S1/E16: “Getting Punchy:” Entrepreneurship, Health, and Eating Better with Dr. Amy Porto

[00:00:00] Dr Amy: When you are in a service-based business, it’s really easy to serve and not do a lot for yourself. And truly, when your income is coming from how well you serve, how much you serve, it can be difficult because you wanna show up because you genuinely care about it.

[00:00:17] What I have found with clients that I work with, not only are we last on our lists, sometimes we’re not even on the list. And there’s so many things you’re doing for other people. Well, if I have a chance, I’ll pack a lunch. But it’s fine. I can get that hotdog, like you said, off the roller, you know? I think if you can approach a lot of things with nutrition from a self-care standpoint, so much of the messaging is self-control. I need to have willpower, I need to have discipline, I have to have self-control, self-control. But what about the self-care? 

[00:00:45] 

Introducing Amy Porto

[00:00:46] Morgan: to the lucky pup podcast where we’re talking big ideas and weaving them together in a way that makes the big picture relatable and hopefully a bit inspirational and educational too, especially today, you’re going to find candid and authentic conversations about the struggles we’ve encountered as we try to live more full and happy lives.

[00:01:03] I’m your host, Morgan Weber, and today we have Amy Porto with us. You can find her on social media at Dr. Amy Porto, where she takes on nutrition, misinformation, and diet culture with relatability and humor. She is a registered dietitian and a college professor, and she is also a business owner. I often say that our businesses are ecosystems and Amy and I are talking about all of the intersections of health and self care.

[00:01:27] We dig into how we can show up in the world without fear and shame, and why we shouldn’t wait for a future version of ourselves. Instead, we should be enjoying life right now, and we are talking about the struggles we’ve had around burnout and denied self care. So here’s Amy. 

[00:01:44] Well, Amy, thank you so much for joining me. I’m super excited to have you on the Lucky Pup Podcast. Why don’t you tell the folks a little bit about you.

[00:01:52] Dr Amy: I’m really excited to be here, this is so much fun. 

From the Classroom to Facebook Live Rants: Misinformation and Diet Culture

[00:01:56] Dr Amy: And so my name is Amy Porto, for listeners who don’t know me, and I am a nutrition professor, and also a dietician. But outside of that, in a role where I’m working kind of in a university setting, I also have a business called Professor Eat Better, where I’m working one-on-one with clients doing some consulting, have some online courses, and I’m getting ready to launch a membership program for folks to have some support and education along the way in their journey as they’re kind of working on their relationship with food.

[00:02:25] Morgan: Yeah, I think we see a lot in the dog world how much misinformation there is out there, and it seems like the, the more incorrect that people are usually, the louder that they are and the more forceful they are with their incorrect information. And, you work in the anti diet culture space and so you see this all the time as it applies to food.

[00:02:46] And how did you get into that space? Because that feels like a very, maybe in very niche space, like you are a nutritionist, you are a registered dietician, you are a professor, but you know, not everyone who is a registered dietician or a, you know, a professor of future registered dieticians are talking about being anti-D diet culture.

[00:03:06] Dr Amy: Yeah, that is, that is definitely not where things began for sure. To the extent that I didn’t even know that language. I didn’t know like the language to even say diet culture. And so how things initially began, I wasn’t necessarily looking to start a business really. And if we go back in time a little bit to when Facebook Live was something that was new, I really enjoyed that platform

[00:03:33] a lot. And it gave me an opportunity. To come on and talk about things that I didn’t feel like I could talk about in the classroom. I’d be in the classroom and you know, I’m talking about this is the curriculum and felt, you know, I’m very professional and we’re gonna talk about these things. And then I would see a headline and be like, oh, I need to rant about this and why this is a problem and why it’s wrong.

[00:03:54] And that was an outlet to do it. And I didn’t know who was listening and I just thought, you know, have you seen this thing? And I would just kind of go off because I didn’t. Professionally, I could be doing that with my students until I found out later that my students were following my Facebook Live.

[00:04:08] But that’s a different story. I did not know that at the time as was like the president of my university who would see me in a meeting and was like, I loved what you had to say the other day. And I thought, how did you know that? But but I just became like a, a ranty way to start talking about misinformation.

[00:04:24] And then people would start coming into, what did we call it on Facebook, the messenger, you know, and start asking me nutrition questions. And I started to realize like, oh, there’s a whole other. Area of people who want to be served in a particular way, who are looking at things the way that I’m looking at ’em.

[00:04:42] But I didn’t know what the voice was for that. So as I realized like there’s an opportunity here to educate people who aren’t sitting in the classroom seats in front of me, and maybe a business model is a way to do that. So what’s interesting was what led me to start the business was being a little disruptive and ranty. But then when I started it, I pulled way back. I thought, okay, I need to be the nutrition professor and let me do this very buttoned up course with my very professional slides. And, and it felt that way. It felt like I was just taking the classroom and like recording things and that wasn’t what the people who connected with me, why they connected with me.

[00:05:22] And so I had some I love when you have friends who will tell you who you are. And like friends that we have mutually

[00:05:30] Morgan: I was, I think I know who this friend might be. Yeah. 

[00:05:33] Dr Amy: Who was like, what happened? You know, what happened? She’s like, this is such good information. Like just the cadence in your voice and the fun of all this. Like, it was just so buttoned up and I thought, oh yeah.

[00:05:44] You know I didn’t feel, I, I really felt like I. I needed to be in this dietician space, acting like a dietician. I needed to be very vanilla and just give information that all the people wanted. It didn’t need to be niched. Like, I’m just gonna be very open and talk about everything. Because in the work that I do, I kind of teach a little bit of everything, but that wasn’t what connected me to people in the online space or with the clients that I work with.

[00:06:11] They were looking for someone who was going to be the person when they’re sitting there thinking like, did you see this headline? Did you see this person ranting at a grocery store on TikTok? Like, that doesn’t seem right. And had being able to have someone that they could go to and kinda run that by and be like, is this good science?

[00:06:28] What is this person talking about? And so when I realized that, I thought, okay, we have so much misinformation out there. I do have this knowledge. And it really became over time being okay. Quite honestly, with people kind of pushing back on what you had to say, it’s really safe to talk about what everybody’s talking about and comfortable, but suddenly when you have a divisive opinion, you need to be real comfortable with yourself to deal with the comments and the types of things that people are gonna have to say. And that doesn’t, for me, at least, that didn’t happen overnight. I thought, you know, it took me a minute, like, you know, don’t look at your comments and don’t respond to things, but it does hit you. You know, you do take some of those things personally, until you don’t. And now I find them quite fun. But, but maybe not so much A couple years ago,

[00:07:19] Morgan: And it’s so true, like everybody on the internet has an opinion. 

The Impact of Social Media

[00:07:22] Morgan: And, it’s funny you say that, ’cause actually this morning I was looking through threads and I just, I kind of am a casual perus of threads and, you know, the Instagram app for those, you know, maybe who don’t know what threads is.

[00:07:34] But it’s a lot of people sharing a lot of ideas and a lot of people commenting on their ideas. And there’s a lot of kind of. Uninformed perhaps is the best way to say of, you know, people are commenting on things that they don’t know anything about, right? So they’re just taking the first thing that pops into their brain, they’re typing it out and then they kind of disappear.

[00:07:54] And I’ve thought about, well, do I wanna be on threads? Like do I wanna, well one, is it worth my doom scroll to, you know, be scrolling through all these threads, trying to see what everyone’s commenting on. Is that one, is that worth my time? And also, is it worth my time to be posting in there? Because there’s definitely been a lot of things that I’ve thought about sharing and thought about, talking about, but like you said, it’s that question of which avenue do I wanna open up for the mass public to, to interact? And yeah, like you said, it can be, just draining. Have you found your, your happy place, I guess, on Instagram or, you know, like back on Facebook? Like, are you, are you finding that there’s different people on different platforms and, and they’re interacting in different ways? 

[00:08:34] Dr Amy: Yes, for sure. I find my people that I connect with best and my comfort level, I think most on Instagram because you still have comments that, you know, are, are what they are, but there’s a different level I think people in terms of just how they respond to things. I feel personally, like TikTok is an area that I’m not as comfortable with yet in terms of posting different things. And it just seems like a ruthless place in my opinion. But also a place where people who are disrupting things in nutrition are needed for sure.

[00:09:09] So that’s something I have to get over. Overall, I have also found. Twitter, X, whatever we’re calling it now, just to be like a cesspool of things that I can’t deal with. So I utilize that to like make tweets, to create posts that I do in other places, but I just, I can’t for my own sanity, just I can, I cannot, 

[00:09:31] Morgan: kind of how I feel about threads right now is that it feels very, you know, I mean it was kind of, I think probably developed to be kind of Twitter esque. But it’s interesting to read the comments because you get people who are commenting, who are like, oh my gosh, I never thought of it this way before. Like, you’ve really changed my mind and how I look at things. And then there are people who are commenting and saying, you know, like, are you sure this is right? Because this is not the way I’ve, you know, lived my whole life, and really pushing back. But sometimes it’s helpful to see the people who have pushed back and then the conversation that happens along with that. And do you find a point of how much do you interact with some of those, the naysayers perhaps, or the people who are really skeptical?

[00:10:13] I mean, is there a point where it’s just not worth your time to have those conversations? Or do you find that it is helpful to use that to kind of continue to push the envelope a little bit?

[00:10:22] Dr Amy: I feel like it’s a both. It depends on the situation. I think it’s nuanced, right? It depends on the situation because there are times exactly what you said. I think the educator in me the moment of like, I never thought about it that way, is, you know. That’s why you do all the things that you do, to give a different perspective and let somebody sit in that. And sometimes, you know, they’re not ready to hear it in that moment. So in some ways it is helpful to keep having that engagement as long as it’s done in a way that is kind, you can have a discussion and even a disagreement, but if it doesn’t become mean and unkind, I’m happy to engage in that.

[00:10:58] And it may just end where we don’t agree on something and that’s fine and people are entitled to think on how they think with things. But it’s different than someone who’s kind of pushing to, to get a reaction, you know, related to things who are coming in, in that, where you feel the intention even behind the words.

[00:11:15] That to me is not worth the time. But, you know, it’s interesting you say that because I had a moment like that a few summers ago where. Some creator on Facebook who has a fairly large following, kind of reused.

[00:11:29] One of my posts, it was still me, I was credited on it, but they posted it from their account and I was kind of in bed at that time with Covid in that season. So I had a lot of time to be on my phone, unfortunately. And that’s probably like the most viral thing that had been shared and commented on.

[00:11:45] And it was just and people either got what I was trying to say. It was very polarizing or they didn’t, and those who got it defended me to no end, even though I didn’t know any of these people. And those that didn’t were ruthless and it was cruel. And like, this person should be stripped of their title. I can’t believe they have a job. Like looking, I, it was really like, wow, like this is something on the internet about food. You know? So that I think was a turning point too for me of recognizing like, okay, people who get it get it. And people who don’t just wanna be mad and, I guess we should define this too. I mean, we kind of led with being an anti-D diet dietician and talking about diet culture. ’cause I, some think sometimes people don’t know that language is looking at. What are the mainstream messages that really tell us about how we have to show up a certain way or behave in a certain way, or move in a certain way, or eat in a certain way to be considered quote unquote healthy.

[00:12:45] And there’s an exercise I often do if I’m giving a talk about this or with students, like if you, if we did it right now and did like a Google image search of healthy woman, you know, or healthy male or, or just healthy in general. Images come to mind right away that really feed into this. So you’re going to have someone who is young, right?

[00:13:05] The youth part of this falls into, you know, what are beauty standards? They’re likely going to be blonde, they’re most certainly going to be white. They’re gonna be affluent and they’re very expensive. Yoga gear, you know, they’re probably drinking a green juice. There’s a very certain picture of what we consider health to look like and what bodies need to look like, and all the things that you need to do to show up to look that way. And anytime you push against any of that, that makes people uncomfortable who have bought into that as the way that we need to live. And to nourish ourselves and move in a certain way. And, you know, never let a wrinkle come in and all of that, which is fine if you want to do all of those things with lotions and potions and injections.

[00:13:44] It’s your business. But it is interesting when you kind of push against the messaging that that makes folks upset.

[00:13:50] Morgan: Mm-Hmm. And I think it’s so interesting too, seeing you become, I say more, I like to use the word punchy because I just think it’s a fun word, but 

[00:13:59] Dr Amy: It’s a good word. I like it. 

[00:14:00] Morgan: yeah. I feel like you’ve gotten more punchy and you’ve been like more willing to push back on the those ideals that you’re talking about, or more willing to push back on the people who are fearmongering to the general public. Because. I know it’s something that I have never considered myself to be par, you know, particularly like influenced by like the diet culture world. Like, that’s just not something that I ever felt like was something that was top of mind for me. 

[00:14:27] But the more I’ve followed you, the more I’ve realized there are these little things that I’ve been pa, you know, that are just kind of embedded in me and not in a way that I’m conscious of.

[00:14:37] And so I think it’s just so fascinating to follow along and just learn about the ways that we show up in the world are affected by our perceptions that we’re not even aware of.

[00:14:50] Dr Amy: Absolutely. It’s the air that we breathe. You can’t, you can’t escape. You know, the messaging that’s all around us and it is, yeah, it is challenging to sift through all of that. I think that one of the things that you said there, you know, there’s a piece of the punchy, part of it, I, I kind of see like two camps, one of them being the correction of misinformation for sure. And some of that I just, that’s a professional responsibility. Responsibility really because people do it in different ways and, you know, whatever works for them. But I think you can talk about things and what’s problem about it in an educational way. It’s not, I. I personally don’t find it helpful to just say, well this is information that’s wrong ’cause science and like not explain to people why and give them a lens to walk away with that when they see something the next time they might think, you know, I dunno about that. Like, even though I maybe don’t understand all the pieces, here are the red flags that makes me question, you know, should I be looking at some of that. But there is a lot of messaging and fear around food that it just is really unfortunate.

[00:15:52] Morgan: Yeah, I grew up on a farm and so I think I also had a view of that growing up, you know? And it was like quote unquote conventional farm, you know, done everything, done the conventional way. And I grew up in a very small rural community in a very rural state where people generally support their farmers and they support, you know, a more agricultural lifestyle. ’cause that’s just, you know, the area that I’m in. And then I went to college. And there’s these people who were, you know, taking some they were, I think they were taking like an environmental course and there was like a presentation and they talked about like all of the evils of agriculture.

[00:16:27] And I was like, yeah, but you don’t even have half your facts, right? So how can you be talking about how evil this thing is? And you don’t even have a, the correct basis of information, you know? And it was just one of those moments where I was like, oh, like just people don’t understand and, they can only understand what has been told to them. And if nobody is telling them, and this applies to business, this applies to what we eat, this applies to anything that we hear. But it just goes so much deeper and it’s so pervasive and, and any niche in society because there are. People who are experts who aren’t always as loud as the people who are not experts.

[00:17:04] Dr Amy: That is very true and I, I agree with that. Just to go back, just to talk about business things, that was also a moment for me, kind of on the business journey and finding that voice was that very thing when I was so frustrated with the confidence and borderline arrogance of folks with no knowledge, really having the confidence to just spout off all kinds of things. And here I was with all of this knowledge to share, having imposter syndrome, not wanting to get my picture taken, to put it on a website, not wanted to do like I was comfortable talking on a video to like a couple people on Facebook, but to do that on a larger platform. And I had to sit with that and think, well now don’t be mad at these folks who are out there using their voice if you’re not gonna go out and use your own voice, you know, to be able to be a counter of that.

[00:17:56] And that started to be a place too, that kind of helped, like finding your voice there on the journey is not only did I have a voice, but I needed to use it. Instead of being just frustrated about all the other voices I was hearing.

[00:18:07] 

The Importance of Authenticity and Showing Up as Yourself

[00:18:07] Morgan: You seem to take a good balance between the nutrition things, the factual nutrition things like talking about how sugar is sugar and your body doesn’t know the difference between a corn sugar and a fruit sugar and a whatever else, sugar, but you also talk a lot about encouraging people to show up as their authentic selves as they are right now and not. And I I talked about this book. I love this book so much and I’ve probably mentioned it in four podcasts now. It’s called The Gap in the Game. It’s a great book. And the main premise of this book is happiness does not wait for you at some point out in the future. Because if you’re always waiting for the future to be happy, you’ll never actually be happy.

[00:18:44] And even when you get there to that thing you thought you needed in order to be happy, you still won’t be happy. Because now the horizon has just moved further down the road. And you talk a lot about wellness at any size, what’s that definition of wellness and who does that apply to and who gets to be well and who gets to be healthy.

[00:19:03] And we sometimes deny ourselves our own true version of health and happiness because we think that we can’t have it for right now. And I also just love that message that you talk about. I think about that in terms of like our businesses or in terms of ourselves, and we think something is gonna make us happier, and we think oh, if only I was eating organic vegetables, or if only I would lose those last 20 pounds. If only I had this, like I would be a quote unquote, better version of myself and a happier version of myself. And that is something that you really push back on because you believe that people should be happy now. Like you don’t have to 

[00:19:42] Dr Amy: When I’m working with clients, one of the things we have to really think about, and anyone as you’re entering any type of wellness journey or New Year’s resolution or whatever that thing is going to be, is what do you keep doing these things that are there to improve your health if your body never changed. Because it’s very likely that it might not, you know, you can be beginning to add more exercise into your life. You can be changing some things related to your diet and things may change in your body, you know, physically, aesthetically, that you can see, and they may not. And so would you keep doing that?

[00:20:19] And so I think there’s a lot of intention when you’re making health types of changes of what is that for? And oftentimes when we’re doing things for some type of aesthetic change, they don’t last long because those habits don’t last long because either they’re too extreme and we can’t keep them up, or we don’t see the changes that we want to see. And so we don’t do them.

[00:20:42] So one of the examples I always like to give, you know, which as in the work that you do too with walking, you know, doing a lot of walking is, you know, walking is a wonderful thing for your cardiovascular health for all kinds of things, especially you’re walking with your pet and the bonding and all of that. But what does that need to look like? So if someone started walking 30 minutes a day and they’re out there getting their heart rate up and they find at the end of the month like, wow, this is really great. Like, that’s such a good stress reliever.

[00:21:10] It clears my head at the end of a long work day before I come in with my spouse and my family, I’m a better person ’cause I’m just, I let all that stuff go, or it just is great for me in the morning to start my day and connect with nature. Whatever those things are is very different than if we started a walking program and at the end of the month you step on the scale and you’re like, I lost two ounces. Well that wasn’t worth it. Look at all this time I wasted walking. You know the perspective, it’s the same thing, but you’ve gained so much, your mental health has improved, your heart health has improved regardless of whether the scale moved. And so like would you keep doing that thing even if it didn’t make a change?

[00:21:46] And that’s difficult to wrestle with when we’re in this culture that tells us, well if you just do this, then you will be, or then this will happen. And when that doesn’t happen for you for whatever reason, or you can’t sustain it because life happens to all of us and those habits are tough, that can be challenging.

[00:22:06] And so to your point of not putting the things off, because what if, you know, what if something changes? And that’s great. And that doesn’t mean don’t keep working towards goals that you have. But when it comes to food and movement types of goals, and that can be challenging. And so like, would you keep eating this particular way because you know it’s having an improvement on your blood sugar? Yeah. ’cause you’ll feel better. But does that necessarily mean that the pair of pants you have changed? It might, but it might not. And so that perspective I think is a, a different one. But that also means wrestling through things with body image and other things that are challenging in a culture that really subscribes to us all looking at particular way.

[00:22:47] Morgan: And you’ve also talked about you know, the reasons why you don’t comment on people’s weight gain or loss. And as an example, I had the flu. Literally, I was in bed and I was, I literally ate maybe one bowl of ramen a day for like 10 days. I just, food did not sound good. It did not taste good.

[00:23:05] And I happened to lose a couple pounds because I was dehydrated and I wasn’t eating. And I put, you know, a pair of pants on, I was like, oh, these, you know, these fit a little bit different. And then I, I was like, yeah, because I didn’t eat for 10 days. Like I was not healthy. Like that was not a you know, like, so when someone, you know, someone gets a cancer diagnosis or you know, something has happened and you look at them and you go, oh, you, you know, gosh, you lost weight.

[00:23:29] And you’re like, well yeah, because I had a horrible health situation. You know, so we think about health, like you mentioned earlier about, you know, this idea of what health is. And I was, was listening to a podcast some time ago and the host shared a, a prayer essentially. And he said, I hope that you can be as happy and as healthy as, as it is possible for you to be.

[00:23:50] Because I think we think, you know, I see this with like our pets all the time. Like my dog is getting old. He is, has a lot of health issues. But he can still be healthy even though he isn’t perfectly healthy. And so many times, we think about the, it’s epitome of health and it might not be possible for us all to be the epitome of health because, you know, that’s not the way life is. It’s not, you know, none of us are gonna walk through this world and never have a single thing happen to us because it’s just not realistic.

[00:24:20] Dr Amy: Yeah. And there’s a, a judgment now we’re getting deep. There’s a judgment to that as well. I mean, I a hundred percent agree because there’s a push of, and I see this especially in the space in which I work of, you know, it needs to be obligatory that everyone is pursuing that as their top priority.

[00:24:40] And of course, in the work that I do, you know, that is something that’s important to me. I wanna be working with people to, you know, be whatever health means to them and where they do feel comfortable in their body, whatever that means to them, and that they are able to nourish themselves and have self care and all of those pieces. But that’s not what everybody’s goal is. And I think there’s, it’s keeping that in mind that it isn’t a judgment necessarily. If someone’s goal is, you know, to. Keep things together in their life and they’re, you know, caring for aging parents and they’re working, you know, with their kids and they’re trying to juggle two jobs and they have all these other pressures, it’s totally fine if health is not their number one priority.

[00:25:24] But we push that all the time. Like, if you don’t make it this, you know, if you don’t prioritize your health, your, what is it, your wellness, then you’ll have to pay for your illness as though you, it’s your fault then because, and there’s, and without looking at like systemic issues that impact people, you know, that’s a, a bigger conversation. But there’s a lot of, you know, when we’re getting punchy, you know, what are the things that, that people have capacity to focus on. And it’s okay if it’s different for different people and it’s okay if it’s different for us in different seasons. You know, there’s some moments where you’re really involved in, I wanna be able to have focus on this. I have capacity for this. It’s something that’s really, I wanna be working on, you know, to improve in a particular way. And then other seasons that you don’t and, and that’s okay.

[00:26:11] Morgan: Yeah. I think, you know, two parts here to my thoughts is one I. Finding an authenticity. Like, why is this the thing that I’m choosing to prioritize? Am I prioritizing this because somebody has told me I should, or because I feel like I’m gonna have improvement, X, Y, or Z because of this? Like I want to, you know, run a 5K because I just really love running and I wanna get out there with my dog.

[00:26:37] Or, I have a, a sport and I know that if I start lifting weights, I know that this sport item is gonna become easier for me. But two again, this the toxic. Wellness culture of, well, if you don’t do this, you deserve what’s happened to you. Or, you know, there, and I think this, this is such a, there’s such a huge crossover between the human world and the pet world in this, because, you know, there’s all of these people out there who are saying, you know, if you don’t feed your dog the perfect food, and you don’t do all of these things you’re going to shorten your dog’s life.

[00:27:09] And I wanted to tell people sometimes, like my dog very sadly, two years ago, died of cancer just before her seventh birthday. And she was raw fed, homemade food, all of these things. And in my anger of grief, if the perfect food would’ve fixed my dog, it, she wouldn’t have died.

[00:27:28] But it just again, the shame and the moral judgment of good versus bad that come along with all of these conversations. And it is so interesting to see, you know, the clean food and how that translates from the pet space, into the human space. 

[00:27:41] Dr Amy: Yeah, I joke about that too, if you want to see the biggest trends in the health and wellness space, walk down the aisles of the pet food store because you’ll see them on the labels. And marketing there is fantastic because oftentimes people who are able to care for their pets at that level have the income in which to do so. And so, if you can market something, especially for animals who are with us for a limited amount of time, and so of course you wanna maximize that time. And what a fantastic marketing machine to make you feel. So you’re not doing all that you can, but there’s also autonomy with that you should do what you want to and what you can do.

[00:28:25] But to your point before about commenting on bodies, I think that’s an area where I. I’ve gotten a lot of pushback. And then I’ve also had a lot of like, oh, I’ve never thought about it that way because there is this, you know, but what if you knew someone was really trying, it’s not that you don’t know whether they’ve had a disease or an illness or something like, you know, that they’ve been actively working towards this and you know, they’re looking for validation on that. And I thought, well, that’s the part right there, because what does that say about who they were before?

[00:28:58] You can tell people how great they look in general, and I love your hair today and that’s a great outfit and I, you know, love your energy coming into the room or even you look great, but it doesn’t have to be followed with have you lost weight? Just giving someone a compliment doesn’t have to be couched on how they showed up because it does land that, if that changes the other way, I. Some point of time, then what happens is people don’t show up in the world because if you received all this praise about how you looked in one body and that bodies change, it’s a lot easier to not wanna go to the reunion, to not wanna go and see the people who saw you look a certain way. Those folks probably value you however you show up.

[00:29:38] But the message you receive was, they really praised me when I was this way and they’re not gonna see me that same way. Or they’re gonna be having internal judgment if they commented once. But the other side of that is that example, and it isn’t, isn’t it a warped thing too, where it’s like, Ooh, I had foodborne illness. Look at me, put these jeans on, like I had to vomit and have diarrhea and look how excited I am at the outcome. Like what a bizarre, and we’ve all done that. It’s self included and it’s just a bizarre. it’s it’s a bizarre outcome that we have to like, well, at least I’ll lose a few pounds, but look what I had to do to do that.

[00:30:14] Morgan: Right. Absolutely. 

Navigating Business, Wellness, and Self-Care

[00:30:17] Morgan: And I think for business owners too, this shows up in not showing up for your business. Maybe turning down events, maybe, you know, you and I have talked about this too, like, oh, I didn’t go and get those pictures taken to put on the website because I’m not thrilled with the way my jeans fit.

[00:30:32] Or I used to look a different way and now I look this way. And so I’m not gonna go and do that event that’ll promote my business, or I’m not gonna get on that stage, or I don’t wanna go to that new client meeting ’cause what if they have a judgment against me because of how I show up? And you really talk with your clients too about about just that whole topic.

[00:30:51] Dr Amy: Yeah. And I had to. To do that for myself before I could really talk about that authentically with clients and knowing the change that it has, and that’s really challenging. I don’t wanna minimize the fact that if you don’t feel comfortable in the way that your body is in the world, because you know how it’s been received, then being on a literal stage, like a literal stage and having photographs can be something that’s not an easy thing to do. There’s also a part of if you are a business owner and you’re literally the face of the business that messaging and being out there. I was working with someone, I’m putting my website together a number of years ago, and I just did not wanna do a photo shoot.

[00:31:35] I was like, oh no. And I, I even, I tried to work it, I believed my own nonsense at the time, and I was like, well, no, you know, a lot of what I’m doing, it’s not about me. It’s about, you know, healing your relationship with food and the images could be about food and maybe there’s like one little picture of me on the about page and we could use this good old selfie that I have and it doesn’t need to be, you know, and they really pushed back on me and was like, no, people connect with you. It needs to be you. And, and so I slept on my business for a while because I did not want to do that. 

[00:32:10] And finally a local photographer was gonna do these quick little one hour headshot sessions and I looked at it on a Friday. She had an open spot that Saturday and I just had an impulse moment and I was like. I’m gonna book it and do it. I had no wardrobe planned. I had no anything planned, but I’m gonna do it. And quite honestly, most of the pictures I don’t love, and that is not to say anything about the photographer. ’cause she was fabulous. It was me who wasn’t comfortable in the moment. I felt like I was in like fifth grade at the, at the school photo shoot. Like, it was so tense and it wasn’t natural. 

[00:32:46] And at the very end we had some props. She’s like, oh, I wanna make sure we use these, you know that they’re not like buttoned up headshot, let’s use these. And one of them is me holding a donut, like looking through the eye of the donut. I love it. It’s fantastic. And I was like, okay. Once we got to the point where it was about me, like getting back to your authentic voice and being punchy and being playful and being the dietician who has a donut as the opening shot on her website. And I think my, about me is me eating a chocolate bar. Like those felt much more natural. Like, oh, okay, this is, I wasn’t trying to be someone, I wasn’t in these buttoned up photos. I was being me in the picture. 

[00:33:27] And so translating that into what we were talking about before is to your point about being happy now, like showing up now. Because if I had waited to do that, what if nothing ever changed? Would I have ever had the website? Would I have ever had the business? Because there’s always gonna be something you could make be in your own way, to be your own bottleneck in your business. For sure.

[00:33:48] Morgan: And the future version of you, why does that version of you get to be happier or more successful than your current version? Right. So this idea that I’ve also started in another book just recently. I think you’ve read this, the big leap.

[00:34:02] Dr Amy: Oh, fantastic book.

[00:34:03] Morgan: Yes. So I, I, literally just started it. I’m, you know, maybe a half hour or so in, and he talks in there about, you know, the things that we do to kind of self-sabotage or to get in our own way. And kind of this idea that I shall sacrifice my current happiness because I don’t think I deserve to be happy right now. I don’t deserve to have a successful business, right?

[00:34:25] Like, that’s the part I’m at right now. And it’s just like, oh geez. Like, what are things that I have been doing? Because I think that I, I need to be a martyr in this moment because I, don’t deserve to, and we don’t usually think about it that way.

[00:34:39] We usually don’t say, you know what? I don’t deserve this right now, but this just this idea that you just gotta take charge and, find the, the happy moments or the good moments or the deserving moments now.

[00:34:50] Dr Amy: And, in a business standpoint, doing what you can with what you have. I think there’s a lot of times, especially starting out, you get tripped up with, you see these larger businesses or people who appear or maybe are much more successful and like you’re starting out on things. Well, I don’t have the, the fancier website, or I don’t have the person copywriting my emails and how do I get the email list and I don’t know how to do the gr, all of those things. And you feel like you can’t. Do anything until it’s perfect. It has to look a certain way and be this certain way before you put things out into the world for anything, or even this idea that you have that you wanna work with people in a certain way and it’s gotta be buttoned up. And then you find out once you start doing it, like, oh, that’s gonna change. And then it’s probably gonna change again because you don’t know until you are working with the people whether this is gonna work or not.

[00:35:41] And so even if you have it all tightly, you know, up in a bow of what it’s gonna be, and then you put it out there and offer that to folks and they’re like, oh, well they want that, but they also want this. Okay, so now I’ve gotta change that. And then you learn more about like, oh, this could be more efficient if we did it this way.

[00:35:56] And and figuring that you’re never gonna do anything once. And for a lot of us who really want to do things right and wanna serve people well, that can be really challenging, you know? But I thought about what you were saying there about the don’t deserve, one personal story that I will share because it had such a profound impact on my life in the most bizarre way that I wouldn’t have thought at the moment. I worked with a local company to clean my closet out a while back and part of it was because we were gonna then ironically gonna work on a photo shoot for some other things. And one of the things that they like to do as stylists is save you money and let you shop your own closet. Like, we’re not gonna go out and buy clothes for you because you might have some really great things.

[00:36:45] So we wanna assess what you have. And so what they also like to do then is kind of if you want to audit out your closet. And I was like, this is wonderful because how many of us have held onto many sizes of clothes at, at both ends depending on where you are. Like you may have clothes that you think I may grow into these again. And then also close from like 1990, whatever. Probably will never, you know, happen, but you hold onto it for a variety of reasons.

[00:37:11] Sometimes it’s because, you know, I spent a lot of money on this, or there’s a nostalgia to it, or I think I’m gonna fit back in this. Or it’s inspiring in some way, but not really. And one of the moments that we had in going through all of that, these two women, they were so good and they just made you feel so comfortable. And it wasn’t that long that I was like in my own house, in my underwear, in front of people I didn’t know trying on clothes, but something that they said, I said, yeah, but this was an expensive piece and I wanna hold onto it. And what if I ever would fit in that again? And something they said too is, let’s say your body would change and fit in those clothes again, you deserve up to date clothes. Like you don’t need that thing from 20 years ago unless you’re going to a Halloween party.

[00:37:53] Like if, if, let’s say that things happened in some direction, like don’t you deserve to have the newest style, the nicest thing, you know, versus this thing you’re holding onto from 25 years ago because you spent money on it then, but you’ve not worn it forever. And that was such a shift, like when you’re talking about the deserving to show up type of thing, like Oh yeah.

[00:38:18] And in that moment they took so many bags of things outta my house. Like sometimes I look around for things in my closet, I’m like, oh wait, I don’t have that anymore. That’s right. We got rid of that. Not because I’m some like style maven far from it. But it was a good moment to be like, yeah, you, you. You deserve to have those things that feel comfortable on you and not walk into a closet where you feel like, oh boy, I wish I could fit into that. Let me try that on again and feel bad about myself. Let me, you know, all of that. And it really changed how I showed up in my business with my clients. And that messaging about what do you deserve to do today to take care of yourself and not wait until you know, like you’re saying, the moving target of happiness. Not wait to take the pictures, not wait to go on the vacation, not wait to launch the business. Not wait.

[00:39:04] Morgan: Yeah. And how much that ties into kind of that, the burnout and the self-care side too of being a business owner. ’cause it is so easy to think someday I’ll be able to slow down. And I’m just gonna work super, super hard right now. I’m gonna pack my schedule and I’m gonna work 60 hours a week because someday I’ll get to take less work and someday I’ll take that vacation or oh, I don’t need to eat lunch today because I’ve really got all these people I have to go visit and I’ve gotta really power through and, maybe I’ll just grab that hot dog off the roller at the gas station, because I don’t have time to think about eating a nutritious meal that’s gonna actually fuel me to get through my day because I have packed my schedule so full or, you know, whatever that thing is, or I’m so busy with my family, I don’t have time to think about myself.

[00:39:53] And I think that’s work that you also just ha have talked a lot about and everything’s an ecosystem. I like to say this about business. Our businesses are ecosystems that, you know, you change one thing and it impacts so many other things. And again, kind of this burnout and the wellness and the, the showing up for yourself, how that is so integral into this as well.

[00:40:14] 

The Power of Prioritizing Yourself

[00:40:14] Dr Amy: Yeah, I, I, I think definitely when you are in a service-based type of business, it’s really easy to serve and not do a lot of that for yourself. And truly, you know, when your income is coming from, how well you serve, how much you serve, all of that, it can be difficult to draw boundaries around that because you wanna show up for your people not just to continue with their business, but because you genuinely care about it.

[00:40:40] You know, you’re invested in the work that you do. So that can be really difficult to have boundaries. What I have found with clients that I work with, and I would imagine, you know, for folks in your line of business as well, is, you know, not only are we like last on our lists, sometimes we’re not on our list. We’re not even on the list. I’m a big list maker. I like to cross all kinds of things out. And there’s so many things you’re doing for other people that you really like. Well, if I have a chance, I’ll pack a lunch. But it’s fine. I can get that hotdog, like you said, off the off the roller you know? And some days that’s just life.

[00:41:15] Like

[00:41:16] Morgan: I eat a lot of roller hotdog, like no judgment here.

[00:41:19] Dr Amy: that example came real quick,

[00:41:21] Morgan: It, yes, it was top of mind. I ate one the other day. 

[00:41:24] Dr Amy: Yeah. Yeah. And sometimes that’s just life, you know, every day doesn’t work that way. But we do forget or don’t see the value, or quite honestly, don’t even think about it, you know, of being on our own list or having any type of priority.

[00:41:40] And that shift, you know, can be, you know, we’ve all probably heard, you know, you’ve gotta put your own mask on first, on the airplane before you’re gonna help somebody, like that type of thing. But I do like to think about it more So, a being that’s valuable in your life. You know, if it’s your child or your spouse or your, your dog or your cat, you know if that person or animal got sick, your priorities would change real quick. You know? And all of us have experienced that with someone in our lives where suddenly everything stops and you are gonna do what you need to do to care for that person. So in those moments, we figure it out. We always figure it out. the, You can fly across the country, you can find the money to do the, like, you figure it out.

[00:42:26] But for yourself, now we don’t do that. And it doesn’t even have to be dramatic, just the, the small things like I should get a good night’s sleep. I, I will share for myself, that has been a priority in recent months. I found that I was, you know, in business owner burnout, like caffeinated. When I realized how caffeinated I was, I was like, oh wait, you are middle aged and you are, and you are caffeinated. You are never going to, and I would complain about insomnia. Like, I would fall asleep, but I wouldn’t stay asleep. And I was like, oh, friend, talking to myself, like, how much caffeine are you consuming during the day? I, I can’t do it. I can’t do it for a lot of days without it just taking me out. And then I’m not good to anybody. So prioritizing sleep, I don’t always do it well, and sometimes you gotta meet a deadline, but that has been really important. To me right now in this season. And sometimes you can’t do all the things, but maybe choosing one thing, like you’re saying, I love that ecosystem idea. Like what’s the one thing that could have a really big impact on the other things? Right now I’m finding it is sleep. In other seasons it’s been like, make sure you pack a lunch. Like sometimes that is the thing that if you find where are the parts of your day, where it’s really not working for you, and start with one thing that can really help for your own self-care, rather than what we do on New Year’s Day where we’re suddenly going to eat five fruits and vegetables and only drink water and pack our lunch every day and go for a five mile walk every day till the end of time starting tomorrow.

[00:43:59] Morgan: Yeah, I think sometimes we, I’ll speak for myself. I tend to overcommit and do too many things. Right. And so sometimes it’s easy, like you just said. I need to do these 12 things and if I can’t do all 12, I’m just gonna do none of them 

[00:44:14] because then that, that’s not a version of winning.

[00:44:17] Right. So instead thinking about like, what is one thing, and I’ve also found for myself lately is we’ve started adding on more clients. And so I have 

[00:44:25] started doing more walks and for the last couple years I’ve been primarily doing admin office work. 

[00:44:32] And 

[00:44:33] the last couple weeks after my bout of flu, I have been walking a lot more dogs and doing a little bit less of the admin work.

[00:44:40] And I am finding suddenly it’s like, oh, maybe, maybe I wasn’t exhausted because I wasn’t getting enough sleep. Or, you know, maybe I’m exhausted because I’m actually not doing the right work. You know, 

[00:44:52] like taking it back to like a 

[00:44:53] Dr Amy: That’s an important thing. Yes. 

[00:44:55] Morgan: Yeah. Like I’m getting, I’m feeling you know, burnt out or I’m starting to feel like I’m too tired because I’m doing work that it’s not serving me like it could be. And I’m sure getting out and walking more is also helpful, but also I’m, you know, it’s like maybe this was the, the shift I didn’t know that I needed, 

[00:45:12] and, you know. Again, kind of going back to that conversation of like listening to yourself and trying to be in connection to your 

[00:45:20] own self, because so often, you know you had a whole Instagram series that kind of went viral.

Reconnecting with Your Body & Humor in Diet Culture: Cheat Pees

[00:45:27] Morgan: I don’t know, it was a year, it’s maybe two ago, about cheat pees. 

[00:45:30] You know 

[00:45:30] Dr Amy: Oh, yes. 

[00:45:31] Morgan: like cheat eating and, oh, if I just, you know, I’m just gonna cheat on my eating. Well, we, we don’t talk about like cheat pees. Right? Because everybody has to go to the bathroom. But sometimes I think, oh, I just really gotta hold it ’cause I’ve gotta get through this next walk and I’m running behind and I don’t have time to go take a break or do all these things. Or maybe I’m at a client’s house where I know that they don’t want me to use their bathroom or, you know, 

[00:45:52] there’s all of these things that get kind of layer into there. So we tend to be very good about ignoring what our body is trying to tell 

[00:46:00] Dr Amy: Mm-Hmm. 

[00:46:00] Yeah, that’s, that’s a great a great lead in. ’cause that is exactly the work that I do in all of the different outlets that I have, whether it’s one-on-one in clients, or within the membership program or courses or all of those things, is, is helping people do that reconnection with your body, because we do lose it. And I’m glad you brought up the cheap p highlight ’cause that was so much fun.

[00:46:22] Morgan: Like just say. yeah, you gotta go to your Instagram. Yeah. It’s a It’s a highlight. Find the a highlight. it’s it’s, it’s brilliant. 

[00:46:30] Dr Amy: It’s just so funny, the things that we say about food, that we would never say about other bodily functions. You know, we would just never say things.

[00:46:40] I don’t even remember half of them that, that were on there, but what got fun about that is that people would bring their own responses in. So I had to share those two. I love the one that someone said, if I just had a smaller toilet, I wouldn’t pee as much, all seen those just eat off a smaller plate. I thought that was fantastic. So I can’t take credit for that It was. 

[00:46:56] But, that really gets back to the diet culture type of things, is we do get all these messages that disconnect us from our body, you know? And if you’ve ever followed any way of eating where you can only eat this much, you know, and you’re still hungry afterwards, and then you feel like something’s wrong with you because you didn’t subsist on a half a grapefruit fruit and like a cup of coffee until one o’clock in the afternoon, like, and you’re an active person. It’s that kind of thing where we have all these rules in place versus if we think back to, you know, feeding babies are always a great example of this because, you know, we all have that image of someone giving a baby a spoon and you can see that some point, they turn their heads like that’s it. And either they don’t like the food, they’re full or they’re sick. You know, they’re trying to communicate in any way that they can, that they don’t want any more of this. And we as the humans feel like we know better and are like, oh no, just one more bite. And we start making airplane noises and all kinds of things.

[00:48:00] And eventually we end up with baby food all over ourselves, There are signals that we are taught not to learn, or we unlearn over time because we’ve been told you have to clean your plate because somebody’s starving somewhere. Or you have to do like all these things and you don’t get to listen to that.

[00:48:16] And that’s a radical thing for a lot of people when I talk about that because the, the, the response to that right away was, if I listen to my body, all I would do is eat cereal, ice cream, brownie, whatever your food is, macaroni and cheese. Like it would, my body would never tell me to go eat a salad. And the point is, is that’s probably true in the beginning. That’s probably true. ’cause if you’ve restricted yourself from a lot of things and you suddenly give yourself permission, you end up doing, you make a lot of those choices you didn’t allow yourself to. But we’ve all had that. Time. I think the holidays are a great time where we see, or if you’re on a vacation, you know, and you’re at the first few days of like the holiday food or the vacation food, you’re like, this is amazing. I want the leftovers. I wanna go to that restaurant again. I love it. And by the end of the vacation or by the end of the holiday, you’re like, I, I eat another Christmas cookie if I have another whatever. Like, you’re just over it, you know, and you’re ready to go back into another way. But when we’re following food plans, we never get to the get over it part ’cause we’re always mixing it up and trying some new thing that we don’t get to the point where we’ve kind of like allowed our bodies to start to tell us some things.

[00:49:31] But I’m thinking about your point of just the busyness of your jobs, like reconnecting even to slow down for a minute of like being hungry and getting full and being satisfied with things that you have and like taking the moments to draw some boundaries so that your care is also top of mind. Is a really important practice, but can be challenging when you’re in a business that’s really service-based.

[00:49:56] Morgan: Absolutely. And it’s so time, generally speaking, so time-based too, because you know, Bobby wants his dog walked at noon and I am running 15 minutes behind ’cause I had to clean up a mess, or I met a train on the road and that put me behind. Now I feel like I can’t always take that time that I need to take or, you know, to your point I’m filling my day so much that I don’t have time, quote unquote, 

[00:50:20] to make the food that I need to make so I can put it in a lunchbox so I can take it with me on the next day so I actually have something to eat to nourish me partway through the day. And when we don’t put that time on our schedules and, like you said, sometimes we have bills to pay. Sometimes the 

[00:50:36] season that we’re in is just, 

[00:50:37] I really do have to make as much money as I possibly can for X reason and everything else comes second to that. But, That’s also not a sustainable long term solution. 

[00:50:47] And you know, for the long term we do have to put ourselves in a priority position so we can do those things that we find make 

[00:50:55] us able to get through the day.

[00:50:57] Dr Amy: Yeah. And I, I think in a lot of the work that I do from a nutrition space we talked about this earlier, like echoes a lot of things in business too, is that it doesn’t have to be perfect sometimes it just has to be done. Hmm. And a lot of that happens in just nourishing yourself. In, in a culture where everything is in a meal prepped container and looks so perfect and matchy matchy and everything is planned down to the last gram, like fed is best, grab a snack.

[00:51:26] It doesn’t have to fit any, you know, like as long as you had something available, whatever you packed and had available is better than what you didn’t have packed. So sometimes you don’t have the time to take a Sunday and plan it all out, but knowing for yourself, like, and I work with clients, what are the, let’s test this out.

[00:51:42] What are the snacks that are gonna sustain you on busy days that work for your life? That if you don’t have a refrigerator that don’t, that you can have on hand so that it doesn’t have to look a certain way, it’s not on a plan, it’s what works for you. Oh, on the long afternoons, this is what I’m gonna need, or this is a convenient lunch to eat in my car. And it doesn’t have to be we need to sit at the table and play wonderful music and have a great place setting and eat mindfully. Like, that’s fabulous, but that’s not a lot of life for a lot of folks. So how do you work with what you have? And it doesn’t have to look like Instagram worthy photos of a meal as long as you do it.

[00:52:20] And it’s similar to things in your business. Like it doesn’t have to be the perfect email that you crafted, but you sent it, or the best video that you made. But it’s up there and somebody’s gonna connect with it. And, and the more that you do it, the better you get at doing different things. But it’s just starting. 

[00:52:38] Morgan: so, so true. You just have to start also you made a post a while ago I think this was like almost a year ago where you were talking about Carbs, like your brain needs carbs 

[00:52:49] and it doesn’t matter necessarily what kind of carb it is, right? Like you just, your brain needs fuel and that comes from carbs. And I was like, oh, I never actually thought about that. And so when I go to do a meet and greet with a new client, at the end of the day I try to make sure I have something that’ll provide my brain some energy because 

[00:53:08] I showed up and my brain just felt so sluggish ’cause I hadn’t eaten or drank enough water for the full day because I was too busy running around. Well now I can’t show up for that new client in the way that I wish to because I haven’t properly taken care of what my body actually needs from me, the five hours beforehand.

[00:53:28] 

Self-Care vs. Self-Control: Debunking Diet Myths

[00:53:28] Dr Amy: Yeah, it really is a a, I think if you can approach a lot of things with nutrition from a self-care standpoint, so much of the messaging is a self-control. I need to have willpower, I need to have discipline, I have to have self-control, self-control. But what about the self-care? Like how can you plan for future you? And not necessarily a future you who’s gonna snack on like eight almonds and call it a day. Like what does future you need? And it, it varies from day to day. I would imagine in your business how things happen from day to day change. And so, you know, you plan for that in a different way. It’s gonna be a long time before I eat.

[00:54:04] I’m gonna have this long day till I do the meet and greet. You know, how can you do that? And it really flies in the face of like all of these different food rules that we have and forces us to really think about, okay, hunger and fullness and also being satisfied with the foods that we’re having. It should taste good and, and all of those things.

[00:54:25] But yeah, talking about carbohydrates, no one ever wants to talk about those. ’cause we’re in a season now, it’s been a really long season of how awful carbohydrates are. And I’m just thinking like, we’ve all had that feeling of low blood sugar and some people really experienced that from a medical standpoint, but. If you are with someone with low blood sugar or with type one diabetes or something, and like they pass out or they feel like they’re gonna pass out, what are the things that we give them? You know, you’re doing quick sources of carbohydrates, you wanna get them orange juice, you wanna do something like that, can really get into that system to get things going for them, for their brain. And that feeling when you’re hangry, When is the last time you’ve eaten, when was the last time you’ve eaten a carbohydrate? Because that really is what’s, you know, your brain wants without getting too biochemistry and metabolism.

[00:55:13] But that’s the thing at once. And all of these like low restrictive diets, I think, oh gosh, these people gotta be miserable. Over time. And then the flip side to that is often, you know, folks saying, I have such a sugar, I’m using quotes, addiction, and I can’t stop eating it. And I, I need all of that. And oftentimes that’s coming on the back end. Of restricting a lot of carbohydrates because our bodies are amazing and they do so much to protect us based on all the nonsense we do to them and not take care of them. But if you’ve gone through a long season of like restricting carbohydrates, and finally your body can only have so much, of course the signal goes to like the most concentrated source you can find. Let’s get it all in now. I mean, it’s just evolution . Like, oh, there are cupcakes available. Yes, please, because she does not feed me any of this, and here’s an opportunity, so we’re gonna get it all now. ’cause we don’t know when we will ever see it again.

[00:56:10] So when people tell me things like, I can’t keep that in the house, that makes total sense to me. It makes total sense to me because if you don’t have that freedom to have things around that don’t have that, you know, quote, temptation to you, but with the deprivation, it really, it sets up the system that you kind of can’t win.

[00:56:29] Morgan: And think too, you know, what decisions are you maybe not making with the clearest mind when you are depriving yourself, right? So, again, whether it’s just, Hey, I’m just really, really busy and I didn’t eat today. Well, you’re gonna be sending a message to a client, or you’re gonna be communicating with a team member and you’re not gonna be on top of your game if your brain can’t function like it, it’s supposed to function and you, you know, you might make a mistake or you might miss a critical care instruction because you’re too tired and you know your brain is slow and fill in the blank reason.

[00:57:00] Dr Amy: Or you might be a little snappy ’cause you’re a little hangry and that is not good customer service. You know, if you’re feeling like something that wouldn’t normally bother you with a client suddenly is really bothersome. But yeah, it’s, it is a different shift of really thinking about yourself and your own self-care and what that can look like, and maybe it isn’t all the things, but it’s finding, like you said, in that ecosystem, what’s the most important thing that if you thought, you know, if I just packed snacks, that would really help if I just got enough sleep, that would really be helpful if I really set this boundary in this way for my own mental health, that would be really helpful. Like, what is the thing that came top of mind as you hear that conversation that like, oh yeah, I should do that. And it’s probably the most uncomfortable one too.

[00:57:46] Morgan: Yeah, we tend to like to stay in places that are very comfortable, even if they don’t serve us well. That’s absolutely true. And I, I really loved you said self-control versus self-care.

[00:57:58] Dr Amy: Absolutely. That is a message I really like to nourish yourself from that place of what, what do you need in this moment? What do you need in this day? It’s always planning for future Morgan, what is she gonna need based on this day. How would you plan that? Because you would do that for your dog, if you were going on a trip, you would plan, okay, this is the medications they’re gonna need and they’re gonna need this to be comfortable. And of course they need this favorite toy and you know, like we do all this planning, but what would you need to get through this workday that’s gonna look like this?

[00:58:28] And actually carving out the time to prepare for that. It’s one thing to know what it is to need it, but then preparing for it. And I think that’s where we get in our own way, because especially in our dieting culture with food, it needs to look a certain way, which means I have to shop at this particular store and I have to prepare it in this way and I need to make my overnight oats in my mason jars and then I need to do this other thing.

[00:58:51] And you know, nothing against overnight oats, but it just came to mind where it doesn’t have to look that way. You know what’s gonna get you through the day.

[00:58:58] Morgan: And also with that same thought process is your business doesn’t have to look a certain way, 

[00:59:04] Dr Amy: yes, 

[00:59:04] Morgan: success, we look at certain people or certain businesses and say, oh, that is the definition of success. And what you might not see is the sacrifices that are being made behind the scenes that make that thing possible.

[00:59:17] And they might not be healthy sacrifices, they might be fairly problematic sacrifices, 

[00:59:22] or, 

[00:59:22] this idea of the martyrdom. Like, I shall self-control myself to martyrdom. 

[00:59:27] In order to make something else happen. And just the, the limitations that that puts on us and that puts on our businesses and that puts on just kind of how we show up in the world.

[00:59:37] Dr Amy: Yeah. And, and I also feel like from a, a business standpoint, especially when there’s any online component to it. That has, once you get in that space, you know, you see so many voices telling you how it should look a certain way and how you need to set it up this way and this needs to happen in this way and you need to post this many times, or you need to do this thing this way. And some of that’s worthy.

[01:00:03] I think if you’re starting out and you need to have some foundations, that’s important. But at some point it is like your own intuition and your own voice and knowing who you’re serving and what’s gonna work, and being okay to play with that. It doesn’t have to be, this person and this niche does it this way and I need to follow that playbook. I see that lined up very much with like dieting and food where there’s so many voices telling you you need to eat keto or paleo or vegan or intermittent fasting, or like do all these things and follow all these rules, but how does that work for you in your own life? Like how does this work for you in your own business? You can get some foundational pieces and then use your own kind of intuition knowledge, listening to your own inner voice, whether it’s in your eating or your business to make decisions. 

[01:00:53] And sometimes you’ll get them wrong and it won’t work out that day and you’ll still be hungry or you’ll be like, well, that flopped in the business. But I like to, like when I’m talking with clients. Do it from an experimental framework. Like, let’s try this as an experiment and see what happens. And like, I like data in my science mind, like, let’s gather some data and figure out how this worked or didn’t work. And then decide, okay, is it worth tweaking it and trying it again?

[01:01:18] And I think in business it’s the same idea. Like just because something didn’t go the way you thought doesn’t necessarily mean it’s completely a bad idea. Maybe there was a piece of that that needs to change a little bit and you try it again. But if it’s viewed as like an experiment, well then you know that the experiment could quote, unquote fail, but then you just restructure it and try it differently.

[01:01:38] Or maybe you do abandon it and go in a different direction, but you don’t know unless you put something out there and give it a little trial.

[01:01:46] Morgan: Yeah, and finding out what’s authentic to you because everybody has a framework or a program that they can sell you for $47 and Yep. cents, and you know that framework. Works for everybody, right? Every single person can fit in that framework, and like you said, they might have some good foundations, they might have some really good information in there, but if you can’t take that step back and find out what’s authentic to me?

[01:02:11] What are my goals? What 

[01:02:12] is my version of success? You’re only ever gonna be borrowing somebody else’s idea,

[01:02:17] Dr Amy: Yeah. And it’s, it’s ultimately at the end of the day, it’s your business. It’s your business. I, I liked what you talked about earlier when you were feeling like, oh, this is the part like that I connect with in my own business. So if you’re suddenly putting in all of these things that don’t resonate with you, it doesn’t necessarily mean don’t try them.

[01:02:35] Like, oh, okay, that’s an interesting idea. Nope, that’s not, you know, or yeah, my gut was right. I probably shouldn’t have spent time and energy and money here trying this, but I felt like I had to. And I see that the same way in like how we’re nourishing ourselves. You get these ideas and think, well, maybe, maybe I will try. that green powder and put it in my coffee. Nope. Won’t do that again. Didn’t like that. but you dunno until you test things out and sometimes it’s worth it. And sometimes it’s also just like, no, I’m gonna go with my gut on this one. ’cause I feel like I know my business and I know my people and I just don’t, I don’t see that as a fit, 

[01:03:10] Morgan: Yeah. 

[01:03:10] Dr Amy: though we’re getting a lot of voices.

[01:03:11] Morgan: Mm-Hmm. 

[01:03:13] yeah, And I just think that when you’re trying to find that authentic version of, what feels good to me, and using that in your business to figure out, okay, what is this thing that I want to do?

[01:03:22] And I absolutely agree about experimenting, and some people just aren’t comfortable in experimenting. I did a presentation into a group the other day and this one person said, you know, I just have decision paralysis. Like, I just can’t 

[01:03:33] make any decision because I’m so, I’m, she didn’t say this specifically, but just, I’m very overwhelmed, I think, by all of the options 

[01:03:41] and all the directions to go, and I just don’t even know where to start.

[01:03:44] And sometimes you just gotta pick

[01:03:47] Dr Amy: Yeah, that’s hard to hear though. I, as someone who has suffered from analysis paralysis, I understand that as well. I would be embarrassed to. Tell you how long it took early on until I kind of had a shift. But early on, and I was doing some business course years and years ago when I was even dabbling of like, do I wanna do this thing?

[01:04:09] And one of the things in that course was, you know, choosing your email provider.

[01:04:13] Morgan: Mm.

[01:04:14] Dr Amy: That blew my mind. I took an exorbitant amount of to look through all these different companies and what’s free and what’s paid and what do they offer. I don’t even have an email list. I don’t know what these things that they offer even mean, but it was very important to me to compare all of this. Do you know I never chose one in that moment. It was years later before I actually got into, and in that moment when my mindset had shifted, I was like, oh, people said that’s good. Okay, that one’s good enough for me and I’ll figure it out later because you can always change it. But you couldn’t tell previous me that.

[01:04:49] Previous me had to check all, it was a, it was the biggest decision in the world and it was not the biggest decision in the world. But in the moment, I get it. Because you’re new at something, and you wanna do it right. And something that I struggled with, and when I got this, it made such a difference is that, you know, we have expertise in what we do. my goodness, I have a PhD in nutrition, like I know a lot of things. I do not have a PhD in being a business owner.

[01:05:18] Morgan: Mm.

[01:05:19] Dr Amy: I don’t know many things, so I have to be okay with that. if you have a lot of knowledge in the business that you’re running and the people that you serve that doesn’t mean you have all this knowledge.

[01:05:30] And I think that’s where we get frustrated because we know so much about what we know and we do it really well, that it’s really hard to do something that you don’t know well and you want to do it well because that’s who you are. You are the person who does things well and shows up for people and gives them your best. And so you should also know this, and someone said that to me once, they’re like, why should you know all these things about a business? Like this is not where, this is not to use the book. You’re reading your zone of genius, right? This is not your place and. It’s okay if you make mistakes here because you made a lot of mistakes to get the knowledge base in your area that, you know, it took you a long time to learn those things. And ultimately, if you can have a team of people and people that help you, but when you’re on your own in the beginning you really feel like you need to know the things about setting up a business to the same level that you know your own area. And that is just, that’s not how that works.

[01:06:27] And that was, that was a good lesson for me once I realized it was okay that I could be a newbie person and I didn’t have to show up acting like I knew how to do that part of it. You could still do it. Well and, and people are forgiving too. I think that’s part of the auth authenticity is if I have found, I don’t know if this is something a lot everybody’s comfortable with, but like sharing the journey along the way. I think that’s relatable to people. Not necessarily like the big snafus. You might wanna keep those to yourself, but, you know, letting people know like, Hey, I’m trying this out and I’m really excited for you to come along the journey with me, or whatever that looks like. Or, we’re trying this new service and we’re doing this option and we’re excited to get folks involved and here’s what it’s gonna look like and we’d love your feedback.

[01:07:12] You know, knowing that people also know that it’s kind of an experiment and you’re trying something new out and you value their opinion, sometimes it maybe puts us a little bit more at ease if we’ve let them know this isn’t the perfect version and something might go wrong. Like, if you’ve led with that, it kind of helps us sit in the, in the tension of being okay with maybe it’s not gonna be perfect.

[01:07:34] Morgan: Yeah, and with always wanting to be perfect it can be hard to, say somebody wants to grow to a certain level in their business, and maybe that’s a certain number of team members, or it’s a new course or a new service. It can be so easy to stay where you’re comfortable.

[01:07:52] Dr Amy: Oh, for sure.

[01:07:53] Morgan: Kind of, again, this idea of self-control and kind of denial of, well, I’m not gonna try this because I’m just too busy right here and in my comfort area, and it’s easier to do all of the research and it is easier to follow somebody else’s 10 step plan or not eat after 6:00 PM or, don’t even keep the cupcakes in the house because they’re too tempting again, 

[01:08:17] quote unquote. And it’s so, it’s easier to self-control and self deny than it is to strike out and do something that 

[01:08:25] is an experiment or that is new because it’s just so much less comfortable than the kind of the self-control that we’re used to.

[01:08:34] Dr Amy: And that takes, I think, both of those examples, the cupcakes in the house and the business part of that. That takes trust. That takes trust in ourselves. And it’s trust in, to the cupcake example, I’ll go through this with clients and every single one of them that has taken the leap comes back and was like, I did not believe that Doritos could be in my house ever. but I, I signed up for this, so I’m gonna try your little experiment and see, and now look at this, like this is actually a thing. Like it’s, you might not have trusted yourself, but you trusted me, and then you trusted yourself

[01:09:06] to do that. 

[01:09:06] So it’s, you know, finding something. But it is uncomfortable to do something like that. Like to do an experiment, especially when you don’t believe what’s on the other side. And I think that’s in business too. If you’re gonna do something that’s like taking a leap outside of like, I’ve been successful at this level and I’m doing a status quo and I don’t wanna rock the boat and I gotta make payroll for these employees.

[01:09:30] And what if we do this and it doesn’t work? But maybe it’s not at the biggest level to begin with if that’s not your comfort load, but you certainly don’t know if you don’t put anything out there. And I think that comes back to kind of what we talked to at the top of this, is finding whatever that is within your own niche that makes you different and your own voice as well.

[01:09:50] Because sometimes it’s the comfort level is being here, but there’s something on at you of like, Hmm, I really wanna do this, or I wanna really say this, or I, but I don’t wanna do that. ’cause that might tick some people off and yet that’s still the calling, someone’s waiting to hear that. Someone is gonna really connect with that and they’re kind of just waiting for you to voice it or you to offer it or whatever that would be. And, and that comes back to the trust part. You are a business owner, do you trust what you know about your area and the people that you serve? And like, if you are feeling it, you’re probably feeling it ’cause someone needs it or needs to hear it or needs that service or whatever that is.

[01:10:29] Morgan: And it’s so easy to play smaller and not show up. Like we talked earlier about showing up in your business and the, the myriad of reasons that we tend to not show up for our businesses, whether that’s showing up physically, in pictures or showing up on social media or just telling your story and putting yourself out there because it can be so much easier to not that it can be so much easier when we’re not fully committed to doing something.

[01:10:55] I don’t even remember what my situation was, but at one point I wasn’t fully committed to doing something, but I thought that I was, and I was like, well, it’s just not happening. I, I guess this wasn’t the right move. It’s just not happening. And then as the universe tends to do, a real popped up on social media and this guy was talking about being an actor.

[01:11:13] Dr Amy: I love this story. Yeah. 

[01:11:15] Morgan: So, he was just like waiting tables and he is like, oh, I’m not. And he is like some famous actor and he is just like, it’s not working. I’m just gonna quit being an actor. And this mentor of his said, well, are you, are you actually trying?

[01:11:27] Dr Amy: Mm-Hmm.

[01:11:27] Morgan: And he’s like, well, I, I guess not. I guess I’m not actually trying to do this. And then they decided to try and then, then they got the quote unquote got their big break and it kind of took off. So, okay. So you have to finish the story for me. So do you remember who the actual person is? 

[01:11:43] Dr Amy: I remember that he got a part with Hamilton in the first run of all of that. I remember that was the end point where it was . But I remember that, that that was because he wrote a book. That’s how I remember though, 

[01:11:55] Morgan: Oh, it was Leslie Odom Jr. Now that you said that, because I read his book ’cause I’ve read a bajillion books.

[01:12:02] Dr Amy: right. That was the story. But yeah, and I remember hearing that story because it was, you know, well, okay, have you really tried and what are all the things that you

[01:12:10] Morgan: yes, yes, exactly. 

[01:12:12] Dr Amy: and so then it does, I agree, in a business standpoint. Then it is, Well, have you done this? And have you tried, you know, and we really think we’ve tried all the things that made us comfortable, or we tried them once.

[01:12:24] Morgan: Yes.

[01:12:25] Dr Amy: Well, I told my story that one time and I didn’t go viral, or I Yeah, I did a reel, or I did that post, or I did that email. And it just is a constant over and over again.

[01:12:36] And, and that really lines up with the space in which I work with, where people come and they’ve like, I’ve tried every diet, I’ve done everything. And then the answer becomes, well, what if you didn’t?

[01:12:47] Morgan: Hmm.

[01:12:47] Dr Amy: What if you stopped trying and just started listening to yourself? What if you were the writer of your own book? That’s the one thing you haven’t tried is you. And people are like, well, I don’t know. if someone didn’t tell me what to do, what would I do? And I, I push that on clients a lot to Tatum. No one told you what to eat if you didn’t have any food rules, what would you do?

[01:13:08] How would you make those decisions? And that becomes a really interesting conversation. It kind of unpacks a lot about the rules that you have and where they came from and are they valid and, how would you make those kind of decisions? Oftentimes for those folks, that is the one thing they haven’t tried, But in business for sure, it’s easy to think we’ve done all the things.

[01:13:28] Morgan: Yeah. Amy, I think I could talk with you for about five hours, so 

[01:13:33] Dr Amy: Agreed. 

[01:13:35] Morgan: so, Lizzie in the background there, your dog, Lizzie is having a good stretch, so I think she’s like, she’s like, excuse me, folks. It, it’s time to wrap this conversation.

[01:13:43] Dr Amy: You know what’s comical and she can’t even hear you because we’re on headphones, but I have found there must be something about my tone of voice that changes that like she knows that it’s over.

[01:13:53] Morgan: mm-Hmm. 

[01:13:54] Dr Amy: is usually when she gets up and stretches. I don’t know how animals are so smart.

[01:13:57] Morgan: Yeah. My, I have a puppy at home right now. He’s about seven months old, and he knows when I wake up in the morning, and I won’t move and I probably move more of in that kind of half dream state and I’m like kind of awake, but I’m not really awake.

[01:14:12] And he knows he’ll start getting restless and start moving around and I’m just like, buddy, I want another 30 minutes. And he’s like, Nope, you’re awake, let’s get going. I was like, how, how do you know?

[01:14:22] Dr Amy: The human is conscious. Let’s go.

[01:14:24] Morgan: Yeah, exactly. Dogs are pretty cool. 

The Dog Walking Challenge: A Community of Support and Fun

[01:14:26] Morgan: And actually, you know, Amy, let’s also talk, you have a really cool group that I have really enjoyed over the years and I’ve been a part of this group. At least probably since like 2019, I think. since since when I joined your group. So tell us a little bit about your group and how cool it is, because I just feel like all of us dog walkers should be joining your group.

[01:14:49] Dr Amy: Yeah, you wanna talk about putting things out there and not knowing what was gonna happen? So I have a, a Facebook group that’s a dog walking challenge and it is a free group. It’s a private group, we keep it private ’cause people share pictures in their location and things like that.

[01:15:04] And it really started out kind of the story, I don’t even know if you know this, that I was walking my dog who was in her younger ages, she’s almost 14 was very active. We don’t have a fenced in yard. And so there was a lot of walking that was happening for her.

[01:15:18] Especially as a puppy. We walked a lot. And I was reading an article, it was like National Dog Walking Week about the statistics of how many dogs are active in their yard, but they don’t get to get out and sniff and, and do all kinds of things. And I thought, wouldn’t that be fun to have like a challenge online with like people I know and we’ll do 30 days and we’ll walk our dogs and we’ll make a little commitment. And I did the first challenge. You wanna talk about pivoting, like you would pivot in your business. What a mistake this was, but it was a lot of fun. We did the 30 by 30 challenge, 30 minutes a day for 30 straight days. Well, that was ridiculous because it rains and some dogs can’t walk for 30 minutes. And like all these things that with a young dog, I didn’t think about. But what I did with that group, when we’re talking about mistakes, is I offered a prize to every person who finished the challenge because I figured this will get shared with my Facebook friends. When it was all said and done in the very first group, I had almost a thousand people in the group. The thing got shared and shared and shared and shared. All over the world, like I think every place but Antarctica. I had people walk in in this challenge and show pictures. It was amazing. And then I had to keep track of who did the challenge and posted, because I said I would, and now I’m mailing, I, I got magnets For your car that said I’d rather be walking my dog.

[01:16:36] Dr Amy: And I’m mailing these all across the world, which was like way more than the expense of the magnet. So we didn’t do that in again. But some of those folks are still with me in the group. And we shifted the challenge now to a hundred miles between seasons. So, at the time that we’re doing this is the a hundred miles by summer. So like on the first day of spring, we would be walking a hundred miles to the first day of summer. Now I can share with my own dog. We haven’t met the a hundred miles in the challenge for many challenges recently, just based on her mobility and arthritis and things. But how the group has changed over time is it really just is a positive space with people enjoying time with their dogs.

[01:17:14] Some people are getting like 600 miles. Some people don’t record any miles. They’re just there to walk with their dog and post fun pictures. And everybody’s included in that. We’ve had a lot of folks using mobility assistance with their service dogs, and it’s just been fun. And so over the years we added a scavenger hunt to it, which some people really like to look for certain items on your walks, which challenges you to get out of on a different route or maybe in a different neighborhood, or go into someplace more urban if you’re more in the country or out in the country if you’re more urban.

[01:17:46] And, and sometimes that doesn’t work for folks or dogs, some dogs are not comfortable in different environments, so that doesn’t always work. But but it’s a lot of fun to see where people live and how photogenic their dogs are. And it’s enough of a community. Like there’s one woman in there who I always use as, as an example, who has been doing this long enough that it initially was she and her husband and the dogs, and then. She had her daughter and then now the daughter is walking a dog and now she has twins. And like we’ve watched her family grow to the point where some in the family are old enough to be walking the dogs. And so it’s just a really neat thing to see people from all over, of all ages and backgrounds and abilities and all dogs of different sizes and abilities.

[01:18:30] And you really get connected to people and especially through the journeys of loss of dogs and new dogs coming in, you know, and you feel like I’ve never met any of these people in real life. Although some of them have found each other in areas where they live, like, oh, we should meet up and go for a walk, which is always fun, but it’s just a fun space and it’s a really positive place and I’ve just enjoyed keeping it going.

[01:18:53] And I think as long as Lizzie wants to be a part of it, you know, we’ll keep doing it. And we don’t hit the a hundred miles. But I do love the scavenger hunt. I have a lot of fun with that.

[01:19:01] Morgan: That it is really a fun group. And I’ve been a part of losing dogs and adding new dogs and at the beginning of the group you usually say, okay, post your dogs and do a little intro. And I had people who said, gosh, I really miss seeing your dog who passed away. Like, she was so, she was so fun. And it was so fun to see. And you know, it’s great to see your new dog, but you know, I’m thinking about you still. I was like, oh, that’s just, that was so nice. And we are in the camp, I should say, of I stopped keeping track of the miles because it, it got into that again, that self-control versus self-care. I realized like I was so focused on the miles, I wasn’t having fun anymore. Or I felt a, a level of oh, I didn’t get out as many times this week .

[01:19:39] And I just realized, why am I trying to keep track of all of this when the goal is truly to enjoy more time with my dogs? And so I just, I just stopped counting and I said, I’m gonna challenge myself to get out more than I have been getting out. But I just wanna go out and my dogs have a fun time.

[01:19:57] And I I made a post in this last challenge of, oh, we only made it a couple blocks today. And they did, they did 

[01:20:05] Dr Amy: They came for you. That’s a rule in the group. That’s a rule. Morgan, come on.

[01:20:08] Morgan: yeah, they said, remember, it’s not just like your dog was still out having fun. You still had a good time. Like, the distance Yep. 

[01:20:16] The four. 

[01:20:16] It’s a bad four letter word. So, yeah. I love how you’re bringing your passions for multiple things together and yeah. It’s just, it’s been a really fun thing to be a part of.

[01:20:25] Dr Amy: I appreciate you saying that. Like you take from it what you like, and you kind of leave the rest. And I like that people have embraced that a lot. Like if Miles or something, then don’t do that, you know? And that’s been great. 

[01:20:37] Morgan: And what a great way to phrase all of these things we’ve talked about today is take what works, leave what doesn’t, and just keep going. So Amy, thank you so much for being here today. 

Final Thoughts and Resources for a Better Relationship with Food

[01:20:48] Morgan: So why don’t you tell people, how can they find you on social media, your website, and like you said, you’ve got a cool program.

[01:20:53] Dr Amy: Yeah, so my website is my name, so it’s amy porto.com. I hang out mostly on Instagram, which is Dr. Amy Porto. ’cause without the.it looks like dreamy and that’s just weird. So I had to put that on there. That was my own little piece to that. So if you go to Instagram, you can kind of scroll through the highlights and find that little cheat p we were talking about.

[01:21:17] That’s a fun space and I’m always someone who’s happy to chat in the dms. In there also. But yeah, to the program, I’m really excited about which has been a passion project called the Eat Better Club. And so my business name is Professor Eat Better. So as a playoff of that I wanted to create a community space that really came out of conversations that I was having with clients. I would be working one-on-one with folks, and I’d like talk to a client in Florida and I’d be thinking, you know, if she met my client in Texas, they would be best friends. see.

[01:21:47] And then I talked to this other client in this other place and think, wow, these folks would really get along. And I was realizing that so many of us who have gone through a lot of ups and downs related to body image and diet and nutrition are just trying to like, figure it out. Have such similar stories, like different lived experiences, but really similar stories in a lot of ways. And yet we feel like we’re the only one. Who has thought that? Who has done that? Who has felt that? Who had that? And I thought, wow, wouldn’t it be great to have a community space where you could feel heard and seen and valued for that experience? But also where I can be a person who is speaking into, you know, what is the latest headline and what’s the science behind that and how do we start really working through coming to a better relationship with food, with some nutrition knowledge behind it, and I’m excited.

[01:22:39] So one of the things that I have put together for people as they’re looking at exploring some of the things that we’ve talked about, like going through building some of those better relationship with food and looking at food rules and trusting your body and all of that is a guide on how to start building a better relationship with food and with your body.

[01:22:55] And so what I’ve done for folks is as. They are interested in maybe checking out the Eat Better Club they can connect and get a copy of that guide for free. And you can find that at my Instagram page or by going to amy porto.com/links and you can see a place to get that guide. And so I hope folks check it out and hop in the dms and tell me what you think.

[01:23:15] Morgan: Fantastic. And we’ll drop all of those links in the show notes so folks can, you know, head over there too to pick ’em up. But Amy, thank you so much for sharing. This is, like I said, we could have talked for hours. thank you so much for being here and for sharing this just wonderful conversation. So thank you so much. 

[01:23:30] Dr Amy: Thank you so much for the invite. I had a lot of fun.

[01:23:33] Morgan: Thank you so much for listening today. You can find show notes, transcripts, and more on our website, luckypuppod. com. Don’t forget, review, comment, like, share this conversation with your friends. Then don’t forget to reach out. You can find us on Instagram at luckypuppod or luckypuppodcast on Facebook, or send us an email info at luckypuppod. com. Until then, don’t forget to live a more full and happy life. We’ll talk to you soon. 

[01:24:05] Hey everyone, Morgan here. Now, just one more quick thing. We’ve been talking a lot about burnout in the last few episodes, and I want to remind you that I have a burnout assessment tool. Completely free. You can find it on our website with all of the episodes, but you can also find it at PetSitterBurnout. com. Now, this assessment works for anybody, not just pet sitters. It’s 15 quick, short questions, it’s a gut check to see where you’re sitting with your burnout, are you at the beginning stages, are you getting into that heavier middle? Or do you have acute chronic burnout that really needs some attention? I would love if you could hop in there because the best way forward is to know where you’re currently at. PetSitterBurnout. com.