Fitness Chat with Powerlifter & Coach Ella Caggiano

This episode is a recorded interview Lunden did with her dear friend Ella Caggiano for Ella's coaching program. They discuss SO much, including Lunden's F.I.T.N.E.S.S. acronym and how it's way more than just working out to get the body and life of your dreams.

Here are some timestamps to help you navigate the episode:
0:00 Intro

2:57 Redefining F.I.T.N.E.S.S.

3:30 What does 'fitness' mean to you?

7:03 Do you have to be shredded to be fit?

9:35 F - Feelings > Looks

12:40 What makes me feel good?

13:50 I - I vs Me (and the comparison trap)

19:40 Getting out of a rut

27:26 N - Nutrition

32:19 E - Empowering Ownership

37:45 S - Self Love

42:50 S- Sweat

Connect with Ella:
IG: @ellacaggfitness
www.ellacaggfitness.com

Transcript

Lunden Souza: [00:00:00] Welcome to Self Love and Sweat. The podcast, the place where you'll get inspired to live your life unapologetically, embrace your perfect imperfections, break down barriers and do what sets your soul on fire. I'm your host, Lunden Souza. Hey, friend, it's me. Lunden Souza Online Lifestyle Transformation Coach. I help people all over the world just like you who know they are meant for more. Get their mind right and their body tight and go from crazy busy to crazy happy. And hey, if it's our first time meeting, welcome. So happy to have you. And if you've been with us for a while, it's so great that you're here too. I'm really excited to share this episode of the Self Love and Sweat podcast with you.

Lunden Souza: [00:01:06] Hey, really quick. Just wanted to give you some.

Context and a little background. On today's episode Because it's actually. An interview with me by my friend and fellow fitness coach Ella Caggiano. And so she did an interview with me for her clients and for her coaching program, all about fitness mindset, my fitness acronym. Her and I always have really powerful Conversations. I love talking to Ella, so this conversation Is super powerful, really valuable and we cover a lot of really awesome topics.

Lunden Souza: [00:01:41] When it comes to mindset, when it comes to fitness. And her and I both really love this space a lot and are sharing our own personal experiences as well. So yeah, I just wanted to give you a little background and enjoy this episode.

Ella Caggiano: [00:01:54] Hey Everyone, I hope you guys are all having a great day. I'm here with Lunden and her and I are going to talk all about redefining fitness today. And I know that that sounds like a really broad topic. And Lunden has had brought this idea to me to kind of chat about today, and she has a really great outlook on all of the ways that we can redefine fitness in our own heads, in our own bodies and minds. And so I'm really excited to talk to Lunden about this today.

Lunden Souza: [00:02:21] Hey, Ella, thanks for having me. Yeah, it is kind of a broad topic, redefining fitness, right? But I don't think or let's say maybe raise your hand or ask yourself, when's the last time you thought about what you think about when you say the word fitness or when you think about the word fitness? And so that's why I think it's important, even though it might feel a little bit broad of like, what does fitness mean to me? We're really going to chunk up and ask ourself that question, but then also chunk down. And I have a really fun acronym with the word fitness that I'm going to share with you today to help you remember and internalize this even more. So you can take notes on this. You can even make like a note on your phone. Just put the word fitness f, I, t and s and each letter will have either a word or just like a quick phrase to help you have a more empowering viewpoint of fitness. Maybe you already do. So this will help you have an even more empowering viewpoint. And if you're like, Oh, I kind of feel funky when I think about the word fitness, this will help you too. So let's first think about what we think about when we hear the word fitness.

Ella Caggiano: [00:03:27] Yeah.

Lunden Souza: [00:03:28] And when we see fitness videos on social media or what's like our internal representation. That's what I'll often say is like, what do we see? What do we feel? What do we hear? What do we smell? What comes up? Is it a physical feeling? Where is it? As in your stomach? Is it in your throat? Is it in your heart? Like what comes up for you when you hear the word fitness? And yeah, just kind of think about that. Maybe you jot down some ideas, maybe you just kind of think about some things to yourself of of what that means for you. And I think that this is important because this industry has really made fitness and like just the working out portion of fitness such a major tool, like, okay, this is what you do, this is how you do it. And this is if you do it this way, you'll get here and then you'll feel this right, which I know for a lot of us it's like, you know, you don't working out great. It's just not the only tool and it doesn't fix everything. And so with this acronym, Fitness, I want to be able to broaden our internal representation and not have it just be about the working out and doing more workouts and harder workouts or more challenging this or this program or that, having a broader definition, more possibilities, more opportunities to feel like you're really feeling fit and good and healthy and well.

Lunden Souza: [00:04:57] And so yeah, I mean, I remember. And Ella, maybe you. Yeah, I want to share yours too. But I remember when I first started out in fitness for big picture terms. When I first started out when I thought about the word fitness, it really was the workouts. It was like waking up early, getting in your workout. Fitness for me was really the regiment behind it, which I still love. Now I just use them differently of like waking up, you know, having my pre workout routine, doing my workout, eating and doing all the stuff I was doing post workout. It was really tracking progress. It was really, yeah, data driven and focus and whatever. And then later on it was frustrating because I was like, okay, I went through phases in my life where like that wasn't important, but fitness was still important. So I feel like this definition and broadening here has allowed me to, yeah, use some of what my fire was like. That first internal representation of fitness. Fired me up. That got me motivated in the beginning, but then also having stuff that works for me.

Lunden Souza: [00:06:07] I started in fitness when I was 17, right? So what works for me in my late teens versus my twenties versus my thirties? All of that. So my internal representation has changed and this acronym is really, really helpful. But it was frustrating at first because I'm like, okay. I did this for so many years. I still love doing it and not as much all the time. Like it just I felt like I was running up against this wall and hitting my head up like this is the only tool to feel good and to be happy and to feel alive. And it was like, no, there's other options. So I don't know if you felt that way. Maybe in the beginning when you first started working out, maybe it was for a single reason. Maybe fitness was like the end all be all only tool. Like I felt like I used it when I was stressed, when I was happy, when I was mad, when I was sad, all the things. So yeah. What does what comes up for you in fitness now? What do you think would have came up for you if I asked you this question? I don't know, five years ago. What do you think about fitness?

Ella Caggiano: [00:07:02] Ella Yeah. I mean, the reason I love this topic so much that we're talking about is because my perception of what fitness means to me has changed so much over the time that I've been involved with exercise and developing a healthy relationship with my body and, and food and and all of these things. And for a while, being fit meant being shredded, you know, being looking a certain way and doing everything that I could to get to that for the image. And I think, you know, that's something I can admit now because it's something that I've realized about myself, right? Because I've changed sort of my perception of what it really means to to be fit and to have a fit lifestyle and to be involved with fitness and to to say that I love fitness and stuff like that. Right? Because it doesn't mean that to me anymore. But yeah, I think for a lot of people, especially, you know, with social media and and the immersion of like fitness TikTok and fitness Instagram and the influencer scene and all that stuff, a lot of people think of fitness as this look. You have to look a certain way to be involved or to be considered as you know, etc.. And it's so much more, more than that. And I think the coolest part about realizing that self growth is understanding that there are so many more boxes to check when it comes to being successful with your own fitness journey.

Ella Caggiano: [00:08:29] That does not come down to have I gotten my two hour heavyweight session in. And I think that was always like, if I don't do my workout, like then I'm not this, I'm not that. I'm not going to be this, I'm not going to be the person I want to be, blah, blah, blah. But you know, through just understanding more of what balance means and learning more about the other things that make me feel really good, I've learned that not every day involves a heavy weight session and that's cool, you know, and that's not necessarily a bad thing. In fact, that's a great thing because I now appreciate rest a lot more and being fit is as is resting. And so that's something that I didn't ever consider as a part of my wellness routine, was getting enough sleep and resting. And so I think that's just another interesting caveat. You know, among all the other things we're going to talk about today, I just think it's way more than a look. It's way more than an exercise regimen. And there's so many more things we can talk about when it comes to having a fit mind, having a fit body and all of that. So I think we should jump on into the fitness acronym. I love it.

Lunden Souza: [00:09:35] Yeah, cool. And yeah, we love working out. I mean, we love it. It's just not the end all, be all and it's part of this acronym. So spoiler alert. But you have however many letters in the word fitness. We got a lot to cover. So that's one of them. It is part of it. It's just not all of it. Okay, f number. The first letter in fitness is f f stands for feelings over looks. And like I said, when I first started working out, fitness was all about changing the way that I looked and chasing a certain look. And one thing that's always stayed consistent over the last over decade since I've been in this fitness, health, wellness, life coaching space is that looks change in ebb and flow. But the way that you feel when you work out and show up and break through that barrier like that, focusing on that is so much more powerful than always stressing over the way that you look, because it's like even as a woman, you have different phases in your cycle, different times you're holding on to more water or vice versa. And there's moments where like, I'm about to start my period and I'm bloated and like the way that I look is not like I'm not buttoning up my jeans that day, but I might go out for a nice, sweaty workout, or even just a walk or a hike or something more restorative.

Lunden Souza: [00:10:47] And it just feels so good to move, even though, you know, you're feeling a little bit crampy. So there's like moments where it's like, it's not beautiful. You're not looking in the mirror and having that perfect lighting angle moment, but you can still be like, Okay, yeah, that felt freaking good. And that's really what I felt like for me was really addicting. When it came to being consistent with fitness, I was just like, Oh yeah, that workout felt good. The next one felt good, the next one felt good. And sometimes, you know, you have moments where workouts kind of suck or something hurts or whatever, of course, but it's like, I know that working out is a great medicine for a. A lot of things and it helps me find a lot of clarity and just feel more focused and more energized and get better sleep, which makes me feel better. So when we can really focus on the feeling that we get that working out and a healthy lifestyle brings us, and remember how great that feels, I think that's important. And one time I was having a conversation with this girl. I was on a really fun trip in Scotland and I was just kind of talking to her.

Ella Caggiano: [00:11:53] About.

Lunden Souza: [00:11:54] Yeah, the clients I work with and what we're doing. She's like, Oh, it's like you help people get rid of their outer muffin top and their inner muffin top, like their outer limiting beliefs and like their inner stuff. And I always stuck with me because I'm like, Oh yeah, your outer and your inner muffin top. It's important to not just focus on, oh my gosh, like this is, you know, whatever, but it's like, what's what feels good for you, what nourishes your soul, what makes your, you know, your how working out helps your mental health and your clarity and just a lot of other things that help us manage stress better. So that's the F is feelings over looks.

Ella Caggiano: [00:12:24] Yeah, I love that. And just one thing to add, I think a lot of times when we have these like reflective conversations, I always think like, when's the last time we ever asked ourselves, like, what actually makes us feel good, right? Like, what do we think makes us feel good? Like we can answer that right off the top of our head, but what actually makes us feel good and for me personally, that has really been a question I've been asking myself a lot more recently, and it's completely changed my routine and everything. I've incorporated far more vitamins and minerals, supplementation. I've been resting way more and listening to that way more. I've been incorporating more balance in my life and going out and having more fun with my friends, you know, etc., etc.. I think that is so important to focus on. The way things make you feel is really powerful because everyone's going to be different in that way. But I don't think we ask ourselves that question enough, so I love that.

Lunden Souza: [00:13:20] Yeah, good one. And a great way to ask yourself that question and thanks for bringing it up is like, what am I doing when I feel good? And then go out and do that more because like you said, everybody is different and you get to have your own rules to your own game, as I always say. So it's like, okay, ask yourself when you're feeling good, what are you doing? And then do more of that. And oftentimes for me, what I'm doing are a lot of these things here that we'll talk about today. Working out is one of them. When I'm feeling good, I'm working out regularly for sure. But not just that.

Ella Caggiano: [00:13:49] Totally agreed on. I love it.

Lunden Souza: [00:13:52] I fitness the next letter I I versus me. So yeah, it's just stay in your lane, run your race, focus on your progress. You strategies and tools that help you eliminate that comparison trap. And one of them that's helpful for me is just like boundaries with social media awareness, admits the scroll. I say it's like sometimes I just find, you know, and it's just like, remember, it's cool to look side to side and look at what other people are doing and get motivated and get inspired. But sometimes that can spiral into a direction that's just more like, Oh, they have that or they do this, or, You know what's funny for me? What I noticed did it for me, which is like so real life but super like I don't it makes me laugh. It's like I have I know I've been able to do pull ups, like kit ups, I guess I would say like two or three in a row. But I've never been able to do regular pull ups. I've also never practiced consistently in a way that would show that I want to get better at doing regular pull ups. But when I watch and I see stuff on fitness and there's women doing pull ups, I'm like, Oh, that looks like so tight and so strong. And when I do them, I feel like, Oh my gosh, I always need a band. It's just funny. And that's when I find myself slightly comparing where I'm like, Oh yeah, like I should be able in my head, I should be able to do pull ups.

Lunden Souza: [00:15:13] I've been working out for how many decades in years. And if you're a fitness, I don't know, just something about like that. And it makes me laugh because now it's like even when you do the, the self work personal development stuff, it doesn't mean you don't feel certain things. You just are kind of like, ha ha ha. Like there's a moment where you're being like stuff. The thing you have tools to work on, those types of things. But that's a real life example of when I kind of feel that comparison trap arising. So it's just, yeah, being mindful of that. And then that's why I think fitness is so cool too, because it allows you to have like quantitative data to say I versus me or like to show AI versus me. I ran a mile at this pace and now a few weeks later I'm here, I squatted this weight. Now here I am here. So it's cool to have the fitness component when you're comparing yourself to yourself. And and even with that being said, it's like a lot of grace and compassion here because I can remember moments when I was so much fitter than I am now and ran faster. I haven't ran in a really long time. I've been walking a ton like three, three and a half miles a day, but running I haven't a ton. So it's like if I'm comparing my running status last year versus this year.

Lunden Souza: [00:16:22] Yeah, I'm failing, whatever. But it's like, Och, how am I feeling? What is my focus now? What are my goals? You know, am I still doing, like I said, when I'm feeling good, what am I doing? Am I still feeling good with what I'm doing? Yeah, cool. We're good. So yeah, comparison. We're all different. We have different body shapes. We have, you know, we're at different chapters of our fitness. You know, sometimes people, you know, like there's a lot of modalities of fitness too, when it comes to, you know, weight training, yoga, this, that it's like. And as you're trying new things, you'll be a beginner at some point. And it's just like to have a little bit more fun and compassion in the process instead of, as Tony Robbins said, says. And I love when he says it is like shooting all over the place, shooting all over yourself. It's like, I should be here. I should be able to do this. Like Mike, I said, my my internal dialogue was like, you should be able to do pull ups. Lunden It's like, says who according to who, what am I doing when I feel good? Am I doing pull ups? Not really. Are they cool to do sometimes? Yeah. You know, so it's like just a little bit of that chatter. We have to kind of silence the noise and remember, just be like, okay, I versus me and compare ourselves to who we were yesterday.

Ella Caggiano: [00:17:31] Yeah, I love that. And I think that's really important when it comes to being successful in your in your fitness for so many reasons. And I know that we've talked about this now and I've mentioned it a bunch of times before when it comes to, you know, the different self reflections that I've gone over with my clients and stuff. But the moment that you start referring to other people's progress as a place where you are trying to reach or you're trying to get to, as opposed to something that's reflective of your own body goals and lifestyle is the second that you are basically putting your your results in in an unrealistic box, right? And then once you start chasing that and you get stuck on that, that's going to be a really, really tough route because you're not going to look like some person you saw on Instagram that face tuned their body. Right. And so I think that, you know, by being able to use quantitative data on ourselves from measurements to progress pictures to like weight measure, like weight logs, like how much you squat it or whatever, you know, workouts that you've done and stuff like that. When you start realizing that those are the exact markers that you're trying to beat or compare yourself against is where you start succeeding. Because this is a place where you can stay in your own, your own bubble of success, because then once you stop, once you cut out those external resources that are pretty unrealistic, a b are not suitable to match your exact lifestyle, and you start focusing on things that are directly attainable as you've either done them before or they're realistic goals within your time frame and all of that.

Ella Caggiano: [00:19:25] You're really setting yourself up with a smart goal, you know, a realistic goal that's attainable for you. And if you can regularly achieve your goals, the more self efficacy you obtain and the more you actually believe that you can achieve more of your goals. So setting those little goals that you can win and you can achieve, setting little peers, for example, I get in a rut sometimes with my powerlifting routine, especially when I'm in competition prep. I get so bored of doing the same exercises. But when I write down my workouts and I look back two weeks before I lifted £20 for bicep curls for 12, and now I can do them for 14, two weeks later, that's a PR, it's a personal record. I was able to do two more reps at the same weight, or I was able to increase the weight £5 when I did this same amount of exercise, whatever that is, that's a win. That's a PR, that's something I consider success progress. So if you can give yourself those little wins that are within your success bubble within that eye versus me, how can you be competitive with yourself? That's the second when the switch flips and you're able to really see where that progress can come from as opposed to from external resources.

Lunden Souza: [00:20:36] Yeah. And really track to celebrate. I wrote that down because you were like, Yeah, when you see those moments, track it to celebrate, not to beat yourself up. Or I could have should a would have done better. And yeah, there is sometimes monotony in the stuff that we need to do to get to where we want to be. So of course it's more fun when we're having celebration PR parties for ourselves, party PR party of one and then, you know, you get to tell people about it. It's like that just makes it so much more fun, especially over the long run, right? I want to keep working out until I die. So I got a lot of years. I want to have fun and yeah. And make it, you know, make it celebratory cool oc t fitness. The T stands for talk to self, also known as Self Talk. I often will say Change your words, change your world. You know, you can have a really fit, shredded, tight, awesome body, great physique, perfect abs, no cellulite, and still have a lot going on between your ears and hate the way that you look and beat yourself up on a regular basis. Honestly, I think a lot of us, myself included, that times if I get really real, it's like we talk to ourselves worse than we would talk to anyone.

Lunden Souza: [00:21:48] Our worst enemy, you know, it's like talk to ourselves the way that we would talk to a friend, someone that we love. And that's a lot easier said than done. Sometimes in the way that I like to coach on it is just like one word at a time, one word at a time, and just choosing like, okay, like you said, like we talked about before, what am I doing when I feel good? It's like, okay, well, how am I talking to myself when I feel good? Well, how do I feel when I feel good? And it's like sometimes words like a busy stressed. A lot of those words will come up and we can flip them and and change those. And that really makes a big difference because we're already putting in the repetition, saying certain things about ourselves or about our lives in one form or another, whether we're saying it to ourselves, thinking it to ourselves when we look in the mirror, maybe saying it or whatever, understanding that self-talk has its repetitions going in one way, and we can flip it and we can go in the direction that's more empowering for us, whatever that looks like for you. And So Busy is a one I've worked with a lot in my own life is just like changing, busy to be more full and abundant also. So instead of stressed, I'm feeling challenged.

Lunden Souza: [00:23:02] That's one that I've explored that I really like. And, and then also, you know, even just if we get real, like really real behind beyond some of the words that maybe just don't describe how we want to feel throughout the day to day, but like really what we're saying to ourselves, one time I wrote out in my journal like a list of a lot of the mean things I was saying myself. And you look at it and you're like, Oh my gosh, you know? But just being able to have those moments too, where it's like, I create anchors with a lot of my clients, it's like, okay, every time you walk through a doorway or look in a mirror or do this, it's like kind of like habit stacking, but like adding on a little love for yourself in that, you know, of like, okay, when I look in the mirror instead of, you know, for me one of one to for a while in my early twenties, I had really bad acne on my face. I'll give an example when I would look in the mirror. It became a really common habit for me to like, look and examine and be like, you know, like have these kind of emotions, feelings in my body towards whatever. So I just put like a sticky note right there that said, you are beautiful.

Lunden Souza: [00:24:06] Don't pick your face like right in the mirror where I would look at. And so it's like sometimes we even have to put our own signs up and be our own like inner intervener, you know, have that awareness and like intercept right in there and be like, okay, this is a moment when I, when I find myself degrading myself, talking crap to myself, how can I flip it? So now the sticky note is not there, because the way that I live, I kind of bounce back and forth to different places. So I guess I could put a stick, you know, everywhere I go. But now I feel like I've kind of graduated beyond the sticky note where I go up to the mirror and I'm like, Oh yeah, I want to have that urge to want to get up close to my face or whatever. I just turned the light off because sometimes if you're in hotels or you have that aggressive light in your face, I'm like, Just turn the light off. You can still brush your hair and brush your teeth and, you know, be in peace when you're looking. Because sometimes, yeah, I just kind of have this feeling like, oh my gosh, my skin is going to be really full of acne again. One thing leads to another had a really, really bad experience there.

Lunden Souza: [00:25:02] So allowing ourselves to be like, okay, what kind of shit am I talking to myself? How can I just put up some stop signs or some happy signs or how can I celebrate more to the point of I versus me to kind of transform a little bit of what I already know I'm saying to myself and talking to myself and coaching is really helpful here, I'm sure with your clients to it's like even the I can't like I can't do that. I'll never be able to do that. That's limiting beliefs in ways that we're talking to ourselves. So yeah, it's kind of really broad when it comes to to that, but it really just comes down to you thinking about what you're thinking about, knowing that you're putting in the repetitions by saying something, thinking something, and if you want something different, you know, it's we got to put in the repetitions there as well. And you can be the fittest strongest, you know, most aesthetically pleasing person and still have battles in our minds about what we're telling ourselves. And that's okay. So I just don't want to negate it in this definition of fitness because we can't fix the inside all the time by just working on the outside. It's a helpful tool and examining what we're thinking about is powerful too.

Ella Caggiano: [00:26:14] I love it, and I think the more that you do it, like you said, putting in those reps is so important, the more that you practice changing that mindset, looking in the mirror. Seeing something negative about yourself immediately jumping to that negative reaction and then learning to switch that right there right then, and learning how to use your intuition to kind of realize, hey, this doesn't feel nice, right? And just kind of understanding that the more that we do that and the more we switch that mindset and start to think of ourselves and speak to ourselves in a positive light or in a way that's supportive. It really does become a muscle that you exercise and gets better. So the more the higher quality of life you're going to have, the better you feel about yourself. So it really does change the perception of you, of yourself and the world around you the more that you practice positive self-talk and stuff like that. So I think that's super important.

Lunden Souza: [00:27:07] Yeah. Like I get to work out and said, I have to work out. I'm so strong. Like I should tell myself that, you know, so strong when I'm doing the pull ups with the band, you know, it's all good. Just more empowering stuff to ourselves. Okay, the end. And maybe you want to talk about that. I mean, we can both talk about it, but I know you are such a genius in this area. The end is nutrition. Nutrition is so important you can't out train, you know, shitty diet and everybody's metabolism and genetics and stuff are different. So sometimes people it's not fair. This person can eat this and do this. And, you know, I feel like it's a very it can be a very sticky subject and a place where we can compare a lot like, oh, this person eats this, but why? You know, so how important is nutrition? And then how can we use it to be more empowering in our in our pursuit of fitness?

Ella Caggiano: [00:27:54] Yeah, I love this question. And the answer is so abundant. Nutrition is the cool thing about nutrition. When you think about it, the things that we're eating and we're putting into our body are directly the things that build it, right? So we're actually eating the building blocks that become your body. Our cells regenerate, our skin cells completely shed a whole new layer every couple of years, every time we're constantly up and upping our our ante with that kind of stuff. And we're always kind of creating new with our body. So if you think about it, if you're going to build a house with shitty bricks, it's going to fall over pretty quickly, right? So you think about it in terms of that and treating your body like like you would trying to build a structure that can withstand anything. It's kind of cool because then you can realize that you quite literally have the power to change everything about you when it comes to your your makeup and what you are made of and everything like that. So I think the way that we can use nutrition to empower us instead of inhibit us is important because a lot of people think that there has to be some sort of perfection with nutrition. We have to be eating perfect or else we're at fault and vice versa. People don't put enough good things into their diet and that's also inhibiting them.

Ella Caggiano: [00:29:19] So finding that place where we can figure out again, asking ourselves the question of what makes us feel good, and learning that positive nutrition habits are going to be a direct correlation for positive progress in your life is really important. And so the way you can do that is obviously through education, learning what what is good for your body, but also not eating things you don't like because you think they're healthy. I think that's like so important because I think a lot of people think they need to be eating like plain raw broccoli and like just hating every minute of their healthy diet in order to see success. You can eat so many wonderful things that you enjoy, so find ways nutrition actually sparks joy in your life because nutrition and food and and we celebrate and we're social around food. It's a big part of our lives learning how to incorporate things that are great into our diets in ways that make us happy and spark joy. And it's okay to have that emotional reaction to nutrition. I don't think having an emotional relationship with nutrition is a bad thing. Having an overly emotional relationship where it affects and controls your whole life, that's a whole different story. Something I don't want to get into right now. But, you know, finding ways that nutrition genuinely makes you happy, genuinely, genuinely makes you feel good, energized.

Ella Caggiano: [00:30:41] All of these things that we want out of, the things that we put into our body, the more success you're going to see in every single area of your life, from your ability to succeed in your business and your relationships and your own self relationship. It doesn't matter where it is because positive nutrition is going to impact the way that you think, you feel, you act, you recover, you train everything. So yeah, I mean, I think it's one of the building blocks that people don't realize has so much power over the way that we live. And so use that to your advantage, you know, and you can also have crappy food. I, I definitely have my fair share of pizza and, and ice cream and things like that when it's time to celebrate or you want to. Joy thinks that's not an issue. It's the 80% of the time, what are you doing? And so I think people should focus on that, the majority instead of the minority when it comes to their time spent eating. So yeah, I think that's a pretty good summation of, of nutrition and I get into it so much more with some of the other lesson plans and stuff that we've gone over with my clients and things like that. But that's a really good place to, to kind of summarize everything that I think.

Lunden Souza: [00:31:51] Yeah, cool. I know you would answer that perfectly, so I'm not going to add anything. I just and I guess the only thing I would add is I remember realizing at a point a long time ago, like how good it feels when you get your nutrition in check, when you're working out and you have the nutrition, you know, and you have. Yeah. Gone, gone through it to the point where you're like it's no longer like tug of war. Like, I know it works for me and like this feels super good and I can have my treats and do all that too. So and nutrition e stands for empowering ownership. And this is like the opposite of pointing the finger at everything outside of you as being the cause for everything. So I know maybe because of that person that I didn't get my workout in or then my mood was ruined for the day, or then my schedule was thrown off and I couldn't do this, this, this or this less pointing the finger outside of ourselves and more pointing the finger back at ourselves and recognizing like, Hey, I'm in. I'm the common denominator in all the situations that I find myself in. You know, I'm in charge of myself for getting in my workout, for eating the foods that I know are going to be nourishing for my body, like Ella said, the building blocks for my body and also understanding that, hey, it's no one else's fault when I don't get the results by not doing the thing that I know I need to be doing to get to where I want to be.

Lunden Souza: [00:33:18] Right? So it's like being the student and the teacher at the same time. And that one for me was, was, was challenging because. It's very much. Yeah, it's, it's self work, right. It's like there's no one telling you like, hey, do this or that or this or whatever. And of course when you have coaching and all that, that's so helpful to have more empowering ownership. But sometimes it can just be so much easier to point the finger at why something's not working. Come up with a brick load of excuses and kind of build a wall locking you away from everything. That's amazing. That comes with empowering ownership. And so I say to like, ownership is super sexy. Like, I think when we can just go even from admitting when we've made a mistake, you know, admitting to ourself and like, hey, no, I probably was being freaking lazy, you know, I should have gone for that extra.

Lunden Souza: [00:34:11] I was just, you know, I wasn't tired. There was no reason. You know, of course, there's moments when we need to rest and we need to have that recovery. But sometimes there's moments where it's like not you just had a lazy moment, girl. Like, next time do better. You know, it's not like beating yourself up over a hammer that's not empowering ownership. It's like, hey, you know, I'm in control. You know, I can I can be I can do more actions to get to or like do more actions that are going in the direction of where I say I want to go. Easier said than done, too. And sometimes we have to have those moments of our self where it's just like, hey, you know, check yourself, check yourself. So that's really what the empowering ownership is in a nutshell. It's just like checking yourself. So that way, yeah, you can stop blaming others and other things outside of yourself because you have no control over them anyways. It's just like our actions, reactions, responses, all of that comes under the empowering ownership umbrella.

Ella Caggiano: [00:35:03] I agree. And I think it's I think people always misconstrue the concept of being hard on yourself. I think it's not a good thing to be too hard on yourself, but I think it's a great thing to be hard on yourself and being able to say, okay, I know that I'm making excuses for myself. I know that I'm doing this because you're the only person that knows every single action and decision that you make every single day you know what you have capable time for and what you don't. And a lot of times people don't really maximize their potential when it comes to that area. So I think, you know, being able to admit to yourself when you're doing something and then actually changing it is a huge, huge win. And it's hard and it's very hard to do that, but it works and it and it's really good to practice that self reflection because that's the way you make real change in your life. And if you don't learn from the things that you are putting in front of your own path, your own roadblocks, the things that you keep making excuses for and you don't realize, recognize and learn from that, then you're really not going to make much progress in that area. But if you can recognize the places where, you know, if you are traveling and you make every excuse in the book to take three days prior and three days post vacation or wherever you're going to really like like re-equip your your self and just kind of get back into work, you know, you don't need that much time, for example.

Ella Caggiano: [00:36:37] So being able to look at yourself and recognize that and being able to get back on to your work a little bit quicker, even if it's two days quicker or one day quicker, that's a win, right? And that's more productivity that you have missed out on. But that doesn't come without being hard on yourself and realizing you, recognizing where your faults are. So I think that empowering ownership is so important and it's one of the first things that is necessary when it comes to changing your fitness and wellness routine. You need to be able to look in the mirror and say, I know I'm not succeeding, and it's because of these things and I know I'm not. I'm not where I want to be because of the things that I've been doing in my life. And I think it's important to be able to look in the mirror and do that for yourself without being unrealistic and saying that you're fat and ugly when you have just been off track for a little bit of time. Again, that's that line between being hard on yourself and being way too hard on yourself. But it's okay to be a little bit tough on on your own decisions and really just analyze them and realize where you could improve. So I think that's important and good.

Lunden Souza: [00:37:38] Yeah. Little self accountability, right?

Ella Caggiano: [00:37:40] I think it's great.

Lunden Souza: [00:37:42] Okay. Last two S's in fitness. The first SE is self love. And for that one I ask a question kind of like that similar to the feel good one. But ask yourself what am I doing when I feel most love for myself and go more, go do more of that. That's a great place to start. So sometimes self love can be a really broad topic and it is because loving ourself has so many layers and the way that we love ourselves is so many, has so many layers and how we teach others to love us. So many layers. So fun though. If you ever feel like Dive and deep, that's a great work to do. But just. At the very foundational steps and continuing to do this is just asking yourself, what am I doing when I feel most love for myself? And that can be working out right? That can be a great form of self love. Setting Boundaries. Spa days at home. Make me feel so much self love. Like Epsom salt baths with like a face mask. I just feel so calm, so less stress. You know, self love can be having grace for yourself. And just like some compassion when you don't PR that day and you added high expectations, you were going to lift heavy, we're going to break records, you were going to do your workouts and have less rest time and all this. And and it didn't happen today. Right. Having that love for yourself, you know, that self love to write in some in some cases. So yeah just kind of asking yourself with this particular se for self love.

Lunden Souza: [00:39:09] Yeah. What am I doing when I feel most love for myself? Also like how am I talking when I feel most love to myself to bring it back to the T there in this acronym. And yeah, making it part of your daily routine. I always have it as part of my morning routine and the way I coach is the three M's mindset movement and me time and really using that time for self love that me time that mindset time to just like yeah give ourselves a little pat on the back, a little learning, some love, some preparation. Like I always imagine a lot of the self love practices being like, you know, not that sometimes it feels like an arena and I love how Brené Brown coaches on it when she's like, when you're in the arena of life, showing up, doing your thing, you're going to get your ass kicked, blah blah, blah, right? So I love how she coaches on that and sometimes it feels like that. It's like we're showing up with all, you know, showing up with all our muscles, with everything we have to this this challenge, this moment in our lives. And I always feel like the self love practices are like what feels good when you're out of the arena and you're sitting down in the chair, like against the ropes and then like, you know, you have your team as a like a boxer. It's kind of what I imagine where they come in and one person's massaging you and one person's like putting the ice underneath your eyes and the other person's, like, massaging your hands and rapping.

Lunden Souza: [00:40:26] You know, I think of some of those self love practices of like, okay, what feels good is I'm preparing to go back into it, to go back after my goals, to show up even harder next time, to give even more of my best next time. And so that's why some of the physically restorative activities I love so much, because my job is so physical and workouts and doing a lot of that kind of stuff too. And it's just like, Yeah, whatever feels good to help you show up and shine your best, right? So self love could be therapy to write or personal development work can be, you know, getting a pedicure. It could be so many different things. It's whatever you want it to be. But we as women especially, we can really neglect that and put our self last and love on everybody else first and do all the things for everyone else first, you know? And we can't, for lack of better terms, like I can't fill from an empty cup, you know, so reminding ourselves like, hey, gotta love me first I got to do the things that make me feel most loved first because and then when we do that too, we show other people how to treat us as well. When we're just so others oriented, people are not really going to like show up for us if we're not showing up for us. So self love is an opportunity to be like, Hey, I do this thing for myself and this is my thing and it's important and I protect it totally.

Ella Caggiano: [00:41:42] I think that's important in being intentional with that time and not using all of your time as making sure you're allotting certain times for certain things that you're doing. And I say this more specifically, like if you have like if you work from home, for example, like me, this is something that I really struggled with until I really got my routine down. It's figuring out what hours will work time, what hours were self care time, what hours were this, what hours were that? That's so important because you can't just chop everything up to like work from home or chop everything up to self care day, right. Well, I think important is being intentional with your time and realizing how if you need some time and space for yourself, being intentional with that time is going to make you actually use it for self care and then you'll feel restored as a result of just taking the night off and not being intentional with that time and not doing something that'll make you feel good and you're just kind of like wasting time. So being intentional with that self care has been a really big game changer for me, so I think that's really important as well. Yep.

Lunden Souza: [00:42:49] In the last s the final one, which. Yeah, I guess it was. I spoiled it from the beginning, but it's the last one here is Sweat. So our workouts definitely a huge part of fitness. Important, right? Super important. We need to move our bodies and get in our workouts. And of course, what that looks like will be different depending on our goals. But knowing that it doesn't matter if your goal is to PR in the gym or to, you know, PR in life and other experiences, we need we need working out. It's very, very important for so many different reasons. Our physical bodies benefit so, so, so much from working out and so making time for that movement. That's important, too. So I don't know. It would just be my mind read that a lot of what people's internal representations were of fitness when we thought about it in the beginning was working out sweat, right? Like going through lifting weights, maybe going through the motions of physical movement. And it totally is that. And we have one, two, three, four, five, six, seven letters in fitness. So it is workout, but it's six other things too. And that'll give you an opportunity to feel like, okay, yeah, I'm still rocking my fitness, I'm still showing up for my fitness even when I'm not working out.

Lunden Souza: [00:44:06] Because even if, even if working out was on this big pedestal, right? We're still like, how long are we working out? Every day. An hour. Okay. Even if you have one rest day, whatever, it has to be more than that, because there's more than just one hour in the day, we're doing other things that can utilize fitness in our lives that aren't just working out. So that's why I like this acronym. And yeah, finishing up, finishing it off like last but not least with, with sweat and working out, which is basically like, yeah, where I started and just like, oh, we work out because we want to be healthy and we want to look good and this is how you work out. I just remember some of my first workouts in the gym and learning how to work out and what sets and reps were and just that whole process and being super grateful for it and knowing that, okay, that was a tool I acquired early on. Awesome. But it's not the only one. And if I overuse it or under use it or don't use it properly, then it's not going to be the tool that it can be. And so I like some of these other words here with fitness. So yeah, thanks for letting me share this. Ella.

Ella Caggiano: [00:45:04] I love it. This has been such a great segment, a great podcast, video episode, whatever, however modality people are listening to it on. I'm so excited to share this with people and this is awesome. Anything else to add?

Lunden Souza: [00:45:19] No, you're awesome. Keep spreading your light and your message. I think it's the world needs more of this, right? Because we're, like I said, in the I versus me part and this kind of comparison trap, we're looking a lot of people are consuming. So it makes me feel good. Yeah. Or I feel good knowing that people can stumble upon something that you're doing because it's like, so cool to know that there's other people out there with good hearts and good spirits wanting to help other people.

Ella Caggiano: [00:45:43] Back at you Lunden. All right, everyone. I hope you guys all have a great day and I'll chat soon.

Lunden Souza: [00:45:47] Thank you so much for listening to this episode of Self, Love and Sweat, the podcast. Hey, do me a favor. Wherever you're listening to this podcast, give us a review. This really helps a lot and share this with a friend. I'm only one person and with your help, we can really spread the message of self love and sweat and change more lives all around the world. I'm Lunden Souza, reminding you that you deserve a life full of passion, presence and purpose fueled by self, love and sweat. This podcast is a Hitspot Austria production.