Farrar Duro
Welcome back to the PCOS Revolution podcast everyone. Today I have with me Maria Horstman, who is a speaker, health and insulin resistance coach, a personal trainer and corporate wellness consultant. She left the corporate world to help busy professionals go getters achieve their health goals, so they can do more, live more and expand their quality of life. Now, Maria empowers people to lose weight, boosts energy and confidence and build physical and mental strength. And she’s also spoke at PCOS Awareness events and conferences. And she herself has reversed her own insulin resistance and pre-diabetes, actually. So we’re going to speak a little bit about some strategies that she can share with us to help do that via exercise, diet and lifestyle changes. But also getting started with that, because this is the time of the year where we’re going to actually be focused a little bit on our goals, obviously, everybody is thinking about what to do in the new year and all that. So we want to actually talk about getting a plan in place that’s going to keep you inspired and motivated throughout the rest of the year. And hopefully, this is going to be your last year of actually making that your ultimate goal. It’ll just become easier and easier as you implement it. So welcome, Maria, thank you for coming on the show.

Maria Horstman
Yes, thank you for having me such a pleasure to talk to your audience, and to you. So very excited about, you know, this topic that we’re talking about, because I have a personal interest and experience with insulin resistance. And I have worked with women with be CEOs. And I’m passionate about helping women to get to get to their next level of their health in a holistic approach. And with PCOS, we know dead there is a combination of a holistic approach with some medical approaches as well. Ideally, we want to implement and focus more on the holistic and things that we can do for ourselves, and minimize the use of medication as much as possible.

Farrar Duro
Awesome that I’m excited to talk about this because there’s no better there’s nothing that beats exercise. Honestly, I don’t think any medication is going to be better than exercise. It’s just getting to that point of getting excited about that and finding what works for you. So So what would be your best advice actually just first starting out for someone who perhaps is walking but not doing a set training plan or not working with a personal trainer right now and that sort of thing? Where do you start? Is that depending on your weight loss goals, or basically just working with incorporating it into your daily routine?

Maria Horstman
Yeah, well, that’s a great question. Because you mentioned something right there that make me like, Whoa, no, no as far as weight loss goes, I honestly do not see exercise as the primary. One of the primary ways to lose weight. I see exercise as the best free pill yet, like you mentioned, for health and wellness period, Okay, I see exercise as one tool for us to build resilience for us to build brain health, for us to be more in control of our minds, you know, of our brains, because it’s all about the mind over the brain. And there is once we start getting into Okay, I have more control of my actions, my decisions, my thoughts, then we actually will be making better decisions about our nutrition about what time we go to bed, how much alcohol we drink, or do not drink.

Maria Horstman
You know, should I you know, or should sometimes as a strong word, it is that best for me to, let’s say, you know, eat this that is going to feel my body in my brain with energy and nutrients or do that instead, right, this is the power that I see an exercise is to really lift the dinner transmitters in our brain, right like dopamine, serotonin, GABA, norepinephrine, BDNF, which kind of builds and maintain the cell circuitry is almost like a fertilizer of synaptic plasticity in our brain, glutamate and GABA, those are the things that exercise the US, you know, to our brain. And so, when we talk about strategies, the first thing that I like to suggest to my clients is because, you know, like it or not, you know, there is about I think is a third of the population are exercising three or more times a week, right, consistently, this number is very, very low. Considering that, yes, you can pay for somebody to be able to hold you accountable, like myself, like a personal trainer could be one on one, or could be in a group session. I’m just actually launching strong bonds for life of just a group online for women only.

Maria Horstman
And it’s amazing. I can talk more about it later. But, uh, you know, it’s about, okay, why am I doing this? You know, why exactly is this important to me. So we get to get to the root cause of something, before we embrace the, you know, the commitment is hard for us to become committed to something that we don’t have much purpose. So if we believe if we are surrounded by activity, if we put ourselves into that, that position, if we say, okay, is truly exercise beneficial to me, I think in general terms, people know that it is right. You know, everybody talks about it normally do people feel good when they move, but there is a component of being intentional. And I call it an intentional movement. Right? And so first is finding the why we want to do this, if we know you know, what is the why for better health, for longevity, for better quality of life, and for higher for you to be actually be hiking a little bit more for you to play your tennis for you to play any other sports that you love for you to spend more time with your, your loved one with the kids that you have, or want to be on to have for your grandchildren, what kind of person what kind of energy Do you want to have, you know, to do the things that you love, including expressing love. And then say, the intention behind intentionality of movements, right. Because if you think about a squat, it’s just not a squat, right? A squat is one of the most important fundamental movements in exercise, it’s about our legs, it’s about the ability to walk for us to actually get to the ground and lift something could be that grandchildren could be that baby without impacting our back when it’s done properly. Right, it is something that is going to allow us to propel to jump when we need to jump on we want to jump, right. So and ignite so many muscles important muscles in our body. But yes, can be done incorrectly, that our knees can be, you know, damaged, right.

Maria Horstman
Or we can be actually not being with an intention of doing not do intention, a lot of people, they actually, you know, they go to grab something from the floor, and they lift more and move their lower back than their legs, because they’re not practicing that squat, which is so fundamental in the overhead movement. So now people don’t think about why should do this stuff, have a bar dumb that overhead says imagine when you get to that cabinet in your house, right, you want to reach something on the top imagine is something is coming from, from either not from the sky from the ceiling or something, you have to have the power to stop that you need to check, stretch yourself just one corner, you go one foot, you know, stretch it all the way on the top. These are things that bring so think about the intention that is behind it. Because every functional movement, not necessarily a dumbbell, you know, curl a bicep curl that doesn’t have much functionality, because it’s very isolated. Right? There’s functional exercise that is going to allow us to propel in life, does that make sense?

Farrar Duro
I had never thought about a squat like that. Or I was just doing those this morning. And I thought oh, and all I think about is am I doing this right? Are my knees over my ankles? Am I know that but really thinking about other ways that can be helpful? That’s really simple. And, and yeah, that’s so good. I mean, as far as the intention of really trying to figure out why you’re doing it in the first place. Yes, and having that writing it down, I think is really good to just to kind of let your you know, let your eyes see like, Okay, this is exactly what I’m doing this for, it’s not just to, you know, get my insulin under control is to feel good, you know, and have energy every day and be present and be a good, you know, daughter, sister, mother, you know, wife, whatever you are best friend, and, and have this routine for life. And I feel like with the bone density issue, too. I mean, we know that weightlifting is so good for our bones as we get older. And, you know, it was interesting, when I when I studied in, in China, there were tight ci parks, like when, you know, for women and men that were, you know, over 60, they were actually doing Tai Chi at 530 in the morning, every single morning. Like they really just look forward to that that movement. So it doesn’t have to be with weights and all this sort of thing. Like we think of it. They were in, you know, a half lunch pretty much for an hour, it’s a workout, you know, people think it looks easy, it’s not easy. But just having that is part of their social thing to are they actually were you able to be around other people as well. You know, yes, that’s important. So going to a gym could mean a lot of things going to a yoga class, dig even be someone socialization. Yeah, you know, so,

Maria Horstman
Yes, absolutely. So different. You know, going back to the question that you had, how to get started, you know, so I mentioned a two fundamental things, right. The why, what the intention of it what how we’re utilizing, you know, but also Okay, you got to assess where you are today and your level of activity, if you’re just walking, walking, is better bathing been than being an couch potato, there is absolutely no question about it. But I look at you know, not only from a nutrition perspective, but a you know, as the body right exercise, the same thing, we cannot look at nutrition only, okay, for weight loss now, because you can go down to 300 calories, and you can lose weight, but that’s not going to be healthy for you, right? That’s not something that is brings longevity, you’re going to lose all the nutrients you’re going to put in your body and before you know it falling apart. So we have to have common sense over here. And so assess where you are, and walking is fine, but walking is not broad enough.

Maria Horstman
Okay. Just I mentioned about bone health. And you did the same a minute ago, well, our bones are living tissue, right? And women after the age of 35, can lose up to 1% of bone mass and near. That does not count about it. No, this is regular it you know, General women in general. Now, if the women have a, let’s say, a poor nutrition, you can eat a lot does not mean that is nutrition, right is malnutrition, then we are we haven’t built you know, that bank of bone mass to help us, you know, as we age, so is not only Oh, I’m young, I don’t need this Hold on a second there is genetical bonus, but there is also how you ate how you’re fed, I want to say for a portion of your life and how you doing going after when you start making all decisions, you know, so So this has an indispensable, you know, essential aspect in our bone health. And why is this important too, because, well, the bone starts getting weak, right? then before you know, you get fragile, you start breaking bones, and then then the mobility decreases. And then we start getting the fears, fears of this fears of that, you know, balance goes along with that, too.

Maria Horstman
As we age. I’m not here to implement fears, I’m talking, I’m here to bring awareness that this is important. And for bone health. Just like the strategy for, you know, lifting the neurotransmitters in our brain is not any kind of exercise, we have to have an impact, we have to have a certain cardiovascular because our walk is not lifting much of your dopamine and serotonin, BDNF and all that. We need a certain impact, right doesn’t have to be done doesn’t have to be running a marathon. Running for 30 minutes, we can just include a small bursts, like I like to call it talk, you know, 30 to 60 or 60 minutes of bursts within the routine. So assess where you are what you doing, and say okay, consistency is better than persistence. And you know, or or intensity, I want to say meaning that if you you’re doing little today, how about we start with one freaking minute, you commit to one minute out of bed, and you say, you know what I’m gonna do this week, every for this week is going to be one minute out of bad, you know, off push ups. Know that that is bodyweight movement. Right?

Maria Horstman
Okay, the next week, I’m gonna make sure that I’m learning how to do a squat properly, I’m going to do squats, then the other I’m going to do sit ups the other way, I’m going to do lunges, you see what I’m saying. And you keep a little catalog, I have this fun fitness calendar. I know that folks cannot see us but it’s pretty fun. And I put this on my fridge, you know, and has like motivations why of my why my goals and rewards which I normally say, hey, rewards not related to food. But really things that are simple in life that you can give yourself a break and enjoy. And then I mark it down while you have this on my fridge, you know, and I mark it down, you know, the things that I’m doing, I draw on it, and keep my eye in there. So the visual aspect of it commitment is so important. And especially for exercise, and I’m a trainer. Okay, and yes, I’m a coach, but we all need accountability. Don’t you agree with that? Do you find that your car or your clients need the same thing?

Farrar Duro
I like that calendar, I’d like to link to it.

Maria Horstman
Yes, absolutely. Yes, I have, I definitely have a link for you. And people can download it. I laminated…you know, when people will get the the PDF form, and laminated and I put in my fridge. And every month I go and I raise and I put in there, it’s wonderful. It keeps me always motivated. Sometimes I look at it says okay, Mary has been two days. What excuses you know, let’s get in it is really that right? So yeah, the in you know, so assess, find your growth is start small, but make it happen every day, you know that one minute focus is building is building that thing, I gotta do it, I get to do it, I get to do it yourself, right, I got my women in in, I got it in. And then before, you know, you say okay, this week, now I’m going to go to, you know, 15 minutes workout, and I’m going to get my accountability body, I do run programs, and I put people we do fit as a group to have accountability bodies, and then they discuss their goals, you know, whatever the, the program is, it is for us exercise and nutrition, whatever, it’s all about health right. And then the check with each other, you know, and so, this helps us to move forward, the all the help we can get we can be it takes a village on the health and wellness circle.

Maria Horstman
So I will not say no, unless becomes disturbing. So obviously, you got to make sure that you’re being effective in you know, in an efficient in this calls and texts and not become like an hour of your day on checking in. Right. So, so yes, and then move slowly. Now, if you say well, Maria already kind of working out three times a week, I mean, that should be good, then I would ask you a question. There is always ways to improve. First of all, always, today, you know, and who you are today is your beginning, is your beginning. And you say how can I improve this? Am I doing the same things over and over? Am I going to that...