41. Strong Bodies, Strong Minds with Coach, Tara DeLeon
This episode of "Sturdy Girl" features a delightful chat between Jess and the phenomenal Tara DeLeon, all about defying diet culture and celebrating what our bodies can really do. Tara dives into her personal journey from growing up in the '80s—a time heavily influenced by diet trends—to becoming a leader for change in the fitness industry. She’s all about performance and health, emphasizing how important it is for us to feel strong and capable.
The duo shares their love for weightlifting, explaining how it builds more than just muscle—it boosts confidence and self-worth too. Tara gives some practical tips for getting started in the gym, spotlighting how beneficial it can be to have a little guidance, especially when new to weightlifting. It’s all about finding your own version of heavy and smashing through it.
Finally, Tara shares heartfelt experiences of motherhood and the pressures that come with it, especially concerning body image post-pregnancy. Her book, "Hot Mess to Hot Mom," serves as a lifeline for moms looking to find themselves again. Through their conversation, Jess and Tara highlight that it’s about lifting each other up, just as much as the weights, to find joy and strength in every aspect of life.
Connect with Tara HERE.
Listen to Tara’s podcast HERE.
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Speaker 1: 0:06
Welcome back, sturdy humans to episode 2 of season 4, also known as episode 41. I am so stoked for this season and I meant to get this intro to you last week. Blame it on overwhelm, but hello, this season is so full of wonderful interviews from experts from sturdy humans sharing their experiences, and then a few solo episodes sprinkled in. But I really I wanted to take a couple minutes just to record and catch up a little bit as we head into fall, because the last time that I got on here to say hello to you it was still summertime. We are now officially in fall, it's October, it's season four, the holidays around the corner, all the things.
Speaker 1: 0:50
I would love to hear from you how your summer went. Tell me your favorite part of your summer. There is a link in the show notes for sending me a message I'd love to hear. I'd also love to hear what you've been loving recently. So I'll go first. My favorite part of the summer super broad scope, but it's spending time outside with my favorite humans. Whether that's a hike, a porch, hang, it fills my cup.
Speaker 1: 1:15
These last couple of months, if we're being totally transparent, have been a lot. There have been a lot of family things going on a lot of stressful family things and there are seasons of life and having my people and my community has been the most important thing to me. So there we are. The other part of that in my ask of I'd love to hear what you are loving recently and my current rabbit hole. This is related to Sturdy Girl. I promise I have been rabbit holing on Buddhism recently. Yes, friends, leaning a bit into the spiritual and maybe a Buddhism recently. Yes, friends, leaning a bit into the spiritual and maybe a little woo-woo side. But there's a connection here. Body image research has a lot of basis in acceptance and commitment therapy or ACT, and ACT derives some of their principles from Buddhist teachings and that is how my rabbit hole started. So we are four or five books deep into Buddhism now and a lot of those principles have helped a lot with the self-reflection and I've really gained a greater understanding of how much our relationship with ourself impacts everything else. I finally understand the idea behind mindfulness and meditation and ways that aren't like oh well, I can't meditate, it's too hard, or sitting alone with my thoughts overwhelms me. The mindfulness piece and paying attention to our thoughts and how much that impacts absolutely every area of our life and how much easier it is to call myself out on my bullshit now. It's really amazing, so that you will hear in these solo episodes this season as I've sprinkled them in.
Speaker 1: 2:42
But enough about me, let's talk about today's guest. The first thing that I'm going to say about our guest today is that we 100% need to do a part two with her because our chat got cut short because of time constraints and I just I had a great time chatting with her. Our guest today is Tara DeLeon. She is this year's NSCA personal trainer of the year. She identifies as a weight neutral personal trainer, professor of health fitness exercise studies, podcaster, speaker and author. Okay, you guys, if it's anything in the fitness realm, she has done it. She has written a book that I have ordered.
Speaker 1: 3:17
She specializes in fitness for fertility, prenatal and postnatal fitness, and she loves to help moms go from hot mess to hot mom. She has her master's degree in human movement. I want to brag on her for a second, because she and I definitely go off on tangents in this conversation. Besides, nsca personal trainer of the year and causing a ruckus in that field as a plus size personal trainer when. Personal training even though it is 2024, personal trainer, when personal training, even though it is 2024, is still so size, exclusive, so super stoked on that. But she's also she's won best personal trainer twice, best lifestyle coach and has been voted best prenatal fitness coach for four years on a row by what's Up Annapolis magazine. I just so impressed by her. But outside of the fitness realm you can find her eating sushi or tacos my kind of girl going for walks, baking and spending time on the Chesapeake Bay with her husband and their four-year-old and their Aussie friends. Let's chat with Tara and I hope you enjoy her as much as I did.
Speaker 1: 4:18
Tara hello, hello, thanks so much for having me. Do you know? I just realized I didn't ask you if it was Tara or Tara.
Speaker 2: 4:24
It is. It's Tara like Tara piece of paper, or like terrorist, if you ask my husband.
Speaker 1: 4:30
Oh, careful, I have a really good friend and it's Tara, and so I just make assumptions.
Speaker 2: 4:36
Yeah, you know what I kind of answer to, like Sarah Tara Kara, it doesn't matter.
Speaker 1: 4:40
I get Jennifer a lot. Jessica and Jennifer were super popular. I was born in 1990, right, totally, we have people like you. It was Jennifer, right, I'm like sure it's Jen. Yeah, we're good. Okay, tell me a little bit about what you do. You were recently the NSCA Personal Trainer of the Year. Yes, I'm like mad props. That's amazing. Thank you, you have a podcast.
Speaker 2: 5:05
Tell amazing, thank you. You have a podcast. Tell me more about what you do. So I'm what's considered a weight neutral personal trainer, which is controversial to even exist, I feel like in this industry, because for so many decades, diet culture has been all about shrinking our bodies smaller, smaller is better, thinner is better. And when you come to me, I'm kind of like, hey, I care about how your body performs and how healthy you are, and I don't really care about what you look like on the outside, I just want you to feel good in your body and lift heavy stuff. And so the fitness industry lost its mind that a plus size weight neutral trainer won this award. But here I am doing the thing and I'm finding a lot of people who identify with it. Right, because at some point we get kind of tired of trying to be smaller and smaller and smaller and we just want to live our lives and be happy, and so people are really identifying with the message, which is cool.
Speaker 1: 5:52
That's so rad. Yeah, stop wasting the energy on what we look like, on trying to make ourselves smaller. Use that energy to lift heavy shit.
Speaker 2: 6:00
Yeah, yeah. I always tell people like your appearance is the least interesting thing about you. You know you're so much more than what you look like, so feel good, lift heavy and be happy.
Speaker 1: 6:10
I like to talk about our bodies as like the meat sack that allows us to experience the world. Like this meat sack is very strong. Like we love to lift heavy weights but like, realistically, this, it really means nothing about me.
Speaker 2: 6:23
Right, it like stores my soul and that's about it.
Speaker 1: 6:26
Yeah, have you ever seen the kids movie Soul? No, it's movie. Ok, that's when I think about body being the meat sack. In Soul. There's these little beings and I forget what they call them, but they're like they look a little white orbs almost. They have to like go through each of these sessions before they can go on to Earth and like inhabit a body, but they have to like find their purpose. It's like the last thing that they do before they can be Earthbound. It's a really cute story, but that's when I think about like your meat snack. Oh well, I've got like my little being. And then there's like my physical being. Yeah, totally.
Speaker 2: 6:54
I'm going to add that to the list for movie night with my four year old.
Speaker 1: 6:58
I don't have kids, but I love all things Disney, pixar kids movie.
Speaker 2: 7:02
We've recently been in like a Grinch and Coco rabbit hole, and my husband is Mexican, so we're like celebrating Dia de los Muertos this year, and my son is very excited about it, that's so cool.
Speaker 1: 7:15
Do you speak Spanish? I do. That's rad. I took eight years of Spanish, whoa, so you should speak Spanish Decent. However, I've spent let's see, my husband and I have been together eight and a half years. He speaks fluent French, he's half French, and so I've been slowly learning French and what's happened in my brain, for better or for worse, is like there's English and then there's every other language, and so the French and the Spanish get mixed up. Or when we've gone to France and he makes me be the person to order food or talk to someone, I panic, speak Spanish in full sentences with French phonetics.
Speaker 2: 7:49
So I'm laughing because I went to a school growing up where we had a French teacher who was from France and it was mandatory five days a week. I got really good at French. I'm also side note one of those like really languagely inclined people. My dad spoke 10 different languages, so it's just naturally comes easy to me, right? But as soon as I started learning Spanish, every time I would go to talk it would come out French. And now it is completely flipped, because I'm fluent in Spanish. I lived in Costa Rica, you know, to the point where I would dream in Spanish, and now I couldn't speak French. If you paid me like a million dollars, I could like understand when I'm listening, but then when I go to speak, it just all comes out Spanish. So I get the struggle.
Speaker 1: 8:28
It's so interesting to me. I will learn French at some point. When we have kids, I know that my husband is going to be all about teaching them French, and the last thing I'm going to want is like my husband and child shit talking their mom and not knowing what they're saying Well, if it's anything like my family, it will happen in English, right in front of you anyway. Yeah, it's probably going to happen.
Speaker 2: 8:53
Roasting mom is like our favorite hobby.
Speaker 1: 8:54
Yeah, that's going to be it too, because I don't know how your dynamic works, but my husband already with our dogs is such a pushover. He's the softy with all the treats and the one that always says yes, and I'm going to be the enforcer. So it's probably how it's going to be with the human children.
Speaker 2: 9:08
Definitely it's like flipped in my family, Like I try so hard to be hard, but also I'm not. And so my like biggest threat is, oh, do I need to talk to dad? And then it's like oh, so it's working for now, but I'll probably regret that at some other point.
Speaker 1: 9:21
That's awesome. Okay, redirecting, talking before we hit record, I try to, as I connect with guests, get to know a little bit about you and so, like on your website, you talked about your inadvertent start to your fitness journey, and most of us come into coaching from our own journeys. I, very similar, like, have my own story and journey that led me into the type of coaching that I do now. Right, tell me about that story. Like you had talked about, being a kid with a love of, like Teenage Mutant, ninja Turtles, having a really rad haircut which, like, is there photo evidence somewhere? And being a person in a larger body, like, yes, the floor is yours, I want to hear all of it.
Speaker 2: 9:59
So my story is steeped in diet culture and self-hate. So if you're, like you know, tender on this, maybe fast forward the next 30 seconds. But essentially I was like a little fat kid who got bullied and shamed. I had the worst haircut on earth Even, just like being born in the hospital. My dad was like look at her thunder thighs. And I kid you not, I'm 40 years old now and to this day my family still calls me TT. Of course I'm not all like upset about it anymore, but for like a lot of my childhood I was definitely like the ugly fat kid and like struggled, but with body image because of it. Plus, it was the 80s, right, so diet culture was running rampant. Heroin chic was like the vibe. I was like so grateful when J-Lo popped on the scene and they were joking about her taking a second limo for her ass to the Grammys or whatever. Like oh, finally we're glamorizing some sort of other body other than, you know, the supermodel Rail Thin. Anyway, it was not a super pleasant childhood. Little rail thin. Anyway, it was not a super pleasant childhood.
Speaker 2: 11:02
But when I was like seven or eight maybe, my brother really wanted to take Taekwondo and the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles were like the hottest thing on earth at that time. And so I was like, heck, yeah, put me in Taekwondo. And my parents were very clear. They're like, hey, if you start this, we are not quitting. You don't quit until you get your black belt. And so you know, all gung ho is like an eight year old. We were like, yeah, let's do it. And then six weeks into it we were like, actually this sucks, never mind. And my parents were like, sucks to be you, you're getting your black belt. So you know, fast forward. Like six years, seven years later we did, and it was not nearly as cool as the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles made it seem. But I do think that having that knowledge that I could whip some butt if I had to definitely gives me some self-confidence. And I think that learning to move my body and discover that my body was cool for doing something rather than just for being something to look at, I definitely think helped improve body image as a child. And then I actually lost a bunch of weight just from puberty.
Speaker 2: 12:00
I grew up a little bit, got a little thinner. You know I played a lot of sports in high school and even in college I played soccer and I did collegiate intramural inner tube water polo, which is every bit as fun as it sounds. That sounds amazing. Basically, everybody has a giant inner tube and you put your butt in the middle and your arms and legs hang out the side so you kind of look like a spider. But you know, being short, your arms and legs barely reach the water so you have to get the ball, put it in your lap and then you know like do your hands really fast to try to like move through space and everybody else is equally as bad as you are, except for the guys that have like really long arms and legs, but is super fun. So it just reinforced that. I like being able to do fun stuff with my body, and whatever it looks like is less important to me. I didn't really have like a word for that at that time, I just enjoyed moving.
Speaker 2: 12:54
So, being in college, I was waiting tables at Outback Steakhouse and I had a co-worker there who was a personal trainer and he was like hey, you should be a trainer. And I was like yeah, ok, that's a good idea. You know which is like the worst idea ever to like become something because someone else suggests it. But at the time I was in a class called Sports Fitness Techniques which I signed up for freshman year just to avoid like the freshman 15. And my college professor was so passionate about what he was teaching, like he would stand up on the desk and he was like shouting about the Krebs cycle, like dude was passionate, and it kind of intrigued me. I'm like, hey, if this guy is this excited about it, like maybe, maybe this is cool. And then he said the magic words of this is how you'll never be fat again. And I was like absolutely drawn into drawn into his teachings.
Speaker 2: 13:47
Turns out that's not actually the case and he wasn't right about that. But at the time I was a very impressionable 18 year old with an intense fear of getting fat. So I was all in and I studied for my certification and 21 years later, here we are.
Speaker 1: 14:02
That's amazing. Have you done all in-person coaching? Do you coach online?
Speaker 2: 14:04
Yeah. So if it's related to fitness, I've probably done it. So I ended up graduating from college. I moved back to Maryland I went to school in Hawaii, by the way so that was awesome and I should have never left. But I moved back to Maryland and I got a job as an in-person personal trainer. Back then nobody had heard of online training. Like the Internet was bad still. It was basically like email, junk and porn, nothing else. So like the early 2000s were a wild time for the Internet. So I was just in person and I was teaching at a local college. I was like teaching kids how to be personal trainers, which was kind of cool too. Looking back at that now I'm like, oh, I should have said this and I should have guided them this way and I should have actually mentioned diet culture in my classes. But I kind of feel like looking back and having some of those thoughts is a way to tell that you've been growing.
Speaker 1: 14:49
I look back at some of the first, like strength programs that I wrote when I first started coaching, and if you can't cringe at the first things that you made, then you're not doing something right. You look back and you're like those poor clients. I'm sorry.
Speaker 2: 15:02
I think that all the time my very first client was a lady that was just super prickly, you know. She had a lot of demands and preferences, whatever, and my boss was like listen, that's the worst client you'll ever have in your whole life. And at the time I was kind of like okay, and I'm telling you, it's been 21 years and that still stands true. I have not had a client that prickly ever since. But my second and third clients were both people that I had absolutely no business working with. Both of them were in motorcycle accidents. So I learned very early on I don't want to have a motorcycle in my life. And one was paralyzed from the waist down due to his accident and one was physically completely fine but he left a bunch of his brain out on the highway and so he was like extremely delayed and things like that. So you know, as a 19 year old, brand new trainer, I probably shouldn't have been working with those clients. That would be somebody much more suited for me now as someone with 21 years of experience. But you know, you kind of live and learn. So I'm glad I've had some of these experiences to make me the trainer that I am now. But since then I've taught group fitness.
Speaker 2: 16:05
I actually left personal training and I was a collegiate strength coach for like 10 years. I worked at Navy and Loyola and University of Maryland, briefly. So I thought I wanted to do that with my life, like I want to work with athletes. You know they'll take it seriously, and it didn't exactly turn out that way. Right Then, leaving collegiate strength and conditioning, I've found that, like, the people that take it the most seriously are the people who see like, hey, I need to be healthy. I have a goal to like be able to play with my grandkids someday, or I want to make sure that I keep my mobility forever. I love going for walks on the beach and I don't want to lose that because now I can't walk in sand, right. So those are the people that I find now that really are committed to what they're doing. And that's not to say I didn't love my time with the athletes, but it's a little bit more rewarding for me now, and now I do train online and in person.
Speaker 1: 16:57
Oh, it's really cool. I was just thinking like the teaching piece is rewarding in and of itself, despite the people that you are teaching. I think about my full-time day job. I'm a dental hygienist and I've been in dentistry close to 20 years, which just is insane to me, and so for a period of time thought that I was burnt out on clinical because it turns out I actually just had a not great boss.
Speaker 1: 17:17
But I got into teaching and going into the teaching space there's a lot of bureaucracy, stuff that I just didn't love, so I didn't end up staying in it. But the relationships that I got to form and the actual like teaching part is I loved it so much so you learn a lot about yourself. I think this was in like Grey's Anatomy, where they're like, yeah, the formula is see one, do one, teach one. Like if you can teach something, then you understand it even more. So for me, going into like the teaching sphere as a dental hygienist, think concepts and things that I inherently knew suddenly solidified themselves in a way when I was able to teach it that I was like, oh my gosh, this makes so much more sense now.
Speaker 2: 17:57
Yes, I completely agree. Teaching is the best way to learn something really well.
Speaker 1: 18:01
So, with like teaching versus coaching in person or online, you're talking about people who want that longevity piece and those being the most motivated. I find the same thing. Like you talk to collegiate athletes, they've already like honed the skill and have their sport and they're like, oh yeah, I'm like I'm good at this. Oh, you're talking about how to continue building strength Well, whatever, I'm good at my sport, whereas you talk to recreational athletes as, like the broad term, but just humans who want to improve their health. However, that looks like for them, where they're like I want to be able to get on and off the floor for as long as possible. Yes, we took my grandparents to France and Greece earlier this year and they are 75 and 76. And this is like six months in advance planned, and so they started walking almost every day to get ready for this trip, because they were like we want to keep up with you, we want to be able to walk and explore these places and not be like reliant on taking Uber everywhere, if Uber even exists in the cities that we're in, kind of thing. They have kept up this habit since this trip. They still go walking, I'm going to say probably four or five days a week as their average now.
Speaker 1: 19:03
And then my grandma. Well, I guess this is on the side. My grandma fallen broke her arm a couple months ago but she's been going to PT and now she calls me and she's like I just got gold stars for my PT today because now I can actually use a two pound weight instead of just bands to do these things. And she's like so proud of herself. And so she's like he wrote me a strength training program and I've got to start building some muscle mass or I'm just going to get old and not be able to do the things I like anymore. Yes, seeing this in my grandma, she's the 76 year old Seeing these things.
Speaker 1: 19:34
And then also the other side of that, just the walking, even before this, like strength training, which like hell yeah, grandma entered the picture, just walking, all of her. Like a lot of her health markers improved. Yeah, walking is so underrated and so beneficial. Like her A1C, I want to say it was like 10 point something. It's grandma, grandma's sometimes an unreliable narrator when it comes to any like health metrics, but it was 10, 10 something. And then she called me sitting in her car in her doctor's office and she's like my newest A1C is seven and we were like that's cause for celebration. That's amazing. And she hasn't changed her diet. She's walking every day.
Speaker 2: 20:09
That was like so much more meaningful to me than being like oh, I have another athlete that performed well in their game. That's great. It's great, but it's not life-changing, whereas bringing your A1C down or being able to travel or play with your grandchildren is life-changing. You know, training for your old lady body?
Speaker 1: 20:26
Yes, I love that's a thing now Me too, cause that's where I've been at. I had a whole season of my life running everything from 5Ks to 50Ks and it was just like running obsessed. And then I got into strength training and then I was powerlifting competitively for three years and I loved that and now I just feel like I live in that middle of. I love running still, I love lifting, but most of all I love training in such a way that it supports the lifestyle and activities I wanna have and that old person body I want forever.
Speaker 2: 20:55
I also think it's like prudent to mention I have a four old right and I worked out my entire pregnancy. I've been a personal trainer for like 20, whatever years. I know what I'm doing and I very much assumed I would have this baby wait my six weeks and then be ready to work out again, and at six weeks I still felt like my whole insides were going to fall out the bottom. So I feel like tuning into your body and listening to what your body's telling you, you know is so important and so underrated.
Speaker 2: 21:21
We get so shamed by society to like bounce back and to get our pre-baby body back, which, like why would we want to erase the fact that we've had this miracle happen to us? Right, but somehow we do. And listening to your body and being able to tune in and go, you know what I need another month, or I'm going to start really slow and just walk. Even though I wanted to deadlift, you know, it probably took me six months after I had my son to get back to lifting heavy Right, which any pre and postnatal person will tell you oh, you should have been OK at six weeks.
Speaker 2: 21:52
You know like sometimes you got to tune in and listen so that you can survive and thrive through your life and make it to your old lady body.
Speaker 1: 22:01
Absolutely. That is one piece like bounce back. Culture is wild. It is wild because the pregnant body is celebrated and you get like strangers that want to touch you and you know like, oh, yeah, you're pregnant, like amazing, oh, congratulations. And the second you have the baby. It's like all right, get your, get your body back. You got to be able to bounce back and you're like I just spent 40 weeks baking this baby, yeah, and you think that I'm gonna not take that long for my body to return to normal. It's wild to me that's a whole weekend side tangent on that for forever, because that, to me, is so frustrating.
Speaker 2: 22:34
So frustrating. That's actually okay. So, diving into the side tangent a little bit, that's actually why I wrote my book. So I wrote the book hot mess to hot mom transformational tools after, for thriving after, childbirth and beyond because I felt like I was book. So I wrote the book Hot Mess to Hot Mom Transformational Tools for Thriving After, Childbirth and Beyond because I felt like I was a year postpartum.
Speaker 2: 22:51
It was the morning of my son's first birthday. It was COVID, still right. He was born in July 2020. So it was July 2021.
Speaker 2: 22:58
We had decided to have a party for him and I was like doing all the things right and I was like let me jump in the shower and get ready before people get here. Hopefully I'm clothed by the time guests arrive. And I looked down in the shower and realized I hadn't shaved my legs in I don't even know how long. And no shade to people who choose not to shave their legs, but for me that was like a part of what I do regularly. I kind of had this come to Jesus moment where I was like girl, you got to get your shit together. Your legs are like Sasquatch and your baby is a year old. You're like that's not even a newborn anymore. It's not even an infant anymore, it's just a baby at this point, Come on. And so I felt like I didn't have a lot of support. I kind of feel like our village concept of, you know, raising children or even just thriving through life doesn't really exist for many of us, and if we want a village we have to pay for it right.
Speaker 2: 23:50
We have to hire a nanny, we have to hire a housekeeper, we have to do meal prep. There's so many things that if we had a true village, like those would be those responsibilities would be divided up and I felt like I didn't have the village. So I was like looking at all the things I was experiencing postpartum right, like my libido like where did that go?
Speaker 2: 24:10
I had this baby and all of a sudden I didn't like to do the thing I used to like to do, you know. So I asked my doctor and she was like, oh yeah, that'll come back when your kid goes to college. And I was like that's like 18 years from now. And then she's like, oh wait, wait, let me see. And then she like checked her notes. She's like, no, you'll be menopausal by then. So it's gone. That's ridiculous. I do not like that answer at all, man, that sounds unhealthy.
Speaker 1: 24:33
Are you?
Speaker 2: 24:33
sure. So her advice like side note, I've since gotten a new doctor. But her advice was to like Google the Internet for things to boost libido. And I was like what, that was a doctor recommendation. Get on Dr Google.
Speaker 2: 24:47
I was like, oh, I've seen these pills in the gas station. I just didn't think they were safe. So, anyway, it kind of sent me down the rabbit hole on my own, of like, where can I find somebody to help me boost my libido? Who do I even look for for that? But I found a woman who specializes in that. She gave me the craziest advice and I'll tell you what it is. She was like I want you to think about sexy stuff every time you're around water. And I was like I don't understand what you're saying. And she was like, dude, you're like washing your hands. And you're like, oh, the water. And I was kind of just like what I'm? Like? Listen, I'm a new mom. I don't even wear clothes most days. You want me to feel sexy while I'm like washing dishes? I don't know, this was the best advice I've ever gotten, but Jess, I'll tell you totally worked. Like I'm not sure what happened there, but I tried it just out of like. All right, let's see what this bullshit is. You know.
Speaker 2: 25:35
And sure enough I was like dang, what is this? So there's a little pro tip for you if you need a little more libido in your life, Noted. But essentially why I'm telling you that story is because I took all these people that helped me postpartum and I had them all write a chapter in the book so that moms can feel like moms again, you know, or I should say, moms can feel like themselves again, because we have this baby for nine months. It's all about the baby, the baby, the baby, and then the baby is born and it's still all about the baby and nobody's going like hey, mom, how are you? Yeah, how do you take care of you? Now, how are you taking care of you? And you have the mom guilt, which I did not truly understand until I had my son. But like I would go to the gym and I'd be like, oh, this is a half an hour I could be spending with him, that I am just wasting on myself, you know.
Speaker 2: 26:23
And of course that's not the truth right and even me as a professional like I know that's not the truth and that every workout I'm doing now is hopefully prolonging my life, for later and giving me a better quality of life for later, but it was super hard, so providing that village for the readers of the book is something that I felt was kind of necessary.
Speaker 1: 26:44
That's so rad. Okay, I'm looking up your book. I don't have kids yet, but I just am so curious your village that you accumulated because I sound like a bougie bitch about to brag here. I am really, really lucky in that we have this little. We live on a cul-de-sac and we have this little community. We have multiple other families around our age that all have kids. We are like neighborhood aunt and uncle and they all come together and support each other, as each person has had a kid, and so I've been to a handful of baby showers on the last few years and one of the women her baby shower gift is a gift to mom instead of to baby, and it's like a post-birth care package of all the things and she's like your baby's got plenty of stuff. You have 10 million diapers. Every single onesie on the planet. This is for you, mom.
Speaker 2: 27:29
Yes, I love that Plus if we're being like completely for real. I know I skew a little bit minimalist in my tendencies, but we have so much crap for our babies that is not necessary. You know, they need a safe place to sleep, they need something to eat and they need clothes to wear everything else they're like just as happy with household items as they are with toys.
Speaker 1: 27:49
Oh yeah, Our closest friends, little ones, almost one, and it cracks me up because she's like I. Like the box that came in. Please Let me have the Amazon box Measuring cups to bang around. That's my jam.
Speaker 2: 27:59
Yeah, a hundred percent. My son used to just go in our kitchen and just open all the cabinets and play with whatever. And you know, like I didn't love it because it's now I got to put it all back, I got to wash it, I got to whatever. But like, how much nicer to not have a whole room full of plastic trash that he's going to play with for an hour and then I'm going to have to feel guilty about getting rid of because it was his first thing. Oh yeah, and then you get to deal with all those emotions.
Speaker 1: 28:24
Yes, totally Okay, amazing. Thank you for sharing about your book, because that was one of the things I definitely wanted to ask about. It's just like how that came into being and bringing it out there, that's right. So do you have your own chapter in there, or did you just yes, so I wrote two chapters.
Speaker 2: 28:39
It's my book so I can do what I want. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Actually, technically I wrote four chapters but like the intro chapter is kind of like the story I just told you of how it came to be, and then my closing chapter is a list of like all my favorite stuff that you need for a baby or for a new mom, and most of them aren't actual things, like there's certain things like the Duna stroller that's a must have and it'll make your life way easier. But most of it is like a good support network and join this group to learn about safe sleep and make sure you have your husband on board to like share the mental load and that kind of stuff Right. But the chapters that I actually wrote wrote are a chapter about prenatal fitness, because one of my specialties is prenatal and postpartum fitness, so I kind of give you like the workout.
Speaker 2: 29:21
Here's what you're going to do Start on this many weeks postpartum unless your body doesn't feel good, and then, whenever you do, start from this point. And then I wrote a chapter on body image, so talking about all things, you know, kind of how we can feel good about ourselves even though our bodies may look a little different than they did a year ago.
Speaker 1: 29:39
That's such an important part and I've had a couple of guests on the podcast who are pelvic floor specialists, physical therapists, and we've talked a little bit about that like bounce back culture and postpartum in that body image piece. And it's no, I can't speak from experience, but just having that conversation because you think about the societal norm of what a woman should do, whatever and then the reality of like, how do I handle this? My view of myself has shifted now that I have, like, birthed this human and they oftentimes come before I do. And how do I take care of me? And then, how do I take care of that relationship with self?
Speaker 2: 30:12
Yeah, it's difficult, right. As a mom, you're worrying about your baby. You're probably also worrying about your spouse, because that whole dynamic changes quite a bit. If you have any other kids, you're worrying about them too, and then worrying about us kind of comes last, but without us, the whole train derails. So it really should be like a put on your own oxygen mask type thing. First, exactly, yeah. So my hope is that the book is like a resource for moms. I even did like a thing where at the end of each chapter I summarized it really quickly and then give you like the tool, the takeaway, so that if you don't have time because you're a new mom and you need help now, but you can't read the entire book, like here, the TLDR is right there for you.
Speaker 1: 30:55
That's awesome. Ok, in interest of time, not to just totally change directions. I think this all kind of fits together. But I wanted to talk to you, just personal trainer to personal trainer, about love of lifting, and we're talking about lifting heavy shit. I think you posted a video. Is it your husband repping out 225 at the fair with a hex bar?
Speaker 2: 31:12
Yes, my husband is one of these people who is just like freakishly strong, no matter what, and he lifts very regularly and he has for the past six ish years, maybe even more than that. He just didn't do it at the gym that I worked at, but he was just born strong.
Speaker 1: 31:28
I just freaking. I loved that because I would 100% be that person and my husband would be there like cheering me on. This is so cool. But no, my question, not even a question about lifting. I just like bringing up love of lifting and thinking about how that plays a part in body image, self-efficacy, self-confidence, those things. Do you have any tips for people in starting their lifting journey and or like in their journey to talk about how lifting has maybe improved your own body image or how you've seen it improve other people's Because I could talk all day long about this stuff because I was the running to get smaller for a long time person discovered lifting heavy shit and completely transformed my relationship to my body through lifting. So same.
Speaker 2: 32:12
I love heavy lifting because I've seen it change so many lives, right? I truly believe that, like you, can't have a bad day when you've had a good lift, right, you put some heavy weight on the bar, and heavy is so subjective what's heavy to me is not heavy to you, it's not heavy to somebody else, or vice versa. Heavy can be a 10 pound dumbbell, you know, or it could be a 225 pound barbell, it just doesn't matter. But when we're struggling to overcome this external resistance and we lift something that we deem to be heavy, it just fills you with so much body confidence that I really don't think you're going to have a bad day. You're going to, like, drop that bar down and walk out of the gym like you're something else. Because you are right, and I've seen it change so many people's lives.
Speaker 2: 32:58
People come to me all the time as a personal trainer to get smaller. Diet culture is still running rampant. Like. This is a part of what we do as trainers, right, it's not really a part of what I do anymore, but it's still super, super common. So people come to me to get smaller. I teach them how to lift weights because you know that can be helpful with that too right, and then, without fail, they usually go okay, nevermind about all that, I just want to get strong.
Speaker 2: 33:20
They get kind of bitten with the bug of like let's get strong, let's get awesome, let's get confident, let's feel badass. You know, it gives us a little bit of good vibes to fall back on when you're having a bad day. You know what? I may have a bad day, but I can still deadlift 225.
Speaker 1: 33:36
So I've really found for myself in this season that it's this reinforcement of self-efficacy, of like I am capable of doing hard things.
Speaker 1: 33:45
Yes, there have been so many arenas in my world right now that I'm just like, yeah, then so when you can step into the gym and it's your time and your space and you can remind yourself that I can do this thing, I can lift the weight that's heavy relative to me and I appreciate you bringing that up, because I mean, we talk about lifting heavy shit and some people are like, well, I don't want to ever be able to squat 300 pounds, that's not a goal.
Speaker 1: 34:05
And you're like that's not the point. The point is that you're challenging yourself because, yeah, if you put a 10 pound dumbbell in my hand, how many lateral raises can you do? Do you ever graduate to like 15s with lateral raises? Literally never. And so, no, I just I really appreciate that because I that self-efficacy piece, then it plays into the body image part of, hey, if I can do these hard things, I can keep showing up for myself and, like you said, the people that come to you and say like, hey, I want to lose weight or I want to get smaller, and then we start incorporating lifting as just a resilience piece, and then suddenly they're like oh well, now I want to get stronger too, can we just keep lifting more weight.
Speaker 2: 34:39
Like. I actually love this. Yes, so good. I feel like my biggest like tips for people who are, like dude, I think I want to dive into lifting but I'm not really sure where to start or what to do. Just go. It's all about consistency. So you know, my advice for like brand newbies is like start with the machines. You're not going to hurt yourself on the machines. You know you're going to start feeling strong. You'll probably be pretty sore your first time or two. Start with that, and then it is so worth the money to hire a personal trainer for like two or three sessions just to like show you the right form. Tell them that you're hiring them for three sessions, ask them for the program right. Have them do it with you and so that you can like make sure my form is good, I know the intensity that I'm supposed to be working out at and I know what good pain and bad pain is right. If you've got those three things down like, you'll be good. You got this.
Speaker 1: 35:28
I completely agree. That's fantastic. Yay, so good. Do you have two minutes for a couple of rapid fire questions? Yeah, okay, I just want to. I was trying to pay attention to time and make sure you're good. Okay, I think this is a really for an hour at least, but very important question to me. What is your favorite kind of cookie? Peanut butter, chocolate chip? No question. Texture like hard crunchy soft.
Speaker 2: 35:52
No, I'm like a soft person, yeah soft and chewy is my jam.
Speaker 1: 35:59
Okay, what is something that you've been loving lately? An activity, a physical thing? Any standout favorites recently?
Speaker 2: 36:02
Yes. So, like I told you earlier, we're like celebrating Dia de los Muertos this year and so I went into Michael's recently and I am the least crafty and artistic person on the planet but they had like clay sugar skulls there to paint and I was like, oh, this might be a fun family activity and I'm actually loving it. My son is just getting paint everywhere, which is not my favorite part, but like I've been like putting him to bed and working on the little intricate details of the skull and painting the flowers and the color theories. I'm sure totally wrong and whatever, and it's probably not at all authentic, but I don't care. It's really fun and kind of therapeutic for me.
Speaker 1: 36:39
I was going to say that you get to be creative and be proud of yourself for having a little self-expression in this like piece of art. Yes, I'm into it. That's so cool.
Speaker 2: 36:48
Okay, pumpkin spice lattes or no, so I'm not a coffee drinker so I'm going to go with no, but I love pumpkin spice.
Speaker 1: 36:55
Chobani yogurt. There you go. So pumpkin flavored things, we just go no coffee. Okay so what is your like morning beverage? What do you drink in the mornings then?
Speaker 2: 37:06
Are you like water? I drink water every all day, every day. But if I'm going to be like really crazy, I might have like a lemonade.
Speaker 1: 37:09
I'm a very boring drinker? No, not at all. I love the taste of coffee. It's not even the caffeine for me. It's not necessarily my morning ritual, I just like the flavor of coffee is just so good. Ok, that's a little side danger. What is the number one book you've recommended or given as a gift?
Speaker 2: 37:26
Oh man, I love reading. It is my all time favorite hobby. The one that I probably recommend the most is for personal trainers, so most of your audience probably will not love it, but it's called Ignite the Fire and it's like how to be a badass personal trainer. Is that John Goodman? It is Love that book. He also wrote one called Viralnomics, which is amazing and awesome. It's basically the science of how to get people to want to talk about you so you could apply it to like social media, but also it like stands the test of time because it's like 20 years old. But my favorite author is Vince Flynn. Vince Flynn writes books about the CIA and it's fiction right, but like his main character is this sexy CIA guy who does the right thing, regardless of whether or not our government thinks it's the right thing. You know he's a little rebellious and the ultimate badass, so I feel like I recommend that to everybody who likes reading.
Speaker 1: 38:17
Oh, my gosh. Okay, yes, I know who Vince Flynn is. That's so great Well.
Speaker 2: 38:21
I can't believe you know him, I usually say that people are like I don't know about that.
Speaker 1: 38:27
Oh yeah, absolutely. But I mean I also love reading and I read three books a week Like that's my jam.
Speaker 2: 38:33
So we're like the same human. Yes.
Speaker 1: 38:35
Oh my gosh, more conversation later, please. Okay, actual last question when can audiences find you to learn more? Yes, where?
Speaker 2: 38:43
can audiences find you to learn more? Yes, so I'm on Instagram. That's where I'm like the most active. I'm sure you'll link it in the show notes or whatever, but it's at Tara Deleon Fitness so I like to post, you know, lifting stuff, body image quotes, things like that Anything like girl power I'm like into. But you can also find me on my podcast, wellness Rebranded. Wellness Rebranded is a podcast where a personal trainer, an intuitive eating-based dietitian and a mental health therapist come together to help you redesign your relationship with like food, fitness and your feelings without the side of diet culture. So if you've been kind of exploring removing yourself from diet culture, that is a good thing to check out.
Speaker 1: 39:20
I'm definitely going to check it out. Thank you so much for being on. I adored this conversation. I'm sure our listeners did too, but let's continue chatting about books, please. Yeah, I'm super in. I want to hear your recommendations. That is Okay, all right, friends. Thanks so much for listening to another episode of Sturdy Girl. We will catch you next Friday.