[CW: domestic violence, language, dieting/weight loss]

"I began my life at 40." Tosca Reno's story of empowerment, renewal, and resilience. Including:

• Why neither Tosca nor Ella buys into the "anti-aging" narrative
• Tosca's early challenges, her divorce and obesity
• From overweight to competing in bodybuilding at age 42
• How Tosca's midlife 'Cinderella' experience came crashing down - hard.
• Tosca's healing journey including plant medicine (psilocybin)
• Creating a new energy around the 'women and aging' conversation
• Detaching our sense of worth from our physicality - while still investing in both

BLOG / show notes: https://www.onairella.com/post/335-embracing-authentic-aging-tosca-reno

Connect with Tosca: @toscareno

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Hey, you're on air with Ella and this is a very special day for me because I have on the show today, Tosca Reno and Tosca, the last time we spoke on the air was maybe 2015, 2016. It's been a minute. It's been a minute and it's been a COVID minute too. A few things have happened in that minute. Quite a bit. You guys, to give you some context when Tosca and I originally spoke, we were talking about

journeys. I was a newly minted 40 something year old, you were in your 50s. Then we were talking about the transitions we experienced and taking care of our bodies and that sort of thing. Well, Tosca, I ain't in my 40s anymore. How about you?

TOSCA

No, no, I'm looking at a birthday pretty soon that should mark me as a senior citizen, but I'm not playing that game.

Ella

This is one of those shows I'm going to be incredibly shallow for just one moment. You had

You immediately have to click on the show notes or go to Tosca's Instagram page and check out this hot woman. Like she looked absolutely amazing. You are, you are my absolute inspiration. And if anyone tells you, you look good for your age, you have my permission to punch them in the face. I know for your age, what does that mean? Right. I mean, we're a positive show, but there's a line.

Tosca, there's a line. There's a line. And I think that line is becoming ever more present because there's more of us that are standing at the vanguard of this, what I think is a new energy around women aging and that conversation. That's exactly right. And to be honest, that's the non -shallow side of why I've always been so attracted to you. I love your energy. I love your refusal to play into whatever society says is supposed to happen and embracing who you are.

And this anti -aging thing, not for me, this pro -living, pro -energy and like not going quietly into the night thing, that's for me. And that's what I see in you. And that's why I admire you so much. I think anti does a disservice or anti -aging does a disservice to the people who have left this world too soon. Like I have a son who passed at 24. He would love to have aged a bit longer.

So I don't use that term either. I feel like what we want is a long health span living in the fullest expression of ourselves rather than let me get myself this skinny and this hot, but I can't move and I can't think. No. Tosca, tell us who you are and what you do. Yes. So I'm known for being the founder and the person who instigated the entire Eat Clean movement some 20 years ago.

Up until that point, people were talking about it, but they weren't really doing it in the fullest expression of itself. Now we're here to stay. Yeah. And you, I mean, you are a category inventor in my book. What are you, what are you known for now?

TOSCA

What I'm known for now is probably that I had a massive amount of acclaim and success. I've sold 4 million copies of my books and now I'm on the reinvention tour. Yes, Madonna did it first.

but I'm finding my way to a different expression of self because I feel when the universe delivers you a series of events and you're asked to pay attention, those are there for a reason. And that is helping me to evolve to this next level of self. And that's been my journey for the last, I'm going to say decade really. It's been a lot of work, a lot of looking under the hood at the dark side, you know? Yeah. Unfortunately that appeared fortunately and unfortunately that appears to be the only way to do it. Yeah.

Ella

Tosca, you are a hot commodity in the wellness industry. People want you to come on and talk about your strike sugar programs and talk about the microbiome and talk about metabolic catalyst. I wanna talk about you and you're such a champ. You're such a sport because I wanna talk about Tosca. I love having people who are showing what's possible and willing to tell the truth about it.

I love that combination. And that's why I wanted to share a little bit more Tosca energy on the show today. All right. Let's go back just a little bit. OK, let's go back and dive into your story just a little bit, because I don't know. I'm just going to surmise that you did not enter the world and know that you were destined for fame and fortune and glory and all the roses. What was life? What was early life like for you?

Oh gosh, early life, I was born to very strict Dutch, Roman Catholic immigrant parents. They were part of the massive post -war immigration that occurred from Holland or the Netherlands to Canada. And so my parents were among those 1 .4 million people, I believe at the time, the diaspora. They had very little. My mother came with a sewing machine and the intention to take care of her kids and my dad the same. So it was very, we lived a very modest life. However,

foundation of that life was always, it's gonna sound like a terrible thing to say, like peasant food. They did not buy the boxed packaged crap. They didn't tap into the media. I didn't know what a Chris Rice Krispie was. Well, all my friends were eating them night and day. So, you know, I was a little bit out of the loop there. But at the same time, a very strict life and I was athletic as well. I played soccer, I swam all kinds of stuff. But the strict life can also

put the lid on a very energetic person. And I've been described as having enough energy that I feel like a tornado, but I was probably squished into a teacup. And so I had to explode and explore and get myself into trouble. And yeah, my heaviest, I weighed, I remember that day looking at the scale, 204 pounds, Ella, I didn't know what had happened to me.

Ella

But you weren't happy. I'm going to go ahead and guess you weren't happy. I know you got married. Did you get married in your 20s, Tosca?

Tosca

I did. I got married early because again, I was of that ilk where you got, you went to school, you got married, you had the kids, you just behaved yourself. And these were, I call these programs. So we're programmed to participate in other people's beliefs and stories about what they think should happen to you. And I didn't have, uh,what I would call the wherewithal to question that. Because my parents were also extremely strict and, you know, once in a while a little bit violent, but I really wasn't willing to challenge myself that way. Yes, I was miserable, miserable. And then I married basically someone who was very much like my parents. And so I lived with domestic abuse until the day, the day that I had taken enough of it. That was 17 years, not fun. Gosh, oh my word.

I feel like when, I immerse myself in your story. And when I hear you talk about your story, I feel like in a way your life almost began at 40 in a sense. Obviously, we're not discounting the experiences and the lessons learned, but the real Tosca started emerging around the age of 40. I say, I point that out for a couple of reasons. One is there are a lot of people listening who feel like they haven't peaked yet.

you know, they're still like waiting for their moment. And I don't intend on ever peeking because on the other side of a peak is a decline. But humor me here and tell me a little bit about what that awakening was like for you. And how did you experience it?

Tosca

I experienced it as a world of possibilities. In my dreams, I saw myself as an amazing Olympic figure skater and all the lights were on me, but in my real life, I was so far from that. So I literally thought that raising my children, which is a beautiful thing to be a mother, I have absolutely no regrets about that. But I thought, is that all there is to life? Because I felt this spark inside of me that said, no, there's something more. So when I began to really live my life at the age of 40 and dip my toe into the vast world of opportunities,

I couldn't have imagined the things that would have happened that were going to happen to me. I just couldn't imagine they did happen. I just had no idea. So I just, I remember having this feeling and driving down the highway one day going, so many possibilities. There's so many things I can do. I had no idea. It was like I came alive.

Ella

What I'm imagining is that you had a series of events that started opening your eyes to things. Could you share some of the highlights with us? Like what were some of the highlights?

catalyst for change for you. I imagine you got a divorce.

Tosca

That's right. The keystone move. I decided that I would stand up for myself because if I didn't, what I was showing my three girls at the time was something dangerous. And I knew that pattern would repeat. So yes, I went to school, I became a teacher and there was a seminal moment on the playground as a grade one teacher. That's what I was doing. I met this man who would bring his daughter to school every day and

I was shocked that this man was bringing his daughter to school, but one day he engaged me in a conversation about fitness. And of course, I have no idea who this man is, no clue at all. And I say something daft, like, I count my calories and then he just laughs out loud and says, mm -hmm. And if I were a betting man, I would take a nickel off every person who ever said that I'd be rich, but I know that that does not work. And that was the moment when...

for the first time I dared to think differently about what I was doing or how I might get myself to become a lean person because he issued a challenge and it turns out this person of course was Robert Kennedy who brought bodybuilding to North America. I honestly, no idea living under a rock. He brought Arnold Schwarzenegger and women's fitness to North American mainstream. Is that fair to say? Yes.

That is and eating clean. Yes. Yes. Together we did that. So yes, that's completely fair. Well, he must have laughed at you in a charming way because you married him, Tosca. I did. Well, first he became my trainer because the challenge he issued was if you think that you can get yourself fit, then I'm going to issue you a challenge. You're going to compete in a bodybuilding contest at the age of took me a year to get ready. 41, compete at 42.

and you're just gonna have to train as I train you and eat as I tell you to. At this point, we're not in a relationship. He's coaching me. So he took me on and I stood on stage in Las Vegas, my very first show as a bodybuilding competitor. I blow my mind. But the magic of the journey was he showed me something that I had never physically experienced in my body before, which was the capacity to literally change the function and shape.

of your physique through food and training. It just blew my mind. I remember one day, I didn't first, at first I didn't know what a triceps was, but then I remember one day he'd like me to train in jog bra and shorts because you have to see your body, you have to get back into your body to know it. And when you're a victim of domestic abuse, you don't want to be in your body. You put the wall up. So to take my, I can feel the feelings of it right here, right now, to take my shirt off and just be in a jog bra and shorts felt.

dangerous to me. And yet, I trusted him enough that when I looked in the mirror, I could see a new aspect of myself, I could see muscles and I could see tone and I no longer saw obesity. But like, as I say, I can feel the emotional experience of that journey even now.

Ella

Yeah. And a lot of women who are not victims of acute trauma, capital T trauma, they still can channel those feelings, Tosca. They've been so cut off from their bodies that it is a terribly vulnerable thing. Not even to view themselves as you described, but even to go to a gym and to be exercising in person with other people feels terribly exposed. How do you counsel people in that position?

Tosca

Well, I was that person. So I do remember going to the gym first and being literally cloaked. Like I wore the baggiest t -shirt and the biggest baggiest pants because I didn't want anybody to validate the evidence that I already was aware of that I was obese. So I would go in the farthest corner of the gym where there weren't too many people hanging around and certainly no meatheads, no bodybuilders. But I remember as my body changed, my view of myself changed.

and I could see that I wasn't the person I always had believed myself to be. So I started taking center stage, like, well, hello. Let me just come to the gym now with my cute little outfits on and watching the experience of changing myself, not only in the mirror, because it happens in front of a mirror if you're paying attention, but also as you get to know people in the gym where they can see your strength building and they see something new.

And I remember a woman who had been formerly me, like someone who had come to the gym also in her baggy clothes, hiding in the corner. And I was very compassionate for that person because I was her, but I could see that if I kept up my work, I would inspire others to do the same. Yeah, that's actually what appeals to me so much about your journey.

And here you are, though, you are competing in bodybuilding at the age of 42, which I have to say is still just a shocking thing to consider for me anyway. I just, I think that's so bad ass, but you come in the top five, your career starts to take off. Robert either started or already had the, the magazine oxygen, which again, category first and a fitness magazine for women. Am I getting that right?

Tosca

Absolutely right. Oxygen. Yeah. So he had begun it, but it came into its heyday when I came on the scene and he noticed because of that win, we got an avalanche of emails, because it was email in the day, right? And letters. And the response was, oh my God, we have permission at the age of 40 to not be our 65 -year -old grandmother type. We actually can show up in this way. And that's what breathed new life into Oxygen Magazine. So Bob would invite other women of my age who were now also, I think I was swimming upstream at that time. Nobody was doing that. Nobody was competing and I was doing it. And that's where Raise the Bar came from. And it became, Oxygen was the most widely read magazine, fitness magazine for women. And then I got a cover and it just exploded even more. And Raise the Bar was your column. Yeah.

Ella

Okay. So you are now having this Cinderella experience. You are collecting accolades. Did you have a complete cognitive dissidence between who you thought you were and who you became? Or did your transformation, was it as mental and spiritual as it was physical?

Tosca

Let's say that I couldn't believe in many times, many cases what was happening to me. It was a lot, but I remained grounded. I wouldn't say that I had a full spiritual awakening until a couple years later. So that will come into our conversation. But I remember feeling a tremendous sense of responsibility that there are women out there like me who need help and I don't want them to suffer. So I'd love to really share my story from that point of view. I didn't become the person who was like, oh, look at me, you know, cause Instagram wasn't a thing so much then social media and stuff. So it wasn't the way it is today. So it all felt very authentic. It just felt like a beautiful blossoming that I probably should have happened a long time ago, but now I had the right context and the right Svengali to teach me.

And I wish in a sense that's where it stayed, but it did not.

[BREAK]

Do you ever feel like there's something untapped in your life? Like you're capable of so much more, but you just don't know how to unlock it, how to get to it. In fact, sometimes you don't even know what you want or how to figure it out. You just know inherently that there's more and you want to tap into it, but you don't know where to start. I get it.

I used to feel like I was not even really living my life, but almost like I was living someone else's. You might not have felt the same way, but maybe it left you with the same result, which is almost like you're leaving a part of life on the table. You're leaving parts of you untapped, unclaimed, underfed in a way. Or maybe it feels like you're playing too small or you want to do something new, but you have no idea where to even start. Whatever the case, I am so excited.

to share with you that I am creating two opportunities for you, for us to figure it out. I am introducing both a program and an in -person event for exactly this reason. Now these are two totally different options tailored to meet different needs. If you are even remotely intrigued by either, then join the wait list today to be the first in line for all of the details.

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Do not let another day slip by without taking a tiny step toward the you that you want to be. Join the waitlist now and secure first access for an experience of real change and frankly, a hell of a lot of fun. I cannot wait to share more with you soon. Live better, start now.

You actually had quite a dramatic conclusion to what I called your Cinderella experience. And I don't mean that in a cheeky way at all. Tosca, what happened in your personal life? Talk to us about that.

Tosca

And he was 24. These were complications from a car accident. So that was a tragedy which seemed to spark a series of tragedies because a year later, Robert, who was the love of my life, truly, he was someone who just was able to see what I couldn't see in myself and brought the best out in me.

apocalypse. It was horrendous and it affected my children, myself, my self -esteem. Now, with the grace of time, the benefit of the softening of those hard edges, I realized that this was something that I had to experience. This was given to me to develop a greater sense of awareness of what others might be going through because you can't live a Cinderella life all the time and I had it. So what is this learning that I now must take on?

And that brings us much closer to the current timeline, right? As you start to near this decade that we're presently in, I just see such a peaceful energy from you, still vitality and exuberance and power and energy, and yet a peace and a wisdom that you clearly earned. Can you tell me about this really second profound awakening in your life and what it comprised?

Tosca

Yes, so thank you for that. I will say that I went kicking and screaming. My first act, when I realized just the, if I can say this, the shit storm that I was facing. You can say it, but if you whisper it, it's much better. Okay, there's a lot of shoveling of manure.

The first act I did, just if you're gonna picture this, I went into Robert's closet with all his fancy schmancy jackets and clothes, because he did love to dress, and I threw them all on the driveway, and I got in the truck and I just drove over them, because I was so mad that he had betrayed me. And then I picked up all those clothes and I put them in the truck and I brought them to some thrift store or whatever. I'm I can't live with this stuff. He betrayed you by dying? Is that what you mean? What he didn't do was he didn't tell me what I was going to face, and he knew it.

I knew that he knew it because I did the forensic accounting to see, okay, what is going on here. So, the day came, and this was actually after I appeared on the Dr. Oz show, the day came when I realized the full weight of the debt and the task that I was facing, that I literally became catatonic. My daughter came to visit. She's a naturopathic doctor.

She was literally talking to me and it was as if I was in one of those slow, I couldn't understand, I couldn't answer, I couldn't make my mouth work. And I realized, ooh, I'm gonna need some help here. And that is when I began to explore this spiritual or if you will, the emotional aspect of wellness because the definition of wellness according to the World Health Organization is eating clean and exercise, but it's also emotional self -care because this and your heart need to come with

you. And I was shut down. And now I began that painful process of opening up. And that took me 10 years, it was a lot of fugly crying. There was a lot of howling not at the moon, just like a pain. I tried plant medicine, because I know that that is the BS excavator where there are some things that are so deeply stuck in the psyche that you need to get them out, which I did.

Ella

Wait, what'd you try? What did you try? We just talked about this and I'm fascinated by the topic.

Tosca

Okay. So I tried psilocybin mushrooms with a guide.

Ella

Psilocybin, okay.

Tosca

But all the work was necessary. So I'm so grateful for that. And this is, I think what this emotional piece is all about is this moment now of gratitude where I can say, that was a really, really tough and public debacle and a painful experience. But now I know something that I didn't know before.

Ella

Yeah, and you talk about in your healing journey, you talk about three E's of wellness. And I was really curious about that. And I'm guessing that one of them is emotions and emotional. Okay. What are the other two?

Tosca

Eating clean. So what we nourish ourselves with, because in my mind, eating clean is food that is absolutely immersed with energy and information for the cells, information for the cells, right? Because we are 40 trillion bacterial cells and maybe 50 to 60 trillion human cells.

So information for the cells, eating clean, whole nutrient dense, properly prepared, well -sourced foods, exercise, movement. You might not like to move, but movement itself elevates you to the highest best self because it encourages all the good stuff. It just changes who you are as a person. And that is my story. That's my clean story. And then the emotional self -care piece, which is being willing to, I say, look under the hood of the car at the dark parts of you because whatever has come into our lives,

for one reason or another, our soul has drawn to us to explore, to process, to integrate and to learn from.

Tosca, you've been so open and honest and shared in some of the profound suffering that has existed in your life. And I have what might be the most personal question to ask you, so feel free to - We can take it out - but when you experience life the way that you did in the second half of living, which is to say you were celebrated for your physical attributes, and then you built a business on helping other women achieve results in their physicality. Now you and I both know that taking care of your body is about so much more than what size jeans you wear, like so much more. And we do not even have time to articulate why taking care of yourself is a spiritual event.

Okay, we both feel that way. Now, but let me ask you this, when you're a beautiful woman, and you're on magazine covers, and you're celebrated, let's be honest, for the way that you look and what you've accomplished physically, what is it like, as you move farther away from that point in time, because I'm staring at we're all staring that in the face, and I fully intend to

remain as aspirational as I possibly can, maybe only to like four people, but whatevs. I care about treating my body a certain way. I care about being really strong. I care about standing upright. I care about being able to run after things when I want them, literally and figuratively. However, I also have to appreciate that the world is not going to celebrate me for the way that I look when I'm pickin' age, fill in the blank with any age. So I have to unattach my worth from my physicality while still investing in both. What is that like for you if you don't mind me asking?

Tosca

It's a well phrased question because it's not an easy one to ask because it does ask us to look at ourselves from a different point of view. The one thing I will say about that is it does feel different. And I'm going to tell you when I competed,

I was naked on stage. The bikinis that you wear, you have to use surgical glue to apply. Less anything, pop out. Okay. So just imagine that. And you're 40 and change. And I last time I competed, I was nearly 53, almost 10 years ago. I would tell you this, as naked as I was on that stage in my physical self, I have never been more naked and done more difficult sets and reps than in this emotional self care journey. And I think,

That is the purpose of it all because you and I are here and you doing your work and me doing mine. We are all here to become vessels of light. We are to pull love and knowledge into ourselves and then radiate it back out to those who will receive it. So the task and frankly the duty is to continue what we do fearlessly because you and I are needed to tell this story now more than ever. We know that we are at a turning point in the physical vibrational history of humankind. And I intend to be fully integrated into the story, into the history, into the future of what's coming. And for that to happen, I have to be disengaged from this aesthetic, oh my God, is my butt cute? To purposeful, resilient in my mind, intelligent about my choices, my compassion, my wisdom, my thoughts, my feeling. That to me is going to be the far greater message because now, I have four daughters and I have grandchildren. What are they watching their own do? That is my purpose and my point. And I want that to shine out for so many unfulfilled and unrealized women. We see you. Now you're welcome to come. Come with us and do this together.

Ella

40 years from now when you aren't speaking directly into their ears, perhaps, Tosca, what do you hope they hear from you? What are you instilling in them now that you want them to hear decades from now?

Tosca

That I can still swing me a good old kettlebell. I'm still writing. I can still verbalize. I can still leave a legacy, very important to me. In fact, one thing that scares me deeply is if I don't leave a legacy, what will I have accomplished on this planet? So for me, that's just a piece that I need to share. And I hope even with my grandchildren, when they see me, you know, they'll remember something about me, like, Oma likes to put her hands in the dirt, or my daughters will say, my mother was always she was a ball buster, but she showed us the way. I hope you don't mind. I want to touch on the concept of legacy.

Someone just asked me about this and I want to share an idea with you in case that it's of value to those who are joining us in this conversation today. And I said, you know, I'm different. My life is not as public as yours, Tosca. And I have no doubt that you will remain a force and a presence for far longer than most, quite frankly. I don't delude myself for one moment to think that that is true of me. In fact, I expect that by say the third generation, my name will probably rarely if ever be mentioned. And I don't consider that a negative thing. And I'm going to share with you why. I believe that so much of our idea of legacy is slightly misled and

You, as an example, are creating so many ripples in the pond right now. Every time you help a woman right now, you have just created another set of ripples. Every time you shine your light on somebody or share your gift with somebody in the world and you operate only in the spaces you operate, doesn't have to be on the global scale, doesn't have to be in front of millions.

When you operate in the spaces you occupy, you are creating ripples in the pond and those ripples, as you know how ripples work, they create ripples because they are their own catalyst. And you are impacting the world for future ripple after ripple after ripple because of what you are doing right now by uplifting women. Oh, that feels beautiful. And I can feel the ripples. I store you.

I think it's so important for us to know that because a lot of people, you're an aspirational figure, Tosca, and a lot of people are like, okay, I'll have what she's having, but I didn't, so I'm probably not gonna be doing competitions at 52. That doesn't matter. Every single person joining in this conversation with us today has their gifts in their spaces. So I think their legacy and yours scale is. immaterial and your job is to start right where you are and use what you have and do what you can.

Oh, I am with you in that pond 100%. Every single thing I do, you do, she does, he does, is the arena and we are radiating out our truth through our behaviors, our words, our actions, our responses, our creativity, whatever it may be. Each is so important to the

entire human story. One light might be brighter than the other, but they're all equally valuable. What would you say to the many, many women in lots of different places in the world who are joining us today about what is possible? I would say that your intuition brought you to listen to this podcast, acknowledge and honor that and be willing to be so courageous as to take your place fully in this.

human story because you maybe haven't told your story yet, but it deserves to be told. And I feel your potential could be as that way that I felt that day driving in the car, limitless possibilities. I want to explore them all because there is nothing worse as a half lived life. There is nothing with greater regrets. Don't leave those things on the table. Do it. Just, just do it.

Ella

Tosca, thank you for your light and thank you for your energy.

And Tosca, you do have a really cute butt.

Tosca

Ella, right back at you.