Hello. Hi everybody. Welcome to the fit to fat to fit experience podcast. I’m your host, drew Manning.
And I’m your cohost Lynn Manning.
Thank you guys for joining us here for another great episode. Now, today’s guest is our good friend Madeline moon, Maddy moon. Um, she is, so obviously, you know, for those of you who don’t know who she is, she is kind of starting a revolution in the fitness industry. So she’s a fitness coach. Um, a blogger, you know, has a social media presence, uh, very strong. And basically what her mission is is to help end the control that food has over you or how we look at food, especially in the fitness industry. So she’s a former, uh, physique model that did a fitness show. Um, she had a terrible experience, uh, doing it, but she looked great on the outside, but she suffered on the inside. So in today’s episode we kind of dive into what her experience was like, why it was so horrible and why she now preaches against, you know, food, extreme extremism, if you will.
Everybody should listen to this episode. You guys, um, male and female alike. I feel like there’s a lot of pressure on both men and women of physically to look a certain way or to eat a certain way or to do certain exercises and to use certain performance enhancing drugs and different things in order to physically look a certain way, which has caused a lot of problems. Like Drew’s mentioning, you know, how we look on the outside doesn’t always equate on how we feel or actually are doing health wise on the inside. This is just a great message about body positivity, taking control of your life, having a healthy relationship with food.
Yeah, exactly. Because people sometimes will look at food as a almost or the way you eat as a religion, right? And don’t become religious in a way like, Oh my gosh, you can’t believe you’re eating, you know, refined sugars and processed carbs. Like that’s evil. Right? So anyways, it’s a great episode to dive into and kind of take a step back and think about your own nutrition and how you look at food. But before we dive into today’s episode, you guys, our show sponsor is quest nutrition.
You guys, quest nutrition. If you’ve been following me for a long time. You know, I’ve been, I’ve been using their bars for years. Um, I’m not a huge protein bar person. It’s just always been a really convenient way for me to get in a protein source. I usually keep some in my purse, so if I’m on the go, I don’t fall into the fast food trap. Um, you know, they’ve been convenient for my kids if they’re really healthy on the go as well. They have a lot of great tasting flavors, which is the main reason I eat them. My favorites cookie dough. And so it’s just a great way. It’s low in carbs. It’s high in fiber, high in protein. So you know, if you have time to make a whole food meal, awesome. But if you’re on the go like me a lot, and especially just in case you’re running around your kids to a million places, like I know I have to do, it’s great to have that in your purse and avoid the fast food traps. So you can check that out in the show notes and yeah, try to maybe one of my favorite bars, they just came out with a few new flavors. So check that out.
And our other show sponsors dollar workout club.com now dollar workout club.com you’ve heard me talked about on previous episodes, it was created by me, Lynn and Natalie Hodson and it’s the three of us. So basically you get a workout with us and doing a new workout every single day of the week. Five days a week you get five new workout videos every single week you get five new healthy recipe videos. Every single week you get five new motivational videos and all you pay is just a buck a week to be a member of Delta workout club. You guys, high quality content, very low cost, no hidden fees, no contracts, nothing. It’s super simple to use. It’s 10 to 20 minutes of workouts that anybody at any fitness level. So whether you’ve never worked out in years or you know you’re, you know, a high end athlete, you’ll get a great workout doing our workouts. You guys and you kind of get to hang out with us, you know, and uh, you know, be around our personalities. So, uh, check it out. Dollar workout, club.com. Like I said, it’s just a buck a week. All right, let’s jump into today’s episode with Madeline.
All right, Madeline moon. Thank you so much for joining us here on the fit to fat to fit experience podcast. How are you doing today?
I’m doing so good. So excited to talk to you. Thank you for having me on. I no, we’re super excited. Our pleasure.
Yeah. So first of all, Madeline moon, that is like the perfect name for it to like a superstar name. Is that real name? I know
that’s my real name and I get asked that all the time, but it’s my real name. I come from a long line of moons, man. Kudos to your parents.
Yes, they did a good job in you cause you’re made to be a star with that name.
Oh, thank you.
Well thank you so much for coming on. Okay. So for those of my followers that don’t know who you are, but let me just give them a little update. So I was on your podcast, let’s see, it was a year ago, about a year ago and your podcast is called MINDBODY musings. Yes. And I was on about a year ago you had me on and now we have the pleasure of having you on because I got talked into doing podcasts and I was like, okay, I’ll try this out now. I absolutely love it and I definitely am here for the longterm. I’m about 27 episodes in to my podcast. And so I love this now and so it’s great to have you on and I’m returning the favor cause you had me on. So thank you so much for coming on and talking to Lynn and I.
Yeah, of course. Thank you. Isn’t podcasting just like the best? It’s so much fun. I love it. You can connect with so many people that you wouldn’t have never connected with before.
We ask questions that I always think to myself, man, I you think through social media sometimes you almost feel like you kind of know somebody based on their voice or what they say. But I love in podcasts when you dive deeper and I’ve been so pleasantly surprised in some of my interviews like Whoa, I did not get that from that person. Like I really liked getting to know people on a much level podcasting.
Yeah. And it’s also cool cause like you said Madeline, like you can get get connected to people that you probably like they wouldn’t, you know, talk to you ever before just in public. Like you can just connect with them and people are so open to podcasting nowadays. It’s a great Avenue to get your message across and for people to download some free knowledge. You know, some people don’t even know like what a podcast is like is it to have to pay for it? It’s like no, all this is free. You guys, you can find out anything on any kind of topic. If you’re a game of Thrones fan, there’s podcasts on game of Thrones, you’re entering religion history. What’s that? Is that who’s not a game of Thrones fan? Well, I don’t,
right. It might not be huge game. Yeah, girl. Yeah.
Awesome. Okay. Um, so thank you so much for coming on. Uh, Madeline. So you’re in Colorado, right? I am Boulder, Colorado. And then is that where you’re from?
No, I’m actually from Dallas. Uh, I spent some, I grew up in Dallas, then I went to Arkansas for a few years and then I went to Austin and now I am here.
Okay. And where’d you go to school? College. Are you how, how old are you?
I’m 24, so I spent two years at the university of Arkansas in Fayetteville and then two years at university of Texas in Austin.
Okay. Just making sure, cause that was the, I mean you look really young I to making sure you’re, if like,
but you are wise, you are your age, you’re one of those women that I always say you just have an old soul. Oh, thank you.
In a good way. Yes. But, uh, yeah, we’re old.
[inaudible] if we talk about TGF, do you even know what that means?
So tell us a little bit about your, your, your background, Madeline. Cause obviously you have a very unique story but very powerful and I think it’s so wonderful that you shared on your podcast. But if you could introduce yourself a little bit to my followers so they kinda know who you are and what your story’s about.
Absolutely. All right. So let’s go back all the way to high school ish. And when I started my thing, it was like my sophomore year of school, I became best friends with a vegan and nothing against veganism whatsoever. She was telling me about how ethical it is and how it’s really made her feel positive about contributing to society in a good way. And after showing me a few documentaries, I became vegetarian and I became vegetarian for very ethical reasons. It was from a very good place in my heart, but very quickly as my weight started to fall off weight, I did not need to lose whatsoever. People started noticing and they started commenting and it felt really good. I was finally getting acknowledged, admired for something, something special that’s not just being like a marching band nerd or a bookworm, which is what I was, and growing up in a family full of very tall, slender blondes and me being more of the short, short haired blonde, like kind of, not chunky, but just like a different shape than the rest of my family.
I always felt a little bit excluded and to get this kind of recognition, this particular admiration, even though it was external to me, it just meant, Hey, like I am special, I’m cool. Like people like me, I’m losing weight. So what started as a very ethical thing of just, you know, animals. Yeah. Turned into, okay, now people notice me. What happens if I gain a little bit more weight? Do I get unnoticed where people just pass over me? I like this, I want to keep this. So one step went to the next step, went to veganism, went to spending an hour on the treadmill every single day after school, not getting off unless I burn a certain amount of calories. And that amount, I won’t really say, but it’s a very large amount of calories that I had to burn every day. And I started this very disordered eating cycle where I would burn a certain amount and I wouldn’t get off unless I burned that and then I’d make sure I ate less than that amount. So I had started to develop this very tainted relationship with both my body and my food at a very young age. I actually would say it goes back to um, uh, elementary school. My first few memories of just thinking, Oh like lose weight, get recognition, feel special friends, like come around you. So
sorry. Just real quickly. Where do you think that STEM from? Like I’m just thinking of myself as a mom of two girls and so many listeners out there, I know our parents and that’s starting at such a young age elementary school. Cause I know for me I didn’t, I don’t know if it’s a generation thing, but I never had that. What do you think started that? Do you think it’s TV, the media that you’re just, your upbringing in your family. What do you think spurred that at such a young age?
That is such a great question. I think it’s a combination of things. I definitely, definitely think it’s, the media has a huge role because when young girls get their first magazine, what is it about? It’s of course it’s about your body, you know, like as you get older you see more about your body but also from your mother. And I was raised by a very body positive mother, but at the same time there was still things I noticed like lots of, we had a lot of just like wait, talk in her family. My dad’s very, very, you know, he eats a piece of pie and it’s just guilt for days and he doesn’t stop talking about it. And there were comments, body shaming, comments made by my dad, which I love. I’m so, so, so much of course. But anytime we went into like a Mexican restaurant and there were larger people, he could not sit down and just enjoy his meal without commenting on every single person’s body.
So for me, hearing like, Oh my gosh, this person’s body is, is getting like put down because of the way they look and this person, and I will say very specific time in my life that I remember when I was in elementary school, I would probably say around second grade, I was watching the show and I don’t know if y’all know what Lizzie is, but Oh yeah, I’ve heard of that. So, uh, I was watching that show and I don’t know if I was second grade, I might’ve been a little older, but I, there’s one particular show that the main character’s best friend, I think her name is Miranda. She was feeling really stressed with life. She was just feeling so stressed out and confused. So to get by to cope, she decided not to eat anymore. And by the end of the episode, she faints in front of her friends.
All of her friends come running to her, why haven’t you eaten? And then she’s like, Oh, because my life’s out of control, my weights, the one thing I could control. And then they all hugged and decided to go get a meal. Right. So to me that was like not a light bulb for, Oh, love my body, respect my body. To me it was, Oh, when life gets tough, that’s attention. That’s what the movie stars do. They don’t eat. So I should need it either. So I kind of remembered that and the irony is it’s a show warning against that and that’s the idea it gave me.
Mm. Wow. That is so wow. I feel like we could have an a whole episode just on this type of topic. Um, you know, societal’s views on women and our bodies and how young that starts in the media and it’s influenced like wow, that’s just, that’s really interesting. I’m thanking you for sharing that. That’s like a really interesting perspective. And one I hadn’t thought about. Cause again, for me, I do get emails now from moms talking about their young, really young elementary aged daughters, um, and the body issues. And a lot of times I’m just like flabbergasted. Like how can this happen as a society? How are we, you know, perpetuating this horrible vicious cycle so young. So it’s crazy to think about about your experience in and out. It’s probably even far worse now, you know, generationally I think it gets worse every, every generation.
So, uh, kind of backing up to your story, Madeline, uh, I have a lot of questions. So what first of all, what documentaries did you watch that kinda converted you, if you will, to veganism or vegetarianism?
I think the one that really, really, really resonates with me is earthling. I don’t know if y’all have seen that or heard of that. Oh, I have not. So the first time I watched it went vegetarian, the second time I watched it, it went Pekin. Like it is the most powerful documentary ever. And they just came out with a new movie called unity. And it’s funny because I just finished watching it today. I’ve been watching it like in spurts the past couple of days in between assignments and stuff I’m working on. But it is, I highly recommend it. It’s, it’s pretty much just as powerful but less, um, animal focused. It still has a lot of animal stuff in it, but more about unity and humanity and how we should treat each other as equals and every, every being should be treated equally. It’s a really great film, but I would say earthling, uh, food inc of course that was an eye opener, but earthling basically did enough. It’s like documentary combined into one. Wow. Wow.
So are you fast forwarding to now? Are you still vegan?
Um, I don’t, I don’t like, uh, I do not have a label on my food at all the way that I eat. And I refuse to do that now because I know what kind of power that a label can hold over people. So the minute, if I would ever say that I would automatically become a prisoner to my intuition like I or, or a prisoner against my intuition, I should say. So I eat a lot of plants, but I don’t say no to anything. So I’ve been, if I’m in the mood to like eat to my scream, I will and I, there’s no beef with that or no problem with that.
Cool. No, I love that. Like especially what you said, you know, labels really do make us prisoner and I, I think, you know, psychologically we don’t even realize sometimes that it does that. So like some people for example, if they’re like, I’m going to eat paleo or I’m going to eat a whole 30 or I’m gonna eat this. It’s interesting how the moment they decide that, then like a week into it they’re like, why do I feel so different? Like I feel like I’m going crazy. I feel so hangry, I feel so upset. And I think a lot of that is just that pressure and labeling, you know, kind of like putting yourself in food prison where you’re like bad, sick and wrong if you eat a certain type of food.
Yeah. Guilt and shame come into it. And then people follow it as if it’s a religion. Yeah. With the religion comes the guilt and the shame if you’re not following the rules. Right. So it’s pretty powerful
play. And you know, kind of going back to what you were saying earlier about, um, you know, moms reaching out saying like, Oh, you know, wanting to be careful about their daughters. That’s another great point tying in with this topic right here is that if you’re a parent and you are going down this venture of trying a whole 30 or trying paleo, don’t confuse your new venture with food, with morality. So if you do decide to have a day that’s not paleo ESC, do not claim yourself as bad, especially in front of your kids because then they will start to associate, okay, mommy is bad on these days and she feels guilt and shame on these days. So I feel guilt and shame on days that I don’t look well or look perfect or eat a certain way. And diet and morality should stay far, far away from each other because you are not a good person. If you eat super clean, you’re not a bad person. If you eat processed foods that doesn’t, has nothing to do with your morality whatsoever. But that is seems to be one of the biggest problems in our food society today where we’re all starting to get confused and start fights and arguments you spent for each other and feeling self-righteous when we eat perfect and feeling above other people by our eating habits and our eating patterns.
Amen to that. Yeah, I love that. I, you know, I know nobody’s perfect and I know as women, you know, we struggle and even myself, you know, I feel like I’ve definitely grown this past year and I’m at a place where I love myself and love my body more than I ever have. But course there’s always those struggles. But one of the things that I’m really grateful for, and I can’t remember the article, but I read an article about a year ago and it had to do with daughters and will in children in general and about healthy body image and healthy food images like food addictions and, and portrayals of that. And like you said, not labeling and it really just like flipped a switch in me. And I can, not that it’s not a struggle on some days, but I can honestly say like there’s not been one time in the past year where I’ve said anything negative about my body.
And actually I don’t even really talk like, Oh our bodies are, you know, this or that. Like, you know, I don’t say I’m fat and I don’t say I need to work on things. And I don’t say anything like, Oh, I’m so frustrated I didn’t work out. Or you know, anything like that. Like I always talk about, you know, how we feel good and how we have energy. And like I might say things like, aren’t we so grateful that we’re able to run around and play duck, duck, goose. But I don’t talk about their bodies or them being skinny or that, you know, because I just know the damaging effect. And same for food, you know, I might say to them, of course, like on Halloween, like when we eat too much sugar, it can make our tummies feel upset. So we have to watch that. But I, you know, I take my kids out for ice cream. I don’t label food, I don’t talk about it being bad or a cheat meal. Never talk about that in front of my kids. And I think that’s just such a good thing to portray to women and moms especially like when all possible, you know, don’t focus on body, don’t focus on food being bad or good. So I love that you said that.
Yeah. And that is, that is 100% the best thing you can do. And like everything you just said is beautiful. That’s what I wish, you know, every parent would try to adopt those kinds of, that kind of mentality and that kind of language around their kids because you can only control what happens in your household and then you can deal with what happens outside of your household, in your household. So whenever they are faced with media and stereotypes and a certain gender specific, uh, you know, limitations and restrictions and rules like aim towards your body, change it, all this, that’s something that’s a conversation y’all can have in your home so that those things don’t affect them, you know, subconsciously later on in life.
Yeah. And you know what, that’s really powerful cause I um, I wrote it was recently interviewed about being a dad on this, uh, the daily dad. Um, it’s this website. Anyways, one of the things I gave advice to people, you know, dads, moms in general, is that we were kind of hypocritical cause we tell our kids like this is the way to fix your problems. This is what you need to do. We, we can tell our kids, look, don’t focus on your body. It’s not about weight. It’s not about food. Like don’t beat yourselves up. And then here we are, maybe not even in front of our kids, we haven’t adopted, we don’t believe that ourselves. And we think, well I need to be skinnier or you know, I’m still overweight. Um, or you know, we don’t practice what we preach is what I’m saying. Even though our best intentions are for our kids, we have to really, truly believe that ourselves to really pass that on to our kids. I think that’s easy just to say it, but if we don’t practice it ourselves, I think our kids will eventually be able to sense that and see that like for you, you’re telling me one thing, but I see you doing another thing, you know.
Oh that happens. Happens all the time where I were. Women will, will tell me, you know, I tell my daughter that she’s beautiful no matter what, no matter what her body size. And then the in the same day I’m talking about how fat I am and they’re like, you know, it’s such a hard cycle to break. And then I realized nothing I say about them being beautiful and their body is going to really hit them if they see the person they love and admire the most, putting themselves down. Yeah. So,
so you get back, getting back to you, Madeline, I want to talk about your, your physique, um, experience, uh, your competition and how that affected you and how that’s kind of changed you to who you are today. And, and I kind of want to ask you, do you regret doing a physique competition or do you look at it now and say because of this, I am who I am today.
Okay, awesome. So going to the last question you just asked, I do not regret it whatsoever. I’m so, so, so grateful for it and I want to make sure that I get that out there because if I didn’t go through it then there would be one last voice in this world from the fitness competitor industry telling how crazy it can be. I noticed not many people come out and really talk about it. More and more people are recently, but I just think it needs to be something that’s screamed and so loudly. So I’m grateful for that. And going back to when that all began, let’s see. So I started college and I was a vegetarian at that time. And then I started opening up magazines and like fitness competitor magazines and reading about these women that have gone through these huge transformations, looking from like going from this to all the way to this.
And it’s like, look it, you can do it too if you just eat six square meals a day or like, you know, every three hours you have, you know, a handful of carbs and then like a Palm size of protein. It’s like all those little rules. And it got my journal out, started writing everything down, realized man, I’m this term called skinny fat. Like they have to label media has to label everybody and some type of derogatory term. And that was one that stuck with me cause I was like, Oh, okay. So I’m skinny but I’m all fat. Like, so that to me was, I remember I was just like, well I got to fix that. That’s something I can work on now. So I started going to, uh, you know, 24 hour fitness, got a gym membership, hired a coach, start eating meat. Just like that.
Like I was, you know, I w I realized after, you know, three, four years that I had been a vegetarian. It didn’t, it did not stay as a ethical thing. It really quickly transferred over to just a weight loss mechanism. So starting to eat meat because now I thought this would help me to lose weight faster, get leaner, toner, you know, all those words. I, it was, it was easy for me to just switch over and I signed up for my first competition because my coach said I have to have a goal like this if I want to get sin and if I want to be like muscular too. So I did this show and for about four months I nothing but seven different foods. I didn’t branch out once because my coach told me not to. I basically missed my 21st birthday. He told me that if I ate anything that wasn’t one of those seven foods, I would ruin my chances of winning.
Uh, losing my period. I ended up having to rely on, uh, like crazy. Like go to the bathroom teas because I couldn’t go by myself. And then I took Advil PM almost every single night because I couldn’t sleep. I ended up getting pneumonia and I still didn’t take any rest days because I was so insanely committed, you know, that’s in quotation marks. Committed. Wow. So obsessed. I spent most of my days just crying and agony and like frustrated. I never ever missed a meal time because I thought it was the end of the world if I did. So if my meal, if my meal three was at two o’clock and I was in a class in the, you know, in Texas, UT and the hot, hot, humid heat, I would pack a like oatmeal protein smoothie and carry it with me in my purse and then wait three hours till it was two o’clock and then it’s warm and I digest funny and it’s awful.
And I did these crazy things, like I said, no to almost every opportunity and everything else pretending to me, and I’m not saying this is a story for everyone, that everyone was everything, but a lot of people do. It’s so easy to start with, Hey, I’m going to do this because I want to have a goal and end with, if I don’t win, I’m a loser. Like you can get lost in that process because it’d be you start to make so many sacrifices because you want to do well and you want to make this the moment like this has to meet that moment of my life. So you start making these sacrifices. You’ll lose yourself. You start to take on this identity of the fitness competitor. Hey, I’m Madeline the clean eater. I’m self-righteous because I don’t eat tacos at nighttime like I eat a particular way.
I’m very strict about it, so therefore I’m better than all the rest of you. And that is the mentality I adopted and very poisonous. I was at the sickest I’ve ever been when I was at 6% body fat. I looked to the outside world, to my Instagram followers as dedicated fit, like hardcore, like no excuses. That’s how I looked. But I was weak, I was fragile. All my hormones were crazy. I was grumpy. I couldn’t really hold on to any relationship. The one that I was in was not that great because I was so self consumed and anxious and worried and of course bless his heart, he thought this was like just because of my competition. But that was my personality at the time. That was just a, it was just a coverup. So that when people were like, Hey, why aren’t you coming out to get a few drinks with us tonight?
I could say, Oh, sorry, I have a competition so I could stay inside with my special little foods and my special little meal plan, my special little workout at 5:00 AM in the morning. Uh, and that, that show, um, actually did two of these shows over the course of about three years of, you know, cutting and bulking and cutting and bulky. And, uh, that one ended, you know, I placed like nine out of 20 people I think. And for me it was like, Oh, okay, yay. Like, that’s cool. But I didn’t get first, which I thought I was. And, and then I went through this whole bulking stage and then I went to cut again and I ran. And I’m just kind of, I’m going to keep rolling with the story. Y’all just cut me off whenever. Okay. So I start, I finished college and I remember the very next day after I, I finished college, I was like, okay, I’m never going to work for anybody.
I am. I’m going to be a diet coach. I’m going to get people skinny and sin and help them lose weight and that’s going to be like my life purpose. So I reached out to this guy that was in Austin and asked him, you know, how did you create your own fitness business? And he was very nice to set up a meeting with me and become my mentor. Basically. I’m one of those moments that just changes you like you think you’re going in the right direction. And then now looking back, I’m like, Oh my gosh, anyone can just be a mentor. But this guy like took me in basically and told me that, you know how to make a 28 day power cleanse program where all the women that buy the program eats a thousand calories and the men don’t any more than 3,000 to me I was like, Oh, okay, like whatever you say.
And he told me as well as that, that we had to sign up. We had to get me to sign up for another show and he told me that, you know, Maddie, you’re cute. You’re cute. Like, yeah, but you’re not sexy and no one is going to want to hear what he said. No one’s going to want to hire you unless you’re sexy. So if you don’t do the show, no one will take you seriously. On top of that, he told me I needed to start getting weekly spray tans because like never walk out of the house, not with the spray cans. Like it’s no big deal. You just need that on your skin. Hello. And uh, he told me that I couldn’t leave the house unless I had my fitness DVD look on. So like I have to make sure I look like the cover of a fitness DVD at all times.
Like don’t be seen if you don’t have your fitness DVD, like outfit on. Uh, and then get ready for this. This is the part that’s gonna like blow you all’s minds. I’m like literally gonna cry. Like I’m so upset. I know. Like there’s people like that. I’m not kidding. Like I’m teary. Okay, go ahead. It is me looking back, I’m like, man, I hope that other women have not fallen into the skies. And, and so I, and he has a daughter too by the way, but I know. So he invited me to his studio where he like trains people and there’s this room, it’s a typical group fitness room, just wall to wall to wall of mirrors. And it was like, okay, now just wear your sports bra and your spandex. And I did. And like my Spanish shorts, sports bra. And he just went and like this mirrored room with that perfectly like target lighting, you know, target the store as the worst lighting.
Gosh. Yeah. And then it’s like, okay, we need to work on this spot like talking about my stomach and then this spot my thighs like this spot, my arms like areas I didn’t even know are a big deal like my triceps in my back and making this huge fuss about all the different areas. So as summary for that, after we did this awful mirror session is that I couldn’t eat any more fruit like fruit was making. Yeah, he is like fruit is making you gain weight and I’m talking like I was not, I was still very fit. I was fat because I was healthy. That’s why I say I was fit. Not saying I was lean, I was just fit and healthy. And he told me just no more fruit to me. I was like, yes. Okay. Self sabotage. Someone critiquing and degrading my body.
Okay, a diet, a meal plan, let’s do this. I’m so ready to get started on this. Cause that kind of talk fueled me. It gave me a reason to change because as long as I wasn’t working on changing my body, I felt lost. I felt out of control. And I needed to feel in control. And for me that meant a meal plan, weight loss goals, you know, a fitness program. Someone telling me to change myself. Oh my gosh, I seriously like want to die hearing your story. Like not kidding. I don’t think I can talk though, like getting so emotional. Oh no. Oh my gosh. No. Like I,
I can’t, I can’t, like, I’m just so upset. Um, seriously, like just thinking of, gosh, I’m sorry, I’m so emotional, man. I’ve never cried on our podcast. Just hearing somebody go through that and hearing that there’s people out there in our industry that do that and I know that like, I know that there’s people out there that do that, but it literally breaks my heart. Like the hardest thing for me is that all of these women, you know, all of us women are going around in society and our value is based on the validation of everyone else. And like, we get in this horrible cycle where we’re doing anything, we can’t lose weight. And yeah, these people, you know, maybe it’s media or other women or men like this that are telling us like, you’re not good enough. You need to be better, you need to be thinner.
But what it really comes down to is anyone that’s seeking the validation of who they are from any outside source is always going to be unhappy. I feel like that’s something women struggle with and I know I used to be, I think I’m just emotional because I used to be that same way, you know, feeling like I needed to be validated by friends and family. Like you said, someone says you look so good, you lost weight. Like at my honest, I was like the most unhappy I’ve ever been in my life, but I was about 25 pounds thinner than I am now. And I remember everyone telling me, you look so good. Oh my gosh, you’re so skinny. And I just soaked it up because I was so unhappy where I was in my life at the time that I needed it. Like I needed that validation. And now, you know, like I realize because I’m happy with who I am and because I love myself, I don’t need the validation of anyone else to make myself feel good about who I am. And it’s like, Oh, how do we get people there so that they’re not pawns to like that type of horrible man that’s just like literally ripping apart a woman’s soul. Like that’s how I feel like that he like literally ripped apart your soul. Like it’s horrific. Sorry, rant over.
No, don’t be, no, don’t be sorry. That’s why I wanted you to talk about this. I knew that you’d be connected to Madeline’s story. Uh, so I had a little bit of strategy bringing him out of that cause I knew Lynn was,
he’s like, Oh, a little cry.
No, but I knew she was going to connect your story, Madeline, and thank you for sharing that, but at the same time have it, you haven’t gone through this, made you who you are today and some women are still stuck there and maybe this will bring them out of it. And like you said, this needs to be screamed and not just talking about business like screamed to women and mostly but other people who struggle with this validation from the outside. Um, they need to, you know, overcome this and you have, because today you’re, you learn from this experience Madeleine and where you’re at today. It is because of where you were. Am I right?
Oh, absolutely. And thank you for opening up Lynn about that and being so beautifully empathetic to that story. And that’s the kind of emotion that I hope gets stirred and all moms and all daughters and all people just so that we can all become one and care about each other’s experiences and how we all see the world and how we all see our bodies and we all care for each other and kind of work on this movement together while we all start to encourage ourselves not because of our bodies and stop talking about our bodies and start talking about what we’re doing in our bodies, these cool vehicles, these cool gifts that we’ve been given to use because that’s what they are. They’re just gifts that we get to experience life. We need eyes to see things, we need our senses to, to feel things and, and have that pleasure sensation and all those wonderful things that come with life. And we should respect our bodies for being able to give us that amazing experience.
Yeah. You know what, you hit the nail on the head by using the word empathy. So empathy is very powerful and that’s definitely something that I relate to my brand fit to find the fit. Two is empathy. Empathy changes your perspective on something from an outside perspective you might think one way about something, but once you learn and gain empathy, which Qantas come overnight, it comes from experience. You totally change your perspective and now you can relate to and say, Oh, that’s what they’re going through. That’s how they feel, you know? And that’s where I feel like, you know, um, Lynn having experiences, same thing similar to you, Madeline and other women who have maybe experienced what you have can relate to this and hopefully change for the better.
Yeah. And I love what she said about, you know, focusing on the amazing things we can do with our body. You know, every morning I wake up and I literally say thank you to my body and I say positive affirmations about who I am and my soul. And I asked my body what it wants to do that day. And I know people will think that’s woo, but I am so grateful for the amazing body I have. And I feel like when we get to that point and when we can focus on, you know, like you said, loving everybody and loving their soul. Like we’re so much more than our physical appearance. And it’s so sad that that’s like the number one shame trigger for women is our looks. And I found that once I got to the spot, it’s amazing how my capacity for love, like just has grown, like loving everyone, loving women, not feeling like I’m in competition with anyone, especially women. And like admiring their beauty and wanting to uplift them and have them see like what beautiful souls they have, not what beautiful bodies they have. All of us have beautiful bodies. All of us have beautiful souls. So I love seriously your message. I can’t believe I did not find you until now.
I love you.
Uh, daily practices, um, habits that you have now that have helped change you versus who you were before. And that helped keep you from falling back into those old ways of how you used to view your body and your, your value. What are some daily things you do? Like Len mentioned some positive affirmations, or are there certain things or tips you can give our followers that have helped you to get to where you are today?
Absolutely. So just so listeners know in a nutshell that healing process for me, what it looked like after that second show, I did decide that none of this is worth it. You know, as long as I keep giving these, this panel of five judges permission to tell me when I’m enough, I’ll never be enough. And to second that as long as I keep telling myself that I have to prove myself to myself, I will never be enough. So myself first. It’s not up to the judges and my self worth isn’t up to a standard of perfection that I put on myself. My self worth is just installed in me already without having to do anything. And that moment I learned that, or at least not quite that message, but the moment that I learned, I can’t keep going down this path because when I die people are going to gather around my grave and say, yeah, she was so good at clean eating man.
Like so good at working out. Like, man, I just could watch her on Instagram all day long. So I decided I didn’t want that. And I from there, and these are a lot of the practices I still do today, but one of the things that I did, um, I went through and I just purged so many different things from my life that were triggering me. And for some people actually for most people start with just your social media because we’re exposed to thousands of advertisements per day and at least half of those advertisements include bodies and almost all of those bodies look the same. They’re all very thin. They have this certain look. And like when we start to see this body 500 times every single day of our lives, 365 days in a year, then we started to think there’s something wrong with our cellulite.
Like there’s something wrong with us taking a rest day. There’s something wrong with us not eating clean. So try to combat those amount of advertisements that you can’t help that you see because you know billboards and the news and magazines, they just kind of enter your life. But you can combat that by choosing to not follow a whole bunch of people on Instagram that discourage you, make you feel less than they could be. Great people, wonderful people, but only you in your heart know if their health help, helping your journey or they’re hindering your journey. So if they’re hindering you just on following them, it’s not the end of the world. Purge yourself from that. Reduce your triggers. If there is a family member or a friend and your life, let’s start with family member. If there’s a family member in your life that is triggering you and making comments, have that conversation open up.
When you speak out, then shame shuts up and you have to be able to speak out about these issues with people that you can’t help with them being around you. Let them know what’s going on and tell them what comments are triggering. Don’t talk about my body, please mom, you know, or dad, I don’t really appreciate you making comments about all these other bodies. You know, considering what I’m going through. So feel open to have those conversations, friendships that are discouraging you because I know diet, comradery is this thing people just seem to be attracted to. If one person’s on a diet, all the rest of the girlfriends feel like they need to include themselves and talk about their diet. You know, don’t worry, I’m not, I’m not not having an ID either. I’m working on that as well. You know, that is just a thing.
And if that’s not serving you anymore, take yourself out of that situation because there’s a whole community online of body positive anti dieting, people that are happy to welcome you and are happy to point you to free resources, their favorite books. That would be another thing that’s just start to consume yourself with this culture of body positivity because it’s, it’s growing and there are a lot of great books that you can pick up and they will open up your eyes to wow. Like, I can’t believe I’d never thought of that. Or this world is a crazy world with all of this, you know, body shaming that’s being, being done and you know, maybe even get a little bit angry, get a little bit angry about it. You know, I, I definitely went through an anger stage and I’m, I don’t, I’m not necessarily or like super angry anymore, but I am miffed at what happens, you know, with these young girls.
And I want to be able to have as much knowledge as I can about why this came to be. Why are we so pressured to look a certain way, perform a certain way when instead we can just be what is the difference between the way men are treated in the way females are treated? Or are we all in this together with this whole body image, no suffering issue we have going on. Because it’s true that a lot of men do go through that and a lot of men do have those insecurities. So those are a few things. Just immersing yourself in that culture. Um, also I would say too, if you’re just starting this journey, and this was a little tool I made up that I did for awhile. If you’re just starting this journey and most likely if you have gone through a very disordered eating relationship where you’re very consumed with you know, macros or calorie counting or being strict with your timing, you know, if you’re more on the strict side of things, you probably are a list person as well because us, you know, all or nothing, people like lists like having this concrete thing to go to.
So one thing that I started working on when I was just beginning this journey is I created a feast and fast list and it’s just kind of a play on words, but it’s basically things I want to start feasting on in my life that have nothing to do with fitness or nutrition and have everything to do with anything else. So it would be like a pro con list kind of format where you have on the left side feast on the right side fast. And then under feast I would write down things like, you know, ask more girlfriends to go out for coffee or schedule more walks in the park or get a dog, like big commitment, small commitments. Um, read more fiction books like uh, you know, go through my closet and just figure out what offers to make me feel best. Get rid of outfits that I don’t like that are too small, get rid of those things that I’m holding onto.
And then on the fast list, it’s all that nutrition, fitness stuff that I do want to stop doing. Like stop reaching out to diet coaches, getting contradicting information. Cause I would always do that being like pinging 20 different people are OEMing emailing all these people like, Hey, this is my calorie count, this is okay, is this bad, is good. Um, just tap into your intuition and don’t reach out to people. And the next one would be like, you know, cool it on reading nutrition or fitness related articles cause they’re all over your Facebook. You know, they are, they’re everywhere and they’re just asking you to open them. So take a break from all that information cause it can give you all a headache, just reading all of it and it’s confusing. Maybe you want to take a break from the gym, give your body some time to recover to rest, maybe try just taking walks or do some yoga.
Um, and that list could probably go on and on and on for a lot of people. But it’s those things you want to break away from. And it’s sometimes a good thing to be able to see it, to visualize it, to put that piece of paper on your fridge and just know, okay, you know, today, as much as I feel like I need to go to the gym, my body is saying I need to rest and I need to chill and I need to just like lounge and be okay with it. So feast on that feast on the things that are going to nourish your soul, make you feel, um, make you feel like you respect yourself. And you know, sometimes you gotta fake it till you make it. I might feel uncomfortable to take a break. It might feel like FOMO, like that fear of missing out. Like what is going to happen if I don’t read this article, but I promise you you will live, the world will go on and it’ll be a new day soon enough.
Hmm. Love, love, love, love, love, love everything you said. So beautiful. I tell my clients similar things, um, when I kind of make a list of things that helped me become more body positive. And I say similar things too. Like it’s gonna feel most likely uncomfortable at first cause we’re so programmed and we have these walls and new stories and then as you continue to do it, you’ll wake up one day and you won’t be able to imagine feeling or acting or doing those things any different. You know, it goes from hard to, not that it’s never always easy but a lot easier. So I love your lists. Yeah.
And it goes in line with what I try and get across to people is, you know, don’t focus on weight loss. Like that’s not your goal. If you can implement and embrace a healthy lifestyle and change, you know, you from a medical, from um, uh, change your medical health and focus, have that be the focus instead of okay, diet, exercise, those kinds of things. Weight loss becomes a byproduct of living a healthy lifestyle over time. And what I mean by healthy lifestyles, quality, sleep, getting out and moving as much as possible, whether that’s a structured workout or whether that’s just a walk in the mountains or going to the beach or getting out and moving. And then eating real food, like not counting calories, not counting macros, just changing your eating habits, um, that transitions into a healthy lifestyle. And then those things you’ll find out that those things like weight loss, that was your goal, that you thought was your goal before just becomes a byproduct of living that healthy lifestyle over time. But it’s not, the focus isn’t physique, it’s not six pack, it’s not being a size zero or being skinny. Um, instead we’re just making healthier habits over time. That’s great advice. I love the feast and fast approach. So hopefully people, so do you say that’s like a template you have on your website or it’s available on your website?
That is in my free your mind from food workbook and that is on my website. I think it’s like 1299 or something. But yeah, that’s in there. It’s a little like workbook with all these different questions to ask yourself and journaling entries to go through. But that’s in there. But you know, you don’t need the workbook to do it. You could just like get, grab a piece of paper and then write that out. Super simple. That’s awesome. Yeah.
Well I know that we, we want to make sure that everybody knows where to find you and maybe talk a little bit about your book and stuff before we go into our lightning round questions, which are like my favorite. So why don’t you tell everybody where they can find you. Maybe talk a little bit about this ebook, um, and how people can find that if you have a website, things like that.
And social media as well.
Absolutely. So the best way to find me is my website and Maddy moon.com and Maddy is spelled M a D D Y Maddy moon.com. And then I’m also on Instagram as Madeline moon. Um, and on Facebook as Maddie moon and I have some books out. So there’s the freer mind from food workbook, but I also have a brand new Amazon Kindle book. But you don’t need a Kindle to read it. You can still read it online, but actually you could order paper back too. So I just releasing this book. It’s coming out this upcoming Sunday. So by the time this episode’s out, I’m sure it’ll be out. Yeah, so it’s called confessions of a fitness model. Yeah. I’m really excited about this one. I do. I go over all the ins and outs and I really give a very clear picture of what I went through during this time of uh, fitness competitions and the emotional, spiritual, physical, mental turmoil that I put myself through for that. But also on the other side, all the positive things that came out, you know, once I did go through recovery and the process of healing and why it was just so dang worth it. And that book will be on Amazon. I have another one called the perfection myth and I wrote that when I think about a year and a half ago now, and that’s on Amazon. But again, the best way to find me, it’s just my website.
Awesome. Awesome. Everybody go find her. I am so interested in reading your books, especially after getting to know you better. And I just started following you this morning on Instagram. I can’t believe I didn’t find you sooner than that. People head over. I love her message. Um, so we’re going to get into the lightning round, which, uh, for those that don’t listen to our podcast, if this is the first time, what we do is, it’s my favorite part. We’re going to randomly ask Madeline questions. They have no rhyme or reason aside from me just thinking they’re fun and for you, you just have to respond as quickly as possible and like the first thing that comes to your mind. Ooh. Yay. Are you ready? I’m ready. Okay.
What is your funniest moment in life? Oh my gosh. The first thing that pops in my mind, um, when I was in second grade, I accidentally peed the gym floor. It was so sad. But looking back, it’s hilarious. I mean, did I say accidentally? I purposely did that. I just did it. I didn’t understand and like what would happen and then I found out very quickly. Oh my gosh. Okay. Do you have any interesting like party trick? Like something you could do that people are like, that’s so weird. You could do that or that that people think is funny, like a little, you know, like how people could do weird things but their tongue or, Oh yeah. Like I could say the alphabet backwards and people think that’s weird. Like something weird.
I, I can flip people off with my toe really. One toe up like one middle toe, middle toe. I don’t know why, but I like created this obsession about trying to get those toes on the outside down and get that one up and I just practice it whenever I’m like laying down and now I can do it. It’s pretty awesome. [inaudible] we’re both barefoot and it’s not happening. I’m like, I’m obsessed. Like you will want to, you will want to get it. Trust me. It becomes an obsession. A good one. Okay. Oh my gosh, this is hilarious. I know. Sorry. Okay. Do you think fish get thirsty? I’m totally kidding. It wasn’t really what I just, I just thought it was funny. Okay, next question. Is there any type of TV or reality show that you watch that you’re almost slightly embarrassed that you love? Oh, man. Um, well the first one that comes to mind no longer goes on, but I love the Jersey shore. Awesome. Awesome. I love that.
Okay, so now I feel bad asking you this, cause I know there’s no such thing as a cheat meal. You don’t get yourself when you eat something unhealthy or you don’t probably don’t even label things unhealthy versus healthy. What’s one food that you just absolutely love, that you’re kind of slightly addicted to that you’re like, okay, I probably shouldn’t eat this all the time, but what’s that food?
I’d have to say puffins cereal. Cause like it’s great cereal and there’s nothing wrong with cereal, but I just am addicted to that. Amazing. Like crunch that puff. Have you ever had Puffin cereal? It’s so good. No, never
toast crunch guy. And that’s my addiction. But I haven’t had that in years. Just FYI. Because I think here’s the thing, I think there are some foods that are trigger foods for some people. I know for me, if I have cinnamon toast crunch, I’m gonna eat the whole box. Like it’s, it’s in my, you know, semi cover. So that’s one of those foods that I’m like, okay, this triggers emotions, which caused me to probably eat more than I should, especially within that. But puffins sounds good. The next time I eat cereal, check it out.
Yeah, it’s really good. And the, you know, the break down of all that stuff is pretty good too. It’s just, they have this peanut butter one and it’s so amazing. But they have cinnamon too, so you could try it. There’s cinnamon flavor.
Okay. What’s one thing you can’t live without? And what I mean by this is like, for example, for me, it’s not like family or friends or you know, food or, you know, things like that. For me, it’s a chapstick. Like I can’t live without chapstick. I have to have chapters. What’s the one thing you can’t live without?
Wow, that is a really, really, really good one. Oh man. Chopstick man. I’m like so jealous. I’d have to say, I’m probably, this is one of those questions I’m going to think about later and be like, Aw, dang. I wish I’d said that, but I, um, I would probably have to say books. Like I would pick a book I guess. But like if I could just say books, I would, you know, book. Yeah, we’re good. Yeah. We’re going to let you, I’m gonna let you, because I, I always have, I always have a book on my nightstand cause like I love, since I was a little kid, I love reading like I, this world would be so empty without books and with you girl. Yep.
Okay. Maddie, last question here. The most important question, would you ever do fit to fat to fit on purpose?
Oh no, but that’s why I’m so glad there’s you for you so you can do it. I can just like follow you really closely and watch all that because I think it’s amazing. I think it is so cool that you do that.
Well, thank you. I expected you to say that. Most people say no, but most people are like, no, you did it. I don’t need to do it. So I totally get it. I think it would be definitely a challenge for women to do it versus men. And that’s what’s cool about like the TV show for example, is this last week was the first woman on the show and man, she struggled and she actually hated me for awhile, but now we’re friends and now that it’s over, but she, she had a hard time and there’s three trainers, three female trainers on the show doing the fit to fat to fit now. And yeah, a lot of a, it’s good to see women doing it because here’s the thing, fits fat to fit is crazy. It’s not for everybody, but it is a great way for people to learn empathy and kind of see things from a different perspective. Not exactly, but just kind of, um, and so I think trainers in general can learn a lot and it changes the way they think about people who are overweight and helping clients who are overweight. So it’s good to see women doing it as well. I’m curious to know how much weight you think you could gain if you did do it. Oh, you think you could gain a lot of weight? Do you think you could put on like 40 pounds where you think your body probably wouldn’t let you?
I probably could. I mean, right, like if I just ate pizza all day, like tons of pizza or like just float it up. Yeah. Like if I ate five boxes of puffins for breakfast, I could probably work my way on up there.
Interesting. Lynn thinks she could do it too, but,
well I, it’s just one of those things where it’s like I’ve been 10 sizes bigger. I know I can be bigger. I know that I could eat like a boss, cause
I love food and it used to be really easy for me to gain weight and, and it’s ironic because now I realize it’s because it was so much easier for me to emotionally eat when I was so unhappy with how I looked. And then fast forward now, not that I don’t have emotional days where I probably am like I’m emotionally eating this feeling with a donut, but for the most part I don’t emotionally eat any more because I actually love who I am. So it’s like interesting that I worked so hard and I was like, Oh I can actually control my eating now. Interesting. But um, yeah I could definitely gain 40 pounds on that show. I’m not going to do it cause I’m worried that I’d probably just get stuck there and be like this is awesome. Like I’m going to have donuts. Well I’m going to stay because the diet exercise mentality and that’s the problem.
Like I’d get there and be like, I hate diet and exercise, let’s just hang out, eat donut. Right. And I like all I do now is yoga cause it’s super calming for my mind. So if I were to gain like 50 pounds, I’m sure I could still lose some. But like only doing yoga might be a little bit more challenging. Right. And that’s the thing for me too. Like I don’t do, I don’t have a gym membership. I don’t go to the gym. I literally asked my body every day what it wants to do and some days, like you talked about before, like some days it’s not thing. Some days it’s walking. Like I literally just do whatever it wants, so I’m sure 40 pounds heavier. My body would be like, you’re good. Just lay on the couch, but you’re amazing. Madeline. Like, seriously, this is my favorite podcast that I’ve ever done. And like to me, you’re just such an inspiration to women. Like I cannot wait for everyone to find you and your site and for you to just continue this amazing movement of helping us lift people in general. Like I love what you said about unity and about just obviously body positivity and yeah, just keep being you. You’re like such a beautiful woman. Such a beautiful soul. I’m so grateful I met you
Maddie, and Hey, if you ever feel like you need to take a vacation out to Hawaii, let us know. You can definitely come hang out with us out here. Or if we’re in Colorado, we’ll come visit you.
Oh my gosh, yes, please. Both ways. That sounds awesome and thank you again for having me on. I just love you Bose and y’all provide such a unique perspective on so many different things and like you know we were talking about earlier empathy. I feel like both of y’all have so much of that and I’m really grateful that y’all invited me on the show and I can spread my message to your audience so thank you for that.
Awesome. Thanks. Thank you so, so much Maddie. Thanks for coming on and please stay in touch and have a good day. Okay.
Absolutely. You too. All right, see ya. Bye.
Thank you guys so much for listening to this episode with Madeline and we hope you enjoyed it. We know we did. We hope you look at food a little bit differently after this and just reminder of our show sponsors,
we have quest nutrition and dollar workout club.com again, that’s in the show notes. Go ahead and check that out. And if you guys want to just stay tuned for what drew and I are doing in our day to day lives and other health and wellness tips, you can find us on social media. All of my handles are the number two fit@homeandmywebsiteisthenumbertwofitathome.com
yep, and you guys know me, I’m on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Snapchat at fit to fat to fit, and my website has a newsletter as well. You can sign up for the fit threat, fit.com all right guys, thank you so much for joining us. Don’t forget to leave us a review on iTunes. Give us a five star rating if you like us and we’ll see you back here next week for another great day.
See you next.
