Improve your self-esteem with Rosie Mercado

Let's Say Hello

[00:02:16.500] – Allan
Ras, how are you doing?

[00:02:17.910] – Rachel
Good, how are you today, Allan?

[00:02:19.440] – Allan
I'm doing well. We're about to head back to Bocas. So this is our last days. Weeks. I think tomorrow. Yeah, it's because I have them tomorrow. We're getting on an airplane and flying to Bocas and, you know, the whole snafu they had with booking a flight.

[00:02:36.390] – Allan
So we won't get back till the 25th, even though, you know, originally supposed to get there just in one shot during the day. But they rebooked flights and caused issues. So we'll spend the night in Panama City, which is not a problem problem. It's just one more day away from my dog, Angel.

[00:02:50.940] – Rachel
Right.

[00:02:51.240] – Allan
Looking forward to get home to her. She says she'll be excited to see us and, you know, get things going there. So that's that's right. Now, I'm still in travel mode for a couple more days and. Well, we'll be there. How are things up there? Michigan.

[00:03:06.850] – Rachel
Oh, good. Good. Getting chilly, of course. But things are good up here. Mike and I have been spending some time in the gym and our new weight set. And I actually, for the first time ever, I had him help me do my one rep max and a bench press and the squat. And I don't remember I don't have what I squatted or pressed handy, but I've never done that before. So that was a really interesting experiment for me.

[00:03:34.140] – Allan
Yeah, they have formulas where you can do like a three rep max or a ten rep max and then you you basically use the formula to convert to a one rep Max, but for one reason or another. And I don't know exactly why my stamina works this way, but that formula never works for me. You know, I can do I can do a ten rep, Max. And then when I actually get under the heavy weight, I do more.

[00:03:57.180] – Allan
I do a good bit more than that. Might even my trainer, Dave, when I was using him up in Louisiana, he was like he says, I don't know what's going on. He said this formula works for almost all of my clients, but not not for you know, there are ways to do it. I do the formula. And basically so along the way, you feel like you're getting stronger. Just look up one of those formulas and said I'd be more comfortable under three rep max? You know, and rather than the one rep Max has.

[00:04:24.640] – Allan
And then the other side of it is it's sort of sometimes easier to to do that more often than the one rep max, because if you don't know exactly where you stand, then there's a lot of lifts and then there's fatigue. And, yeah, you know, that's what most of the time when you're doing this, you know, like for a meet there's three you get three lifts.

[00:04:44.490] – Allan
So if you were going to go into a meet for those those those lifts, they'll say, OK, go in, kind of figure out what you kind of have an idea. Like if you did a three rep max, he's like, OK, I'm like three rep max? I know I'm at x pounds, let's say one hundred. And then you say, OK, so I should be able to based on the formula and then I'm just pulling this out the top of my head.

[00:05:03.180] – Allan
But it's going to say something like, you should be able to one rep max 125. So since you don't know that you do your first lift, you say, OK, I'm going to do 110 as my first lift. So I get something on the board and then you're going to say, OK, it should be 125. So I'm going to do 120. And then your third lift, you can either decide that you're going to go in at the 125 or say, you know, I'm going to push and try 130.

[00:05:29.460] – Allan
So that's why it was important for me to know that the formula didn't work, because if I were to go in and say, I want to do my one rep, Max, a trainer is going to want to start me really low, too low, and then I would never actually get to my one rep Max within the three lifts.

[00:05:44.450] – Rachel
RIght,

[00:05:44.830] – Allan
You want to do it in three lives because you start to really fatigue after that and you coverage's long enough.

[00:05:50.220] – Allan
But it's still you're not going to know your full true one rep max, until you're really pushing that top limit. And most people, when they're doing it right, they're typically failing on their third lift just because they put themselves in a position where they just can't can't do it.

[00:06:06.390] – Rachel
That's that's what we were doing because we were trying to fail on the second or third.

[00:06:11.160] – Allan
OK, OK, good, good.

[00:06:13.170] – Rachel
Starting point though.

[00:06:14.570] – Allan
Awesome. OK, so let's get into our conversation with Rosie Mercado.

Interview

[00:06:48.420] – Allan
Rosie, welcome to 40+ Fitness.

[00:06:51.000] – Rosie
I love it. 40+ Fitness. I never thought that I'd be talking about being 40 plus and just feel so empowered.

[00:06:58.260] – Allan
You know, it is interesting that we think about how we wear when we are 20 years. I was actually talking to my wife about, you know, who I was in my 20s in a kind of some of the crazy things I would do back then. And she said, you're no different now. And I guess guys don't really grow up and don't want to grow up.

[00:07:18.550] – Rosie
You said it, not me.

[00:07:20.760] – Allan
I did. I did.

[00:07:23.730] – Allan
And but the interesting thing is that there are still general similarities. You know, since you can't really stereotype and say this is how men are and this is how women are

[00:07:33.450] – Rosie
No, I think it's a variety of experiences that you go through.

[00:07:38.370] – Rosie
I mean, some people mature more than others just because they've had lots of wisdom thrown in their life. And other people just have had you know, they've had, not so much difficulties. I mean, I think each of each person dealls with different issues in their life, depending on their self-esteem, their thoughts, their surroundings, their upbringing. I mean, there's just so many things that really create that environment. So I don't know right now that you said that you were talking about your talking to your wife, about when you were younger and how you view everything.

[00:08:07.710] – Rosie
It's so funny because I was talking to my husband and I said, I don't feel like I'm 40. And everybody I mean, you ask a woman and obviously this is not all women, just some women. It's like you don't ask my age, like if that's such a bad thing.

[00:08:21.900] – Rosie
And it's like, no, I'm 40 years old. I'm embracing it. I feel better now now than I did when I was in my 20s. And because my life is so completely different. And I think it was the self-discovery and the self-love that has made such a huge impact in my vitality and my energy and also in the way that I feel and look, I mean, it's just it's completely different. There's just so much more wisdom.

[00:08:42.450] – Rosie
I wish I could tell myself when I was younger so many things like if I only knew that. Oh, my God.

[00:08:47.250] – Allan
Which is cool because I think that's exactly what you're doing with your book, The Girl with Self-esteem Issues. As I was reading through the book, I thought any woman in her in her teens, 20s, 30s would benefit from that book. But as I got really into your story, which I think it was just it was beautiful that you were just raw and honest and real.

[00:09:08.310] – Allan
And this is where I was and this is what I did. And you share that. And I was like, this is something that a woman in her 40s needs to hear. This is something a woman in her 50s and maybe 60s and 70s needs to hear. And a lot of men need to hear it, too, because women, women do a lot of them will talk about their self-esteem issues. Men tend to bury that stuff and in many cases try to come out a lot more macho than they really are.

[00:09:32.970] – Rosie
We don't cry. It's not we're not supposed to cry. It's not supposed to hurt. I'm going to deal with it. And yes, unfortunately, when we internalize them, we kind of bury that, like we just put it in the back eventually to manifest in some somehow it'll show up in your life, whether it's through having, you know, just all these flings and sex, become a shopaholic. And this is for men and women, you know, bouncing from one relationship to the next, not having relationships, pushing everybody away over eating, drinking.

[00:10:00.120] – Rosie
I mean, it just manifests when you are suppressing old memories, pain, and you don't want to deal with it or you don't want to validate that it exists. It shows up and your life, trust me, it will show up. Because I learned that lesson pretty early on.

[00:10:13.950] – Allan
Yeah. Now, you went through some of the the damaging effects of low self-esteem. And there's there's lots of them. And you explore a lot those in your book. When we start seeing those things happening, what do we do about it? Because, you know, you're really that's going to be big. It's a big project. It's not something that you just do. Can you kind of talk through some of the damage and we can recognize that damage and how we recognize that damage and then just some things we can do to turn that around.

[00:10:40.960] – Rosie
Yeah, you know, I think, first of all, when writing this. First of all, I have to say thank you for reading the book. I appreciate that so much. That for me is thank you. But when it comes to self-esteem, I feel that self-esteem really starts changing and developing as we're growing up. I mean, for me, my self-esteem, I really understood that, I didn't feel accepted or I felt rejected or when I got the negative comments of being called fat ass or hippo at a young age at the age of eight or nine.

[00:11:08.080] – Rosie
I mean, just imagine eight or nine. And the conversation wasn't created at home. I had wonderful parents, but I was too ashamed. I was too embarrassed to come and tell my parents, hey, I'm being made fun of at school. So I feel that it starts at a really young age and different triggers, whether it's at home, whether it's at school, whether it's with friends, whether it's some form of bullying with family, there's just different ways that it starts.

[00:11:31.690] – Rosie
But I really feel that it starts at a young age and sometimes we don't know that that's going on. We don't know because we're innocent. We don't know how to deal with that. We just know that we're being called names or being made fun of because of our looks or the way we speak or ethnic background or just for being, for being you someone. They trigger someone somehow because I feel that bullying really starts like you have to be introduced to bullying.

[00:11:54.880] – Rosie
You're watching it somewhere, you're listening to somewhere, and then you act out on it. And for me, it would start at a young age and then it developed into going into high school or even more so that I already had those issues growing up in middle school, that I took it to high school. I felt fat, I felt isolated, I felt rejected. And because that's the way that I felt, anyone looked at me in a different way.

[00:12:20.200] – Rosie
My mind, they're already criticizing me. They're looking at my hips. They're looking at my body. They're looking that I'm Mexican. And it didn't make it any easier when the mean girls in school started calling me names and nit picking at me, like especially around body issues. And that really played a role because their story became my story. I accepted that as my truth.

[00:12:41.230] – Rosie
And now that I'm forty, I look back then and I'm like, girl, you should own those curves. You should just love yourself because I felt huge. I felt so fat in comparison to the other girls. And I remember one time when I talk about this in the book, being in the bathroom because it affected me so much that I would go grab my lunch. I didn't want anybody watching me eat because I thought I felt fat and people watching me eat would make fun of me that I go there she is going to eat the whole cafeteria. I'd go into the bathroom stall, close the door, stay there for my lunch hour.

[00:13:13.180] – Rosie
And I remember seeing these cheerleaders that I thought were not only beautiful, they had the most beautiful body, they had no cellulite. And I remember going in there saying, oh, my God, I hate this. And, you know, my mom's going to tell she my mom pinches my fat. She says that, you know, that have jello thighs. And I remember listening to that. And I was like, it really triggered in me something. She thinks that she has gelo thighs. I think she's just beautiful. I wish I didn't have cellulite and not having that conversation at such a such a young age, really, I internalized everything.

[00:13:48.040] – Rosie
And I think one of the things that we have to I think as parents and coming in to family, I think one thing that's really important is starting the conversation, being OK with saying, Hey, I went through this when I was younger. Start the conversation to, number one, get your kids comfortable saying, oh, my God, my parents went through that. I thought I was the only one creating the conversation to create that trust and that just openness of saying, look, I went through this and it felt like crap.

[00:14:14.600] – Rosie
It made me feel isolated, make me feel rejected. Why? Because you're opening that door of authenticity, of letting your family and your friends know that, hey, like I've dealt with this and it made me feel this way. You're validating your own emotions and therefore you become an invitation to start a conversation. And for someone else to say, oh, I'm not the only one going through this. And I think that for me would have been it would have been life changing if I would have had that conversation to be able to talk to someone about it, because then I would have felt like I'm not the only one that feels isolated.

[00:14:48.940] – Rosie
I'm not the only one that has body image issues. I'm not the only one that feels fat and rejected. And I think my decision making would have been different and I would have just had someone to speak to. Just having someone to speak to creates a different environment. I think the next thing, when paying attention to self-esteem issues is understanding our own uniqueness and being OK. It really comes to understanding self discovery and self-love. And I had loving parents and they were amazing and everything in the environment, they loved and accepted me, but really being OK and just being constantly told that having an environment where I could look in the mirror and say, hey, I'm unique, I'm different, and that's OK Just having that environment and all starts the conversation. So I really feel that at a younger age, conversation is key. That is the starting point because you just don't know what people are going through.

[00:15:46.300] – Allan
And I think that's actually the key. Any time, any time you're trying to solve this in your head, you have a you have a fixed box that you're…

[00:15:56.870] – Rosie
A negative voice, don't we all we it I mean I'm 40 and I still hear that negative voice pop into my head. The difference and people think, oh my God, she's crazy. She talks about the voices in her head. No, we all have this negative voice that makes you second guess it's how much power are you giving to it and how much are you directing it?

[00:16:15.730] – Rosie
The difference now is when that sucker pops up, I'm like, you need to just be quiet, calm it down. I take a deep breath and I speak my truth. I'm capable of doing this. I'm worthy of doing this. I'm not going to self-sabotage. And I'm going to change the story that that voice in my head is telling me, because these are triggers that are not built overnight. These are this is a voice that has developed since I was younger.

[00:16:38.380] – Rosie
And being able to redirect it has been working, you know, working on it and then just loving myself through it, like accepting that that voice is there, not rejecting it, just accepting. I hear you. But that's not my truth.

[00:16:51.700] – Allan
Yeah, and I think that's really the key. If you if you don't get to a point where you love yourself, you really start making bad decisions and you make bad decisions because this is the voice that is telling you that go with it, have fun, enjoy yourself.

[00:17:07.120] – Allan
You deserve this and then you. But you're not actually doing it from the perspective of saying, well, if I loved myself, I would take my time.

[00:17:15.850] – Rosie
Or that voice that pops in your head that says, oh, my God, if I don't accept this guy, nobody's ever going to love me. This is my last chance that those moments also or when you see a red flag, you're like, hey, you know what? Maybe I'm just gonna let it go. Why? Because this feels good right now and you don't think about the future outcome. You just thinking in the moment that voice I mean, that voice can really play a number if you allow it to. And I think learning to love yourself is such a journey. People don't understand how long of a journey self-discovery can be.

[00:17:49.870] – Rosie
It never ends. It's always growing. It's always developing. But I think you have to be really present to understand that and understand what it takes to really love yourself.

[00:17:59.920] – Allan
Yeah. Because, you know, like you kind of got into in the book is you would you would make a decision. And then when you got to the point where where you started recognizing, OK, I need self-love, I've got to have a relationship with myself first. At that point, you were able to almost mentor yourself. You did have mentors. You talked about a lot of them. Some of them you would you wouldn't imagine a security guard at your high school being a mentor. But for a moment in time, he was, you know, and then you're I guess you're sort of your agent as you got started in your modeling career, became a mentor. And your father was always there and those types of things, your mother. And so you had a lot of good influences in your life, but you had to actually start loving yourself before you would let those voices in your head long enough to do some good.

[00:18:49.180] – Rosie
And people often like I think and that you bring such a great point. People often think that when someone creates makes a bad decision, goes through failure automatically. Oh, my God, they must have had crappy parenting and crappy upbringing or, you know, they just they probably went through something really rough that made them go down that road. And that's not the case. It all comes down to your personal choices and decisions that you make based off of what?

[00:19:15.820] – Rosie
Your self-esteem. I had great parents growing up. The problem was not my parents. My parents empowered me. They loved me. They were old school. Yes. They had such great values. My father was such a role model and he was this tough sergeant. But he was, you know, full of love. And his interest was always, you know, and me becoming better. The problem is sometimes when we're not ready for that, we don't receive that in the best way and we start rebelling.

[00:19:42.940] – Rosie
And I did that with my father. I put my parents. Oh, my goodness. I say to my book, I asked for their forgiveness because I acknowledge as a parent now that I am with my kids, I acknowledge the hell that I put my parents through and they love with me through my darkest moments.

[00:19:58.120] – Rosie
They didn't criticize me. They always had words of honesty that I sometimes wasn't ready to hear. But they always were there to uplift me. And I I had the most amazing parents. What I didn't have was my own self-love. I didn't understand what self-love was. I constantly made other people's stories, my truth. I constantly criticized my hips, my cellulite, my body, my face. And I just felt like I didn't fit in. And the more that became my truth, the deeper that my decisions were based off of fear and rejection.

[00:20:33.780] – Rosie
And that led me into these relationships and self-discovery, for me, it happens to different, you know, in different points of your life, but it really didn't happen to me until I was twenty-eight after my third marriage, my third divorce and, you know, three marriages, three divorces down, hit rock bottom and get sick. It was really a highlight of wow, like I really like God really brought me down to my knees and I really had to focus on where is this all coming from?

[00:21:00.930] – Rosie
And then start asking different questions. Because those questions that I was asking, why me, why me, why me was not serving a purpose in my life.

[00:21:08.280] – Allan
Yes. And then you start to turn it around. And like a lot of us, we've surrounded ourselves with people that are reinforcing the voice we already have. You know, it's you know, we talked with you. It was Jim Rohn that says you're the five people you spend the most time with, Will, and you've got a voice in your head that doesn't like you. It's more than likely four of the other people around you, five of the other people around you are also really don't have your necessarily your long distance, long term best interests. Yeah. And so, you know, in the book, you did have some saboteurs that you had to balance and work through.

[00:21:47.160] – Rosie
They were great teachers. I'll tell you that. They were great teachers of what not to do and not how to react. And they were great teachers in the sense and I love that word saboteurs. It just you know, I think it's the first time that I've heard that word. So thank you for sharing. You just I just learned something is something new.

[00:22:03.900] – Rosie
It's it is so true, because when you are reading this deep, dark hole of no self-respect, no self-love and you don't know what's going on, and you're constantly being told that you will never amount to anything, that nobody's ever going to love you. You go through your divorce. It's like you're lucky I paid attention to you. You know, you're fat, you're old, like you don't give up. You have. Who's going to ever love you after this divorce again?

[00:22:28.920] – Rosie
Who's going to ever love you after this are your body just grosses me out. We already have issues with self-love and you don't know who you are. And you hear those stories. You believe them. You're like, yep, it's confirming what's in my head. Add that voice that's telling me those same stories that, you know, it's just an exterior confirmation that what I'm saying is true. And what happens, you start believing that. And when you believe that, you start acting on that and what happens, you start tolerating disrespect in relationships.

[00:22:56.160] – Rosie
You start, you know, tolerating abuse, physical, emotional, and psychological abuse. You tolerate anything that comes your way. You stay quiet, you don't speak up. Your voice doesn't matter. There's no respect towards your body. And not only that, who does that impact? It impacts you. It impacts those who are watching you. It impacted my parents. Why? Because they didn't know what was going on, but they knew something was going on.

[00:23:18.810] – Rosie
I kept the physical and emotional abuse so quiet that I would have bruises on my arm and my excuse. I have anemia. I'm I'm anemic. I didn't want anybody to find out what was going on. Who else did that impact my kids growing up? Why? Because they think that I'm teaching them through the lack of self-love and tolerating something that less than than I deserve that that is a normal relationship. They grow up with that sense. So to do the self work and turn that around, turn the story around, is teaching my kids that not only did I accept something less than I deserve, this is what happens when you don't love yourself.

[00:23:54.810] – Rosie
But when you turn that around and get back up, you show them the strength and getting back up and discovering yourself and changing your story, changing your values and saying no longer am I going accept this because I love myself, because I'm worthy of more. Because in life, Tony Robbins says it and it's in my book in life you get what you tolerate.

[00:24:12.060] – Allan
Absolutely. Yeah. And I think that's the hard thing is when you get to a point where you're you start making better decisions because you've now had that conversation with yourself. Look, I love myself, and I'm not just going to roll with it. I'm not just going to sit there. And when you when I'm inside telling myself something that I'm not capable of doing, something that, you know, I need to quit, I'm not going to go with that.

[00:24:36.930] – Allan
I'm not going to double down on overeating or not exercising or alcohol or whatever the problem, whatever it is that you're the voice in your head is saying, oh, well, you're not going to you're not going to change anyway. You're not going to get to that size or you're not going to accomplish that weight. And so at this point, you know, but you get past that and now you've got this group of saboteurs that are also trying to do the thing.

[00:25:00.090] – Allan
And I think that's the point where once you start breaking through and saying, OK, that voice is wrong, that voice is wrong, I see it, I see it and what I'm able to accomplish and so setting like short term goals and and understanding what you need to move forward, because, you know, as you were going through your career, you were kind of recognizing that you weren't as healthy as you needed to be and you weren't moving in the direction of your career as well as you needed to do. And so you took in my mind. Pretty drastic step because bariatric surgery is no joke, and especially when you had it done, it was better.

[00:25:38.450] – Allan
But, you know, there's still a lot of complications that could come from a surgery like that. But you did go through bariatric surgery, and I've never actually really talked about it on the podcast. Could you take a little bit of time to just talk about your journey? Because I think this is some for some people, you know, we've gotten down the road a certain way, and we just need to do some things that are a little bit more drastic to get that kick start to get that big win. So from that point forward, the voices don't sound as loud because we know we've done the right step.

[00:26:10.610] – Rosie
Well, you know, before I did bariatric surgery, I lost 100 pounds. So before the bariatric surgery and I've you know, I went through Yo-Yo dieting. I go on one diet, lose weight, gain weight. It was always, you know, it was always up and down.

[00:26:21.770] – Rosie
And it just got to a point where I really wanted to dominate. I really wanted to create change. I wanted it so bad and I didn't understand why I wasn't successful. And one of the things that I learned through bariatric surgery, that's and it was such a big aha moment. I never had felt for the sensation of eating something and feeling full of saying, all right, I'm full like that, because when you're full, there's an automatic reaction to your body.

[00:26:48.830] – Rosie
There's like they there's a sensation that when you've eaten and you get to that point, it's your body saying, OK, you're done and sometimes you keep eating, keep eating. What happens? You stretch your stomach so big that that sensation is no longer there or you're not connected with your body where you could acknowledge that. So I went through ups and downs. When it came to yo-yo dieting, I tried it all, everything you could ever imagine. I tried it all.

[00:27:10.580] – Rosie
I had the strength to start to keep going and then somehow eliminate story would show up and then I'd drop a little bit of weight. And I'm like, yes, now I can eat the cake. Well, no. I mean, there's nothing wrong with eating the cake. The problem is discipline, perseverance, really understanding what you're transforming. And the problem was a word diet. The word diet really impacted me. And I learned this through bariatric surgery and people discredited me when I became so honest and authentic and saying, look, I lost one hundred pounds before. People are OK to credit that, oh, you did all the hard work doing bariatric surgery.

[00:27:43.970] – Rosie
That's even harder. People don't understand that. So if you are one of those people that say you cheated your way out, look, going underneath the knife at four hundred and twenty pounds is no joke. I'm literally one way or another whether I at four hundred twenty pounds eventually that's going to catch up to me because I'm obese. It will catch up to me and I will pay a price for that. And if I go underneath the knife I could pay the price for that.

[00:28:07.730] – Rosie
I don't know, I'm just, I'm trying something new. And when I did that I got so much hate and criticism saying that I got like I took the easy way out. You just did surgery. And that's the easy way out. No, because you're not guaranteed that you're going to lose. There's people who have gotten bariatric surgery that only last twenty to thirty pounds. Why? Because that inner voice is so strong that they keep eating the foods that they're not supposed to do.

[00:28:32.090] – Rosie
It is just a tool. So they take 80 percent of your stomach out. And basically you start with liquids, they go into puree foods, and then you go into small amounts of food that you're eating throughout the day.

[00:28:45.950] – Rosie
When I go to bariatric surgery, the first time I drink water, it was a first time and I can't even remember that. I felt the sensation of full. I was like. What is that like, I literally you're going to be like, I can't anymore, and I was like, I can't anymore what's going on. Like I've never felt that sensation in Dr. Bernie Hannah running. And he told me he's like, that is a sensation being full.

[00:29:08.520] – Rosie
That for me was mind blowing. The next step is going through the process of pureed foods and then discovering. Looking at the amount of food I was eating and why I was eating, I was eating because I was sad, I was eating because I was happy, I was eating because it was the only way that I could connect with my family. I was eating because it's the only way that I could connect with another human being. It was always through food instead of just having that general connection without the food, like I didn't need the food to connect with all these people.

[00:29:35.370] – Rosie
So that was another lesson that I learned. But the process, the psychological and physical process of losing weight through bariatric surgery, it is transformative because you pay attention to how much food you eating. You have the sensation of being full. Now you have you're learning about your body and how to create energy and how to drink water. And really, OK, I'm educating myself. If I have the sugar right now, that's going to make me break out in sweat. I get nauseous. I do not like the feeling that my body reacts to that. So now you're like, I'm not going to have that, not because I can't, because I don't like the feeling associated. So it transformed the whole psychology. And then once you sit down with your family, you're eating such a small portion and you're done.

[00:30:18.900] – Rosie
You're kind of left like, what's next? You learn to reconnect with other human beings.

[00:30:24.510] – Rosie
So for me, bariatric surgery not only saved my life, if I could have done it when I was younger, I would have. It played a domino effect in my family because my entire family got bariatric surgery. Everybody got bariatric surgery. If my daughter chooses to one day get bariatric surgery, I completely support her. It is just a tool because once you get into it a couple of years later, you could gain the weight back. You could stretch out your stomach.

[00:30:49.320] – Rosie
So it is not a diet, it becomes a lifestyle. And that is the switch in the mind. That is the psychological when it's the story behind it.

[00:30:59.280] – Allan
Yeah, and that's one of the things I really like to get into with my clients, with anyone I'm talking to, is that we have a ton of tools and strategies around. There's not one path to getting there and there. You know, people can say something is a shortcut. But so what this is you know, this is you're not in competition with anybody but yourself. You're just trying to be the best person that you can be. And if you're doing it for the right reasons, because you love yourself and you know the tool that's going to help me get to the next level, that's going to keep me moving forward and not falling backwards, then it's a tool and it's

[00:31:33.950] – Rosie
It's tool. It's a wonderful tool. And I think you've hit it right on my head. What may work for you may not work for me. And that's OK. Failure, just an indicator of what's not working. And that's the beauty of it. If this doesn't work, try try again. Try something different. And what worked for someone else? I may try it. You know what? I just I'm not getting the results that I want. Let me try something different. So the equation is very different for every single human being.

[00:32:01.320] – Rosie
The most important is to start the equation and end the equation in your own way until you find your own happiness and your own success. And that terminology, that definition changes for everybody, because what makes you happy might make me miserable. And I think we have as human beings, we have to learn to respect and have compassion and understanding instead of being so quick to criticize everybody. Because I learned a lot about compassion and criticism throughout my process and throughout my journey and still until today.

[00:32:30.290] – Allan
Rosie, I define wellness as being the healthiest, fittest and happiest you can be. What are three strategies or tactics to get and stay?

[00:32:39.680] – Rosie
Be honest with yourself. That is so important. Be honest with yourself, with what you're feeling. If you don't like what you're feeling, you the only thing you could control in your life is your mind, body and soul. Everything else you can't control is just out of your hands. So I surrender to that. So understanding and validating my own emotions. It's so important not seeking exterior validation. If I feel angry, I acknowledge that I feel angry.What am I going to do to shift but feel happy? Wonderful. Let's celebrate.

[00:33:06.140] – Rosie
The next one affirming who I am, not making other people's story about myself, my truth, affirming that I am faithfully guided, that I have everything that I need, that I am divinely created, that I am a powerful woman, that I love myself. Affirming who I am in the morning and night is very important. Why? Because things will happen throughout life that could shift us if we allow it to.

[00:33:27.920] – Rosie
And last but not least, the importance of understanding your values. What are your values? How do you make your decisions based off your values, understanding what your top three values are, and making decisions based off of your top three values? Because when you don't when you do that, you won't go wrong, I promise you that. So that for me is really taking care of myself. It's taking care of my mental health and creating happiness for myself.

[00:33:51.530] – Allan
Cool. Rosie, if someone wanted to learn more about you, the things you're doing and your book, The Girl with Self-Esteem Issues, where would you like for me to send them?

[00:34:01.160] – Rosie
You could visit me at RosieMercado.com. Follow me on social media Rosie Mercado and of course the book, The Girl with Self-Esteem Issues is available wherever you buy books. I also have my podcast. You can listen to whatever you listen to podcast, the girl with self-esteem issues. I'm just so excited to be able to talk to you and thank you again for reading my book. That really for me it's amazing when I connect with people who actually take the time to invest and read and really get to know about the story.

[00:34:25.310] – Allan
Well, you're investing in us by being on the show, so it's the least I can do. Thank you. You can go to 40plusfitnesspodcast.com/461 and I'll be sure to have the links there.

[00:34:36.500] – Allan
Rosie, thank you for being a part of 40+ Fitness. Thank you.

[00:34:40.110] – Rosie
And I love the name. I want to commend you on that. I'm forty and fabulous. I love it and breathe it in and make it your truth.

Post Show/Recap

[00:34:51.320] – Allan
Welcome back, Raz.

[00:34:53.160] – Rachel
Hey, Allan, what a great conversation you had with Rosie. She seems like a really energetic person.

[00:34:58.590] – Allan
Yeah, yeah. You know, it's I knew from the book because it's it's a memoir. And she shared so much about herself. I knew I knew it was going to be a great conversation and that she was going to bring a lot of energy to it and of course, to tackle the topic of self-esteem. And one of the interesting things is there's a lot of people think that it's mostly women that are dealing with self-esteem issues.

[00:35:20.160] – Allan
But I'll tell you, men do, too. And if you don't tackle that problem, if you don't have the self-love, it just becomes increasingly difficult for you to accomplish great things.

[00:35:34.530] – Rachel
Mm hmm. Yeah. She mentioned about how she went through a couple of marriages and a couple divorces, Yo-Yo. Dieted, I mean, and it's she even mentioned it could show up in other ways, like people that have shopping, addictions or whatnot. So it's it's fascinating how bad self-esteem could lead you to some pretty bad places.

[00:35:55.310] – Allan
Yeah. And I think one of the core tenets is that I think people don't give themselves credit for the winds. You know, they'll lose five pounds. That's a win. Not know what they'll do is they'll look back and say, well, the last time I lost five pounds, I gained 10 back. And that's a problem, you know. Yes, you did. But you've just proven that you can lose five pounds. That's a huge win.

[00:36:19.380] – Allan
Five pounds of fat is a lot. And then taking the next step and saying, OK, I just need to repeat the same things. I need to keep going forward based on that win. And so many people just don't have the confidence in themselves to do that.

[00:36:34.680] – Rachel
Yeah. And I always like to celebrate the baby steps really, rarely do we have huge overnight success. I mean, in the topic of weight loss, it took a long time to put on. It's going to take a long time to take it off. I know, because I've been there, too. But we do need to celebrate the incremental steps. And when we learn something new, we can make additional changes to get closer towards that success. So it's a process for sure.

[00:37:01.410] – Allan
It is. And so if you take the time to tackle that and you approach this all with self-love, you'll start treating yourself like somebody you love. And that's really important that that care that self-care from a position of self-love is really how you win the long game in this.

[00:37:19.120] – Rachel
Mm hmm. For sure.

[00:37:21.180] – Allan
And then, you know, we tackled the topic of bariatric surgery. And I would say in the past, I would have probably been a lot more critical on this, because at the time, you know, I had the experiences I had were people getting the surgery and then not changing anything else except volume made the same foods. They just now they eat less of them. And then they went right back to what they were doing and eventually were eating the same sized meals, the same stuff that they were eating before.

[00:37:48.810] – Allan
And yes, because they for a period of time ate much less, they lose some weight, but then they start putting it back on.

[00:37:56.310] – Rachel
Yeah, that's the interesting thing about bariatric surgery. It's it's amazing how the stomach can still stretch even after it was shut off a little bit. So it's interesting.

[00:38:07.050] – Allan
Yeah. And the scary thing to me is and we're going to talk about this next week, actually, is the volume of errors and problems that happen in hospitals. It's a leading cause of death in our country, in the United States. I mean, you know, you don't go to the doctors all the time. You don't go to the hospital necessarily with a life threatening thing and then just die. But it happens. It happens a lot more than I thought reading their book.

[00:38:31.380] – Allan
And so here you are taking that risk, making that investment, because, you know, it's not cheap. And even if your insurance is helping you with it, it is not it it's not a cheap deal and it's not easy to recover from. And then you're going through basically blending your food to be able to eat at the beginning of it. So it's a process. And if you'll take that process and use it well, the way Rosie did in her family, then I would say, by all means, it's a tool.

[00:39:03.360] – Allan
Just recognize you're taking a significant risk by going through an elective procedure like this and you dot your Is and cross the T's and you make sure that things are getting done right. It's you have confidence in your doctor, in the doctors team and then follow through, you know, change other things in your life that are going to help you get to where you want to go, you know, move a little more, eat the right foods to get the nutrients because your stomach is smaller.

[00:39:30.240] – Rachel
Mm hmm.

[00:39:30.930] – Allan
OK, and being full, it doesn't mean you're getting the nutrients you need.

[00:39:36.250] – Rachel
Mm hmm. Yeah. She had the right attitude, I think about for all of those reasons you just said. But she knew that bariatric surgery is a good tool and it sounds like her family members looked at it in that same way, and they made the changes, made those big changes that they needed to after they had the surgery. It sounds like they were very successful afterwards.

[00:39:57.920] – Allan
Yeah. And for her, it was it was a little bit about self-esteem. But I think in a big part, you know, she had some driving forces behind why she wanted to do this. You know, we talk about that. What's your why? Yeah, it was a career that she loved and she was basically being told that, you know, she didn't change her size. She was going to size herself out of plus modeling. She was not the ideal plus model.

[00:40:23.270] – Allan
She didn't fit the demo. So to be the way she wanted to be. And because she was driven to have the success for her children, she did this thing and it worked for her. But she didn't just do it and then eat the way she was eating before. She changed what she was eating. She started exercising more. And even before what she had done exercises, she worked hard, but, you know, she didn't have the drive and determination that really takes her. Plus, she didn't have the self-love that sustains her. And now she does. And that's why she's successful.

[00:40:58.520] – Rachel
Yeah, it's a powerful way to have and something to hold on to it as you go through all these hard situations. She said afterwards when her stomach was about, I think she said they removed 80 percent. She had a really small stomach afterwards and she discussed how she felt full afterwards. And then how she when she did eat sugar with that super small stomach, she was feeling nauseous after she was eating it. So was some pretty big light bulb moments of that something you haven't ever felt before.

[00:41:32.630] – Allan
Yeah. And there are ways, you know, there are strategies for feeling full without, you know, eating a ton of food. If you're eating whole food, you know, and, you know, just starting off with a salad with a lot of roughage, green drinking a glass of water 30 minutes before a meal. you know, that's going to put some volume in your stomach. And then when you put the food in there, you're going to feel fuller.

[00:41:57.650] – Allan
And so, you know, there are ways to feel full. And if you're eating whole food, you're getting the nutrients and get and getting the nutrients that your body needs. Signaling will work. Slowing down when you eat is another way to avoid overfilling. You know, it's just. Oh, yeah, it's live. We're approaching Thanksgiving, the classic day of overeating. So, slow down. Yes. You want three pieces of pie, but no, don't.

[00:42:25.490] – Allan
I eat one third of three pieces of pie each. And then you've got your piece of pie and you taste it all three. Use some strategies to help you get through these times when you have a tendency to overeat by and taking the time and enjoying the taste of the food and giving your body the time to signal, hey, we're there, it's time to stop. You know, we've got enough.

[00:42:48.370] – Allan
Yeah, you avoid the food coma, avoid the seasonal five to five to ten pounds gain after you lost that five to ten before and now you're putting it back on. That's the cycle. That's the cycle of why that happened. You win, you're a winner, you have the confidence you lost the way and successfully make it through these holidays. You're going to get there.

[00:43:11.630] – Rachel
Yeah, well, personally, I hate the feeling of being full. And like I've said before, Thanksgiving is my favorite eating day of the whole year. But I also like leftovers. So I know that I can make a plate of my favorite foods, enjoy it, enjoy the company of my family and put it away and that feel full and bloated for the rest of the evening. And I can look forward to leftovers the next day. So there are a lot of really good tips out there that you can avoid all that.

[00:43:38.990] – Allan
Yeah. And if you're if you're looking for a reason to move a little bit more and I told you about this last week in a post on Facebook group a couple of times, I am participating in the sloth race, Sloth Racing Team Race, and it's a virtual five or 10K. You get to decide which one you want to do. You sign up online on the link if you want to go. There is 40plusfitnesspodcast.com/race and that'll take you to their sign up page.

[00:44:05.690] – Allan
You go ahead and you sign up for it. You don't have to tell them if you're doing a five or ten, but you know, you can choose which one you want to do when you get it. They send you the medal, they send you a T-shirt, and then you go do the race. And what I'd love for you to do if you do this race at 40plusfitnesspodcast.com/race And you're on the 40+ Fitness Sloth Racing Team.

[00:44:24.440] – Allan
Go ahead and post a picture of our group. So go to 40plusfitnesspodcast.com/group. And I'd love to see the pictures since I'm traveling back now I'll be doing it within about the next two weeks. You got until the end of November to do the race, so there's still time to sign up, about a week to sign up and then you get your stuff and you do your race. Really looking forward to seeing those pictures on Facebook.

[00:44:44.870] – Rachel
That sounds awesome, Mike. And I can't wait for the 10k.

[00:44:47.810] – Allan
Cool. All right, Rachel, anything else we should go over before we call it a week?

[00:44:52.540] – Rachel
Nope, sounds great.

[00:44:53.950] – Allan
OK, I will see you next week.

Patreons

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