Small Steps Make Big Changes, the Triathlete's Approach to Success

Small Steps Make Big Changes, the Triathlete's Approach to Success with Kyla Lupo

Have you dreamed of being a triathlete? Competing in triathlons? Its never to early or too late to start. It is a big step and a big commitment, but if can be done. Just taking small steps to lead toward the eventual goal of completing some form of triathlon completion. Get health and get fit while training to compete in a very difficult arena.

About Kayla

Kyla Lupo is a USA Triathlon certified coach with a Masters in Education from George Washington University. She brings years of experience in coaching people in a variety of situations, including triathlon. Want to know about her athlete stuff?

She represented Team USA at the 2019 ITU Multisport Championships in Pontevedra, Spain as an age-group Long Course Aquabiker. Kyla is a nationally ranked Age Group short course triathlete and finished second in the Athena division at the Illinois 2018 Triathlon Championships. In 2019 Kyla qualified for the USAT Short Course Age Group National Championships that will be held in August 2021. 

Want to know about her coaching stuff? She believes that anyone can tri in the body they have right now and works with athletes on a personal level to overcome their fear and doubts while getting fit and ready for the start line. Actively advocating for a radical level of body acceptance in sport and society, Kyla leads a team of people of all shapes and sizes that can be found at www.teamgobig.life

www.feedingfatty.com

 

Full Transcript Below

Small Steps Make Big Changes, the Triathlete's Approach to Success
00:00:15
Roy
Hello, and welcome to another episode of feeding fatty. This is Roy Terry. We are the podcasts that is chronicling my journey, our journey through, wellness, trying to obtain wellness, maybe lose some weight, lose a lot of weight, get in better shape. And, we talk a lot about some things that are going on in our life, how we're progressing and what we're up to, but we also have professionals, as guest on from time to time. And today's no different. Terry.

00:00:45
Terry
Kyla Lupo is a USA triathlon ser triathlon certified coach with a master's in education from George Washington university. She brings years of experience in coaching people in a variety of situations, including triathlon. She represented team USA at the nut at the 2019 ITU multi-sport championships in Ponte ferta Spain as an age group, long course, Aqua biker Kyla is a nationally ranked age group, short course, triathlete and finished second in the Athena division at the Illinois 2018 triathalon championships in 2019, Kyla qualified for the USA T short course age group national championships that will be held in August of 2021. She believes that anyone can try in the body. They have right now and works with athletes on a personal level to overcome their fear and doubts while getting fit and ready for the start line, actively advocating for a radical level of body acceptance and sports sport and society.

00:01:58
Terry
Kyla leads a team of people of all shapes and sizes that can be found at team go big life. Kayla, welcome to the show. We're happy to have you.

00:02:10
Kyla
Hi Terry, thanks for a great introduction. I know there's all these big words in there that unless you're a Chaplet you have no idea what it means and I'm like, I'm just going to go rewrite that.

00:02:28
Roy
Well, thanks so much for taking time out of your day to be with us. Part of, this journey is for me anyway, it's not only, wanting to lose weight, but also to stay in shape. I think, I set a lot during the day and the whole thing, nowadays it's, what setting is the new smoking and all of this stuff that's going on? we've become so seditary and in our diets have become so loaded with other stuff. Anyway, it's just, it's a bad convergence of stuff. It's funny, we read a, an article yesterday that was just saying that from 1950 to 19 to 2015, somewhere in that range, we've extended our lifespan by about 10 years by medicine medications, and by just modern medicine. They said that we have kind of bumped up into the, where it's not cost-prohibitive and they say extending our life the next 10 years will be due to lifestyle changes.

00:03:34
Roy
Anyway, I think that's interesting that, and I, I like what you say that you can do it in anybody, we could go out and train to do whatever we put our mind to that there is a path. Even if we're, I think my opinion, even if we're overweight, if we still move around, it's better than being overweight and sitting on the couch and, eating another bag of Doritos. Absolutely. What are you seeing with, people that are coming to you? Are they, well, first off, let's start with, how did you find yourself here? I mean, it's a very impressive background and a lot of, doing a triathlon, my dad used to do them and, yeah, they're brutal. I mean, it's not something that you just wake up one day and say, well, I think we may just do a little poppet triathlon in this afternoon or something like that.

00:04:29
Roy
How did you find yourself in this space?

00:04:33
Kyla
Oh, it's right. It's a really great story. I, like a lot of people out there, I made a commitment. I wanted to feel fit and healthy and better in my body. Part of that was losing weight, but that wasn't my driving factor. I really just on, I wasn't moving as much as I used to when I was younger. I was like, all right, well, I'm going to do that. I'm going to do a 5k. I said, I'm going to do a race every month for 12 months. The year of 2015, I did a race every month. And, I got up to a 10 K, which is 6.2 miles. At some point I realized that I, or I remembered, I used to be a swimmer. I swam all through high school and college and thought I should get back in the pool. Like that will really help me be a better runner because lung efficiency, all that other stuff.

00:05:26
Kyla
I remembered, but I also really liked bicycling. I got a bicycle and I was really enjoying it. And I thought, wow. I wonder if there's a way that I could be like a cycling racer for whatever reason. Like I just kept single sporting. In that someone said, well, it depends on what kind of cycling you want to do. Cause if you want to do a triathlon, that's one kind. If you want to do cyclocross, that's different. If you want to be time trials, all these fancy cycling words, it was like triathlon, you say. Yeah. And, that was the end of the beginning, I guess. And, I sat myself out to finish, a triathlon. I found a team. I trained with them. It was really great. I finished my first sprint triathlon in June of 2016. As I crossed that finish line, I knew I had found what I was meant to do in this world.

00:06:22
Kyla
And, then I realized, started looking around at the people around me that weren't just the ones on my team. All I saw were skinny, super fit, really muscular looking people. There was the people on my team that I trained with, not my team, but the team I was training with. I mean, there were all sorts of bodies, right? Were what a lot of people would call overweight. We were, super short, super tall, like, didn't look like athletes. Some of us did admittedly right there. Of course, some of those. I realized if I wanted to see more people that looked like me finishing triathlons, I needed to be the person that could show them. They could do it. Awesome. Right. I went and got my coaching certification, like my actual Travelon coaching certification. I've been working with people in a variety of different situations, coaching them, whether it's been women or men or grandmas.

00:07:29
Kyla
I spent some time on my life teaching, some of our lovely grim grandparents in this world. How do you use technology? so lots of different places where I've had to meet people where they are and help them get them where they want to be. The team just sort of formed it. Self people started realizing what I was doing and what, and then I got this and then Matt, and then the team grew into what it is today. And, it's an incredible group of people who are just so welcoming and supportive of each other. Boarding of each other. Some of us are what I would call like serious athletes. Some of us, have even ever done a triathlon Bernard can't.

00:08:27
Speaker 3
Sleep.

00:08:29
Kyla
On my team, I have the Athena, not the Athena I have, well, she's the Athena long course national champion of 2019. In 2020 we had, like no races. The couple that we did have down here in Florida, she won her age group for an ultra distance triathlon, which is what a lot of people would call an iron man. There's, I just call it ultra like iron man. And I have a really interesting,

00:08:58
Speaker 3
But that's beside the point.

00:08:59
Kyla
Ultra distance. We have someone who, in 2019 had both hips replaced and is looking forward to doing their first triathlon. Well, it should have been in may, but it got rescheduled to August. We have the whole spectrum of everyone on the team. I think that what pulls us all together is this idea that we, everyone has a place and you don't have to look a certain way. You can do anything right now in this body kind of thing. Yeah, so that's where I come from the long and short of it and all of that stuff in the bio about like all the things, all it means is that, I know how to work. The number system such that, by finishing, I qualify to go and do bigger things. I have athletes that come to me that say, I want to go represent team USA. How do I do this? And it's like, let's find your strengths and we're going to play into your strengths.

00:10:06
Kyla
I went to Spain, I'm not a fast runner. I can not compete with people when I run good, but I'm not fast. I went to Spain, I did Aqua bike, which is swimming bike, and I'm a fast swimmer and I'm a good cyclist. So, you figure out how to get to the goals that you want to do with the skills that you have and amplifying what you're good. So, so, if you don't.

00:10:33
Roy
Remind everybody what is, the distances for the triathlon and then the difference between that and the iron man, just give us ,

00:10:41
Kyla
Yeah, that's a great question. Generally there's four distances, right? Sprint, Olympic half and full, and then people like to invent their own. They're super sprints, which are very short. When you get to the international level, there's actually, a distance between a half and a full that it's just, it's all gonna be. So sprint is generally, it's the shortest. It's, anywhere from 500 to a thousand meter swim, which is, a quarter to a half inch of a mile, and then a 12 to 15 mile bike ride, and then a 3.1 run a mile run, and then it just scales up from there, right? We have an international or an Olympic or an international depends on how you call it, which is longer swim, 20 to 25 on the bike. And then 6.2 miles. When you get to the half, that's what we call a 70.3. That was when it gets a little serious.

00:11:42
Kyla
It's a one and a quarter mile swim and a 56 mile bike ride and then easy peasy, a half marathon. So 13.1 miles. Wow. At ultra distance, or the Ironman distance is one 40.6. You may see car stickers and say one 40.6. What you can know about that is that person is legitimately committed because it takes over your life, the train from one of those. That's a two and a half mile swim, 112 miles on the bike. Then, cause you're not done a marathon 26 points.

00:12:16
Speaker 3
Gosh. So how do.

00:12:18
Kyla
An athlete go that distance last year? And I have one doing it this year too. It's from a coach so much fun to train them because you really get to help them push beyond these mental boundaries that they have in there. So,

00:12:33
Terry
How much training? I mean, how, I know it's a lot, but like a typical week or month, how much training is.

00:12:42
Kyla
So great. That's a really great question. Let's use the example of going and ultra distance because everything scales down from there. Right. I, I plan my trainings in two weeks of build. You have two weeks where you're working pretty hard and then one week of, what we call recovery, where you're just taking easier, right? So you'll have three runs in a week, an easy run, a track workout or a speed workout, and then a long run on the weekend. If you're going on ultra that long run is anywhere from 13 to 20 miles. You pull in the cycling as well. Oh my goodness, stop, come here. Let me go. Oh my gosh, it's so professional where it's like, you really just get to see what it's like to work from home. For me, the magic number is three there's, three, one run workouts, three cycling workouts and two or three swimming workouts.

00:13:46
Kyla
We also put in, yoga, Pilates and a strength or to work out in there. Right. We're really trying to hit all the things. The Swim workouts are just like swim team. A lot of people did swim team when they were kids. You're out there and you're doing drills and things, and sometimes you're just swimming a whole long thing if you're in the pool two or three times a week. The cycling is a lot like the running you have just, ending on the course that you're doing. You might have a lot of Hills, so you'd have a workout. That's just where you're going to go climb Hills for an hour and a half. You'll have a speed workout like you do when you're running, because the fast stuff where your heart is really beating really hard, really fast. That's what helps you go with the long and steady 20 miles, right.

00:14:33
Kyla
So, we slowly build up over time. When you have, it's funny, you ha you'll have a peak weekend, right. Because you never do a full ultra and you never do a full half until the day you do. Yeah. Because it takes so much time recover from that a sakes like two or three months for your body to recover from an ultra distance. At least a month for a 70.3 now, like professional athletes do it differently, but they get massages every day. They get exactly the nutrition that they need. They get the hot bath, cold bath, like all that kind of stuff. On a weekend, when you're peaking, you're going to go out for like 120, 130 mile bike ride. You can get up the next morning and go for a 20 or a 22 mile run. That's, that's pretty much your weekend. People decide to go into ultra distance, I'm the first person to say, yes.

00:15:30
Kyla
I never say no to anyone. Like we know is not in my coach vocabulary. Yeah. And it's a serious commitment. It's can be 20 to 30 hours of training a week. Everyone else in your life has to be on board with that. Like, if you have a partner and kids, everyone's got to understand what's going on. Yeah. Right. It is a like, so my athlete that went into ultra, it was like an 18 to 24 month process. When you really look back to where she started. It was, but that last year, that last 12 months, hilarious how it all came up at that last 12 months is where it's just, you really have to commit to it. Yeah. And, and she did, and my other one, that's going, you are the cat and ultra this year. She has a very different life than the other one.

00:16:28
Kyla
My other athlete and so different, it's always the same kind of training. I think what sets me apart as a quote is slanting around the rest of their life. They get what they need to be able to go to work, be there for their kids, have time with our partner, and sit around and watch TV if that's what they really want to do. Of course, for a sprint, you just scale it all down. I still want you to do in each discipline three times a week. Right. But your bike rides are shorter. Your runs are shorter. You're like, everything is just shorter. So, yeah. So it's the same kind of thing. Three sports three times a week.

00:17:09
Roy
Yeah. I think it's good to mention too, that, when we talk about the actual race itself, the marathon, no matter what, the distance, this all happens back to back, it's not like stretched out over a week.

00:17:21
Speaker 3
It's like, you run,

00:17:24
Roy
You run you,

00:17:26
Kyla
It's in the water at 6:00 AM and you do your swim. You come out of the water and you're all wet and you go and you get your bike. Some people change clothes and some people don't and you go out and you ride your bike, and then you come back in and you put on your sneakers and you go out and do your run. And you're done. Yeah. Super easy. It is it's all in one day. My athlete that went in ultra this past year, it was really big deal. She finished in 16 hours and 45 minutes. That's huge because it's like, under the time cut off, she did not do an Ironman branded race, but, it's under the time cutoff, but she was moving her body for 16 hours and 45 minutes. I'm like,

00:18:04
Terry
That's crazy. I'm just tired of hearing about it. I need a nap. I.

00:18:08
Speaker 3
Need to, well, I just I'm like.

00:18:13
Roy
When we talk about that, the physical part, I mean, you've got to get in shape and you have to start somewhere with the workouts, but the other part of this is I'm sure you really have to dial in your diet as well.

00:18:26
Kyla
Yeah. It's, nutrition is a huge part of it. One of the things I find more often than not with my athletes is they're not eating enough. And, they just, or they're not getting the right balance of things, right. We're really anti diet on the team. We're very much into, eating what we want when we feel like what we want. Right. The thing is that rarely means eating a bag of Doritos usually means having a nice well-rounded meal, full of proteins and carbs and fats that really helps nourish your body so that you can get up the next morning and go run 20 miles. Right. Right. We, there are definitely some athletes where we have to count calories. When we're looking at ultra distance athletes, you go out on a seven mile bike ride, or seven hour bike ride. That's like 3000 calories. You have to eat that back, girls, your body's going to start eating itself.

00:19:30
Kyla
It becomes this, how do we get in 3000 calories? So we really do start to count a little, but it's always from a perspective of we are doing what is right for our bodies and what they need at that time. It's really tough as an athlete to not listen to the enormous amount of supplements and diet culture, and pushing things and doing all this stuff because it's in our faces all the time. We have a nutritionist that works with our team who that's her specialty. The two things is how do you feel to be an athlete? And then also, how do you honor your body and eat in a healthy, real way that isn't, denying yourself? The things that you want. Yeah,

00:20:19
Roy
Yeah, yeah. We talk about very well-rounded, we don't want to do anything to the extremes, but, part of that includes, and I'm sure even more is, water hydration, and then sleep. I know that, sleep is a definite downfall of mine. I've talked about that a lot because, you get up draggy, this morning it's like, I really need to go to the gym and I'm not pushing myself to even do anything for a moly, right. Close to a triathlon, or even not even close to one segment of, the, either the swim and running or that. So, get that straight, but it's still, it's like, I'm tired. I don't feel like it. So, I talk about it a lot. That sleep seems to be the trigger to begin my downfall, to spiral back into, well, I'd rather just sit here and I'll watch some TV and rest and maybe eat a nice snack or something like that.

00:21:21
Roy
And then we crave that also. I think I see it makes me crave the carbs and the sugar, because I want to, it's like, I'm dragging, I need to, feel that little quick pickup. Again, that cycle you eat it and then you crave more and then you eat more, then you feel worse anyway, it's just,

00:21:40
Kyla
Yeah, absolutely. It's it is that tired, that's one of the first things you have to fight, wrestle bit. Am I tired or am I exhausted? Yeah. Should I really skip this run? Because if I go out, it's actually going to be detrimental or do I just need to push myself so that thing. Right, right. So, yeah, that is a real thing that happens to the best of us to the best athletes. Am I tired or am I exhausted? How do you tell the difference? It's tough. You'll learn. You'll learn that when you're tired and you go out for that eight mile run and halfway through, you hit the wall hard and you have to call your partner to come pick you up. Wow. Yeah. That was exhausted. I shouldn't have gone out on this run. That was exhausted. Yeah. Like it is, you just learn over time and it's one of the things that when people are brand new, they, it's one of the ways we realized we're not hydrating that like you talked about, we're not eating enough.

00:22:53
Kyla
Cause we're super tired all the time. Yeah. Those, I remember that first year or so of doing triathlons, my nutrition was so out of whack and I was exhausted for six months. It was exhausted all the time called nutritionist. She's like, what are you doing? Where's all your protein. Where are your carbs? Why aren't you eating any carbs? Like where like what's. I was, it was a whole new awakening. She was like, how many hours do you sleep at night? I'm like, I don't know, five or six. Yeah, no, you're at the height of your training. And you'd like eight or nine. That's where everything settles in to your body is when you're sleeping. It's really important to get that rest. That's where that recovery week, every two weeks we have, an easier week.

00:23:40
Roy
Yeah. I think that difference too, for me, is, once you get to the gym and just kind of start walking and start the blood pumping, he, you can tell either you really start to feel better. You're like, okay, I'm glad I did it. Are you just really start to wilt more and be like, I just need to really regroup here and start over again.

00:23:59
Terry
Yeah. Just getting there, just getting there. I mean, making yourself go and get that's key.

00:24:07
Speaker 4
Yeah.

00:24:08
Roy
When, this takes a big mindset and I think that we can, what I'm trying to relate this to is, not necessarily that I want to do the triathlon or anything strenuous right. This moment. I think it's that the benefit is the mindset that you have to work with people to get their mind, right. That this is going to be, it's going to be work. It's going to be a struggle and it's going to be worth it. I look at it that way as like, with trying to dial in everything that it's, it takes a lot, but it will be worth it. What do you, how do you help? I don't know. Maybe somebody has come to you and they've gone two weeks and they're like, I can't go on, I just can't do this anymore. I know there's a lot more to it, like time constraints and this and that, but I mean, how would somebody, that's just kinda like, fatigued, kind of how do you talk them down off that and get them back on track?

00:25:09
Kyla
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Well, the first thing I'll say is none of my athletes would go two weeks without telling me that was going on. Right. We, we check in the training software or use, I, I can see whether or not they're doing what I've prescribed. We comment back and forth when they skip a workout. Like we have this, we have team meetings every week where everyone checks in with everyone. I, I literally had this almost exact situation happened, where an athlete came to me and said, I hated this workout. And it was a track workout. And I was like, oh my gosh. Okay, well, what's going on? And she's like, I feel like a failure when I do it. I am exhausted the rest of the day. I just don't that, like, I don't want to do it. You can see I skipped it last week.

00:25:58
Kyla
Cause I don't want to do it. That's right in that moment when it's not fun anymore. That's when we changed sales, we changed the course of the ship. We change up, what's going. So, I said, okay, we're not doing those workouts anymore. No more of those. I just want you to go out, it's so funny. I just want you to go out and do an easy seven or eight miles.

00:26:17
Speaker 3
Yeah. She is.

00:26:23
Kyla
We talked about what else was going on in life. Right. It turns out that they were way behind on work for work. They felt like they were drowning in that they missed an event with kids. Because tired because training because other work stuff. Right. We really tried to suss out the root of what was going on, and figure that out. You put things back in order, right? You figure out where your priorities are and you make sure that the most important things get done and the most important thing for you might not be training. Yeah. You have, you gotta have a coach who meets you where you are. Right. Some people are super serious and they want a coach tells them, you got to go out and do it and got to get it done. I don't want to excuses, but those aren't the people I work with.

00:27:31
Kyla
People I work with have real jobs and real lives and real kids. And they do this for fun. Yeah. Really getting to the core of why are you doing what you're doing? Right. If it's, for whatever reason it is, if it's not a reason that sparks you, that excites you, then you're doing it for the wrong reason. Yeah. That is definitely something we spent a lot of time doing in 2020. Why do we race? Why do we do triathlons? and if it's because you want the finish line and the metal and the t-shirt, well, there weren't any in 2020, so now we've got to figure out how else we're going to get you motivated. It was a really, it was really interesting year, but so do you, how.

00:28:21
Terry
Did you, how did you cope with the COVID situation as far as your coaching goes? I mean, I know that's a loaded question because there are so many different things that you had to do, but I mean, did you go virtual? Had you been virtual before? huh. It's a really.

00:28:44
Kyla
Great question. We like to say now that we have this great phrase, COVID safe, we've been, COVID safe since 2017. When we started the team, it's always been virtual. We have, our team meetings are all zoom. I have athletes in Iowa and Oakland and Los Angeles and Washington DC, Fort Lauderdale, I've got athletes everywhere. Wow. We talk about, we started tossing around, we hated zoom before everyone else hated.

00:29:16
Speaker 3
First hate us.

00:29:19
Kyla
It's interesting, right? Because I saw other coaches who couldn't pivot or who refused to pivot and I saw them go out of business. Yeah. My team actually flourished because people, realize they wanted a coach who focused on the finish line for them. Right. I had a lot of athletes who adjusted their sales to be less about racing and more about staying fit or getting strong. Because I already had all this stuff in place to be virtual and to support and to coach and to create community, the only thing, and it's a really big thing though. The only thing that really changed is we didn't get to see each other racist. Yeah. Yeah. So, and I saw a lot of my athletes lean into the community. Like I had not seen before, because of missing everything.

00:30:22
Roy
Did most people hang with it or were there some that were like, Hey, if we can't race, I just don't want to do this. Or did most, I guess, probably athletes at that level, they wanted to maintain some form of being in shape just for the return of it.

00:30:36
Kyla
Absolutely. So, I did, I had two or three athletes who were like, Hey, if there's not a race, then here's what I want to do. Right. I want to be able to do 10 pushups or I'm going to, I really am going to train so that I can do rag bra, which is, a bike ride across Iowa over a week. Right. That in itself, of course is its own start line, but that's something you train for like two years. Some of them did pivot and I did have to get clever with the coaching cause it was like, how do I maintain my athlete that, when and ultra, how do we maintain that fitness? if there isn't going to be a race. Yeah. We did, I have got, I've got four different levels of membership on my team. Some, some athletes stepped down to where there wasn't a training plan and we said like here's what you should do every three weeks kind of thing.

00:31:33
Kyla
I had new athletes come in as well, who were like, I've got time. I don't have to commute to work anymore. So I've got three hours every day. Let's get serious about this. Like let's have something positive to focus on and that's getting fit, getting healthy, getting strong and getting ready for 2021. Wow.

00:31:54
Roy
Yeah, that's good. It just, it, I think it, like I said, I want to take that same mindset that this is like a, it's not a one-time, we go back to the gym and then it's just over that, we have to continue even for myself, just to be in some form of normal shape because, like I said, becoming seditary, man, I'll tell you what, my bones, my joints, everything is just tight. I feel tight. That's another thing is the stretching. W how do you have a good stretching program? Because,

00:32:29
Terry
You know, you mentioned yoga earlier.

00:32:34
Kyla
So funny. Yeah, I, I've, I don't have a stretching program, but, I always recommend to people it's so funny, I should call her and tell her, or email. There's a great woman who does yoga with Adrian, and she's a real person and it's real yoga, and it's not, she does it. If she messes up in the recording, she just keeps going. She hasn't go back and edit in the right thing or whatever. So, a lot of my athletes really love her. She's got a whole YouTube channel. That's where I send my athletes. Now. She doesn't resonate with everyone, right. So, there are on my I'm one of them, but people who are so averse to wasting time on yoga or stretching, but it's the single greatest thing you can do. I found a YouTube of yoga to do first thing in the morning in your bed.

00:33:35
Speaker 3
Yoga to do last night, where you go.

00:33:38
Kyla
To sleep well, I'm already laying down, I'm already in bed. Like, I just, I put that on and I do a little strategy before we go to sleep. I do a little stretching first thing in the morning, and that's made a really big difference for me personally. It's finding what works for you, because like you said, before going to the gym once and then never go on again, that's not going to do it. Right. We want some consistency with that. And, start small steps, make big changes, right. Finding the thing that works for you and then following through on it. Yeah.

00:34:17
Terry
Yeah. That's been that the small steps, that's been a theme for everything we've been talking about. It's just finding the small step.

00:34:24
Roy
Yeah. There's also been some evidence lately about, trying to make too many changes. Again, everybody has to find their own way, but this, I'd read, I don't know if it was a book or an article, but a guy wrote a great piece about this. He's like, you know, okay. You wake up today and you're fed up with being overweight. You're fed up with, not exercising. You're fed up with the types of foods that you eat. It's like you try to change, five things, not drastically, you make all these drastic changes and then you just can't keep up with everything. So, I'll and I'll get your opinion because it's kind of leads into, training for something big. But, I think probably better to add little components, little steps of each thing that you want to change instead of just, everything all at once cold Turkey.

00:35:17
Kyla
Oh yeah. It's, it's really tough to just be like, so you've been in the same rut for five years and all of a sudden you're just going to have everything and do a new thing. Like, no, that's not actually going to work. It's not going to be sustainable. Right. Right. So it's small. We'll get personal. Right. For me, I'm training for a big race this year, to qualify, to go and do another ITU world championship and Australia in 2022. And I was really struggling. It was, it was really struggling with showing up on the days I needed to show up. I realized, I can't just, boom, all right, here we go. Four days in the pool, four days on the bike, two days of strength, two days a yoga, let's go when I hadn't been doing anything but morning and evening yoga sometimes. Right. I took one thing I said, I'm going to swim and I'm going to swim three days a week, Monday, Wednesday, Friday.

00:36:25
Kyla
I'm going to get that locked in place. That that is just the expectation that's, what's going to happen. Right. Cause it means getting up early, which means going to bed a little earlier, it means, a lot of different things. I've done that consistently for four weeks. It probably helps that I hired a coach. Now I feel like if I don't go to the pool, I'm wasting money. Yeah. That's probably what's helping, but I've got that locked in Monday, Wednesday, Friday, go to the pool Saturday morning and go to the ocean and swim with a group of people. I really like, so this week coming up, this is where I'm going to start putting in the cycling because the swimming is on autopilot. So now we're putting in the cycling. Right. It's tough finding the right days for it, with scheduling and all that stuff. Like when you work for yourself, you think, oh yeah, you can do whatever you want.

00:37:19
Kyla
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's not a myth. Getting one thing in place and establishing that takes 21 days to make a habit. Right. You put one more thing in and chances are that second thing you put in, it's going to pick up a little faster because you've already established a rhythm. Right. Right. Then it just sort of snowballs, right. Small steps, big changes. Yeah. Yeah. So one thing at a time. Yeah.

00:37:54
Terry
We're at, and we're in the process of changing over and trying a plant-based diet. I think what, which week are we on? Okay. You're on.

00:38:02
Roy
About the third week. Yeah. Yeah. We've made it through our three weeks and we're not being crazy if we want a piece of fish or a piece of meat, and we'd go out and get it. That's not, it, we're just trying to eliminate as much that and dairy as we possibly can and see, it's been a blessing for me on my blood. Sugar has been not as low as where I need it to be, but it's been stable. I don't see the huge spikes and anyway, some stuff moderating, but like I, I, hadn't been to the gym in about two months and went last night and I just, I am, like enthusiastic, let me put it that way. Enthusiastic, maybe an overachiever. I don't know. It's like I made it there. I want to do everything I possibly can and do as much as I can.

00:38:52
Roy
Last night I just had to dial it back and of course Terry said, dinner's going to be ready and you gotta be home by this time. I had, she gave me a deadline, so I didn't hang out there.

00:39:02
Terry
I knew you'd want to be there for four or five hours. I'm like, okay. You wouldn't be, it would take all that recovery time before he could go back.

00:39:10
Roy
Like I just, I walked for about, 20 minutes, easy light walk. Then, I just feel very tight. What I did, I went over and did a couple of, upper body machines, just very lightweight, just did one rep of each one. And then the legs, the same thing. I did a couple of them just to, kind of start loosening up. I've I will tell you that for as little as I did, I'm very sore this morning. Then, yeah, well, and I didn't, we didn't get a lot of sleep. There was a little episode somewhere, we live out in the country. I guess after the bars closed last night, somebody was driving down the main road, not far from us. And they were, setting off some firearms. Like, not just once,

00:39:55
Terry
But there was like 20, 25 shots.

00:39:58
Roy
Two this morning, two 30 this morning, we're up.

00:40:00
Terry
Like four or five bursts, a shots about 2 15, 2 30 am.

00:40:05
Roy
Yeah. We're up seeing if we're under attack.

00:40:08
Speaker 3
Woke Roy up. I'm like, right. I think.

00:40:10
Terry
That was gunshot. I think that was gunshots.

00:40:14
Speaker 3
Oh. So anyway,

00:40:15
Roy
That, so I've been dragging today and I think that's maybe another reason why I'm a little sore, but it felt so good when I got home last night, I just told Terry, I said, I've got to fight and find a way to get in there every day just to do something. Just that movement is so good for me. And,

00:40:34
Terry
Or every other day, so you can build up to it every couple of days and we can walk around here. Yeah.

00:40:42
Roy
It's a good time for me to clear my head. When we go for a walk, it's just, that's my meditation as well, I think is just gives me time to think and where we live in such an awesome place that we're surrounded by nature. We go out for a walk, we're just out in the middle of the woods and, it's, it is such an experience. It really is watch for snakes.

00:41:07
Speaker 3
On like that. Yeah. Yeah. All right. Well we.

00:41:11
Kyla
Thank you for the key to that soreness. Yes. Oh yes. Little bit more hydration than usual, right? And more protein than usual. You usually the day of, or the day after I hit the gym, I'll hide. That's when I break down and I'll have a protein smoothie. Right. Okay. Which is hard because I also try to eat a lot of not processed. Right. We call it a low to the earth and what is it? Something, a load of the earth, meaning, plant-based stuff. Right. But, I have a really great protein powder that I like that's made out of pea protein. So, a scooper to have that little bit of milk, some spinach, that extra protein is what's going to help your muscles feel better. As soon as you can get that in, that's why all of like what I call the lung kids at the gym, they've always got that like protein.

00:42:10
Speaker 3
Flash, chugging. Yeah.

00:42:13
Kyla
There's, there's stuff behind that. Right. Of course they're checking the whey protein, which is not as great for you, but, if you're going, plant-based, there's pea protein, there's soy protein, which is all right for a dude. There's lots of different choices, but just upping that protein intake by just like an extra 20, 30 grams, which is just discomfort to, that'll really help with that soreness. If you can, and don't knock it till you try it, an Epsom salt bath with of baking soda in it will do wonders. Yeah. No, don't knock it. No, I'm not.

00:42:54
Roy
I am so not against the hot bath at all. Oh my gosh. It makes, it just makes my whole body feel. And.

00:43:02
Kyla
If you want to go every day, look at me. I can't not be a coach go to the gym every day. There's nothing wrong with that. Right. Do your arms one day and do your legs the next day. You always do of a core workout because that benefits everything, but arms one day legs, one day. That way when you're sore and a little tired the next day, you're like, well, that's all right. That's all right. I'm going to work my arms and my chest and my back today. So that'll be fine. Yeah. Yeah. That's when you go, but you can also look up online. There's something called, three-day splits. That's it's like actual, here's what you do on these three days. You maximize your time at the gym. Like one day we'll be, these muscle sets and that muscle set and that thing. I only, I asked my athletes to do strength like twice a week, and then yoga as well.

00:43:53
Kyla
We, but triathletes do different kinds of strength training because we never isolate one muscle. Yeah. We're always going to work two muscles at the same time, because that's what we do when we're out racing. Right. So we're doing any of our sports. So, but I'm a, three-day a three-day split might actually be really great for you because then it's like, you lock in those three days a week and this is what you go and do. On the odd days, you and Terry can go out for a nice walk and not get bit by snakes.

00:44:18
Speaker 3
Yeah. Yeah. All right. Well, any other, no, that's great.

00:44:26
Roy
Any other tips and tricks before we wrap this up, that you'd give anybody, that's either just wanting to start, getting in shape or maybe even wants to take that next step. Right? Small.

00:44:37
Kyla
Steps make big changes. Okay. Oh. If you just wanted to get started, the best thing you can do. Absolutely. Honestly, the best thing you can do is find a coach or a team that knows how to work with beginners, right? Comradery is one of the greatest things about triathlon. When you find a coach who really knows how to work with beginners there, they're going to give you plans and training and all that other stuff that's going to meet you right. Where you are. Right. In theory, that coach shouldn't cost a lot of money. In theory, some coaches do, at the very least finding a community or a team like Facebook works with that. There are only a few coaches out there that have a level of membership on their team. That's just community. I have that level. If you want to come and check out that's good.

00:45:32
Kyla
Small steps make big changes, right. Little things start with two workouts a week, and then there's more than enough time to get up to the six or seven a week that triathletes usually do so most half, I don't know some triathletes, but small steps make big changes, and find yourself a community that will support you and tell you what mistakes to not make. Yeah.

00:46:00
Roy
That's great advice. So, what is something that you do every day that you feel like adds a lot of value in? It can be professional or personal, but just a habit, an app, computer program, anything like that?

00:46:14
Kyla
I don't think I do every day. Every day I do the New York times crossword puzzle. I'm probably that's the old and I drink water. Those are probably the two things I do every single day. What I try to do every single day is spend 15 or 20 minutes in the morning or in the evening. It depends on where I am figuring out how I'm going to spend my time that day or the next day. Right. A lot of times. Like today, when we're done, I'm going to spend about 20 minutes planning out Monday and Tuesday. Right. Cause I'm trying to get that bike locked in, but spending time, planning your time. That way when I come into the office in the morning, I'm like, Nope, I know what I need to be working on right now. It's dotted out of that. Right. Yep. Then, find something fun that engages your brain, whether it's a Sudoku or a crossword puzzle, or like some, puzzle game on your phone or your computer and do that every day, because that's going to keep your mind sharp and it's something that you can look forward to every day.

00:47:24
Kyla
So, yeah. Yeah.

00:47:26
Roy
Yeah. I think that's important about the, we always say plan your work and work your plan because you come in and sat down in the morning with the text and the phone and emails and just so much stuff to get distracted that if you've got a plan, you can come in and sit down and get on it. I'm much more productive when.

00:47:44
Terry
I do that too much noise everywhere. Yeah, exactly.

00:47:49
Roy
Well, right. Well tell everybody how they can tell them who you'd like to work with, how you can help them. Of course, how can they reach out and get ahold of you?

00:47:59
Kyla
Awesome. The, I really like to work with beginner, triathletes and triathletes who, want to take on a big challenge, but don't know where to start. Right. I, I really come at it from what I call a holistic heart centered approach, which is you are an entire human being with an entire life. I know that triathlon is not the center of that. I'm going to figure out how you can get everything in there. Right. Okay. We are committed to a radical level of body acceptance. It doesn't matter where you are on whatever scale, whether it's your bathroom scale, your gender scale, your race schedule, scale, whatever it is. You're going to be welcomed on my team with open arms. If you've not experienced that in other places, come on over and let us know. You can find me at, www.teamgobig.life. So www.teamgobig.life.

00:49:08
Kyla
From there, you can navigate to all the other places on the website. And, you can schedule a 30 minute discovery session with me where I get to learn all about you and what's going on in your life and figure out, whether or not you're a good fit for our team. If you're not, I know so many coaches and I know the good ones, and I'm going to point you in that right direction. Because the last thing I want is for you to be in the wrong place.

00:49:36
Roy
Great. We will put all that in the show notes, but I think that a couple things that you, I think to a couple of things you touched on that need to probably be emphasized are that the acceptance part is that, it's so important to find a group that you feel comfortable because if you don't feel comfortable with the group, no matter what the level or how big, how great their plan is, you're not gonna take part and do that. The acceptance part, but also, the discovery to find out where people are, because, unfortunately the internet, sometimes it's a one pill fixes all. So it's like, Hey, I'm a coach. I got, this plan worked for Joe. It's gonna work for you. It's like, well, me and Joe May be totally different or have different goals or whatever. That, meeting people where they're at, that's an awesome thing.

00:50:27
Roy
That's something to keep in mind when you're selecting business coaches, athletic, sporting coaches, health coaches, whatever, just make sure that somebody is going to take the time to really talk to you, find out what your goals are, find out where you are, find out your hurdles. I mean, just like me, if I came to you and said, I wanna, be run a triathlon, in two weeks, at least you can talk me down from that, say, that may not be the best thing. Look at the schedule too, because when whatever we do in life, work family, all that stuff has to come first and has to be worked in there somewhere. And then, so finding that good match. You can't just say, look, you got to give me, two hours a day at this time. Anyway, I think those are just important points to emphasize to the audience that, make sure you find somebody that can, really take an interest in you.

00:51:23
Kyla
Absolutely. Roy, if you wanted to do a triathlon in two weeks, I wouldn't say no to you,

00:51:29
Kyla
Right. You said at the beginning, why.

00:51:34
Kyla
We would have a serious discussion about what kind of race you wanted to have and what your goals for that were. We would, we would get, if you said, do you want to do an iron man? I, I, I, we would,

00:51:49
Speaker 3
We would figure it out. And you would.

00:51:52
Kyla
Go in with the, with a realistic set of expectations. Cause I'm never going to say no, it's just, I can't say no to anyone. That's why my kittens keep walking. Maybe,

00:52:03
Roy
Maybe Terry, let me roll the window down while she drove me through the course, at least I could smell the fresh air.

00:52:12
Kyla
Oh, I love it. The honking the horn.

00:52:16
Roy
All right, well, that's going to do it for another episode of feeding fatty. Of course, I'm a hope your host, Roy, and we appreciate you listening very much. You can always find us at www.feedingfatty.com. We're on all the major social media networks platforms, as well as all the major podcast platforms, iTunes, Stitcher, Google, Spotify. If we're not a one that you listen to regularly, please check us out. Please let us know and we'll be glad to get that added for you. Until next time, take care of yourself and take care of your family. Thanks. Thank you.

www.teamgobig.life

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