Body Liberation, Diet Culture, and Reclaiming Agency in Fitness (with Àngel Casas)
Dr. Rosy Boa hosts Science of Slink with guest trainer Àngel Casas, who practices body liberation, anti-diet, weight-neutral coaching, with a content warning for eating disorders, religious trauma, body weight, diet culture, and fatphobia. Angel describes being raised in a religious cult with strict body control, later leaving, coming out as a queer man, and repeatedly yo-yo dieting and losing over 100 pounds multiple times before starting a weight-loss fitness business during COVID. After working with clients and feeling triggered by diet practices, he sought help at an eating disorder center and learned about oppression, capitalism, and how “good body/bad body” narratives connect to diet culture; he shifted into non-diet personal training. Together they discuss weight-loss fitness as a results-based “scam,” problems with BMI and moralizing body size, medical fatphobia, GLP-1 drugs and harm reduction, alternative health markers (embodiment, daily functioning, strength, breath, joy), dismantling authoritarian fitness power dynamics, and building agency and compassion in movement.
You can find Àngel at:
https://nondietpersonaltraining.com/
Chapters:
00:00 Welcome and Content Warning
00:48 Angels Origin Story
08:07 BMI, Medical Fatphobia
10:03 Culture Morality and GLP1s
12:01 Health Beyond Weight & Training for Bigger Life
19:48 Learning Movement Autonomy & Joy
32:31 How To Work Together
34:09 Final Thanks And Wrap
Transcript:
Rosy: [00:00:00] Welcome to Science of Slink, the Evidence-based pole podcast with me, your host, Dr. Rosy Boa, and special guest. Very excited that we could, uh, get this on the calendar. A Angel Casas, who is a, uh, trainer who really focuses on, body positivity, well, I should say, uh, body liberation coaching anti-D diet, weight neutral all that good stuff.
Some of y'all may have listened to the episode that we did with the dietician a while ago where we talked about some of these things, but we're gonna be digging in. And before we get into it, just an FYI, we will probably be talking about eating disorders. We might talk a little bit about religious trauma.
We'll definitely be talking about body weight and diet culture and fat phobia. So. If that's not for you today, I'll see you in the next episode. And if it is welcome, I think you'll like this conversation. I'm very much looking forward to it. Uh, so Angel tell us a little bit about yourself and.
I think in particular it would be really helpful 'cause we are all sort of swimming in diet culture. We're all swimming in anti-fat bias and fat phobia. [00:01:00] How did you come to the place where you're like, wait a minute, something's wrong
Angel: here. Yeah. Thank you so much for having me. I'm so excited to be here.
Um, I've listened to a couple of your episodes and follow your work. So just love the great work that you're doing of creating a positive experience for folks to show up as they are in all body sizes. Yeah, super excited for this conversation today. I think just for some context, um, that would help just to how I came to that, how I arrived to that conclusion.
I was raised in a religious cult. My body was constantly controlled. We were constantly having rules about what a good body is and what a bad body is. A good body goes to heaven and goes to paradise. A bad body goes to hell. So just being raised around how my body needed to be controlled was just something part of my childhood and my upbringing.
I started to have a lot of curiosity around my sexuality. Everything that I read in the Bible and everything that the church leader said, it was horrible. It was bad. So I suppressed a lot of my now today we call this queer [00:02:00] identity, right? But back then it was just my sinful thoughts. Um, I ended up getting married to a woman.
We had kids together, and I did everything possible to obey my parents. It'll be the church. Something inside me, which I'm sure a lot of us can relate. We don't have an answer or a name for it, but it is just something telling you you need to get out, you need to leave. Um, so I did, I left the church, um, I got divorced.
I came out as a queer man and I felt like the world is my oyster stir. I can do all the things right, as many of us do when we get unlimited freedom or when we find it. Um, and so for me, like I've yo-yo dieted my whole life, um. I dieted with my mom. A lot of us learned diet culture from our mothers. Uh, we dieted together.
We did weight loss challenges together. I've lost over a hundred pounds multiple times. And the last time I did it was right at COVID. So when COVID hit right, we were all just really, segregated and we were needing community and connection. So at this point in this weight loss journey, it was like, I don't want this [00:03:00] weight to ever come back.
It is horribly difficult to diet and to pull your body through all that harm. Um, what is the one way that I can keep this weight off? And for me was I want to start a weight loss business. So I started to, I grabbed a speaker and a QR code, um, and I went to the lakefront here in my, uh, neighborhood and I just started to.
Host these fun fitness classes and I had a little bachata Cumbia vibes to it as well. And these classes just spread like wildfire. Um, and folks started to really enjoy it. And then they asked me for personal training and I was like, me, a personal trainer. Like never, right? Like the fat guy was like. What, I can't do this, this is not possible.
But I went and I got all my certifications and I started to train folks and I started to get very triggered when I started to work with folks who have had eating disorders. Something about them, um, when I would weigh them in and the how their body was shaking. That before and afters the shame around the things that they were not allowed to [00:04:00] have on the diet, that didn't feel even good for me to enforce.
'cause I wasn't even able to stick that diet, but I could never say that to them. So I started to gain a lot of weight. My business started to grow and I was just, um, I know you talk a lot about, about, um. Homeostasis, right? Like your body is trying to return to a baseline of survival. Um, so I desperately went to go seek help.
I went to an eating disorder center and I got diagnosed with an eating disorder. But like many of us who go to the eating disorder spaces we're going there to get fixed. Like, tell me what am I doing wrong? Like, I have researched everything and anything about weight loss and macros and exercise and input and output and macros.
Like what? Tell me what is it that I'm missing, you know? At this point, I have a master's in weight loss. And to realize that, where I said, where do I got an eating disorder? Where did this come from? And so the floodgates opened up and I learned about systems of oppression and patriarchy and capitalism and the construct of what a good body [00:05:00] is, which connected the same back to religion, right?
It was like you saw, wow, the intersection of how these two systems work together to oppress our bodies. So for me to be able to get that yeah, it, it was, it was really hard because I remember that that frustration of like, what, I don't what, you know, I've been told that this is health. I've been told that weight loss equals health.
But I also recognize like that harm in my body that. I hated dieting. I hated it. Yeah, I hated whenever anyone said, oh my God, it's so easy. Like, all you gotta do is, you know, it was like, it's not that easy. It is really like you're constantly fighting the cravings. You're constantly working out when you're exhausted.
But we're doing it for, for love. For acceptance. Um, so once I figured all this out, I was like, I'm out. I'm done. I want nothing to do with the fitness industry. But it was actually my therapist who was like, no, slow down. Like we need you here. We need a person of color. We need a queer person who is speaking up and showing up in a bigger body and saying like, Hey, let me show you [00:06:00] what.
Actually is, it's connecting to our bodies. It's honoring our desires, honoring our needs, attending to those needs. Um, and that's what drove me to build the community that I have today. The Body liberation movement, non diet, personal training. And I was really scared because I was like, oh my goodness.
Is anyone gonna follow me? Right? Because in the past, my value of my services were how much weight can I help you lose, how much I can transform your body? But none of that is gonna be part of my new business model. And to my surprise, I belong now to a beautiful community of decolonizing therapists, anti diet dieticians, um, all of these anti-D diet practitioners who all have the same values.
And yeah, I'm so excited to be in this space for now. My career, my business. She's just growing and flourishing. And yeah, excited to be here with you 'cause we get to expand this work more and be able to reach more folks who need this help.
Rosy: Yeah. And it is a constant uphill struggle. I, I know you mentioned going through personal cer training certification and like when I did mine, I would say [00:07:00] about half of the total certification time was like, and here's how you help people lose weight.
And like at that point I was already you know, sort of aware of diet culture. I'd gone through my own eating disorder journey, uh, and had gotten to a point of like fairly stable body neutrality. And I was like this scientifically based on the research doesn't work, right? You are selling somebody. A product. It's, it's a scam. Yeah. Do you wanna talk about that a little bit?
Angel: Yeah. It's a big scam because the industry, the fitness industry as we know it, it's not health.
It's all about body modifications. It's all about appearance based. It's all about results based, controlling your body, which we know that the body will eventually go to where it needs to for survival to feel safe. So for me, it's. It's, yeah it's really sad when, when you see it all because you're just so disconnected from your body.
And what's really crazy about it is even when you do provide people the language of like, this is not health. They [00:08:00] just don't get it. It's been so, beat into us, right? It is been so drummed into our bodies that weight loss equals health. But I mean, you look at BMI. Right. Where did BMI come from? Like this guy had nothing to do with health or science.
He's a mathematician and he takes a group of men, right? And average size body, you know, for men in Europe is very different than the rest of the world. You know, women weren't even included in that you know, in that, um, formula. And then we then adopt it today and we're like, okay, it depends on where you're on this, on this scale, on this, uh.
Spectrum of BMI, you're either overweight or obese, you know, and so by like these words, overweight and obese are all made up based on, again, their body types. And so recognizing like that's not health and overweight, obesity, these words have been used to pathologize people in bigger bodies. We know that.
There are a lot of folks in bigger bodies who are very healthy, and we know that there are folks in smaller bodies who are very [00:09:00] unhealthy, so there's no way that you can ever look at a body and say you're healthy. You don't know what's going on inside. You don't know if that person, that smaller body is dealing with all different types of illnesses, including eating disorders.
Um, so yeah, it, it took a time to process it and I say, oh, I think I am still processing it because it's so extensive. I mean, it's, it's in our policies, right? It's insurance premiums, it's in, uh, medical fat phobia. How many of us in bigger bodies don't want to go to the doctor? 'cause I don't want to hear this weight loss conversation.
I want to be taking care of as a human being, but there's definitely a lot of work to do. Yeah. To discover the truth in our mask. Yeah. The concept is we are sold of it.
Rosy: Absolutely. Yeah. And I mean, this is very real negative consequences for people, right? We talked about eating disorders, much less likely to be correctly diagnosed and treated in people with larger bodies.
In general diagnoses times for people with larger bodies is just longer than it is for folks in smaller bodies. And the real equation of thinness [00:10:00] not only with health, but also with morality. it's so pervasive. I was, uh, I was, I was watching a video the other day about Morning Doves, which are, they're a type of pigeon, uh, for folks who are not familiar.
They're, they're very beautiful. I think they're very beautiful. And, uh, the person was like, in, in the video was like, yeah, a lot of people don't like morning doves because they're kind of fluffy, they're round, there's like, they're fat so they have to be lazy. And I was like, you. Huh. It would never occur to me to look at a wild animal and be like, because this wild animal has a round silhouette, it therefore must be lazy.
Right? But this like through line between body shape and, moral behaviors, and then providing a moral judgment again on a, a wild animal, like it's, there's a reason it's that shape, but it's because that's the shape that survives in that niche is wild. It's everywhere.
Angel: I mean, look at Disney. Why is always the evil character a fat person?
Look at a Ariel. You know the Little Mermaid, you know, you'll see this a lot just, yeah, it's absolutely [00:11:00] everywhere. We're constantly being sold that fat is lazy, fat is bad. Get rid of your fat. Do everything possible to eliminate it. We're in the era of the GLP one drugs. Um, where we're also seeing celebrities, you know, constantly using, over abusing these drugs and their bodies and how they look.
Um, so it's, it's hard. It's so much pressure. You know, when I work with my clients, I always say, I'll meet you where you're at. If you are taking a GLP one, if you're going through bariatric surgery, like, there is no shame here. Let me help you through a harm reduction approach. Because a harm reduction approach is much more humane than giving folks the shame, right?
The shame trip of like what you should and shouldn't do. And helping them become the agent, you know, their bodies becoming the experts of their bodies and building that trust in that agency with them is so important in a world. Where're constantly being told to shrink your body at all costs.
Rosy: Yeah.
It is a, it is an ongoing relationship with yourself but also like reflects out into the wider world and your relationship [00:12:00] with other people as well. You mentioned, uh, health at every size, uh, and if we are decoupling the idea that okay, healthy is skinny fat is unhealthy, uh, which is also just sort of historically also fairly tightly bounded, uh, sort of viewpoint. This is, uh, certainly not cross-culturally or, you know, cross historically. True. Yeah. What are some things that we can look at instead of body weight? Um, instead of even something like how much fat you have, if we are thinking about markers of health and things that you might wanna train for.
Right. I mean, obviously, uh, on a. We're all poor dancer. Well, Angle is not a pole dancer, but you kindly agreed to join us. But for me, a lot of the things that I'm training towards are, right now, I'm really working on my middle splits. Right. And that's something that has it has something to do with body fat composition, right?
Because, you know, I have a little bit more on my inner thighs, so in order to get like actually flat, I'm gonna have to start training over splits just so I have space. So it affects things, but that is not the marker of the goal that I am training towards. But what are some other things that we [00:13:00] can think about that we might work towards as we, as we are training.
Angel: Yeah, definitely. So when clients come to me, they usually are saying, Hey, listen, I want to feel better 'cause I feel terrible. I'm not moving my body. I am petrified of the gym. I am scared of hurting myself and you know, just making things worse.
I want to move my body, but I don't wanna die it anymore. And that message always just touches my heart because I know exactly how they feel. So I always welcome folks to show up exactly as you are. We're always going to meet, um, your body at that day, whether we're feeling low on energy or we're having a little more energy, um, starting to focus on you connecting to yourself as what you need.
And from there we start to talk about different markers, like, how did this exercise make you feel today? Because we just know exercise. I gotta get through this 45 minutes or this. Hour, you know, and just gotta push for the pain. And then when I'm dying at the end, like, oh my God, I'm so happy that I did this right this entire time you were disconnected [00:14:00] from your body, you had no idea what you did.
Um, you just based, uh, success based on if I was sore the next day or not. Um, so learning how to check in with markers of. Where I always ask my clients, where do you feel the strongest today? And you have to drop into your body and check. Wow, okay. I feel really strong in my arms today. Um, tell me a little bit about, uh, activities of daily living.
Are we able to do those dishes without that back pain? Are we able to go walk, you know, our furry. Um, without being all in miserable pain for a knee. Um, so looking for, you know, learning folks what they want to do, because at the end of the day, what I'm trying to help folks is live a bigger life. You know, live a bigger, most authentic life that is inhabiting this body that we've been giving, um, that we've been told to control.
But actually. Your body is part of the journey. Your body's the only person who has never abandoned you, who has been with you this entire time. So how can we practice more kindness and you know that kindness. Also matters when it comes to your health because for many of [00:15:00] us, we just know years and years of food noise and body noise and your calories and weighing yourself, right?
So saying, wow, you know what I ate this food that I really love and I ate it. You know, I ate it very slowly and I really enjoyed it. And I felt really good. That is huge progress. I say that is health. That is actual health. Not weighing yourself and telling yourself that you know, you lost those two pounds, or God forbid you lost no weight, right?
Or even worse if you gained a pound. Now the whole day is ruined. And learning how to live into the messiness of our human existence and not in the binary of good or bad.
Rosy: Yeah. And I, I especially love you mention focusing on embodiment and noticing how you feel and noticing how your body is able to handle just sort of the everyday demands of life.
Some, those of you all who take my classes, you'll know I, I talk about this kind of often 'cause I think about it a lot. But something that [00:16:00] people lose as they get older is the ability to look over their shoulder. Like
Angel: yes,
Rosy: just like turn and look behind them, right? Yes. And if you don't keep doing it, right, if you're not mm-hmm.
Moving into your full range of motion, you might not even notice it. Or, um, uh, do you remember there's a while ago there was a challenge where people would have their, like dads try to skip. And like they all used to be able to skip as kids, right? Mm. And then just through not connecting to their bodies, right, and not making time to move and not exploring what their possibilities were, they hadn't realized that they'd lost this ability to skip, uh, until they were asked to do it.
And you mentioned, you know, having a bigger life and I really love that idea of sort of. Pushing the envelope of possibility for your physicality. Not only for again, in pull, you know, but we're trying to do cool tricks and stuff, but also in your daily life, how is this helping you and supporting you?[00:17:00]
Angel: Yeah. Well, I mean, you look at pole dancing, right? Because I, I do have clients who are interested in, and, well, we have to build upper body strength, right? To be able to hold ourselves up there. We also have to develop core strength. So when I meet with my clients, I always ask, tell me what is it that you want to do?
You know, what is. That one thing, that immediate goal that you have, that you would love to do, and for many folks is going up the stairs without being winded or being able to carry my groceries or being more active with my kids, you know, and not feeling exhausted afterwards. You know, for me it's so beautiful to be like, all right, we're gonna talk about core today.
Here's how these core muscles work. Here are the four. If you look at this body, right, this is your trunk. We got these two arms, these two legs popping up, right? But we gotta take care of our trunk. Let's talk about, you know, oh, I have a lot of back pain. Okay. Let's talk about what are the muscle groups that are involved in helping us, you know, feel stronger without the back taking over.
These are our glutes. They're not something just to look pretty and beautiful, right? They're also really important for our ability to walk and what are our quads or hamstrings. [00:18:00] So just having, going through anatomy with clients, helping them understand like, okay, today we're working on lunges. Why not?
Because you know, I hate lunges. They're terrible. They're horrible. I hear you. We have this horrible, highly traumatized relationship with movement because we've been told you gotta push through pain. But what if we just did a few lunges and we took breath and we just allowed ourselves to slow down?
Which clients are like, what? Can't tell you how many clients that I start with and they go super fast. Always. I'm like, slow down, but we've been conditioned this way. You gotta go faster, burn more calories. You know, get your, you know, um, calorie burn up, you know, so it's so weird. It's, it's, it feels, I can always say like, the first few months of them looking like, what?
Slow down, breathe more rest. This doesn't make any sense to what I've been told, or I'm never gonna get to my goal. And I always say just trust the process. Slow down. Um, and I love just to see clients once they hit that six month mark, that earmark and their relationship with their body has completely [00:19:00] changed and they're slowing down.
They do breath work which what our body really needs more oxygen, right? More water and more oxygen. And you got those two, like your body is gonna feel pretty good. Um, and then we add some love and compassion.
Rosy: Yeah. Just pulling together a bunch of things that you said, I think it's really, obviously, moving through your body. Fantastic. But there's this thing in the fitness space that I hate, uh, which is people will be like, your body is your business card, which get lost. Mm-hmm. Get bent. Uh, my body is a result of genetics that you don't have, uh, unless you happen to be, you know, my, my twin or my twin sibling or something.
Yes. I think replacing that with the idea that your relationship with your body is your business card, right? And how people feel about themselves after working with you. And I've been thinking a lot recently for maybe obvious reasons about authoritarianism and how prevalent and pernicious it is in the fitness space [00:20:00] where you come to a place where this should be time for you to focus on your own physicality, and instead it's other people taking complete control of your movement.
And creating this like completely, like you mentioned removing your power over, over yourself and the journey of. Becoming your own authority on your body, right? In my twenties when I had a much worse relationship with my body, I would never in a million years have gone to a fitness class and in the middle of it being like, I need a break.
We're not taking one, but I'm gonna because I need that. What
Angel: is that? Oh my God. Never.
Rosy: Right.
Angel: The shame Absolutely. Of people looking, looking at us and the instructor. Mm-hmm. God never.
Rosy: Mm-hmm. And now. I'll do that on a Tuesday, man. I'm not worried about it. If someone asks me to do something and I'm just like, it's not in my body today.
I'm just not gonna do it. And being able to go on that journey to being, okay, I'm gonna have somebody else tell me everything about my body, and I'm just gonna blindly follow that, and I'm going to buy into this authoritarian, this power structure to on the other end be like, [00:21:00] no, I am the authority on my body and I get to make decisions is ...god it's hard. It's so hard, radical. It's so hard to do for yourself. It's so hard to help other people with it. How do you help people on that journey? Right, because it is,
Angel: yeah,
Rosy: because at the same time you're doing that the, the diet culture, the fat phobia is just simmering around you. You right.
You only need to log onto Instagram.
Angel: Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah. A couple things, uh, you shared that came up for me. Speaking of the scam, these fitness influencers, these fitness trainers with these six pack body thin, they were born that way. They've always had that body, but they're trying to tell you that they're doing all these things to get that big juicy booty, to get those six pack of apps when in reality, like.
This is their body composition. These are their genetics. This is where their body is adding to their metabolism. I mean, I, my son, you know, if he does everything possible to put on weight, he just can't. My father is the same way. Like we all just come from different genetic backgrounds [00:22:00] and. Then the, the further harm is then they use that position to create power dynamics of I know best.
You have to listen to what I say, do as you know I am telling you to do. Um, and that is just so harmful. So when clients come into my space, I want to name that I'm like, inner space. We're gonna do everything possible. To remove or to lessen the power dynamic because I can't say we're gonna take it away, right?
Like there, when, whenever you're in a coaching relationship, the client is looking for you for your support. But what I always do is when a client, I say, how does this feel? Tell me what's showing up. Is any pain coming up? My lower back is, you know, is really pulling. Let's pause. This is what I call attend to the wound, right?
Let's take care of this area, let's do a little bit more, uh, hip mobility work to help l loosen the hips up. And then just walking through the journey. Like, wait, what? I can speak up. I can say something hurts. I can say, Hey, can I have a little longer of a break? You know, and not be met with shame for folks in bigger bodies.
[00:23:00] Us being outta breath is so hard because all the trauma comes up. I'm fat, I'm bad, I did everything wrong. I need to fix this. Right? And that's just trauma that's been constantly perpetuated to our bodies. So when I see my clients outta breath, I'll be like, let's slow down. Let's take big, beautiful, deep breaths and really like.
Fail our body with oxygen. You know, I love to do a lot of belly work. We've been told bellies are bad. Suck it and hide it. Don't let anyone see it. But all the wisdom is in our belly. You know, I do body liberation coaching with my clients where we sit down and we name systems of oppression. Where we're not doing any workout movement.
We're just helping identify where this is showing up in our bodies who taught us this rule? For many of us, we have generational trauma that we learned from our mothers and their mothers and their mothers, so being able to name that is helping the client take agency. Saying this is not my fault.
Learning how to take that harm that we've just been giving inward and put it outward and say, this is where these [00:24:00] rules came from. And allowing to speak up in our sessions and say, Hey, I have a question. Why are we doing this? Oh my God, I love this question. You should always ask everyone in your space that you're paying money.
Why am I doing this? 'cause that's not, you know, common in the fitness industry. You just do what the trainer tells you to do. Um, so I always try to, you know, combine any, um. Movement coaching. I do. Why are we doing this? What is the purpose? And that allows folks to be able to oh, process it. Um, I also think frequency of working out, you know, for most of us, we come from a space where it's three times a week and three hour, you know, an hour session every time.
In our space it's, I love to coach clients mostly one time a week. That is enough. And I have the data to prove that that is more than enough. We see results. Why? Consistency. It is so hard to build consistency while we're living, you know, and, you know, end stage capitalism and our, the world that we're living and how expensive it is to live today and how we're constantly being [00:25:00] pulled.
Many of us having to work multiple jobs with kids and, you know, other obligations, partners, money running a household and then also work out and also cook for yourself. So I love to meet clients, you know, a place of compassion of, Hey, listen. This is really hard. And if we're able to do this for one hour a week, I just wanna celebrate you and honor you.
That's incredible what you're doing. And that love for themselves starts to build up. And I feel like that's what allows for that power dynamic to be broken and for agency to be reclaimed. And yeah, I hope all my clients can do what you just said. If I'm in a class, I'm gonna say, Hey, I need to slow down, or I need to take a break.
And not have more shame. 'cause it's really the shame that's highly corrosive that drives eating disorders, that drives suicidality. Because we constantly think we're bad. We've done something horrible. When in reality your zip code has more to do with your health and all the sit-ups and pushups and crunches that you can do.
And we have to name that.
Rosy: Yeah. Uh, social determinants of health are very [00:26:00] impactful.
Angel: Do you have money to buy? You know, like fresh produce? Do you have a grocery store in your area? Can you access it? Oh my goodness. Healthcare is insane. How many of us had to c cancel our health insurance Because premium skyrocketed and then our healthcare is so fragmented.
So it's, there's so many barriers to health to be able to access, you know, fresh produce and then our relationships with these foods, right? And then we're also being our food is, are highly politicized. Any cultural foods are bad foods. Your tacos, your tortas, your tamales bad. We want to eat bland rice and chicken and broccoli, you know, so there's so much love that's been taken away from us that.
You know, being able to grab these opportunities to bring and reclaim Yeah. Those powers feels amazing.
Rosy: Yeah. I really love that you brought up, uh, in particular being listened to, uh, because I think certainly anyone who's marginalized in any way has, uh, experienced being, you [00:27:00] know, talked over, ignored treated as less than and particularly folks in bigger bodies, very common in fitness spaces.
Yeah, very. Punitive, I'd say
Angel: very punitive. Mm-hmm.
Rosy: Yeah. And I think it's really important to have a, a place where you can come to and be listened to and ask the questions that like maybe you feel like are kind of dumb questions and you'll be supported. And, um, and. Uh, one of my biggest pet peeves is, um, some dance teachers don't want students to yawn in class.
No, I, I'm like,
Angel: way,
Rosy: right? And I'm like, A, that's a reflex. B it's a reflex that means you need more oxygen. I want you to be breathing. It's so important. But even that level of policing, uh, in fitness spaces, especially if you've experienced a lot, you've taught yourself to shrink and learning how to unshrink and grow and relax is such a, it's hard.
Yeah. It's hard and it's scary.
Angel: How do you deal with that in your space [00:28:00] with your clients? Like having that ability to advocate for themselves?
Rosy: Yeah, that's a good question. I, it's, there's a, it's a good question with complex answers.
So, um, one thing is that I teach live, but also a lot of my students do the recordings. So being able to, literally pause the recording. Um, I'm also try to be very mindful with my queuing. And I also. In all of my classes always include self-directed movement of some kind. Um, so freestyle dance, which is where you are, you know, coming up with what you're doing is really core to my, my teaching philosophy.
And I think it really helps build trust in your body. It helps build trust in your movement. And also it's fun and also you choose the intensity, which I think is really, really important.
Angel: Mm-hmm.
Rosy: I, you know, I, something you brought up is that it doesn't have to be a hundred percent all the time.
And I, as, as personal trainers, I would prefer it not be a hundred percent all the time. Actually, if [00:29:00] you're coming in and constantly trying to do that you are, you are likely to get some sort of issue at some point. and harder is not better. It can be gentle, it can be a little bit less often.
And I really want people to have fun and I want to create spaces and hopefully I do. I dunno, those of y'all who are my students. You can tell me if I do this or not. But there's no dread. You don't, you're not like looking at this thing and be like, oh, I gotta get through this. I want it to be a place where you can come and be like, yeah, I get to do this.
This is fun, this is enjoyable. Uh, and if there's something that you know, we're doing today that I don't wanna do, I know that I have space and permission to not do it, uh, or to play with one of the modifications or to do something else entirely.
Angel: We have such a huge responsibility, you know, Rosie, to be able to, 60% of the success of any. Coaching program is contingent on the client coaching relationship. You know, 60%, that's almost two thirds, right? So when you think about that, it's like, yes, [00:30:00] us being able to check in with them.
You know, for me, when I start my session, always, how are you feeling today? Are there any aches or pains in your body? And then I say. Tell me about intensity. You know, which one feels good today? Low, medium, high. Um, something else that is really important for me is I helped attract my client's cycle aware dates.
You know why? Because you know, especially for women's bodies, right? They're in the follicular phase or in the ovulation phase, the menstrual phase. Their energy is gonna be completely different. And being able to hold space for that. A lot of women are like, what? You're asking me these questions?
Because we've known traditionally that men don't want to know about that. They never ask that to a woman, right? Women don't share that. That's so shameful. But no, but like, please show up with all of your humanity. And I think as providers, you know, non diet providers and decolonizing providers, we do wanna hold space for their voice and for them to, you know, to take up space.
'cause this is where they first get to practice it before they go out in the, in the real world, you know? Um, so. I love to hear that. I [00:31:00] love connecting with other, you know, non-AI providers. 'cause we're, we're leading the rebellion. You know, we're leading, you know, the tear this whole, you know, system down, burn it to the ground.
There is no, let's rebuild this thing. No. Tear the whole thing and let's build something new.
Rosy: Yeah. And also. Creating a thing that's new, that is enjoyable and pleasurable and fun and a nice time and good for people. Creating space where. Not only are we deconstructing things, but the things that we are constructing are better. Are nice. Yeah, are good.
Angel: Yeah.
Rosy: It's so important. Who,
Angel: who said? The Master's tools will not dismantle the Master's home. Yes. Right.
Rosy: I should know that
Angel: I'm with you.
But I think about that a lot, right? Like we, we need to build something different. Something as you said, where there is space for enjoyment. Just the experience that we have in our sessions together with my clients [00:32:00] of getting to just check in and catch up on the things that are important to them as we combine it with movement, gets 'em really excited.
You know, there's a lot of times where I'm like, we're in time. Like, what? You know, an hour went by already. How is. As possible. And that gets me really excited because yes, they're starting to connect with joy, with pleasure, with happiness, excitement to show up for their next session. Um, so I 100% agree.
Let's bring some joy into the movements.
Rosy: Absolutely. Uh, and I looked it up. That was Audre Lorde.
Angel: Good. Nice. Yes.
Rosy: If folks wanted to connect with you, wanted to keep up with you, learn more about what you're doing maybe work with you as a coach, how would they.
Do that. Yeah, that
Angel: question. Welcome to Reach Out. My website is non diet trainer.com. And I'm on ig, uh, the anti-D diet trainer. I offer a complimentary consultation to take the pressure off of someone being. I'm interested, but I'm a little curious, but I'm a little scared, right? For us to get to know each [00:33:00] other.
I repeat that again, that the coaching relationship is what's most important to making a coaching program successful. So I want to feel energy. I want to feel vibes. I want to feel values. Are we in alignment? I. Because when they are, it's so beautiful. But when you're misaligned, there's a lot of friction, a lot of tension.
Um, a lot of folks come to this space wanting support, but they're very fixated on the weight loss aspect of it. You know, and I'm just very transparent about like, of course we're gonna hold space for your weight loss desires. Like, I have weight loss desires because I live in a fat phobic world. That because I want to cause harm to my body because we want to fit in the airplane seeds because we want to be able to, you know.
Be treated and seen as humans. Um, so yeah, I love to support folks in bigger bodies and all bodies all backgrounds. A lot of folks reach out to me who are beginners, who are just coming new into the fitness industry, who are trying to come back to it and are looking for a compassionate coach that will listen to them and, and see them as humans.
So yes, love to connect with all those folks.
Rosy: Excellent. Thank you. And [00:34:00] I'll, uh, put links to all of that, uh, in the description so folks can click it a little bit more easily.
Angel: Love that. Thank you.
Rosy: Alright. Thank you so much for joining me on the podcast today on how this was a wonderful discussion. Lots of I certainly got a lot of little nice little nuggets, things to think over.
Uh, hopefully everyone watching did as well.
Angel: Yeah. Thank you so much for having me. This was so much fun. So excited for the conversation. Thank you.
Rosy: Thank you. I'll talk to y'all later. Bye.
