Welcome to the Dr. Gabrielle Lyon Show. Do you want to know what it takes to lose over 100 pounds? To become both mentally and physically strong? Be able to design a life of wellness, and of course, keep your weight off and where you want it to be? Well, you’ve got to tune into this episode. I sit down with a generational voice, Mari Llewellyn. We discuss all things health, fitness, and the responsibilities of bringing information forward. As always, this content is free. Please take a moment to like, subscribe, and share it. And now, without a moment, let’s jump into the show.

[MUSIC PLAYING] Mari Llewellyn, thank you so much for coming on the show. Thank you for having me. I am so honored to be here. I have to tell you, there are a number of things that I want to talk to you about. But I want to lay the foundation as to why I wanted you on the show.

You are a voice of a generation, a generational voice. And you are bringing health information, interviewing a ton of experts on your own podcast.

 And I think that you represent something very unique.

Number one, you’re a beautiful person, both inside and out. As you know, the other aspect is you’ve taken on a huge responsibility.

And that responsibility is bringing information to really your generation.

And of course, you have a story which you have told many times on many podcasts. And I will highlight this for the listener that in 2017, when you had hit rock bottom, you were 250 pounds.

 You are a fully transformed human.

 And you’ve now created a new almost– a new way to provide information and just show up for the world.

 Yep.

 Tell me, how do you feel about that responsibility?

 Wow. I don’t think anyone’s ever asked me that.

 And it’s a great– it’s nice for me to reflect on as well, because I think with podcasting, it’s easy to get wrapped up. It’s a nonstop job, two episodes a week. You’re constantly going, editing, booking.

 But it really has been probably my favorite thing I’ve ever done in my career. It’s kind of been the evolution of my platform. As you said, I started posting in 2017 about my weight loss journey on Instagram. But I always felt limited by Instagram and TikTok. I’ve always been someone that loves to communicate and connect with other people. And Instagram kind of had that limit, especially with the short-form content that’s getting so popular. I was like, how much can I really share and add value? And I also think social media is a little selfish. We’re constantly posting about ourselves and talking about our own lives. And I had this yearning to talk to other people about their lives and learn from them. So starting the podcast, I was so excited about bringing on experts and genuinely just curious for myself. I was asking about acne, PCOS, fertility, all the things I really care about.

 And the show grew a lot quicker than I had anticipated, I think. More like “Rock-A-Chip.” Yeah. It’s a “Rock-A-Chip” show. I think it’s– yeah, it’s grown a lot more than I anticipated. And I’m having guests come on that are super qualified. And guys, Dr. Gabriel has obviously been on the show, listen to that episode. It’s really, really good. One of my top episodes.

 But yeah, as you say, I’m realizing what a big responsibility it truly is. Because sometimes these episodes go viral and people are watching them– I mean, they don’t even follow me. They’re reaching such wide audiences. And as you mentioned, I guess 18% of people in my age group are getting their information from social media.

 So her face lit up like that because potentially we’re having a hurricane now. We’re not really sure. That’s how dedicated we are to bringing you information. There may be a live hurricane happening, but the good news is we’re on the first floor. We’re safe. We’re fully– we’ve generated our– The content doesn’t stop for any day. I mean, we are dedicated. The information is getting to you guys. It’s getting to you. That is a huge responsibility. And as I was thinking and prepping for this episode,

 how–

 well, first of all, you don’t remember what it was like to not have access to all of this stuff. Because so for my generation as a physician, I don’t even think– gosh, I mean, I’m not that old. But I don’t– there may have been a podcast. Podcasts, social media was not a place that we thought to even look for health information.

 It tells me that people are really hungry for it. That they’re not getting the information that they need in the way that they need it. Yeah. Which kind of goes back to you. How does someone– you exposed your life, which is, I don’t know, I mean, kind of uncomfortable.

 I mean, maybe it wasn’t for you this weight loss journey. You talked about mental health struggles. You talked about anxiety.

 Did you feel uncomfortable doing that? Do you ever regret sharing some of the things that you’ve said? Was it all very curated? Because I am guessing you never thought you would be where you are, right? I mean, was it ever a goal? Or it was just got out there and started sharing? No. I mean, for the nine months that I was losing the weight, actually, Layne Norton was one of the first people I listened to on a podcast. What’s up, Layne? Hi, Layne. Great information. Thank you so much. But I lost the 90 pounds and I didn’t post anything. It was very much a private journey for me. I think because when you are in the position where you don’t like the way you feel or the way you look, by no means was I ready to post online. But by November, when I did feel proud of the progress I had made, I actually think sharing is one of my–

 I don’t know what to call it– superpowers. Because I don’t really think about it. Did I get on the microphone or on my Instagram and I do not think about how many people I’m talking to? I find it very therapeutic to share and very fulfilling to feel like perhaps my story or my struggles could be helping someone else. I really think it’s my purpose in life to share. And I share very candidly. If you listen to my show, I talk about my fertility struggles. I talk about my acne struggles, which Dr. Gabrielle has been helping me with, by the way, guys. We could talk about the H. Pylori situation. Your skin looks great now. Thank you.

 Yeah, we will go through that. But I think oversharing or sharing candidly is something that comes easily to me. And I think it’s something that has helped me connect. And ultimately, it’s what has built my career. I will say the older I’ve gotten, the more private I’ve gotten. There’s certain things I don’t share a lot about, like my relationship with Greg, my marriage. It’s just not really his thing. And therefore, it’s not really my thing. You know? That makes sense, yeah. There’s certain couples that will prop the camera up when they’re kissing.

 That’s just not really our vibe. But when it comes to my personal journey of self-development and health, I’m happy to share about it. So I don’t regret it. I think it’s something that has brought me a lot of what I have now. Yeah, and probably, like you said, a lot of healing. Yeah, I think so. And then when I’m out in public and I get to meet people who share their BPD story with me or their weight loss story– Which is borderline personality disorder. Yeah. Which, by the way, I’m going to say this. And you might not agree. I don’t think that you have a personality disorder. No, I don’t think I do either. I think that maybe that there were traits of borderline personality traits. But I have listened to a number of your episodes in preparation for this, and also knowing you personally. And I don’t know if you know this, but I trained in psychiatry for two years.

 A personality disorder is a disorder that can’t be changed.

 Yeah. But a trait can be. It’s interesting, because when I look back, when I was diagnosed, I had a lot of the traits. I was self-harming. I was abusing alcohol. I had lack of identity.

 But I think a lot of my struggles were trauma-based. And I think I didn’t know how to handle them in a healthy way.

 I was also consuming alcohol regularly. I was eating horribly. Wasn’t hydrating. Sugar every day. Not enough protein. Everything was kind of stacked up against me, because I didn’t know any different. And I think when you mix trauma with an unhealthy lifestyle and a lack of healthy tools, it ends up being this disaster that’s easy to slap a label on and say, oh, give her three different medications, and that’ll fix it. And that’s what happened to me. But interestingly enough, you had enough insight and grit. I think about there’s physical readiness, which clearly you’ve been working towards being physically fit. And then on the other axis is mental fortitude.

 And they say that at your rawest, the rawest moments in your life is when your attributes are exposed. And attributes like courage and adaptability, all of which I think you have proven to yourself that you have in spades, which is extraordinary. Because now you’re in a position which goes back to the responsibility.

 How do you, as your podcast has grown and people are looking to you, how do you think about and trust the information? So for example, you might have an expert that sits across from you. And they might actually not be an expert, but they have positioned themselves through social media as this expert. And then unknowingly to you, you bring them to the world.

 How have you thought about that? And if so, how do you begin to now make decisions?

 I think it’s been a learning lesson for me as I’ve gone. Because I think for someone like me who’s so interested in health and fitness,

 anyone who came forward and they were like, oh, I want to come on your show. This is what I’m an expert in. I’m like, great, let’s have the conversation.

 But as I’ve– I think I’ve done over 100 episodes now. And I’ve gotten to know people like you who I trust solely. I mean, here’s the thing. I sit down with so many different people

 with different opinions. And I got to the point where I was like, every time I sit with someone, I’m changing the way that I live my life. And I ended up losing my mind. I was like– Yeah, I had to do that. So one person looks at my blood work, and they’re like, it’s horrible. Then the next person looks at it and says, it’s amazing. And saying, I’m eating the right thing. I’m eating the wrong thing. Stop eating sweet potatoes. Stop eating raspberries. It got really crazy. And I think I was vulnerable because I was open to information and asking questions. And I had a few people who felt like they could give me advice. And at the end of the day, you and I had such a great conversation where you were like, you can’t jump around to all these different people. You need to talk to one person that you trust.

 And also just be grounded in what I know to be true for me because nothing that these people are doing is going to work for me if I try to take on their routine. At the end of the day, I know what makes me feel good and what I need to focus on.

 And I keep that in mind now when I record my episodes because I’m sure it’s confusing for the audience as well when they’re hearing all of these different voices in the health industry. It’s like, who can I really trust?

 I think staying grounded and true to yourself and also having a limited amount of people that you listen to. Internally, for example, yourself. And people that truly support you and aren’t biased.

 So it’s been a learning lesson for me. And I feel like I’m now at the point where I’m like, I don’t want to just bring anyone on the show. Right.

 When initially, let’s say the 20 or 30-year-old who’s listening. And even beyond that, so my audience, they might be thinking– and I think that’s one reason why people come to the podcast– is because there is evidence-based information. And then there’s non-evidence-based information. And quite frankly, social media was new to me up until, I don’t know, 2017.

 I was really late to the game and very reluctant.

 And then I think from your position, as all this information is coming out, say early on in your career with this responsibility– because obviously, the responsibility has grown as your audience has grown. Would it be the dynamic nature of the person, how they dressed? How would you decide if you were going to listen to them?

 It’s a tough question. I can’t appreciate it. I guess the way I approach it with a podcast guest is–

 actually, you know who I just had on, Callie Means? I love Callie. She’s been on the show too. Yeah. And he brought stats. Oh, I’m sorry. Casey Means. I know. Her brother. Yeah.

 He brought stats and information because he worked inside Big Food and Big Pharma. He didn’t come with opinions. These were stats and information that he had proof.

 And that was a really interesting episode to me because he wasn’t coming in dissecting what I’m doing or anyone else is doing. He was just like, these are the facts. This is what’s happening in the industry. And to me, that was one of the most powerful episodes I’ve done because I liked the fact that it was pure evidence-based information. And it’s doing really well. And I think there’s a reason for that.

 I don’t quite know, honestly, when I sit down with all the guests. How do I go about finding out what is true and what isn’t? I think, obviously, having resources like you to run things by and do my own research outside of it. But I’ve kind of stopped taking every single thing as pure fact and started questioning it and also just staying true to what I’m doing. I’m not swayed by every single conversation I have anymore because I’ve realized that if I live my life that way, I’ll lose my mind. But it is interesting to sit with people that have different opinions and just hear different perspectives. And I’ve definitely learned a lot through the show. Yeah, of course. And I think one of the most important lessons I’ve learned is to stay grounded in what I’m doing.

 Where do you think the health trends or what are the things that your generation– your listeners probably 20 to 30, maybe even older, is that accurate? Yeah. OK. Like 20 to 35-ish. Where do you think the majority of the questions and the concerns lay for that age group? PCOS. Which is polycystic ovarian syndrome. So ultimately, it can be an ovulatory. People struggle with fertility. Yeah. PCOS, infertility. So hormones. Yeah. Women’s health, I think, is a major, major topic. And I don’t think women know what’s going on with their bodies. I have a number for you. Are you ready for this? Yeah. It wasn’t until 1993 that women had to be included in clinical research.

 Is that why this is becoming such a big issue? It feels like an epidemic to me. It is. Just like seeing the questions coming from the audience, I’m like, what’s going on? If two out of three women are those that have Alzheimer’s– so in the Alzheimer’s population, Alzheimer’s dementia, two out of three of those individuals are women. Only 12% of the funding from the NIH goes to women-specific in Alzheimer’s. Wow. And the trends continue. I mean, women will go to a doctor. I think women will go to the doctor– don’t quote me on this number specifically– five times before they’re diagnosed with PCOS.

 Insane. And part of it is there has not been a huge recognition of the–

 I don’t know if it’s the differentiation between genders or if women or– my husband tells me we’re complicated. But there’s a number of reasons. And I do believe that that’s one of the reasons why you’ve emerged as a generational voice as a young woman speaking to other young women and trying to get answers for questions that, quite frankly, the medical community isn’t providing in the way that it can be understood. I mean, I see it in my girlfriends. They don’t know where to go get their hormones tested. They don’t know how to check their fertility. They don’t know what’s going on with their own bodies. And I do think podcasting has opened the door to these experts that perhaps not everyone would have access to otherwise. I was just in Arkansas and Bentonville. And on my show, a lot of the experts talk about obesity and metabolic issues. And truthfully, living in Austin or LA or New York, I don’t really see those issues very much in my day-to-day life. But going somewhere like Arkansas, that’s kind of a food desert, it made me so aware of these issues. And I’m thinking, are these people listening to the podcasts? They should be. And I just hope that people like that, who are struggling and don’t have access, are able to tune into podcasts like yours or mine. And I love seeing our podcasts in the top charts. Because if you look at them, it’s a lot of men. And that’s great. There’s some amazing men on the charts. I’m not trying to bash men. But I think women’s health is such a big issue.

 And I don’t think women know how to go about it. I feel fortunate that I’ve had the resources to figure out what’s going on with my body. And I’m on this fertility journey. And I feel like I’m supported in that. But not everyone can do that. And it makes me really upset. You’re definitely providing a voice for that. PCOS, fertility. What else are they really struggling with? I think endometriosis. All women hormone stuff. What about nutrition and training? Are people still confused about some of these things? I think it’s getting better, I hope. I really do think weight– thanks to you, people are getting really into weight training and protein. Well, thanks to you, because you’re executing. You’re doing it. You’re breaking– you’ve spoken about how women are not going to get bulky. You’ve been training for– you started at 250 pounds. Your story is extraordinary. You leveraged weight training to mitigate emotions and anxiety and to develop physical grittiness, hard things. Weight changing– sorry. Weight training changed my life. It changed who I am. I think it was the thing– and it sounds a little cheesy, but it was the thing that taught me how to have a work ethic. Because prior to my fitness journey, it’s tough to believe, but I was definitely someone who was OK with being average. I was an average student.

 I didn’t go above and beyond with anything. And then once I hit rock bottom, it was this moment of like, who are you? What do you want to do? What do you want to be? And weight training– I think about the sets and the reps. To me, that’s practice for life. If you can add an extra rep and do an extra set and finish the whole thing and do more than you expected to, if you carry that mindset into your business, into your job, whatever you’re trying to do, you will inevitably be successful in my head. And the way that I lost 250 pounds was just by showing up every day and keeping my own promises. And I don’t think if I had experienced the progress I did with weight training, I wouldn’t have had the confidence to then start my own business. So ultimately, weight training is the reason I’m here. In my head.

 Do you really believe that you were OK with being average?

 No. I think that’s my perception of it. But I think the way I was raised and the environment that I had made me very insecure about everything. And I didn’t truly believe. I didn’t believe I could be financially successful. I didn’t believe I could be a hard worker. I feel like I absorbed information from people around me that perhaps I could not achieve what I wanted to do. I didn’t think about it because I didn’t think it was an option. Did you have an aha moment? Was there a moment that moved you from where you were? One moment, one saying one thing because this was a journey and it continues to be a journey. So you had this journey of nine months of weight loss, of getting fit, eating well.

 But typically when someone is starting out, I know that you’ve talked about how you didn’t even look in the mirror.

 Did you have a moment where you said, you know what? Enough is enough. Like this is the moment.

 It was like a culmination of everything. I’m 250 pounds. I dropped out of school. I was a semester away from graduating, dropped out, moved home with my dad.

 I was on all this medication.

 No job.

 It was a really, really low point for me. Are you an only child? Do you have a sister? I have a sister.

 Greg and I were not together. We had broken up. I had no friends. Like really just the worst of the worst. And there’s more detail to it, but it was really, really bad. And I think when I moved home and didn’t have anyone to talk to and I kind of looked around and I was like, oh my God, this is–

 you are the reason you’re in this position. You figured that out though. At some point you were not being victimized. It was you. When I was binge drinking and cutting and treating myself horribly, I was subconsciously blaming my childhood, blaming my situation, like looking for reasons that it was other people’s fault other than my own.

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 Do you think that it was an age thing? You’re 30 now, very young, and have been very successful, which is interesting. For those of you listening, she is the co-founder of Bloom,

 you, which is a extremely large business. You have an app, you have large podcasts, all of these things. So for people listening at 30, by the way, you were just invited as entrepreneur or part of this, what was this award that you got? – Entrepreneur of the Year. – Entrepreneur of the Year.

 It’s surprising to think that,

 how old were you when you really had that moment? – Probably like 22, 23. – I mean, come on. – Yeah, I know. – Do you think it was an age thing? Do you think that you were always destined to do what you are doing now? That even if you had stayed in that basement, that there was some power or something that was gonna move you out of that no matter what? – I think it was meant to happen to me, I do. Like I think, you know when you hear people say, like I knew I was gonna be famous or something. It’s not that I thought that I was gonna be famous, quote unquote, I think I always knew that I wanted to do something very impactful.

 But I grew up in a family and they did their absolute best and they’re awesome. But my dad is Welsh from a working class family in Wales and he made fun of rich people my whole life. And my family just wasn’t very,

 they didn’t encourage us to go after success or wealth and it was sort of like, British culture is a little bit different, I would say to American culture, it wasn’t very entrepreneurial.

 So I had this thing in me where I knew I was like, maybe different and I was a very emotional child and I felt things on a very strong level and I think that’s helped me in my job now.

 – In the way that you can connect with people, very open. – Yeah, yeah. I think so, I think it’s like one of my strengths.

 And I do think I’m doing what I am supposed to be doing, I think there’s more left. Like I do think having kids is a huge piece of my purpose. – Do you think you will parent them differently based on what you’ve learned? – 100%. – Is there one thing in particular you think that you need to do for them that perhaps wasn’t done for you? – Show up emotionally and support them. I think emotional support is so crucial

 and also showing strength and work ethic and being open about it. I feel like my parents, they both still work and they work hard, but they didn’t show me that. Like we didn’t talk about money, we didn’t talk about hard work. It was just like, oh, that day was so hard. Let’s have a glass of wine type of thing. And I think watching how you parent or some of my other friends, how they parent, taking your kids to the gym,

 expressing what hard work looks like, I think is really important. And I also just think emotional support and telling them that they’re great.

 I know that sounds cheesy, but like– – No, it doesn’t. When you think about emotional support now and how you support yourself, what is that like for you?

 – It’s been an evolution. It’s taken some time for me to figure out how to do that. I did DBT therapy for a long time. – Which is dialectical behavioral therapy. – And that was very like textbook tools based, when you’re having a freak out, hold ice, breathe. – Ice plunge. – Yeah, things like that. And those things work for sure.

 And I think like having a routine with exercise and eating well and sauna and getting outside and putting my feet on the ground and looking at the sun and getting my steps in, that for me is like bare minimum. Like I need those things to be a good person. I’m very sensitive if any of those things are off keel. If I get one hour less than eight hours of sleep, I’m not a good person. Other than that, I think because of my fitness journey, I kind of learned to be a very intense person,

 losing 90 pounds. Like I don’t want to sugar coat it. It was like a really hard thing to do and I had to become very mentally tough. I think I’ve told you I was obsessed with Andy Fissella. – We love Andy. Hi, Andy. – I would listen to him yelling on his podcast and that was what got me through this kind of grueling nine months of like trying to change who I was. So I think I learned to be very intense and very disciplined and at the same time maybe a bit too controlling and hard on myself, which I think served its purpose at a certain moment in my life. Like it got me through the weight loss. I built a business. I didn’t have a lot of friends. I was pretty isolated. – We were talking about that.

 I think that’s gonna be another iteration for you is friendship and close relationships.

 I mean, at least for me and I think for many people,

 it’s like everything. – Yeah, it really is. I think since moving to Austin, it’s my first time having a true community and having girlfriends who show up and I think I used to feel like it was excessive or it wasn’t a part of my routine. It didn’t fit. So I didn’t make time for it. Now to me, it brings me so much joy and helps me be so present that I really do prioritize it. Like when I go through my calendar for the week, I look for mornings or evenings that I can go on a walk with a friend or cook or it is really important to me now. – Is babysitting on that list?

 Do you need help? – I’m dropping them off. That’s right. In fact, we are in, so y’all know when we are doing this, we just had the first hurricane of the season, right Matt? This is the first one. – Are we having a second one right now? – No, I think we would have gotten alerts, but we are definitely having a storm. So yes, they’ve been home all week. I will certainly take you up on babysitting, dropping them off. Do you think getting back to your weight loss journey, you do hear and I hear a lot of people struggle with weight and I’m sure that people are messaging you all the time because you represent what is possible.

 Do you feel that there is a sense of worthiness? What was holding you back before you lost that weight? – Yeah, I think it is a sense of worthiness and it’s like feeling like you deserve the time and also knowing it’s a possibility. Like I think a lot of people don’t believe that they can truly do something, you know? Even if it’s lose weight.

 – Yeah, I think, I mean, keep in mind, I was heavy for probably a couple of years and it kind of happened slowly but surely. I didn’t grow up overweight. Like I didn’t really grow up thinking about food at all. I grew up in a very European household. There was a lot of bread and ham and cheese and I was like, you know, eating high quality food, but not protein.

 And I wasn’t educated around food. Like I really had to start from scratch when I started my weight loss journey. I didn’t know what a macro was. I got my fitness pal, I was tracking everything. I was listening to Lane, I was on YouTube, I was really researching. And it took me a while to figure out what the right thing was for me. Like I went through a, if it fits your macros phase where I was eating crap and trying to make it work. – We’ve all gone through that phase. – Oh my God. – Including myself. – Well, I was like, everyone’s eating Rice Krispy Treats. Like why can’t I eat Rice Krispy Treats? You know what I mean? And I was like, these girls are making it look fun. The Kodiak pancakes. – Oh yeah. – I went through that phase.

 So it took a while for me to figure out, like what was the original question? – Do you think that there was a worthiness issue, which is why you struggled and if people could lose weight and then you went to figuring out what worked. You went to all these different diets. I guess what I’m really trying to get at is, you know, you figured out a way to feel worthy enough. Otherwise you would be still struggling with your weight.

 – 100%. I think the self-love I have now, I don’t think I had it at all before my fitness journey. I think I had to kind of conjure up some self-love at the beginning and it’s kind of been evolving ever since and I still have to catch myself because I mean, you know, you work with me. I’m someone that does tend to spiral and get really mean about myself, even with my acne. That’s been a struggle for me. – And you’ll isolate yourself. – Big time. – You and I have a regular scheduled call and even though you could call me anytime, the reason you have a regularly scheduled call is in case you get to the point where you’re gonna blow it off. – I have a tendency to view myself as like a nuisance. I think that’s my default. My childhood way of thinking is I’m a nuisance. I’m in the way. I can’t ask for help. This is a me issue.

 Yeah. And I think learning those patterns about yourself as an adult and learning how to catch them is really crucial. And I do think the weight loss was a big worthiness issue. I think the reason I treated my body so badly is because I thought that I deserved that. – Was there a moment that you turned to food? Was it a food thing?

 – The SSRIs, and guys, I’m not a doctor. I’m not qualified. I’m not telling anyone to get on or off medication, but I was put on a number of SSRIs, like mood stabilizers, anti-depress, and anti-anxiety. And when I was put on those, it completely changed the way I ate and viewed food. All of a sudden I wanted– – Everything. – Everything. I wanted food truck food, giant egg sandwiches, fried things, like things that I had never craved in my life. All of a sudden that was all I wanted to eat, and my stomach was endless. I was never satisfied, so I ate a crazy amount. And I remember someone saying to me, that’s a lot of food, aren’t you afraid you’re gonna gain weight? And I was like, I’d rather be happy than skinny,

 but I wasn’t happy. I was just numb. – It was the medication. – I was numb. I had no sense of reality at all on that medication. I wasn’t even aware of my surroundings. I wouldn’t go to class completely. That’s why I didn’t even really notice when I had gained weight, because I didn’t even look at myself. – I saw that as a psychiatrist, which is one of the many reasons I knew psychiatry wasn’t for me, because the tools in the toolbox were medications that, again, while it helped mood stabilize, and listen, we’ve come a long way. They are certainly necessary for some people, but typically only a pill isn’t gonna fix it. It requires a multifaceted approach, and it can really distort metabolism that then compounds someone’s mood.

 – It was a wild experience, and then also coming off of it was really crazy, because I had, so I came off of it called turkey, which is not what you’re supposed to do. – Just on your own. You’re like, okay. – You know me, I’m insane. I literally just– – I don’t believe that you ever were average. I have thought about this with two very little kids. There is a nature piece, and there’s a nurture piece. I’m gonna go out and live, and I’m gonna say your authentic nature is much closer to who you are now. – I like that. – And that your behaviors were very much nurtured into you prior to you getting back to your authentic self. – I think that you phrased it perfectly. I don’t know that I’ve ever known how to vocalize it, but I would agree with that. – And who you are sitting in front of me as Mari is actually much more your raw self and who you always were. – Thank you. I think so too. Because you know when you go into your childhood house, like I get this feeling when I go to my childhood house, or even where I grew up, and I feel weird. I’m like, this isn’t who I am.

 I get that feeling the second I go home, and it makes me really uncomfortable.

 But now when I show up here, or I go to the event I went to in LA, or I show up as the me now, I feel really confident and comfortable. The most anxious I feel is when I go home.

 – That’s fascinating. And I think the listener can really relate to that. And I would hope that as the listeners and viewers are thinking about this, again, you represent something that’s much greater than yourself. And I couldn’t be more grateful to have you here to share that.

 And what you’re saying, and what we can all learn from, is that when we use the term nurture, that we’re nurturing someone into a different way of being, it doesn’t have to be positive. The word nurture you think of as something positive, but from your past, you were nurtured into more of a shackled way of your experience. And as your true nature emerges, which is intense, kind, aggressive, present, all of these things, I think it’s allowing you to be a servant for humanity. And many people listening, if they’re at home and they’re feeling shackled and a certain way that, how would you tell them to start? If they were to unwind, how would they start? – That’s a great question.

 I think being still and really listening to what you want and kind of getting rid of distraction can be really helpful. Like when I think back on my fitness journey, what it really was, was me removing distraction. Like I wasn’t drinking, I wasn’t self-medicating, I wasn’t scrolling on the phone, I was really with myself.

 And I think so many of us distract and numb constantly because we don’t wanna face the pain. But I think what I did back then was face my pain head on. And I was like, okay, this really fricking hurts. I basically ruined my life. Like what is my next move? And really looked at myself in the mirror and took accountability. And I think that is the hardest step of them all because it takes taking responsibility and accountability for the position you’re in. And I’ve said this on my show and it caused some controversy.

 But what I said to the audience, I was like, it’s your fault, like whatever position you’re in. Perhaps it’s not, like let’s say that you’re in a situation that was caused by someone else. It’s still your responsibility, the way you react to it and the way you respond at the end of the day. And it’s someone who’s always gonna have a harder position. Someone else is always going through more.

 But do you really wanna be the person that carries this negative story with them for the rest of their lives? Or do you wanna do something about it? – And people give you a lot of criticism and backlash for that? – Yes, because I said, it’s your fault and everyone was like, oh, but I’m diagnosed with this or this person did this to me.

 I was like, I get it. I had every reason to not wanna try. – And that is kind of what Jaco Wilink talks about is complete ownership, full ownership. – Because who else? Like literally who else is gonna fix it? – Yeah, and we’re not saying that if someone has a bad experience that that experience is your fault, but the internalization, the processing or the end result,

 I think everybody listening could have a story that would continue to increase their fragility. – Yeah. – Everybody. Except for Matt, my producer in the corner on his phone. – He’s fine. – Being distracted. Yeah, I had to lighten the intense moment. The ultimate responsibility to improve the fragility of someone, to become more resilient is fully on them.

Once you figured that out, have you found that that has been easier to navigate the world or do you find yourself slipping back or are certain things resolved? Do you feel like there’s a resolution of an old you? – Hmm.

I think I’m more set up for the future.

Success when I encounter hard things now because I’ve done it before and I can always default back to, “Hey, you’ve done hard things before. Like let’s get through this again.”

But I’m still learning. I mean, when I came to you a couple months ago, I was like, my whole life was revolving around my skin. And I know that sounds really crazy, but for anyone listening who’s had acne, I’ve had acne on and off for 10 years now.

And it makes you realize where your values lie. And if you value the way you look more than you should, having acne will floor you. It will, because when you go out in the world and you’re looking at someone in the eyes and all you think about is what they’re seeing, it’s like debilitating. And I’m someone who’s on camera every day. I’m a face of a brand. I’m very forward facing. Having acne forced me to kind of reevaluate what I really care about and what I love about myself. And that was a new challenge for me. And I tried to, I think a mistake that I made was that I tried to take the mindset I use to lose weight and start a business and be super intense and harder on myself. I tried to apply that to my skin and obsess over it. And– – Because that has gotten results in the past. – Yeah. – The more you think about it, somehow it’s gonna change, which we know that that doesn’t happen. – No, quite the opposite actually. The more you obsess, the more you’re kind of manifesting it becoming more of an issue. And the harder I was on myself, the more excruciating it became to even look at it. So I’ve had to learn how to almost pull back on the obsessive nature that I had during the weight loss journey and learn how to be kinder to myself. I feel like life is always gonna present new challenges.

And yeah, the acne and fertility have been the most recent ones. And that is a completely different approach to what I took.

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 Thank you to Bond Charge for sponsoring this episode of the show. Let’s face it. We live in an environment where there are tons of insults. Insults from being inside, out of the elements. And when I say elements, I mean sunlight. I love Bond Charge products. They make a whole host of products. And particularly, I love their red light therapy. I love their red light panels, which has near infrared and red light. It is very warm. Red light therapy has been used for a very long time. And by the way, it’s FDA approved for fine lines and wrinkles. I use the full panel across my whole body. And just in case you wanted to get ready early for Halloween, you can use the red light mask, which I use frequently. And I love because it directly is on my skin, on my face. I use it three times a week. And I am telling you, I have noticed a difference. If you are someone who struggles with energy or sore muscles or just overall fatigue, definitely check out Bond Charge. Check out their red light therapy. I get tons of questions on red light therapy. Bond Charge is an incredible product. Very well made, made in Australia, ships worldwide. You can get yours. Go to boncharge.com. Use the code DrLion for 15% off. That’s boncharge.com. Use the code DrLion for 15% off. Now, back to the show. And again, we talked about what are the attributes needed to be successful? And use the term success loosely. The attributes, really, when we think about how does someone become the fullest version of themselves globally strong, which are multiple domains. It requires courage and it requires adaptability. And you’re exhibiting adaptability.

 – Yeah, trying.

 – Of course, there is the nature of you wanting things right now and many women, I think, struggle with fertility and the, you know, what you’re also talking about is this kind of external locus of control, which is the, you know, one of my questions to you is going to be how do you put yourself in positions to continue growth? You put yourself into a physical position to continue growth, which was training and dieting. But now, where are you and where do you see that next challenge? – Yeah, I think doing things that scare me has always been a big piece of the puzzle. – But what scares you? What scares me? – You’re Mari Llewelyn. – Interviewing people sometimes. – Still scares you. – Not, it’s certain people do, like I’m interviewing this comedian that I’m a big fan of next week and that freaks me out because it’s not necessarily my wheelhouse, but I’m a huge fan. Things like that scare me. Going to the Time 100 dinner scared me. Things make me nervous and I’m definitely not, I’m confident, but I’m definitely not overly confident and I think sometimes I forget what I have accomplished.

 So yeah, saying yes to things that scare me is a huge way that I keep pushing myself. I think the podcast is pushing me a lot to have these high level conversations and meet these experts and continue growing. Takes a lot of work and dedication and consistency.

 I have goals of doing more. I would love to write a book. I’ve always wanted to write a book. I wanna explore that. I wanna public speak. I have all these goals and dreams that I wanna do and I think to get there, I need to keep making myself uncomfortable in a good way. And every time I do, I walk away being like, “Oh my God, I loved that.” – Oh yeah, I can’t believe that that made me so uncomfortable. Do you catch yourself talking yourself out of things?

 – I’m not really that kind of person. I mean, yes, like listen, with the comedian next week, I’m just using this as an example. – You’re already not feeling well, she’s not going. – Yeah, I was like– – You have the flu already. – The thought process that I started to have was, oh, she doesn’t even really wanna come on the show. Like she’s doing it as a favor. – To whom? – Like I should back out because like I feel bad for me. You know what I’m saying? Even though she asked to come on, I started to convince myself that she doesn’t really wanna come on. And these things happen. Like I have these intrusive thoughts all the time about things like, oh, this is just happening because of this. Like I come up with these reasons and I think I’m getting better and better at interrupting the thought and reminding myself like, no, you’re having her on the show because you deserve to have her on the show and it’s gonna be a great conversation. – I love that. And I would also say that, do you feel that everybody has that? – Everybody. – I’m sure.

 – And that’s a good reminder too. – Everybody. – Yeah. – And I think one of the things that really set us up for success is learning from the experience. I’ll give you an example, which I shared with you before. I typically do not get nervous when it comes to speaking or podcasting. There are other things that make me nervous like being alone with my kids for a week. I mean, there are things that really make me uncomfortable. I’m kidding guys, mostly. But if you’ve been to my house, then you know that I may or may not be kidding.

 But when I did Huberman’s podcast,

 I was actually not prepared to feel as nervous as I did.

 I stepped down. – Because you didn’t anticipate it. – I didn’t anticipate, and that was a huge blind spot. When those feelings of nerve and discomfort happen, I quite frankly, I did not know what to do with it.

 I was completely taken by surprise. – You didn’t look nervous. – Oh my God, I was like, are my armpits sweating through this shirt?

 I’m sitting there thinking in this episode, this is probably his, I’m gonna put this out there.

 I was not prepared for the way that I felt.

 And I think that learning from those type of experiences when you’re really putting yourself in a position that may or may not make you uncomfortable, and then you’re caught by surprise, that those are moments of growth. – But it’s also so valuable for me and other people to hear that because watching you on there, you’re so eloquent and qualified, and not for a second did I think you were nervous. So for me to hear that makes me feel like everyone’s nervous. – Lane is not nervous. – Oh, okay, well, Lane, you’re the exception there. – But, okay. – Yeah, he doesn’t appear to be nervous at any point.

 But I’m kidding in that.

 Weakness is for everybody, and once we expose them to ourselves, then we can grow and we can get better. I think about from the physical aspect, what do you think that you’re very, and the reason I’m asking this is, you’re a very growth-driven person. Must be odd being in a podcast where someone is kind of saying these things to you, but I think it’s important because again, at 30 years old, you’ve done some extraordinary things. And whether someone is 20 or 30 or 50, there’s a lot to be learned from what you’re really showing us is courage and openness and a way of kind of taking what life is putting in front of you. Because then, I don’t even know where Greg fits into this story.

 Where does your husband fit in and where does the development of Bloom happen? You guys were doing exercise bands for a while. In fact, I don’t even know if I know the story of how you and Greg met. – Oh my God, we have a really cheesy story. – Do people, was it Tinder? – No, I didn’t have any apps. I never got on the apps. We went to the same high school in New York. So I moved to New York, age 10, ended up at the same high school as Greg, Scarsdale High School. We didn’t really mingle. He was in the grade below me. So I’m like a cougar, you know? (laughing) He was a football player. I was like a weird new kid from England. So we didn’t really interact. Ended up at Drexel University together in Philly. – In Philly, okay. – I was in the sorority next to his fraternity. – Already a bad idea? – Yes, immediately, yes. I can’t believe I was in a sorority. It’s so funny to think about. But through my sorority bedroom window, I could see into the frat kitchen and he was in there every day meal prepping chicken and rice. And I was like, who is this kid? – She’s there with the binoculars. – Yeah, I’m like, what is this guy doing? We’re all eating Subway and Chick-fil-A and he’s making chicken and rice. He’s been bodybuilding for his whole life. So I was like, what is this kid doing? I get a Facebook message from this guy I went to school with and he’s like, oh, you need to meet Greg Leveque. You guys would hit it off. – You’re like, oh, I’ve seen him. – Yeah, I was like this weird kid that’s always cooking. – As a keeping Tom. – Yeah, because to be a bodybuilder back then was not, it was a little weird. It was the first time I’d encountered it. I wasn’t into fitness at all. Didn’t care about it. – Really? – No, no. Didn’t go to the gym, didn’t eat well. I ate like one Subway sandwich a day. Atrocious, atrocious.

 But I binge drank at night, so. – So you balanced it out? – Yeah, I balanced it out. – Got your protein and carbs in. – I went to a Halloween party at the frat and I went in and Greg was dancing on a table like this.

 He breaks the table, crashes through the table. The wood stabs him in the chest. – Goodness. – And I’m like, wow. – Wow, he’s so hot. – So hot. He broke the table.

 And then he offered to make me pancakes. – With a stabbed chest wound? – Yes. He actually was known as one peck Leveque. – Oh my gosh, this is serious. – Because he tore his peck. Yeah. – Bad idea. – So anyway, from that moment on, we were inseparable.

 And so he was into bodybuilding. You were not into fitness at all. – He would go twice a day to the gym. – How does that work? How did that work at the time? – It was a little bit awkward because I didn’t understand the reason he was going to the gym twice a day. – How’d you gain the weight at that time? – I definitely wasn’t in shape. I was like, I hate saying the skinny fat to him, but I was like skinny fat. Like I didn’t have muscle. – You were under muscled. – I was under muscled, thank you. That’s a much better term. I was under muscled. Eating badly, like really didn’t care about working out. He never told me that I should go to the gym. He did not put pressure on me in that way. Greg is very much a lead by example type of person. And I think he knew if he just kept doing his thing that I would probably follow suit at some point. – You guys talk about it after, did he really think about that? – I’ve asked him and said, “Why didn’t you tell me to go to the gym?” Or like, “Did it make you upset that I wasn’t taking care of myself?” And he was like, “I just hope that you’d see how great I was feeling and that you’d kind of follow suit.” He’s not the type of person that, when you meet Greg, you’ll see he has very much of a leadership mentality. He’s the CEO of Bloom and he is very charismatic, very high energy. He has a very influential personality. Like I even noticed that the people he hangs out with, they end up weightlifting and eating well because of him. – He’s very inspiring. – He’s very inspiring. And when I decided I wanted to lose weight, he was the first person that I called and he was like the person I emulated. – But you guys were dating at the time. – Yes. – He better have been your number one speed dial, right? – He was. And I copied everything he ate. Like the first meal I ever made was six eggs, oatmeal with blueberries and like an exact replica of what he would eat. – Old school bodybuilding. – Old school bodybuilding, but the same size, which is he’s a 210 pound bodybuilder. So it was like a little crazy, but yeah. When you started doing this, how many diets did you cycle through? Because you know, I have to ask that then, and then now looking back and reflecting, you’ve done a hundred podcasts. You’ve talked to a number of experts. – Yeah. – You probably have had multiple moments where you’re thinking to yourself, oh my God, I cannot believe I did that. – Totally. Okay, I’ll tell you the evolution. – Please. – Started with a traditional bodybuilding style diet. – Which still, by the way, in my opinion, still works great. – It works for sure. Like I was doing oatmeal, eggs, chicken, rice, like pretty basic lean meat, carbs, whatever.

 Then I went to keto. – Why?

 Why?

 – I think it was a mixture of acne and someone told me keto was great for acne. – When did acne start? – Acne started for me. I had already, it was on my fitness journey. It was at the beginning of the fitness journey actually. It was after we had gone to Ecuador, Greg and I. – You know, my dad lives in Ecuador. – What? – Yeah. – How? – My dad’s been living there for over 10 years. He lives in Cuenca. – It’s like our favorite place we’ve ever been. – My dad, which who by the way, listens to the podcast is gonna be so excited. – Really? – I’m gonna get a phone call, tell her to come visit. I’ll take her to the Amazon. – No. – 100%. – We went to Banyos and– – I’ve been to Banyos. – Atavallo and what’s the beach town Montecito, Montezuma? – No.

 – Montezuma. – I don’t know, but I’ve been there. – Yeah. – Did you see the blue boobies? – Yes, yes. – Yeah, that’s what they’re called. – Okay. – It’s called the poor man’s Galapagos. – Oh yes, okay. Yeah, I know what exactly we’re doing now. – Maybe not, you can Google whatever it is. Give us the name, yeah. – So, Keto, I think someone said to me, it’s really helpful for acne, it’s great for mood. – Were you having mood? Were you still struggling with depression? – I was, I was. So I thought Keto would be a good move. I did it for a while. I did Keto on and off for a long time. – What’s a long time? – Probably three years.

 And– – Was it traditional Keto, 70% fat? – I was doing probably higher protein than a regular, like traditional Keto and maybe a couple more veggies than someone may have done, but it was very high fat, little to no carbs.

 It initially made me feel like I lost water weight, I felt like it benefited my skin, but then I got to the point where I felt very weak at the gym and later on discovered I had some gut health issues because I was lacking some of the good bacteria you get through carbs. – And you picked something up in Ecuador. – Yes, ma’am. – Truthfully, yeah. – H. Pylori.

 – Amongst other things, probably, but yeah. – And I’m sure that Keto maybe contributed to that because I was missing some of the good bacteria. I don’t know. So Keto was definitely a big one for me.

 I tried the If It Fits Your Macros style, which is where you try to fit in these fun sweet treats and you basically eat whatever, as long as it fits the numbers, which failed miserably for me. – Do you think that it drove you to eat more? How did it fail? – Yeah, the cravings are crazy, mentally didn’t feel good, brain fog. I still am very sensitive to artificial things and sugar. I don’t do well with that.

 LA, when I lived in LA for two years, was probably the one time I felt like I overrestricted. I got into this kind of,

 LA’s a tough place to live. – It sure is. – It’s the most beautiful people in the world. It’s very competitive. – But it’s odd. It’s odd in the way that it, and it’s just my opinion, it’s very externally focused. – Everything. – I mean, it is, it just seems like it’s all, to the nines, it is very disruptive in a way. – It’s like a fake reality, and you’ll move there feeling great about yourself. And after a couple months, you’re like, oh, I’m not a supermodel. And it just gets to you. You’ll go to the grocery store, everyone there’s a beautiful 10 out of 10. It’s wild. And it was the first time that it got to me, I think. And I became a little bit obsessive about food, and I was over-exercising.

 I had a six pack, I felt, I was the leanest I’ve ever been, but I was obsessed with food. It was all I thought about. And that’s the only time in my life that I think I’ve ever really had a disordered way of thinking about food. Luckily, it wasn’t that long.

 – Two years, or like a year? – Yeah, I’d say about two years. – And were you and Greg together at this point? – Married, yeah. – Oh, you’re married. – We got married three years ago. We’ve been together for 10, technically. And it’s funny because the way I eat now is just super simple. Like I eat red meat, I eat chicken sometimes, I eat potatoes, I eat vegetables, I eat fruits. That’s kind of it for the most part. – When you were doing this kind of obsessive about food, was it all about tracking? How did that play out? – The tracking was more of a thing for me at the beginning, and it’s how I taught myself macros. It was how I kind of could eyeball, okay, this is how many calories a plate is, how much protein, how much fat, how many carbs. From there, I didn’t really need it anymore. I kind of knew how much I was consuming. I feel like the restrictive pattern I had was just, how little can I eat without being miserable. – How much was it? Do you remember? – If I had to guess, it was like less than 1,500 calories a day, which is crazy. – And you’re what, 5’10? – And I was doing HIIT weight training every single day. – Which was, and is still your favorite? Is it still your favorite? – I definitely love weight training. I love doing a little bit of an athletic style where I’m doing box jumps and hopping on the treadmill.

 Weight training’s definitely the core. – Which would suit your personality. A lot of type A individuals, at least many of my patients, they really enjoy that. – Yes. – Really enjoy that style training. And it seems to almost balance them and after they feel normal. I don’t know, of course there’s no technical term for this, but I will tell you certain personalities seem to do very well training in particular styles and it seems to balance their mood. – Explosive movements are really therapeutic, I think. My husband’s the same way. I mean, he trains for like two hours a day. He’s crazy. I don’t– – You’re gonna have some very fit kids. – Hopefully, yeah. I hope so. That’ll be really fun. But weight training has been the core of my movement since I started. I don’t see that changing. – When you went through all these diets, so we have kind of the Atkins Keto, if it fits your macros and then more of a restrictive style dieting, when you started interviewing people for the podcast, did you have moments that have stuck out to you, thinking like, wow, I really maybe didn’t do that right or I wish that people would know this about this kind of diet that perhaps they don’t?

 – I feel like the carnivore diet has come up a lot on my podcast and it interested me because I was struggling with acne. I was having these hormonal issues and although I think carnivore maybe is a great tool for some people, I experimented with it and I feel like it just wasn’t necessary for me. I think that that’s what’s tough about this industry. It’s like everyone starts talking about a certain diet and then we think it’s like the be all end all.

 And yeah, Greg has used it as a tool as well and I think it’s an elimination diet and it can be helpful.

 But I feel like the biggest takeaway of I’ve had is the simpler the better. And if you’ve said to me, if you can pick it off a tree or kill it, it’s probably safe and that’s how I feel. Like that’s how I feel my best. And I’ve just noticed that certain foods make me feel better than others. Like I feel better eating a sweet potato than I do feeling eating rice or oatmeal and I just keep that in mind. And I also definitely thrive eating a lot of protein. That’s been key for me. – Do women and people reach out to you and ask these questions? – About nutrition. – Yeah, all the time. – For sure. – And that’s probably the number one thing that people ask you about. – That and hormones, it kinda depends. Like if I’m talking about fertility, I get a lot of fertility questions.

 But whenever I post my food, I think people get a little surprised because I have like my steak for breakfast and people find that really crazy. – Still, you think that they still find in that, even with social media being as big as it is now.

 – I think the norm for like a fitness influencer on the internet is to eat like yogurt or, I don’t know, I don’t know, you know what I’m saying? Like when I lived in LA, a lot of my friends would eat these little yogurt bowls or chia seed pudding and I went through that phase. But the steak makes me feel really fricking good. It just sets me up perfectly. And I’m not doing eggs right now because of my skin. Definitely triggers my skin.

 And yeah, I don’t think my body really knows the difference between different breakfast foods. It just likes protein. – So I feel good as long as it’s grass fed.

 – When you are podcasting, have you ever been across someone and you’re listening to them and you’re like, I know that this is not right and this information is going to get to millions. Has that ever happened to you? – Yeah. – What do you do?

 Are you like, I’m gonna be right back. Oh, there’s a glitch in the– – It’s tough for me because I think I’m like a very, I’m polite and I have a hard time. Like I feel like you’d be like, that’s bullshit. – In a nice way. – In a nice way, but I’m sitting there smiling and I’m like, – This is hurting my brain. – Totally. Like I had someone, you’re gonna know who it is. I had someone tell me– – Who remains nameless. – Nameless, but the girls know because I like addressed it afterwards.

 Someone told me they know why I have acne and it’s because I eat sweet potatoes and raspberries. And keep in mind, this is, acne is such an emotional experience. If someone tells you they know why you have it and it’s because you’re eating this one thing, that gets stuck in my head. – And also, one thing does that truly, right? – No, and as if I’m not obsessive enough about the things I’m eating in my skin. So that was upsetting because I don’t want someone to listen to that and stop eating those two great foods because this person said it. So the following episode was a solo and I brought it up and I was like, I’m not– – That’s smart. – Following that advice. And I kind of made a joke out of it. And I was like, that’s ridiculous.

 But yeah, it is tough sometimes when I’m listening and I’m like, I don’t know how valid that is, but. – And then you have to go back and address it, right?

 I have a very, I have a great friend who was interviewing a very famous physician. And this physician talked about, I do a lot of hormone therapy in my practice, which you know, talked about how Chlomid can cause glaucoma and major vision changes and all of this stuff.

 And he has an audience, this friend is a podcaster, an audience of millions. And so he interviews this person and that information is incorrect.

 And my husband is in the urology department at Baylor. He’s a resident, I work closely with Dr. Mahikara and I’m friends with a lot of these world-renowned physicians, Reena Malek, who I love. So I went back and I said, hey, and then this person called me and was very concerned about this medication that many of his friends are on.

 And that information was wrong. The information gets to millions and then you have many, many men and questioning their treatment.

 So I guess I wonder, you know, at what point do we have podcasts and information

 that’s going out there as entertainment versus people taking it as fact? And how do you think we can address that? – Yeah, that’s crazy.

 And we’ve been talking about medications like that because I’m on a fertility journey and that would definitely affect the way– – Exactly. – I would approach it. It’s scary and I think there’s a lot of people in the industry now, as you said, claiming that they’re experts, but there may be not.

 I think since people are looking at podcasts for information and even worse, people look at TikTok now. Like people go on TikTok and diagnose themselves with things all day long. – Do they really? – Yes, yes. – But do you think it’s a generational thing? Do you think it’s the younger versus the– – Gen Z is going on TikTok for their medical information. Like people are posting about Ozempic on TikTok and they’re getting information from there and it’s pretty wild. – The joke, Dr. Google is I guess now gone. It’s Dr. TikTok. – It’s Dr. TikTok for sure. – Just wanted to make sure we got that. – I would just hope that people listening do their own research outside of what they hear regardless of what show it is or what an expert it is. – That’s really good advice. – I think you kind of have to take it into your own hands and be your own advocate because you never know. – Do you think we’re gonna get to the point where everything is fact checked for real fact check? Do you think that that will ever be something? Yeah, I don’t think so either. – I think entertainment value is too important for people. And I also think like everyone wants a podcast now because it makes them feel important.

 And do you know what I’m saying? – Yeah, that was the biggest surprise that I had when I entered this space quite frankly. – Yeah, it’s a clout game for a lot of people. – It was very surprising. I maybe was very naive in the fact that when I joined social media, I think that my story is similar to you. It was a moment that I had spent 20 years studying protein metabolism and had just finished a fellowship in geriatrics, which is end of life. It was a lot of end of life. It was at WashU, it was a very prestigious place. And I saw what happened to the outcomes of these people. And you only can spend time at the bedside of dying people for so long before I think it affects you. And it really impacted me. And I had moved to New York City and opened up my practice. I joined practices and I started seeing social media, which by the way, in fellowship, it was there. I was never on it. And I started seeing about how protein, people were saying protein was causing cancer and it’s causing heart disease and all of this stuff. And it was talking about how people should further reduce their protein intake or go vegan, all of this stuff.

 And it was such bad information.

 That after being at the bedside of people that were dying at fall and broken a hip, struggled with body composition to the really significant degree, I felt responsible. I felt like if I didn’t say something, then I was responsible.

 – And it’s almost like you turned that into your purpose. Like you’re doing what you’re supposed to be doing. – Probably, probably. But when this goes back to, but when I thought that that’s the reason why everybody was doing it. – No, it’s funny you say that because I feel so purpose driven by the show. And I feel like the impact it has for me is so much more important than anything else that I didn’t even anticipate guests coming on that would give misinformation. Do you know what I mean? – I do. – Like I almost was naive about it until pretty recently. And then now that I’m in the industry and I see the way people do things, I mean, there’s people who build their entire platform on like fear mongering and negativity. Like I get it, like getting information, getting the truth out there is so important. Like Callie coming on the show and giving those stats was amazing. But he also offered a solution and what should we do next? And how can we make a change? And how can we better our own lives? I think the thing that gets tricky is when it’s all negative and it’s all scary and it frightens the listener. It’s so overwhelming that it almost makes the problem worse. And I don’t like that either. I think offering a solution is so, so important to leave people feeling like they can do something. – Totally, totally. And I mean, again, that’s one of the reasons why I think you do such a good job is it’s not negative. – Thank you. – I mean, and you understand that. Is there a way that you think the more positive side of things will become more relevant for people? Because again, the accounts that do really well are triggering and polarizing. I get it, but I think it further divides people. – Yeah, I agree. – I think people will get tired of it because I think when you see a certain amount of craziness and negativity, it’s just like, okay, well, now what? Did you see there was a viral video of this girl and it was really, I actually quite liked it. She was like, oh, okay, so I need to stop eating meat, but I need enough protein. Oh, but I can’t eat vegetables. Oh, and there’s canola oil. And she was going through all the things that she’s learned from the internet. And I think it went viral because everyone was like, wow, I really feel that way.

 I think that’s kind of happening and I hope the pendulum swings the other way and we start talking about, you know, and also no one’s perfect. – I was gonna ask you, my next question was, what do you think about the people that go on there and they, this is the ultimate sign of narcissism. I swear, at least that’s what I’m beginning to see is that the people that go on there and say, oh, I really hate to do this, but this person said this wrong, this wrong, and this wrong.

 There’s a few of the personalities that that’s where they started and that’s how they do it. But for the rest of other people that are starting their careers, you know the accounts I’m talking about, they just go and it’s all about picking apart other people. – Yeah, for sure. For sure, I see that. – What are your thoughts on that?

 – I think like, as we keep saying, the point of this whole thing is to

 bring positive change and make an impact. Like when I think about myself at the beginning of my fitness journey, having people like Lane and Andy Forsella, they don’t even know it, but they really got me through the hardest time of my life. And they were showing up not to make money, not to cause negativity or clout, it was to purely help other people. And I think if that’s your intention, like keep that in mind with whatever you’re doing. You know, all the content I post, all the conversations that I have, like my goal is to help a girl on the other end who doesn’t know what to do, or is just feeling a little lost, or even just feeling alone in her fertility journey, or her acne journey, or whatever it may be. I feel like if my career and my platform was about negativity and picking people apart, like I wouldn’t feel good. – I wouldn’t feel good about it. – I don’t know if I could go to bed and feel happy about myself. – How much time do you give criticism of you?

 The trolls are pretty good. – Yeah. – I mean, there’s some certain, I’m like, Karen, that’s a pretty good one-liner. (laughs) – We all have them, that’s what I’ve realized, hanging out with other people with platforms, everyone gets trolled on. It used to, back at the beginning, if I would read a comment about myself, it would ruin my day, and I would hyper-fixate on it. Now I could literally read something about myself and forget two seconds later, because I think I’ve just gotten to the point where it doesn’t resonate with me at all. I don’t go on Reddit, ever. I barely look at my comments on YouTube. I don’t look at my YouTube comments. I kinda skim my Instagram comments. I don’t look at my TikTok comments. – So will someone go in there and respond, or how do you manage that, and how much time are you spending on social?

 And do you have to catch yourself? Because it is a very, I will, there is a direct correlation from the amount of time I spend scrolling to how I feel. – Same, 100%. Like a travel, you know, on a travel day, and you’re scrolling a lot, because you’re at the airport. – Yes. – I feel awful after that. Like I, and it almost becomes an addiction or I don’t know how to put it down. So I’ve been reading lately at the airport, and it’s far more healthy for my brain. I’ll delete social media on the weekend all the time, because I’m definitely someone who falls, and I think everyone has this instinct, but you end up comparing your day, your social life, your fitness level to other people, and it sucks the joy out of your own experience. – Well, the brain is hardwired. – Yeah. – The brain, again, whether it’s these dopamine hips, but it is designed to take us off track, and can you imagine how much, when you catch yourself, it sucks so much time, and although I have two things that I’m gonna admit on this podcast, and it’s on my own podcast, so I’m admitting it to my friends, but it is a way that pulls you away from anything bigger, because you can be on there, and all of a sudden two hours have gone by, and you could have done something so much more useful. – Totally. – With your time. – Totally, and it’s a false reality. It really is. – It’s terrible. – I think if your job is to create, go on there and create, post your information, get it out there, and then close it. I think the worst thing that you can do, and I fall into this sometimes, is scrolling through other people’s, it’s like how is that gonna benefit me at all? – Never. – So it definitely brings some, it’s a challenge because it is my job at the same time, but I will frequently delete social media on the weekend, and I think the podcast has been so much healthier for me, because I’m in real life with someone, looking into their eyes, talking for a couple hours. Like it’s almost back to what it should be, and so I much prefer this platform for my mental health, and I just feel like there’s so much content now on that. – So that’s what I was thinking. – It’s wild. – The amount, again, I would say newer to this, right? And the amount of volume that comes through, I don’t even know, I mean, I think at the end of the day, the best always rise when people are doing an exceptional job, then there’s always room at the top. There’s always room at the top, but the amount of volume, I don’t believe that our physiology, our, I don’t know the other word for it, we can’t keep up. – And it’s a little bit discouraging as a creator to wanna throw your hat in the mix, when it’s like people just scroll, scroll, it doesn’t even really register, but I do believe that if someone’s tuning in to an hour long podcast or a two hour long podcast, that they are there to learn and listen, and that’s a different type of connection. Like that’s really the connection we wanna have. – I have two things I’m going to admit. So I have two, I don’t even like the word hacks, but two other things that I do when I catch myself scrolling. Number one, I leave my phone. That is fully off limits, and I would challenge anyone who is doing that to catch themselves and understand it’s not going to generate happiness. The other thing is if you feel like you have to scroll, then there’s two things that I really like. I’m embarrassed to admit this, but I really like pottery.

 – No. – I do. – Like throwing clay. – No, I’m terrible at anything arts and crafts. – Oh, what do you mean pottery? – Like if you look in my house, right? So you’ll see, if you look in the cabinets, there’s all kinds of Japanese pottery or chain pottery. I mean, I would probably love to do it. It would be terrible. I would try to make a bowl and it would look like a frog. – I think you should try. – But I love to look at artists that make pottery. Different kinds of pots and whatever.

 Or have you ever heard of the real, real? – Oh yeah. – Okay. – Yeah, of course. – That would be my other thing that I would be looking at. All the shoes I don’t need to buy, don’t worry friends, they’re all secondhand. – Are you a shoes or a bag? – Girl, I’m a bag. I’m a big bag girl. – I’m a jewelry person. – Yeah, that’s my new thing. – Jewelry. – Which is even worse. – I mean, who knows? I’m into it all. That’s the honest truth.

 But that is much more effective and you feel much better doing that than scrolling on social media. – Buying things you mean? – Yeah, or putting it in your cart and then practicing intermittent reward or sometimes you get it, sometimes you don’t. The other thing is downloading really cool educational scholarly lectures. – That’s a very you suggestion. – So you, I’ve got this all figured out. So you go on University of Grand Rounds websites, you pick whatever it is that you like. Let’s say you’re interested in testosterone replacement or I have done a ton of female hormone lectures. I’ll download those lectures and you literally, it’s amazing. You can watch these lectures. All of that is much more effective than doing the other things. How do you recommend people deal with stress?

 – Okay, a few of my hobbies that I like to do when I feel stressed. – You’re making me powdery, I’ll take it. – I’ve done two ceramics classes now. I’m horrible, it’s so hard, but you have to be pretty strong. Like you have to put your body weight into it. I feel like you’d be pretty good. – The only thing I’ve ever seen about pottery is that movie “Ghost.” – I haven’t seen it. – Have you seen “Ghost?” Where they do the whole pottery scene. That’s as much as I know. – Oh, I haven’t seen it. But I do think you– – Have you not seen “Ghost?” – No, no. – That’s classic. – Really? – Okay, well. – Well, I do think you’d be good at throwing clay actually. And it takes a while and I like anything that involves using your hands where you cannot touch your phone. Like if I can physically put myself in a position where I’m, for example, I’m obsessed with horses. I love horseback riding. – Have you always? Did you? – I grew up loving horses. I horseback rode a little bit in England, but it was so expensive, I couldn’t, my family couldn’t afford it. But I always said I was saving up my allowance for a horse. Like five bucks. – That’s a lot of saving. I think horses are pretty expensive in the maintenance and all that stuff, right? – I can tell you firsthand it’s incredibly expensive. So I actually wasn’t able to get my own horse until about a year and a half ago. And it’s been my lifelong dream. So getting this horse was like one of my peak moments of my life. – I love it. – His name is Bo. He’s a very large paint horse. – B-O-B-O-E. – B-E-A-U-X. Interesting spelling. – B-E-A-U-X.

 So if you have a son, you cannot name your son, would you name your son Bo? – No, we have the name picked up. I’ll tell you afterwards. He’s gonna be named after a bodybuilder. – Okay. – I wonder if you know which one.

 Anyways, horseback riding is like, brings me so, so much joy. I cannot touch my phone. Even when I’m getting him ready, I’m putting his saddle on, I’m grooming him. It’s an incredibly therapeutic sport because you need to be calm and in sync with your horse. Like you need to be one with the horse. And I know this sounds crazy. – No, I hear a lot of riders, they say that. – Yeah, horses heart rates will sync up with each other’s when they’re in a pack. – This reminds me of like, Avatar. – I know. I’m basically like Avatar with this horse. I’m just obsessed with him. I’m obsessed with all animals. Like I’ve always been an animal person. I have chickens, I have this horse, I have two dogs.

 Horseback riding is my number one way of decompressing. I’m obsessed with it, but I know that’s not like super accessible, but I think anything where your hands are busy or you’re present or you’re with someone else. Like when I go on a walk with a girlfriend and we’re present together, I’m not on my phone. I’m in real life, I’m connecting on an emotional level. – I love it. – That is everything to me. And now that I have a group of friends, I’m realizing how much that piece of my life was missing for so long.

 Arts and crafts are really fun, reading. I’m reading, – Forever strong, I’ve heard of it. – I’ve never heard of it.

 – Don’t worry, I have about 500 copies in my garage. I will definitely. – You have a book?

 (laughs) – It has lots of pictures. – I love reading, I’m reading crown of roses. Have you heard of these books? Everyone’s obsessed with them right now. – No, but I have heard of Bluey and Telly Tubby’s. – Oh, okay, you’re in that era of your life. – Yes, yep. – I’ll be there soon, I’m sure. But I love these like fiction books. I love fiction. Yeah, anything involving my hands and that’s just like grounding and bringing me back down to earth. I like cooking, all that kind of stuff. – For you and for the listener, do you know that when you think of a stress response, what do you think of? – Like fire flight. – Exactly. – Yeah. – Did you know that there’s other stress responses? – Freeze and fawn. – Nope. – What?

 – Courage, the courage response, and the tendon befriend. – So these are positive responses. – Yes. – But we’ve only really been educated about fight or flight. – Yeah. – But when you’re talking about friends and I asked you about how you deal with stress,

 tendon befriend, creating close connection and actually reaching out to people. That’s actually my stress response is, and it sounds negative, but I would say the more stressed I am, and at baseline, I’m very social, as you know. But reaching out and connecting with someone else actually releases oxytocin, does a number of things, and is a way of managing stress, and it’s a more evolved way than fight or flight. – Mm-hmm, totally, yeah. – And then courage is probably what Greg does. Something goes wrong and his immediate instinct, once he passes through whatever the thing is, which is probably very fast, is he goes right to courage. What do we have to do? Let’s get this done. This is so cool, how are we gonna figure it out? – Yeah, yeah, that definitely is his response for sure. That’s fascinating that we have other stress responses. – I used to be a freeze and a fawn. Like I would pretend things weren’t happening. You know, like I would avoid the situation.

 – The other thing that you said that is unusual, it’s unusual for someone 30 to be as successful as you’ve been, we have to acknowledge that. And I take care of many patients, and there’s something that I see that once people reach a dream,

 then it’s kind of limbo and somewhat tumultuous.

 And I’m wondering if that has happened to you and how if it has, how would you navigate that? How would you navigate that? Because it’s again, unusual to have created what you’ve created at such a young age. – Mm-hmm, yeah, and I think interestingly for me, I never anticipated financial success. So I almost don’t know how to wrap my head around it. I’m so grateful, I live in my dream house. I love my life so much. – It’s not quite your dream house, you know why? – Because it doesn’t have a farm. – Well, and you guys have a pool. So when you have kids– – I have to fence the pool. – No, you’re probably gonna drain that sucker. – Really? – Oh yeah. – Shoot. – It’s just a whole new level of neuroses that happen. – I want a farm, that’s my dream. I just keep adding more animals, and my husband’s like, “What are you doing?” And I’m like– – We’re opening a small zoo. – It’s fine, it’s fine, it’s a write-off.

 No, it’s just such a fair question, and we have a lot of friends who sell their business. – And they get depressed actually. – And they don’t have to work for the rest of their lives, but they lose their minds. – That’s right. – A lot of them become alcoholics. It’s kind of scary. Greg and I are by no means done.

 Yes, we’ve achieved a lot of success at a young age, but Greg is still the CEO of Bloom. I’m still very involved. – And Bloom is a supplement company. – Yes, Bloom is our supplement company. – And you haven’t told us the story about how even that happened. – I know, I know, I can go back. But I do think about how, when we sell Bloom at some point, which was never the goal, we just started Bloom because we wanted to, and we loved it. – Out of the basement of– – Yes, literally. – It really was, this was kind of a, you didn’t come from money, you guys, I don’t know if Greg did, but this is, you guys are self-made. – Yeah, we were 100% self-funded, self-owned, up until very recently, we got our first investment from Nutribolt, because we wanted to pawn it together to make something amazing, a drink, I think I can say that, we’re releasing an energy drink. – And I’ll be drinking, oh, are you allowed to say that? – I am allowed. – When does it come out? – It comes out end of July, but it’s actually already on target shelves. – And by the way, you guys only gave me one of each flavor, I fully am gonna talk to Fi, I would like a quesabich. – You’re gonna file a complaint.

 (laughing) I’m gonna send you a quesabich, because I think you’re gonna be obsessed. They taste amazing,

 they have 180 milligrams of caffeine. – Sign me up. – Zero grams of sugar, you’re gonna love it.

 But yeah, I think that is a huge reason why I wanna have kids, and you and I spoke about that. I think when you have reached a level of success where you have all the things you want, and you’ve experienced a lot, you end up realizing that none of it matches up to the feeling of connection, and like family and friendship. If you can’t share it with anyone, there’s no point, it’s miserable. – I have a really good friend, his name is Jim Kwolczyk, and he’s somewhat of a life coach, and he said it doesn’t matter if, you know, let’s say you’re making $15 million a year. If you look back.

 – Yeah.

 Life is empty if you don’t have people to share it with. And it’s Kachalka, sorry, I said it wrong. Jim Kachalka. This man has fully changed my life. But you know, the advice is, at the end of the day, you can have all this money in the bank, but are you really rich?

 – It’s so true, and it’s, I think, you know, back in the day when I didn’t have money, when I was working the front desk at Orange Theory, that’s what I did before. – Now why do you like all the hit? – Oh yeah, well, I never did the class, actually. I cleaned the toilets.

 Back then, if I heard someone say that, I’d be like, “BS, you know, I wouldn’t have believed it.” But I can honestly say, like, yes, having money gives you some freedom, in a way that I can travel wherever I want, I can fly my family, and I can be generous with my friends and family. But like, the best part about it is the people you get to share it with. Being on a private jet by yourself sucks.

 You know, like, these things don’t mean anything unless you have true love and connection, in your life, and I kind of feel lucky that I realized that early. – I believe, not to be weird, but maybe a little weird, I believe that part of you, again, not trying to be weird, but only my mom listens to this podcast, so we’re good. – I don’t think that’s true. – No, it’s definitely not true.

 That you were really, one of your purposes is that you were put here to be an example. – I think so too. – And this is all part of it.

 You’re not recognizing this at 50 with the kids that have suffering, are suffering from emotional avoidance. You are doing this all so young. – Yeah. – You know, it’s tremendous. – I also don’t think I’m, Greg is definitely money motivated and I think that’s great. He loves working hard, he likes nice things. I’m not particularly money motivated. I’m very impact motivated, so I think even if I didn’t have to work, I always will, because it brings me joy.

 Like I didn’t really need to start the podcast, but I really, really wanted to. And I think that’s something that I hope to hold onto for a long time, because I need a, everyone needs a purpose. – They do. – You know? – They do that, they do, and whether it’s family, it doesn’t have to be something crazy, right? It can be, again, family, teaching, but being purpose driven, and I think also offering service, being of service. You know, Arthur Brooks talks a lot about this in terms of happiness, that ultimately, when we really think about happiness, it is about service. – 100%. – No. – 100%. And I think, yeah, like we said before,

 going from Instagram to the podcast is such a different feeling, because I think posting about myself all day long doesn’t feel good. Talking to someone else and learning their story and spreading information and hopefully benefiting other people feels really, really good. – Yeah.

 Mari Llewellyn, tell me what’s next for you. – Ooh, what’s next for me? I mean, we’re launching this energy drink, that’s a huge, huge thing for us at Bloom.

 Growing the show, you know, getting out there, hopefully speaking to some more amazing people.

 Hopefully I have kids soon. – But you’re not hoping too hard, because I will tell you this, for all of you listening out there, the more pressure you put on your body, the body, it’s so much smarter than we are. And I’m telling you, when I have women that are struggling with fertility, the second they let that grip go, they’re pregnant. – Yeah, yeah, I know, guys, it’s gonna happen. – But we’re putting it out there. – We’re putting it out there. – Just let that go.

 – Yeah, thank you so much for having me. – What a wonderful conversation. Again, you are a voice of a generation, and I’m really grateful that you were willing to share your time with us. – Thank you. (upbeat music)