strength, like ibuprofen. Then, like a year later, when it happened again, when just like one day I woke up and it was like the size of a cantaloupe and I couldn't bend it. It was like, okay, time to really figure out what this is. So that time my mom took me to Wake Forest to their, they have like a sports medicine center. So that doctor did correctly diagnose it. It's just that I was 16 and not paying attention.

SPEAKER_01 18:33

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 18:33

Which is so, you know, it's like one of those times where you're like, you feel like you're grown, but you're still like, there's a grown-up in the room. So you know that you don't actually have to be the one paying attention to this stuff. Yeah. So so then when it happened again, when I was like, I don't know, 25, I was living in DC at the time, and I went to a surgeon there, and I do remember everything about that because then I was the adult in the room. You kind of remember things then. Yeah. Yeah. So that's why the name of it has like really stuck in my head. So it's basically like this fluid in whatever joint that it is in just goes bad, and they can't tell you if it'll ever happen again, if it'll happen every year, if it's a very random. So now it hasn't happened since I was 25. So we've we've been there a minute now. Yeah. But after having three surgeries, I had a lot of arthritis in my knee. And when I was, let's say I was 38, because I remember where I was, and we still lived like in my like old house, the dog like lunged into me and just like my knee went like one way, yes, you know, kind of like buckled in. I thought I'd torn my LCL or something. And I went to a normal orthopedic doctor, and he was like, Yeah, you're kind of at the point where I had not torn anything. I had an x-ray and an MRI done, and I had not torn anything. There was just kind of so much going on in there that it was just really painful. So he said, Well, it's either knee replacement or cortisone shots routinely for the how the rest of your life until you get a knee replacement. And I just thought, this cannot be the answer. I'm not even 40. I cannot be having a knee replacement right now.

SPEAKER_01 20:42

No.

SPEAKER_00 20:43

So that's when I started looking for alternatives. And so I went to QC Kinetics, and they don't say this in their advertising because I guess because when you say stem cells, some people still think like dead babies.

SPEAKER_01 20:59

Yep, yep, 100%. It's crazy.

SPEAKER_00 21:01

And so that's not what it is.

SPEAKER_01 21:04

No, it's your own stem cells, first of all.

SPEAKER_00 21:08

My own stem cells. I am alive the whole time. It's uncomfortable. It's not like it's not the worst pain I've ever felt, that's for sure. That's definitely a nice thing about having a baby, right? You're like, oh, I got this. Peace of cake. Whatever else. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 21:25

Peace of cake.

SPEAKER_00 21:26

Like, no matter what that experience is, something happened in the process of you having a baby that you're just like, not none of this shit scares me anymore.

SPEAKER_01 21:35

Yep, pretty much.

SPEAKER_00 21:36

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 21:36

That's what I like to call mommy strength.

SPEAKER_00 21:38

Yeah, that's great.

SPEAKER_01 21:40

And not even just like strength, but just the mommy strength of uh I can if I can do this, I can do anything.

SPEAKER_00 21:48

Yeah. It's wild having a baby. Anyway, that's a whole other episode. That is, that is, that is. They do, it's like four or five times. Different times where they like draw your blood out of your own arm and then they spin it down and they get like a particular protein or a particular plasma and then they inject it back in the joint that you're trying to work on. And then one of those treatments, they actually take stem cells. Actually, apparently, we all have cells in the back of our pelvic bone that are stem cells, and stem cells just mean cells that have not been programmed to be anything in particular. Like there, it's not a muscle cell, it's not a bone cell, it's not a blood cell. So how are you?

SPEAKER_01 22:45

You can take it and make it what you want. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 22:46

Yeah. So they take your own stem cells out and then they put those stem cells, they add something to it to, you know, make it into whatever kind of tissue you need it to be, and then inject it into whatever joint you want to work on. And then the peak results from it, or like optimal results, are about six months afterward, because these cells are literally regenerating in your body. And so this has been yeah, at least four years ago.

SPEAKER_01 23:20

At least four years ago. Yeah. And I'm still shocked. It's amazing. It's absolutely amazing. You have no issues. I mean, we are able to do everything in the gym. Everything, lunges, squats. There's been nothing that we have done that you've been like, uh, I mean, you can even kneel on it, no problem. It's impressive. I'm thoroughly impressed.

SPEAKER_00 23:43

Yeah. Big, big advocate for that. And, you know, it's not covered by insurance.

SPEAKER_01 23:50

Of course not.

SPEAKER_00 23:51

But yeah. There's it's because it actually works. Right, because it actually works. And because you don't need any pain medication along.

SPEAKER_01 23:59

Oh shocking.

SPEAKER_00 24:01

Weird pharmaceutical.

SPEAKER_01 24:02

So then pharmaceutical companies can't make money off of it. So, you know. Yeah. They're like, we're good.

SPEAKER_00 24:08

So yeah. So that's why the insurance companies don't approve it. So I think it was, I mean, so this was uh, you know, at least four years ago, and I think I paid it was either like seven or eight thousand dollars for one joint. But you know that's really not that bad though.

unknown 24:25

Right.

SPEAKER_01 24:25

When you think about the grand scheme of things, my annual out-of-pocket, Max.

SPEAKER_00 24:30

I think I remember like looking at it and making like a rational decision being like my my annual out of pocket is $7,500. So it's basically like, here you go. If I was to have a knee replacement surgery, I would have been paying basically the same thing.

SPEAKER_01 24:46

Yeah. Yeah. So exactly. It's worth what four or five years later, and you're still paying free. It was worth it was worth every penny. Totally.

SPEAKER_00 24:55

I actually, and so another like thing that just really made me feel like I was making the right decision about that. You remember who I have referred to as Mr. DOD, right? Yes, I do. Cause that was like a weekly update kind of thing for a while back in the day.

unknown 25:14

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 25:15

Well, you know, he had been really hurt overseas doing his job.

SPEAKER_01 25:21

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 25:22

And he had told me at the time when I told him that I was like looking for an alternative to this like knee thing that I was considering stem cell therapy. He was like, do it. They did it on my back at the VA, and I'm pretty sure that's the only reason I can still walk. Oh wow. Yeah. So it just is so it's just that's always stayed with me, like as far as it is done, and in some hospitals, it's done in VA hospitals. And the other thing that you'll find in the VA hospitals is chiropractic work. Yes. And the reason that neither one of those are covered by insurance most of the times is because they don't use pharmaceuticals and because they actually work.

SPEAKER_01 26:13

Yes, absolutely. I 100% believe that getting chiropractic work through my entire second pregnancy is the reason why I didn't have my low back pain like I did with my first pregnancy. I am a hundred percent a believer. And I used to be very skeptical of the kairos. I really did. And she turned me into a believer.

SPEAKER_00 26:39

Yeah, I'm a big believer in my chiropractor as well. Well, I'm glad that you encouraged me to tell my knee story because it is definitely a big part of my story and a really good lesson that it just if a conventional doctor is telling you one thing, just question, just look for alternatives because there are some really good alternatives out there.

SPEAKER_01 27:07

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_00 27:09

So how did you get started training? Or like, because you have a degree in what's your degree in?

SPEAKER_01 27:17

I got my exercise science degree from the University of South Carolina back in 2010. A little, a little gap between, you know, graduating high school and graduating college, but you know, whatever.

SPEAKER_00 27:33

Everyone's path is different. So one way or another.

SPEAKER_01 27:38

Oh one way or another, we get it done. And then actually, my first job right out of college was I was a fitness coordinator for a retirement community. And I loved it. I think it's why I still have a passion for training the older population. I have quite a few clients that are, you know, 75 and above. But that is how I kind of first got introduced into I don't even want to say the fitness community because that was more of an elderly, you know, community. But my best friend at the time was the group fitness coordinator for Eshore Athletic Club. So she got me in the door doing group fitness, teaching group fitness classes. Do you remember Les Mills? Do you remember Les Mills Body Club? Yes, that was my very, very, very first certification. And once I started teaching classes, I realized how much I liked the gym aspect, like more of getting in and training, obviously, the younger, a younger population, as well as what who I was working with at the retirement community. And then after a couple of years doing both, the retirement community just got old. Not to be not to be funny, but it did. It was just, it was the same thing day in, day out, day in, day out. They were looking to cut hours anyways. So I was just kind of like, huh. I'll you you can just literally. I'll just go ahead and tell you right now, you know, I'm going to get, I had to get my personal training certification. Even though I had my degree, they still require a PT cert. So I was allowed to start training clients at the gym, at least, since I had my exercise science degree. I had a fitness background, a science background. And Les Mills at the time was doing amazing certifications. They've shortened it down so much over the years. It used to be a four, a three-day-long certification, and they did so much anatomy and physiology that they kind of allowed that certification as a point to kind of start taking clients until I got my PT certification. But that really is what started it all. It was group fitness, believe it or not. It's still why I think it's still why I love teaching group fitness classes still today, even though I take clients.

SPEAKER_00 30:04

I appreciate that so much about working with you, is that if someone tells you, if someone comes in and tells you like this hurts or this is sore, then like you really know how to work either to like work the soreness out or to work around it. Or do you have people that come in that just say, like, I want to work on a particular body part, or that I'm like worried about working a particular body part?

SPEAKER_01 30:34

Absolutely. I mean, there I I have a I have a lady who literally she has like it's the shoulder on this side and the knee on this side and the elbow on this side and the ankle on this side. And it's like, okay, so what exactly can we do? We you know, there's there's always workarounds, but you do I've cut I've I've kept up with my training, if you will. I mean, to be a to be a trainer, there's certain CEUs you have to get every two years, and I try to stay on top of some of the newer stuff. Like I recently I've done the women's health certification and corrective exercise certifications. So I tr I definitely try to give workarounds. There are some things that if somebody came up to me, I had no clue. I would just say, I don't know. I could probably find out, but I am do not have a lot of knowledge in that area. But I think between myself and Tiffany, both of us could figure something out for every single person who walks through the doors at Forge.

SPEAKER_00 31:43

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 31:44

I think with both of our knowledge, but there's always something. No one is just walks in, you know, hey, right.

SPEAKER_00 31:52

Like I know everything.

SPEAKER_01 31:54

Yeah, no, yeah, no, and I love that as a trainer. I love being able to not only just work you out, but also talk you through it. You know, and not everyone cares. Like some people what this exercise is doing or what it benefits them. They just want to do it. But there are some who want to know exactly what this exercise is doing and how it's gonna benefit them and you know what this leads to. So I love being able to talk it all out.

SPEAKER_00 32:27

I've loved working on my balance and like through the knee thing and the elbow thing, it's so funny to see the difference in, I guess, especially with the elbow thing, or I mean especially with the knee thing, because it's like when we're doing like step-ups, you know, like I just don't trust my right knee as much. And it's been so funny. And it's nice when like you know you're like, no, you can do it. Like you just that's it's a mental thinking that you can't do it is in your head, not in your knee.

SPEAKER_01 33:02

Yeah, absolutely.

SPEAKER_00 33:03

So I feel safer for doing it, yeah. Yes, yeah, I feel safer pushing it because you're like, there's no physiological reason that you can't do that.

SPEAKER_01 33:18

Your brain is telling you you can't, but your knee is saying, Yes, I can.

SPEAKER_00 33:22

Get your ass up on that block, yes, ma'am.

SPEAKER_01 33:28

That's great.

SPEAKER_00 33:29

I will say that if I have to, yeah. So how do you think you look at training differently like since you've had kids? And you trained like all like up until like right before both of them were born.

SPEAKER_01 33:47

Yeah. Yeah. And even just how I felt completely different with each one of them is so different as well. But I I actually was just talking about this with shoot. I can't, I don't even, it doesn't even matter. But I was talking about this just the other day with someone at the gym. When you are a young trainer, you just want to like demolish everybody. You want everyone to just feel like they're gonna die. And you know, you want them to like not be able to walk the next day, and then you're like, yeah. And then as you get older, you realize that's that's actually kind of not good. You know, you people need to be able to be mobile the next day, you know, especially as women in general get older. There are certain areas we need to focus on more than others. And sometimes as as I've gotten older and I've hit my 40s as well, sometimes the scale is not always our friend. A lot of times it's not our friend.

SPEAKER_00 34:57

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 34:58

You're gonna feel a difference in your pants way before you ever see the scale move. And so I try to make sure that people understand that I would never ever ever rely on a scale at all. It's not our friend.

SPEAKER_00 35:17

Well, and just our muscle is not, are we like losing muscle as we get older? Or is it a hundred percent?

SPEAKER_01 35:26

You start losing your muscle mass after you turn 35.

SPEAKER_00 35:31

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 35:32

I want to say it's really it sets in a lot, especially as women transition into perimenopause. Um that's why strength training in general is so important as you get older. And not only just strength training, but like real, you know, not five-pound dumbbells. I'm talking, I'm talking real challenging the muscle, making the muscle push past its kind of effort point. Yeah. You should you should feel it and you should feel like you're challenged.

SPEAKER_00 36:05

I think, I don't know, tell me if you hear this a lot, but I feel like it used to be a myth. Like, I think this myth has kind of been broken down that women shouldn't lift weights if they don't want to get like bulky and like look like a man. Like, I don't think that's so much out there anymore, right?

SPEAKER_01 36:25

Uh yeah, I I luckily there are obviously still people who believe that. And I think at their I actually I feel like it's kind of flipped. So it's actually the younger generation now that has really embraced weightlifting. And it's a little bit more our generation that still is in that. Well, if I lift weights, I'm gonna get bulky kind of mentality. We as women do not produce enough testosterone to get bulky. We need muscle mass in order to look cut. Like when people say they want definition, what they don't realize is they actually have to put muscle mass on their body in order to have definition. At least like good definition, you know what I mean? Not without looking like so weird. Yeah. So you have to you really do, you have to lift weights. You have to.

SPEAKER_00 37:18

Yeah. I think it's particularly interesting, like as a mom, you start picking, I mean, you know, you have a baby, sure, you can sling that baby around. But once you have like from a toddler on, they still want you to pick them up. Absolutely. And as a single mom, there were so many times up until just I would say like maybe about a year ago or so, Caroline has always been a car sleeper. That car will put her right out. And so anytime that we were like coming back late from somewhere, she would fall asleep. And then she has just always been my little, I I call her my no-sleep monster. Sleep has just always been like at so it's been so precious to me ever since she was a newborn with her. So it was like, I would rather carry this little sack of taters up the stairs and keep her asleep and just put her in the bed. So I mean, I was carrying her out of the car and up the stairs and into the bed until she was probably 55 or 60 pounds.

SPEAKER_01 38:32

Oh, yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 38:34

And you know, so if you I can't imagine like not being able to do that.

SPEAKER_01 38:38

Yeah, and there are people who can't.

SPEAKER_00 38:40

And yeah, because I feel like I was pretty strong when I was doing that. And yeah, my mom would all the time be like, Laura, you're gonna hurt yourself. Be careful, you're gonna hurt yourself. And that's what like I think like in their generation, it was like cardio was like the only appropriate thing for a woman to do to like work out, you know. Yes, yes, is it was just like mom, it's a like it's a good thing that I can do this and like feel comfortable doing it and like know that I'm strong enough to do it. And so yeah, I mean you have this little weighted thing that you know that you need to be able to like pick up and carry around all the time.

SPEAKER_01 39:23

Yeah, it's just and it does it doesn't it doesn't even that I feel like the older they get, the more they want to, the more they want to be carried.

SPEAKER_00 39:31

Well, and they yeah, they definitely go through a point where they want to like climb back inside, right? Like clinging on. Yes. And then I mean, she doesn't she doesn't really want me to pick her up so much anymore, obviously when she's hurt, but she does still want to just like climb all over me and just play, you know. So yeah, it's definitely important to be to be mom strong.

SPEAKER_01 40:01

Very much so. I just just in not even just terms of of muscle mass on your body, but also, you know, osteoporosis is so prevalent in women as we get older as well, and keeping your muscle mass and your bone density is gonna carry you on so much later in life. And I have I have a 60-year-old. If not, if she's not 60, she's pretty darn close. And she is of that generation where they were cardio queens. That's all they did. They didn't lift weights, and she kicks herself for not, you know, starting sooner. She's like, if I would have known this, if I would have known now what I know then, I would have started doing this so much sooner.

SPEAKER_00 40:56

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 40:56

I mean, when we started, she could barely even deadlift 65 pounds, and now we're up to 125.

SPEAKER_00 41:05

Dang. I know.

SPEAKER_01 41:07

She looks like her favorite exercise now is a deadlift.

SPEAKER_00 41:10

Because it makes her feel like a baddie.

SPEAKER_01 41:12

Yeah, it does. There, there, there just is nothing. There is nothing that makes you feel just picking up a bar with a bunch of weight on it.

SPEAKER_00 41:22

Maybe slinging the hammer into the 100%. Or slam ball. Or the ropes. I do like the ropes too. Oh, that was kind of fun.

SPEAKER_01 41:34

I forget about the ropes. I don't use those as much.

SPEAKER_00 41:37

Right?

SPEAKER_01 41:38

Yeah. And I always forget about them.

SPEAKER_00 41:40

You know what? Something that I just thought of when we're talking about like new things versus old trends is the weighted vest thing. I feel like I see every middle-aged woman in her yoga pants walking around this neighborhood with her weighted vest on, right? Yes.

SPEAKER_01 41:58

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 41:59

And I feel like I can joke about that and be like, I don't need a weighted vest. I gotta carry my ass around. That's how I feel. And I still got I still got some, you know, plenty of plenty of extra.

SPEAKER_01 42:12

That's how I feel. I'm like, I don't need a weighted vest.

SPEAKER_00 42:16

I got my own weight. You see like all these skinny chicks walking around with these weighted vests. I'm like, I got some weight for you.

SPEAKER_01 42:23

But I mean, that's a good thing to do, right? It is as much as I make fun and I pick and I joke, because there's actually a couple girls at the gym who laugh at themselves because they're the ones on the bridge with their weighted vests walking around, and there's people who come in with their weighted vests and they get on the stair climber, and I do. I pick, I joke and I laugh. But I mean, listen, at least they're doing the dang gum thing. And they're I mean, anytime you can put more weight on your body and work out, I mean, you're you're exerting that much more energy, if you will. Right. Making it that much harder.

SPEAKER_00 43:01

Is there like a certain percentage that you that is like the recommended weight to do?

SPEAKER_01 43:09

I don't know. I really I have not I have not looked into it. I have not researched it, but I am I mean I can't imagine you'd want to put too because then you, you know, you still run the risk of you know, bad posture. You could start putting too much on your your body, which is then hurting your lower back. I can't imagine they're they're too heavy. What do you think? 25 pounds?

SPEAKER_00 43:36

I feel like I've read that it's like 10% of your body weight.

SPEAKER_01 43:40

Oh, that's a lot.

SPEAKER_00 43:42

Okay. Well, yeah. So then okay. Depending on maybe not quite that much.

SPEAKER_01 43:47

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 43:48

I need to start doing a fact check section of this podcast.

SPEAKER_01 43:52

That's a really good idea, actually. See, I'm gonna look it up right when we get off, and I'm gonna message you. Or tell you on Tuesday when I see you.

SPEAKER_00 44:02

Send me, send me like a link and then I can post the link like in the show notes.

SPEAKER_01 44:08

Oh, cool. Okay. I'll do that. We're gonna learn about weighted vests today.

SPEAKER_00 44:13

Yes, we are. Is there any other either diet fad or workout fad that you can think of right now that you think is just you're like, oh, finally people know that this is right, or you just think it's like the worst thing you've ever heard of?

SPEAKER_01 44:27

It it's always the no carb thing. That's that's still a continuous. I think it's just because people don't physically understand what a carb is. So I think in people's minds they hear carb and they just think, oh, well, I don't eat bread and I don't eat potatoes and I don't eat rice. Um okay, but you eat fruits and veggies? Yeah. Okay, but that's a carb. I mean, it's just it's yeah, those are carbs. I think it's just the molecular-wise, though that is those are carbs. So now we're definitely steering away from that. I feel like meat, meat eating is really big right now. The carnivore diet. Protein is in everything, like add to everything.

SPEAKER_00 45:07

I wish people would do we need that much protein.

SPEAKER_01 45:10

Calm the F down with protein. Okay. I feel like we stress over it too much. Is it important? Yes. Should you be eating either a what you want, if you want to gain weight, if you want what you want your body weight to be, that's how much many grams of protein you should be eating. Same with if you want to lose weight, what you want your goal weight to be, that should be where you should be consuming your. But we put way too much emphasis on protein. Yeah. It's important, don't get me wrong. It's a big macronutrient, but I feel like people overstress over it, and then they're overanalyzing everything, and then you've completely lost the whole point. I mean, that's just my own personal take on it. Yeah. I've GLP1s are still really popular right now. Yeah. And any of the any of those kinds of drugs are still really, and I I'm 100% on board with them. I think if that is gonna make you have success and you're gonna feel better about yourself, and you need that added, that added boost, if you will, if that's what's gonna work for you, fantastic. But people also need to understand that strength training on AGLP1 is extremely important. Extremely important. Why you need to do it while you're on it. Because a lot of the times, all the weight that's being lost is not necessarily uh good weight. You're losing your muscle mass. Because a lot of the, like, especially like what is that one? Uh, zet bound. Is that is that one? Yeah. You know, I mean, it they're all appetite suppressants. So you'll eat, and then, you know, all you're doing is eating away at your muscle mass. So sometimes the weight loss is weight loss, but you also need to be taking care of where that where that weight loss is coming from.

SPEAKER_00 47:14

So let me see if this scenario is correct. If I'm taking a GLP1 and the only thing that I'm eating is like lettuce and bread. Let's say. Let's say I'm only eating like salads and bread.

SPEAKER_01 47:33

Okay. Well, it depends on what's on those salads.

SPEAKER_00 47:37

I'm not like not putting like a lot of meat. Uh-huh. So in that situation, then you're gonna be losing muscle because you're not getting enough protein.

SPEAKER_01 47:48

Yeah, for sure. For sure. And and you're losing you're losing fat as well, but a lot of your muscle mass is going with you.

SPEAKER_00 47:57

And I think that's where people get into the danger of being on a roller coaster, is because they think, oh, wow, you know, I've gotten to my goal weight, I'm gonna stop taking the GLP one. Yep, but then they're left with no muscle mass, which that's gonna help you sustain that weight. Absolutely. Muscle mass is very important. You're gonna pop on a bunch of fat. So yeah.

SPEAKER_01 48:20

Muscle mass is what kid it's what I like to use for the term afterburn. So, like when you're done working out, how long your body continues to burn calories is very dependent on your muscle mass. And obviously, the more you have, the longer your afterburn is gonna be.

SPEAKER_00 48:39

Nice.

SPEAKER_01 48:40

So it's it is. It's it's why I, with every single one of my clients, I'm talking even my my almost 90-year-old, we strength train, we move weights. It's not always big, big, big heavy weights, but we are focusing on strength training. I love it. Yes, it's my favorite, it's what I like to do too. I am I'm not a runner. I hate running. Yeah, hate it, hate it, hate it with a passion. I can get my cardio other ways, you know, even if it's just popping on a stair climber for five minutes or hopping on the air dying bike for five minutes, but you ain't gonna catch me running unless something's chasing me.

SPEAKER_00 49:20

I know that's what I love to say, too. Well, that's what I love about body pump, like we were talking about before. And and that's still we don't call it that, right? Because that's literally like a licensed thing, but you guys still teach classes that are yes like that.

SPEAKER_01 49:37

Ours is uh more like strength, yeah. Cause because body pump was all about muscular endurance, which is what I mean. Look at all the hit stuff right now.

SPEAKER_00 49:47

So you're like in body pump for anybody that doesn't know what that is, you're lifting weights on a barbell most of kind of like half the time you're using a barbell, right?

SPEAKER_01 49:58

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 49:59

And so it's not the most weight that you can do with that, but you're doing, let's say, like very high rep. Yes. So I mean, what those classes are like an hour long, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 50:13

They are, they're an hour long, and you hit every single muscle group.

SPEAKER_00 50:17

Every major.

SPEAKER_01 50:18

Um, and it's why I loved body pump. Your burn, your afterburn from body pump was so good because of the type of muscular endurance it was doing. Yes. And that's kind of the same concept at the the work, the classes we do at Forge are a little bit more strength training. We don't hit as high of a rep count as body pump, but it's still that same strength focus. Okay.

SPEAKER_00 50:49

Yeah, I think before we go, let's make sure that for anyone in the Charleston area that we tell them exactly about Forge.

SPEAKER_01 50:59

So Absolutely.

SPEAKER_00 51:00

Yeah, what's the difference between it and your typical gym?

SPEAKER_01 51:05

We are 10,000 square feet. We are considered a private gym where like most of your big corporate gyms or big box gyms, we're talking four, five, six thousand members. Forge will be capped at 650, just so it never feels overly crowded in there. You know, you never feel like you're gonna have to rub elbows with somebody.

SPEAKER_00 51:30

We are ever smell so strongly of sweat and bo that you're about to die. Yeah, I love that.

SPEAKER_01 51:38

It's clean. The owner is a husband, husband and wife team, and they do such a good job of keeping it clean, keeping everything organized. We're located right next to Seacoast Church, so it's very convenient. We're right at the end of 526. Lots of parking. That's a big one right now. Massive parking lot. I mean, I don't think that it will ever be an issue. Even when church is in. Um, you know, church is really only in Wednesday night and Sunday morning, but there is never gonna be an issue because that parking lot is so massive. But the I think my favorite part and what we're having, what we used to have such an issue with at the other place I worked worked at, there's no membership. There's or not, no, I sorry, there's a membership fee. Let me let me take that back. There's obviously a membership fee, but there's no contract you have to sign. No contract, no crazy annual fee that's just gonna randomly come out of your account when you don't know about it. No hidden fees. It's literally just $74 a month. You pay that every month, it comes out and boom, that's it. There's complete transparency.

SPEAKER_00 52:55

I really appreciate that. And that you can stop and start it. So, you know, if you're like for teachers, if they want to just do it in the summer or just do it during the school year, and they, you know, they're gonna be doing other things the way they, you know, just having a different lifestyle in the summer than they do the rest of the year round, or you know, anyone that kind of has just a change during the year, you can turn it on and off and absolutely.

SPEAKER_01 53:23

It's super, super easy. There's an app and you literally control it yourself. It's amazing. I it's really been such a great transition from the corporate gym to now opening my own LLC and having my own personal training business that I run out of there. It's just it's been such a night and day kind of difference. And it's I've I've enjoyed every second of it.

SPEAKER_00 53:49

So, what do people do if they want to come work out there?

SPEAKER_01 53:53

They would go to www.forgecharleston.com and you you literally sign up online. It's so easy. They don't even like we don't even want anything to do with seeing your credit card, looking at your credit card. You do everything yourself. We always allow everyone to come in and get their first workout free on us. Uh, you can try a class. I always give my first personal training session free so people can see kind of the way I train. You know, uh there are definitely trainers for everybody. Some people may not like my style, some people may not like my personality. So if I don't know you, I at least am going to, we're gonna test it out, as I like to say, and you can see what you think of me.

SPEAKER_00 54:39

Like we illustrated earlier, your trainer is a trusted person in your life and 100% is getting pretty intimate with you. So you need to really need to feel comfortable with them. Yes.

SPEAKER_01 54:52

Yeah. What else? I think I mean they the the gym literally has everything. It's got all of your free weight options, it's got all of the big, big muscle group, you know, big weightlifting lifts. You got your benches, you got your squat racks, you got free weights, dumbbells, two big cable systems that are attached. So plenty of cables. Oh my gosh, how many, how many machines do you think are in there in that middle section? At least 20, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 55:24

I was gonna say I like how it's broken down into the big muscle group section and then the machines. Yeah, at least twenty at least 20 machines.

SPEAKER_01 55:35

At least 20, yeah. And you know, there's pretty much a machine for every isolated muscle group you want to do, which is great. You know, you can get your you can get your compound exercise with your bar and then come get an isolation on the machine on the machine. And then on the other side, you've got your functional training where all the balls and the kettlebells and the ropes and all of that. I love the way that they sectioned it out. Yeah, it's gorgeous, gorgeous, gorgeous. I don't really think there's anything in there that we particularly need. I really don't, right? Other than just more members, yeah, yes.

SPEAKER_00 56:20

Well, hopefully this will help with that, and we'll have some more friends to kind of work out.

SPEAKER_01 56:26

That would be lovely. That would be lovely.

SPEAKER_00 56:28

It's a perfect midlife gym. It's open four hours a day. Yeah. So like literally whatever your schedule is, you can make it work. And yeah, it's really easy in and out, and uh yeah, it's nice, not smelly, not creepy. High recommend.

SPEAKER_01 56:48

Oh, thanks for saying that, Laura. We'd love to hear that.

SPEAKER_00 56:53

All right, well, thank you so much.

SPEAKER_01 56:56

Oh, you are so welcome.

SPEAKER_00 56:57

I will see you next week.

SPEAKER_01 56:59

Yes, I'll see you Tuesday, girl. Bye.