Episode 87: The Practical Side of Lifting Heavy - Five Days a Week and Fixing My Relationship with Food

Description:

This is the follow-up to Johnna's 35-year anorexia story—the practical side everyone's been asking about. How did she actually program her workouts when she went all-in five days a week? What does eating look like now after decades of restriction and bingeing? Is she nervous about gaining the weight back? And what unexpected areas of life improved that had nothing to do with the scale?

What we get into:

• How Johnna learned to lift from the Mind Pump podcast—full body compound lifts, progressive overload, and why she stuck to the basics for years instead of jumping around
• Why she probably overtrained at first but it worked because her nutrition matched the intensity and she wasn't laid-out sore every session
• The protein target debate—one gram per pound of goal weight sounds great until your liver can't handle it and your digestion is wrecked (body awareness over blanket rules)
• Johnna's actual 80/20 split—which is really more like 90/10 because she doesn't like feeling like shit, bloated, or brain-fogged anymore
• Why she doesn't track macros and never will—her goal was healing her metabolism, not competing in a body composition challenge
• The unexpected wins—shopping off the rack without thinking "what will cover my fat rolls," better mobility than she thought possible, and actually presenting herself differently because insecurity doesn't live in her body the same way anymore

We're walking through the balance between learning new lifts versus sticking to the basics (spoiler: stick to the basics and get really good at them), why cheat meals are bullshit when you're first starting, and the lifelong battle with body dysmorphia even after the transformation. This is what it actually looks like to do the work—not just the highlight reel.

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Episode 86: My 35-Year Battle with Anorexia, Yo-Yo Dieting, and How Lifting Weights Finally Fixed My Broken Metabolism

Description:

Skinny talk is trending on social media—Gen Z's rebranded version of anorexia—and it's triggering as hell. Young women in their early 20s are promoting severe calorie restriction, telling everyone to avoid lifting weights because it "adds mass," chasing that emaciated 90s heroin chic look. And Johnna has a lot to say about this because she lived it for 35 years. This is her full story, start to finish, for the first time ever—because she'd never even put it all together herself until now.

We're breaking down the words that make us cringe—not because they're bad or wrong, but because of how they're used now. Safe space, toxic, healing, triggered, cutting people off—all co-opted, overused, and weaponized by people who haven't actually done the work. If you're constantly saying everyone else is toxic and you need a safe space from discomfort, this one's gonna sting a little. But that's kind of the point.

What we get into:

• What safe space actually is—protection from abuse, not from disagreement, discomfort, or being challenged (it's not an echo chamber for emotional immaturity)
• Toxic means chronic, repetitive, unaccountable, and resistant to repair—not "someone who challenges you or activates your insecurity"
• Healing builds capacity and resilience, not fragility—if healing makes you more reactive, rigid, or isolated, that's avoidance with better branding
• Triggered is information about what's unresolved inside you, not proof someone harmed you or owes you an apology
• When to actually cut people off versus when you're just avoiding the mirror—and why if everyone feels unsafe or beneath your frequency, the issue is you
• The spiritual ego trap—"I'm too healed to be around other people" just means you know fancy language intellectually without integration

We're walking through why labeling everyone else toxic avoids looking at your own patterns, why forgiveness is the antidote for the poison in your own veins, and the questions you need to ask yourself before writing someone off: Can you hear feedback? Are you willing to reflect? Do you show remorse? Can you tolerate discomfort? If you require perfection from humans to stay connected, you're gonna end up alone.

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We're tackling the 15 most-searched fitness questions on Google—in order—and giving you the real answers instead of the bullshit the industry wants you to believe. Spoiler alert: if you're Googling these questions, you should probably hire a trainer. But until you do, we're breaking down what actually works versus what keeps you stuck in the start-stop cycle forever.

What we get into:

• How many days a week should you really work out—and why body movement every day is non-negotiable (even if resistance training is 2-3x for beginners)
• The "I'm out of shape" excuse—everyone started out of shape, so just start (and stop trying to outrun what you eat)
• Why you need a program and can't wing it—Johnna writes her own programming and tracks everything, even after years of lifting
• The "why am I not seeing results" question—results take time, and if you're going twice a week it'll take way longer than someone going five days
• Cardio or weights first—stacking them in one day sends massive stress signals to your body and you'll burn out (do them on separate days)
• Why it's never too late to start lifting—Johnna just had a foundation session with a 79-year-old woman who'd never done a lunge in her life

We're walking through why the "I don't like water" excuse makes you sound like a two-year-old, why consistency is the only secret sauce (not fat burners or 12-week programs), and what actually matters: eat food from the fucking earth, move your body, pick up heavy shit and put it down, drink water, and sleep. That's it. No hacks.

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We're not doctors—we're people who've done the work, studied the research, and walked alongside others through transformation. This one's about how healthcare evolved from herbalists and midwives into the medical industrial complex we have today, and no, this isn't conspiracy theory. This is documented history that you need to understand if you're going to take your power back.

What we get into:

• Pre-1900: when wellness meant herbalists, plant medicine, lifestyle, and hospitals were last resort only
• How John D. Rockefeller (oil guy, not a doctor) decided to make synthetic drugs from petroleum byproducts because natural substances can't be patented
• The Flexner Report of 1910—when Carnegie Foundation funded an "educational reformer" to standardize medical schools and close over half of them
• Why homeopathy, herbal medicine, Black medical schools, and women-run institutions got shut down while pharmaceutical-pushing schools got millions in funding
• The shift from wellness to treatment, prevention to reaction, and why your doctor got 20-25 hours of nutritional education (and it's optional)
• What actually causes leg cramps, anxiety, and high blood pressure—and why treating symptoms keeps you coming back instead of healing the root cause

We're walking through why medicine became a service industry instead of a wellness practice, how doctors are incentivized to keep you sick (not because they're evil, but because that's the business model), and what you can do next. Listen to your body. Move. Sleep. Manage your nervous system. Stop outsourcing your power to systems that were built for profit, not healing. This one's about taking responsibility back.

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It's the second week of January, and if you're well into your transformation journey or just starting out, you need to hear this: the fitness industry doesn't always have your best interest in mind. It's big business, and naturally they want you to keep coming back. We're breaking down eight lies you've probably heard (or believed) that set you up to quit, feel like a failure, or stay stuck in the same cycle.

What we get into:

• The "no pain, no gain" myth—why suffering actually deregulates your nervous system and stops you from making gains
• The 30/60/90-day challenge scam—your body doesn't operate on marketing timelines, and these programs leave you in a metabolic dumpster fire
• Spot reduction is bullshit—Johnna's done core workouts every day for 3+ years and still has her "portal" (and why genetics, hormones, and stress choose where you lose fat)
• Why "just eat fewer calories than you burn" ignores the reality that many overweight women are grossly undereating and living in metabolic nightmares
• More is not better—growth happens in recovery, and beating yourself up seven days a week isn't sustainable for life
• Weight loss doesn't equal health—the scale doesn't measure muscle, fat, bone, or water, and you can lose weight by losing muscle (which weakens your body)

We're walking through why 22-year-old influencers telling 40-year-olds they're lazy is garbage, how to actually measure if something's working (hint: can you carry dog food easier? play with your grandkids?), and why if it didn't work, it's probably the system—not you. This one's for anyone who's tried really fucking hard but just didn't know what they didn't know.

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It's the beginning of the year (or maybe it's May 19th—doesn't matter), and you're ready to actually do the thing this time. But where do you start? We're breaking down the five most important pillars—sleep, nutrition, fitness, hydration, and mindset—with real first steps for people dipping their toes in and people diving headfirst into the deep end. No fluff, no quick fixes, just the truth about what it takes to stop lying to yourself and start showing up.

What we get into:

• Why sleep is the only one we'd actually rank first—rest, recuperation, detoxification, and why everything else crumbles without it
• The "grow the fuck up" hydration conversation—your body needs water to function, and we're done with "I don't like water"
• Why your living room has been there the whole time and you still didn't do the home workouts (get a gym membership already)
• The compound lifts versus personal trainer spectrum, and why money is the currency of consistency
• Protein first thing when you break your fast, whole foods around the perimeter, and why that morning cereal is a metabolic disaster
• The bonus sixth pillar we almost forgot: stop with the excessive alcohol—it derails everything we just talked about

We're walking through why gratitude can start with "the sun is out today," how to clean up your feeds for external motivation when internal motivation is lacking, and why you need to give this a full year. The year's gonna pass anyway—what if you actually prioritized these five things and reevaluated where you are in 365 days? This one's for the internally driven person ready to face reality on reality's terms.

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Double Glasses Johnna is here because we're talking about unsolicited advice—both giving it and getting it. And here's the kicker: we both realized we absolutely do this. Johnna in the gym ("hey, better variation for that"), Clint in conversations, and once we started digging into where it comes from, the mirror got real uncomfortable real fast.

What we get into:

• The ego thing—when being right or wise becomes part of your identity and advice becomes proof of your value
• Why it's so much easier to manage someone else's life than your own (projection, anyone?)
• The difference between true wisdom (spacious, patient, quiet) and immature wisdom (loud and urgent)
• Confusing wisdom with authority—just because something worked for you doesn't mean you're entitled to control someone else's process
• The "I'm an empath and everyone comes to me for advice" red flag we need to talk about
• What to actually say instead: "Do you want support or just to be heard?" and why silence is an act of love

We're walking through why if someone else's choices feel threatening to you that's information about you, how 24-hour cable news broke our ability to pause in conversation, and why the most evolved people don't rush to speak. This one required both of us to look in the mirror—Johnna with her loose tongue in the gym, Clint with inserting himself into conversations—and admit we've got work to do too.

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