Mom2Mom intro

Morgan and Shawna discuss their fitness journeys on the Mom2Mom podcast. Morgan grew up in an active family and participated in sports, but also struggled with body issues and eating disorders in high school. After college, she found kickboxing and started a fitness career in that field. She now focuses on helping moms find ways to stay active, even with limited time and resources. Shawna talks about her parents' active lifestyle and how she also grew up participating in fitness classes like jazzercise. She emphasizes the importance of resistance training for weight loss and body transformation. Both women discuss the importance of trying different types of workouts to challenge the body and avoid plateaus. Hi everyone, I'm Morgan from Mo Movement and I'm Shawna from Iron Core Fitness and welcome to the Mom2Mom podcast where we will navigate through motherhood at every stage from postpartum to menopause and aging. Okay so today we're going to kind of dive deep into how we each got started in our fitness lives and how it's led us to where we're at with our separate passions. Yeah if you call it passion. So I will go first. So I come from an active family. My mom's always been an avid runner. She did hood to coast runs, other 5ks and as a family we always kind of participated in them as well. So growing up in that world, I just, it was always instilled in me that I'm gonna be an active person. I also come from my mother's side and we call that our athletic build. Also known as a little fluffier. So definitely doing something. Not quite the way I would describe a person to be but okay. If you want to say you're fluffy. I was fluffy. I mean I'm fluffy right now but I'm also only three and a half months postpartum and we'll dive deeper into that in another episode. But it's very easy for me to just carry an extra 10 to 20 pounds if I'm not active and not focusing on my nutrition. So always doing volleyball or dance or drum court or something. And then as many teenage girls unfortunately struggle with. You know I've had some body issues in my sophomore and junior year of high school that led to eating disorders. And after high school and stuff you don't really have like the group fitness and guided fitness and so I kind of fell off the wagon on that. And yeah because we're all used to having our moms cook for us. Yes. Or you know. And mom's not there anymore. And parents guiding us into sports and holding us accountable. And I was having to hold myself accountable for the first time ever. And being in college and there's food and drinks and everything. And I got the freshman 15, sophomore 20, junior 15 and so on and so forth. Fast forward to 2013 moving to Seattle away from my parents after college and I found kickboxing as a form of fitness through a friend that I worked with. And also a form of stress relief from the daycare and parents I dealt with at said daycare. And I lost a bunch of weight and started actually working there. And that led me into an eight-year kickboxing fitness career. And that's the first place you've been. Yeah. The only place you've been. Yep. Kickboxing was like where it started and was really all I knew for a long time. That was the only real fitness that I knew prior to you know like high school and sports and stuff from back then. And so I just started coaching and helping people out. And through the years I kept focusing on my own fitness. And was like you know I want other people to be able to find something. Which at the time was me guiding them to kickboxing. But now I have opened up my avenue to other forms of workout. Especially now having two littles of my own. You can't always just go to a gym for an hour and take a class. You know I have to find 20 minutes here, 30 minutes here, get up early, do things. So being able to help new moms and even older moms. Like if you've got teenagers or elementary school kids. You know the minimalistic workouts at home that you can do. You don't need a ton of equipment. So yeah that's kind of my long explained. Are your parents still together? They are. How long have they been married? I'm 35. 38 years. So you're 35. How old are your kids? Two and three and a half months. How old's your husband? He's 40. And you're 35. Mm-hmm. Okay. See this is where we need to cut it. Yep. Yeah. Okay so your parents were they active? Yes. Were they? They were athletes? I mean as adults they grew up you know my mom was born in 54, my dad was born in 58. Back when my mom was a kid girls didn't do anything active. You know they wore dresses all the time. It was weird. How old's your mom? She'll be 70 in December. Wow. Okay. So she had you older. She was kind of like me. I'm kind of on the same path as my mom where I'm mid 30s and I've got two under two. Hmm. Well that could be a story too. Yeah. It's a journey older. Yes. Where now you don't find that. Everybody's young. Everybody's like teenagers. Yeah. And so by the time people are 40 anymore their kids are out of the house. Yeah. And that's the big revelation. Nobody ever talked about empty nesting. Yeah. Like that's such a it's weird enough not having the kids right now. It's hard because they you you you grow up as a friend. They're your friends and now they're not there. And how old were you when you had? See Alexa's 25. Okay. I was 25. Okay. My first one was 25. So like 10 years younger than I am pretty much. Yeah. And then I had Cameron five years later. Okay. They're five years apart. Almost five and a half. Yeah. Yeah. Cuz she no five. No five and a half. She's almost six. Okay. Cuz he was born December. So they are quite a years apart. I almost didn't have a second. Yeah. That's that's almost like the cutoff from what I hear from a lot of people where like it's like if it's five years you're like let's just not do it. Mm-hmm. So what sports did your parents play? I mean my mom really didn't do any sports. She did like would run around. She had an older brother that was five years older than her. She really didn't get active active like structure wise. I don't think until she was in her 20s like she was out of the house and grown up and then she started just jogging doing that kind of stuff. But when from what I remember we would go to the gym and so she would take aerobics classes and jazzercise. Yep. That was the thing back then. Yeah. Who's the other fitness aerobics? Oh my gosh. She's from 3's company. Oh Susan Summers. Yep. Yeah. Yep. She did the Thigh Master. Yeah. I drew a blank on her name. I want to say Julian Michaels but that's not her. No Julian Michaels was like my generation. Yeah. But I mean we that's what we grew up with. That's how I grew up is jazzercise. Women were not in the gym lifting weights. No. I was not doing it. The only time a woman was in the gym is there was a class. Yep. That's what we're trying to change. Yeah. I mean my mom always went to classes. I went to classes. My dad and I went to the gym before school when I was in high school. Wow. And we would do there was like an ab class or a strength class and then we would each do our separate cardio that we wanted to do and then meet up in the sauna afterwards. Nice. So a lot of people would come back at you and say but you've been doing this a long time. Yeah but I guess I don't consider it a long I mean I guess I've been doing this for like half my life a little more than half my life but I've taken breaks I would say. You know I went to college. I did the party five-year journey of college and yeah I went to the student gym but that was only to work off the six or twelve pack that I had the night before. Like I wasn't actively focusing on my fitness. So it's been. So then where would you say starting kickboxing how did that start? Well I had moved up to Seattle to be with my then boyfriend because my parents were moving across the country to Florida for retirement and I didn't want to go to Florida. I had a boyfriend in Seattle so I came up here and I was still probably like 20-25 pounds heavier than I felt comfortable being and just running wasn't working. You can't just do cardio and this is this is where I'm excited to talk about the lifting and strength training side of things especially with your expertise because a lot of us women just think running, cardio, that'll get the weight off. No you need resistance training. It's one of my friends that I worked with ironically at a bar went to kickboxing and so she brought me in for a class and loved it. Got to punch something and not get in trouble for it and got the resistance training that I needed and then like six months I lost 40 pounds just from adding in that resistance training and not just cardio because little do a lot of people know when you're doing just plain cardio yeah you burn calories while you're doing it but you're not burning anything after but if you're adding in that strength and resistance training you get to continue burning calories. Yeah a lot of people don't understand that. So that was the game-changer for me. Got in really good shape, got super duper confident and now I'm here helping other people get confident and making it a lifestyle. Eight years is a long time. Yeah long time to play at one place. Yeah just for one thing, for one entity. Yeah that was that that was that my cock block is why are we doing the same thing? Yeah I was actually listening to a podcast earlier and she was kind of talking about the same thing where she had done the same consistent workout for such a long time and you get bored or you're not open to any other options. Well your body doesn't react. Yeah I mean you don't do it for so long before your body just stops reacting. Yeah. I mean that's just what it is. That's why we lose weight when we change our food. Yeah well and so from my first pregnancy to my second pregnancy because with my son when I was pregnant with him I was just doing kickboxing. Yeah I might go to Planet Fitness every once in a while and lift some weights but I was just doing kickboxing and then after I had him I was just kickboxing and it was great don't get me wrong and I got back into shape after about nine months but now after I had my daughter I've been taking Orange Theory classes and teaching Orange Theory classes and doing different types of cardio and resistance training and challenging my body in different ways and designing my own at home workouts and I'm only three and a half months postpartum my body looks completely different than it did three and a half months postpartum with my son. Do you have an after of both? You should share that. Yeah I do. Before and after. These are the workouts I did doing just yeah cardio training kickboxing training and these are the ones that this is how I've changed my body structure by doing changes and resistance training and you know tracking what I eat and stuff like that. Yeah well and even even just my birth stories I feel like changing the way that I was working out during Brooklyn's pregnancy versus Connor's pregnancy I mean both kids I was very fortunate I had quote-unquote easy birth but with Connor I still I tore and it was a longer labor it was like 13 hours and with Brooklyn from water breaking to her arriving three hours no tearing nothing yeah and the recovery. She looks way bigger than he does. Yeah she's bigger now she was about a pound lighter than he was at birth but she's already just she's working on them gains. Can't believe she's scooting already. Yeah she's full-on like trying to crawl. Once she figures out those legs underneath her she's out. Yeah that was funny watching that. Okay what else do I have? Well let's let's kind of dive into you I mean where did you get started when did you start with fitness? So I never really had a start to it I've just always done it. Okay. So I was raised as an athlete I was a soccer player like very very high level back then you were gauged on your college level I had Harvard after me Harvard Neo. Okay. But my grades sucked I did not have good grades but I was a soccer player very high high level soccer player in the state of Washington and so I guess I was just kind of raised being an athlete my parents were not athletes my dad was my coach though. Okay. So we were I was there I was raised in a very strict household. Mm-hmm. I wasn't allowed to do anything else but play soccer because if I got injured and I couldn't play the world came to an end. But um so after obviously high school and all that stuff yeah I don't think there was ever a thing I just kind of went to the gym. Okay. I would always go with my mom. Mm-hmm. And then I started going when I got married we moved out to Lake Stevens and there is a local gym out there and I started going and I think it was about a year into it I was like you know I kind of want to try this bodybuilding thing and the guy that owns the gym there he's like well coach you through it and back then we didn't have the internet we had nothing I had to have a coach he had to tell me what to do he didn't really know what he was doing either but we did it so that's kind of where that started with the bodybuilding and he didn't want to keep coaching for that year so I was like okay but I just kept working out. Yeah. I didn't need to keep doing bodybuilding so I just kept working out and kind of raised my kids with it. I think there was about six years I took off to raise the kids and then I went into CrossFit. Okay. And that was a whole different world. Did that for about ten years. That was a different journey because on a different subject I've used to have breast implants so now that they are no longer involved with my life I've noticed there's a lot of things that I couldn't do that I could do now. Okay, because you had the restriction of the breast implants. I didn't know that though. Interesting. I couldn't jump on a box. I just thought I couldn't jump on a box. Was it like did it hurt? No. Or were they just too heavy? I could not do it. I could not jump on a box but I thought it was because I wasn't strong enough. But it was because the implants restricted those muscles. Probably. Or the brain fog like that because it's something with the brain and triggering and swelling of the joints. Interesting. But I'd say that's another subject that's a completely different day. So I did CrossFit for ten years. I competed in that and everything. Lots of level. I never could be good at it because I sucked at it because of the implants. I blamed them. So then let's see. I was always raised in the corporate world as a mom. You had to be in the corporate world and raise your family and either be a stay-at-home mom or be out in the world and work. So that's what I did. So I never everybody always would say to me you should coach. You should you know be a personal trainer. I never ever ever had a desire ever and I'm glad I didn't. I don't think I could handle it. Not to the level I have now because I didn't have the knowledge. Okay. Now I have that personal knowledge where I was taught by many different people and so I have that knowledge and now I feel like I can take it and apply it to people. So it's like I rather than starting much younger and trying to figure it out on your own allowing yourself to just stay in the corporate world, go through life, let the kids kind of grow up and everything and use all of your experiences and now that the kids are grown and out of the house really being able to. Yeah but I never thought I would be. I didn't want to do this. Okay. I didn't want to. The thing that pushed me for it was I had just started a new job and the guy says to another co-worker that I look like a dude walking towards them. So all the employees told me this. Of course I laughed. Yeah. So you don't say that about people. So I laughed and that's when I thought and that's when the kickboxing gym got into my lap. Okay. And that's when I thought as well that this might be that opportunity for me to put my knowledge out because so many people don't understand and I've been doing it for so long that I have that knowledge that I understand that now I just need people to break down the barriers to let me help them understand it themselves. Okay. So it's just kind of one of those things that I've been in it my entire life. I never had any driving factors except myself. Yeah. I'll be the first person to say I have extreme body dysmorphia. Even me today there's a lots of issues. Today I'm more comfortable than I ever could be. I don't like the bulking season. I don't do well in that. But that's what we have to do in my industry. So yes I have all that stuff too. Even at 20, 30, 40, 50 year old. Yeah. I'm gonna have it. So I try to find all of those. I did keto. I did paleo. I did those and they didn't work for me because that wasn't the right things for me. Eating the right foods is the right thing for me. That I mean I could try eating carbs all day long. I was like that's not what my body wanted. Yeah. I gained weight. Yep. Then I had to find what my body wanted and that's where I felt like because I did multiple CrossFit gyms and they would help me with nutrition. So that's where I think some of the knowledge and then the macro knowledge and stuff that I have comes from them too because I wanted those goals. I had dreams. I hated everything. Me and my sister still was saying when a skinny girl walks on the bit down the street she's a bitch. I wanted to be that bitch. So you know just kind of here we are. Yeah. So what keeps you motivated now especially during like the bulking season that you talk about like you hate bulking season. Why do you keep doing it? What's your why now? Well my why is I do have that why and the why is so when I would hit 40 we always think 40 is old. Once I hit 40, 40 is not old. 40 life is just starting and when you think of a 50 year old, what do you think? Like you thinking. Think back to when you were 20 and you thought 50 year olds. What did you think? I thought grandma. Exactly. That's what we all think. But like even now my own mother who is 70 and is a grandma, she doesn't seem grandma to me. Like you know when you see like actual grandmas and grandpas that are just decrepit and old and like they're driving funny and I'm like watch out grandpa grandma. I don't think of my mom when I say those things and I didn't want to be that. Yeah. I did not want to be that grandma or that elder person that can't do the things. Okay. And the only reason they can't do the things is because they didn't take care of themselves. Yeah. They're I'm sorry I don't care what anybody has to say. Your knees hurt because you're not taking care of yourself. Your knees don't hurt because you hurt yourself. Your knees hurt because you your hips are messed up and you've got. Well most likely you hurt yourself because you're not taking care of yourself. Yeah. So it's just I didn't want to be that. I wanted to get off the ground. I want to be able to get up off the ground with my grandkids. I want to be able to get back on the ground with the grandkids. If I'm 80, 70, 60 whatever it is I don't want to be hunched over and miserable. So that was just kind of like I had to go and take care of myself and that's the only way to do it is eating the right foods. I knew and I know instantly when I eat the wrong thing and I don't like that feeling. So yeah I'm just gonna have to I don't know just fire on you know. Yeah. Because I know my mentality is is like I can allow myself the bad thing once in a while but I can't continue to do it because once you continue down that road you're gonna keep there. You're staying there and that's not what I want because in 10 years from now that's when you see it. Yeah. I'm not gonna see it in two months. Yep. I'm gonna see it in ten years. I didn't get this way because I started two months ago, five years ago. I am the way I am because I started 30 years ago and I know if I didn't keep doing it in 30 years from now I will be dead and decrepit. Yeah. I mean. I mean that's that's a good why. As a mom now I can tell you half the reason I work out is to be able to keep up with these damn kids and I want to make them proud. Like I think about in 30 years I want them to have grown up like I grew up seeing active parents and having an active lifestyle. The other half is I want to feel good about myself. Right. Well and my thing too is is I don't want my kids to have to take care of me. That's not their job. Yeah. That is not what I brought them in. Some people say I have kids so they take care of me when they're older. I don't want that. My kids don't need that because I don't like to inconvenience anybody and that's the last thing I'm gonna do is if I need help I am gonna wipe my own ass. Thank you. Yep. That's my why. I want to wipe my own ass. Love it. Love it. So yeah. There's a lot of why's. Yeah. Well there's so much that we're gonna dive into throughout all of these episodes but now you guys kind of know a little bit of background about us. Yeah. Very little. Yeah. I mean even just in this first episode you can hear lots of different topics that we're gonna hit on because there's so much to talk about. Well there's a lot that you as a woman coming into these years that you guys don't realize some of the ailments that are happening to us that your knees hurt, your joints hurt, your eyes are watering, you have a headache, you're hot. That's normal. It's not that you're dying. That's where we've got to understand that our hormones are jacked up now. Yes. And we've got to take care of ourselves. We can't take care of ourselves until we find that bottom line first. A lot of it's mental but our hormones we've got to figure them out and to me it's going to the pathologist. The naturopath. Yeah. That's what they're called. The naturopath and getting the blood drawn and you know educating people. Yeah. Well and it's it's a continuous changing thing you know you can't just. Yeah. My hormones are crazy right now postpartum and they have been and I didn't give myself a ton of time in between the kids but even going and getting blood work done now you still need to go do that again in another five years, in another ten years. It's like you can't just do a fitness routine for a couple years and be like okay cool I'm fit I'm done. It's kind of like you're gonna change with the time and you have to change your eating with that time too and that's where people don't understand is is I ate so-and-so but I'm still 250 pounds. Yeah. Okay well that so-and-so isn't the right foods for you then. Yep. So that's kind of where I want to help people with this journey and you know guide them to understand that just because the yogurt has 25 grams of protein in it doesn't mean you need to eat it. Yeah. Anyway. I love it. That's my rant. I don't know we'll see if we all it we're even able to edit and all this stuff so you know this is the fun in it. Hopefully you guys get to hear this podcast. We'll see what happens. So it sounds good. Or we'll just create a podcast where it sounds like this and there's no editing. I know right. People love it that much. It says share so we'll see what happens when we do share. I'm leaving editing into Morgan's hands so you can blame her for it. Yeah. So wish us luck. Alright. Bye guys. Bye.