Grace & Grit Podcast

I have been a fan of Nia Shank's for a very long time and she has been a champion among an army of women who's message inspires the work that I do as a health coach, trainer and host of this podcast. If you go to Nia's website, and I strongly suggest you do, you will see that she introduces herself as a coach and a writer who shares  health and fitness information that doesn't suck . Not only does...

Life is full of uncertainties, but a few things you can be certain you will face in your lifetime, and one of them is adversity. No one gets through life without facing challenges, and HOW we choose to face those challenges has everything to do with the quality of life we will live. Adversity shapes us, for better or for worse. My guest on the Grace & Grit podcast today, Alexandra Franzen, just au...

Now, typically when I schedule podcast interviews, I schedule them based on when my schedule aligns with the schedules of the guest I want to host. There is really no method behind how the podcasts are organized, which makes it extra special when I am able to host a guest like Jenny Carr to discuss inflammation and then immediately host my guest today, Kristen Boehmer, who has an incredible story...

Halloween is now over (I am sure I am not the only mother out there whispering "thank god" under her breath). I love a lot of the traditions of Halloween but the sheer volume of candy involved in the holiday drives me crazy! I went trick-or-treating for all of 25 minutes with my son and, in that short time; he must have collected several pounds of candy. Ugh! Sugar makes things taste good, but as...

Welcome to the Grace & Grit Podcast. I am super pumped you are here today and I am so grateful for all of the amazing feedback I got from last week's interview with Courtney Carver of Be More with Less. Clearly, "simplicity" is a topic that hit home for a lot of you. And I get it. The large majority of the women I work with are doing all they can to keep their head above the sea of "to-dos" they h...

Simplicity, in my opinion, is a topic we cannot talk about enough because we are living in a time that is everything but simple. Building the skill of living more simply isn't sexy (just as most of the things that will truly improve our health are not). It forces us to slow down, become aware and make conscious choices and it is easy to rationalize not having time for that in a world that pushes m...

For years women have sought me out to help them improve their health, and often they come expecting a list of "what" they should be doing (via specific meal plans, calorie loads, foods to avoid etc.). They are often surprised when I ask them to start questioning HOW they might need to show up differently for themselves to elicit a different response. How you greet the day is just as important as w...

I have had several guests on the show to discuss  the power hormones have in the health equation because honestly, I do not think this is a topic we can discuss enough. Hormones influence and govern everything about our physiology: weight fertility, mood, energy, sleep and sex drive…just to name a few things. And their disruption can cause havoc on our tissues, our systems and ultimately our sanit...

Exercise inspires a host of emotions in people including: fear, dread, resistance and frustration. It is a shame that something that has been proven time and time again to be so good for us, can feel like such a hardship at times. If you have every struggled to stay consistent with your exercise program, you are not alone. Everyone struggles at some point. So, in this episode of the Grace & Grit p...

"Cheat meals" and "cheat days" are an integral part of the diet culture vocabulary. And while many people could argue that it is just "semantics" and, therefore, no big deal… I beg to differ. Cheating implies dysfunction and deep health is not born out of dysfunction (not by a long shot). If you have every found yourself in a position of trying to make amends with food choices that aren't necessar...

You may have the best intentions for improving how and what you eat, but if you don't have some strategies in place for doing so easily, you will never take action on it, or you will fail to take action with it consistently. I get it. Been there done that. Through my own process of working to elevate my health over the years, and hundreds of women to do the same, I have a few (okay…more than a few...

Sometimes I think we have come so far in the conversation of what it means to be a healthy woman, and other times  it feels like we are having the same exact conversation we have always had using different words . We have gone from: Atkins to Ketogenic Diets Aggressive cardio to aggressive strength training Cosmopolitan Magazine to Instagram "Skinny is sexy" to "Strong is the new sexy" (as my frie...

"I really love being a diet", said no one ever. Dieting sucks. You know it and I know it. Being in a constant battle with food and exercise is downright exhausting, deflating and not a spectacular use of our 1 shot at this thing called life. I am a huge fan of nutrition and exercise science, AND I think that a big part of dis-ease in the human body has stemmed from people seeking so much outside p...

Compromising, negotiating and rationalizing your way out of your good intentions to improve your health goals are behaviors that can all too easily become habits. Quitting can also easily become a habit. In fact, the diet industry has been benefitting for years off of people going from diet to diet to diet; it has thrived off of its customers making a habit out of quitting. Gyms too make money on...

It seems we have become a culture of wanting the solution to all of our health woes to be delivered in 1 nice (and cheap) little package and, man, have a lot of people designed products and programs that promise just that. Look, I get it… It is easier to have someone tell you exactly what to do all the time: what to eat, how to move, which meditation to do, how much sleep to get, etc. And I am not...

Living life in the 21st century is a blessing in so many ways. We have education at our fingertip and more freedom to choose than ever before. And… Having so many options at our disposal has increased overwhelm, the time, energy and money we spend on this that just aren't all that important and we are more distracted than ever before. None of which leads us to a more health-FULL life. Many women I...

The Grace & Grit podcast is dedicated to helping women expand their definition of health because deep health isn't a look, deep health is a way of being that extends far beyond the narrow conversation of just food and exercise. Sure, as women, we all want to look good, but we also want to FEEL good and, most of all, we want to be happy. And finding our happy isn't about adding MORE "to do's" to ou...

My mother jokes I came out of the womb dancing. I am not joking when I say that my movement journey has literally introduced me to all the best parts of my life from friends to my career to my husband. In fact, movement is what introduced me to today's incredible guest, and my dear friend, Babeth Schuring. When I started this podcast, I knew I would have her as a guest on this show at some point b...

The Grace & Grit podcast is one of the small ways I feel I can contribute to helping mend the fabric of the collective female health story. One of the topics, I feel passionate in regards to this, is educating women about how to utilize strength training and movement practices to empower the relationship they have WITH their body. So, I am always on the hunt for guests who have missions aligned wi...

Let's face it, there is A LOT of information to navigate through when it comes to strategies and methods for improving health, maximizing performance, preventing injuries etc. Clearly, not all information coming at you is quality material and not all professionals in the health and wellness industries understand the complexities of the human body to the same extent. There are professionals you wil...

There is no denying that the aging process poses some challenges to our physiology. I just turned 40 this year, and what my body needs at this stage of my life is a bit more complex than what it needed in my 20's. Aging demands a new level of respect when it comes to how we care for our body so we can continue to engage with the things that light us up and make us feel fully alive. On today's epis...

So often we embark on a change process because we get a hit of motivation so strong we feel compelled to take action… for a while. A few days, weeks or months pass, and, well…you know the drill… the spark that ignited our action starts to flicker out and resistance starts to rear her ugly head. We start descending the slippery slope of compromise and negotiation because we often fail to feed the m...

"I have so much to do." "I am so stressed." "I don't have time." "I am overwhelmed." Do any of those phrases sound familiar? I hear women using these phrases constantly as rational for why they can't seem to take better care of themselves more consistently. And believe me…I get it. There was a time in my life that these phrases dominated nearly every conversation I had with another person. Until…...

Deep health requires a deep level of self-respect. And, while many women may agree with that in theory, they often struggle with the application part. Treating yourself with consistent self-respect demands awareness, compassion, the willingness to make decisions that may go against the grain of cultural norms, the courage to set boundaries and the confidence to protect those boundaries. No small f...