Extreme Dieting w/ Nina Silic

Today's guest Nina Silic is a longtime friend, complete power woman and an expert in REVERSE dieting! Find out all about her story from fitness bikini pro to healing her entire body from the inside out from metabolic and emotional damage. We just LOVE Nina and you will, too :)

Full Transcription here: https://www.lifelikelunden.com/58/

Transcript

Lunden Souza: [00:00:00] Hey, everyone, welcome back to Self-love and Sweat, the podcast. I love recording episodes for you guys by myself is fun, but when I’m with other people that I love and adore and look up to, it’s even better. And today our guest is Nina Silk, and she’s an online coach, and she helps women find their confidence and quit yo yo dieting for good. Nina, welcome to the podcast. I love you!

Nina Silic: [00:00:23] Oh my gosh, so excited to be here with you. When you asked me to come on, I was like, Yes, let’s do it.

Lunden Souza: [00:00:30] Yeah, we’ve known each other for a really long time. Not like, well, I mean, yeah, a significant amount of time. But I’d also say through a lot of significant moments in our lives. And so I’m just so happy to have you on here because I know that we can talk about anything and everything. And today we’re really going to lean into and go into the topic of extremes and the land of extremes and all the extremes that we found ourselves in. And our clients find themselves in time and time again and what’s worked for us. And so tell us a little bit about you and kind of where your journey has taken you. And yeah, just kind of start us off on this topic of the land of extremes because we know it well,

Nina Silic: [00:01:14] We know it way too well. My journey has definitely been like, it’s been a journey, I tell you. So I set it off in the fitness industry over ten years ago. Now, like showing our age and I just started off like anybody else, you know, just wanting to lose weight because that was the thing at the time. We didn’t have Instagram, we didn’t really have anything but Facebook profiles, so I just wanted to be thin like this, you know, all the supermodels and the magazines and that kind of thing. So instead of working out and trying to eat less and figure out everything, so that’s what I was always chasing. And that’s how I started it in fitness. And then I actually got into the fitness competitions in the bikini category when that was first starting out. So that was like my first foot in the door with the fitness industry, and I excelled really, really quickly. I actually got my Pro Cod professional status card within two years so I could compete as a professional athlete in that field. So that was huge. And then from there like that propelled me to do fitness modeling covers of magazines and then. After that, I realized how much my body was not invincible, so I this is like the quick version right now, but basically I learned that I can’t my body can break and I wasn’t doing things a healthy way. So from being on this super, super high of getting into the fitness industry, competing at this elite athlete level, getting asked to be doing photo shoots, being the face of brands, being this just pin up fitness person in Australia, then being told to kind of stop and say, hang on, you need to focus on your health.

Nina Silic: [00:03:01] Your health is terrible. Was a huge thing for me. And then that’s what actually got me into coaching other women and other people in general, besides their coach men too, but primarily women. And, you know, to help them because I went through such an ordeal with my health, I just didn’t want anyone else to go through what I had gone through because it had taken me such a long time to heal my body. So that’s led me to start my business and coach full time. And then, you know, I’m a mum now and I have a two year old daughter and I’m pregnant with our second one as well. So life has been a journey for sure, because then I’ve also now had to learn to how to be a mum while balancing health and fitness and, you know, helping others. So it’s definitely been an incredible journey. I’ve done a lot of things and it’s still evolving, which I love and I know, you know, like health and fitness is just ever evolving, and we’re constantly learning and finding that next way to improve ourselves and to help others. So that’s kind of where I’m at now. Hmm.

Lunden Souza: [00:04:10] Yeah, I love your story. Every time I hear it. I mean, we talk on camera, off camera via text, whatever like we’re constantly involved in, like I said, the evolution of all these transformations and kind of feelings in each other’s lives. And we don’t talk all the time, but I just always feel like whenever we connect, it’s like, Oh yeah, I remember that it hits me just as hard. Every time you talk about it, I think people listening can really like, resonate there. It’s like you go into like, yeah, fitness like, Oh, let’s lose some weight. Let’s do this. Ok, let’s follow all the the things that we think we’re supposed to do and what we’re fed. And then eventually you’re like, Wait, that didn’t work for me. And that’s not what what feels good for me at all. And when I met you, when we met, we always do this, and I just probably should write it down. I don’t even remember what year it was. We do this every time. What is it like? Twenty thirteen? I think it was before I moved to. Austria in 2014, that was like 14, 14, 13 to 15, something like

Nina Silic: [00:05:06] That, yeah, something like that

Lunden Souza: [00:05:08] Over five years ago, I feel like longer than five years, like six or seven, for sure. And that’s when I met you and we were at a fitness expo. So we were doing. Yeah, you were in Australia and I was in America, but we were able to come together for a fitness event and we were both in the fitness industry representing brands, doing our things, being at expos, meeting people, being that face of health, fitness, wellness, all those things. And I didn’t know it at the time because I remember just being like, Oh yeah, she’s so amazing. You were so kind, so genuine, so sweet. I remember you telling me, Yeah, I started competing. Oh my gosh, I got my pro card so fast and you were just so humble and so kind and so sweet. And then as you started telling and sharing your story more and more on social media, I realized a lot of the story that you told was like, really along that same time when I first met you where you know, I’m looking at you and a lot of other people too like, Damn, she’s looking so good, so vibrant, so healthy, right? But inside something completely different is going on. And so kind of, yeah, what was going on during that time and how did you kind of just decide that like, no, no, I’m going to do things differently, and I have to figure this out for me.

Nina Silic: [00:06:16] I remember that so vividly like that weekend. Oh, my goodness. So yeah, I had just won my workout card. I’d finished traveling overseas as well. Like, it was a whole big kind of show off to show off to show. And if you looked at me, I looked really fit, really lean. And you at the time have even I associated that with the pinnacle of health, like how you look reflects how healthy you are. And it couldn’t have been further from the truth. Like even I remember at that expo and the event we were at, just not even just the physical like I was beyond exhausted. I just had no energy. I had to really. I was in a lot of caffeine like I was drinking coffee. Then we had the stimulants because we were working at the supplement booth and we had, you know, that was what was kind of keeping me vibrant with energy. And then when we go back to our hotel room, I would just crash like completely. And I was still training like and I wasn’t eating very much. And it was just not. I didn’t know it at the time, but my body was just shutting down like completely. My body was adapt, had adapted so much to eating low calories and doing so much activity and training that our bodies want to survive. And I didn’t know this at the time, but you know, I hadn’t had my period in like two years because my body was trying to conserve energy so much.

Nina Silic: [00:07:48] And then from that stems other hormonal adaptations because if your body’s trying to conserve energy, it stops other processes from happening that require energy. So I didn’t know. But you know, my hormones were out. My thyroid was was was lowered. My pituitary gland wasn’t working properly. I wasn’t even I didn’t even have hardly any testosterone or oestrogen. Like after I got tested, my cortisol levels were so bad that they weren’t even higher anymore. They weren’t even pumping like they were super low. So you need you need some cortisol to function. You know, it was not good and I didn’t feel great to body image wise, funnily enough, even though I was that lean. I know if you remember, but I wasn’t the girl walking around in like a sports bra and like, you know, I had a jacket on and I was covered up because I just felt so self-conscious of this standard of being so shredded. And because my body was under so much stress, I would hold a lot of fluid in my midsection. I still look super lean, but in my mind I was like, Oh my gosh, I can’t like show anybody this. And so not just the physical side of things was just kind of crumbling down, but it was also the the mindset side and how I saw myself, how I saw myself was not how others saw me. So I even remember, like the afterparty, I put this dress on and I looked at those photos now.

Nina Silic: [00:09:11] My gosh, I was so tiny and super shredded and like, so lean, and I remember in my mind at the time. I was like, I don’t even know if I can wear this dress. My stomach isn’t flat enough, like. Isn’t that insane to be thinking that? I mean, while I’m sitting at like eight percent body fat like nothing. So it really is incredible to, you know, to understand that just because someone looks a certain way, it’s not how they necessarily feel or what’s going on in their bodies. And I think that was a huge reality check for me. Shortly after that is when I sought out an endocrinologist and a specialist to work with to figure out what was happening to me because I just started know anything I ate. I would gain weight like crazy. And I started gaining weight shortly after that, like a lot of weight to not not just a little bit, but a lot. And not just that. Then I couldn’t function. I had brain fog. I was falling asleep during trying to work. I was literally a walking zombie is how I would describe it. I’m trying to have a conversation like this was just not happening because I was just like, literally had nothing. I had no energy to give, so it was not a very happy place to be at all.

Lunden Souza: [00:10:29] Yeah, I remember that well, I’ve seen it multiple times because you do such a great job and even as a person in the industry to like, you always show up and tell your story and retell your story and show up. And you’ve posted that picture where it’s like before, during and after, where you’re like super super, super lean. And you can just see like even your hair and skin, just like not in that healthy know in that healthy space. And then to the picture where you said, you know, you gained a bunch of weight where your body really like rebounded and yo yoed. And I remember those pictures and then the now, which is like you said, it’s like, Dang, you go back and you look at some of those pictures and sometimes I’m just like, Man, I just want to give her a hug. You know, I just really want to give her a hug. And that was actually what I do. You know, I kind of think about it and you’re like, Yeah, that was really an extreme, extreme time. And I wrote this down because I, whenever I talk with people and especially people like you, I love to just like jot things down that speak out, especially when we’re speaking on a podcast like this because we all have aha moments. And I just love when people share this with each other. But it’s just like when you prioritize looking a certain way over liking how you look, you know, it’s like such a different like, you’re like, OK, am I supposed to look a certain way, be a certain body fat percentage, have abs all the time, not be whatever versus like actually liking how you look.

Lunden Souza: [00:11:46] And maybe, you know, not every day. Not like you don’t have to be obsessed with being bloated or like when you have days like that, we all do right. But really, overall liking how you look is really powerful, and I feel like you end up going in the direction of health, wellness and just overall caring and tuning into your body in a way that’s going to show physically when you start to lean into, like liking how you look and liking how you feel when you look that certain way, like you said your brain, all these things go into that and we don’t highlight it enough. I just feel like the emphasis is always on what we look like, always the number on the scale. Even now, it was then an eve. And now, you know, sometimes I’m like, We’re beyond that. Nope. Then you talked to somebody and you get a new client and you hear these stories and you’re like, Oh, yeah, no, we’re still very much there, right? We’re still very much in a space where we prioritize a lot of those things and it’s just not sustainable. It’s just not sustainable. So on the topic of extremes, like what were some like really extreme things that you found yourself doing that now you’re like, Oh my gosh, girl,

Nina Silic: [00:12:54] Ok, where do I start? Well, firstly, like, you have to understand that when you’re doing a competition and contest prep, it is an extreme thing in itself. Like you’re you’re training a lot more than an average person should or would to reach on a crazy level of body composition. But I was, you know, weighing every single ounce of food like absolutely everything. But then that led me to being really scared of eating anything I didn’t prepare or eating out of the restaurant gave me anxiety like I just and everything I would order would be just the same. I put nothing on it, and it wasn’t very fun. And training wise, I was training with three hours a day who has time for that, like I was training three hours a day. Not just that, but you know, the mindset side of things starts to get really extreme. So I would start saying no to social situations because it was much easier to not go and do something because it would stress me out. And not just that then having to explain to someone, Why am I not drinking? Why am I not eating that? Like, why am I not? Sometimes I would just I miss out on things, and it makes me really sad to think about that, that I missed out on like a birthday or some kind of event that would have been awesome and I would never miss out on now, you know, family dinners and I would just. Try to avoid certain things I missed out on time with loved ones because I was training so much and yeah, that makes me sad to think about that and not just that, but then physically, if I felt bloated or fluid, it got to a point where I would take a laxative to make my stomach feel flatter because I didn’t feel like it was fun enough.

Nina Silic: [00:14:41] Or I would take like a natural diuretic pill because I felt fluid. And that is horrible. I was also addicted to addicted, necessarily physically but also mentally to fat burners. The supplement fat burners, because I just thought that that was going to help me be leaner, leaner, leaner and get rid of the body fat and this and that. And then on top of that, I would binge every single weekend because I just couldn’t manage the super load calories, you know, all the time. So I would get to a point where, like Saturday, I’d be like, Oh, it’s my cheat day. I would like make an excuse, but I would overeat so much that I, my stomach would be so. Engorged and uncomfortable, and I feel disgusting, and then I would punish myself and try to make up for it the next day with extra cardio and extra training, and it was this horrible, vicious cycle mentally and physically because I was chasing something that in my mind was realistic and how I thought I should look compared to any wasn’t real, like, you can’t chase that, you can’t sustain that, you can’t do that. And I was doing anything and everything to look a certain way, and I discredited completely how I was feeling a completely discredited how I was feeling. And it’s like, now I look back and I’m like, Can I just like, give that girl a slap and a hug? And like a boy? Yeah, right? It’s just incredible to spiral on the road you go down and like you said, yes, that’s a really extreme situation.

Nina Silic: [00:16:20] But I see it too in clients now. I know you do too, where we’re just chasing as women, this unrealistic image of what we think we should look like and we’re trying to look like that next girl or the magazine cover model and, you know, the Victoria’s Secret model or whatever, and you don’t realize that your body is your own and you can’t try and look like somebody else. It’s OK to want to change and improve and say, you know, get stronger. I’ll be more muscular or whatever you want to be. You can be leaner. You’re allowed to want to lose some body fat, like there’s nothing wrong with those things. But chasing something that that other person has is not going to serve you. And we can’t discredit how we feel. Otherwise, you’re just going to end up in a place where one, you’re miserable, you just miserable, you’re missing out on living life, but two, you can do some damage physically. And that’s what I unfortunately did, and I had to learn the hard way of how to then heal myself. And honestly, it took me like six years to really heal my body and my mind before I could even have babies. Because even after doing all of that, that’s where my big reality check came in was when my doctor sat me down.

Nina Silic: [00:17:33] I think I was about twenty five years old. Twenty four, maybe twenty four, I can’t remember. And she sat me down and she said, Know, would you like to have babies one day? Like, Do you have children? I was like, I’m still pretty young. Like, I don’t know, but I would like to have the option, right? I’d like to be able to choose. And she literally looked at me and said, Listen, if you don’t start to make changes now with your lifestyle, then that’s not going to be an option. I was like, Oh, OK, not hit hard. Like that hit really hard. Like, as a woman, you don’t want someone to tell you, No, you can’t have children. Even if you’re not someone who wants children, you don’t want that choice to be taken away from you because you never know. So I was like, Whoa, OK, this is real. And she was trying to prove a point when, you know, if you don’t make a change like this is serious. This isn’t just you trying to do fitness modeling or whatever like your health is a mess. So that was a big catalyst for me to want to learn and improve and grow and heal. And that’s where it all started, and it took a long time. And luckily, now I’m like, you know, super healthy. One healthy pregnancy down. Another one so far is doing great and it’s just like, I can’t believe I’m having a family when I was told that it might not even be an option. So it’s just incredible the change, you know, over that time.

Lunden Souza: [00:19:01] Yeah, no. I mean, and I think that whether it’s being able, being told that you might not be able to get pregnant or you go into the doctor’s office and you have, you know, a secondary health issue or something from, you know, bad lifestyle and bad choices that you’re like faced with, you know, and I think a lot of people are in that situation, and I think that goes back to why you do the work and why we show up. It’s like we’ve made a ton of mistakes and it’s like if we can just help one person not get to the point where we were or like, you know, earlier interception, if you will, or just like, help them kind of get back on track there. That’s really what it’s what it’s all about. I mean, because you think about it and you’re just like, Yeah, you know, that was a place where, yeah, I don’t want other people to feel like where I was in that space. And I, you know, in your coaching style, I’m probably all the tools and things are all the things that you needed yourself, right? I mean, I would imagine.

Nina Silic: [00:19:56] Absolutely. Yeah, absolutely. And it’s not just that like to you, kind of. Then you are set to assess everything over time. Initially, my goal was, or I need to just heal myself first, because if I heal myself, I can help others. So a lot of learning, I love working with other coaches in the field. A lot of doing courses, studying like really diving into figuring out, all right, my thyroid is slow. What does that mean? What is happening in my? What are you learning about hormones, learning about everything, and that really gave me so that was so empowering to start learning all of that because like I said, when I started, there was an Instagram. There wasn’t anything and there wasn’t much information out there and I didn’t really know where to look for it, you know? So over time, I learned I had mentors, peers and I was just learning from everybody I could and just asking about resources from my doctor or from my physical therapist or whoever. And then you meet other people and like yourself too, and like learning about holistic health and just learning as much as possible. And that was so empowering for me to say to really start to get to a point where I was like, I know what’s going on with my body and now I know what I actually need to do to heal. This is awesome. It’s going to take a long time, but at least I have the tools now I understand what to do, and I think that’s where the power comes from. And that’s why I love working with other people now. Even if they’re not in such an extreme case, maybe they’re just unhappy in their lifestyle.

Nina Silic: [00:21:25] Maybe just in a happy place. And that that also comes with the extreme thing. You might just be restricting your calories to an unrealistic place for you, and that makes you unhappy, you know, or you’re just in this vicious cycle of restriction and food guilt, and that makes you unhappy. So, you know, giving other people the tools they need to get out of that and live like, feel awesome for one and then feel happy and still get to their goals. It’s like, no, you know, it’s nothing magical. We’re just giving you tools to use and and sharing knowledge that we have that helps you understand where you’re at right now and why you’re there and what you need to do to improve and get out of that. And a lot of the time people don’t understand it is a slow process. It’s not a quick fix and it might not take you like six years like me, but it might take you a year. It might take you six months. It might take you two years. Like it really depends. So it’s just that that time spent learning was just, I could never trade that for anything like that was the most powerful, most valuable thing. I’m sure for yourself as well, because you’ve gone through your own issues, too. It’s it’s just, you know, if you’re feeling stuck, I wish I could tell myself then if I that when I was feeling really stuck and at my lowest point that, hey, there is a way out, you just haven’t found it yet. You know, like, did you ever feel like that as well?

Lunden Souza: [00:22:51] Yeah, it’s like there is a way, you know, and it’s coming, it’s coming. It’s just like we, you know, keep keep showing up. It’s like, keep doing the work, keep showing up. And that’s like your fitness and health journey. Also, in a nutshell, it’s like you don’t just pick and choose a plan that you’re doing in a way that you’re eating. And it just like fix and whatever. Like you keep showing up, it keeps evolving with you kind of keep growing in what that means and looks like and is for you. And I especially especially resonate with the learning phase that you mentioned where you just get to a point where you’re like, I just want to learn anything and everything that I can and connect with others who have been where I have been. Because, yeah, I have not found that door yet or my way yet. But I also need to do like lights and fire under my ass and get to work and start learning and exploring and asking those questions and asking why. And yeah, like, oh my gosh, I just, yeah, over and over and over again, just learning and learning about things like which. I’m sure this was in your your quest as well, but like gut health and like supplementation and all those types of things. And you know, one thing that you said as well that resonated with me was like the fat burners thing and like taking all these supplements like I remember taking a I don’t even I don’t want to name drop.

Lunden Souza: [00:24:01] So I’m just going to say I remember the name, though, because I had all my supplements. You know, it was like an AM and a PM and AM and a PM when they were like these pills, you was like a fat burner in the morning and a PM one for like PM fat burning right? And now learning so much more about supplementation and nutrients and micronutrients and how to supplement. I still love my supplements. It’s just like I’m taking things that I know my body needs, and I’m unable to get in the quantities that I need from nutrients and understanding that that part is really foundational. First, learning is is key and everything. And so, yeah, I mean, my my journeys, you know, are crossed over. But like when it comes to like fitness modeling and like you being the cover of the magazines and all the things like those are the people that I looked up to when I was starting in my journey and really feeling like, Oh, there’s this level of perfection that we see, like you said, physically, like doing all the things and like, I feel like when I was younger too, I just had so much more energy to do all the things. And you get to a point where you’re just maxed out regardless.

Lunden Souza: [00:24:59] Like, whether, you know, I think it’s important to have a level of activity, a foundation, whatever. But I look back to and just like going to school, working seven days a week, working all the things like all that kind of stuff, but really looking at those magazines, looking at those fitness models. And, you know, and then I’d say that also, there was a lot of skills, though, that I learned there too, when it comes to like connection and reaching out in that industry where I was like, OK, these are the people that are doing what I love to do and I want to connect with them and learn them. This is Nina. She’s doing amazing these photographers that like they’re working with, and this is just kind of like, yeah, a way to navigate kind of that industry there. But then when you’re navigating, you know, kind of you’re kind of have to look at your own shit that mirror comes in front of you. It’s like the doctor either tells you, you’re feeling it. And then, yeah, looking at all the supplements and all the stuff I was taking and all the things I was checking do do, do, do, do. My extreme is very much in like the dew land. It’s like all the things all the time turbo mode until like every switch turns off, right? It’s just literally where I found myself.

Lunden Souza: [00:26:01] And yeah, I had gut issues and different things like that as well. But my body really communicated to me through my skin. I had really bad skin issues, horrible, horrible cystic acne. My body was just really toxic and just communicating to me differently. And I remember that learning process of like gut health and all, like I said, all the supplements and stuff that we were taking and learning the power, like you said of mindset. And that’s huge in what we do and how we show up. It’s like, do you even like how you look? Do you even like what you’re like? What values are you trying to live up to and why? Why are you trying to have so much control all the time for what? For who, you know, like asking the hard questions to yourself and that I love this book by Joyce Meyer. It’s called the battlefield of the mind, and that’s really what it is because it’s like, that’s why I love working out so much, because now and how I feel like it’s such a great relationship with it because I feel like working out. It shows me the power of putting in repetitions. It gives me the time to take a step back and clear my mind and think about something sort through something like it is such a powerful tool in winning that battlefield of the mind because, you know you can look great and have the perfect figure and have all the things.

Lunden Souza: [00:27:12] But if you don’t like that and you’re not happy, then that’s it. You know, like, that’s your reality and that’s your life. And so in that learning process, to a lot of mindset, a lot of just like appreciation of where you are because that journey is not linear. And then you’re like, and I want to talk to you about this, too, like you’re reversing. I know you talk about reverse dieting. It’s like you’re not necessarily pressing rewind or whatever, but it’s like you’re unlearning things and kind of reversing a lot in that process and just so much learning going on there. So yeah, what talk about your I love this, what you talk about reverse dieting and just kind of like, you know. Going a different direction than you’re used to, and we’re told to and we’re think we’re supposed to go. What are like some foundational principles of that? What are some like? I know, I’m sure you go in super detail with your clients, but what are some key takeaways or things we can learn about reverse dieting from you and how to know? Like, should you do it? Like, how do you know when you’re at that point? And like, you know, can you do it? Does everyone need to kind of go through a phase of kind of reversing some of those habits periodically?

Nina Silic: [00:28:15] Well, yeah, like, you have to think about it this way. You can’t be in a deficit forever. So a calorie deficit is we eat less, right, we eat less food. Then what? We’re, you know, we’re burning off more than what we’re consuming. So it’s the simplest way to kind of explain it. So we lose body fat. But what most people don’t understand is that our bodies are very adaptive beings. They want to be in that middle ground, happy, balanced place. So if you’re in a deficit, your body is like, No, I’m no longer in that happy middle. I’m going to change the middle to be over here. And it really does adapt to the lower your calories, get your body. It’s like, Well, no, that’s going to be my new normal because I want it to be happy in the middle, right? I want it to be in like left field. So that’s where after you’ve been on a diet or calorie deficit, however you want to call it, you go back to eating normally, right? And then you start gaining all the way back. And it’s because your body has now adapted. Many normal is here and then. Now you’re giving me all this food. I’m going to gain all this body fat. My metabolic rate is here. My metabolism is here. I adapted where you were. So the reversed diet, I like to call it more so the recovery diet. It’s the it’s the diet after the fat loss, after the deficit, because my metabolism and our body needs to recover from that. Ok, so we don’t gain all the weight back.

Nina Silic: [00:29:32] You might gain some, but it’s more so to help you understand that, hey, we do need to add food back in at some point. You cannot diet forever. You can’t one physically, you can’t. And two it mentally, it’s just not sustainable. You’re going to be miserable and unhappy. So any any bouts of fat loss that you do should be for a specific period of time. Get in and get it done. Get out. Ok. We need to do the recovery diet. And if you’re someone who’s been restricting for a long time and your body’s adapted a lot, you may need to do a reverse diet for a long time. You may take you six months. It may take you a year. It may take you longer. So it really depends. But the more you do it, I highly recommend it for anybody, the more you do it. It might just be six weeks. It might be eight weeks after you’ve done that deficit. It does depend on a lot of factors, but good question to ask yourself is, Hey, have I do I spend time always reducing calories? Or do I spend time eating more food? And when I say spend time, I don’t mean a week. I mean a few months, you know, at least eating more food. Do I go through periods where I eat more and eat less, you know, and train? And if your answer is no, I’m always trying to restrict, restrict, restrict, then it is a really great thing for you to probably do a reverse diet with a coach because you are forced to eat more food slowly.

Nina Silic: [00:30:51] But when we do that, it’s like this mindset shift has to happen because you’re like, Oh my gosh, I’m scared of food. You know, if you have that negative relationship with food, especially, it’s not a great time for you to be in a deficit. You know, you need to learn to be okay with eating more at some point. Allow your body to heal and be OK with having some body fat. You know, like, it’s OK. It’s just fat. It comes and goes like, it’s not a big deal. We’re not all shredded all year round. We don’t have abs all year round. So you know, if you’re if you know that you are scared of eating certain foods or you are constantly thinking about food or you are like, feel guilty for eating any types of foods, that is one like a huge indication that, hey, you shouldn’t be dieting right now. Like we should really reverse diet. You get you slowly up to a maintenance level of calories and then keep you there for a while. And I I sweat every client. I put my rivest that’s never done one before. That’s really scared of doing it by about eight weeks in their life. This is amazing. Up to about eight weeks. They’re freaking out. I’m going to gain weight. Oh my gosh. Like, this is really hot. I’m scared to eat the thing and then they eat the thing. And they’re like, I didn’t really gain any weight. Or they maybe may have, but they feel they feel better.

Lunden Souza: [00:32:05] They like so much energized. Yeah, when you’re fueling your body that way, it’s just like, you’re like, I feel great because I feel great, you know, like the brain fog. I’m not focusing on this extra little, maybe baby fold, you know, it’s like my focus is somewhere else and it’s beautiful

Nina Silic: [00:32:20] And the women are like, Oh my gosh, my booty is growing. I’m like, Yeah, because you’re eating food and you’re training. You can’t grow a booty without food and training or you’re eating more calories. So they’re like, My shape is changing. My husband, I’m weighing more on the scale, but my body’s changing shape like the body composition changes. So I highly recommend a reverse diet for anybody just to do once, at least right to understand what it is, but particularly if you ever do a fat loss. Fades for at least eight weeks or more. I highly recommend someone to recover afterwards, and the reverse diet essentially is we add calories in really slowly week to week, depending on how your body responds and we reduce cardio slowly at the same time to get you to a place where you don’t have to train for like hours on end and you’re eating more food. You know it allows your body to adapt. We can’t just go from one extreme to the next, so you are going to gain a whole bunch of weight. We want to do it slowly and give your body time to adjust, but not just give your body time to adjust, give your mind time to adjust and really work through those mindset, barriers and challenges that you’re having. Because a lot of the reversed diet, the reverse diet process is really simple, physically super simple. It is a mindset game

Lunden Souza: [00:33:32] Because you’re telling people to eat more and do less cardio. But cardio increases hunger and increases cravings. It makes you want to have all the things. So it’s like when you’re starting to strength, train more and then fuel adequately. You get to see your body do like really awesome, amazing things. But you have to trust in a system, pathway, coach structure, whatever that has not been ingrained in your brain on all the media for many years, all the time of telling you it should be this direction. Then you come into a coaching program and you’re like, Wait, I know that doing this hasn’t worked. It’s not worked. It’s continued to not work. And now she’s offering me as a coach, something different, a different approach. And I know this doesn’t work, so I know I need to do something different. But there’s still that mindset component in that really has to lean in there. And that’s just super duper super major. And I love that you shared that because it’s I mean, I love running and I love doing my cardio intensive workouts and things like that. But when we just rely on cardio and not on strength, like we end up so much more hungry and so much more not toned, whatever the opposite of that is. I feel so much more vibrant and alive with strength training there. Absolutely, absolutely. Oh my gosh, I feel like we could talk about everything all the time. Everything works and hours and hours.

Lunden Souza: [00:34:47] One thing that I’ll add to because I love how you said, like going through phases of eight weeks of maybe a reverse diet or whatever that time frame might be. But one thing I found personally in my life and maybe this resonates with some people listening or even you to Nina, it’s like after you get to a point where you’ve done this and it works and it feels good. So I want to share that with you guys, because when you do the work and you show up and you feel your body in a way that’s balancing out your hormones and making you feel alive and really, really good, like when you do that work, it feels really awesome and you get to a point where you have like, OK, but you have to sustain that right? You don’t just do it and put it away and then not sustain, you know, not continue to show up. And so I feel like now as I’ve leaned more into hormonal health and feel really good in my body, that over the course of the month, I wouldn’t. Yeah, I don’t know. I wouldn’t put the term reverse dieting and any portion of my month. But I just mean, like, you go through phases where you are, yeah, eating a little bit less and then fueling your body a little bit more. You feel a little bit more beast mode, so you want to lift heavier and then you feel a little bit more recovery mode where you just want to like walk and stretch and relax a little bit too.

Lunden Souza: [00:35:50] So kind of owning in those phases of maybe in the beginning prolonged period of times of focusing on different areas, but ultimately, like the ebb and flow is the name of the game, and it’s showing up and doing the work. So we’re showing you and guiding you how to feel supported and great during that ebb and flow, but know that like this is what that’s what it is is continuing to show up regardless, right? So you were in that phase of your life before and then transitioning and then you know, your family and one one kid and now two kids, right? We’re like, you always have to continue to explore what that looks like and is like for you and how that feels through different seasons of your life. And that’s why we like to see tool like working out as a tool and nutrition, as a tool mindset, as tools and things you can call upon like. And then, of course, like friends, homies, community, people, you know, just like a lot of things, all go into that. But like so that way, it’s not just, Hey, I need to do that to get here. It’s like, I need to use this tool to continue to cultivate that feeling in this season of my life. Does that resonate with you?

Nina Silic: [00:36:55] Absolutely. I think what a lot of people kind of, they miss that. So they miss that. Hey, you can you don’t have to do one thing forever, right? Or a certain way. So for example, like, you know, a lot of people track their food, they track their macros on a track or they they really heavily track how many minutes of cardio they’re doing and stuff like that, which is great for certain periods of your life. You might need to do that for a period of time. You evolve, you learn, and you get to points where maybe mindful eating is great for you and you can really pay attention to how your body feels. You can train more one week a little bit less next week, a little bit more, one day, a little bit less. The next day you transition. So even clients I work with that, you know, are tracking pretty meticulously with their calories and their macros like protein, carbohydrates, fats and the training is like, really read. Demented that may be serving them a purpose right now doesn’t mean they also have to stay there forever either, even though it’s working for them right now. They might have to transition and say, Well, I don’t want to track my food forever.

Nina Silic: [00:38:01] It’s exhausting. Yeah, you need this right now because you need to learn. But hey, we definitely want to transition you. So then it’s that transition of, Hey, well, how do you want to eat? What do you want your lifestyle to look like? Do you want to be training six days a week or do you want to be training four days a week? Like, what do you want? What’s going to make you happy? And then how do we get you there? Because it’s not just as simple as I want to look a certain way or I’m doing this now. It’s working now, and I just have to do it. No. You can transition. And that’s one thing I hear a lot of is, oh, three years ago I did this and I’m doing the same thing now, and I’m not seeing the result. Yeah, because your body is not three years ago, your mindset is not three years ago. It’s in a different spot. And I often get asked, like, Hey, what do you want to be? What do I need to do right now to get x y z? And I’m like, What do you want to do? Like what’s going to make you the happiest right now?

Lunden Souza: [00:38:50] What do you want to do? What are you doing right now? Are you doing anything right now? What’s working? What’s not working like this?

Nina Silic: [00:38:57] Yeah, and it’s funny. I get the question I get, and even this is the question I ask myself. You know, people are like, I want to be fat loss. Ok, that’s fine. We can trust fat loss where you’re at. Maybe it’s probably like it’s fine to do that right now. And then I get I hear the check ins. Oh, I just I couldn’t, you know, I couldn’t adhere to the deficit. And it’s not even if it was like, really conservative. And after a while, I just asked the question, Do you want to be eating less right now? Do you actually want to be doing that right now? Do you want to be having to be stricter with your food choices? And they’re like, Oh, not really like, I want to be enjoying stuff. Well, then why are we doing fat loss? Why don’t we just maintain and focus on some straight goals? Or let’s let’s focus on something else like it’s not just so black and white, and even for me, I transitioned into eating so mindfully for like a year or more and I was eating high calories. I was doing like early, a little bit of cardio a week just for my health, you know, and training resistance training.

Nina Silic: [00:39:59] I think I was training four days a week, maybe on a good week, and I felt the best I’ve ever felt in my life, physically and mentally. And you know, it was lean, tiny, like, you look after I had aerials, I was so small. I’m like, This is amazing. Like, I’ve never thought I would be here, but it’s that consistency and understanding that, Hey, I don’t have to be doing all these crazy things all the time. I’m allowed to give my body time eating more and training less. And then I was trying to prep for a shoot and I was like, I’m just not going to. I didn’t want to eat less. I don’t want to like, I just didn’t want to. I don’t care. I’m going to do the shoot regardless. Ok, I’m going to have my abs lean as I want. But this is making this doesn’t make me happy to do this, so I’m not going to do it. I’m you know what I mean. Like, you can ask yourself, what’s going to make me happy right now? What’s going to make me happiest? And if it’s not losing fat, then don’t do it. You have to.

Nina Silic: [00:40:52] You could do it another time. Focus on something else. I think everyone gets so caught up in that what I should be doing, how I should look, how I should this. Ask yourself, what do I truly want, you know, and why? Like, what is your why? We always talk about the why, but it’s like, I want to lose 10 pounds for a vacation. Why? So other people see you in a bikini like why? You know, then you have to eat less on the vacation. Why don’t you just continue to eat more, try and be strong, feel good in general and enjoy the vacation food and enjoy, you know, like ask yourself these questions. It’s really, really important to understand that where your goal is coming from is from within you, not because of what someone else wants or how you think other people are going to see you. No one really cares. Like, really other people don’t care. I remember, like, I have had my days where I felt terrible and you post a photo anyway and people like you look amazing. Like, really, I didn’t feel so good. But that’s just goes to show you how we sometimes feel about ourselves doesn’t reflect,

Lunden Souza: [00:41:55] Oh my gosh, we’re like our biggest. We’re like our biggest critic. I posted I shared a photo yesterday. I think it was yesterday or the day before on Instagram. I think it was from Tom below, and it was like two ways to look at life. It was like a little guy, like nobody gives a shit. And then there was a guy that was like, nobody gives a shit. Yay. Like, you know, and just like, keep on keeping on doing what makes you happy and feeling, you know? Yeah, absolutely agree with everything that you say there. And I think that no matter who you know where you are on your journey, when you’re listening to this, there is that door. There is that pathway for you. You’re on it. And maybe that next step hasn’t revealed itself yet to you, but it will. You just have to keep showing up and knowing like, Hey, this is not the end. I’m not meant to feel this way. If I’m not feeling my best, there’s work to be done. There’s ways that I. Level up and show up and get coaching and just kind of keep learning because as Neena and I said, we’re continuing to learn regularly, but that was like a big part of our journey was just like not putting our hands up and saying like, OK, who’s going to do it for me? Ok, what’s the right program that it’s going to fix me? It was like, No, you know, there’s just a bunch of their doctors, all these things. It’s amazing humans, but they’re still humans, and it’s still our duty to kind of learn what’s going on with us and really tuning in to what feels good for us and then using that knowledge of what we’ve cultivated within ourselves and, you know, seeking out doctors and support and coaches and friends and other, but not just expecting that everything is just going to fix itself.

Lunden Souza: [00:43:25] And so I’m really happy that you leaned into that learning portion and that we really highlighted that there because, yeah, we’re always learning, we’re always growing. And then through different phases of our lives, we’re continuing to learn how that fits or sometimes and oftentimes doesn’t fit. And that next phase in our life, right? It’s like leaves. It’s fall. It’s like a lot of things are shutting themselves to lately, actually, which has been really great. It’s like sometimes you get to a point where you’re like, Yeah, like, that’s just burning itself and you’re feeling good and like in your personal life, people are revealing themselves and letting themselves go away, too, and you’re like, OK, I’m here for that. So I’m certain things are painful and uncomfortable at the time, right? Like a workout like, like, you know, maybe showing up to do that thing or whatever, but it’s just like it’s just a constant reminder that like, what’s not serving us is going to shed and go away if we show up and do that work and we’re, you know, cultivating a good mindset and good tribe around, I feel like a super powerful. Oh, I love talking to you.

Nina Silic: [00:44:21] Just really like just sort of saying that I often remind myself of is that we all we are all afraid of change. Change is uncomfortable. We don’t like to be uncomfortable as humans, but discomfort leads to growth. Sometimes you have to do the thing that you’re scared of doing or you’ve never done before to get to where you want to be, and you have to go through that uncomfortable phase to do it. And it’s all a progression. So don’t feel like you have to go from zero to one hundred. And I think that’s the biggest, even when we tell our stories and where we’ve come from and what we’ve learned. It’s taken years, you know, to get to where we want to be because we had to do the learning ourselves. If you have someone supporting you, it’s a little faster, right? You accelerate that process, but it’s a progression. You don’t have to go from not having any fundamentals or understanding nutrition or understanding training to then training six days a week and tracking macros. And this and that. No, you have to recognize that small changes are still changes and they may be uncomfortable. It might be as simple as I’m going to make sure I eat a vegetable with every meal this week. Or it might be as simple as I’m going to move my body for 10 minutes a day this week. Just move it, whether it’s walking, whether it’s a stretch, something so you don’t have to go from doing nothing to doing all the things. Yeah, you want to progress, because that’s how you learn, you progress. You get really good at one thing and that discomfort becomes comfortable. And then you add the next uncomfortable thing and that becomes comfortable and then you just continue on doing that. So I think that’s a big thing to remind everybody of, too.

Lunden Souza: [00:46:05] Yeah. Show up despite the discomfort. It’s so, it’s so magical when you do in your workouts, in life, in business, in relationships. I think there’s so much to be said about, you know, like doing the hard thing and just kind of like leaning in and just like, oh, kind of, you know, showing you what you’re made of, showing you what you’re made of. Thank you so much for talking with me today, Nina. I love chatting with you. I know this won’t be the last time that we have you on the podcast, but let everybody know where they can connect with you and find you and be inspired by you.

Nina Silic: [00:46:41] I love it. Oh my gosh, I feel like we can do so many topics. Thank you everyone for listening. It’s been awesome and thank you for having me. I just love. I love our chats all the time. You can find me on social media. It’s at. I am on most pretty much everything. You can email me directly. It’s contacted JD.com or check out my website dot com. Pretty simple. You can reach me in any way. I love hearing from everybody with any questions and any comments and concerns, so please feel free to reach out to me anytime.

Lunden Souza: [00:47:15] Perfect. And I’ll put all those links that you mentioned there, and the description in the show notes wherever you’re listening or watching this. Thank you so much. You’re amazing. Blessings to you and your family and your growing family, and I can’t wait to have you back because you’ll be back at some point.

Nina Silic: [00:47:32] Thank you.

Lunden Souza: [00:47:33] All right. Talk to you later. Bye.