The Jordan Syatt Podcast
Losing Weight, Getting off Meds, and How to Strongly Advocate for Your Own Health in the Medical World with Nurse Brittney
In this episode of The Jordan Syatt Mini-Podcast, I speak with Inner Circle Member, Brittney, who is a nurse about:
- How to become your own strongest health advocate
- How she lost weight and came off her medications
- The form of exercise that has impacted her life the most
- How much protein do you REALLY need?
- And more...
I hope you enjoy this episode and, if you do, please leave a review on iTunes and Spotify (huge thank you to everyone who has written one so far).
Finally, if you've been thinking about joining The Inner Circle but haven't yet... we have hundreds of home and bodyweight workouts for you and you can get them all here: https://www.sfinnercircle.com/
- Broadcast on:
- 29 Sep 2024
- Audio Format:
- other
Hey, Brittany, if you can. Oh, there you are, Brittany. Hi. How are you? Good. How are you? I'm good. Just, just so you know, we are live. We're recording. Okay, perfect. Very excited to talk. How is everything? Everything's great. How are you Curtis, Nini, baby number two, old Abe? Everyone's good. Old Abe is taking a nap right now. So hopefully she will stay down for the nap for the duration of this either. Maybe not. You might end up hearing her screaming. Either way, everyone's good and I'm very, very excited to chat. So what I'm going to do is I looked through the email. You didn't really give any info in the email. So I just want to hear from you. Like, actually, you know what, before we dive into fitness stuff, just tell me a little bit about yourself. I just want to get to know you better. Like, who are you? Where are you from? What do you do? I just want to know you a little bit better. Absolutely. So I'm from Las Vegas, born and raised. Lived here until I was 25 and then lived in Illinois for about eight years to be closer to family, hated the winter. I'm a desert girl, came back home. So I'm back in Vegas now. I've been here about two years and I think I'll probably be here forever. Like, this is my home. Good. Good. I'm more of a heat guy as well. I can't stand the cold. It's the worst. Like, it's just terrible. I always laugh when you talk about cold plunges, how you're like, how you're like, I'd rather shit in my hands and clap and do that. Like, same. Same cold in me. No, like, no, thank you. Yeah. No, it's, Sana's great. Desert heat, great. It's cold. Absolutely not. It's terrible. Yep. Same. Same. Same. Professionally speaking. So I'm a nurse. That's my, you know, professional job. And then on the side, I'm in the process of building a gratitude sharing business. So that's something new for me that I'm working on. And something just kind of. Like, I feel like there's joy around that. Like, that's like, seems like what you're really passionate about just based on your facial expression. Yeah. Genuinely, like, I genuinely feel joy about it. I am like huge on genuine human connection. And I feel like our world is going the direction opposite of that, you know, with AI and technology and all of that, which has a time and a place. Technology is great, but also just genuine connection when you can is huge for me. So yeah, I'm working on that. I love that. Can you, I mean, can you tell me more about the business and like what, what you're doing and what does that look like? I'm just interested. Absolutely. So it's, um, it's a company that the product itself is greeting cards. So it's all through an app where you can, um, they call it prompting. So when you're prompted, when when you think of someone, they call it a prompting, right? Like somebody pops in your head, you're like, Oh, I just thought of so and so, and it's a way for you to act on those promptings. So when you think of somebody or you have a way that you want to connect to them, for some reason, then this app allows you to send them a personalized greeting card, all from your phone, all from your computer. It's literally so fast. And then they have all kinds of like things that you can use to automate the system. And it can be any type of cards you can think of. And it can be anything on a small scale of just an individual wanting to be like a casual sender, or it can be on a large scale, like for people who have businesses and companies and want to reach out to their customers directly and, you know, personalized things. So well, that's amazing. And it's like, it's a, it's a app based for the person who's using the product, but the person who gets the card, it's a physical card is like a real. I look, that's awesome. And it's signed, sealed and delivered, like through the app, like there's no like, you don't have to stamp it yourself. There's no filling it out. Like it, but it's all personalized based off what you want it to say. You can add pictures to it. Like it's honestly like it's one of the coolest things I've ever seen. And I've always been more traditional and more old school, old soul. Like I do still send physical cards in the mail. And so for it to be this way and be easier and just such a genuine expression of gratitude, like that's what I love. And the company is so focused on gratitude. Like that is what they're built off of. That is their motto. It's like, reach out to people, tell them you love them, tell them you're thinking about them. You can even send gifts with it. Like it's amazing. That's really cool. Now is the, I'm sorry to keep asking you questions. I'm just really interested. Like when when they get the card, obviously it's not handwritten, right? It's typed out like the car. Okay. Okay. You can change the fonts though. So you can make it a little more personal. There's colors that you can put with it. But no, it's not actually handwritten, but it's in your words that you type. So it's not like a, it's not a cookie cutter one where it's, you know, it says the same thing over and over, you know, you can personalize it. It would be so cool. And I'm just spitballing now. If like, I mean, with everything with AI now, like you, you go through an AI thing where you essentially like write a couple paragraphs and then it has your handwriting now. So then it could, I mean, and I know some people are going to hate this because it's taking something that could be more personal, but essentially it takes the handwriting and it actually looks like your handwriting. And that would be something that would be cool in the future. But well, I think that they have a way that this company that you can do that with your signature. I don't think you can do it with all of the text, but I think with your signature, I'm still relatively new. So I'm learning all the ins and outs, but I do feel like I saw that somewhere that that's an option. So that's pretty cool. That's, I just love how excited you are about it. Like, I can literally see your face change as you're going from where you live to, to like your nursing and then to this, like you, you started, you had like a faint smile, which made me happy. So I love that. That's really amazing. Yeah. And I've already spent like several cards to people and the feedback that I've gotten. Like it just fills my cup. Like it fills my cup. So you tell me the name of it, just so if I can try it out. Yeah. And actually, if you want, we can, we can connect after this. I have something I can send you and then give you more information and that'd be awesome. Awesome. So now let's talk about you, any fitness questions you have, just give me some background on that and we'll dive in. This is your time. So what are any questions you have? I'm here to help in any way I can. Well, Lisa, I didn't necessarily have like any goals. Like I kind of just wanted to talk with you and meet you. I think you're absolutely amazing. I've been following you for probably four years now. And I just can tell like you're a genuinely good person. So I'm just fangirling a little bit. And just so you know, like I don't fangirl like there's there's celebrity I couldn't care less like I don't fangirl. But for you, like I feel like I know you just from following you and you're just a really awesome person. So that's kind of the main purpose of me just wanting to connect with you. But I do have like some fitness stuff I can talk about and some questions to ask. Well, that means a lot to me. So thank you. I very much appreciate that. I appreciate your support. I appreciate how kind you are. And I'm just excited to get to talk. And if you're ever in Dallas, you always have a place to come hang out with my wife and family and I always have dinner. So, so thank you for the kind words. Yeah, absolutely. I love that. So a little bit of background with me health wise. So I have a really rare condition called idiopathic intracranial hypertension means that the pressure in my head is too high. And when I was diagnosed with this, they basically told me like we don't know what's causing it. And we don't really know what to do for you. You could lose your vision. So you could go blind and you're kind of screwed. It's like essentially long story short. So that's what sparked my health journey. Prior to that, it's not that I was unhealthy, but I didn't really care. Didn't really pay attention. So once this started happening and my vision was at risk, like I was so freaking scared. Like there was a moment when I was working, I was in a doctor's office at the time as a nurse working and I was typing on my computer and I got up to go into my patient's room to go see them and I lost my vision for like three seconds. Yeah. And three seconds doesn't sound long, right? But when it's your vision, like three seconds felt like an eternity. No, that sounds horrible. And thank God you weren't driving. Like, oh my gosh. Yeah, that's horrifying. It was so scary. And there was a myriad of symptoms, a lot of things that led up to this, but for the sake of time, you know, I ended up in the ER. That's when they diagnosed me. They told me that I would have to try all these medications. And then if that didn't work, I was going to have to have a shunt. Now I don't know how much you know about that, but it's a little tube that they would put in my brain, run it down into my abdomen to drain off the spinal fluid. So brain surgery, really serious. That was a big, big deal. I was hell bent against it. So I started with the medications that they recommended because I needed urgent treatment. But in the meantime, I also started doing my own research because I was like, I need to know what's going on. I need to figure this out, whatever. And the condition typically is diagnosed in women in their child bearing years who are obese. Now, at the time, I was five five, like 158. So not obese, by any means, I had some extra weight inflammation, but not obese. So they basically told me like, you don't really fit the criteria. And we don't know why and what's happening. But I had read on some peer reviewed journals and studies that even modest amount of weight loss can help. So I'm like, well, if there's anything I can do, let me try. So I started out with some supplements, and then just basically clean eating. So I started paying attention to ingredients, I started focusing on whole real foods, all of the things. And in a period of a couple of months, I lost 32 pounds. Shut the fuck up. Now some of that. Yeah, now some of that looking back was also muscle. And the muscle was not intentional, right? But I wasn't active because I didn't feel good. And so I just, I made such a huge change. And then a bunch of weight just fell off. And then that kind of spiraled into like a further health journey. So I was able to come off all my meds. And I still was having symptoms, but I wasn't like having to really do anything about it other than what I was doing, like for my own self. And my doctor, who was amazing, she was doing the best she could with what she had, like she was perplexed too. But she was like, this is great, like everything's looking better, your vision is stable, like we're good. So I persisted, kept doing all the things. And then in 2020, end of 2020, I kind of had an uptick of my symptoms again. And this whole time, the research that I had done, I knew that the treatment that I needed was a stent, not a shunt. And similar to when people have heart attacks and they get stents in their heart, that's also possible in the brain. But it's relatively new. And there wasn't a lot of research and data to back it up. But the research that I did told me that that is what I need. So I was telling my doctor this, she didn't really know much about it. There wasn't really anybody in the town I was living in that did it wasn't really sure how to help. And she kept pushing for that shunt, which again, she was doing the best she could with what she had, right? Like, but I was hell bent, like, no, it's not happening. I'm not fucking having surgery on my brain. That intense, if I can avoid it. Correct. So I referred myself to the Mayo Clinic, went to Mayo Clinic in Wisconsin, found a doctor who was completely on board. He looked at my MRI, which was years old at that point, looked at my MRI, could see exactly what I was talking about, agreed with me fully was like, Yep, you need a stent. I went there on a Monday with the intention of getting answers, going back home and then having a plan. I went there on Monday, I had surgery on Thursday, and we left to go back home on Friday. So I was living in Illinois and we traveled to Wisconsin. Wow. My main symptom that I had that was the absolute worst was called is called pulsable tinnitus. So I could hear my heartbeat in my ear. 100% of the time, I was fully aware of my own beating heart, which we all know that our heart beats all day, right? But who wants to actually hear it 24/7? It was making me crazy and it was totally affecting my quality of life. So when I woke up from that surgery with my stent and it was quiet, I cried because it had been, I think, eight years at that point, eight years. Yes, eight years. It took me eight years to get the treatment that I needed. Oh my gosh. Yes. Yes. So health speaking, health wise, did the clean eating, then I progressed to grain free because I read a book and was like, Oh my god, this is amazing. I totally drank that Kool-Aid. Then I progressed to keto because I was like, Oh my gosh, now I have to do this. And then I felt like shit. Keto was the absolute worst that I ever felt like with anything. And then it basically persisted into a disordered eating relationship with food. Some of it because I have such a fear of gaining weight now, because I don't want those symptoms to come back, because they told me I didn't need to lose weight, they told me I wasn't obese, they told me it wouldn't matter. But I lost the weight and came off my meds and my symptoms got better. And it genuinely helped. Obviously, the stent was really what I needed. But all of that other stuff was a huge, huge help. But then it kind of led to this like relationship with food, disordered eating, all of that. So since then, I've kind of been trying to get back to a place of balance. And since following you, I feel like a lot of that has really helped. I know you're big on calorie deficit and counting calories and all of that. And for me, because of mental health and my history, I don't calorie count. I just try to loosely pay attention, which I know you fully like support that too in these situations. And I really hear lately have been focusing a lot more on walking and I'm pretty active. But in the last, I think six weeks, I have an eight to $10,000, not money, eight to 10,000 step goal daily. And in these last six weeks, I haven't missed it one day. Let's go. And actually, it's like at the point now where I don't even really have to think about it. It's easy. It's so easy to attain. In the beginning, I really had to focus a couple walks a day because I now have a more more sedentary job. So I have to really pay attention and get my steps in. But because I've been doing it for so long now, it seems relatively easy and just part of my day. And I genuinely feel better when I get those steps in. And I feel like I've had more results from just that than all the other shit I've done. Really? Yeah. And I've done like all the things. Like, it's, it's absolutely crazy to me. And I had like an interesting non scale victory the other day. So I don't weigh myself very often because I'm one of those that it really messes with my head, it really derails me. And it's just not really helpful. But I have a range that I try to stay in. So when I told you that I was small, 58, I lost 26 or I lost 32 pounds, I got down to like 128 or whatever that is. And then since then, I've gained 10 to 15 pounds back, most of it being muscle, some of it probably a little bit of fat, whatever. But I try to stay in like the 135 to 140 range. Yeah. And when I get closer to 140, my clothes start to feel a little tighter, I start to feel a little more uncomfortable, right? So I kind of get mine for that. So I weigh myself periodically just to check in and see where I'm at. Well, a couple weeks ago, I weighed on the second day of my period, fully knowing that during my period, I'm always a little bit up, right? Because it's our period, like that's normal, whatever. Well, I wasn't on the second day of my period, I was on the lowest end of my weight range. And I'm not even trying to lose weight right now. Wow. Which to me, that was just like huge, like what? Because any other time I weigh on my period, I'm like, what the fuck? Even though I know, even though I know, you know, I'm like, why don't you even do this? And so I was like, essentially about to torture myself, like, well, I'm going to weigh today. I just, I haven't weighed a while. I want to know terrible time of the month, but I'm going to do it anyways. And then I was like, Oh, shit, like, pleasantly surprised, like actually really glad I did that. And I genuinely feel like it has to do with me just prioritizing my walking. It's absolutely the walking. There's not a doubt in my mind, especially if nutrition has stayed basically the same. Like it's, it's really wild how much that impacts like overall fat loss, weight maintenance. Like it's, it's fucking crazy how big of an impact it has. Yes. And how easy is it? Right? Like I'm not out here doing HIIT training, dying, like all this cardio, like there's nothing wrong with cardio time and place for cardio, but like just fucking walk, just walk. Yes. It can be literally, you can enjoy it. You can go with a friend, you could call someone, you can listen to podcasts, listen to nature. Like, it's, it's awesome. I'm so glad you're doing that. Yes. And I live in Vegas. Okay. And it's 110 degrees right now. And all of almost 98% of my walking is done outside. Oh, God, I do that. It's so hot. I'm up at six o'clock in the morning and I go for a walk and I enjoy it. And then maybe during the day, I might do one lap around the block. Sure. Is it a little warm? Yeah. Did I die? No. And I also have a walking pad. So I sometimes do that during meetings or whatever. So that helps. And then in the evening, once the sun goes down, my husband and I go for another walk. And it's good bonding time for us. And we talk and plus we're outside, we're getting sunshine by an indeed, like, hello. That's, I love that. That makes me so happy. It's my wife and I do that early in the morning with Curtis, we take him out every morning, we go for a morning walk and occasion will do a evening one as well. And like, obviously the walking is great, but the bonding time is also wonderful, especially when you're both so busy. It's like, to have that alone time and just to prioritize conversation is it's a really wonderful time as well. Yeah. Yeah, it absolutely is. So thank you for that. Thank you for being such like so genuine and so simple, right? Like, there's all these people out there who want to sell all the shit, you know, buy this thing, do this, do that. And like, you're out here promoting, like just fucking use your two legs and walk. Yes, there's so many other things, right? There's so much more than that, all the nuances, whatever. But like, you just really get back to the basics, like, calorie deficit and walking those two things that you've reached the most, like, hello. That's really, and some people are, they get mad. They're like, what, you see the same things over and over again. It's like, you know, I've sold out when I start saying different shit. Like, when I start saying stuff that like, doesn't sound like as simple as it as I've been making it, that's when you know, I've sold out, like that. So you should hope that I say the same shit over and over and over again. It really is. And again, it's not easy, but it is very simple. Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. And, you know, I recognize for some people, right, the weather in the winter, it's cold, there's ice, there's snow. Yeah, there's always going to be obstacles, but there's always ways around it too. And you just have to figure out what's most important to you. How can you prioritize it and get it done? Yeah. My buddy lives in Minnesota, Mike, and he literally like very frequently, he'll just be walking around in his basement. Just like, I'm just going to get steps in like it's too freaking cold to go outside, but he doesn't have the treadmill or anything. He just walks in his basement. So yeah, you got to do it. Just get your steps in. Yeah, my husband and I have done that in our house. We have a small house. It's just a one story. And sometimes we'll just walk up and down the hall and we're just like, oh, you have your steps yet? Sometimes when I do that, though, I get dizzy. Like I'll walk to the end of the hall and like turn around and come back in them. And I'm like, take a break for a minute. This is dizzy. But I mean, there's always options. Yes. I mean, huge congratulations. Also, by the way, I mean, what a blessing to be able to read the peer-reviewed research and have the knowledge that you have to be able to do that. And I mean, that's really extraordinary. And obviously, it sounds obnoxious that kudos to you to actually take care of your health and put yourself first. But seriously, because as you know, as someone in the health field, it's so funny to me, people are more likely to give their dog medication than they are to give themselves medication. It's like, you go through the whole process, you go to the doctor, you get the medication, and they don't even take it. Whereas, but they're very likely to give their dog medication if the vet says, "Hey, your dog needs this." So for you to really listen, I've got this problem, and I would imagine losing your vision for 30 seconds, hearing your heartbeat in your ear, like all this fear and this horrible lifestyle obviously contributed to it. But I mean, well done. The headaches were the headaches were unimaginable, like. Were they just like excruciating migraines all the time? Yeah, and that's what they tried to diagnose it as at first was just migraines. And I knew it wasn't that. And I had to push so hard just to get people to listen to me and take me seriously. They didn't even, the pulsable tinnitus, like that's a subjective thing, right? Like you can't really quantify what's like no one could know what I was hearing. But it got so bad that you actually could hear it. My husband was sitting next to me on the couch one day and my head was like laying on his shoulder and out of nowhere, he looked at me and was like, "Oh my God, I can hear your heartbeat." And I said, "What?" And he was like, "I can hear it." And I cried that time too because that was so incredibly validating because I felt so crazy. And then you could take a stethoscope and put it up to my eyeball and you could hear my heartbeat from my eyeball. And I know that that sounds crazy, but like I am telling you that is exactly how it was. My husband came out from that. My doctor came out from that because she gave me a look. When I told her, I was like, "Put your stethoscope on my eye." And she looked at me, I was like, "No, I'm dead serious." And she did. And then she was like, "Oh my God." And it's called a cranial brewery. There's a name for it. And it just shattered my world once that happened because I was like, "Okay, I'm not fucking crazy." Because I was almost gaslighting myself for some of it. And am I really here? Is this mine? And then if I would push on my neck and block it off, it went away. Because I was cutting off the circulation. So like me as a nurse, when I was going to take somebody's blood pressure manually with my stethoscope, I had to stop my own heartbeat so that I could listen to them to get their blood pressure because I was hearing their heartbeat and mine. I don't know whenever to pick because this is mine or yours. It was so crazy. It was a window like when it was time. Oh my gosh. That's insane. Let me ask you a question. You said that you had to really push. You had to push to get seen and be taken seriously as a health care professional. How would you recommend people be their own best advocate? How do you push? What do you say? How do you act? What does that look like verbally, tonality, words? This might seem like a stupid question. But how would you push for that? Yeah. No, that's a great question. And honestly, with me and having all of the knowledge that I have, it even being a struggle for me, my heart breaks for the people who don't have the knowledge that I have or have the ability to speak up and use their voice. And that's something else that I'm super passionate about. Advocacy is my jam. And that's part of the reason why I'm a nurse. I'm advocating for my patients all the time. And actually, my job right now in this particular nursing role, I am a patient advocate. I handle complaints all day for patients who aren't able to navigate the system. And I'm helping with that. And I manifested this job. Like I just started in February. And this job lights me up too, because I really feel like I'm making a difference. So to answer your question, I don't really feel like there's a clear cut, clear cut black and white way to do it. And for me, being a nurse, it goes one way or the other. Other health care providers either respect me as a nurse, or they're instantly guard us up, and they're like, uh, interesting thinking that, you know, I must know it all around questioning them and their ability. And that is not the case at all. Right. So I try to come from a place of like, look, medicine is called a practice. Like we practice medicine, because it's always changing. There's always new information happening. Right. And so we're all doing the best we can with the information that we have. And I try to come from a place as a patient as giving that provider the credit that's due, right? Like you have a license, you, you know what you're doing, you're doing the best you can put you out. However, I know my body. I live in this body 24/7. And these are the symptoms that I'm having. This is what I believe is going on. This is what I need for me. Like, please help me. And I do read peer reviewed journals and studies. And, you know, I know typically a lot of people just do a random Google search, right? And they're reading on Wikipedia or, you know, just Joe blows Instagram, like, sure, there's a lot of good information out there. But there's a lot of bad information out there. So that's another thing is trying to find credible sources of what what it is that you think is going on. And just having the ability to have that conversation with those providers of, you know, I need X, Y and Z, but not coming from a place of being like demanding or condescending or, you know, rude, like you don't have to do that at all. The other thing is, if you are coming from a place of, you know, just letting them know who you are, how you're feeling, what you think you need. And they aren't responding to you. Move on. Find another provider. Okay. Yeah. I mean, that's I've had to go through several providers in the beginning stages of all of this neural stuff. The first doctor that I saw was great. However, he was older on his way to retirement. And I just think he was kind of checked out. He did as much as he could for me. But I asked him for a referral to another neurologist because I wanted a second opinion. And that's the big thing that I try to advocate for patients. It is always, always, always okay to get a second opinion. Even if you're in agreement with what the doctor tells you, but it's something huge, like you need to have a surgery or you have cancer or whatever, get a second opinion. Like it never, ever hurts. And if a provider is ever offended or gives you attitude about that, that speaks to their issue. Not yours. This is your body, your life. You are fine to get another opinion to make sure you're making the right decision for yourself. So that's some of what I did. I asked for a second opinion. Saw another doctor. He was a complete jerk. Oh geez. Complete. So then I had to move on to another one. I also do a lot of asking around. I try to get a lot of recommendations. And I finally found a doctor. She was 45 minutes away. Took me six months to get into her. Oh wow. But I got in and she was phenomenal. And she's the one that I was speaking her out in the beginning that she did the best she could. Yes, she was pushing for that for that shunt. But again, that's the knowledge that she had, the route she was going. I know she had my best interest at heart. But from the information I was reading about which she doesn't have time to do, you know, like I have time. It's me and my body. I have all the time to figure out things for myself. She has how many other patients, right? So she's doing the best she could. So she was great, treated me for a long time. And then when she was pushing the shunt again, because my symptoms came back, that's when I told her like, I'm going to go to Mayo Clinic, and she was fully supportive. Oh, but do you hold her that? Yeah. Yeah. And that speaks volumes to the people that you're seeing, right? If they're questioning you and giving you a hard time about wanting more information, another provider, move on. Yeah. Move on. Whereas for her, she was like, yeah, absolutely. I support you. If you need any help, let me know. Like we'll send all your records, we'll do whatever. And like, so then I called Mayo, they got me in within like a month. And you know, then I went there and got it all done. So yeah, I mean, the shortest answer I can say is to just do your own research, try to find credible information, talk to other people. I love Facebook for that aspect. Like Facebook drives me crazy with like just drama and ads and shit, you know, on social media, I have a love, hate relationship with. But for me and Facebook, like I am always posting asking questions for myself, for other people. I'm like, hey, do I have any friends who know about this? Hey, has anybody had this happen? Hey, you got a recommendation for this. So you can do that in the healthcare world too. Like, this is what's happening with me. Anybody got any insight? Like, I'm very analytical. I'm a question-asker. I'm an information seeker. I need to know all the things. So I just ask those questions, and I just have to push and I've had to move on several times. And I don't get the answer I need. Thank you next. That's unbelievably helpful. I'm very grateful that you just gave that answer because I think many people, they, I mean, including myself, even when I go into a doctor's office, there's a feeling of inadequacy and fear. You don't know what you're going into, and they're supposed to be the professional. And sometimes you feel like they're brushing you off or they're checked out or whatever and granted, often underpaid, overbooked, like, I fully get it. But when it's your health, it's like, it's fucking scary. And it's like, you don't want to be too pushy. So it's trying to find the balance of like, hey, I really feel like there might be something else going on here and being able to advocate for yourself while not being rude, but being to advocate for yourself to really push like, hey, like, is there another option? Is there a second opinion? Can you refer me to someone else? I really appreciate that. I think that'll be super, super, super helpful people. So thank you. Fully, and I think, especially the older generation, there's this mentality that like, you have to listen to the doctor because they're the professional and because they know what they're doing. Yes. And I'm not discounting that, right? Like, they do. They've had a lot of training. They have an odd knowledge. I have a lot of training. I have a lot of knowledge. But none of us know everything. And we're all always learning. We're all trying to do the best that we can. And so if you have a question or you need more information, it's always, it's always okay to ask. Like, this is you and your body and you can do it respectfully, right? Like you said, like we said, like, if you want to come across being an asshole and being rude, you're not, they're not going to respond well to that, right? But like, let's just all try to work together to get the answers, acknowledge that we're doing the best we can and keep on moving. I was literally thinking about this the other day, maybe it was this morning, the day is blended together at this point. But I feel like anyone who's worked in some level of customer service is always like a little bit nicer, like in the beginning, like once you've had to deal with people before and like rude customers or people just like whether you're a waiter, server, or in any, or you run your own business, once you've dealt with like how rude people can be, you always try tend to give the benefit of the doubt to then be like, okay, well, I'm going to approach this, start being much nicer, more calm, and then if they're still like not giving me anything, you can put the pressure on, but I can almost always tell when someone has worked with in like a customer front facing service job before because they're all almost always much kinder from the very beginning. Yeah, yeah, I get you, I get you a lot further. And I mean, it's hard, right? There's plenty of times where emotions run high or you might say the wrong thing, but then also coming back and being like, whoa, sorry, you know, I was out of line when I said that my emotions are high. This is not directed at you as a person or your character or anything. I just, I don't feel good. I'm needing help. I'm needing answers. You know, it's, there's a lot to be said about emotional intelligence. And I've done a lot of work to hone in those skills and continue to do it, right? Because I think we can always improve, but can't let your emotions hijack you and dictate your assets. Yeah, it's exactly right. Well, thank you for that. I mean, I feel like I just got super, I got helped on this podcast. So thank you. That was amazing. Is there anything specifically that you wanted to talk about or is any questions I can have for you? I want to make sure like this is worth your while. Like, I don't want to, I don't want to like, make sure like, have you leave the conversation being like, why did I do that? Like, is there anything I can help you with at all? No, honestly, two minutes with you would be worthwhile. Like, and I don't, I'm not saying that just to like, you know, to your own horn to make you feel good about like, honestly, like, I just, I wanted to just talk to you and meet you. Like, I think you're amazing. One of the things I did want to ask about her, maybe just kind of talk a little bit about something that I struggle with. So I really struggle with consistency of like hunger and meal times. So all of the things that I've done, you know, there's, there's research out there to support good and bad of everything, right? Water's amazing. Oh my God, water can kill you. Like, I saw your video today about carrots, like fuck off with all those extra carrots. Nobody got fast from that. You know what I mean? So it's like, there's things that say you should eat three meals a day. You should eat six times a day. You should have your fine if you have one meal. No, you're not fine if you have one meal. And for me, it seems like every day is a little bit different. But for the most part, like, I'm never hungry for breakfast. Breakfast is not my jam. I don't really care for breakfast. And I've tried so hard to like, well, I'm supposed to eat three times a day. So I'm going to eat breakfast. And as I'm eating, like, it's almost making me nauseous, because I'm like, I'm not hungry. This is terrible. So then I go the opposite and I'm like, okay, well, let me try intermittent fasting. Let me see how long I can go about eating. And then I'm like, well, that doesn't work either because then I'm thinking about food the entire time. But I'm not really hungry in it with my, you know, past of the disorder eating and all of that. Like, it's such a mind fuck. So I just have a hard time, like balancing all of that and getting all of my calories or all of my protein even in, because there's some days where I'm really not hungry at all. And I might eat once or twice, but I'm probably low on my calories. And then there's like, the next day I might be like, famished or hangry. And so then I'm like, well, do I need to eat three times a day to try to keep things balanced? Or do I listen to my body? But sometimes I can't trust my body. Like, I don't know if I'm really hungry or not. Or is this emotional? Like, I have so much food noise. There's a lot of stuff happening in there. That makes total sense. So what I'll say is my, the actual practical advice would change based on the individual. For use, I'll start by saying just, it doesn't matter how often you eat from, especially from like a fat loss perspective. What I will say is, it can matter how often you eat based on how you feel, based on your performance as an athlete. That can make a big difference. It can matter from some people have issues sleeping if they eat too close to bed, acid reflux. There are many different potential issues based on the individual, but purely from a body composition fat loss perspective, and even from an overall health perspective, meal frequency is more or less relevant. It really, it's much more based on the individual. Now, it's funny. It's one thing that's been cool to see and this will seem like an aside, but it will, it will make sense. One of the cool things to watch with my daughter is she like, she has no food noise as a almost two year old girl. Like there's no, it's not just think about it. It's just like, if she's hungry, she eats and if she's not, she won't. And if she's not hungry and there's food on her plate, she fucking throws it and it drives me insane, but like she's not hungry. Even if it's an Oreo or like she doesn't eat past the point of fullness because like there's just no food noise, which is a really, as for me being in this industry and being interested in behavior, it's just wonderful to watch to see what no food noise looks like. And it seems so simple. Yes, it does. Like it seems so simple. And I like, I'm sitting here thinking like, man, what would that be like? Like, I want that. I want that. Now, it's also interesting watching my wife because she just wants to make sure that she's eating enough. And so my wife will sometimes be like pushing food. And so I'm watching and I'm trying to figure out, what am I watching? How do I communicate? And there'll be some days where I'll just listen to my wife and she'll be like, Oh, she ate so much today. And then I won't say anything. I won't like, I was like, Oh, interesting. And then the next day, she'll be like, Oh, she's not really eating much today. And I'll be like, Oh, interesting. And then the next day, she'll be like, Oh, she's really not eating much today. And then the next two days, she'll be like, Oh, she's eating so much these two days. And so like by the end of the week, it almost like balances out where some days she's eating a lot. Other days, she's not eating much at all. And I've it's got no point where I could then talk to my wife where like she'll say, Oh, she's eating so much today. It'll be like, Remember, you said this, because I guarantee tomorrow will be a day where she won't eat that much. And it will almost like balance out in the next day, she'll be like, Oh my God, she's not eating much today. And it will likely be because she ended up eating the day before like more the day before. And her body's just balancing it out naturally. Like she's less hungry on it after the day after where the day before she ate a lot more. So round about discussion around if there's a day where you aren't really that hungry. And it's just like you're not I mean, especially because you're not counting calories. It's like, and I don't want you counting calories, by the way, there's no reason for your account calories. If the day if there's a day where you're not really that hungry, then don't eat when you're not hungry. Even if that means you're not hitting your protein, even if that means you're not hitting what you think your calories should be, I don't want you eating force feeding yourself. There's just there's no reason to. And then the next day, if you end up being hungrier, that makes total sense. You didn't eat as much the day before you might not have had as much protein. And so it doesn't mean you eat to the point of stuffing yourself. But you definitely load up on whole minimally processed foods for the majority of it. You shouldn't feel guilty if you want to have a dessert or anything. But then then it would make sense the next day, you'll be a little bit hungrier. That makes all the sense in the world. I think oftentimes, I've literally gotten this question. I don't think this people will often ask, what time do your calories reset? Like, is it, do they reset at midnight? And I know you know, that's not how it works. But it's like, we're, it's not a 24 hour reset button, right? It's not like, okay, now they reset, but many people actually think that. And so classic overthinking, right? Exactly. So coming from an overthinker, like I can fully relate. So as you know, our body is a system, nothing works in isolation. And so if you eat more one day, it makes sense that the next day, you want might not be as hungry. And it might not be as simple as on a day to day basis, it could be more on like a week to week basis even. Either way, I actually, I do want you to listen to your body, which by the way, is just like medicine, it's a practice. It's a practice learning, especially because we live in such an obese and agenic environment, where we have access to all of these foods. I mean, what a blessing to be able to walk into your fridge and walk into your kitchen and have all of these foods available at any point in time. But it's also, that's not normal for humans, like to have access to all of this food, very high calorie, very high fat, very high sugar, very high salt, super highly palatable, hypo satiating. This isn't for the, if we look at the timeline of humans, there's a teeny, tiny little blip in which we've had access to all of this. Whereas for all of human history prior, we look, you need to go out and hunt to get your food. And it was didn't taste nearly as good. It didn't taste. So it's a practice to learn to listen to your body in the environment that we find ourselves in right now. So be like, I very frequently talk about the importance of having a consistent meal frequency in a schedule. But it's not always feasible for everyone to have that. And by the way, like, I don't have a consistent meal schedule right now. My life is fucking wild. And like, it's insane. It's insane. I don't have a consistent meal schedule by any means. But I know how to have that if and when the time comes where things calm down. So I'm very good at listening to my body. I'm very good at listening to what I need in the moment. And I want you to practice with that, because number one, calorie counting is just completely off the table, which you objectively know, which I love. I think that it's amazing to have that bright line like, nope, not calorie counting. Cool. Like throw that in the fucking trash. So now, some days, if you want to have if eating breakfast makes you nauseous, nope, fuck that, no breakfast, just not worth it. But if you wake up one day and you're like, I'm really hungry, I want to have breakfast, there should be no reason in your mind where you're like, Oh my God, but I shouldn't have it because I've said that I don't eat breakfast. And that like is part of your identity now. No, if you're hungry for breakfast, then fucking eat breakfast. And then I would imagine later in the day, you'll actually end up being a little bit less hungry than you are usually for dinner. Listen to your body, make it a mindfulness practice. You have so many safeguards in place already in terms of you do weigh yourself occasionally to see if you're within that range, you're aware of how your clothes feel. You have very real reasons for wanting to keep this in check for your overall health. So I'm not worried about you going off the rails at all. I think because you have so many safe safeguards in place, now it's just making it a little bit more of a mindful practice and being okay with it not being a perfect schedule that is consistently followed day in day out. You know, I was a perfectionist. And check. What about from strength training perspective? So, you know, I try to go to the gym two to three times a week focusing on strength training. And I'm really this time last year, I was working really hard on pullups. And I fell off, you know, air quotes fell off for a little while. I'm trying to get a little bit back into it. And I'm just curious if it's like those days where I'm not as hungry and I'm not eating as much. Like, am I still going to be able to like meet those goals and have gains or like, do I need to force a protein shake or you know what I mean? That part feels a little bit hard to balance if I have goals that I'm trying to meet, but I can't like, get the calories in because I'm not hungry if that makes sense. What I'm about to say will really infuriate a huge part of the industry. But you can absolutely still make incredible progress even if you're not like the amount of protein that we say. And if you've paid attention, because I know you've followed me for a while, like my protein recommendations have dropped over the years. As more researchers come out, I've reduced the pro because I want the minimum effective dose. If you go over, great. That's fine. But I want the minimum effective dose. And as more research has come out, it's been very clear that we don't need nearly as much as as what people as we previously thought in research. Now, I don't have research to support what I'm about to say, because I'm going based off of what we have in available data. My gut tells me, Brittany, that we even need less than the current recommendations of 0.7 grams per pound of target body weight. My gut tells me even less than that. The main benefit of at least that amount of protein in a deficit is the, obviously, the satiety, keeping you full, and the prevention of muscle loss. But if you're not in a severe deficit, and I would say 0.5 grams per pound of target body weight, I think you're still totally fine. I know a fair amount of vegans and vegetarians who don't get anywhere near that amount of protein, who prioritize strength training, and they build some pretty fucking impressive physiques and some legit muscle. I just said that because I'm gluten-free and dairy-free because of digestive issues. So being dairy-free makes it challenging to reach protein goals. I mean, I eat tofu, I'm not vegan, but I eat tofu because I like that and I'm minimal with the meat that I like. But it is challenging. And then you see all these freaking influencers and people posting all this protein that they're eating and all these gains that they're making. And then also, the amount of shit that's protein infused, like stop it. Let's add protein to everything. So then it contributes to all that food noise I have. And then it's like analysis paralysis. And then I'm like, I don't even know what to do anymore. I know what I need to do, but I don't know what I need to do because there's so much everywhere that's conflicting, contradicting. No, no. I completely agree with you. The protein infused, even protein bars, I just get a Snickers bar and eat your tofu later if you want. It's funny, if you go to other countries, they don't have the same protein obsession as we do here. It's actually very interesting. And it's so cool. It's a unique perspective to have when you look in other countries because it's all just marketing. It's like marketers in the United States have found, okay, protein's a big thing among people right now. So that's why you see it infused in everything because people are buying it. It's a big topic. You go to other countries and you won't see protein infused anything at all because it's not part of the society, the culture. It's very, very interesting to me to see the differences culturally. But here's what's actually really interesting. If you want to reach a very high level of muscle mass, you'll need more protein, for sure. You would need more. If you just want to be strong and fit and healthy and more toned and defined, you don't need anywhere near as much as a lot of these people are telling you. You just don't, and you don't even need as much as I used to say was necessary. That was number one based off of all the research and number two based off of I was a power lifter and not just like a recreational, like I was an elite world class power lifter. And so I think from that perspective, yeah, you would probably need that much to really fuel that level of performance. But to fuel very good performance and to fuel significant muscle growth and significant strength gains, not on an elite world class stage, but just very good will also optimize. But when I was a power lifter, my health was shit. I wasn't healthy. I was a very good at, I was very good at squatting, bench pressing, deadlifting. I wasn't even that good at bench pressing. It was really squatting and deadlifting. That's what I was really good at. Health was not, I was not good at cardio. I was not good at like blood pressure, not what I would get at none of that. So this is where I think I would way rather you hit your fiber than you hit your protein just to be like from a health perspective. Now that doesn't mean you have to get all fiber, no protein, there's a middle ground here, but you can make incredible progress without hitting your protein or without getting that like 0.7 grams per pound. You absolutely can for sure. And what would really matter from a performance perspective is, are you bringing sufficient intensity to your workouts? That's really where you're going to see the major impact on your performance. And when I say intensity, I don't mean, where's your heart rate at? I don't mean like, are you sweating? I mean, are you training with sufficient focus and determination and effort within your training? So are you lifting heavy enough? Are you using good technique? Are you actually focusing on your muscles throughout the duration of the set? Is it difficult enough? Or are you just going through the motions? The intensity with which you train and the focus and the deliberate intent of that training session on a consistent basis will play far more of an health have far more of an impact on your results than simply getting enough protein because you can get great results with not enough protein and an amazing intent on your workout. But no matter how much protein you get, if your workouts are shitty intent and not you're not working hard enough, you're not going to get great results. So it's that I would say the workout is far more important. And for me, by the way, I feel way better with a little bit lower protein and higher carbon, my workouts, I can bring more intensity to my workouts. And when I have a lot of protein, I feel lethargic, like I just feel slow. It doesn't, it doesn't feel good. So I get like much better results when I have a little bit less protein and, and I have a higher intensity, better workout. So that's what I would recommend. Well, I'm a little bit opposite. I do better with lower carb, not low carb, but lower carbs, and more protein, just from the experimenting that I've done. But yeah, I mean, I've done when you mentioned how like, you know, this is practice listening to your body, I have done a lot of experimenting and I do try to use it as information. And that's why I am gluten and dairy free now because I've tried so many times to not be because I'm like, okay, is this a fad? Am I trying to just do the thing and like, no, genuinely, like it is not good for me, like, I can't have those things. And so yeah, that's, that's really, really helpful information. And I know that we're kind of close on time, but there was one other thing I wanted to mention. So I know you're big on big ass salads, right? And I, I love salads, but only when I go out, because they taste better when someone else makes them for some reason. When I go out at a restaurant, like I am the salad girl, not because I'm trying to, well, you know, I'm watching my figure unless I'm a salad, like, dude, give me some french fries. Like french fries are my jam, I will eat some french fries. But I like salads when I'm out because someone else has made it. It's good. It's pretty fresh. All the things. So, you know, since following you, there's been so many times I, I try to get on this big ass salad train, right? And the shit just rots in my fridge. And like, I can't find a bowl that I like. And there's too many things to pack in my lunch box when I was, when I, you know, had to take my lunch to work and I can't fit it all in. And then soon I'm taking a suitcase for all this shit and like, too much, right? I can't do it. So what I actually do instead is I make warm salads. So I take, I take the prepackaged salad kits because of convenience. Sure. It's more expensive. Not everybody can do that. I understand, but I want to do it. I'm paying for the convenience. I take out the dressing that comes with it because most the time it has too many things in it. And I also being dairy free, that's a thing, you know, whatever. So I take out whatever I can't or don't want. And I add in other stuff. So I go to Trader Joe's a lot. I buy like the ready veggie, like mix, you know, it's just a package to dump that in or like the broccoli slaw mix, dump that in saute all in a pan till it gets like kind of wilty and soft. That's nice. That's including the lettuce. Like no big thing to like saute lettuce, but like, that's the whole shebang. I add whatever protein source I want. Sometimes it's meat, sometimes it's tofu, sometimes it's just edamame. Sometimes it's all of it really depends on my mood. I pick a sauce, which same thing, Trader Joe's has all kinds of sauces and dressings and whatever. Drizzle it on, stir it up. And I can usually get two to three meals out of that. Oh, wow. Because once you add all that roughage, even though it's warm and sauteed, it's still a lot. And it still takes a lot to eat it because you have to really chew it. So then by the time you do all that chewing, it fills you up faster. Plus you have all this nutrient dense food. And I don't have to take a suitcase anywhere. I just have it all made in my little meal prep container. And I'm still getting, you know, a lot of good, good nutrients. Yeah, filling you up a lot of good nutrients. I love that you found a way to make it work for you. That's perfect. Thank you for that's going to help a lot of people as well. So thank you for sharing that. Yeah. So warm, salad train. You could do big-ass salad or warm salad whatever you want. Yeah, salads don't have to be cold. I love that. And I agree. Like when you go out and it's just got, they've got that like cold, fresh, crisp salad with some tomatoes. It's just like, yeah, it's great. Perfect. And then I make it at home and I'm like, this is not the same. Yeah. And I'm just like sad. It's a sad salad. I need to happy salad. It's so real though. Like with the ingredients just rotting in your fridge and you're like, I swore that I was going to fucking make this and I never did. It's so bad. Every week, every week, I'm going to do it. This time is different. This time will be different. I'm going to make this salad. No. Oh shit. This expired three days ago and it's moldy. Yep. Yep. It's going in the trash. I'm going to get spinach again. And if you do, if you do the warm salad, you can actually get away with it almost being like expired because it's already kind of wilting. That's true. You're just throwing it in the pan and wilting it further. So like as long as it doesn't like smell or have, you know, actual molding or something, like you can't sit in your fridge a little longer. It's okay if you wait it. It's true. No, it's true. Well, Brittany, you're amazing. Thank you so much. I sincerely appreciate you. You don't have to do this if you don't want to. Do you want to tell people where they can follow you if either inner circle members or anyone wants to shoot you a message and just talk to you about something? Yeah, absolutely. I have like all the privacy settings on, right? So they'd have to like request me and I'd have to approve it anyways, which is totally fine. But I'm looking up my Instagram name right now because I don't really know it. So it's Brittany Padgett with an underscore and I don't know if you I know you usually put stuff in the show notes, but how to like spell my name and all of that. How do you spell Padgett? So it's P-A-D-G-E-T-T. Perfect. Brittany Padgett underscore. All right. Amazing. Amazing. And then Facebook is just Brittany Padgett. Okay. Okay. Perfect. Amazing. Yeah. Brittany, thank you so much. I sincerely appreciate you. This has been wonderful. And I know I said it and I meant it like if you're in Dallas with your husband, please, you have a place to come over. We'll have dinner. We would love to see you. Thank you so much for taking the time to do this. Yeah, absolutely.
In this episode of The Jordan Syatt Mini-Podcast, I speak with Inner Circle Member, Brittney, who is a nurse about:
- How to become your own strongest health advocate
- How she lost weight and came off her medications
- The form of exercise that has impacted her life the most
- How much protein do you REALLY need?
- And more...
I hope you enjoy this episode and, if you do, please leave a review on iTunes and Spotify (huge thank you to everyone who has written one so far).
Finally, if you've been thinking about joining The Inner Circle but haven't yet... we have hundreds of home and bodyweight workouts for you and you can get them all here: https://www.sfinnercircle.com/