Wellness girl chat with us as we talk about the hard truths about your health & wellness that I’d tell you if I wasn’t afraid of hurting your feelings… even though I kind of am! We chat discomfort, discipline, red light, saunas, cold plunges, and what I’ve seen as a practitioner in the health & wellness space. We chat about things I wish I could tell my patients (as a Board-Certified Dr. of PT) that would help their rehab journeys! Listen in!

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00:00- 00:17 Intro

00:18- 01:49 Introduction and Episode Overview

01:50- 02:53 The Impact of Early Habits on Later Health

02:54- 06:02 The Importance of Discipline and Discomfort

06:03- 06:38 Stakt mat

06:39- 08:23 Avoiding Extremes in Health Trends

08:24- 09:54 The Basics Over Biohacking

09:55- 12:36 Exercise as Preventative Medicine

12:37- 14:32 Conclusion and Future Plans

Mentioned in this episode:

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These are the hard truths about

your health and wellness that I tell

2

you as a board certified doctor of

physical therapy, if I wasn't afraid

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to hurt your feelings, welcome back

to wellness because of the pod.

4

I'm your host, Dr.

5

Kelsey Vic, a board

certified orthopedic, Dr.

6

Physical Therapy and a pelvic

floor physical therapist.

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And I heard a creator, actually,

she's out of Austin, her

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name's Hannah Chote, and she.

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Was saying how she is the bossy

friend in her friend group, the

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bossy wife, but not in a bad way.

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In a good way.

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Where she's the one that will give it to

you straight, expect the most from you.

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Expect the best from you, and really push

you to be the best version of yourself.

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So I thought about her when I was

creating this episode, and I'm

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not typically the bossy friend.

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I do expect a lot out of myself, and I

expect a lot out of others, but I'm not

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one to necessarily speak up about that.

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So.

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This episode is a little outta character

for me, but consider this the bossy

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friend, the bossy older sister,

telling you about what you can do for

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your health and wellness, and telling

you the hard truths that might not

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be that fun to hear, but are some of

the truths that I've learned over,

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gosh, almost a decade in the physical

therapy realm in some way, almost.

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Five and a half years of treating

patients, almost 25 years of being in

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the health and wellness industry from

a young kid playing sports up until

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being one of the practitioners in

the health and wellness fields today.

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So this is coming from a place of

love, but also a place of experience.

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So the first one is a big one for

me, and it is a part of my deeper

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why, especially since I have treated

patients from all walks of life.

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And that hard truth is that a lot of

issues and pain we have later on in life

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can be attributed to poor habits that

we've established earlier on in life

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that doesn't have to be

poor habits that we perform.

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It can be good habits that

we also don't perform.

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So it works both ways where there are

challenges that come from omission of

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things we should be doing, as well as

challenges that come from performance

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of things that we should not be doing.

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So the basics don't have to be confusing.

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It's really all that has

been drilled into us.

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If you listen to health and wellness

content, moving enough, sleeping

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enough, stressing less, building good

relationships, fueling your body in the

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right way, all of these things don't

have to be confusing, but they are the

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things that create this solid foundation.

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Not only for now in our younger bodies,

but also later on when we go through pain

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injury, when we're getting older and our

bodies are just starting to break down a

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little bit more than they are right now

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The second hard truth is that prioritizing

your health and wellness takes

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discomfort and it takes discipline.

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Both of those things are words that

we, discomfort, definitely we don't

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like to hear, but discipline is one

of those where it can be motivating.

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But when it comes time to be

disciplined, a lot of the time,

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it's very hard to do because it's

tying back into that discomfort.

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Being disciplined involves doing things

that we oftentimes don't feel like doing.

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So you're not always going to wanna

exercise or eat right or turn off your

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screen at night and decrease the blue

light in order to get to sleep on time.

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You are not always going to wanna

rest or recover or drink the water.

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There's so many other good things

to do that sometimes those basics,

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that foundation of our health and

wellness can go by the wayside.

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But in order to really stay consistent

in your health and wellness and to

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really receive the benefits of all of

these like practices that we should

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be implementing, it takes consistency.

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And with consistency

sometimes comes discomfort.

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And a lot of the time.

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discipline is needed as well.

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one of my prime examples is that exercise

doesn't always feel good in the moment.

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Yes, I wanna encourage everyone to

find exercise and movement that they

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enjoy or that is somewhat tolerable.

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But if you're one of those people that

just hates movement, hates exercise

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of any kind, you really haven't

found something to get you hyped up.

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It doesn't matter.

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You still have to do it right.

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I wish I could say that you don't have

to perform it if you don't like to do

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it, but that's not the way it works.

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That's not the way building

a healthy body works.

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That's not the way that protecting

our bodies' long-term works.

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It takes discipline and it takes

discomfort, and a lot of the

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times exercise doesn't feel good.

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We have to stress our bodies, provide the

right stimulus, a challenging stimulus

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in order for our body to wanna adapt.

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Whether that's our muscular health,

our cardiovascular health, our

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nervous system Bone mineral density.

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The stimulus for that change is stress.

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It is, you know, some threshold

that we reach within our bodies

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that requires our body to pull more

resources in order to build it back

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up stronger so that we can handle that

stress and that load the next time.

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That is like the definition of exercise.

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And that is how the benefits

of exercise come about.

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The same thing happens with your

fueling and your sleep, right?

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We're not always going to want to eat in

the right way or eat the healthy foods.

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And I'm not saying we have to

a hundred percent of the time.

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That's definitely not healthy either, but.

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We can't just always eat unhealthy or

always fuel our body in an unhealthy way.

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We do have to come back to the basics.

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We need some of those vegetables.

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We need some of those carbs.

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We need some of those proteins.

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We don't always need all

of this sugar from candy.

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we can't just eat that all the time.

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So that's where some of that

discomfort and that discipline

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comes in, especially if your goals

are related to health and wellness.

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So my tip, I guess, that combats that hard

truth is find something that you like to

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do pretty consistently and do that often.

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Whether that's exercise, whether

that's how you fuel your body,

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whether that's how you handle

water, whether that's how you sleep.

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Find something that you are able to

stick with and do it consistently,

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even when it takes a little bit of

discipline and a little bit of discomfort.

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the next hard truth is that the

health and wellness industry will

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always grip onto the extreme side

of things, and very rarely will

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those extremes move the needle.

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So a few examples that I can think

of when it comes to fueling or

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nutrition, the big protein push.

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There was a big keto push.

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There was a big veganism push,

there was a big anti carbs push

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when I was in middle school.

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There was like a peanut butter diet.

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There's all sorts of extremes and

yes, there are great things about each

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of those ways of fueling and there

might be reasons that you choose one

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over the other based on different

beliefs that you have or values that

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you hold, and that's totally okay.

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But if you're subscribing to

this big extreme push and you're

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fueling in one way or another.

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I don't think that will actually change

the needle much compared to just mastering

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the basics when it comes to exercise.

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We've had a high intensity

interval training push tabatas.

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Do you guys remember Tabatas?

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That was a huge push.

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Now I feel like we're in this Pilates

princess, low intensity intervals,

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steady state stuff where it's like, we

don't wanna raise our cortisol too much.

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That's another big extreme where.

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If we just keep it in moderation where

we do the movements that we enjoy

130

without trying to grip onto every

trend, I think our bodies will be

131

in a much better place and we'll be

able to stick to with it longer term.

132

And then some general extremes that

I've seen are that cortisol's bad,

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inflammation is bad, where our body

has these things and these systems

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within them in order to help us.

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And saying that something is bad, high

cortisol is bad, high inflammation is

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bad, is not healthy for us because it

starts to put this negative connotation

137

on these systems within our body

that are actually helpful for us.

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So it truly is about consistency

and relative moderation in all

139

areas, rather than going to the

extreme in one area based on what

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the general media is pushing at us.

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The next hard truth is that supplements

saunas, cold, plunges red light devices,

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all of these biohacking things are

oftentimes distractions from what

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you really need in order to move the

needle with your health and wellness.

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It really comes down to moving

consistently, sleeping enough, hydrating,

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appropriately recovering, building

those relationships with those around

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you, managing stress in a healthy way,

which that's a super hard one for me,

147

but it really does come down to those

basics, and if we can really focus on

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those basics and add those supplemental

things in as needed, I really think

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that's where the benefit of those

technologies lie, rather than being

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the one thing you rely on in order to

help your overall health and wellness.

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Speaking of, we've done an episode on

this, but the number one predictor of

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a happy and healthy life long-term is

actually the quality of your relationship.

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There's some really, really great

science on it, so I'll leave that link

154

below, but that's why I'm including

relationships and community in these

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general, sort of like health and wellness.

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Basics that we need to meet because

it is so important and it might

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be the most important thing.

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As much as someone who loves movement

and who loves exercise and who loves

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challenging her physical body and her

psychological state with movement.

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I love that side of it.

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But building those relationships and

having good quality relationships

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and friendships and community is

actually one of the highest predictors

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of happiness and health long term.

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So I'll leave the link

to that episode below.

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It's such a feel good

episode, but I love it.

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The last hard truth that is very

near and dear to my heart is that

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exercise is protective against

a lot of pain neurodegenerative

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diseases and cardiovascular disease.

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Exercise is one of the best preventative

medicines for all of those things

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where you get a lot of the benefits.

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There's hardly.

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Any downsides to exercise, and

there are so many upsides across

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so many systems within our body.

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We have done an episode with Dr.

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Dixie stand forth before, and I'll

leave that link below, but she

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mentions this, that exercise is

one of the best prescriptions for a

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lot of different things that might

happen within our body that might go

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wrong within our body, but it's also

one of the hardest for people to.

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Carry through with the prescription

dosage needed for that relative medication

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because it's not just pop a pill and

drink some water and you're good to go.

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It actually takes some effort

and it takes some consistency

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Most people want sort of this quick fix

and exercise is definitely not that, but

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the upsides to exercise and the upsides

to that hard work is far greater than

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the upsides and even the side effects,

especially of some of these quicker fixes.

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as a side note, this is why it's so, so

important to me, as a physical therapist,

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I feel like the people who have the most

solid foundations in their health and

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wellness, they're moving consistently.

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They're eating right, they're sleeping

well, they're hydrating appropriately.

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They recover the best no matter

what their bodies are going through,

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whether it's a physical injury,

whether it's a disease process going on

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throughout their body, whatever it is.

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The people that come to me with a

solid foundation in their health

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and wellness oftentimes recover.

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So much better, so much quicker

and to a much higher capacity than

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someone who comes in who doesn't

have this like great foundation.

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So that is one of my like deeper whys

of this podcast, of being a physical

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therapist of education, is to really

help people understand the importance

198

of these habits and building these

solid foundations early on in life

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so that when our bodies inevitably

go through something, whether.

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It's out of our control, or most of it,

most of them are out of our control.

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But whether or not it is like an injury

that we have happen to us in a sport

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or just a genetic disease process

that has been going on throughout

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our families, whatever it is, we

have these solid foundations built

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already so that we can handle those

challenges that we might face later on.

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So my little empathetic heart is.

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Feeling it after some of those hard

truths, because a lot of the time I

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want to say those things to people

and I want to like drill it in their

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heads, but I understand that people are

on all different walks of life and in

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all different parts of their journey,

of their health and wellness journeys.

210

So I.

211

Those are my hard truths that I

would tell you if I wasn't afraid

212

to hurt your feelings when it

came to your health and wellness.

213

So I hope you guys enjoyed

those little hard truths.

214

I hope it was a nice little

bossy sister bossy kick in the

215

butt moment if you needed it.

216

Thank you guys for listening.

217

I also wanna say thank you

to everyone who has reviewed.

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I know the numbers seems small,

but anytime I even see one more

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review, I'm like so grateful.

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So thank you to all of those who

have reviewed, listened, liked,

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shared, followed, subscribed.

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Like anything.

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It really, really means the world.

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We're doing this fun summer series

right now where we're doing a few

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more like casual episodes, but I

have so many ideas and so many.

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Creative things that I wanna do come

the fall when we're all back in a

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more normal routine where we really

get back into the fun, sciencey

228

stuff, learning about our bodies.

229

And I'm also thinking of doing a

new podcast festival come fall,

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maybe early in the year, depending

on how big I wanna make it.

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But I would love any ideas that

you guys want to learn about.

232

We've done a great.

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Women's Health Podcast Festival back in

May, and maybe we'll do that again next

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year with more speakers in all aspects

of life because it was so, so much

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fun and you guys enjoyed that a lot,

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Yeah, I have a lot of plans for the fall,

so thank you for joining me for this

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fun summer series, this fun episode.

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We're gonna have a few more fun, sort of

like casual wellness sciencey episodes

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throughout the rest of the summer

while we're all just sort of on this

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like relative exhale, relative summer

vacation, summer break, and we will resume

241

our typical sort of like fun sciency.

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Get into the nitty gritty type

of stuff at Come the Fall.

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So thank you guys for your support.

244

Thank you to everyone who listens

to all of the reviews, especially

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because I've gotten a few more

recently where I'm like, oh my gosh.

246

Thank you guys for going out

of your way and reviewing and

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just supporting me in that way.

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it means a lot to me.

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So thank you.

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I hope you enjoyed this episode and

I'll see you guys again on the next

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episode of Wellness Exists, the pod.