The number one mistake busy women make when it comes to their health-it isn’t eating too much. not skipping your workouts. It isn’t even lacking motivation. The biggest mistake is believing that taking care of yourself is selfish. You can’t part from an empty cup. You’re running on 4 or 5 hours of sleep. You’re eating whatever is convenient. You have an exercise in weeks. Your body hurts. Your stress is through the roof. You’re surviving, but you’re not thriving.
Hello! Beinvenidos! Welcome back. I’m so glad to share this time with you. All right. I got a great question for today. Are you a woman who wears a lot of hats? Maybe you’re a wife, mom, professional business owner, caregiver, a leader, and you find yourself constantly pouring into everyone else. If so, today’s episode is for you. Welcome back.
Guys, I’m Vanessa Carlson. This is the Vanessa Carlson Fitness podcast, and I love sharing my background as a physical therapist. And I’m also the founder of Vanessa Carlson Fitness, where we help busy women get stronger, healthier and more confident without spending hours in the gym. So today, I want to talk about what I believe is the number one mistake.
Busy women in particular moms and caregivers make when it comes to their health. And here’s the surprising part. It’s usually done out of love. This is something I see almost every day with my clients now and then. I’ve seen over throughout the years working in the gym, training in the gym, and also owning a gym. It’s something many women have been taught their entire lives.
I’ve even seen it in my own family and with my own friends. And actually I’ve experienced it myself. Unfortunately, spending time and pouring into others and not taking care of ourselves, it slowly steals our energy, health, and even their joy. I have so so, so many examples of working with women in our gyms. And I even, even now when I’m doing one on one live zoom sessions, hearing their hearts and how over time taking care of others, they slowly stop taking care of themselves.
All right, guys, so let’s dive in. The biggest mistake isn’t eating too much. It’s not skipping your workouts. It isn’t even lacking motivation. The biggest mistake. Hear me out on this is believing that taking care of yourself is selfish or bad. They feel bad when they work out, or if they get a massage. Or maybe they spend a little extra money on buying cleaner food items.
Somewhere along the way, many women started believing that being a good wife, being a good mom, a good employee, or even being a good business owner means everyone else comes first. And guys, actually this happened to me recently. It started to creep in over time. I would have my workout scheduled and I started putting other clients in, or I started doing a home school with my kids.
My husband recently started had a transition with his work. We had a transition with our business, more clients, which is all good things, right? You know, new milestones with our kids, you know, tutoring centers, jujitsu, and over time, these last, I want to say at least maybe two months. Little things of little, big things. Right. It wasn’t that.
Oh, I said of doing my workout at 6 a.m. I was getting up, getting ready to do a session with someone else, and instead of having my food prepped, I was like, oh, I’ll just grab something, you know, after I’m done with my clients. Or instead of bringing in my two bottles of water to my studio, I would just have one bottle of water and say, oh, I’d fill it up.
And over time, things are kind of spiraling down onto my body. Said no more. And I literally, literally couldn’t do my one full days of work. And that was a huge red flag. And I knew right then and there I was like, okay, I’m not going to wait till the season’s over. I got to make changes now. And that’s when I started to have discussion with my husband and figure out how to navigate and do things differently, and keep my workout scheduled, and keep my two bottles of water in my hand when I go to my studio, because I’m not going to run upstairs to where the the water cooler is and fill it up.
I want to have my water there, you know, and have my, my snacks and my meals prepped because it gets busy. Anyway, I just wanted to share that with you so you don’t feel like you’re alone. I’m not perfect, but the sooner I realized it, I was like, okay, it’s time to make changes. So I challenge you. Oh, I’m going.
You make the changes now. So what did you see happening? What was happening? And that short story I shared. You make everyone else’s appointments right? You prepare everyone else’s meals. I mean, my kids were fine. My husband was fine. My clients were fine. You help everyone reach their goals. My clients are making their goals. My daughter is reading now.
The other one is learning how to make her bed. But at the end of the day, everyone else is doing good. Then at the end of the day, you’re exhausted. I was exhausted, I was so tired and there’s nothing left of you. And at this example in particular, this was reset. There was nothing left of me. That’s not good, right?
There’s nothing left of you.
There’s nothing left of you. Maybe you’ve even caught yourself saying, I’ll start after the kids go back to school, or I’ll start after vacation, or I’ll start after the busy season. I’ll start once everyone else is taking care of. But here’s the truth. Just like I realize, life never really slows down. There will always be another busy season.
There will always be another holiday. There will always be another reason to wait. And I knew that too. If you keep waiting for life to get easier before you take care of yourself, you may end up waiting forever. I remember when I was working as a physical therapist at BMW in South Carolina. My manager at the time, when I was also becoming a gym owner said, Vanessa, life doesn’t get easier, more simple.
It actually gets more challenging. You just have to learn how to navigate and figure it out. You can’t give up, right? And I just also want to share something with you. It’s so important to take care of yourself. Recently, along with all the things I was sharing, I lost someone dearly to me and my family. Heartwrenching. Heartbreaking. Devastating.
Because what he died of could have been prevented with healthy diet and exercise. It’s not rocket science. But again, it’s I understand that it doesn’t come natural for most of us, right? We’re just trying to make it. We’re just trying to do it. And I miss this person immensely. So if you tell yourself yourself or you tell your family, I would die for my kids, I would die for so and so.
What if we change that? And instead of dying for those you love, you live for them, right? Live. Choose to live, choose life. I know it’s hard, but you’ve got to choose your heart, right? It’s hard not to exercise. It’s hard not to eat well. It’s hard on your body. It is also hard to take care of yourself.
Choose the latter. Two’s the latter that’s going to give you life, make you well, and make all those around you well. One of my favorite sayings is you can’t pour from an empty camp cup. Excuse me. You can’t part from an empty cup. Think about that for a second. Imagine trying to help everyone around you while you’re completely drained.
It doesn’t feel good. I’ve been there. You’re running on 4 or 5 hours of sleep, and maybe that’s a good day. You’re eating whatever is convenient, even though you know it’s not good for you. You have an exercise in weeks. Your body hurts. Your stress is through the roof. You’re being. I was being short tempered, right? But you’re you’re not thriving.
You’re surviving, but you’re not thriving. And eventually your patience gets shorter and shorter and your joy is beginning to fade. And that affects those you love. It was affecting my spouse. It was affecting my kids, my extended family. Your confidence drops. You don’t even recognize the person staring back at you in the mirror. I’ve seen this happen so many times to so many incredible women.
Now let me ask you something. Who actually benefits when you become healthier? Obviously you do, but so does your spouse, your children, your your coworkers, your clients. In my case, your friends. Everyone around you benefits when you’re healthier. When you’re having more energy, you’re more patient, you’re more joyful. You’re fun to be around. You can play with your children.
You can go on adventures, travel, just enjoying the little things in the day, being more present. You’re enjoying life, right? You’re carrying your groceries, the little things. You’re having so much joy. And that’s the goal, is to enjoy life instead of constantly feeling exhausted. And just a case in point. So the example I gave was actually within the last couple of weeks, right.
Started to make changes actually within a week turn around. And today I had two sessions with two clients. Zoom took my kids and my husband. We went to the local track. We ran, we played, we we I had my ladder. We had a jump rope. They brought their stuffies. Then we ended up seeing friends there. We had such a great morning.
Those little changes I was making of saying no to certain things and saying yes to myself and to the things that really mattered, made a big difference for all of us. Not just for me. Taking care of yourself is not selfish, it’s stewardship. Let me say that again. Taking care of yourself is not selfish. It’s stewardship. God gave you one body.
Gosh, it’s a gift. Taking care of it honors him. Another quick story. I remember working with a client. This is actually a current client, but in the beginning she would apologize almost every session and say, I’m sorry, I miss my workout. I’m sorry. This week has been crazy. She’s a business owner, has two kids. I’m sorry my kids were sick.
I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry or I’m sorry my kids needed me or my husband needed me. She felt guilty every single time she chose herself when she worked out. So I challenged her to. Maybe not. Maybe to change her mindset. And no more apologizing, right? And instead start asking instead of being, instead of asking, can you be perfect this week?
Because I wasn’t asking her that, but she was asking herself that. Can she ask herself, can you make or can I make one healthy choice today? Just one. Think about that. Can you make one healthy decision today? Can you drink more water? Can you go for that walk? Can you lift weights for 20 minutes? Right. Can you go to bed a little bit earlier?
Put the phone away at night. Those little victories started adding up for her day after day, week after week, month after month. And today her mindset has shifted and so will yours. Progress over perfection. Not perfection, but progress over perfection. That mindset is a huge shift. Having the thought of just 1% better progress over perfection. She’s stronger. She’s healthier.
She has more confidence not because she became perfect, but because she stayed consistent. So think about those options. Here’s your challenge for this week. Treat your health like one of the most important appointments on your calendar. Because it is, it is. And I even had to remind myself that too. These are all good things, right? More clients. Kids getting older.
New opportunities. But it’s still important to schedule your workout and keep it. Schedule your walk. Keep it your bedtime. Keep it. Set your meal prep. Protect that time. Guard it. It is important. Again, schedule your workout. Schedule your work walk. Schedule your bedtime. Protect that time the same way you would protect your child’s dentist appointments or dance class, or in a appointment meeting with work, right?
Because when you become healthier, everyone around you benefits. I truly believe that God didn’t create us just to survive. Absolutely not. He created us to live abundantly, to have strength, to have joy, to have energy, to serve others with a cheerful heart, with a healthy heart, without running ourselves to the ground. Right. Taking care of yourself. Does it mean you love your family less?
It means you want to become the healthiest version of yourself so you can love them even better. Right? If today’s episode encourage you, which I really, really hope it did. Share it with another busy mom. Busy woman, busy friend who needs to hear this message. And remember, you don’t have to choose between taking care of your family and taking care of yourself.
You can do both. You deserve to feel strong and to have energy. You deserve to enjoy the God given life that God has given you. If you if you like. If you would like help getting started, I would love to walk alongside you this at VC Fitness Live again, it’s VC fitness. To learn more about our one on one coaching and live virtual training and supportive community.
Thank you so much for spending time with me today. Until next time, keep moving. Keep smiling. Choosing progress over perfection. And remember small, consistent, ordinary choices create extraordinary lives. God bless you and I’ll see you next time in episode seven where we discuss the unnecessary guilt we put on ourselves. So make sure you subscribe. Subscribe to Vanessa Carlson Fitness to this channel so that you don’t miss it.
Ciao for now. God bless.
Vanessa Carlson, and I am the owner of Vanessa Carlson Fitness. I am Raider Carlson and I am the general manager. At VC fitness our first goal is our fun first approach with all of our clients. Working out should not feel like a punishment at all, and we strive to make it the highlight of their day. The workouts are tailored.
I love using my background as a doctor, physical therapy to make sure that we’re meeting our clients where they’re at, to help them to get to where they want to be. And I think the third thing is the accountability and communication. So not only do we have one on one sessions with our clients in person and via zoom, but with the app, we are communicating with our clients almost on a daily basis so that they feel confident.
Those companies don’t have a doctor of physical therapy on staff. And so obviously Vanessa is a doctor of physical therapy and highly sought out around the country. And that brings me to my next point that we are the highest rated, the most reviewed personal training company in Portland, Maine, where our headquarters are located. However, we train virtually nationwide through zoom, through live zoom sessions, and so it doesn’t matter where you live.
You can work with Vanessa. And then the third thing is our very first session with Vanessa is only a dollar. We call it the region rise assessments, where basically it’s a meet and greet where she looks at your body using her Doctor of physical therapy skills to make sure that you’re getting the most out of your session and make sure that it’s a good fit for you.
I mean, obviously, we know that we can work with anybody, but obviously it’s got to be a good fit for you. So when I was a child, my grandmother had breast cancer and I was very close with her and was with her for a lot of her appointments with chemo, radiation, all the things and kind of seeing how that affected her.
And I just knew early on I wanted to do something to help people with their health. I didn’t really know what that was going to look like. Fast forward as a child, I remember getting my first Barbie workout video working out with Dance Barbie, and that just was a core memory for me. It closed the door, worked out, felt great, and then fast forward some more.
I knew that I wanted to do something in the health and medical field, and had really great mentors and teachers that helped direct me where I knew I wanted to have a gym one day. I didn’t know how I was going to look, and we had our opportunity. As I was a physical therapist to open our first gym, I just went for it and just really wanted to help people learn how to take care of their bodies.
I just knew that fitness was my passion. And just over the years, it just all worked out together. And here we are. The rest is history. So here’s the thing you don’t have to figure this on your own. And I totally understand how exercise can be overwhelming. We all know that we need to eat healthy and exercise and work out on carve time for it, and don’t feel like you have to know it all.
Do it all by yourself. And even if you’re feeling unmotivated, know that you’re not alone. So my my message to you is surround yourself with someone who is motivated. For someone that is passionate about exercise and eating well and building a positive habits, good healthy habits. I don’t know how to paint, but if I want to make a canvas painting, I’m going to go to a place that the person is a great teacher and passionate about it.
And I’m going to come out with a beautiful painting. Same thing with this. Take the shame. Take the pressure off of your shoulders. You’re not alone in this. Many people I work with all the time don’t know where to start, and I am honored to come alongside and help you figure it out. And just start building that momentum and get in your stride.
And I promise you, you won’t regret it. So anything that we’re saying resonates with you. Don’t wait. Just call the number. Or you can put your information on our website and someone will get. Get back in touch with you very, very quickly. I mean, you got to do it so fast and you don’t know what you’re doing because your mind, which I get in the.
So don’t let them get in the way. Only it’s only $1 to try, Vanessa. And it might be the most impactful hour in 15 minutes of your life. Here at VC fitness for your first consultation, it’s only $1. The assessment is going to just go over some things that are on your heart. Give me a good idea of your body awareness, your mechanics and see if we are a good fit and it only costs $1.
So you can find us at BC fitness. Or you can call the number (207) 467-5509. Again, that is (207) 467-5509. And you can look at us and VC Fitness dot live. And one more time you can call (207) 467-5509. And we are waiting for your call.